"You should see the advance booking. There's a thousand pounds in the house to-night. Chown will be clearing fifteen hundred a week when he's paid off his production."
"I'm beginning to like this sizzling idiot," thought Mr. Prohack, as it were regretfully. They left the imperial richness of Mr. Chown's private room like brothers.
When Mr. Prohack touched the handle of the door of the box, he felt as though he were returning to civilisation; he felt less desolated by the immediate past and by the prospect of the immediate future; he was yearning for the society of mere women after his commerce with a star at three hundred and fifty pounds a week. True, he badly wanted to examine his soul and enquire into his philosophy of life, but he was prepared to postpone that inquest until the society of mere women had had a beneficial effect on him.
Charlie, who had been paying a state visit to his mother and sister was just leaving the box and the curtain was just going up.
"Hullo, dad!" said the youth, "you're the very man I was looking for," and he drew his father out into the corridor. "You've got two of the finest ballroom dancers I ever saw," he added to Ozzie.
"Haven't we!" Ozzie concurred, with faint enthusiasm.
"But the rest of the show ..." Charlie went on, ruthless. "Well, if Chown's shows were only equal to his showmanship...! Only they aren't!"
Ozzie raised his eyebrows--a skilful gesture that at once defended his employer and agreed with Charles.
"By the way, dad, I've got a house for you. I've told the mater about it and she's going to see it to-morrow morning."
"A house!" Mr. Prohack exclaimed weakly, foreseeing new vistas of worry. "I've got one. I can't live in two."
"But this one's a _house_. You know about it, don't you, Morfey?"
Ozzie discreetly entered the box and closed the door.
"It's this," Charlie replied, handing his parent a cheque. "I've deducted what I paid for you to-night from what you lent me not long since. I've calculated interest on the loan at ten per cent. You can get ten practically anywhere in these days, worse luck."
"But I don't want this, my boy," Mr. Prohack protested, holding the cheque as he might have held a lady's handkerchief retrieved from the ground.