The Roll-Call - The Roll-Call Part 20
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The Roll-Call Part 20

"I was just looking at that town hall affair," said John Orgreave.

"What town hall?" his partner snapped.

"_The_ town hall," answered the imperturbable John. "George here has got an idea."

"I suppose you know Sir Hugh Corver, Bart., is to be the assessor," said Mr. Enwright in a devastating tone.

Sir Hugh Corver, formerly a mere knight, had received a baronetcy, to Mr. Enwright's deep disgust. Mr. Enwright had remarked that any decent-minded man who had been a husband and childless for twenty-four years would have regarded the supplementary honour as an insult, but that Sir Hugh was not decent-minded and, moreover, was not capable of knowing an insult when he got one. This theory of Mr. Enwright's, however, did not a bit lessen his disgust.

"Oh yes," John Orgreave admitted lamely.

"I for one am not going in for any more competitions with Corver as assessor," said Mr. Enwright. "I won't do it."

Faces fell. Mr. Enwright had previously published this resolve, but it had not been taken quite seriously. It was entirely serious. Neuralgia and a baronetcy had given it the consistency of steel.

"It isn't as if we hadn't got plenty of work in the office," said Mr.

Enwright.

This was true. The firm was exceedingly prosperous.

Nobody else spoke.

"What _can_ you expect from a fellow like Corver?" Mr. Enwright cried, with a special glance at George. "He's the upas-tree of decent architecture."

George's mood changed immediately. Profound discouragement succeeded to his creative stimulation. Mr. Enwright had reason on his side. What _could_ you expect from a fellow like Corver? With all the ardour of a disciple George dismissed the town hall scheme, and simultaneously his private woes surged up and took full possession of him. He walked silently out of the room, and Lucas followed. As a fact, Mr. Enwright ought not to have talked in such a way before the pupils. A question of general policy should first have been discussed in private between the partners, and the result then formally announced to the staff. Mr.

Enwright was not treating his partner with proper consideration. But Mr. Enwright, as every one said at intervals, was 'like that'; and his partner did not seem to care greatly.

Lucas shut the door between the principals' room and the pupils' room.

"I say," said Lucas importantly. "I've got a show on to-night. Women.

Cafe Royal. I want a fourth. You must come."

"Yes," sneered George. "And what about my exam., I should like to know.... Besides, I can't."

The Final was due to begin on Thursday.

"That's all right," Lucas answered, with tact. "That's all right. I'd thought of the exam., of course. You'll have to-morrow to recover. It'll do you all the good in the world. And you know you're more than ready for the thing. You don't want to be overtrained, my son. Besides, you'll sail through it. As for 'can't,' 'can't' be damned. You've got to."

A telegraph boy, after hesitating at the empty cubicle, came straight into the room.

"Name of Cannon?"

George nodded, trembling.

The telegram read:

"Impossible to-day.--MARGUERITE."

It was an incredible telegram, as much by what it said as by what it didn't say. It overthrew George.

"Seven forty-five, and I'll drive you round," said Lucas.

"Tis well," said George.

Immediately afterwards Mr. Enwright summoned Lucas.

IV

The two young men of fashion were silent that evening as they drove to the Cafe Royal in the car which Lucas loosely called 'my car,' but which was his mother's and only to be obtained by him upon his own conditions after delicate diplomacies. The chief of his conditions was that the chauffeur should not accompany the car. Lucas, having been engaged upon outdoor work for the firm, had not seen George throughout the day.

Further, he was late in calling for George, and therefore rather exacerbated in secret; and if George had not been ready and waiting for him at the club trouble might have arisen. George understood his host's mood and respected it. Lucas drove rapidly and fiercely, with appropriate frowns and settings of cruel teeth; his mien indeed had the arrogance of the performer who, having given only a fraction of his time to the acquirement of skill, reckons that he can beat the professional who has given the whole of his time. Lucas's glances at chauffeurs who hindered his swiftness were masterpieces of high disdain, and he would accelerate, after circumventing them, with positive ferocity.

George himself, an implacable critic, could not find fault with the technique of Lucas's driving. But exacerbation tells, even in the young, and at Piccadilly Circus, Lucas, in obeying a too suddenly uplifted hand of a policeman, stopped his engine. The situation, horribly humiliating for Lucas and also for George, provided pleasure for half the chauffeurs and drivers in Piccadilly Circus, and was the origin of much jocularity of a kind then fairly new. Lucas cursed the innocent engine, and George leapt down to wield the crank. But the engine, apparently resenting curses, refused to start again. No, it would not start. Lucas leapt down too. "Get out of the way," he muttered savagely to George, and scowled at the bonnet as if saying to the engine: "I'm not going to stand any of your infernal nonsense!" But still the engine refused to start.

The situation, humiliating before, was now appalling. Two entirely correct young gentlemen, in evening dress, with light overcoats and opera hats, struggling with a refractory car that in its obstinacy was far more dignified than themselves--and the car obstructing traffic at the very centre of the world in the very hour when the elect of Britain were driving by on the way to _Tristan_ at the Opera! Sebastians both, they were martyrized by the poisoned arrows of vulgar wit, shot at them from all sides and especially from the lofty thrones of hansom-cab drivers. The policeman ordered them to shove the car to the kerb, and with the aid of a boy and the policeman himself they did so, opposite the shuttered front of Swan & Edgar's.

The two experts then examined the engine in a professional manner; they did everything but take it down; they tried in vain all known devices to conquer the recalcitrancy of engines; and when they had reached despair and fury George, startlingly visited by an idea, demanded:

"Any petrol in the tank?..." In those days men of fashion were apt to forget, at moments of crisis, that the first necessity of the engine was petrol. George behaved magnanimously. He might have extinguished Lucas with a single inflection as Lucas, shamed to the uttermost, poured a spare half-tin of petrol into the tank. He refrained.

In one minute, in less than one minute, they were at the side entrance to the Cafe Royal, which less than a minute earlier had been inconceivably distant and unattainable. Lucas dashed first into the restaurant. To keep ladies waiting in a public place was for him the very worst crime, surpassing in turpitude arson, embezzlement, and the murder of innocents. The ladies must have been waiting for a quarter of an hour, half an hour! His reputation was destroyed!

However, the ladies had not arrived.

"That's all right," Lucas breathed, at ease at last. The terrible scowl had vanished from his face, which was perfectly recomposed into its urbane, bland charm.

"Now perhaps you'll inform me who they are, old man," George suggested, relinquishing his overcoat to a flunkey, and following Lucas into the cloister set apart for the cleansing of hands which have meddled with machinery.

"The Wheeler woman is one--didn't I tell you?" Lucas answered, unsuccessfully concealing his pride.

"Wheeler?"

"Irene Wheeler. You know."

George was really impressed. Lucas had hitherto said no word as to his acquaintance with this celebrated woman. It was true that recently Lucas had been spreading himself in various ways--he had even passed his Intermediate--but George had not anticipated such a height of achievement as the feat of entertaining at a restaurant a cynosure like Irene Wheeler. George had expected quite another sort of company at dinner, for he had publicly dined with Lucas before. All day he had been abstracted, listless, and utterly desolate. All day he had gone over again and again the details of the interview with Mr. Haim, his telegram to Marguerite and her unspeakable telegram to him, hugging close a terrific grievance. Only from pique against Marguerite had he accepted Lucas's invitation. The adventure in Piccadilly Circus had somewhat enlivened him, and now the fluttering prospect of acquaintance with the legendary Irene Wheeler pushed Marguerite into the background of his mind, and excitement became quite pleasant. "And a Miss Ingram," Lucas added.

"Not Lois Ingram?" exclaimed George, suddenly dragging the names of Ingram and Wheeler out of the same drawer of his memory.

"No. Laurencine. But she has a sister named Lois. What do _you_ know about her?" Lucas spoke challengingly, as if George had trespassed on preserves sacred to himself alone. He had not yet admitted that it was merely Mrs. John Orgreave who had put him in the way of Irene Wheeler.

George was surprised and shocked that it had never occurred to him to identify Lois Ingram's wealthy friend Miss Wheeler with the Irene Wheeler of society columns of newspapers. And Lois Ingram rose in his esteem, not because of the distinction of her friend, but because she had laid no boastful stress on the distinction of her friend.

"Don't you remember?" he said. "I told you once about a girl who jolly nearly got me into a motor accident all through her fancying herself as a chauffeur. That was Lois Ingram. Paris girl. Same lot, isn't it?"

"Oh! Was _that_ Lois?" Lucas murmured. "Well, I'm dashed!"

They returned in a hurry to the entrance-hall, fearful lest the ladies might have arrived. However, the ladies had not arrived. Lucas had the inexpressible satisfaction of finding in an illustrated weekly a full-page portrait of Miss Irene Wheeler.