“Oh, hullo, Corker. Lovely morning. Mr. Prosser in?”
Corker did not reply immediately. The sight of Algernon Aubrey seemed momentarily to have wiped speech from his lips. Perfectly trained valet though he was, he had started back on perceiving him, his arms raised in a rudimentary posture on self-defence.
“Yes, sir,” he replied at length. “Mr. Prosser is at home. But he is not up yet, sir. He was out late last night.”
Bingo nodded intelligently. Oofy’s practice of going out on the tiles and returning with the morning milk was familiar to him.
“Ah, well,” he said tolerantly. “Young blood, Corker, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s a poor heart that never rejoices.”
“So I have been informed, sir.”
“I’ll just pop in and pip-pip.”
“Very good, sir. Shall I take your luggage?”
“Eh? Oh, no, thanks. This is Mr. Prosser’s godson. I want them to meet. This’ll be the first time he’s seen him.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Rather make his day, what?”
“So I should be disposed to imagine, sir. If you will follow me, sir. Mr. Prosser is in the sitting-room.”
“In the sitting-room? I thought you said he was in bed.”
“No, sir. On his return home this morning, Mr. Prosser appears to have decided not to go to bed. You will find him in the fireplace.”
And so it proved. Oofy Prosser was lying with his head in the fender and his mouth open. He had on an opera hat and what would have been faultless evening dress if he had had a tie on instead of a blue ribbon of the sort which the delicately nurtured use to bind up their hair. In one hand he was clutching a pink balloon, and across his shirt front was written in lipstick the word “Whoops.” His whole aspect was so plainly that of a man whom it would be unwise to stir that Bingo, chewing a thoughtful lip, stood pondering on what was the best policy to pursue.
It was a glance at his watch that decided him. He saw that he had been running rather behind schedule, and that if he was to meet Mrs. Bingo at Paddington at twelve-five he would have to be starting at once.
“This, Corker,” he said to Corker, “has made things a bit complex, Corker. I’ve got to be at Paddington in ten minutes, and everything seems to point to the fact that Mr. Prosser, if roused abruptly, may wake up cross. Better, I think, to let him have his sleep out. So here is the procedure, as I see it. I will leave this baby on the floor beside him, so that they can get together in due course, and I will look in and collect it on my way back.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Now, Mr. Prosser’s first move, on waking and finding the place crawling with issue, will no doubt be to ring for you and ask what it’s all about. You will then say: ‘This is your godson, sir.’ You couldn’t manage ‘itsy-bitsy godson’, could you?”
“No, sir.”
“I was afraid not. Still, you’ve got the idea of the thing? Good. Fine. Right-ho.”
The train from Droitwich was rolling in just as Bingo came on to the platform, and a moment later he spotted Mrs. Bingo getting out. She was supporting her mother, who still seemed rocky on the pins, but on seeing him she detached herself from the old geezer, allowing her to navigate temporarily under her own steam, and flung herself into his arms.
“Bingo, darling!”
“Rosie, my pre-eminent old egg!”
“Well, it is nice being back with you again. I feel as if I had been away years. Where’s Algy?”
“I left rum at Oofy Prosser’s. His godfather, you know. I had a minute or two to spare on my way here, so I looked in on Oofy. He was all over the child and just wouldn’t let him go. So I arranged that I would call in for him on my way back.”
“I see. Then I had better meet you there after I’ve taken Mother to her flat. She’s not at all well.”
“No, I noticed she seemed to be looking a bit down among the wines and spirits,” said Bingo, casting a gratified glance at the old object, who was now propping herself up against a passing porter. “The sooner you get her off to the mud baths, the better. All right, then. See you at Oofy’s.”
“Where does he live?”
“Bloxham Mansions, Park Lane.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Oh, Bingo, darling, did you deposit that money for Algy?”
Bingo struck his forehead.
“Well, I’m dashed! In the excitement of meeting you, my dream of joy, I clean forgot. We’ll do it together after leaving Oofy.”
Brave words, of course, but as he hiked back to Bloxham Mansions there suddenly came on him for the first time an unnerving feeling of doubt as to whether he was justified in taking it for granted that Oofy would come across. At the moment when he had conceived the scheme of using Algernon Aubrey as a softening influence, he had felt that it was a cinch. It had taken only about five minutes of his godson’s society to bring the milk of human kindness sloshing out of Sir Aylmer Mauleverer in bucketfuls, and he had supposed that the same thing would happen with Oofy. But now there began to burgeon within him a chilling uncertainty, which became intensified with every step he took.
It had only just occurred to him that Algernon Aubrey was up against a much stiffer proposition than the child in “Tiny Fingers”. Sir Aylmer Mauleverer had been a healthy, outdoor man, the sort that springs from bed and makes a hearty breakfast. There had been no suggestion, as far as he could remember, of him having a morning head. Oofy on the other hand, it was only too abundantly evident, was going to have, when he awoke to face a new day, a morning head of the first water. Everything, he realized, turned on how that head would affect a godfather’s outlook.
It was with tense anxiety that he demanded hot news from Corker as the door opened.
“Any developments, Corker?”
“Well, yes and no, sir.”
“How do you mean, yes and no? Has Mr. Prosser rung?”
“No, sir.”
“Then he’s still asleep?”
“No, sir.”
“But you said he hadn’t rung.”
“No, sir. But a moment ago I heard him utter a cry.”
“A cry?”
“Yes, sir. A piercing cry, indicative of considerable distress of mind. It was in many respects similar to his ejaculation on the morning of January the first of the present year, on the occasion when he supposed—mistakenly—that he had seen a pink elephant.”
Bingo frowned.
“I don’t like that.”
“Nor did Mr. Prosser, sir.”
“I mean, I don’t like the way things seem to have been shaping. You’re a man of the world, Corker. You know as well as I do that godfathers don’t utter piercing cries on meeting their godsons, unless there is something seriously amiss. I think I’ll step along and take a dekko.”
He did so, and, entering the sitting-room and noting contents, halted with raised eyebrows.
Algernon Aubrey was seated on the floor, his attention riveted on the balloon which he appeared to be trying to swallow. Oofy Prosser was standing on the mantelpiece, gazing down with bulging eyes. Bingo is a pretty shrewd sort of chap, and it didn’t take him long to see that there was a sense of strain in the atmosphere. He thought the tactful thing to do was to pass it off as if one hadn’t noticed anything.
“Hullo, Oofy,” he said.
“Hullo, Bingo,” said Oofy.
“Nice morning,” said Bingo.
“Wonderful weather we’re having,” said Oofy.
They chatted for a while about the prospects for Hurst Park and the latest mid-European political developments, and then there was a pause. It was Oofy who eventually broke it.
“Tell me, Bingo,” he said, speaking with a rather overdone carelessness, “I wonder if by any chance you can see anything on the floor, just over there by the fireplace. I dare say it’s only my imagination, but it seems to me–”
“Do you mean the baby?”
Oofy gave a long sort of whistling g
asp.
“It is a baby? I mean, you can see it, too?”
“Oh, rather. With the naked eye,” said Bingo. “Pipsy-wipsy,” he added, lugging the child into the conversation so that it wouldn’t feel out of it. “Dada can see you.”
Oofy started.
“Did you say ‘dada’?”
” ‘Dada’ was the word.”
“Is this your baby?”
“That’s right.”
“The little blighter I gave that silver mug to?”
“None other.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Oh, just paying a social call.”
“Well,” said Oofy, in an aggrieved voice, starting to climb down, “if he had had the sense to explain that at the outset, I would have been spared a terrible experience. I came in a bit late last night and sank into a refreshing sleep on the floor, and I woke to find a frightful face glaring into mine. Naturally, I thought the strain had been too much and that I was seeing things.”
“Would you care to kiss your godson?”
Oofy shuddered strongly.
“Don’t say such things, even in fun,” he begged.
He reached the floor, and stood staring at Algernon Aubrey from a safe distance.
“And to think,” he murmured, “that I thought of getting married!”
“Marriage is all right,” argued Bingo.
“True,” Oofy conceded, “up to a certain point. But the risk! The fearful risk! You relax your vigilance for a second, you turn your head for a single instant, and bing! something like that happens.”
“Popsy-wopsy,” said Bingo.
“It’s no good saying ‘popsy-wopsy’—it’s appalling. Bingo,” said Oofy, speaking in a low, trembling voice, “do you realize that, but for your muscling in on that lunch of mine, this might have happened to me? Yes,” he went on, paling beneath his pimples, ‘I assure you. I was definitely planning to propose to that girl over the coffee and cigarettes. And you came along and saved ne,” He drew a deep breath. “Bingo, old chap, don’t I seem to recall hearing you ask me for a fiver or something?”
“A tenner.”
Oofy shook his head.
“It’s not enough,” he said. “Would you mind if I made it fifty?”
“Not a bit.”
“You’ve no objection?”
“None whatever, old man.”
“Good,” said Oofy.
“Fine,” said Bingo.
“Excuse me, sir,” said Corker, appearing in the doorway, “the hall porter has rung up to say that Mrs. Little is waiting for Mr. Little downstairs.”
“Tell her I’ll be there in two ticks, with bells on,” said Bingo.
Anselm Gets His Chance
THE Summer Sunday was drawing to a close. Twilight had fallen on the little garden of the Angler’s Rest, and the air was fragrant with the sweet scent of jasmine and tobacco plant. Stars were peeping out. Blackbirds sang drowsily in the shrubberies. Bats wheeled through the shadows, and a gentle breeze played fitfully among the hollyhocks. It was, in short, as a customer who had looked in for a gin and tonic rather happily put it, a nice evening.
Nevertheless, to Mr. Mulliner and the group assembled in the bar parlour of the inn there was a sense of something missing. It was due to the fact that Miss Postlethwaite, the efficient barmaid, was absent. Some forty minutes had elapsed before she arrived and took over from the pot-boy. When she did so, the quiet splendour of her costume and the devout manner in which she pulled the beer-handle told their own story.
“You’ve been to church,” said a penetrating Sherry and Angostura.
Miss Postlethwaite said Yes, she had, and it had been lovely.
“Beautiful in every sense of the word,” said Miss Postlethwaite, filling an order for a pint of bitter. “I do adore evening service in the summer. It sort of does something to you, what I mean. All that stilly hush and what not.”
“The vicar preached the sermon, I suppose?” said Mr. Mulliner.
“Yes,” said Miss Postlethwaite, adding that it had been extremely moving.
Mr. Mulliner took a thoughtful sip of his hot Scotch and lemon.
“The old old story,” he said, a touch of sadness in his voice. “I do not know if you gentlemen are aware of it, but in the rural districts of England vicars always preach the evening sermon during the summer months, and this causes a great deal of discontent to seethe among curates. It exasperates the young fellows, and one can understand their feelings. As Miss Postlethwaite rightly says, there is something about the atmosphere of evensong in a village church that induces a receptive frame of mind in a congregation, and a preacher, preaching under such conditions, can scarcely fail to grip and stir. The curates, withheld from so preaching, naturally feel that they are being ground beneath the heel of an iron monopoly and chiselled out of their big chance.”
A Whisky and Splash said he had never thought of that.
“In that respect,” said Mr. Mulliner, “you differ from my cousin Rupert’s younger son, Anselm. He thought of it a great deal. He was the curate of the parish of Rising Mattock in Hampshire, and when he was not dreaming fondly of Myrtle Jellaby, niece of Sir Leopold Jellaby, O.B.E., the local squire, you would generally find him chafing at his vicar’s high-handed selfishness in always hogging the evening sermon from late in. April till well on in September. He told me once that it made him feel like a caged skylark.”
“Why did he dream fondly of Myrtle Jellaby?” asked a Stout and Mild, who was not very quick at the uptake.
“Because he loved her. And she loved him. She had, indeed, consented to become his wife.”
“They were engaged?” said the Stout and Mild, beginning to get it.
“Secretly. Anselm did not dare to inform her uncle of the position of affairs, because all he had to marry on was his meagre stipend. He feared the wrath of that millionaire philatelist.”
“Millionaire what?” asked a Small Bass.
“Sir Leopold,” explained Mr. Mulliner, “collected stamps.”
The Small Bass said that he had always thought that a philatelist was a man who was kind to animals.
“No,” said Mr. Mulliner, “a stamp collector. Though many philatelists are, I believe, also kind to animals. Sir Leopold Jellaby had been devoted to this hobby for many years, ever since he had retired from business as a promoter of companies in the City of London. His collection was famous.”
“And Anselm didn’t like to tell him about Myrtle,” said the Stout and Mild.
“No. As I say, he lacked the courage. He pursued instead the cautious policy of lying low and hoping for the best. And one bright summer day the happy ending seemed to have arrived. Myrtle, calling at the vicarage at breakfast-time, found Anselm dancing round the table, in one hand a half-consumed piece of toast, in the other a letter, and learned from him that under the will of his late godfather, the recently deceased Mr. J. G. Been-stock, he had benefited by an unexpected legacy—to wit, the ‘ stout stamp album which now lay beside the marmalade dish.
The information caused the girl’s face to light up (continued Mr. Mulliner). A philatelist’s niece, she knew how valuable these tidings could be).
“What’s it worth?” she asked eagerly.
“It is insured, I understand, for no less a sum than five thousand pounds.”
“Golly!”
“Golly, indeed,” assented Anselm.
“Nice sugar!” said Myrtle.
“Exceedingly nice,” agreed Anselm.
“You must take care of it. Don’t leave it lying about. We don’t want somebody pinching it.”
A look of pain passed over Anselm’s spiritual face.
“You are not suggesting that the vicar would stoop to such an act?”
“I was thinking more,” said Myrtle, “of Joe Beamish.”
She was alluding to a member of her loved one’s little flock who had at one time been a fairly prosperous burglar. Seeing the light after about sixteen prison sentences, he
had given up his life-work and now raised vegetables and sang in the choir.
“Old Joe is supposed to have reformed and got away from it all, but, if you ask me, there’s a lot of life in the old dog yet. If he gets to hear that there’s a five-thousand-pound stamp collection lying around …”
“I think you wrong our worthy Joe, darling. However, I will take precautions. I shall place the album in a drawer in the desk in the vicar’s study. It is provided with a stout lock. But before doing so, I thought I might take it round and show it to your uncle. It is possible that he may feel disposed to make an offer for the collection.”
“That’s a thought,” agreed Myrtle. “Soak him good.”
“I will assuredly omit no effort to that end,” said Anselm.
And, kissing Myrtle fondly, he went about his parochial duties
It was towards evening that he called upon Sir Leopold, and the kindly old squire, learning the nature of his errand and realizing that he had not come to make a touch on behalf of the Church Organ Fund, lost the rather strained look which he had worn when his name was announced and greeted him warmly.
“Stamps?” he said. “Yes, I am always ready to add to my collection, provided that what I am offered is of value and the price reasonable. Had you any figure in mind for these of yours, my dear Mulliner?”
Anselm said that he had been thinking of something in the neighbourhood of five thousand pounds, and Sir Leopold shook from stem to stern like a cat that has received half a brick in the short ribs. All his life the suggestion that he should part with large sums of money had shocked him.
“Oh?” he said. Then, seeming to master himself with a strong effort. “Well, let me look at them.”
Ten minutes later, he had closed the volume and was eyeing Anselm compassionately.
“I am afraid you must be prepared for bad news, my boy,” he said.