Part 46 (2/2)

However, if he backed out now, they would think him an awful fool.

Everyone wasn't so rich as he was. It was his way to tip. Still----

He grew more certain the hotel had scored again.

He pretended to be lost in thought and so drifted by, and having put hat and umbrella in the cloak-room went into the drawing-room for afternoon tea.

There he did get what for a time he held to be a point in his favour.

The room was large and quiet at first, and he sat back restfully until it occurred to him that his att.i.tude brought his extremely dusty boots too prominently into the light, so instead he sat up, and then people of the upper and upper middle cla.s.ses began to come and group themselves about him and have tea likewise, and so revive the cla.s.s animosities of the previous day.

Presently a fluffy, fair-haired lady came into prominent existence a few yards away. She was talking to a respectful, low-voiced clergyman, whom she was possibly entertaining at tea. ”No,” she said, ”dear Lady Jane wouldn't like that!”

”Mumble, mumble, mumble,” from the clergyman.

”Poor dear Lady Jane was always so sensitive,” the voice of the lady sang out clear and emphatic.

A fat, hairless, important-looking man joined this group, took a chair and planted it firmly with its back in the face of Kipps, a thing that offended Kipps mightily. ”Are you telling him,” gurgled the fat, hairless man, ”about dear Lady Jane's affliction?” A young couple, lady brilliantly attired and the man in a magnificently cut frock coat, arranged themselves to the right, also with an air of exclusion towards Kipps. ”I've told him,” said the gentleman in a flat, abundant voice.

”My!” said the young lady, with an American smile. No doubt they all thought Kipps was out of it. A great desire to a.s.sert himself in some way surged up in his heart. He felt he would like to cut in on the conversation in some dramatic way. A monologue something in the manner of Masterman? At any rate, abandoning that as impossible, he would like to appear self-centred and at ease. His eyes, wandering over the black surfaces of a n.o.ble architectural ma.s.s close by, discovered a slot--an enamelled plaque of directions.

It was some sort of musical box! As a matter of fact, it was the very best sort of Harmonicon and specially made to the scale of the Hotel.

He scrutinised the plaque with his head at various angles and glanced about him at his neighbours.

It occurred to Kipps that he would like some music, that to inaugurate some would show him a man of taste and at his ease at the same time. He rose, read over a list of tunes, selected one haphazard, pressed his sixpence--it was sixpence!--home, and prepared for a confidential, refined little melody.

Considering the high social tone of the Royal Grand, it was really a very loud instrument indeed. It gave vent to three deafening brays and so burst the dam of silence that had long pent it in. It seemed to be chiefly full of the greatuncles of trumpets, megalo-trombones and railway brakes. It made sounds like shunting trains. It did not so much begin as blow up your counter-scarp or rush forward to storm under cover of melodious shrapnel. It had not so much an air as a _ricochette_. The music had, in short, the inimitable quality of Sousa. It swept down upon the friend of Lady Jane and carried away something socially striking into the eternal night of the unheard; the American girl to the left of it was borne shrieking into the inaudible. ”HIGH c.o.c.kalorum Tootletootle tootle loo. HIGH c.o.c.kalorum tootle lootle loo. b.u.mP, b.u.mp, b.u.mp--b.u.mP.”

Joyous, exorbitant music it was from the gigantic nursery of the Future, bearing the hearer along upon its torrential succession of sounds, as if he was in a cask on Niagara. Whiroo! Yah and have at you!

The strenuous Life! Yaha! Stop! A Reprieve! A Reprieve! No! Bang! b.u.mp!

Everybody looked around, conversation ceased and gave place to gestures.

The friend of Lady Jane became terribly agitated.

”Can't it be stopped?” she vociferated, pointing a gloved finger and saying something to the waiter about ”That dreadful young man.”

”Ought not to be working,” said the clerical friend of Lady Jane.

The waiter shook his head at the fat, hairless gentleman. People began to move away. Kipps leant back luxurious, and then tipped with a half crown to pay. He paid, tipped like a gentleman, rose with an easy gesture, and strolled towards the door. His retreat evidently completed the indignation of the friend of Lady Jane, and from the door he could still discern her gestures as asking, ”Can't it be stopped?” The music followed him into the pa.s.sage and pursued him to the lift and only died away completely in the quiet of his own room, and afterwards from his window he saw the friend of Lady Jane and her party having their tea carried out to a little table in the court. b.u.mP, b.u.mp, b.u.mp, b.u.mP floated up to him, and certainly that was a point to him. But it was his only score; all the rest of the game lay in the hands of the upper cla.s.ses and the big hotel. And presently he was doubting whether even this was really a point. It seemed a trifle vulgar, come to think it over, to interrupt people when they were talking.

He saw a clerk peering at him from the office, and suddenly it occurred to him that the place might get back at him tremendously over the bill.

They would probably take it out of him by charging pounds and pounds.

Suppose they charged more than he had!

The clerk had a particularly nasty face, just the face to take advantage of a vacillating Kipps.

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