Briefless one, entering the smoking-room, lifted a chair and let it fall again with a crash, and sitting down upon it, crossed his legs and rang the bell.
“Ye’re doing it verra weel,” remarked approvingly the Wee Laddie. “Ye’re just fitted for it by nature.”
“Fitted for what?” demanded the Briefless one, waking up apparently from a dream.
“For an Adelphi guest at eighteenpence the night,” assured him the Wee Laddie. “Ye’re just splendid at it.”
The Briefless one, muttering that the worst of mixing with journalists was that if you did not watch yourself, you fell into their ways, drank his whisky in silence. Later, the Babe swore on a copy of Sell’s Advertising Guide that, crossing the Park, he had seen the Briefless one leaning over the railings of Rotten Row, clad in a pair of new kid gloves, swinging a silverheaded cane.
One morning towards the end of the week, Joseph Loveredge, looking twenty years younger than when Peter had last seen him, dropped in at the editorial office of Good Humour and demanded of Peter Hope how he felt and what he thought of the present price of Emma Mines.
Peter Hope’s fear was that the gambling fever was spreading to all classes of society.
“I want you to dine with us on Sunday,” said Joseph Loveredge. “Jack Herring will be there. You might bring Tommy with you.”
Peter Hope gulped down his astonishment and said he should be delighted; he thought that Tommy also was disengaged. “Mrs. Loveredge out of town, I presume?” questioned Peter Hope.
“On the contrary,” replied Joseph Loveredge, “I want you to meet her.”
Joseph Loveredge removed a pile of books from one chair and placed them carefully upon another, after which he went and stood before the fire.
“Don’t if you don’t like,” said Joseph Loveredge; “but if you don’t mind, you might call yourself, just for the evening—say, the Duke of Warrington.”
“Say the what?” demanded Peter Hope.
“The Duke of Warrington,” repeated Joey. “We are rather short of dukes. Tommy can be the Lady Adelaide, your daughter.”
“Don’t be an ass!” said Peter Hope.
“I’m not an ass,” assured him Joseph Loveredge. “He is wintering in Egypt. You have run back for a week to attend to business. There is no Lady Adelaide, so that’s quite simple.”
“But what in the name of——” began Peter Hope.
“Don’t you see what I’m driving at?” persisted Joey. “It was Jack’s idea at the beginning. I was frightened myself at first, but it is working to perfection. She sees you, and sees that you are a gentleman. When the truth comes out—as, of course, it must later on—the laugh will be against her.”
“You think—you think that’ll comfort her?” suggested Peter Hope.
“It’s the only way, and it is really wonderfully simple. We never mention the aristocracy now—it would be like talking shop. We just enjoy ourselves. You, by the way, I met in connection with the movement for rational dress. You are a bit of a crank, fond of frequenting Bohemian circles.