Mrs. Lance, after she desisted from her efforts to impress upon her host the fact that she was quite accustomed to this sort of thing, was amusing enough. She addressed the waiter--an inarticulate Teuton--as "Johnny," and made a point of saying a few words to the manager when he passed their table. She smoked a cigarette after lunch, and was good enough to commend Hughie's taste in champagne--a brand which he had hazily recognised in the wine-list as being the sweetest and stickiest beverage ever distilled from gooseberries. (It was the sort of champagne which goes well with chocolate creams: "Chorus Girls' Entire," he remembered they used to call it.) At any rate it met with Mrs. Lance's undivided approval, and Hughie realised for the first time that a University education can after all be useful to one in after-life. Suddenly Mrs. Lance enquired:-- "Do you know any theatrical managers, my dear boy?" Yes, Hughie had come across one or two. "Why?" "Well," said Mrs. Lance expansively, "you've always treated me like flesh and blood, which is more than what some of your relations have done; so I'll tell you. After all, I've got me feelings, same as--" "What about the theatrical managers?" inquired Hughie tactfully. "Oh, yes. Do you think you could ask one of 'em to give me a shop? The chorus would do. I was in it before," said Mrs. Gaymer candidly. "Why do you want to go back there?" "I--I've got a fancy for it--that's all," replied Mrs. Gaymer in a thoroughly unconvincing tone. Hughie wondered if Lance and his wife were beginning to tire of one another. "I do know one or two men," he said, "who are interested in some of the musical-comedy syndicates. Shall I try them?" "Will you reelly? You'll be a duck if you do," said Mrs. Gaymer. After the deliverance of this unsolicited testimonial Hughie's guest observed that she must be getting home, and Hughie, having put her into a cab and paid the driver, retired to his club, clogged with viscous champagne and feeling excessively unwell, to wait until it should be time for him to follow her. To look at the double row of eligible residences which composed Talbot Street, Balham, you would hardly have suspected that any of them would support what the Inland Revenue Schedule calls a "male servant." And yet, when Hughie rang the bell of Number Nineteen, the door was opened by such an appanage of prosperity. He was an elderly gentleman with a rheumy but humorous eye, and a nose which suggested the earlier stages of elephantiasis. He wore a dress-coat of distinctly fashionable cut (which, needless to say, did not fit him) and the regulation white shirt and collar, the latter quite two sizes too small; but his boots and trousers apparently belonged to a totally different class of society. "Name of Marrable?" he enquired, smiling benevolently upon Hughie. "Yes." "Step in. We've been expectin' of you for 'alf-an-hour. Don't wipe your boots on that mat. It's worth one-and-eight."