"I suppose I do--now I come to think of it!" agreed Edward Henry, with
a most admirable quizzicalness; in spite of the fact that he had not
really meant to "go ahead with the affair," being in truth a little
doubtful of his capacity to handle it.
But Mr. Seven Sachs was, all unconsciously, forcing Edward Henry
to believe in his own capacities; and the two as it were suddenly
developed a more cordial friendliness. Each felt the quick lifting of
the plane of their relations, and was aware of a pleasurable emotion.
"I'm moving onwards--gently onwards," crooned Edward Henry to himself.
"What price Brindley and his half-crown now?" Londoners might call
him a provincial, and undoubtedly would call him a provincial; he
admitted, even, that he felt like a provincial in the streets of
London. And yet here he was, "doing Londoners in the eye all over the
place," and receiving the open homage of Mr. Seven Sachs, whose name
was the basis of a cosmopolitan legend.
And now he made the cardinal discovery, which marks an epoch in the
life of every man who arrives at it, that world-celebrated persons
are very like other persons. And he was happy and rather proud in this
discovery, and began to feel a certain vague desire to tell Mr.
Seven Sachs the history of his career--or at any rate the picturesque
portions of it. For he too was famous in his own sphere; and in the
drawing-room of Wilkins's one celebrity was hob-nobbing with another!
("Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr.
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