CHAPTER 7
Reeder spent the rest of the afternoon in the West End of London, calling upon a succession of theatrical agents. Some were very important personages who received him in walnut-panelled salons; a few were in dingy offices on third floors; one, and the most important of these, he interviewed in the bar of a public house in St Martin’s Lane—a fat and seedy man, with a fur collar and frayed cuffs, a half-stupid tippler with no business but many reminiscences; and, as he proudly claimed “the best collection of old theatrical programmes in London.”
Mr Reeder, who was a good listener and very patient, heard all about the agent’s former grandeur, the amount of commission out of which eminent artistes had swindled him, and at last he accompanied his bibulous companion to his lodgings o
