"
But Edward Henry had failed to notice that he himself was thinking
better of himself because he had adopted first-class tailors.
Beneath the main door of his suite, as he went forth, he found a
business card of the West End Electric Brougham Supply Agency. And
downstairs, solely to impress his individuality on the hall-porter, he
showed the card to that vizier with the casual question:
"These people any good?"
"An excellent firm, sir."
"What do they charge?"
"By the week, sir?"
He hesitated. "Yes, by the week."
"Twenty guineas, sir."
"Well, you might telephone for one. Can you get it at once?"
"Certainly, sir."
The vizier turned towards the telephone in his lair.
"I say--" said Edward Henry.
"Sir?"
"I suppose one will be enough?"
"Well, sir, as a rule, yes," said the vizier, calmly. "Sometimes I get
a couple for one family, sir."
Though he had started jocularly, Edward Henry finished by blenching.
"I think one will do ... I may possibly send for my own car."
He drove to Quayther & Cuthering's in his electric brougham and there
dropped casually the name of Winkworth. He explained humorously his
singular misadventure of the _Minnetonka_, and was very successful
therewith--so successful, indeed, that he actually began to believe in
the reality of the adventure himself, and had an irrational impulse
to dispatch a wireless message to his bewildered valet on board the
_Minnetonka_.
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