He was about to depart from this place. His capacity for
absorbing home-truths about himself was exhausted. He placed a
noiseless sovereign on the table, caught the waiter's eye,
registered renunciation, and departed soft-footed down the aisle.
The waiter, a man who had never been able to bring himself to
believe in miracles, revised the views of a life-time. He looked
at the sovereign, then at Jimmy, then at the sovereign again.
Then he took up the coin and bit it furtively.
A few minutes later, a hat-check boy, untipped for the first time
in his predatory career, was staring at Jimmy with equal
intensity, but with far different feelings. Speechless concern
was limned on his young face.
The commissionaire at the Piccadilly entrance of the restaurant
touched his hat ingratiatingly, with the smug confidence of a man
who is accustomed to getting sixpence a time for doing it.
"Taxi, Mr. Crocker?"
"A worm," said Jimmy.
"Beg pardon, sir?"
"Always drinking," explained Jimmy, "and making a pest of
himself."
He passed on. The commissionaire stared after him as intently as
the waiter and the hat-check boy. He had sometimes known Mr.
Crocker like this after supper, but never before during the
luncheon hour.
Jimmy made his way to his club in Northumberland Avenue. For
perhaps half an hour he sat in a condition of coma in the
smoking-room; then, his mind made up, he went to one of the
writing-tables.
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