y understood that
what the people in the pit wanted to hear was the play and nothing but
the play."

"You're rather hard on us," said Mr. Alloyd.

"Not so hard as you are on _us_!" said Edward Henry. "And then
draughts! I suppose you think a draught on the back of the neck is
good for us!... But of course you'll say all this has nothing to do
with architecture!"

"Oh, no, I shan't! Oh, no, I shan't!" exclaimed Mr. Alloyd. "I quite
agree with you!"

"You _do_?"

"Certainly. You seem to be interested in theatres?"

"I am a bit."

"You come from the north?"

"No, I don't," said Edward Henry. Mr. Alloyd had no right to be aware
that he was not a Londoner.

"I beg your pardon."

"I come from the Midlands."

"Oh!... Have you seen the Russian Ballet?"

Edward Henry had not--nor heard of it. "Why?" he asked.

"Nothing," said Mr. Alloyd. "Only I saw it the night before last in
Paris. You never saw such dancing. It's enchanted--enchanted! The most
lovely thing I ever saw in my life. I couldn't sleep for it. Not that
I ever sleep very well!--I merely thought, as you were interested
in theatres--and Midland people are so enterprising!... Have a
cigarette?"

Edward Henry, who had begun to feel sympathetic, was somewhat repelled
by these odd last remarks. After all the man, though human enough, was
an utter stranger.

"No thanks," he said. "And so you're going to put up a church here?"

"Yes."

"Well, I wonder whether you are."

He walked abruptly away under Alloyd's riddling stare, and he could
almost hear the man saying, "Well, he's a queer lot, if you like."

At the corner of the site, below the spot where his electric sign was
to have been, he was stopped by a well-dressed middle-aged lady who
bore a bundle of papers.

"Will you buy a paper for the cause?" she suggested in a pleasant,
persuasive tone. "One penny."

He obeyed, and she handed him a small blue-printed periodical of
which the title was "_Azure_, the Organ of the New Thought Church." He
glanced at it, puzzled, and then at the middle-aged lady.

"Every penny of profit goes to the Church Building Fund," she said, as
if in defence of her action.

Edward Henry burst out laughing; but it was a nervous, half-hysterical
laugh that he laughed.

II

In Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, he descended from his brougham
in front of the offices of Messrs Slosson, Hodge, Budge, Slosson,
Maveringham, Slosson & Vulto--solicitors--known in t