Miss Runcible said that kippers were not very drunk-making and that the whole club seemed bogus to her.
Ginger said well anyway they had better have some kippers now they were there. Then he asked Nina to dance and she said no. Then he asked Miss Runcible and she said no, too.
Then they ate kippers.
Presently one of the men in shirt sleeves (who had clearly had a lot to drink before the St. Christopher Social Club knew about the police) came up to their table and said to Adam:
“You don’t know me. I’m Gilmour. I don’t want to start a row in front of ladies, but when I see a howling cad I like to tell him so.”
Adam said, “Why do you spit when you talk?”
Gilmour said, “That is a very unfortunate physical disability, and it shows what a howling cad you are that you mention it.”
Then Ginger said, “Same to you, old boy, with nobs on.”
Then Gilmour said, “Hullo, Ginger, old scout.”
And Ginger said, “Why, it’s Bill. You mustn’t mind Bill. Awfully stout chap. Met him on the boat.”
Gilmour said, “Any pal of Ginger’s is a pal of mine.”
So Adam and Gilmour shook hands.
Gilmour said, “This is a pretty low joint, anyhow. You chaps come round to my place and have a drink.”
So they went to Gilmour’s place.
Gilmour’s place was a bed-sitting room in Ryder Street.
So they sat on the bed in Gilmour’s place and drank whisky while Gilmour was sick next door.
And Ginger said, “There’s nowhere like London really you know.”
That same evening while Adam and Nina sat on the deck of the dirigible a party of quite a different sort was being given at Anchorage House. This last survivor of the noble town houses of London was, in its time, of dominating and august dimensions, and even now, when it had become a mere “picturesque bit” lurking in a ravine between concrete skyscrapers, its pillared façade, standing back from the street and obscured by railings and some wisps of foliage, had grace and dignity and otherworldliness enough to cause a flutter or two in Mrs. Hoop’s heart as she drove into the forecourt.
“Can’t you just see the ghosts?” she said to Lady Circumference on the stairs. “Pit and Fox and Burke and Lady Hamilton and Beau Brummel and Dr. Johnson” (a concurrence of celebrities, it may be remarked, at which something memorable might surely have occurred). “Can’t you just see them—in their buckled shoes?”
Lady Circumference raised her lorgnette and surveyed the stream of guests debouching from the cloakrooms like City workers from the Underground. She saw Mr. Outrage and Lord Metroland in consultation about the Censorship Bill (a statesmanlike and much-needed measure which empowered a committee of five atheists to destroy all books, pictures and films they considered undesirable, without any nonsense about defence or appeal). She saw both Archbishops, the Duke and Duchess of Stayle, Lord Vanburgh and Lady Metroland, Lady Throbbing and Edward Throbbing and Mrs. Blackwater, Mrs. Mouse and Lord Monomark and a superb Levantine, and behind and about them a great concourse of pious and honourable people (many of whom made the Anchorage House reception the one outing of the year), their womenfolk well gowned in rich and durable stuffs, their menfolk ablaze with orders; people who had represented their country in foreign places and sent their sons to die for her in battle, people of decent and temperate life, uncultured, unaffected, unembarrassed, unassuming, unambitious people, of independent judgment and marked eccentricities, kind people who cared for animals and the deserving poor, brave and rather unreasonable people, that fine phalanx of the passing order, approaching as one day at the Last Trump they hoped to meet their Maker, with decorous and frank cordiality to shake Lady Anchorage by the hand at the top of her staircase. Lady Circumference saw all this and sniffed the exhalation of her own herd. But she saw no ghosts.
“That’s all my eye,” she said.
But Mrs. Hoop ascended step by step in a confused but very glorious dream of eighteenth-century elegance.
The Presence of Royalty was heavy as thunder in the drawing-room.
The Baroness Yoshiwara and the Prime Minister met once more.
“I tried to see you twice this week,” she said, “but always you were busy. We are leaving London. Perhaps you heard? My husband has been moved to Washington. It was his wish to go …”
“No. I say, Baroness … I had no idea. That’s very bad news. We shall all miss you terribly.”
“I thought perhaps I would come to make my adieux. One day next week.”
“Why, yes, of course, that would be delightful. You must both come to dine. I’ll get my secretary to fix something up tomorrow.”
“It has been nice being in London … you were kind.”
“Not a bit. I don’t know what London would be without our guests from abroad.”
“Oh, twenty damns to your great pig-face,” said the Baroness suddenly and turned away.
Mr. Outrage watched her bewildered. Finally he said, “For East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet” (which was a poor conclusion for a former Foreign Secretary).
Edward Throbbing stood talking to the eldest daughter of the Duchess of Stayle. She was some inches taller than him and inclined slightly so that, in the general murmur of conversation, she should not miss any of his colonial experience. She wore a frock such as only Duchesses can obtain for their elder daughters, a garment curiously puckered and puffed up and enriched with old lace at improbable places, from which her pale beauty emerged as though from a clumsily tied parcel. Neither powder, rouge nor lipstick had played any part in her toilet and her colourless hair was worn long and bound across her forehead in a broad fillet. Long pearl drops hung from her ears and she wore a
