He disappeared into his glass case.  George Bevan remained outside in the street surveying the frisking children with a sombre glance.  They seemed to him very noisy, very dirty and very young.  Disgustingly young.  Theirs was joyous, exuberant youth which made a fellow feel at least sixty.  Something was wrong with George today, for normally he was fond of children.  Indeed, normally he was fond of most things.  He was a good-natured and cheerful young man, who liked life and the great majority of those who lived it contemporaneously with himself.  He had no enemies and many friends.

But today he had noticed from the moment he had got out of bed that something was amiss with the world.  Either he was in the grip of some divine discontent due to the highly developed condition of his soul, or else he had a grouch.  One of the two.  Or it might have been the reaction from the emotions of the previous night.  On the morning after an opening your sensitive artist is always apt to feel as if he had been dried over a barrel.

Besides, last night there had been a supper party after the performance at the flat which the comedian of the troupe had rented in Jermyn Street, a forced, rowdy supper party where a number of tired people with over-strained nerves had seemed to feel it a duty to be artificially vivacious.  It had lasted till four o’clock when the morning papers with the notices arrived, and George had not got to bed till four-thirty.  These things colour the mental outlook.

Mac reappeared.

“Here you are, sir.”

“Thanks.”

George put the telegrams in his pocket.  A cat, on its way back from lunch, paused beside him in order to use his leg as a serviette.  George tickled it under the ear abstractedly.  He was always courteous to cats, but today he went through the movements perfunctorily and without enthusiasm.

The cat moved on.  Mac became conversational.

“They tell me the piece was a hit last night, sir.”

“It seemed to go very well.”

“My Missus saw it from the gallery, and all the first-nighters was speaking very ’ighly of it.  There’s a regular click, you know, sir, over here in London, that goes to all the first nights in the gallery.  ’Ighly critical they are always.  Specially if it’s an American piece like this one.  If they don’t like it, they precious soon let you know.  My missus ses they was all speakin’ very ’ighly of it.  My missus says she ain’t seen a livelier show for a long time, and she’s a great theatregoer.  My missus says they was all specially pleased with the music.”

“That’s good.”

“The Morning Leader give it a fine write-up.  How was the rest of the papers?”

“Splendid, all of them.  I haven’t seen the evening papers yet.  I came out to get them.”

Mac looked down the street.

“There’ll be a rehearsal this afternoon, I suppose, sir?  Here’s Miss Dore coming along.”