young fellow, who was already half supported by his friends. ‘Strip better than Ned, for sure. Bit soft, Ned.’ Other heads nodded at this, to Alan’s amusement.
The first speaker put out a hand. ‘Well, Not Ned, I’m Frank Gresham, and you’re like enough to Ned to deceive anyone. I’d have taken you for him on a fine day with the hounds running.’
Alan liked the look of the handsome young man before him, whom he took to be younger than he was—in contrast to himself; he looked more mature than his years.
‘I’d like to see Ned. Ned who?’
‘Ned Hatton. Not here yet, obviously. Always late, Ned. Look here, Dilhorne, is it? Meet us in the foyer in the first interval and you shall see him. And if this play is as dam’d boring as I expect it will be, we’ll make a night of it together.’
Most of them looked as though they had made more than a night of it already.
‘You got that shocking bad hat and coat in Australia, I suppose?’ said Gresham’s half-drunk companion, introduced as Bob Manners. ‘Better get Ned to introduce you to his tailor—won’t want his face walking around in that!’
‘Shame on you, Bob,’ said Gresham genially. ‘Fellow can’t help where he comes from.’
He put his arm through Alan’s—he had obviously been adopted as ‘one of theirs’ on the strength of his likeness to Ned—whoever he was. ‘Buy you a drink before the play, Dilhorne—girls’ll look better with a drop inside.’
Bells were already ringing to signal the start of the entertainment, but Gresham and his chums took no notice of them. The man at the bar knew him.
‘Yes, m’lord, what is it tonight?’
So Frank, who had walked him over, was a lord and Ned, who had still not arrived, was his friend. The foyer emptied a little, but Alan’s new friends continued to drink for some time before they decided that they were ready to see the play.
He made his way to his seat as quietly as he could, so as not to disturb the audience or the others in the box. Frank and his companions, who were a little way away from him, were not so considerate. They entered their box noisily and responded to the shushing of the audience by blowing kisses and, in Bob Manners’ case, by dripping the contents of a bottle of champagne on to the heads of the people below.
Alan, looking eagerly around the garish auditorium, expected them to be thrown out, but the other people in his box, half-amused, half-annoyed, knew the revellers.
‘It’s Gresham’s set again,’ said one stout burgher wisely to his equally plump wife.
‘Disgusting,’ she returned. ‘They should be thrown out, or not allowed in.’
‘Manager can’t throw Gresham out—too grand.’
The spectacle on the stage amused Alan, although it did not engage him. Half his mind was on his recent encounter, and when the curtain fell at the first interval he was down the stairs in a flash to see Ned, who wore his face.
Gresham’s friends, who had quietened a little after their entrance, had further annoyed the audience by leaving noisily before the first act ended, and were already busy drinking when Alan arrived in the bar. He was loudly greeted, and he guessed, correctly, that his new acquaintances were bored and needed the diversion which he was providing.
Well, that did not trouble him—who knew how this odd adventure might end?
‘It’s “Not Ned”, the Australian,’ proclaimed Gresham. ‘Here, Ned, here’s your look-alike.’ And he tapped on the shoulder the tall man standing beside him.
Ned Hatton turned to confront himself. And it was a dam’d disturbing experience, he reported afterwards. All he said at the time was, ‘Jupiter! You’ve stolen my face.’
Alan was amused as well as startled by seeing his own face without benefit of his shaving mirror.
‘As well say you’ve stolen mine.’
‘Not quite your voice, though,’ offered Manners. ‘Nor your clothes. But, dammit, you’re even the same height.’
‘I’m Alan Dilhorne, from Sydney, New South Wales,’ said Alan, putting out a large hand to Ned for it to be grasped by one very like his own. Yes, Manners had been right: Ned was softer.
Fascinated, Ned shook the offered hand. ‘Well, Alan Dilhorne, what you most need is a good tailor.’
‘And a good barber,’ commented Gresham critically. ‘Although nothing could improve the colour—as shocking as yours, Ned.’
General laughter followed this. Alan’s amusement at their obsession with his clothes and appearance grew.
The bells rang for the start of the next act. None of his new friends took the slightest notice of them. Alan debated with himself. Should he go back, alone, to his box? Or stay with this chance-met pack of gentlemen and aristocrats whom in normal circumstances he would never have met at all?
Fascination at meeting his exact double kept him with them. Almost exact was more accurate, for Manners was right: Ned was certainly not in good shape, would not strip well, and was, in all respects, a softer, smoother version of himself.
‘Well, my boys, let’s be off,’ said Gresham. ‘A dam’d dull play, and a dam’d unaccommodating audience. Give it a miss, Dilhorne, and come with us. Let’s find out if you can hold your drink better than Ned. Looking at you, I’d bet on it.’ He clapped the protesting Ned on the shoulder. ‘Come now, Ned, you know you’ve less head for it than Manners here, and that’s saying something!’
He removed the stovepipe hat which Ned had just put on and tossed it into the street. ‘Last one to leave pays for the rest. First one buys Dilhorne a drink.’ And the whole company streamed convivially out of the theatre, bound for another night on the town.
A couple of hours later Alan found that he could hold his liquor better than any of them, including Ned, which was not surprising, because although he appeared to keep up with them he took care, by a number of stratagems taught him by his father, not to drink very much.
They had been in and out of several dives, had argued whether to go on to the Coal Hole or not, and at the last moment had become engaged in a general brawl with some sturdy bruisers guarding a gaming hell just off the Haymarket. Ned expressed a wish to go to Rosie’s. Gresham argued that Rosie’s was dull these days. Alan intervened to prevent another brawl, this time between the two factions into which the group had divided.
His suggestion that they should split up and meet again another night met with drunken agreement. He announced his own intention to stay with Ned.
‘Mustn’t lose my face,’ he announced, and accordingly the larger group, under Gresham, reeled erratically down the road, to end up God knows where. Ned and another friend, whose name Alan never discovered because he never met him again, made for Rosie’s, which had the further attraction for Ned of being near to where they were, thus doing away with the need for a lengthy walk or a cab.
Rosie’s turned out to be a gaming hell-cum-brothel similar to many in Sydney, though larger and better appointed. Hells like Rosie’s were sometimes known as silver hells, to distinguish
