Pages 17-20
I didn’t worry about the bet. I had always been lucky. I estimated that I would be paid six hundred to a thousand pounds a year. Let us say that I might earn six hundred for the first year, and this would go up year by year, until I showed that I was worth a thousand a year. At present I only owed money for my first year’s salary. Everybody had been trying to lend me money but I had always made up an excuse so that I did not need to take it. I only actually owed £300. The other £300 was money which I had used to buy things and for my food and a place to stay.
I believed that the money from my second year’s salary would get me through the rest of the month – and I intended to make very sure that I went on being cautious and economical. When the month was over my employer would be back from his journey. Then I would be all right once more. I would immediately give up my next two years’ salary to people whom I owed money, and get right down to my work.
It was a lovely dinner-party of fourteen. These were the Duke and Duchess of Shoreditch, and their daughter the Lady Anne-Grace-Eleanor-Celeste-and-so-forth-de-Bohun, the Earl and Countess of Newgate, Viscount Cheapside, Lord and Lady Blatherskite, There were also some men and women who were not aristocrats and the ambassador and his wife and daughter. The daughter had a friend who was visiting her, an English girl who was twenty-two years old. Her name was Portia Langham and I fell in love with her in two minutes. And she fell in love with me – I could see it clearly.
There was also another guest, an American – but I shall say more of this later. People were still outside the dining room, sharpening their appetites for dinner and giving icy looks to those who arrived late. The servant announced that a Mr. Lloyd Hastings had arrived. As soon as he had finished being polite to his host, Hastings saw me. He came straight over with his hand stretched out in greeting; then he stopped just before he shook my hand. He said, with an embarrassed look:
‘I beg your pardon, sir, I thought I knew you. Are you the – the …’.
‘Vest-pocket monster? I am, indeed. Don’t be afraid to call me by my nickname; I’m used to it.’
‘Well, well, this is a surprise. Once or twice I’ve seen your name together with that nickname. I never thought that you could be the Henry Adams people were talking about. Just six months ago you were working for Blake Hopkins in San Francisco. You also used to work nights on a second job, helping me arrange and check the papers and statistics on the Gould and Curry Mine Extension. I am amazed that you are in London, and a millionaire, and a huge celebrity! Why, it’s like a fairy story. I just can’t believe it; can’t comprehend it. Give me a minute, because my head is spinning.’
‘The fact is, Lloyd, That things are about the same for both you and I. I can’t really understand it myself.’
‘Dear me, it is amazing, isn’t it? Why,just three months ago we went to the What Cheer restaurant – went there at two in the morning. We had a meal and coffee because we had been working hard for six hours over those papers. I tried to persuade you to come to London with me. I offered to get you permission to be away from your job and pay all your expenses, and give you something extra if I succeeded in making the sale. You would not listen to me. You said I wouldn’t succeed, and you couldn’t afford to lose business and it would take you a long time to get the hang of things again when you got back home. And yet here you are. How odd it all is! How did it happen that you came after all, and whatever gave you this incredible start?
‘Oh, just an accident. It’s a long story – a romance, one may say. I’ll tell you all about it, but only at the end of this month. But how is your business going?’
His cheerfulness vanished like a breath, and he said with a sigh: You were a true prophet, Hal, a true prophet. I wish I hadn’t come. I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘But I want to hear the whole story, every word.’
‘I’m so grateful! Just to find someone who is interested in me and what I am doing. After what has happened to me here here – Lord! I could go down on my knees for it!’ He gripped my hand hard, and straightened himself up. He was all right and cheerful after that, so then we got ready for the dinner – which didn’t happen.
‘No; the usual thing happened. This always happens with that horrible and annoying English system – no-one could decide who was the most important person there, so there was no dinner. Englishmen always eat dinner before they go out to dinner, because they know that this might happen. But nobody ever warns the stranger, and so he walks placidly into the trap. Of course, nobody was hurt this time, because we had all eaten dinner already. None of us were new to this except Hastings, and when Hastings was invited by the Ambassador he was told that because of this the English custom there would not be any dinner.
Because it is usual to act as though dinner will happen, everybody took a lady and we went down to the dining-room. There the usual problems began. The Duke of Shoreditch wanted to sit at the head of the table, saying that he was more important than the Ambassador, but I refused to let him have his way.
Go to Part 6 here.