Nelson Cork was staring.
‘Well, if that isn’t the most remarkable coincidence I ever came across in my puff!’ he exclaimed, amazed. ‘I’m buying my new hat for exactly the same reason.’
A convulsive start shook Percy’s massive frame. His eyes bulged.
‘To fascinate Elizabeth Bottsworth?’ he cried, beginning to writhe.
‘No, no,’ said Nelson, soothingly. ‘Of course not. Elizabeth and I have always been great friends, but nothing more. What I meant was that I, like you, am counting on this forthcoming topper of mine to put me across with the girl I love.’
Percy stopped writhing.
‘Who is she?’ he asked, interested.
‘Diana Punter, the niece of my godmother, old Ma Punter. It’s an odd thing, I’ve known her all my life – brought up as kids together and so forth – but it’s only recently that passion has burgeoned. I now worship that girl, Percy, from the top of her head to the soles of her divine feet.’
Percy looked dubious.
‘That’s a pretty longish distance, isn’t it? Diana Punter is one of my closest friends, and a charming girl in every respect, but isn’t she a bit tall for you, old man?’
‘My dear chap, that’s just what I admire so much about her, her superb statuesqueness. More like a Greek goddess than anything I’ve struck for years. Besides, she isn’t any taller for me than you are for Elizabeth Bottsworth.’
‘True,’ admitted Percy.
‘And, anyway, I love her, blast it, and I don’t propose to argue the point. I love her, I love her, I love her, and we are lunching together the first day of Ascot.’
‘At Ascot?’
‘No. She isn’t keen on racing, so I shall have to give Ascot a miss.’
‘That’s Love,’ said Percy, awed.
‘The binge will take place at my godmother’s house in Berkeley Square, and it won’t be long after that, I feel, before you see an interesting announcement in the Morning Post.’
Percy extended his hand. Nelson grasped it warmly.
‘These new hats are pretty well bound to do the trick, I should say, wouldn’t you?’
‘Infallibly. Where girls are concerned, there is nothing that brings home the gravy like a well-fitting topper.’
‘Bodmin must extend himself as never before,’ said Percy.
‘He certainly must,’ said Nelson.
They entered the shop. And Bodmin, having measured them with his own hands, promised that two of his very finest efforts should be at their respective addresses in the course of the next few days.
Now, Percy Wimbolt isn’t a chap you would suspect of having nerves, but there is no doubt that in the interval which elapsed before Bodmin was scheduled to deliver he got pretty twittery. He kept having awful visions of some great disaster happening to his new hat: and, as things turned out, these visions came jolly near being fulfilled. It has made Percy feel that he is psychic.
What occurred was this. Owing to these jitters of his, he hadn’t been sleeping any too well, and on the morning before Ascot he was up as early as ten-thirty, and he went to his sitting-room window to see what sort of a day it was, and the sight he beheld from that window absolutely froze the blood in his veins.
For there below him, strutting up and down the pavement, were a uniformed little blighter whom he recognized as Bodmin’s errand-boy and an equally foul kid in mufti. And balanced on each child’s loathsome head was a top hat. Against the railings were leaning a couple of cardboard hat-boxes.
Now, considering that Percy had only just woken from a dream in which he had been standing outside the Guildhall in his new hat, receiving the Freedom of the City from the Lord Mayor, and the Lord Mayor had suddenly taken a terrific swipe at the hat with his mace, knocking it into hash, you might have supposed that he would have been hardened to anything. But he wasn’t. His reaction was terrific. There was a moment of sort of paralysis, during which he was telling himself that he had always suspected this beastly little boy of Bodmin’s of having a low and frivolous outlook and being temperamentally unfitted for his high office: and then he came alive with a jerk and let out probably the juiciest yell the neighbourhood had heard for years.
It stopped the striplings like a high-powered shell. One moment, they had been swanking up and down in a mincing and affected sort of way: the next, the second kid had legged it like a streak and Bodmin’s boy was shoving the hats back in the boxes and trying to do it quickly enough to enable him to be elsewhere when Percy should arrive.
And in this he was successful. By the time Percy had got to the front door and opened it, there was nothing to be seen but a hat-box standing on the steps. He took it up to his flat and removed the contents with a gingerly and reverent hand, holding his breath for fear the nap should have got rubbed the wrong way or a dent of any nature been made in the gleaming surface; but apparently all was well. Bodmin’s boy might sink to taking hats out of their boxes and fooling about with them, but at least he hadn’t gone to the last awful extreme of dropping them.
The lid was O.K. absolutely: and on the following morning Percy, having spent the interval polishing it with stout, assembled the boots, the spats, the trousers, the coat, the flowered waistcoat, the collar, the shirt, the quiet grey tie, and the good old gardenia, and set off in a taxi for the house where Elizabeth was staying. And presently he was ringing the bell and being told she would be down in a minute, and eventually down she came, looking perfectly marvellous.
‘What ho, what ho!’ said Percy.
‘Hullo, Percy,’ said Elizabeth.
Now, naturally, up to this moment Percy had been standing with bared head. At this point, he put the hat on. He wanted her to get the full effect suddenly in a good light. And very strategic, too. I mean to say, it would have been the act of a juggins to have waited till they were in the taxi, because in a taxi all toppers look much alike.
So Percy popped the hat on his head with a meaning glance and stood waiting for the uncontrollable round of applause.
And instead of clapping her little hands in girlish ecstasy and doing Spring dances round him, this young Bottsworth gave a sort of gurgling scream not unlike a coloratura soprano choking on a fish-bone.
Then she blinked and became calmer.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘The momentary weakness has passed. Tell me, Percy, when do you open?’
‘Open?’ said Percy, not having the remotest.
‘On the Halls. Aren’t you going to sing comic songs on the Music Halls?’
Percy’s perplexity deepened.
‘Me? No. How? Why? What do you mean?’
‘I thought that hat must be part of the make-up and that you were trying it on the dog. I couldn’t think of any other reason why you should wear one six sizes too small.’
Percy gasped. ‘You aren’t suggesting this hat doesn’t fit me?’
‘It doesn’t fit you by a mile.’
‘But it’s a Bodmin.’
‘Call it that if you like. I call it a public outrage.’
Percy was appalled. I mean, naturally. A nice thing for a chap to give his heart to a girl and then find her talking in this hideous, flippant way of sacred subjects.
Then it occurred to him that, living all the time in the country, she might not have learned to appreciate the holy significance of the name Bodmin.
‘Listen,’ he said gently. ‘Let me explain. This hat was made by Bodmin, the world-famous hatter of Vigo Street. He measured me in person and guaranteed a fit.’
‘And I nearly had one.’
‘And if Bodmin guarantees that a hat shall fit,’ proceeded Percy, trying to fight against a sickening sort of feeling that he had been all wrong about this girl, ‘it fits. I mean, saying a Bodmin hat doesn’t fit is like saying . . . well, I can’t think of anything awful enough.’
‘That hat’s awful enough. It’s like something out of a two-reel comedy. Pure Chas. Chaplin. I know a joke’s a joke, Percy, and I’m as fond of a laugh
as anyone, but there is such a thing as cruelty to animals. Imagine the feelings of the horses at Ascot when they see that hat.’
Poets and other literary blokes talk a lot about falling in love at first sight, but it’s equally possible to fall out of love just as quickly. One moment, this girl was the be-all and the end-all, as you might say, of Percy Wimbolt’s life. The next, she was just a regrettable young blister with whom he wished to hold no further communication. He could stand a good deal from the sex. Insults directed at himself left him unmoved. But he was not prepared to countenance destructive criticism of a Bodmin hat.
‘Possibly,’ he said, coldly, ‘you would prefer to go to this bally race-meeting alone?’
‘You bet I’m going alone. You don’t suppose I mean to be seen in broad daylight in the paddock at Ascot with a hat like that?’
Percy stepped back and bowed formally.
‘Drive on, driver,’ he said to the driver, and the driver drove on.
Now, you would say that that was rummy enough. A full-sized mystery in itself, you might call it. But wait. Mark the sequel. You haven’t heard anything yet.
We now turn to Nelson Cork. Shortly before one-thirty, Nelson had shoved over to Berkeley Square and had lunch with his godmother and Diana Punter, and Diana’s manner and deportment had been absolutely all that could have been desired. In fact, so chummy had she been over the cutlets and fruit salad that it seemed to Nelson that, if she was like this now, imagination boggled at the thought of how utterly all over him she would be when he sprang his new hat on her.
So when the meal was concluded and coffee had been drunk and old Lady Punter had gone up to her boudoir with a digestive tablet and a sex-novel, he thought it would be a sound move to invite her to come for a stroll along Bond Street. There was the chance, of course, that she would fall into his arms right in the middle of the pavement: but if that happened, he told himself, they could always get into a cab. So he mooted the saunter, and she checked up, and presently they started off.
And you will scarcely believe this, but they hadn’t gone more than half-way along Bruton Street when she suddenly stopped and looked at him in an odd manner.
‘I don’t want to be personal, Nelson,’ she said, ‘but really I do think you ought to take the trouble to get measured for your hats.’
If a gas main had exploded beneath Nelson’s feet, he could hardly have been more taken aback.
‘M-m-m-m . . .’ he gasped. He could scarcely believe that he had heard aright.
‘It’s the only way with a head like yours. I know it’s a temptation for a lazy man to go into a shop and take just whatever is offered him, but the result is so sloppy. That thing you’re wearing now looks like an extinguisher.’
Nelson was telling himself that he must be strong.
‘Are you endeavouring to intimate that this hat does not fit?’
‘Can’t you feel that it doesn’t fit?’
‘But it’s a Bodmin.’
‘I don’t know what you mean. It’s just an ordinary silk hat.’
‘Not at all. It’s a Bodmin.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘The point I am trying to drive home,’ said Nelson, stiffly, ‘is that this hat was constructed under the personal auspices of Jno. Bodmin of Vigo Street.’
‘Well, it’s too big.’
‘It is not too big.’
‘I say it is too big.’
‘And I say a Bodmin hat cannot be too big.’
‘Well, I’ve got eyes, and I say it is.’
Nelson controlled himself with an effort.
‘I would be the last person,’ he said, ‘to criticize your eyesight, but on the present occasion you will permit me to say that it has let you down with a considerable bump. Myopia is indicated. Allow me,’ said Nelson, hot under the collar, but still dignified, ‘to tell you something about Jno. Bodmin, as the name appears new to you. Jno. is the last of a long line of Bodmins, all of whom have made hats assiduously for the nobility and gentry all their lives. Hats are in Jno. Bodmin’s blood.’
‘I don’t . . .’
Nelson held up a restraining hand.
‘Over the door of his emporium in Vigo Street the passers-by may read a significant legend. It runs: “Bespoke Hatter To The Royal Family”. That means, in simple language adapted to the lay intelligence, that if the King wants a new topper he simply ankles round to Bodmin’s and says: “Good morning, Bodmin, we want a topper.” He does not ask if it will fit. He takes it for granted that it will fit. He has bespoken Jno. Bodmin, and he trusts him blindly. You don’t suppose His Gracious Majesty would bespeak a hatter whose hats did not fit. The whole essence of being a hatter is to make hats that fit, and it is to this end that Jno. Bodmin has strained every nerve for years. And that is why I say again – simply and without heat – This hat is a Bodmin.’
Diana was beginning to get a bit peeved. The blood of the Punters is hot, and very little is required to steam it up. She tapped Bruton Street with a testy foot.
‘You always were an obstinate, pig-headed little fiend, Nelson, even as a child. I tell you once more, for the last time, that that hat is too big. If it were not for the fact that I can see a pair of boots and part of a pair of trousers, I should not know that there was a human being under it. I don’t care how much you argue, I still think you ought to be ashamed of yourself for coming out in the thing. Even if you didn’t mind for your own sake, you might have considered the feelings of the pedestrians and traffic.’
Nelson quivered.
‘You do, do you?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Oh, you do?’
‘I said I did. Didn’t you hear me? No, I suppose you could hardly be expected to, with an enormous great hat coming down over your ears.’
‘You say this hat comes down over my ears?’
‘Right over your ears. It’s a mystery to me why you think it worth while to deny it.’
I fear that what follows does not show Nelson Cork in the role of a parfait gentil knight, but in extenuation of his behaviour I must remind you that he and Diana Punter had been brought up as children together, and a dispute between a couple who have shared the same nursery is always liable to degenerate into an exchange of personalities and innuendos. What starts as an academic discussion on hats turns only too swiftly into a raking-up of old sores and a grand parade of family skeletons.
It was so in this case. At the word ‘mystery,’ Nelson uttered a nasty laugh.
‘A mystery, eh? As much a mystery, I suppose, as why your uncle George suddenly left England in the year 1920 without stopping to pack up?’
Diana’s eyes flashed. Her foot struck the pavement another shrewd wallop.
‘Uncle George,’ she said haughtily, ‘went abroad for his health.’
‘You bet he did,’ retorted Nelson. ‘He knew what was good for him.’
‘Anyway, he wouldn’t have worn a hat like that.’
‘Where they would have put him if he hadn’t been off like a scalded kitten, he wouldn’t have worn a hat at all.’
A small groove was now beginning to appear in the paving-stone on which Diana Punter stood.
‘Well, Uncle George escaped one thing by going abroad, at any rate,’ she said. ‘He missed the big scandal about your aunt Clarissa in 1922.’
Nelson clenched his fists. ‘The jury gave Aunt Clarissa the benefit of the doubt,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Well, we all know what that means. It was accompanied, if you recollect, by some very strong remarks from the Bench.’
There was a pause.
‘I may be wrong,’ said Nelson, ‘but I should have thought it ill beseemed a girl whose brother Cyril was warned off the Turf in 1924 to haul up her slacks about other people’s Aunt Clarissas.’
‘Passing lightly over my brother Cyril in 1924,’ rejoined Diana, ‘what price your cousin Fred in 1927?’
They glared at one another in silence for a space, each real
izing with a pang that the supply of erring relatives had now given out. Diana was still pawing the paving-stone, and Nelson was wondering what on earth he could ever have seen in a girl who, in addition to talking subversive drivel about hats, was eight feet tall and ungainly, to boot.
‘While as for your brother-in-law’s niece’s sister-in-law Muriel . . .’ began Diana, suddenly brightening.
Nelson checked her with a gesture.
‘I prefer not to continue this discussion,’ he said, frigidly.
‘It is no pleasure to me,’ replied Diana, with equal coldness, ‘to have to listen to your vapid gibberings. That’s the worst of a man who wears his hat over his mouth – he will talk through it.’
‘I bid you a very hearty good afternoon, Miss Punter,’ said Nelson.
He strode off without a backward glance.
Now, one advantage of having a row with a girl in Bruton Street is that the Drones is only just round the corner, so that you can pop in and restore the old nervous system with the minimum of trouble. Nelson was round there in what practically amounted to a trice, and the first person he saw was Percy, hunched up over a double and splash.
‘Hullo,’ said Percy.
‘Hullo,’ said Nelson.
There was a silence, broken only by the sound of Nelson ordering a mixed vermouth. Percy continued to stare before him like a man who has drained the wine-cup of life to its lees, only to discover a dead mouse at the bottom.
‘Nelson,’ he said at length, ‘what are your views on the Modern Girl?’
‘I think she’s a mess.’
‘I thoroughly agree with you,’ said Percy. ‘Of course, Diana Punter is a rare exception, but, apart from Diana, I wouldn’t give you twopence for the modern girl. She lacks depth and reverence and has no sense of what is fitting. Hats, for example.’
‘Exactly. But what do you mean Diana Punter is an exception? She’s one of the ringleaders – the spearhead of the movement, if you like to put it that way. Think,’ said Nelson, sipping his vermouth, ‘of all the unpleasant qualities of the Modern Girl, add them up, double them, and what have you got? Diana Punter. Let me tell you what took place between me and this Punter only a few minutes ago.’