Part 11 (2/2)

Addressing hied to articulate:

”What have you got in the way of rooms?”

Could the Five Towns have seen hinized its ”card,” its character, its ure of provincial and plebeian diffidence

The dandy bowed

”Do you want a suite, sir?”

”Certainly!” said Edward Henry Rather too quickly, rather too defiantly; in fact, rather rudely! A _habitue_ would not have so savagely hurled back in the dandy's teeth the insinuation that he wanted only one paltry roo with ance, and consulted a sort of pentateuch that was open in front of him

No person in the hall saard Henry's hat fly up into the air and fall back on his head But in the iination of Edward Henry this hat his hat did

He was saved He would have a proud tale for Brindley The thing was as simple as the alphabet You just walked in and they either fell on your neck or kissed your feet

Wilkins's, indeed!

A very handsoloves but in white calves, was soon supplicating hied from the lift another dandy--in a frock-coat of Paradise--aiting him with obeisances Apparently it had not yet occurred to anybody that he was not the younger son of soeous suite, consisting of a corridor, a noble drawing-rooe bedroom with two satin-wood beds, a s with patent devices in porcelain and silver that fully equalled those at home

Asked if this suite would do, he said it would, trying as well as he could to imply that he had seen better Then the dandy produced a note-book and a pencil and impassively waited The horrid fact that he was unelect could no longer be concealed

”EH Machin, Bursley,” he said shortly; and added: ”Alderman Machin”

After all, why should he be asha an Alderman?

To his astonishh alith profound respect

”Ah! yes!” said the dandy It was as though he had said: ”We have long wished for the high patronage of this great reputation” Edward Henry could ht of it

His opinion of Wilkins's went down

He followed the departing dandy up the corridor to the door of the suite in an entirely vain attempt to inquire the price of the suite per day Not a syllable would pass his lips The dandy bowed and vanished Edward Henry stood lost at his own door, and his wandering eye caught sight of a pile of trunks near to another door in the ave him a terrible shock He shut out the rest of the hotel and retired into his private corridor to reflect

He perceived only too plainly that his luggage, now at the Majestic, never could coh It lacked elegance The lounge-suit that he earing e was totally iined that the aspect of one's luggage could have the least i, and he frankly admitted that he was in an incomparable mess

III

At the end of an extensive stroll through and round his new vast domain, he had come to no decision upon a course of action Certain details of the strange adventure pleased hinition of his na, was a source of comfort to him in his difficulties He also liked the suite; nay, eousness, and such novel complications as the forked electric switches, all of which he turned on, and the double s, one within the other, appealed to the domestic expert in hi theof the best bedroom at home; to do so would be a fierce blow to the Five Towns Electric Traction Cohted to keep everybody awake at night and at dawn by means of its late and its early tralittering solitude of his extensive suite for ever So to Nellie; he had promised himself to write her daily; moreover, it would pass the time and perhaps help him to some resolution

He sat down to a delicate Louis XVI desk, on which lay a Bible, a Peerage, a telephone-book, a telephone, a lauished stationery Between the tasselled folds of plushy curtains that pleated therandeur of painted curtains in a theatre, he glanced out at the lights of Devonshi+re Square, from which not a sound came Then he lit the lamp and unscrewed his fountain-pen

”My dear wife--”