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. Dinner, L1, 2s. 0d. Breakfast,
6s. 6d. Lunch, 18s. Half Chablis, 6s. 6d. Valet's board, 10s.
Tooth-brush, 2s. 6d."

"That's a bit thick, half-a-crown for that tooth-brush!" he said to
himself. "However--"

The next instant he blenched once more.

"Gosh!" he privately exclaimed as he read: "Paid driver of taxi-cab,
L2, 3s. 6d."

He had forgotten the taxi. But he admired the _sang-froid_ of
Wilkins's, which paid such trifles as a matter of course, without
deigning to disturb a guest by an inquiry. Wilkins's rose again in his
esteem.

The total of the bill exceeded thirteen pounds.

"All right," he said to the gentleman-in-waiting.

"Are you leaving to-day, sir?" the being permitted himself to ask.

"Of course I'm not leaving to-day! Haven't I hired an electric
brougham for a week?" Edward Henry burst out. "But I suppose I'm
entitled to know how much I'm spending!"

The gentleman-in-waiting humbly bowed and departed.

Alone in the splendid chamber Edward Henry drew out a swollen
pocket-book and examined its crisp, crinkly contents, which made a
beauteous and a reassuring sight.

"Pooh!" he muttered.

He reckoned he would be living at the rate of about fifteen pounds a
day, or five thousand five hundred a year. (He did not count the
cost of his purchases, because they were in the nature of a capital
expenditure.)

"Cheap!" he muttered. "For once I'm about living up to my income!"

The sensation was exquisite in its novelty.

He ordered tea, and afterwards, feeling sleepy, he went fast asleep.

He awoke to the ringing of the telephone-bell. It was quite dark. The
telephone-bell continued to ring.

"Joseph!" he called.

The valet entered.

"What time is it?"

"After ten o'clock, sir."

"The deuce it is