Edward Henry had failed to notice that he himself was thinking
better of himself because he had adopted first-class tailors.

Beneath the main door of his suite, as he went forth, he found a
business card of the West End Electric Brougham Supply Agency. And
downstairs, solely to impress his individuality on the hall-porter, he
showed the card to that vizier with the casual question:

"These people any good?"

"An excellent firm, sir."

"What do they charge?"

"By the week, sir?"

He hesitated. "Yes, by the week."

"Twenty guineas, sir."

"Well, you might telephone for one. Can you get it at once?"

"Certainly, sir."

The vizier turned towards the telephone in his lair.

"I say--" said Edward Henry.

"Sir?"

"I suppose one will be enough?"

"Well, sir, as a rule, yes," said the vizier, calmly. "Sometimes I get
a couple for one family, sir."

Though he had started jocularly, Edward Henry finished by blenching.
"I think one will do ... I may possibly send for my own car."

He drove to Quayther & Cuthering's in his electric brougham and there
dropped casually the name of Winkworth. He explained humorously his
singular misadventure of the _Minnetonka_, and was very successful
therewith--so successful, indeed, that he actually began to believe in
the reality of the adventure himself, and had an irrational impulse
to dispatch a wireless message to his bewildered valet on board the
_Minnetonka_.

Subsequently he paid other fruitful visits in the neighbourhood, and
at about half-past eleven the fruit was arriving at Wilkins's in
the shape of many parcels and boxes, comprising diverse items in
the equipment of a man-about-town, such as tie-clips and Innovation
trunks.

Returning late to Wilkins's for lunch he marched jauntily into the
large brilliant restaurant and commenced an adequate repast. Of course
he was still wearing his mediocre lounge-suit (his sole suit for
another two days), but somehow the consciousness that Quayther &
Cuthering were cutting out wondrous garments for him in Vigo
Street stiffened his shoulders and gave a mysterious style to that
lounge-suit.

At lunch he made one mistake and enjoyed one very remarkable piece of
luck.

The mistake was to order an artichoke. He did not know how to eat an
artichoke. He had never tried to eat an artichoke, and his first essay
in this difficult and complex craft was a sad fiasco. It would not
have mattered if, at the table next to his own, ther