Edward Henry had an almost boyish curiosity about his edifice. He would go and give it a glance at the oddest moments. And just now he had a swift and violent desire to behold it. With all speed the taxi shot down Shaftesbury Avenue and swerved to the right....

There it was! Yes, it really existed, the incredible edifice of his caprice and of Mr. Alloyd's constructive imagination! It had already reached a height of fifteen feet; and, dozen of yards above that, cranes dominated the sunlit air, swinging loads of bricks in the azure; and scores of workmen crawled about beneath these monsters. And he, Edward Henry, by a single act of volition, was the author of it!

He slipped from the taxi, penetrated within the wall of h.o.a.rdings, and gazed, just gazed! A wondrous thing--human enterprise! And also a terrifying thing!... That building might be the tomb of his reputation. On the other hand, it might be the seed of a new renown compared to which the first would be as naught! He turned his eyes away, in fear--yes, in fear!

"I say," he said. "Will Sir John Pilgrim be out of bed yet, d'ye think?" He glanced at his watch. The hour was about eleven.

"He'll be at breakfast."

"I'm going to see him, then. What's his address?"

"25 Queen Anne's Gate. But do you knaow him? I do. Shall I cam with you?"

"No," said Edward Henry, shortly. "You go on with my bags to the Grand Bab, and get me another taxi. I'll see you in my room at the hotel at a quarter to one. Eh?"

"Rather!" agreed Mr. Marrier, submissive.

II

"Sole proprietor of the Regent Theatre."

These were the words which Edward Henry wrote on a visiting-card and which procured him immediate admittance to the unique spectacle--reputed to be one of the most enthralling sights in London--of Sir John Pilgrim at breakfast.

In a very s.p.a.cious front-room of his flat (so celebrated for its Gobelins tapestries and its truly wonderful parquet-flooring) sat Sir John Pilgrim at a large hexagonal mahogany table. At one side of the table a small square of white diaper was arranged, and on this square were an apparatus for boiling eggs, another for making toast, and a third for making coffee. Sir John, with the a.s.sistance of a young Chinaman and a fox-terrier, who flitted around him, was indeed eating and drinking. The vast remainder of the table was gleamingly bare, save for newspapers and letters opened and unopened which Sir John tossed about. Opposite to him sat a secretary whose fluffy hair, neat white _chemisette_, and tender years gave her an appearance of helpless fragility in front of the powerful and ruthless celebrity.

Sir John's crimson-socked left foot stuck out from the table, emerging from the left half of a lovely new pair of brown trousers, and resting on a piece of white paper. Before this white paper knelt a man in a frock-coat who was drawing an outline on the paper round Sir John's foot.

"You _are_ a bootmaker, aren't you?" Sir John was saying airily.

"Yes, Sir John."

"Excuse me!" said Sir John. "I only wanted to be sure. I fancied from the way you caressed my corn with that pencil that you might be an artist on one of the ill.u.s.trated papers. My mistake!" He was bending down. Then suddenly straightening himself he called across the room: "I say, Givington, did you notice my pose then--my expression as I used the word 'caressed'? How would that do?"

And Edward Henry now observed in a corner of the room a man, standing in front of an easel and sketching somewhat grossly thereon in charcoal. This man said:

"If you won't bother me, Sir John, I won't bother you."

"Ah! Givington! Ah! Givington!" murmured Sir John still more airily--at breakfast he was either airy or nothing. "You're getting on in the world. You aren't merely an A.R.A.;--you're making money! A year ago you'd never have had the courage to address me in that tone.

Well, I sincerely congratulate you.... Here, Snip, here's my dentist's bill--worry it, worry it! Good dog! Worry it!" (The dog growled now over a torn doc.u.ment beneath the table.) "Miss Taft, you might see that a _communique _ goes out to the effect that I gave my first sitting to Mr. Saracen Givington, A.R.A., this morning. The activities of Mr. Saracen Givington are of interest to the world, and rightly so! You'd better come round to the other side for the right foot, Mr.

Bootmaker. The journey is simply nothing."

And then, and not till then, did Sir John Pilgrim turn his large and handsome middle-aged blond face in the direction of Alderman Edward Henry Machin.

"Pardon my curiosity," said Sir John, "but who are you?"

"My name is Machin--Alderman Machin," said Edward Henry. "I sent up my card and you asked me to come in."

"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 inquired, 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."