The affair of the artichoke was for ever wiped out.
After lunch he went forth again in his electric brougham. The weather
had cleared. The opulent streets were full of pride and sunshine.
And as he penetrated into one shop after another, receiving kowtows,
obeisances, curtsies, homage, surrender, resignation, submission, he
gradually comprehended that it takes all sorts to make a world, and
that those who are called to greatness must accept with dignity the
ceremonials inseparable from greatness. And the world had never seemed
to him so fine, nor any adventure so diverting and uplifting as this
adventure.
When he returned to his suite his private corridor was piled up with a
numerous and excessively attractive assortment of parcels. Joseph
took his overcoat and hat and a new umbrella and placed an easy-chair
conveniently for him in the drawing-room.
"Get my bill," he said shortly to Joseph as he sank into the gilded
fauteuil.
"Yes, sir."
One advantage of a valet, he discovered, is that you can order him
to do things which to do yourself would more than exhaust your moral
courage.
The black-calved gentleman-in-waiting brought the bill. It lay on a
salver and was folded, conceivably so as to break the shock of it to
the recipient.
Edward Henry took it.
"Wait a minute," he said.
He read on the bill: "Apartments, L8.
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