The Old Adam: A Story of Adventure

Within five minutes he was following Mr. Bryany into a small parlour on the first floor of the Turk's Head, a room with which he had no previous acquaintance, though, like most industrious men of affairs in metropolitan Hanbridge, he reckoned to know something about the Turk's Head. Mr. Bryany turned up the gas (the Turk's Head took pride in being a "hostelry," and, while it had accustomed itself to incandescent mantles on the ground floor, it had not yet conquered a natural distaste for electricity) and Edward Henry saw a smart despatch-box, a dress suit, a trouser-stretcher, and other necessaries of theatrical business life at large in the apartment.

"I've never seen this room before," said Edward Henry.

"Take your overcoat off and sit down, will you?" said Mr. Bryany as he turned to replenish the fire from a bucket. "It's my private sitting-room. Whenever I am on my travels, I always take a private sitting-room. It pays, you know. Of course I mean if I'm alone. When I'm looking after Mr. Sachs, of course we share a sitting-room."

Edward Henry agreed lightly:

"I suppose so."

But the fact was that he was much impressed. He himself had never taken a private sitting-room in any hotel. He had sometimes felt the desire, but he had not had the "face," as they say down there, to do it. To take a private sitting-room in a hotel was generally regarded in the Five Towns as the very summit of dashing expensiveness and futile luxury.

"I didn't know they had private sitting-rooms in this shanty," said Edward Henry.

Mr. Bryany, having finished with the fire, fronted him, shovel in hand, with a remarkable air of consummate wisdom, and replied:

"You can generally get what you want if you insist on having it, even in this 'shanty.'"

Edward Henry regretted his use of the word "shanty." Inhabitants of the Five Towns may allow themselves to twit the historic and excellent Turk's Head, but they do not extend the privilege to strangers. And in justice to the Turk's Head, it is to be clearly stated that it did no more to cow and discourage travellers than any other provincial hotel in England. It was a sound and serious English provincial hotel; and it linked century to century.

Said Mr. Bryany:

"'Merica's the place for hotels."

"Yes, I expect it is."

"Been to Chicago?"

"No, I haven't."

Mr. Bryany, as he removed his overcoat, could be seen politely forbearing to raise his eyebrows.

"Of course you've been to New York?"

Edward Henry would have given all he had in his pockets to be able to say that he had been to New York, but, by some inexplicable negligence, he had hitherto omitted to go to New York, and, being a truthful person, except in the gravest crises, he was obliged to answer miserably:

"No, I haven't."

Mr. Bryany gazed at him with amazement and compassion, apparently staggered by the discovery that there existed in England a man of the world who had contrived to struggle on for forty years without perfecting his education by a visit to New York.

Edward Henry could not tolerate Mr. Bryany's look. It was a look which he had never been able to tolerate on the features of anybody whatsoever. He reminded himself that his secret object in accompanying Mr. Bryany to the Turk's Head was to repay Mr. Bryany-in what coin he knew not yet-for the aspersions which at the music-hall he had cast upon England in general and upon the Five Towns in particular, and also to get revenge for having been tricked into believing, even for a moment, that there was really a case of hydrophobia at Bleakridge. It is true that Mr. Bryany was innocent of this deception, which had been accomplished by Robert Brindley, but that was a detail which did not trouble Edward Henry, who lumped his grievances together-for convenience.

He had been reflecting that some sentimental people, unused to the ways of paternal affection in the Five Towns, might consider him a rather callous father; he had been reflecting, again, that Nellie's suggestion of blood-poisoning might not be as entirely foolish as feminine suggestions in such circumstances too often are. But now he put these thoughts away, reassuring himself against hydrophobia anyhow, by the recollection of the definite statement of the Encyclopedia. Moreover, had he not inspected the wound-as healthy a wound as you could wish for?

And he said in a new tone, very curtly:

"Now, Mr. Bryany, what about this little affair of yours?"

He saw that Mr. Bryany accepted the implied rebuke with the deference properly shown by a man who needs something towards the man in possession of what he needs. And studying the fellow's countenance, he decided that, despite its brassiness and simple cunning, it was scarcely the countenance of a rascal.

"Well, it's like this," said Mr. Bryany, sitting down opposite Edward Henry at the centre table, and reaching with obsequious liveliness for the despatch-box.

He drew from the despatch-box, which was lettered "W.C.B.," first a cut-glass flask of whisky, with a patent stopper, and then a spacious box of cigarettes.

"I always travel with the right sort," he remarked, holding the golden liquid up to the light. "It's safer, and it saves any trouble with orders after closing-time. These English hotels, you know-!"

So saying, he dispensed whisky and cigarettes, there being a siphon and glasses, and three matches in a match-stand, on the table.

"Here's looking!" he said, with raised glass.

And Edward Henry responded, in conformity with the changeless ritual of the Five Towns:

"I looks!"

And they sipped.

Whereupon Mr. Bryany next drew from the despatch-box a piece of transparent paper.

"I want you to look at this plan of Piccadilly Circus and environs," said he.

Now there is a Piccadilly in Hanbridge; also a Pall Mall, and a Chancery Lane. The adjective "metropolitan," applied to Hanbridge is just.

"London?" questioned Edward Henry. "I understood London when we were chatting over there." With his elbow he indicated the music-hall, somewhere vaguely outside the room.

"London," said Mr. Bryany.

And Edward Henry thought:

"What on earth am I meddling with London for? What use should I be in London?"

"You see the plot marked in red?" Mr. Bryany proceeded. "Well, that's the site. There's an old chapel on it now."

"What do all these straight lines mean?" Edward Henry inquired, examining the plan. Lines radiated from the red plot in various directions.

"Those are the lines of vision," said Mr. Bryany. "They show just where an electric sign at the corner of the front of the proposed theatre could be seen from. You notice the site is not in the Circus itself-a shade to the north." Mr. Bryany's finger approached Edward Henry's on the plan and the clouds from their cigarettes fraternally mingled. "Now you see by those lines that the electric sign of the proposed theatre would be visible from nearly the whole of Piccadilly Circus, parts of Lower Regent Street, Coventry Street, and even Shaftesbury Avenue. You see what a site it is-absolutely unique."

Edward Henry asked coldly:

"Have you bought it?"

"No," Mr. Bryany seemed to apologise, "I haven't exactly bought it; but I've got an option on it."

The magic word "option" wakened the drowsy speculator in Edward Henry. And the mere act of looking at the plan endowed the plot of land with reality. There it was. It existed.

"An option to buy it?"

"You can't buy land in the West End of London," said Mr. Bryany sagely. "You can only lease it."

"Well, of course," Edward Henry concurred.