After many hours we stopped playing whist, and broke up for chewing and chatting. The bored-looking man of middle age picked me up, and we took two stray girls in tow for wine and sandwiches. The manners at the supper-crush were elegance itself. The girls smoked cigarettes just a little too defiantly, but they were quite well-bred about it. A lot of well-bred witticisms floated around, with cool laughter and pretty smiles. A knot of girls with two boys talked somewhat decryingly of Shaw and Strindberg; and one caught stray straws of talk about Masefield, Beecham opera, Scriabine, Marinetti, Augustus John. Two girls were giving a concert at the Steinway next week. Others were aiming at the Academy. Another had had a story accepted by the _English Review_. They were a very decent sort.
The bored man plucked at my arm and suggested that we get rid of the girls, and go across to "The Railway" and have one. We did. In the lounge of "The Railway" he told me the one about the lady and taxi. It was very good, but extremely ill-bred. He was a prominent local doctor, so I told him the one about the medical man on the panel, and about the Bishop who put gin in his whisky. Then he told me another ... and another. He remembered the old days at the London.... He said he had had to go to this show because his boy and girl were there. Cards bored him to death, but he liked to be matey with the youngsters. Suppose we had just one more?
We had just one more. From across the way came, very sweet and faint, the sound of laughter and young voices. Some one had started a piano, and the Ballade in A Minor was wandering over Surbiton. I looked into my brandy-glass, and, as I am very young, I rather wanted to cry. I don't know why. It was just the mood ... the soft night, Surbiton, young boys and girls, Chopin, Martell.... I said I had to catch an immediate train to Waterloo, and I drank up and bolted.
The other Saturday morning I met a friend at the Bedford Street Bodega. He said, "Laddie, doing anything to-night?" I said, "No; what's on?"
"Well, it's a little charity show. A Social at Battersea Town Hall. Some local club or tennis-party or some jolly old thing of that sort. All receipts to the local hospital. All the gang are going to do something--kind of informal, you know. I'm the Star. Yes, laddie, I have at last a shop, for one night only. My fee--seven-and-sixpence and tram-fares. All other services gratuitous. No platform. No auditorium. Just a little old sit-round, drinking limp coffee and eating anæmic pastry, and listening. Come?"