Solly, who was wondering what he would say to his mother if she happened to be awake, was walking purposefully toward the gate when Humphrey Cobbler hailed him:

“Not so fast, Bridgetower; let us adjourn to your select masculine gathering at a dignified pace.”

“Oh, well, really I hadn’t quite realized that Cora was throwing a party tonight. Must have got my dates mixed. Probably it would be better if you came to me another time.”

“Nonsense. There is no time like the present. Procrastination is a vice I hate. Now, who’s coming with us? Tasset? Hey, Roger Tasset! You’re coming on to Bridgetower’s party aren’t you?”

“Oh yes, I remember now that I said I would,” said Roger, without enthusiasm.

“Who else? Mackilwraith? Ahoy, there, Mackilwraith; come along with us.”

“Isn’t it rather late?” said Hector.

“Not a bit of it. Barely midnight. Come on. We’re going to make the welkin ring at Bridgetower’s.”

“The what ring?” said Hector.

“The welkin. It’s a thing you make ring when you get drunk. Bridgetower has a lovely fresh welkin, just waiting to be rung. Come on!”

The half mile walk to Solly’s home was not enlivened by much conversation. Why, Solly wondered, had he asked this ill-assorted group? Tasset was a man he wanted to know better, for Tasset was plainly attractive to Griselda, and Solly told himself that he wanted to study his rival. Heine, he felt, would have done so. To cast himself in the role of Heine somehow lessened the ignominy of being a rejected lover; he might be nothing to Griselda, but in his Heine role he was certainly an interesting figure to that dim, invisible, but rapt audience which, since his childhood, had watched his every move. Tasset was the crass, successful soldier—the unworthy object upon whom the Adored One chose to squander her affection: he was the scorned, melancholy poet, capable of examining and distilling his emotions even while his heart was wrung.

That explained Tasset most satisfactorily. But why Mackilwraith? Hector plodded at his side in silence, setting down his feet so hard on the pavement that his jowls gave a little quiver at every step. Why, out of all the men in the cast, had he thought of asking this dullard? He raked his mind for a romantic or even for a reasonable explanation, but he could find none.

Cobbler he had asked because he liked him. Cobbler was a man so alive, and so apparently happy, that the air for two or three feet around him seemed charged with his delight in life. But the Cobbler who was so lively a companion by daylight, in the midst of a rehearsal, seemed a little too exuberant, a little too noisy, in the stillness of the night, when one was growing nearer to Mother with every step. He had not the air of a man who would be really considerate about making a noise on the stairs. And the drinks which he had accepted from the hospitable Mr Fielding had made him noisier than usual.

As though to bear out his fears, Cobbler began to dance along the pavement and sing:

“For God’s sake, don’t make such a row,” said Solly. “You’ll wake the whole neighbourhood.”

“I am full of holy joy and free booze,” said Cobbler. “I feel moved to sing. It is very wrong to resist an impulse to sing; to hold back a natural evacuation of joy is as injurious as to hold back any other natural issue. It makes a man spiritually costive, and plugs him up with hard, caked, thwarted merriment. This, in the course of time, poisons his whole system and is likely to turn him into that most detestable of beings, a Dry Wit. God grant that I may never be a Dry Wit. Let me ever be a Wet Wit! Let me pour forth what mirth I have until I am utterly empty—a Nit Wit.” He sang again:

“Please be quiet,” said Solly desperately. “We’re near my home now. My mother is unwell, and she will be asleep.” (Fat chance, he thought, inwardly.) “We’ll go right up to my room; I wouldn’t like to disturb her.”

“Sir, you are talking to a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists,” said Cobbler, with immense solemnity. “You can rely utterly upon my good behaviour. Floreat Diapason!”He began to tiptoe exaggeratedly on the pavement, and turned to whisper Ssh! at Hector, whose feet were making a good deal of noise.

Roger thought fleetingly of excusing himself. This was going to be a miserable affair. Bridgetower was afraid of his mother, and Cobbler was playing the fool. Why had he ever allowed himself to be mixed up with such a pack?

The Bridgetower house was in darkness and the front door was locked. Solly was suddenly angry. She knew that he was bringing friends home. This was intolerable. As he rattled his key in the lock Cobbler gave another conspiratorial Ssh! Why, Solly demanded of himself, does she expose me to this kind of thing? To be shushed entering my own home! Angry, he made a good deal of noise in the hall, and led the procession upstairs. At the first landing, as he had expected, was the ray of light from his mother’s door.

“Is that you lovey?”

“Yes, Mother. I’ve brought some friends home.”

“Oh, I did not think that you would, now that it’s so late.”

“It’s just a little after midnight, Mother.”

“You won’t be too late, will you lovey?”

“I can’t possibly tell, Mother. Did you leave some sandwiches?”

“When you didn’t come home by ten I told Violet to put them away.”

“I’ll find them. Good-night, Mother.”

“Good-night, lovey.”

Half an hour later they had eaten a good many sandwiches and drunk some of Solly’s rye, which for the occasion he had diluted with soda water instead of the lukewarm drizzle from the tap. Humphrey Cobbler had established himself as the leader of the conversation and was holding forth on music.

“If there is one gang of nincompoops that I despise more than another,” said he, champing on a chicken sandwich, “it is the gang which insists that you cannot reach any useful or interesting conclusion by discussing one art in terms of another. Now there is nothing I enjoy more than talking about music in terms of painting. It’s nonsense, of course, and at worst it’s dull nonsense. But if you get somebody who knows a lot about music and a lot about painting, it is just possible that he will have an intuition, or a stroke of superlative common sense which will put you on a good scent. If you ask me, we’re too solemn about the arts nowadays. Too solemn, and not half serious enough. And who’s at the root of most of the phoney solemnity? The critics. Leeches, every last one of them. Hateful parasites, feeding upon the blood of artists! Do I bore you?”

“You don’t bore me,” said Hector. “Not that I know anything about the arts. Though I have had some musical experience.” He smiled shyly. “I used to pump the organ in my father’s church.”

“Did you now?” said Cobbler. “Do you know, that’s the first really interesting thing I’ve heard you say. It humanizes you, somehow. Can you sing?”

“Very little. I’ve never had much of a chance.”

“You ought to try it. You’ve got quite a nice speaking voice. You ought to join the singers in the play. Now there’s music that you can get your teeth into. Purcell! What a genius! And lucky, too. Nobody has ever thought to blow him up into a God-like Genius, like poor old Bach, or a Misunderstood Genius, like poor old Mozart, or a Wicked and Immoral Genius, like poor old Wagner. Purcell is just a nice, simple Genius, rollicking happily through Eternity. The boobs and the gramophone salesmen and the music hucksters haven’t discovered him yet and please God they never will. Kids don’t peck and mess at little scraps of Purcell for examinations. Arthritic organists don’t torture Purcell in chapels and tin Bethels all over the country on Sundays, while the middle classes are pretending to be holy. Purcell is still left for people who really like music.”