“No.”
“Well, all the work at the Orb’s done between nine and eleven. You must be there at nine sharp. Literally sharp, I mean. Not half-past. And you’d better do some stuff overnight for the first week or so. You’ll find working in the office difficult till you get used to it. Of course, though, you’ll always have Gresham there, so there’s no need to get worried. He can fill the column himself, if he’s pushed. Four or five really good paragraphs a day and an occasional set of verses are all he’ll want from you.”
“I see.”
“On Monday, then. Nine sharp. Good-bye.”
I walked home along Piccadilly with almost a cake-walk stride. At last I was in the inner circle.
An Orb cart passed me. I nodded cheerfully to the driver. He was one of Us.
CHAPTER 4
JULIAN EVERSLEIGH
(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)
I determined to celebrate the occasion by dining out, going to a theatre, and having supper afterwards, none of which things were ordinarily within my means. I had not been to a theatre since I had arrived in town; and, except on Saturday nights, I always cooked my own dinner, a process which was cheap, and which appealed to the passion for Bohemianism which I had not wholly cast out of me.
The morning paper informed me that there were eleven musical comedies, three Shakespeare plays, a blank verse drama, and two comedies (“last weeks”) for me to choose from. I bought a stall at the Briggs Theatre. Stanley Briggs, who afterwards came to bulk large in my small world, was playing there in a musical comedy which had had even more than the customary musical-comedy success.