This is the hotel lounge. The varnish is quite dry, though it doesn't look it. A dozen little round tables, chairs heavily upholstered in crimson velvet, festoons of heavy gilt cord on the curtains, and that's the service-hatch in the corner. The waiters are rather melancholy; you see, it isn't a public-house; everything goes down on the residents' bills; and that means fewer tips. Tea is served here in the afternoon, but of course the ladies never dream of tipping. Those excellent purchasers work out everything at cost price, omit such items as interest on capital, insurance, depreciation, and so on, and find a shilling for two pennyworth of bread and butter, a twopenny cake, and a pinch of two-shilling tea with hot water thrown in, tip enough.
"Ting! Ting! Ting!"
It is Val Clayton, ordering another drink for himself and his two friends. He drinks vermouth, his friends bottles of beer. Val drinks vermouth because it is foreign (he runs over to Paris frequently, and travels to Egypt for Clayton Brothers and Clayton), and perhaps he makes love to Mrs. Maynard (if you can call it making love) because she too is almost a continental. Since Mrs. Maynard is to be seen in her red ribbons, you might expect to find Val on the beach instead of drinking vermouth in the hotel lounge; but that is far from being "in character" when you know Val. The world's pleasures a little in excess have already set their mark on Val. He will tell you that he would not miss his morning drink, "not for the best woman living." Others may fetch and carry for their hearts' mistresses, but not Val. In the afternoon, perhaps, if he feels a little less jaded, in a hollow of the sandhills and with the warm sun to help, Val may bestir himself a little, but in the meantime he wants another vermouth.
"Ting! Ting! Ting!—They want to have French waiters here," Val grumbles. "I never mind tipping a waiter if I can get what I want when I want it. Wai—oh, you've come, have you? Well, since you are here, you may as well bring these again, and then see if the papers have come in yet——"
"And bring me a box of Egyptian cigarettes."
"No—hi!—don't bring those cigarettes.—You don't want to smoke the rubbish they sell here. Fill your case out of this—I've a thousand upstairs I brought from Cairo myself——"
"Oh!... Thanks.—Well, as I was saying——"
And the speaker (who might as well be in Manchester for all he sees of Llanyglo, at any rate in the mornings) resumes some narrative that the replenishing of the glasses has interrupted.
Now the others are dropping in, those who like one aperatif before lunch but not half a dozen. Their wives have gone upstairs to tittivate themselves. The velvet chairs fill; extra waiters appear; and a light haze ascends from cigars and cigarettes to the roof. Listen to the restrained hubbub.
"Waiter! Ting! Waiter!—--" and then a slight gesture; the waiters are supposed to know the tastes of the real habitués by this time; (it counts almost as a "score" if the waiter brings your refection without your having as much as opened your mouth to ask for it).—"The usual, sir—yes, sir—coming!" And again they are talking, not on subjects, but as if the act of talking were itself subject enough. Philip Lacey discusses with Mr. Ashton the improvement in the Harwich-Hook of Holland crossing, and Mr. Morrell exchanges views on Local Government with Raymond Briggs. "Ting! ting! You haven't cassis? Then why haven't you cassis?"—"Very sorry, sir—coming, sir!"—"What's happened to the newspapers this morning?"—"Of course, if it goes to arbitration——"—"Nay, John, don't drown t' miller!" "Ten o'clock, first stop Willesden——" "Your very good health, Mr. Morrell——" "Debentures——" "New heating in both greenhouses——"—"Same again, Val?"—"Ting!"——