"Ha!" Sir John exclaimed, seizing an egg. "Will you crack an egg with me, Alderman? I can crack an egg with anybody."

"Thanks," said Edward Henry. "I'll be very glad to." And he advanced towards the table.

Sir John hesitated. The fact was that, though he dissembled his dismay with marked histrionic skill, he was unquestionably overwhelmed by astonishment. In the course of years he had airily invited hundreds of callers to crack an egg with him,--the joke was one of his favourites,--but n.o.body had ever ventured to accept the invitation.

"Chung," he said weakly, "lay a cover for the alderman."

Edward Henry sat down quite close to Sir John. He could discern all the details of Sir John's face and costume. The tremendous celebrity was wearing a lounge suit somewhat like his own, but instead of the coat--he had a blue dressing-jacket with crimson facings; the sleeves ended in rather long wristbands, which were unfastened, the opal cuff-links drooping each from a single hole. Perhaps for the first time in his life Edward Henry intimately understood what idiosyncratic elegance was.

He could almost feel the emanating personality of Sir John Pilgrim, and he was intimidated by it; he was intimidated by its hardness, its harshness, its terrific egotism, its utterly brazen quality. Sir John's glance was the most purely arrogant that Edward Henry had ever encountered. It knew no reticence. And Edward Henry thought: "When this chap dies he'll want to die in public, with the reporters round his bed and a private secretary taking down messages."

"This is rather a lark," said Sir John, recovering.

"It is," said Edward Henry, who now felicitously perceived that a lark it indeed was, and ought to be treated as such. "It shall be a lark!"

he said to himself.

Sir John dictated a letter to Miss Taft, and before the letter was finished the grinning Chung had laid a place for Edward Henry, and Snip had inspected him and pa.s.sed him for one of the right sort.

"Had I said that this is rather a lark?" Sir John enquired, the letter accomplished.

"I forget," said Edward Henry.

"Because I don't like to say the same thing twice over if I can help it.

It is a lark though, isn't it?"

"Undoubtedly," said Edward Henry, decapitating an egg. "I only hope that I'm not interrupting you."

"Not in the least," said Sir John. "Breakfast is my sole free time. In another half-hour, I a.s.sure you, I shall be attending to three or four things at once." He leant over towards Edward Henry. "But between you and me, Alderman, quite privately, if it isn't a rude question, what did you come for?"

"Well," said Edward Henry, "as I wrote on my card, I'm the sole proprietor of the Regent Theatre--"

"But there is no Regent Theatre," Sir John interrupted him.

"No; not strictly. But there will be. It's in course of construction.

We're up to the first floor."

"Dear me! A suburban theatre, no doubt?"

"Do you mean to say, Sir John," cried Edward Henry, "that you haven't noticed it. It's within a few yards of Piccadilly Circus."

"Really!" said Sir John. "You see my theatre is in Lower Regent Street, and I never go to Piccadilly Circus. I make a point of not going to Piccadilly Circus. Miss Taft, how long is it since I went to Piccadilly Circus? Forgive me, young woman, I was forgetting--you aren't old enough to remember. Well, never mind details.... And what is there remarkable about the Regent Theatre, Alderman?"

"I intend it to be a theatre of the highest cla.s.s, Sir John," said Edward Henry. "Nothing but the very best will be seen on its boards."

"That's not remarkable, Alderman. We're all like that. Haven't you noticed it?"

"Then, secondly," said Edward Henry, "I am the sole proprietor. I have no financial backers, no mortgages, no partners. I have made no contracts with anybody."

"That," said Sir John, "is not unremarkable. In fact, many persons who do not happen to possess my own robust capacity for belief might not credit your statement."

"And thirdly," said Edward Henry, "every member of the audience--even in the boxes, the most expensive seats--will have a full view of the whole of the stage--or, in the alternative, at matinees, a full view of a lady's hat."

"Alderman," said Sir John gravely, "before I offer you another egg, let me warn you against carrying remarkableness too far. You may be regarded as eccentric if you go on like that. Some people, I am told, don't want a view of the stage."

"Then they had better not come to my theatre," said Edward Henry.

"All which," commented Sir John, "gives me no clue whatever to the reason why you are sitting here by my side and calmly eating my eggs and toast and drinking my coffee."

Admittedly, Edward Henry was nervous. Admittedly, he was a provincial in the presence of one of the most ill.u.s.trious personages of the empire.

Nevertheless he controlled his nervousness, and reflected:

"n.o.body else from the Five Towns would or could have done what I am doing. Moreover, this chap is a mountebank. In the Five Towns they would kowtow to him, but they would laugh at him. They would mighty soon add _him_ up. Why should I be nervous? I'm as good as he is." He finished with the thought which has inspired many a timid man with new courage in a desperate crisis: "The fellow can't eat me."

Then he said aloud:

"I want to ask you a question, Sir John."

"One?"

"One. Are you the head of the theatrical profession, or is Sir Gerald Pompey?"

"_Sir_ Gerald Pompey?"

"_Sir_ Gerald Pompey. Haven't you seen the papers this morning?"

Sir John Pilgrim turned pale. Springing up, he seized the topmost of an undisturbed pile of daily papers and feverishly opened it.

"Bah!" he muttered.

He was continually thus imitating his own behaviour on the stage. The origin of his renowned breakfasts lay in the fact that he had once played the part of a millionaire amba.s.sador who juggled at breakfast with his own affairs and the affairs of the world. The stage breakfast of a millionaire amba.s.sador created by a playwright on the verge of bankruptcy had appealed to his imagination and influenced all the mornings of his life.

"They've done it just to irritate me as I'm starting off on my world's tour," he muttered, coursing round the table. Then he stopped and gazed at Edward Henry. "This is a political knighthood," said he. "It has nothing to do with the stage. It is not like my knighthood, is it?"

"Certainly not," Edward Henry agreed. "But you know how people will talk, Sir John. People will be going about this very morning and saying that Sir Gerald is at last the head of the theatrical profession. I came here for your authoritative opinion. I know you're unbiased."

Sir John resumed his chair.

"As for Pompey's qualifications as a head," he murmured, "I know nothing of them. I fancy his heart is excellent. I only saw him twice, once in his own theatre, and once in Bond Street. I should be inclined to say that on the stage he looks more like a gentleman than any gentleman ought to look, and that in the street he might be mistaken for an actor.... How will that suit you?"

"It's a clue," said Edward Henry.

"Alderman," exclaimed Sir John, "I believe that if I didn't keep a firm hand on myself I should soon begin to like you! Have another cup of coffee. Chung! ... Good-bye, Bootmaker, good-bye!"

"I only want to know for certain who is the head," said Edward Henry, "because I mean to invite the head of the theatrical profession to lay the corner-stone of my new theatre."

"Ah!"

"When do you start on your world's tour, Sir John?"

"I leave Tilbury with my entire company, scenery and effects, on the morning of Tuesday week, by the _Kandahar_. I shall play first in Cairo."