Other details about
Brindley which Edward Henry deprecated were his necktie, which, for
Edward Henry's taste, was too flowing, his scorn of the Pianisto
(despite the man's tremendous interest in music) and his incipient
madness on the subject of books--a madness shared by Stirling.
Brindley and the doctor were for ever chattering about books--and
buying them.
So that, on the whole, Dr. Stirling's box was not a place where
Edward Henry felt entirely at home. Nevertheless, the two men, having
presented Mr. Bryany, did their best, each in his own way, to make him
feel at home.
"Take this chair, Machin," said Stirling, indicating a chair at the
front.
"Oh! I can't take the front chair!" Edward Henry protested.
"Of course you can, my dear Machin!" said Brindley, sharply. "The
front chair in a stage-box is the one proper seat in the house for
you. Do as your doctor prescribes."
And Edward Henry accordingly sat down at the front, with Mr. Bryany by
his side, and the other two sat behind. But Edward Henry was not quite
comfortable. He faintly resented that speech of Brindley's. And yet he
did feel that what Brindley had said was true, and he was indeed glad
to be in the front chair of a brilliant stage-box on the grand tier,
instead of being packed away in the nethermost twilight of the
Grand Circle. He wondered how Brindley and Stirling had managed to
distinguish his face among the confusion of faces in that distant
obscurity; he, Edward Henry, had failed to notice them, even in the
prominence of their box.
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