“Hullo, Chelsfield!”
The boy glanced at his mother, looked over a shoulder at his father. He hesitated for a moment, then cleared the damp steps at a single jump, and taking his friend’s arm, led him across the roadway.
“Called round, Chelsfield,” the mortar-board lad said, “called round at once to tell you that I find I’m engaged two deep for the evening you’ve fixed for Drury Lane. Now, what I want to suggest is this. How about you changing your date?”
The father and mother stood just outside the doorway, speaking no word, but listening and waiting. The visitor made a movement to re-cross, but Henry detained him. The mother coughed in order to give a reminder of her presence. The visitor, breaking off in the discussion, recommended that Henry should fetch a cap and stroll with him as far as Gray’s Inn Road and see him into a Favorite omnibus for the return to Islington. Henry ran in, with a mumbled explanation to his parents.
“Quite an old-fashioned bit of London here,” remarked the polite boy.
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Chelsfield, coming forward eagerly. “Oh, yes, sir. People often notice that. Years ago, I b’lieve, quite aristocrats used to live here. London’s changing.”
“Improving,” suggested the lad.
“I reckon the next thirty years will show a lot of difference. Me and the wife,” he continued, with a jerk of the head towards her, “me and her, we recollect ’Olborn, of course, long before the Viaduct was opened. Previous to that—”
Their boy came out between them with a rush.
“Ready, Chelsfield?”