g to see if I really am as good as
my reputation. I have just got to be as good as my reputation!" He
looked up at the electric chandelier, almost with regret that it was
not gas. One cannot light one's cigarette by twisting a hundred-pound
bank-note and sticking it into an electric chandelier. Moreover, there
were some thousands of matches on the table. Still further, he had
done the cigarette-lighting trick once for all. A first-class card
must not repeat himself.

"This money," Edward Henry proceeded, "has to be paid to Slossons,
Lord Woldo's solicitors, to-morrow, Wednesday, rain or shine?" He
finished the phrase on a note of interrogation, and as nobody offered
any reply, he rapped on the table, and repeated, half-menacingly:
"Rain or shine!"

"Yes," said Rose Euclid, leaning timidly forward and taking a
cigarette from a gold case that lay on the table. All her movements
indicated an earnest desire to be thoroughly business-like.

"So that, Miss Euclid," Edward Henry continued impressively, but with
a wilful touch of incredulity, "you are in a position to pay your
share of this money to-morrow?"

"Certainly!" said Miss Euclid. And it was as if she had said,
aggrieved: "Can you doubt my honour?"

"To-morrow morning?"

"Ye-es."

"That is to say, to-morrow morning you will have L2250 in actual
cash--coin, notes--actually in your possession?"

Miss Euclid's disengaged hand was feeling out behind her again for
some surface upon which to express its emotion and hers.

"Well--" she stopped, flushing.

("These people are astounding," Edward Henry reflected, like a god.
"She's not got the money. I knew it!")

"It's like this, Mr. Machin," Marrier began.

"Excuse me, Mr. Marrier," Edward Henry turned on him, determined if he
could to eliminate the optimism from that beaming face. "Any friend
of Miss Euclid's is welcome here, but you've already talked about this
theatre as 'ours,' and I just want to know where you come in."

"Where I come in?" Marrier smiled, absolutely unperturbed. "Miss
Euclid has appointed me general manajah."

"At what salary, if it isn't a rude question?"

"Oh! We haven't settled details yet. You see the theatre isn't built
yet."

"True!" said Edward Henry. "I was forgetting! I was thinking for the
moment that the theatre was all ready and going to be opened to-morrow
night with 'The Orient Pearl.' Have you had much experience of
managing theatres, Mr. Marrier? I suppose you have."