his beard in the royal bathroom but who was too good-natured to keep Mr. Bryany waiting.  It is remarkable how the habit of royalty, having once taken root, will flourish in the minds of quite unmonarchical persons.  Edward Henry first inquired after the health of Mr. Seven Sachs, and then obtained from Mr. Bryany all remaining papers and trifles of information concerning the affair of the option.  Whereupon Mr. Bryany, apparently much elated by the honour of an informal reception, effusively retired.  And Edward Henry too was so elated, and his faith in life so renewed and invigorated, that he said to himself: 

“It might be worth while to shave my beard off, after all!”

As in his electric brougham he drove along muddy and shining Piccadilly, he admitted that Joseph’s account of the weather had been very accurate.  The weather was magnificent; it presented the best features of summer combined with the salutary pungency of autumn.  And flags were flying over the establishments of tobacconists, soothsayers and insurance companies in Piccadilly.  And the sense of Empire was in the very air, like an intoxication.  And there was no place like London.  When, however, having run through Piccadilly into streets less superb, he reached the Majestic, it seemed to him that the Majestic was not a part of London, but a bit of the provinces surrounded by London.  He was very disappointed with the Majestic, and took his letters from the clerk with careless condescension.  In a few days the Majestic had sunk from being one of “London’s huge caravanserais” to the level of a swollen Turk’s Head.  So fragile are reputations!

From the Majestic Edward Henry drove back into the regions of Empire, between Piccadilly and Regent Street, and deigned to call upon his tailors.  A morning-suit which he had commanded being miraculously finished, he put it on, and was at once not only spectacularly but morally regenerated.  The old suit, though it had cost five guineas in its time, looked a paltry and a dowdy thing as it lay, flung down anyhow, on one of Messrs Quayther & Cuthering’s cane chairs in the mirrored cubicle where baronets and even peers showed their braces to the benign Mr. Cuthering.

“I want to go to Piccadilly Circus now.  Stop at the fountain,” said Edward Henry to his chauffeur.  He gave the order somewhat defiantly, because he was a little self-conscious in the new and gleaming suit, and because he had an absurd idea that the chauffeur might guess that he, a provincial from the Five Towns, was about to venture into West End theatrical enterprise and sneer at him accordingly.

But the chauffeur merely touched his cap with an indifferent and lofty gesture, as if to say: 

“Be at ease.  I have driven persons more moon-struck even than you.  Human eccentricity has long since ceased to surprise me.”