“H’m, yes. Quite a good list this morning, Alphonse. I’ll do what I can about it.”
“Thank you, sir. A table for two? A cocktail?”
“No, I don’t think I want a cocktail. I really haven’t time. Will you have one, Adam? They aren’t very good here.”
“No, thanks,” said Adam.
“Sure?” said Balcairn, already making for their table.
When they were being helped to caviar he looked at the wine list.
“The lager is rather good,” he said. “What would you like to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having. … I think some lager would be lovely.”
“Two small bottles of lager, please. … Are you sure you really like that better than anything?”
“Yes, really, thank you.”
Simon Balcairn looked about him gloomily, occasionally adding a new name to his list. (It is so depressing to be in a profession in which literally all conversation is “shop.”)
Presently he said, with a deadly air of carelessness:
“Margot Metroland’s got a party tonight, hasn’t she? Are you going?”
“I think probably. I usually like Margot’s parties, don’t you?”
“Yes. … Adam, I’ll tell you a very odd thing. She hasn’t sent me an invitation to this one.”
“I expect she will. I only got mine this morning.”
“… Yes … who’s that woman just come in in the fur coat? I know her so well by sight.”
“Isn’t it Lady Everyman?”
“Yes, of course.” Another name was added to the list. Balcairn paused in utmost gloom and ate some salad. “The thing is … she told Agatha Runcible she wasn’t going to ask me.”
“Why not?”
“Apparently she’s in a rage about something I said about something she said about Miles.”
“People do take things so seriously,” said Adam encouragingly.
“It means ruin for me,” said Lord Balcairn. “Isn’t that Pamela Popham?”
“I haven’t the least idea.”
“I’m sure it is … I must look up the spelling in the stud book when I get back. I got into awful trouble about spelling the other day. … Ruin. … She’s asked Vanburgh.”
“Well, he’s some sort of cousin, isn’t he?”
“It’s so damned unfair. All my cousins are in lunatic asylums or else they live in the country and do indelicate things with wild animals … Except my mamma, and that’s worse … they were furious at the office about Van getting that Downing Street ‘scoop.’ If I miss this party I may as well leave Fleet Street for good … I may as well put my head into a gas-oven and have done with it … I’m sure if Margot knew how much it meant to me she wouldn’t mind my coming.”
Great tears stood in his eyes threatening to overflow.
“All this last week,” he said, “I’ve been reduced to making up my page from the Court Circular and Debrett … No one ever asks me anywhere now …”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Adam, “I know Margot pretty well. If you like I’ll ring her up and ask if I may bring you.”
“Will you? Will you, Adam? If only you really would. Let’s go and do it at once. We’ve no time for coffee or liqueurs. Quick, we can telephone from my office … yes, that black hat and my umbrella, no, I’ve lost the number … there, no, there, oh do hurry. … Yes, a taxi …”
They were out in the street and into a taxi before Adam had time to say any more. Soon they were imbedded in a traffic block in the Strand, and after a time they reached Balcairn’s office in Fleet Street.
They went up to a tiny room with “Social” written on the glass of the door. Its interior seemed not to justify its name. There was one chair, a typewriter, a telephone, some books of reference and a considerable litter of photographs. Balcairn’s immediate superior sat in the one chair.
“Hullo,” she said. “So you’re back. Where you been?”
“Espinosa. Here’s the list.”
The social editress read it through. “Can’t have Kitty Blackwater,” she said. “Had her yesterday. Others’ll do. Write ’em down to a couple of paragraphs. Suppose you didn’t notice what they were wearing?”
“Yes,” said Balcairn eagerly. “All of them.”
“Well, you won’t have room to use it. We got to keep everything down for Lady M.’s party. I’ve cut out the D. of Devonshire altogether. By the way, the photograph you used yesterday wasn’t the present Countess of Everyman. It’s an old one of the Dowager. We had ’em both on the phone about it, going on something awful. That’s you, again. Got your invite for tonight?”
“Not yet.”
“You better get it quick. I got to have a firsthand story before we go to press, see? By the way, know anything about this? Lady R.’s maid sent it in today.” She picked up a slip of paper: “ ‘Rumoured engagement broken off between Adam Fenwick-Symes, only son of the late Professor Oliver Fenwick-Symes, and Nina Blount, of Doubting Hall, Aylesbury.’ Never heard of either. Ain’t even been announced, so far as I’m aware of.”
“You’d better ask him. This is Adam Symes.”
“Hullo, no offence meant, I’m sure. … What about it?”
“It is neither announced nor broken off.”
“N.B.G. in fact, eh? Then that goes there.” She put the slip into the wastepaper basket. “That girl’s sent us a lot of bad stuff lately. Well, I’m off for a bit of lunch. I’ll be over at the Garden Club if anything urgent turns up. So long.”
The editress went out, banging the door labelled “Social,” and whistled as she went down the passage.
“You see how they treat me,” said Lord Balcairn. “They were all over me when I first arrived. I do so wish I were dead.”
“Don’t cry,” said Adam, “it’s too shy-making.”
“I can’t help it … oh, do come in.”
The door marked “Social” opened and a small boy came in.
“Lord Circumference’s butler downstairs with some engagements and a divorce.”
“Tell him to leave them.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“That’s the only person in this office who’s ever polite to me,” said Balcairn as the messenger disappeared. “I wish I had something to leave him in my will. … Do ring up Margot. Then I shall at any rate know the worst. … Come in.”
“Gentleman of the name of General Strapper downstairs. Wants
