“Machin!”

“Yes, sir?”

In a flash Denry knew what was coming.  He felt sickly that a crisis had supervened with the suddenness of a tidal wave.  And for one little second it seemed to him that to have danced with a countess while the flower of Bursley’s chivalry watched in envious wonder was not, after all, the key to the door of success throughout life.

Undoubtedly he had practised fraud in sending to himself an invitation to the ball.  Undoubtedly he had practised fraud in sending invitations to his tailor and his dancing-mistress.  On the day after the ball, beneath his great glory, he had trembled to meet Mr Duncalf’s eye, lest Mr Duncalf should ask him:  “Machin, what were you doing at the Town Hall last night, behaving as if you were the Shah of Persia, the Prince of Wales, and Henry Irving?” But Mr Duncalf had said nothing, and Mr Duncalf’s eye had said nothing, and Denry thought that the danger was past.

Now it surged up.  “Who invited you to the Mayor’s ball?” demanded Mr Duncalf like thunder.

Yes, there it was!  And a very difficult question.

“I did, sir,” he blundered out.  Transparent veracity.  He simply could not think of a lie.

“Why?”

“I thought you’d perhaps forgotten to put my name down on the list of invitations, sir.”

“Oh!” This grimly.  “And I suppose you thought I’d also forgotten to put down that tailor chap, Shillitoe?”

So it was all out!  Shillitoe must have been chattering.  Denry remembered that the classic established tailor of the town, Hatterton, whose trade Shillitoe was getting, was a particular friend of Mr Duncalf’s.  He saw the whole thing.

“Well?” persisted Mr Duncalf, after a judicious silence from Denry.

Denry, sheltered in the castle of his silence, was not to be tempted out.

“I suppose you rather fancy yourself dancing with your betters?” growled Mr Duncalf, menacingly.

“Yes,” said Denry.  “Do you?”

He had not meant to say it.  The question slipped out of his mouth.  He had recently formed the habit of retorting swiftly upon people who put queries to him:  “Yes, are you?” or “No, do you?” The trick of speech had been enormously effective with Shillitoe, for instance, and with the Countess.  He was in process of acquiring renown for it.  Certainly it was effective now.  Mr Duncalf’s dance with the Countess had come to an ignominious conclusion in the middle, Mr Duncalf preferring to dance on skirts rather than on the floor, and the fact was notorious.

“You can take a week’s notice,” said Mr Duncalf, pompously.

It was no argument.  But employers are so unscrupulous in an altercation.

“Oh, very well,” said Denry; and to himself he said:  “Something must turn up, now.”