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Page 3
'Very good, Shawn,' said Shawn's master, coming forward in his
shirt-sleeves as the last echoes of a mighty chord expired under the
dome. He meditatively stroked his graying beard while the pianist
returned to the tea-tray.
'And, Shawn--'
'Yes, sir?'
'I want a hat.'
'A hat, sir?'
'A lady's hat.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Run down into Department 42, there's a good fellow, and see if you can
find me a lady's hat of dark-blue straw, wide brim, trimmed chiefly with
a garland of pinkish rosebuds.'
'A lady's hat of dark-blue straw, wide brim, trimmed chiefly with
pinkish rosebuds, sir?'
'Precisely. Here, you're forgetting the token.'
He detached a gold medallion from his watch-chain, and handed it to
Shawn, who departed with it and with the tea-tray.
Two minutes later, having climbed the staircase between the inner and
outer domes, he stood, fully clad in a light-gray suit, on the highest
platform of the immense building, whose occidental fa�ade is the glory
of Sloane Street and one of the marvels of the metropolis. Far above him
a gigantic flag spread its dazzling folds to the sun and the breeze. On
the white ground of the flag, in purple letters seven feet high, was
traced the single word, 'HUGO.'
From his eyrie he could see half the West End of London. Sloane Street
stretched north and south like a ruled line, and along that line two
hurrying processions of black dots approached each other, and met and
vanished below him; they constituted the first division of his army of
three thousand five hundred employ�s.
He leaned over the balustrade, and sniffed the pure air with exultant,
eager nostrils. He was forty-six. He did not feel forty-six, however. In
common with every man of forty-six, and especially every bachelor of
forty-six, he regarded forty-six as a mere meaningless number, as a
futile and even misleading symbol of chronology. He felt that Time had
made a mistake--that he was not really in the fifth decade, and that his
true, practical working age was about thirty.
Moreover, he was in love, for the first time in his life. Like all men
and all women, he had throughout the whole of his adult existence been
ever secretly preoccupied with thoughts, hopes, aspirations, desires,
concerning the other sex, but the fundamental inexperience of his heart
was such that he imagined he was going to be happy because he had fallen
in love.
'I'm glad I sent for that hat,' he said, smiling absently at the Great
Wheel over a mile and a half of roofs.
The key to his character and his career lay in the fact that he
invariably found sufficient courage to respond to his instincts, and
that his instincts were romantic. They had led him in various ways,
sometimes to grandiose and legitimate triumphs, sometimes to hidden
shames which it is merciful to ignore. In the main, they had served him
well. It was in obedience to an instinct that he had capped the nine
stories of the Hugo building with a dome and had made his bed under the
dome. It was in obedience to another instinct that he had sent for the
hat.
'Very pretty, isn't it?' he observed to Shawn, when Simon handed him the
insubstantial and gay object and restored the gold token. They were at a
window in the circular room; the couch had magically melted away.
'I admire it, sir,' said Shawn, and withdrew.
'Dolt!' he cried out upon Shawn in his heart. '_You_ didn't see her at
work on it. As if _you_ could appreciate her exquisite taste and the
amazing skill of her blanched fingers! I alone can appreciate these
things!'
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