Kitabı oku: «The Brass Bottle», sayfa 6
CHAPTER VIII
BACHELOR'S QUARTERS
Horace was feeling particularly happy as he walked back the next evening to Vincent Square. He had the consciousness of having done a good day's work, for the sketch-plans for Mr. Wackerbath's mansion were actually completed and despatched to his business address, while Ventimore now felt a comfortable assurance that his designs would more than satisfy his client.
But it was not that which made him so light of heart. That night his rooms were to be honoured for the first time by Sylvia's presence. She would tread upon his carpet, sit in his chairs, comment upon, and perhaps even handle, his books and ornaments – and all of them would retain something of her charm for ever after. If she only came! For even now he could not quite believe that she really would; that some untoward event would not make a point of happening to prevent her, as he sometimes doubted whether his engagement was not too sweet and wonderful to be true – or, at all events, to last.
As to the dinner, his mind was tolerably easy, for he had settled the remaining details of the menu with his landlady that morning, and he could hope that without being so sumptuous as to excite the Professor's wrath, it would still be not altogether unworthy – and what goods could be rare and dainty enough? – to be set before Sylvia.
He would have liked to provide champagne, but he knew that wine would savour of ostentation in the Professor's judgment, so he had contented himself instead with claret, a sound vintage which he knew he could depend upon. Flowers, he thought, were clearly permissible, and he had called at a florist's on his way and got some chrysanthemums of palest yellow and deepest terra-cotta, the finest he could see. Some of them would look well on the centre of the table in an old Nankin blue-and-white bowl he had; the rest he could arrange about the room: there would just be time to see to all that before dressing.
Occupied with these thoughts, he turned into Vincent Square, which looked vaster than ever with the murky haze, enclosed by its high railings, and under a wide expanse of steel-blue sky, across which the clouds were driving fast like ships in full sail scudding for harbour before a storm. Against the mist below, the young and nearly leafless trees showed flat, black profiles as of pressed seaweed, and the sky immediately above the house-tops was tinged with a sullen red from miles of lighted streets; from the river came the long-drawn tooting of tugs, mingled with the more distant wail and hysterical shrieks of railway engines on the Lambeth lines.
And now he reached the old semi-detached house in which he lodged, and noticed for the first time how the trellis-work of the veranda made, with the bared creepers and hanging baskets, a kind of decorative pattern against the windows, which were suffused with a roseate glow that looked warm and comfortable and hospitable. He wondered whether Sylvia would notice it when she arrived.
He passed under the old wrought-iron arch that once held an oil-lamp, and up a short but rather steep flight of steps, which led to a brick porch built out at the side. Then he let himself in, and stood spellbound with perplexed amazement, – for he was in a strange house.
In place of the modest passage with the yellow marble wall-paper, the mahogany hat-stand, and the elderly barometer in a state of chronic depression which he knew so well, he found an arched octagonal entrance-hall with arabesques of blue, crimson, and gold, and richly-embroidered hangings; the floor was marble, and from a shallow basin of alabaster in the centre a perfumed fountain rose and fell with a lulling patter.
"I must have mistaken the number," he thought, quite forgetting that his latch-key had fitted, and he was just about to retreat before his intrusion was discovered, when the hangings parted, and Mrs. Rapkin presented herself, making so deplorably incongruous a figure in such surroundings, and looking so bewildered and woebegone, that Horace, in spite of his own increasing uneasiness, had some difficulty in keeping his gravity.
"Oh, Mr. Ventimore, sir," she lamented; "whatever will you go and do next, I wonder? To think of your going and having the whole place done up and altered out of knowledge like this, without a word of warning! If any halterations were required, I do think as me and Rapkin had the right to be consulted."
Horace let all his chrysanthemums drop unheeded into the fountain. He understood now: indeed, he seemed in some way to have understood almost from the first, only he would not admit it even to himself.
The irrepressible Jinnee was at the bottom of this, of course. He remembered now having made that unfortunate remark the day before about the limited accommodation his rooms afforded.
Clearly Fakrash must have taken a mental note of it, and, with that insatiable munificence which was one of his worst failings, had determined, by way of a pleasant surprise, to entirely refurnish and redecorate the apartments according to his own ideas.
It was extremely kind of him; it showed a truly grateful disposition – "but, oh!" as Horace thought, in the bitterness of his soul, "if he would only learn to let well alone and mind his own business!"
However, the thing was done now, and he must accept the responsibility for it, since he could hardly disclose the truth. "Didn't I mention I was having some alterations made?" he said carelessly. "They've got the work done rather sooner than I expected. Were – were they long over it?"
"I'm sure I can't tell you, sir, having stepped out to get some things I wanted in for to-night; and Rapkin, he was round the corner at his reading-room; and when I come back it was all done and the workmen gone 'ome; and how they could have finished such a job in the time beats me altogether, for when we 'ad the men in to do the back kitchen they took ten days over it."
"Well," said Horace, evading this point, "however they've done this, they've done it remarkably well – you'll admit that, Mrs. Rapkin?"
"That's as may be sir," said Mrs. Rapkin, with a sniff, "but it ain't my taste, nor yet I don't think it will be Rapkin's taste when he comes to see it."
It was not Ventimore's taste either, though he was not going to confess it. "Sorry for that, Mrs. Rapkin," he said, "but I've no time to talk about it now. I must rush upstairs and dress."
"Begging your pardon, sir, but that's a total unpossibility – for they've been and took away the staircase.'
"Taken away the staircase? Nonsense!" cried Horace.
"So I think, Mr. Ventimore – but it's what them men have done, and if you don't believe me, come and see for yourself!"
She drew the hangings aside, and revealed to Ventimore's astonished gaze a vast pillared hall with a lofty domed roof, from which hung several lamps, diffusing a subdued radiance. High up in the wall, on his left, were the two windows which he judged to have formerly belonged to his sitting-room (for either from delicacy or inability, or simply because it had not occurred to him, the Jinnee had not interfered with the external structure), but the windows were now masked by a perforated and gilded lattice, which accounted for the pattern Horace had noticed from without. The walls were covered with blue-and-white Oriental tiles, and a raised platform of alabaster on which were divans ran round two sides of the hall, while the side opposite to him was pierced with horseshoe-shaped arches, apparently leading to other apartments. The centre of the marble floor was spread with costly rugs and piles of cushions, their rich hues glowing through the gold with which they were intricately embroidered.
"Well," said the unhappy Horace, scarcely knowing what he was saying, "it – it all looks very cosy, Mrs. Rapkin."
"It's not for me to say, sir; but I should like to know where you thought of dining?"
"Where?" said Horace. "Why, here, of course. There's plenty of room."
"There isn't a table left in the house," said Mrs. Rapkin; "so, unless you'd wish the cloth laid on the floor – "
"Oh, there must be a table somewhere," said Horace, impatiently, "or you can borrow one. Don't make difficulties, Mrs. Rapkin. Rig up anything you like… Now I must be off and dress."
He got rid of her, and, on entering one of the archways, discovered a smaller room, in cedar-wood encrusted with ivory and mother-o'-pearl, which was evidently his bedroom. A gorgeous robe, stiff with gold and glittering with ancient gems, was laid out for him – for the Jinnee had thought of everything – but Ventimore, naturally, preferred his own evening clothes.
"Mr. Rapkin!" he shouted, going to another arch that seemed to communicate with the basement.
"Sir?" replied his landlord, who had just returned from his "reading-room," and now appeared, without a tie and in his shirt-sleeves, looking pale and wild, as was, perhaps, intelligible in the circumstances. As he entered his unfamiliar marble halls he staggered, and his red eyes rolled and his mouth gaped in a cod-like fashion. "They've been at it 'ere, too, seemin'ly," he remarked huskily.
"There have been a few changes," said Horace, quietly, "as you can see. You don't happen to know where they've put my dress-clothes, do you?"
"I don't 'appen to know where they've put nothink. Your dress clothes? Why, I dunno where they've bin and put our little parler where me and Maria 'ave set of a hevenin' all these years regular. I dunno where they've put the pantry, nor yet the bath-room, with 'ot and cold water laid on at my own expense. And you arsk me to find your hevenin' soot! I consider, sir, I consider that a unwall – that a most unwarrant-terrible liberty have bin took at my expense."
"My good man, don't talk rubbish!" said Horace.
"I'm talking to you about what I know, and I assert that an Englishman's 'ome is his cashle, and nobody's got the right when his backsh turned to go and make a 'Ummums of it. Not nobody 'asn't!"
"Make a what of it?" cried Ventimore.
"A 'Ummums – that's English, ain't it? A bloomin' Turkish baths! Who do you suppose is goin' to take apartments furnished in this 'ere ridic'loush style? What am I goin' to say to my landlord? It'll about ruing me, this will; and after you bein' a lodger 'ere for five year and more, and regarded by me and Maria in the light of one of the family. It's 'ard – it's damned 'ard!"
"Now, look here," said Ventimore, sharply – for it was obvious that Mr. Rapkin's studies had been lightened by copious refreshment – "pull yourself together, man, and listen to me."
"I respeckfully decline to pull myshelf togerrer f'r anybody livin'," said Mr. Rapkin, with a noble air. "I shtan' 'ere upon my dignity as a man, sir. I shay, I shtand 'ere upon – " Here he waved his hand, and sat down suddenly upon the marble floor.
"You can stand on anything you like – or can," said Horace; "but hear what I've got to say. The – the people who made all these alterations went beyond my instructions. I never wanted the house interfered with like this. Still, if your landlord doesn't see that its value is immensely improved, he's a fool, that's all. Anyway, I'll take care you shan't suffer. If I have to put everything back in its former state, I will, at my own expense. So don't bother any more about that."
"You're a gen'l'man, Mr. Ventimore," said Rapkin, cautiously regaining his feet. "There's no mishtaking a gen'l'man. I'm a gen'l'man."
"Of course you are," said Horace genially, "and I'll tell you how you're going to show it. You're going straight downstairs to get your good wife to pour some cold water over your head; and then you will finish dressing, see what you can do to get a table of some sort and lay it for dinner, and be ready to announce my friends when they arrive, and wait afterwards. Do you see?"
"That will be all ri', Mr. Ventimore," said Rapkin, who was not far gone enough to be beyond understanding or obeying. "You leave it entirely to me. I'll unnertake that your friends shall be made comforrable, perfelly comforrable. I've lived as butler in the besht, the mosht ecxlu – most arishto – you know the sort o' fam'lies I'm tryin' to r'member – and – and everything was always all ri', and I shall be all ri' in a few minutes."
With this assurance he stumbled downstairs, leaving Horace relieved to some extent. Rapkin would be sober enough after his head had been under the tap for a few minutes, and in any case there would be the hired waiter to rely upon.
If he could only find out where his evening clothes were! He returned to his room and made another frantic search – but they were nowhere to be found; and as he could not bring himself to receive his guests in his ordinary morning costume – which the Professor would probably construe as a deliberate slight, and which would certainly seem a solecism in Mrs. Futvoye's eyes, if not in her daughter's – he decided to put on the Eastern robes, with the exception of a turban, which he could not manage to wind round his head.
Thus arrayed he re-entered the domed hall, where he was annoyed to find that no attempt had been made as yet to prepare a dinner-table, and he was just looking forlornly round for a bell when Rapkin appeared. He had apparently followed Horace's advice, for his hair looked wet and sleek, and he was comparatively sober.
"This is too bad!" cried Horace; "my friends may be here at any moment now – and nothing done. You don't propose to wait at table like that, do you?" he added, as he noted the man's overcoat and the comforter round his throat.
"I do not propose to wait in any garments whatsoever," said Rapkin; "I'm a-goin' out, I am."
"Very well," said Horace; "then send the waiter up – I suppose he's come?"
"He come – but he went away again – I told him as he wouldn't be required."
"You told him that!" Horace said angrily, and then controlled himself. "Come, Rapkin, be reasonable. You can't really mean to leave your wife to cook the dinner, and serve it too!"
"She ain't intending to do neither; she've left the house already."
"You must fetch her back," cried Horace. "Good heavens, man, can't you see what a fix you're leaving me in? My friends have started long ago – it's too late to wire to them, or make any other arrangements."
There was a knock, as he spoke, at the front door; and odd enough was the familiar sound of the cast-iron knocker in that Arabian hall.
"There they are!" he said, and the idea of meeting them at the door and proposing an instant adjournment to a restaurant occurred to him – till he suddenly recollected that he would have to change and try to find some money, even for that. "For the last time, Rapkin," he cried in despair, "do you mean to tell me there's no dinner ready?"
"Oh," said Rapkin, "there's dinner right enough, and a lot o' barbarious furriners downstairs a cookin' of it – that's what broke Maria's 'art – to see it all took out of her 'ands, after the trouble she'd gone to."
"But I must have somebody to wait," exclaimed Horace.
"You've got waiters enough, as far as that goes. But if you expect a hordinary Christian man to wait along of a lot o' narsty niggers, and be at their beck and call, you're mistook, sir, for I'm going to sleep the night at my brother-in-law's and take his advice, he bein' a doorkeeper at a solicitor's orfice and knowing the law, about this 'ere business, and so I wish you a good hevening, and 'oping your dinner will be to your liking and satisfaction."
He went out by the farther archway, while from the entrance-hall Horace could hear voices he knew only too well. The Futvoyes had come; well, at all events, it seemed that there would be something for them to eat, since Fakrash, in his anxiety to do the thing thoroughly, had furnished both the feast and attendance himself – but who was there to announce the guests? Where were these waiters Rapkin had spoken of? Ought he to go and bring in his visitors himself?
These questions answered themselves the next instant, for, as he stood there under the dome, the curtains of the central arch were drawn with a rattle, and disclosed a double line of tall slaves in rich raiment, their onyx eyes rolling and their teeth flashing in their chocolate-hued countenances, as they salaamed.
Between this double line stood Professor and Mrs. Futvoye and Sylvia, who had just removed their wraps and were gazing in undisguised astonishment on the splendours which met their view.
Horace advanced to receive them; he felt he was in for it now, and the only course left him was to put as good a face as he could on the matter, and trust to luck to pull him through without discovery or disaster.
CHAPTER IX
"PERSICOS ODI, PUER, APPARATUS"
"So you've found your way here at last?" said Horace, as he shook hands heartily with the Professor and Mrs. Futvoye. "I can't tell you how delighted I am to see you."
As a matter of fact, he was very far from being at ease, which made him rather over-effusive, but he was determined that, if he could help it, he would not betray the slightest consciousness of anything bizarre or unusual in his domestic arrangements.
"And these," said Mrs. Futvoye, who was extremely stately in black, with old lace and steel embroidery – "these are the bachelor lodgings you were so modest about! Really," she added, with a humorous twinkle in her shrewd eyes, "you young men seem to understand how to make yourselves comfortable – don't they, Anthony?"
"They do, indeed," said the Professor, dryly, though it manifestly cost him some effort to conceal his appreciation. "To produce such results as these must, if I mistake not, have entailed infinite research – and considerable expense."
"No," said Horace, "no. You – you'd be surprised if you knew how little."
"I should have imagined," retorted the Professor, "that any outlay on apartments which I presume you do not contemplate occupying for an extended period must be money thrown away. But, doubtless, you know best."
"But your rooms are quite wonderful, Horace!" cried Sylvia, her charming eyes dilating with admiration. "And where, where did you get that magnificent dressing-gown? I never saw anything so lovely in my life!"
She herself was lovely enough in a billowy, shimmering frock of a delicate apple-green hue, her only ornament a deep-blue Egyptian scarab with spread wings, which was suspended from her neck by a slender gold chain.
"I – I ought to apologise for receiving you in this costume," said Horace, with embarrassment; "but the fact is, I couldn't find my evening clothes anywhere, so – so I put on the first things that came to hand."
"It is hardly necessary," said the Professor, conscious of being correctly clad, and unconscious that his shirt-front was bulging and his long-eared white tie beginning to work up towards his left jaw – "hardly necessary to offer any apology for the simplicity of your costume – which is entirely in keeping with the – ah – strictly Oriental character of your interior."
"I feel dreadfully out of keeping!" said Sylvia, "for there's nothing in the least Oriental about me– unless it's my scarab – and he's I don't know how many centuries behind the time, poor dear!"
"If you said 'thousands of years,' my dear," corrected the Professor, "you would be more accurate. That scarab was taken out of a tomb of the thirteenth dynasty."
"Well, I'm sure he'd rather be where he is," said Sylvia, and Ventimore entirely agreed with her. "Horace, I must look at everything. How clever and original of you to transform an ordinary London house into this!"
"Oh, well, you see," explained Horace, "it – it wasn't exactly done by me."
"Whoever did it," said the Professor, "must have devoted considerable study to Eastern art and architecture. May I ask the name of the firm who executed the alterations?"
"I really couldn't tell you, sir," answered Horace, who was beginning to understand how very bad a mauvais quart d'heure can be.
"You can't tell me!" exclaimed the Professor. "You order these extensive, and I should say expensive, decorations, and you don't know the firm you selected to carry them out!"
"Of course I know," said Horace, "only I don't happen to remember at this moment. Let me see, now. Was it Liberty? No, I'm almost certain it wasn't Liberty. It might have been Maple, but I'm not sure. Whoever did do it, they were marvellously cheap."
"I am glad to hear it," said the Professor, in his most unpleasant tone. "Where is your dining-room?"
"Why, I rather think," said Horace, helplessly, as he saw a train of attendants laying a round cloth on the floor, "I rather think this is the dining-room."
"You appear to be in some doubt?" said the Professor.
"I leave it to them – it depends where they choose to lay the cloth," said Horace. "Sometimes in one place; sometimes in another. There's a great charm in uncertainty," he faltered.
"Doubtless," said the Professor.
By this time two of the slaves, under the direction of a tall and turbaned black, had set a low ebony stool, inlaid with silver and tortoiseshell in strange devices, on the round carpet, when other attendants followed with a circular silver tray containing covered dishes, which they placed on the stool and salaamed.
"Your – ah – groom of the chambers," said the Professor, "seems to have decided that we should dine here. I observe they are making signs to you that the food is on the table."
"So it is," said Ventimore. "Shall we sit down?"
"But, my dear Horace," said Mrs. Futvoye, "your butler has forgotten the chairs."
"You don't appear to realise, my dear," said the Professor, "that in such an interior as this chairs would be hopelessly incongruous."
"I'm afraid there aren't any," said Horace, for there was nothing but four fat cushions. "Let's sit down on these," he proposed. "It – it's more fun!"
"At my time of life," said the Professor, irritably, as he let himself down on the plumpest cushion, "such fun as may be derived from eating one's meals on the floor fails to appeal to my sense of humour. However, I admit that it is thoroughly Oriental."
"I think it's delightful," said Sylvia; "ever so much nicer than a stiff, conventional dinner-party."
"One may be unconventional," remarked her father, "without escaping the penalty of stiffness. Go away, sir! go away!" he added snappishly, to one of the slaves, who was attempting to pour water over his hands. "Your servant, Ventimore, appears to imagine that I go out to dinner without taking the trouble to wash my hands previously. This, I may mention, is not the case."
"It's only an Eastern ceremony, Professor," said Horace.
"I am perfectly well aware of what is customary in the East," retorted the Professor; "it does not follow that such – ah – hygienic precautions are either necessary or desirable at a Western table."
Horace made no reply; he was too much occupied in gazing blankly at the silver dish-covers and wondering what in the world might be underneath; nor was his perplexity relieved when the covers were removed, for he was quite at a loss to guess how he was supposed to help the contents without so much as a fork.
The chief attendant, however, solved that difficulty by intimating in pantomime that the guests were expected to use their fingers.
Sylvia accomplished this daintily and with intense amusement, but her father and mother made no secret of their repugnance. "If I were dining in the desert with a Sheik, sir," observed the Professor, "I should, I hope, know how to conform to his habits and prejudices. Here, in the heart of London, I confess all this strikes me as a piece of needless pedantry."
"I'm very sorry," said Horace; "I'd have some knives and forks if I could – but I'm afraid these fellows don't even understand what they are, so it's useless to order any. We – we must rough it a little, that's all. I hope that – er – fish is all right, Professor?"
He did not know precisely what kind of fish it was, but it was fried in oil of sesame and flavoured with a mixture of cinnamon and ginger, and the Professor did not appear to be making much progress with it. Ventimore himself would have infinitely preferred the original cod and oyster sauce, but that could not be helped now.
"Thank you," said the Professor, "it is curious – but characteristic. Not any more, thank you."
Horace could only trust that the next course would be more of a success. It was a dish of mutton, stewed with peaches, jujubes and sugar, which Sylvia declared was delicious. Her parents made no comment.
"Might I ask for something to drink?" said the Professor, presently; whereupon a cupbearer poured him a goblet of iced sherbet perfumed with conserve of violets.
"I'm very sorry, my dear fellow," he said, after sipping it, "but if I drink this I shall be ill all next day. If I might have a glass of wine – "
Another slave instantly handed him a cup of wine, which he tasted and set down with a wry face and a shudder. Horace tried some afterwards, and was not surprised. It was a strong, harsh wine, in which goatskin and resin struggled for predominance.
"It's an old and, I make no doubt, a fine wine," observed the Professor, with studied politeness, "but I fancy it must have suffered in transportation. I really think that, with my gouty tendency, a little whisky and Apollinaris would be better for me – if you keep such occidental fluids in the house?"
Horace felt convinced that it would be useless to order the slaves to bring whisky or Apollinaris, which were of course, unknown in the Jinnee's time, so he could do nothing but apologise for their absence.
"No matter," said the Professor; "I am not so thirsty that I cannot wait till I get home."
It was some consolation that both Sylvia and her mother commended the sherbet, and even appreciated – or were so obliging as to say they appreciated – the entrée, which consisted of rice and mincemeat wrapped in vine-leaves, and certainly was not appetising in appearance, besides being difficult to dispose of gracefully.
It was followed by a whole lamb fried in oil, stuffed with pounded pistachio nuts, pepper, nutmeg, and coriander seeds, and liberally besprinkled with rose-water and musk.
Only Horace had sufficient courage to attack the lamb – and he found reason to regret it. Afterwards came fowls stuffed with raisins, parsley, and crumbled bread, and the banquet ended with pastry of weird forms and repellent aspect.
"I hope," said Horace, anxiously, "you don't find this Eastern cookery very – er – unpalatable?" – he himself was feeling distinctly unwell: "it's rather a change from the ordinary routine."
"I have made a truly wonderful dinner, thank you," replied the Professor, not, it is to be feared, without intention. "Even in the East I have eaten nothing approaching this."
"But where did your landlady pick up this extraordinary cooking, my dear Horace?" said Mrs. Futvoye. "I thought you said she was merely a plain cook. Has she ever lived in the East?"
"Not exactly in the East," exclaimed Horace; "not what you would call living there. The fact is," he continued, feeling that he was in danger of drivelling, and that he had better be as candid as he could, "this dinner wasn't cooked by her. She – she was obliged to go away quite suddenly. So the dinner was all sent in by – by a sort of contractor, you know. He supplies the whole thing, waiters and all."
"I was thinking," said the Professor, "that for a bachelor – an engaged bachelor – you seemed to maintain rather a large establishment."
"Oh, they're only here for the evening, sir," said Horace. "Capital fellows – more picturesque than the local greengrocer – and they don't breathe on the top of your head."
"They're perfect dears, Horace," remarked Sylvia; "only – well, just a little creepy-crawly to look at!"
"It would ill become me to criticise the style and method of our entertainment," put in the Professor, acidly, "otherwise I might be tempted to observe that it scarcely showed that regard for economy which I should have – "
"Now, Anthony," put in his wife, "don't let us have any fault-finding. I'm sure Horace has done it all delightfully – yes, delightfully; and even if he has been just a little extravagant, it's not as if he was obliged to be as economical now, you know!"
"My dear," said the Professor, "I have yet to learn that the prospect of an increased income in the remote future is any justification for reckless profusion in the present."
"If you only knew," said Horace, "you wouldn't call it profusion. It – it's not at all the dinner I meant it to be, and I'm afraid it wasn't particularly nice – but it's certainly not expensive."
"Expensive is, of course, a very relative term. But I think I have the right to ask whether this is the footing on which you propose to begin your married life?"
It was an extremely awkward question, as the reader will perceive. If Ventimore replied – as he might with truth – that he had no intention whatever of maintaining his wife in luxury such as that, he stood convicted of selfish indulgence as a bachelor; if, on the other hand, he declared that he did propose to maintain his wife in the same fantastic and exaggerated splendour as the present, it would certainly confirm her father's disbelief in his prudence and economy.
And it was that egregious old ass of a Jinnee, as Horace thought, with suppressed rage, who had let him in for all this, and who was now far beyond all remonstrance or reproach!
Before he could bring himself to answer the question, the attendants had noiselessly removed the tray and stool, and were handing round rosewater in a silver ewer and basin, the character of which, luckily or otherwise, turned the Professor's inquisitiveness into a different channel.
"These are not bad – really not bad at all," he said, inspecting the design. "Where did you manage to pick them up?"
"I didn't," said Horace; "they're provided by the – the person who supplies the dinner."
"Can you give me his address?" said the Professor, scenting a bargain; "because really, you know, these things are probably antiques – much too good to be used for business purposes."
