No person in the hall saw Edward Henry's hat fly up into the air and fall back on his head. But in the imagination of Edward Henry, that was what 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.
A very handsome footman, not only in white gloves but in white calves, was soon supplicating him to deign to enter a lift. And when he emerged from the lift another dandy--in a frock-coat of Paradise--was awaiting him with obeisances. Apparently it had not yet occurred to anybody that he was not the younger son of some aged king.
He was prayed to walk into a gorgeous suite consisting of a corridor, a noble drawing-room (with portrait of His Majesty of Spain on the walls), a large bedroom with two satinwood beds, a small bedroom, and a bathroom, all gleaming 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 un-elect could no longer be concealed. "E. H. Machin, Bursley," he said shortly, and added: "Alderman Machin." After all, why should he be ashamed of being an alderman?
To his astonishment the dandy smiled very cordially, though always with 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 make naught of it.
He followed the departing dandy up the corridor to the door of the suite in an entirely vain attempt to enquire 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 main corridor. These trunks gave 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 come into Wilkins's. It was not fashionable enough. It lacked elegance. The lounge suit that he was wearing might serve, but his luggage was totally impossible. Never before had he imagined that the aspect of one's luggage could have the least importance in one's scheme of existence. He was learning, and he frankly admitted that he was in an incomparable mess.