The door closed. Mr Steptoe resumed.
"Listen.,'
"Lemme tell you something," prompted Joss.
"Lemme tell you something," said Mr Steptoe. "The moment l've got Duff's dough in my jeans this joint has seen the last of me. I'm going back to Hollywood; that's what I'm going to do; and if you've a morsel of sense you'll come with me. What you want wasting your time in this darned place beats me. Nobody but stiffs for miles around. And look what happens today. You give this lawn party, and what do you get? Cloudbursts and thunderstorms.
Where's the sense in sticking around in a climate like this? If you like being rained on come to Hollywood and stand under the shower bath."
"That's telling her," said Joss, awed. "That's talking."
Mrs Steptoe, who had resumed her seat, was leaning forward with her chin in her hands, thinking. Like Joss, she had been profoundly stirred by this silver-tongued orator. Not if he had sat up at night for weeks, pruning and polishing and searching for the convincing argument, could Howard Steptoe have struck the right note more surely. He had put in a nutshell her very inmost thoughts.
"Listen," proceeded Mr Steptoe, his voice now gentle and winning. "Just throw your mind back to Hollywood, honey. Think of that old sun. Think of that old surf at Malibu."
"That old Catalina," suggested Joss.
"That old Catalina," said Mr Steptoe. "Say, you been to Hollywood?"
"Yes, I was there three years ago."
"Some place!'',
"Considerable."
"You were a sap to come away."
''I'm glad I did."
"You're crazy."
"No. You see, Steptoe," said Joss, ''love has found me. Which it wouldn't have done in that old Hollywood. Apropos of which, do you happen by any chance to know where Miss Fairmile is?"
"Said she was going out in the garden."
"Then I will be leaving you," said Joss. "Keep working," he added in an encouraging whisper. "I think she's weakening.
For some moments after the door had closed Mrs Steptoe maintained her pensive reserve. Mr Steptoe watched her anxiously.
Presently she looked up.
"You know something, Howard?"
"Yes, honey?"
"I believe you're about right."
"You'll come?"
"I guess so."
"'At-a-girl!" said Mr Steptoe. " 'At-a-baby! 'At's the way to talk. 'At's the stuff I like to hear."
He clasped her to his bosom and showered burning kisses on her upturned face. Not even Joss, who was good at this, could have done it better.
Chapter XX
Sally's walk in the garden had taken her to the wall of the moat, and when Joss found her she was leaning on it dejectedly, feeling out of tune with the lovely English twilight. Weeping skies would have been more in keeping with her mood. The weather is always in the wrong. This afternoon Mrs Steptoe had blamed it for being wet. This evening Sally was reproaching it with being so fine.
The sound of Joss's footsteps made her turn, and at the sight of him she felt a faint :flicker of hope. Her acquaintance with him, short though it had been, had given her considerable confidence in his ability to solve difficult problems.
"Well?"
He halted beside her.
"So here you are at my favourite spot. This is like old times.
Remember?"
"I remember."
"You look more like a wood nymph than ever. It just shows."
"What?"
"I was thinking how utterly mistaken a man can be on matters outside his own business. J. B. Duff, for instance. He thinks you're a shrimp. One of these days, if the funds will run to it, I shall buy a pint of shrimps and show them to him. It seems the only way of convincing him. He repeated the monstrous statement this evening."
Sally started.
"You haven't seen him again?"
It came to Joss with a shock that this girl knew nothing of the tidal waves and earthquakes which had been giving his former employer the run-around and rocking Claines Hall to its foundations and would have to be informed of what had occurred from the beginning. He paused, appalled at the immensity of the task.
It was like finding someone who had never heard of the Great War.
"Oh gosh!" he said.
Sally's worst forebodings were confirmed.
Bad news?
. 'Yes."
"Well, go on."
It was not a pleasant tale to have to tell, but he told it courageously, omitting nothing. When he had finished he heard her teeth come together with a little click. There was a silence before she spoke.
"Then that's that?"
''I'm afraid so."
"You think Mrs Steptoe is going back to Hollywood?"
"It looks like it."
"That means I shall have to go too."
"Yes. I never thought of that at the time. I abetted and encouraged Steptoe in his insane scheme. I ought to be kicked."
"Are you sure Mr Duff won't give you back your job?"
"Quite sure. He was peevish all through our sojourn in the cellar. He seemed to blame me for what had occurred."
Sally was silent again.
"Can't we get married and chance it?"
"On a capital of fifteen pounds and no job?"
"You'll get a job."
"Of course I shall," cried Joss. It was unlike him to remain despondent even for so long as this. His resilient nature reacted to her words like a horse that feels the spur. Nobody who had had the privilege of his acquaintance had ever mistaken him for anything but an optimist.
"There are lots of jobs."
"Millions of them, all over the place, just waiting to be got.
I see now," said Joss, "where we have made our mistake. We have been looking on this Weatherby purely as an artist, forgetting how versatile he is. With you behind me I don't see- that there's anything I can't do. So everything's all right. I'm glad that's settled."
"What were you thinking of doing?"
"I can't tell you that till I have glanced through the Classified Telephone Directory."
"The only thing I can remember in the Classified Telephone Directory is Zinc Spelters."
"That may be what I shall decide on. Pots of money in it, I expect. Can't you see us in our little home-you shaking up the cocktails, me lying back in the armchair with my tongue out? 'You look tired tonight, darling.' 'I am a little. This new consignment of zinc seems to take quite a bit of spelting. Not like the last lot.' "
"Oh, Joss!"
"Hullo."
"I suppose you. know I'm just going to commit suicide in the moat. I'm utterly miserable."
"Me, too, if you probe beneath the debonair exterior. I'm feeling like hell. I hope I haven't seemed too bright. When the bottom's dropped out of the world I never know whether to try to keep up a shallow pretence that everything's grand or to let myself go and break down. But, honestly, why shouldn't I get something?
I'm young and strong and willing for anything. Also-a point I was nearly forgetting-two can live as cheap as one."
"And money doesn't bring happiness."
"True. But, on the other hand, happiness doesn't bring money, You've got to think of that too."
I suppose so.
"Still, good lord, when you look at some of the people who have got the stuff in sackfuls you feel it must be pie to become rich.
Take J. B. Duff. There's a case. Wears bank notes next the skin winter and summer and yet, apart from a certain rude skill in the selling of ham, probably instinctive, as complete a fathead as ever drank bicarbonate of soda."
"Hey!"
The voice that spoke proceeded from a shadowy figure which had approached them unperceived. The visibility was now far from good, but the monosyllabic exclamation with which it had announced its presence rendered identification simple.
"Ah, J. B.," said Joss genially. "Torn yourself away from the little woman?"
Mr Duff came to a halt, wheezing. His manner was not cordial.
br />
"What was that you were saying about me?''
"I was telling Miss Fairmile here how rich you were."
"You said I was a fathead."
"And whom have you to blame for that, J. B.?'' said Joss sternly.
"Only yourself. Would anyone but a fathead have let a man like me go? If you would give me back my old job-"
Mr Duff sighed heavily.
"It's worse than that. She says—"
"Who says?"
"Beatrice Chavender. We've just been chewing the fat, and she says I've got to make you head of the art department."
"Eek!" cried Sally, squeaking like a mouse surprised while eating cheese.
·
"Don't do that!" said Mr Duff, quivering. "I'm nervous."
Joss, who had staggered so that he had been obliged to restore his balance by placing a hand on the wall, now laid this hand on the other's shoulder. His manner was urgent.
"You wouldn't fool me, J. B.? This is true?"
"That's what She says," said Mr Duff lugubriously. "I told you how it would be. Bossed. Right from the start."
"Head of the art department?"
"So she says." •
Joss drew a deep breath.
"Did you hear that, Sally?"
"I heard, Joss."
"Head of the art department. A position that carries with it a salary beyond the dreams of avarice."
"No, it doesn't," said Mr Duff hastily.
''Well, we can discuss that later. Meanwhile," said Joss heartily, "let me be the first to congratulate you. J. B., on this rare bit of good fortune that has befallen you. You are getting a splendid man, one who will give selfless service to the dear old firm, who will think on his feet when its interests are at stake and strain every fibre of his being to promote those interests. I shouldn't be surprised if this did not prove to be a turning point in the fortunes of Duff and Trotter."
"She says I've got to have you paint my portrait."
"Better and better."
"And give that butler a wad of money to make him keep his mouth shut."
"Of course. We mustn't have him spreading the story of your shame all over the place. 'Tycoon in Coal Cellar'...'Duff Dumped in Dust'...That wouldn't do. Stop his mouth, J. B. It will be money well spent. Gosh!" said Joss, "you've been doing yourself proud tonight, have you not? Thanks to you, my wedding bells will ring out. Thanks to you, Chibnall will now be able to buy that pub of his and team up with the Pym. Talk about spreading sweetness and light!"
"Ur," said Mr Duff, not with much enthusiasm.
"It's sensational. Do you know what you remind me of, J. B.?One of those fat cherubs in those seventeenth-century pictures in the Louvre· who hover above the happy lovers and pour down abundance on them. Take your clothes off, fit you out with a pair of wings and a cornucopia, and nobody could tell the difference."
Another long sigh escaped Mr Duff.
"Fresher and fresher and fresher," he said sadly. "Well, I got to be getting back to Her. She's waiting to walk to the inn with me."
He turned and was lost in the gathering dusk.
"Sally!" said Joss.
"Joss!" said Sally.
"My darling!" said Joss. "My angel! My own precious little blue-eyed rabbit!"
"Eh?" said Mr Duff, reappearing.
"I wasn't talking to you," said Joss.
"Oh," said Mr Duff and withdrew once more.
A rich contralto voice hailed him as he approached the front door.
"Is that you, Jimmy?"
"It's me."
"Did you see Weatherby?"
"I saw him."
"Then let's go," said Mrs Chavender, chirruping to her Pekinese.
"It's a lovely evening for a walk."
This was indisputably true, but to Mr Duff, as to Sally earlier, the fact brought no balm. As they made their way along the path that skirted the lawn there rose from the wet earth like incense the fragrance of the sweet flowers of the night. All wasted on J, B. Duff. His heart continued heavy.
Mrs Chavender, on the other hand, whose heart was light, sniffed appreciatively.
"Ah!"
"Eh?"
"Um!"
"Oh," said Mr Duff, getting her meaning.
"Stocks," said Mrs Chavender. "You can't beat the scent of stocks."
"Swell smell," agreed Mr Duff.
Mrs Chavender seemed pleased by this poetic eulogy.
"You know, you've become a lot more spiritual since I first knew you, Jimmy. There's a sort of lyrical note in your conversation which used not to be there. About now, in the old days, if I had mentioned the scent of stocks you would have been comparing it to its disadvantage with the smell of Paramount Ham in the early boiling stage."
"Ah," said Mr Duff, sighing for the old days.
· They walked on in silence for a moment.
"I want to talk to you about that, Jimmy."
"Ah?"
"Yes," said Mrs Chavender, putting her arm through his. "I've been thinking quite a bit lately. Looking back, I can see that I must have been an awful disappointment to you in those days. I was a fool of a girl and didn't know enough to be interested in higher things. Like ham. Do you remember me saying, 'You and your darned old hams!' and throwing the ring at you?"
"Ah!" said Mr Duff wistfully. He was oppressed by a dull feeling that breaks like that do not happen twice in a man's life.
''I've got sense now. You'll find me a wife that takes an interest in her husband's business. Yessir!"
For an instant Mr Duff's gloom lifted a little. Then the fog came down again. It was that operative word "husband" that was like a knell.
"Jimmy," said Mrs Chavender, an earnest note coming into her voice, "let's talk about that portrait. Did you take a real good look at it?"
''Ah."
"Anything strike you about it?"
How do you mean?
"Listen, Jimmy," said Mrs Chavender, "I was giving it the onceover before I came out, and an idea hit me like a bullet. I believe I've got something. Here's what I thought. It seems to me people must be getting tired of seeing nothing but pretty girls in the advertisements of Paramount Ham. Isn't it about time you gave them something different? You may think I'm crazy, but I can see that portrait as a poster."
Mr Duff had halted and was swaying gently, as if he had been l?oleaxed and could not make up his mind which way to fall. Her words seemed to come to him from far away.
"I don't know if you get what I mean. Here's what I was thinking. Maybe it was just a passing expression that Weatherby happened to catch, but in that portrait he's given me a sort of impatient, imperious look, as if I was mad about something and didn't intend to stand for it. And what I thought was that if you took the portrait just as it is and put underneath some gag like—well, for instance: 'Take this stuff away. I ordered Paramount!'
you'd have a poster that got a new angle. Any good?" said Mrs Chuvemlcr diffidently.
Nothing could ever make Mr Duff's face really beautiful, but at these words it went some of the way. A sudden glow of ecstasy illuminated it like a lantern.
All that he had ever heard or read about soul mates came back to him. All that he had ever thought and felt about the drawbacks of marriage surged into his mind, and it seemed incredible to him that he could have entertained such sentiments. Looking at it in its broad, general aspect, of course, he had been right. In the great majority of cases a man who married proved himself thereby a sap of the first order, and he could understand how marriage had come to' be referred to as the fate that is worse than death.
But where he had made his error was in not allowing for the special case. Grab the right partner, as he had so cleverly done, and you were sitting pretty. There lay before him in the years to come, he estimated, some nine thousand, two hundred and twenty-five breakfasts, and at each of these breakfasts he would see this woman's face across the table. And he liked it. He was heart and soul in favour of the thing. By careful attention to his health he hoped t
o make the total larger.
"Listen," he said huskily.