Bill continued.
"I'd like to see him go on of a Monday night at the old Mogul. They'd soon show him. It gives me the fair 'ump, it does, these toffs coming in and taking the bread out of our mouths. Why can't he give us chaps a chance? Fair makes me rasp, him and his bloomin' eight hundred and seventy-five o' goblins a week."
"Not so much of your eight hundred and seventy-five, young feller me lad," said the Zouave who had spoken first. "Ain't you seen the rag this week?"
"Naow. What's in it? How does our advert, look?"
"Ow, that's all right, never mind that. You look at 'What the Encore Would Like to Know.' That's what'll touch his nibs up."
He produced a copy of the paper from the pocket of his great-coat which hung from the door, and passed it to his bounding brother.
"Read it out, old sort," he said.
The other took it to the light and began to read slowly and cautiously, as one who is no expert at the art.
"'What the Encore would like to know:—Whether Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig didn't go particularly big at the Lobelia last week? And Whether his success hasn't compelled Agent Quhayne to purchase a larger-sized hat? And Whether it isn't a fact that, though they are press-agented at the same figure, Prince Otto is getting fifty a week more than Grand Duke Vodkakoff? And If it is not so, why a little bird has assured us that the Prince is being paid five hundred a week and the Grand Duke only four hundred and fifty? And, In any case, whether the Prince isn't worth fifty a week more than his Russian friend?' Lumme!"
An awed silence fell upon the group. To Clarence, who had dictated the matter (though the style was the editor's), the paragraph did not come as a surprise. His only feeling was one of relief that the editor had served up his material so well. He felt that he had been justified in leaving the more delicate literary work to that master-hand.