"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 class, 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 matinées, 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 illustrious personages of the empire. Nevertheless he controlled his nervousness, and reflected:
"Nobody 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."