“I do, Edwin. Only naturally I’m anxious. You’re a child. Where is this . . . this performance held?” “At the Queen’s Theatre this year.” “Well, I suppose that is better than a music hall.” His father’s prejudice against the music halls, or, as they were then beginning to be called, Theatres of Varieties, was an old story. Edwin could hardly resist the temptation of telling him that the performers in the pantomime were nearly all music-hall artistes, but Mr. Ingleby saved him, by asking him where he intended to sleep. “Oh, I expect W.G. will give me a shake-down in his digs.” “I suppose,” said Mr. Ingleby, with a shade of anxiety, “that Brown is also on the committee—”. The idea of the honest W.G. as a member of this constellation of bloods tickled Edwin. He now wished to goodness he’d never told his father of W.G.’s family differences and of his lucky double on the Lincoln and National. “Oh, no, old W.G.’s far too sober for this sort of thing.” It was an unfortunate word. “Sober?” repeated Mr. Ingleby. “Well, I suppose you will have to go; but I do hope—” He didn’t say what he hoped; but Edwin knew, and was content to leave it at that. III The great day came, and Edwin found, as some compensation for the scoffing of W.G. and the superciliousness of Martin and Maskew, that his position was really one of some importance. All the first-year men, even the immaculate Harrop, had decided to go to the theatre, and up to the last minute Edwin was busy selling tickets. He had asked W.G. to put him up, and W.G., as a matter of form, had consented. “I don’t suppose I shall see you after midnight, my son,” he said. With his usual thoroughness in everything that he attempted, W.G. had determined to make a night of it. “It will do me good to make a damned fool of myself for once in a way,” he said, “if it’s only for the sake of realising it afterwards . . .”