MR. MULLINER SPEAKING
By P. G. WODEHOUSE
HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
3 DUKE OF YORK STREET
ST. JAMES'S LONDON S.W.1.
_First published by
Herbert Jenkins Ltd.
3 Duke of York Street,
London, S.W.1
1929_
_COPYRIGHT_
_ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_
_Ninth printing completing 64,550 copies_
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PURNELL AND SONS, LTD.
PAULTON (SOMERSET) AND LONDON
THE STORY:
Mr. Mulliner is one of P. G. Wodehouse's happiest
creations--nothing can dull his sunny outlook on life, nothing
can "keep him down." And nothing, it may be said, will stop him
from telling a tale when he wants to. Fortunately, Mr. Mulliner is
by no means averse to the sound of his own voice, and the result
is a series of veracious narratives which will cause the most
cross-grained pessimist to hold his sides.
_All the characters in this book are purely imaginary and have no
relation whatsoever to any living person._
CONTENTS
I. THE REVERENT WOOING OF ARCHIBALD
II. THE MAN WHO GAVE UP SMOKING
III. THE STORY OF CEDRIC
IV. THE ORDEAL OF OSBERT MULLINER
V. UNPLEASANTNESS AT BLUDLEIGH COURT
VI. THOSE IN PERIL ON THE TEE
VII. SOMETHING SQUISHY
VIII. THE AWFUL GLADNESS OF THE MATER
IX. THE PASSING OF AMBROSE
MR. MULLINER SPEAKING
I
THE REVERENT WOOING OF ARCHIBALD
The conversation in the bar-parlour of the Anglers' Rest, which always
tends to get deepish towards closing-time, had turned to the subject of
the Modern Girl; and a Gin-and-Ginger-Ale sitting in the corner by the
window remarked that it was strange how types die out.
"I can remember the days," said the Gin-and-Ginger-Ale, "when every
other girl you met stood about six feet two in her dancing-shoes, and
had as many curves as a Scenic Railway. Now they are all five foot
nothing and you can't see them sideways. Why is this?"
The Draught Stout shook his head.
"Nobody can say. It's the same with dogs. One moment the world is full
of pugs as far as the eye can reach; the next, not a pug in sight,
only Pekes and Alsatians. Odd!"
The Small Bass and the Double-Whisky-and-Splash admitted that these
things were very mysterious, and supposed we should never know the
reason for them. Probably we were not meant to know.
"I cannot agree with you, gentlemen," said Mr. Mulliner. He had been
sipping his hot Scotch and lemon with a rather abstracted air: but now
he sat up alertly, prepared to deliver judgment. "The reason for the
disappearance of the dignified, queenly type of girl is surely obvious.
It is Nature's method of ensuring the continuance of the species. A
world full of the sort of young woman that Meredith used to put into
his novels and du Maurier into his pictures in _Punch_ would be a world
full of permanent spinsters. The modern young man would never be able
to summon up the nerve to propose to them."
"Something in that," assented the Draught Stout.
"I speak with authority on the point," said Mr. Mulliner, "because my
nephew, Archibald, made me his confidant when he fell in love with
Aurelia Cammarleigh. He worshipped that girl with a fervour which
threatened to unseat his reason, such as it was: but the mere idea of
asking her to be his wife gave him, he informed me, such a feeling of
sick faintness that only by means of a very stiff brandy-and-soda, or
some similar restorative, was he able to pull himself together on the
occasions when he contemplated it. Had it not been for... But perhaps
you would care to hear the story from the beginning?"
* * * * *
People who enjoyed a merely superficial acquaintance with my nephew
Archibald (said Mr. Mulliner) were accustomed to set him down as just
an ordinary pinheaded young man. It was only when they came to know
him better that they discovered their mistake. Then they realised that
his pinheadedness, so far from being ordinary, was exceptional. Even
at the Drones Club, where the average of intellect is not high, it was
often said of Archibald that, had his brain been constructed of silk,
he would have been hard put to it to find sufficient material to make
a canary a pair of cami-knickers. He sauntered through life with a
cheerful insouciance, and up to the age of twenty-five had only once
been moved by anything in the nature of a really strong emotion--on the
occasion when, in the heart of Bond Street and at the height of the
London season, he discovered that his man, Meadowes, had carelessly
sent him out with odd spats on.
And then he met Aurelia Cammarleigh.
* * * * *
The first encounter between these two has always seemed to me to bear
an extraordinary resemblance to the famous meeting between the poet
Dante and Beatrice Fortinari. Dante, if you remember, exchanged no
remarks with Beatrice on that occasion. Nor did Archibald with Aurelia.
Dante just goggled at the girl. So did Archibald. Like Archibald, Dante
loved at first sight: and the poet's age at the time was, we are told,
nine--which was almost exactly the mental age of Archibald Mulliner
when he first set eyeglass on Aurelia Cammarleigh.
Only in the actual locale of the encounter do the two cases cease to be
parallel. Dante, the story relates, was walking on the Ponte Vecchia,
while Archibald Mulliner was having a thoughtful cocktail in the window
of the Drones Club, looking out on Dover Street.
And he had just relaxed his lower jaw in order to examine Dover Street
more comfortably when there swam into his line of vision something
that looked like a Greek goddess. She came out of a shop opposite the
club and stood on the pavement waiting for a taxi. And, as he saw her
standing there, love at first sight seemed to go all over Archibald
Mulliner like nettlerash.
It was strange that this should have been so, for she was not at all
the sort of girl with whom Archibald had fallen in love at first sight
in the past. I chanced, while in here the other day, to pick up a copy
of one of the old yellowback novels of fifty years ago--the property, I
believe, of Miss Postlethwaite, our courteous and erudite barmaid. It
was entitled _Sir Ralph's Secret_, and its heroine, the Lady Elaine,
was described as a superbly handsome girl, divinely tall, with a noble
figure, the arched Montresor nose, haughty eyes beneath delicately
pencilled brows, and that indefinable air of aristocratic aloofness
which marks the daughter of a hundred Earls. And Aurelia Cammarleigh
might have been this formidable creature's double.
Yet Archibald, sighting her, reeled as if the cocktail he had just
consumed had been his tenth instead of his first.
"Golly!" said Archibald.
To save himself from falling, he had clutched at a passing
fellow-member: and now, examining his catch, he saw that it was
young Algy Wymondham-Wymondham. Just the fellow-member he would have
preferred to clutch at, for Algy was a man who went everywhere and knew
everybody and could doubtless give him the information he desired.
"Algy, old prune," said Archibald in a low, throaty voice, "a moment of
your valuable time, if you don't mind."
He paused, for he had perceived the need for caution. Algy was a
notorious babbler, and it would be the height of rashness to give
him an inkling of the passion which blazed within his breast. With a
strong effort, he donned the mask. When he spoke again, it was with a
deceiving nonchalance.
"I was just wondering if you happened to know who that girl is, across
the street there. I suppose you don't know what her name is in rough
numbers? Seems to me I've met her somewhere or something, or seen her,
or something. Or something, if you know what I mean."
Algy followed his pointing finger and was in time to observe Aurelia as
she disappeared into the cab.
"That girl?"
"Yes," said Archibald, yawning. "Who is she, if any?"
"Girl named Cammarleigh."
"Ah?" said Archibald, yawning again. "Then I haven't met her."
"Introduce you if you like. She's sure to be at Ascot. Look out for us
there."
Archibald yawned for the third time.
"All right," he said, "I'll try to remember. Tell me about her. I mean,
has she any fathers or mothers or any rot of that description?"
"Only an aunt. She lives with her in Park Street. She's potty."
Archibald started, stung to the quick.
"Potty? That divine.... I mean, that rather attractive-looking girl?"
"Not Aurelia. The aunt. She thinks Bacon wrote Shakespeare."
"Thinks who wrote what?" asked Archibald, puzzled, for the names were
strange to him.
"You must have heard of Shakespeare. He's well known. Fellow who used
to write plays. Only Aurelia's aunt says he didn't. She maintains that
a bloke called Bacon wrote them for him."
"Dashed decent of him," said Archibald, approvingly. "Of course, he may
have owed Shakespeare money."
"There's that, of course."
"What was the name again?"
"Bacon."
"Bacon," said Archibald, jotting it down on his cuff. "Right."
Algy moved on, and Archibald, his soul bubbling within him like a
welsh rabbit at the height of its fever, sank into a chair and stared
sightlessly at the ceiling. Then, rising, he went off to the Burlington
Arcade to buy socks.
The process of buying socks eased for awhile the turmoil that ran riot
in Archibald's veins. But even socks with lavender clocks can only
alleviate: they do not cure. Returning to his rooms, he found the
anguish rather more overwhelming than ever. For at last he had leisure
to think: and thinking always hurt his head.
Algy's careless words had confirmed his worst suspicions. A girl with
an aunt who knew all about Shakespeare and Bacon must of necessity live
in a mental atmosphere into which a lame-brained bird like himself
could scarcely hope to soar. Even if he did meet her--even if she asked
him to call--even if in due time their relations became positively
cordial, what then? How could he aspire to such a goddess? What had he
to offer her?
Money?
Plenty of that, yes, but what was money?
Socks?
Of these he had the finest collection in London, but socks are not
everything.
A loving heart?
A fat lot of use that was.
No, a girl like Aurelia Cammarleigh would, he felt, demand from the
man who aspired to her hand something in the nature of gifts, of
accomplishments. He would have to be a man who Did Things.
And what, Archibald asked himself, could he do? Absolutely nothing
except give an imitation of a hen laying an egg.
That he could do. At imitating a hen laying an egg he was admittedly
a master. His fame in that one respect had spread all over the West
End of London. "Others abide our question. Thou art free," was the
verdict of London's gilded youth on Archibald Mulliner when considered
purely in the light of a man who could imitate a hen laying an egg.
"Mulliner," they said to one another, "may be a pretty minus quantity
in many ways, but he can imitate a hen laying an egg."
And, so far from helping him, this one accomplishment of his would,
reason told him, be a positive handicap. A girl like Aurelia
Cammarleigh would simply be sickened by such coarse buffoonery. He
blushed at the very thought of her ever learning that he was capable of
sinking to such depths.
And so, when some weeks later he was introduced to her in the paddock
at Ascot and she, gazing at him with what seemed to his sensitive mind
contemptuous loathing, said:
"They tell me you give an imitation of a hen laying an egg, Mr.
Mulliner."
He replied with extraordinary vehemence:
"It is a lie--a foul and contemptible lie which I shall track to its
source and nail to the counter."
Brave words! But had they clicked? Had she believed him? He trusted
so. But her haughty eyes were very penetrating. They seemed to pierce
through to the depths of his soul and lay it bare for what it was--the
soul of a hen-imitator.
However, she did ask him to call. With a sort of queenly, bored disdain
and only after he had asked twice if he might--but she did it. And
Archibald resolved that, no matter what the mental strain, he would
show her that her first impression of him had been erroneous; that,
trivial and vapid though he might seem, there were in his nature deeps
whose existence she had not suspected.
* * * * *
For a young man who had been superannuated from Eton and believed
everything he read in the Racing Expert's column in the morning paper,
Archibald, I am bound to admit, exhibited in this crisis a sagacity
for which few of his intimates would have given him credit. It may
be that love stimulates the mind, or it may be that when the moment
comes Blood will tell. Archibald, you must remember, was, after all, a
Mulliner: and now the old canny strain of the Mulliners came out in him.
"Meadowes, my man," he said to Meadowes, his man.
"Sir," said Meadowes.
"It appears," said Archibald, "that there is--or was--a cove of the
name of Shakespeare. Also a second cove of the name of Bacon. Bacon
wrote plays, it seems, and Shakespeare went and put his own name on the
programme and copped the credit."
"Indeed, sir?"
"If true, not right, Meadowes."
"Far from it, sir."
"Very well, then. I wish to go into this matter carefully. Kindly pop
out and get me a book or two bearing on the business."
He had planned his campaign with infinite cunning. He knew that,
before anything could be done in the direction of winning the heart of
Aurelia Cammarleigh, he must first establish himself solidly with the
aunt. He must court the aunt, ingratiate himself with her--always, of
course, making it clear from the start that she was not the one. And,
if reading about Shakespeare and Bacon could do it, he would, he told
himself, have her eating out of his hand in a week.
Meadowes returned with a parcel of forbidding-looking volumes, and
Archibald put in a fortnight's intensive study. Then, discarding
the monocle which had up till then been his constant companion, and
substituting for it a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles which gave him
something of the look of an earnest sheep, he set out for Park Street
to pay his first call. And within five minutes of his arrival he had
declined a cigarette on the plea that he was a non-smoker, and had
managed to say some rather caustic things about the practice, so
prevalent among his contemporaries, of drinking cocktails.
Life, said Archibald, toying with his teacup, was surely given to
us for some better purpose than the destruction of our brains and
digestions with alcohol. Bacon, for instance, never took a cocktail in
his life, and look at him.
At this, the aunt, who up till now had plainly been regarding him as
just another of those unfortunate incidents, sprang to life.
"You admire Bacon, Mr. Mulliner?" she asked eagerly.
And, reaching out an arm like the tentacle of an octopus, she drew him
into a corner and talked about Cryptograms for forty-seven minutes
by the drawing-room clock. In short, to sum the thing up, my nephew
Archibald, at his initial meeting with the only relative of the girl he
loved, went like a sirocco. A Mulliner is always a Mulliner. Apply the
acid test, and he will meet it.
It was not long after this that he informed me that he had sown the
good seed to such an extent that Aurelia's aunt had invited him to pay
a long visit to her country house, Brawstead Towers, in Sussex.
He was seated at the Savoy bar when he told me this, rather feverishly
putting himself outside a Scotch and soda: and I was perplexed to note
that his face was drawn and his eyes haggard.
"But you do not seem happy, my boy," I said.
"I'm not happy."
"But surely this should be an occasion for rejoicing. Thrown together
as you will be in the pleasant surroundings of a country house, you
ought easily to find an opportunity of asking this girl to marry you."
"And a lot of good that will be," said Archibald moodily. "Even if I do
get a chance I shan't be able to make any use of it. I wouldn't have
the nerve. You don't seem to realize what it means being in love with
a girl like Aurelia. When I look into those clear, soulful eyes, or
see that perfect profile bobbing about on the horizon, a sense of my
unworthiness seems to slosh me amidships like some blunt instrument. My
tongue gets entangled with my front teeth, and all I can do is stand
there feeling like a piece of Gorgonzola that has been condemned by
the local sanitary inspector. I'm going to Brawstead Towers, yes, but
I don't expect anything to come of it. I know exactly what's going to
happen to me. I shall just buzz along through life, pining dumbly, and
in the end slide into the tomb a blasted, blighted bachelor. Another
whisky, please, and jolly well make it a double."
* * * * *
Brawstead Towers, situated as it is in the pleasant Weald of Sussex,
stands some fifty miles from London: and Archibald, taking the trip
easily in his car, arrived there in time to dress comfortably for
dinner. It was only when he reached the drawing-room at eight o'clock
that he discovered that the younger members of the house-party had gone
off in a body to dine and dance at a hospitable neighbour's, leaving
him to waste the evening tie of a lifetime, to the composition of
which he had devoted no less than twenty-two minutes, on Aurelia's aunt.
Dinner in these circumstances could hardly hope to be an unmixedly
exhilarating function. Among the things which helped to differentiate
it from a Babylonian orgy was the fact that, in deference to his known
prejudices, no wine was served to Archibald. And, lacking artificial
stimulus, he found the aunt even harder to endure philosophically than
ever.
Archibald had long since come to a definite decision that what
this woman needed was a fluid ounce of weed-killer, scientifically
administered. With a good deal of adroitness he contrived to head her
off from her favourite topic during the meal: but after the coffee
had been disposed of she threw off all restraint. Scooping him up and
bearing him off into the recesses of the west wing, she wedged him into
a corner of a settee and began to tell him all about the remarkable
discovery which had been made by applying the Plain Cipher to Milton's
well-known Epitaph on Shakespeare.
"The one beginning 'What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones?'"
said the aunt.
"Oh, that one?" said Archibald.
"'What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones? The labour of an
Age in piled stones? Or that his hallowed Reliques should be hid under
a starry-pointing Pyramid?'" said the aunt.
Archibald, who was not good at riddles, said he didn't know.
"As in the Plays and Sonnets," said the aunt, "we substitute the name
equivalents of the figure totals."
"We do what?"
"Substitute the name equivalents of the figure totals."
"The which?"
"The figure totals."
"All right," said Archibald. "Let it go. I daresay you know best."
The aunt inflated her lungs.
"These figure totals," she said, "are always taken out in the Plain
Cipher, A equalling one to Z equals twenty-four. The names are
counted in the same way. A capital letter with the figures indicates
an occasional variation in the Name Count. For instance, A equals
twenty-seven, B twenty-eight, until K equals ten is reached, when K,
instead of ten, becomes one, and T instead of nineteen, is one, and
R or Reverse, and so on, until A equals twenty-four is reached. The
short or single Digit is not used here. Reading the Epitaph in the
light of this Cipher, it becomes: 'What need Verulam for Shakespeare?
Francis Bacon England's King be hid under a W. Shakespeare? William
Shakespeare. Fame, what needst Francis Tudor, King of England?
Francis. Francis W. Shakespeare. For Francis thy William Shakespeare
hath England's King took W. Shakespeare. Then thou our W. Shakespeare
Francis Tudor bereaving Francis Bacon Francis Tudor such a tomb William
Shakespeare.'"
The speech to which he had been listening was unusually lucid and
simple for a Baconian, yet Archibald, his eye catching a battle-axe
that hung on the wall, could not but stifle a wistful sigh. How simple
it would have been, had he not been a Mulliner and a gentleman, to
remove the weapon from its hook, spit on his hands, and haul off
and dot this doddering old ruin one just above the imitation pearl
necklace. Placing his twitching hands underneath him and sitting
on them, he stayed where he was, until just as the clock on the
mantelpiece chimed the hour of midnight, a merciful fit of hiccoughs
on the part of his hostess enabled him to retire. As she reached the
twenty-seventh "hic," his fingers found the door-handle and a moment
later he was outside, streaking up the stairs.
* * * * *
The room they had given Archibald was at the end of a corridor, a
pleasant, airy apartment with French windows opening upon a broad
balcony. At any other time he would have found it agreeable to hop out
onto this balcony and revel in the scents and sounds of the summer
night, thinking the while long, lingering thoughts of Aurelia. But
what with all that Francis Tudor Francis Bacon such a tomb William
Shakespeare count seventeen drop one knit purl and set them up in the
other alley stuff, not even thoughts of Aurelia could keep him from his
bed.
Moodily tearing off his clothes and donning his pyjamas, Archibald
Mulliner climbed in and instantaneously discovered that the bed was an
apple-pie bed. When and how it had happened he did not know, but at a
point during the day some loving hand had sewn up the sheets and put
two hair-brushes and a branch of some prickly shrub between them.
Himself from earliest boyhood an adept at the construction of
booby-traps, Archibald, had his frame of mind been sunnier, would
doubtless have greeted this really extremely sound effort with a cheery
laugh. As it was, weighed down with Verulams and Francis Tudors, he
swore for a while with considerable fervour: then, ripping off the
sheets and tossing the prickly shrub wearily into a corner, crawled
between the blankets and was soon asleep.
His last waking thought was that if the aunt hoped to catch him on the
morrow, she would have to be considerably quicker on her pins than her
physique indicated.
* * * * *
How long Archibald slept he could not have said. He woke some hours
later with a vague feeling that a thunderstorm of unusual violence had
broken out in his immediate neighbourhood. But this, he realized as
the mists of slumber cleared away, was an error. The noise which had
disturbed him was not thunder but the sound of someone snoring. Snoring
like the dickens. The walls seemed to be vibrating like the deck of an
ocean liner.
Archibald Mulliner might have had a tough evening with the aunt, but
his spirit was not so completely broken as to make him lie supinely
down beneath that snoring. The sound filled him, as snoring fills
every right-thinking man, with a seething resentment and a passionate
yearning for justice, and he climbed out of bed with the intention of
taking the proper steps through the recognised channels. It is the
custom nowadays to disparage the educational methods of the English
public-school and to maintain that they are not practical and of a
kind to fit the growing boy for the problems of after-life. But you
do learn one thing at a public-school, and that is how to act when
somebody starts snoring.
You jolly well grab a cake of soap and pop in and stuff it down the
blighter's throat. And this Archibald proposed--God willing--to do.
It was the work of a moment with him to dash to the washstand and arm
himself. Then he moved softly out through the French windows onto the
balcony.
The snoring, he had ascertained, proceeded from the next room.
Presumably this room also would have French windows: and presumably as
the night was warm, these would be open. It would be a simple task to
oil in, insert the soap, and buzz back undetected.
It was a lovely night, but Archibald paid no attention to it. Clasping
his cake of soap, he crept on and was pleased to discover, on arriving
outside the snorer's room, that his surmise had been correct. The
windows were open. Beyond them, screening the interior of the room,
were heavy curtains. And he had just placed his hand upon these when
from inside a voice spoke. At the same moment the light was turned on.
"Who's that?" said the voice.
And it was as if Brawstead Towers with all its stabling, outhouses and
messuages had fallen on Archibald's head. A mist rose before his eyes.
He gasped and tottered.
The voice was that of Aurelia Cammarleigh.
* * * * *
For an instant, for a single long, sickening instant, I am compelled to
admit that Archibald's love, deep as the sea though it was, definitely
wobbled. It had received a grievous blow. It was not simply the
discovery that the girl he adored was a snorer that unmanned him: it
was the thought that she could snore like that. There was something
about those snores that had seemed to sin against his whole conception
of womanly purity.
Then he recovered. Even though this girl's slumber was not, as the poet
Milton so beautifully puts it, "airy light," but rather reminiscent of
a lumber-camp when the wood-sawing is proceeding at its briskest, he
loved her still.
He had just reached this conclusion when a second voice spoke inside
the room.
"I say, Aurelia."
It was the voice of another girl. He perceived now that the question
"Who's that?" had been addressed not to him but to this newcomer
fumbling at the door-handle.
"I say, Aurelia," said the girl complainingly, "you've simply got to
do something about that bally bulldog of yours. I can't possibly get
to sleep with him snoring like that. He's making the plaster come down
from the ceiling in my room."
"I'm sorry," said Aurelia. "I've got so used to it that I don't notice."
"Well, I do. Put a green-baize cloth over him or something."
Out on the moonlit balcony Archibald Mulliner stood shaking like a
blancmange. Although he had contrived to maintain his great love
practically intact when he had supposed the snores to proceed from the
girl he worshipped, it had been tough going, and for an instant, as I
have said, a very near thing. The relief that swept over him at the
discovery that Aurelia could still justifiably remain on her pinnacle
was so profound that it made him feel filleted. He seemed for a moment
in a daze. Then he was brought out of the ether by hearing his name
spoken.
"Did Archie Mulliner arrive to-night?" asked Aurelia's friend.
"I suppose so," said Aurelia. "He wired that he was motoring down."
"Just between us girls," said Aurelia's friend, "what do you think of
that bird?"
To listen to a private conversation--especially a private conversation
between two modern girls when you never know what may come next--is
rightly considered an action incompatible with the claim to be a
gentleman. I regret to say, therefore, that Archibald, ignoring the
fact that he belonged to a family whose code is as high as that of any
in the land, instead of creeping away to his room edged at this point
a step closer to the curtains and stood there with his ears flapping.
It might be an ignoble thing to eavesdrop, but it was apparent that
Aurelia Cammarleigh was about to reveal her candid opinion of him: and
the prospect of getting the true facts--straight, as it were, from the
horse's mouth--held him so fascinated that he could not move.
"Archie Mulliner?" said Aurelia meditatively.
"Yes. The betting at the Junior Lipstick is seven to two that you'll
marry him."
"Why on earth?"
"Well, people have noticed he's always round at your place, and they
seem to think it significant. Anyway, that's how the odds stood when I
left London--seven to two."
"Get in on the short end," said Aurelia earnestly, "and you'll make a
packet."
"Is that official?"
"Absolutely," said Aurelia.
Out in the moonlight, Archibald Mulliner uttered a low, bleak moan
rather like the last bit of wind going out of a dying duck. True, he
had always told himself that he hadn't a chance, but, however much
a man may say that, he never in his heart really believes it. And
now from an authoritative source he had learned that his romance was
definitely blue round the edges. It was a shattering blow. He wondered
dully how the trains ran to the Rocky Mountains. A spot of grizzly-bear
shooting seemed indicated.
Inside the room, the other girl appeared perplexed.
"But you told me at Ascot," she said, "just after he had been
introduced to you, that you rather thought you had at last met your
ideal. When did the good thing begin to come unstuck?"
A silvery sigh came through the curtains.
"I did think so then," said Aurelia wistfully. "There was something
about him. I liked the way his ears wiggled. And I had always
heard he was such a perfectly genial, cheery, merry old soul. Algy
Wymondham-Wymondham told me that his imitation of a hen laying an egg
was alone enough to keep any reasonable girl happy through a long
married life."
"Can he imitate a hen?"
"No. It was nothing but an idle rumour. I asked him, and he stoutly
denied that he had ever done such a thing in his life. He was quite
stuffy about it. I felt a little uneasy then, and the moment he started
calling and hanging about the house I knew that my fears had been
well-founded. The man is beyond question a flat tyre and a wet smack."
"As bad as that?"
"I'm not exaggerating a bit. Where people ever got the idea that Archie
Mulliner is a bonhomous old bean beats me. He is the world's worst
monkey-wrench. He doesn't drink cocktails, he doesn't smoke cigarettes,
and the thing he seems to enjoy most in the world is to sit for hours
listening to the conversation of my aunt, who, as you know, is pure
goof from the soles of the feet to the tortoiseshell comb and should
long ago have been renting a padded cell in Earlswood. Believe me,
Muriel, if you can really get seven to two, you are onto the best thing
since Buttercup won the Lincolnshire."
"You don't say!"
"I do say. Apart from anything else, he's got a beastly habit of
looking at me reverently. And if you knew how sick I am of being looked
at reverently! They will do it, these lads. I suppose it's because I'm
rather an out-size and modelled on the lines of Cleopatra."
"Tough!"
"You bet it's tough. A girl can't help her appearance. I may look as
if my ideal man was the hero of a Viennese operetta, but I don't feel
that way. What I want is some good sprightly sportsman who sets a neat
booby-trap, and who'll rush up and grab me in his arms and say to me,
'Aurelia, old girl, you're the bee's roller-skates!'"
And Aurelia Cammarleigh emitted another sigh.
"Talking of booby-traps," said the other girl, "if Archie Mulliner has
arrived he's in the next room, isn't he?"
"I suppose so. That's where he was to be. Why?"
"Because I made him an apple-pie bed."
"It was the right spirit," said Aurelia warmly. "I wish I'd thought of
it myself."
"Too late now."
"Yes," said Aurelia. "But I'll tell you what I can and will do. You
say you object to Lysander's snoring. Well, I'll go and pop him in at
Archie Mulliner's window. That'll give him pause for thought."
"Splendid," agreed the girl Muriel. "Well, good night."
"Good night," said Aurelia.
There followed the sound of a door closing.
* * * * *
There was, as I have indicated, not much of my nephew Archibald's mind,
but what there was of it was now in a whirl. He was stunned. Like every
man who is abruptly called upon to revise his entire scheme of values,
he felt as if he had been standing on top of the Eiffel Tower and some
practical joker had suddenly drawn it away from under him. Tottering
back to his room, he replaced the cake of soap in its dish and sat down
on the bed to grapple with this amazing development.
Aurelia Cammarleigh had compared herself to Cleopatra. It is not too
much to say that my nephew Archibald's emotions at this juncture were
very similar to what Marc Antony's would have been had Egypt's queen
risen from her throne at his entry and without a word of warning
started to dance the Black Bottom.
He was roused from his thoughts by the sound of a light footstep on the
balcony outside. At the same moment he heard a low woofly gruffle, the
unmistakable note of a bulldog of regular habits who has been jerked
out of his basket in the small hours and forced to take the night air.
"She is coming, my own, my sweet!
Were it never so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed"
whispered Archibald's soul, or words to that effect. He rose from his
seat and paused for an instant, irresolute. Then inspiration descended
on him. He knew what to do, and he did it.
Yes, gentlemen, in that supreme crisis of his life, with his whole fate
hanging, as you might say, in the balance, Archibald Mulliner, showing
for almost the first time in his career a well-nigh human intelligence,
began to give his celebrated imitation of a hen laying an egg.
* * * * *
Archibald's imitation of a hen laying an egg was conceived on broad
and sympathetic lines. Less violent than Salvini's _Othello_, it had
in it something of the poignant wistfulness of Mrs. Siddons in the
sleep-walking scene of _Macbeth_. The rendition started quietly,
almost inaudibly, with a sort of soft, liquid crooning--the joyful yet
half-incredulous murmur of a mother who can scarcely believe as yet
that her union has really been blessed, and that it is indeed she who
is responsible for that oval mixture of chalk and albumen which she
sees lying beside her in the straw.
Then, gradually, conviction comes.
"It looks like an egg," one seems to hear her say. "It feels like an
egg. It's shaped like an egg. Damme, it _is_ an egg!"
And at that, all doubting resolved, the crooning changes; takes on a
firmer note; soars into the upper register; and finally swells into a
maternal pæan of joy--a "Charawk-chawk-chawk-chawk" of such a calibre
that few had ever been able to listen to it dry-eyed. Following which,
it was Archibald's custom to run round the room, flapping the sides of
his coat, and then, leaping onto a sofa or some convenient chair, to
stand there with his arms at right angles, crowing himself purple in
the face.
All these things he had done many a time for the idle entertainment
of fellow-members in the smoking-room of the Drones, but never with
the gusto, the _brio_, with which he performed them now. Essentially a
modest man, like all the Mulliners, he was compelled, nevertheless, to
recognise that to-night he was surpassing himself. Every artist knows
when the authentic divine fire is within him, and an inner voice told
Archibald Mulliner that he was at the top of his form and giving the
performance of a lifetime. Love thrilled through every "Brt-t't-t't"
that he uttered, animated each flap of his arms. Indeed, so deeply did
Love drive in its spur that he tells me that, instead of the customary
once, he actually made the circle of the room three times before coming
to rest on top of the chest of drawers.
When at length he did so he glanced towards the window and saw that
through the curtains the loveliest face in the world was peering. And
in Aurelia Cammarleigh's glorious eyes there was a look he had never
seen before, the sort of look Kriessler or somebody like that beholds
in the eyes of the front row as he lowers his violin and brushes his
forehead with the back of his hand. A look of worship.
There was a long silence. Then she spoke.
"Do it again!" she said.
And Archibald did it again. He did it four times and could, he tells
me, if he had pleased, have taken a fifth encore or at any rate a
couple of bows. And then, leaping lightly to the floor, he advanced
towards her. He felt conquering, dominant. It was his hour. He reached
out and clasped her in his arms.
"Aurelia, old girl," said Archibald Mulliner in a clear, firm voice,
"you are the bee's roller-skates."
And at that she seemed to melt into his embrace. Her lovely face was
raised to his.
"Archibald!" she whispered.
There was another throbbing silence, broken only by the beating of two
hearts and the wheezing of the bulldog, who seemed to suffer a good
deal in his bronchial tubes. Then Archibald released her.
"Well, that's that," he said. "Glad everything's all settled and
hotsy-totsy. Gosh, I wish I had a cigarette. This is the sort of moment
a bloke needs one."
She looked at him, surprised.
"But I thought you didn't smoke."
"Oh yes, I do."
"And do you drink as well?"
"Quite as well," said Archibald. "In fact, rather better. Oh, by the
way."
"Yes?"
"There's just one other thing. Suppose that aunt of yours wants to
come and visit us when we are settled down in our little nest, what,
dearest, would be your reaction to the scheme of soaking her on the
base of the skull with a stuffed eelskin?"
"I should like it," said Aurelia warmly, "above all things."
"Twin souls," cried Archibald. "That's what we are, when you come right
down to it. I suspected it all along, and now I know. Two jolly old
twin souls." He embraced her ardently. "And now," he said, "let us pop
downstairs and put this bulldog in the butler's pantry, where he will
come upon him unexpectedly in the morning and doubtless get a shock
which will do him as much good as a week at the seaside. Are you on?"
"I am," whispered Aurelia. "Oh, I am!"
And hand in hand they wandered out together onto the broad staircase.
II
THE MAN WHO GAVE UP SMOKING
In a mixed assemblage like the little group of serious thinkers which
gathers nightly in the bar-parlour of the Anglers' Rest it is hardly to
be expected that there will invariably prevail an unbroken harmony. We
are all men of spirit: and when men of spirit, with opinions of their
own, get together, disputes are bound to arise. Frequently, therefore,
even in this peaceful haven, you will hear voices raised, tables
banged, and tenor Permit-me-to-inform-you-sir's competing with baritone
And-jolly-well-permit-me-to-inform-_you's_. I have known fists to be
shaken and on one occasion the word "fat-head" to be used.
Fortunately, Mr. Mulliner is always there, ready with the soothing
magic of his personality to calm the storm before things have gone
too far. To-night, as I entered the room, I found him in the act of
intervening between a flushed Lemon Squash and a scowling Tankard of
Ale who had fallen foul of one another in the corner by the window.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," he was saying in his suave, ambassadorial way,
"what is all the trouble about?"
The Tankard of Ale pointed the stem of his pipe accusingly at his
adversary. One could see that he was deeply stirred.
"He's talking Rot about smoking."
"I am talking sense."
"I didn't hear any."
"I said that smoking was dangerous to the health. And it is."
"It isn't."
"It is. I can prove it from my own personal experience. I was once,"
said the Lemon Squash, "a smoker myself, and the vile habit reduced me
to a physical wreck. My cheeks sagged, my eyes became bleary, my whole
face gaunt, yellow and hideously lined. It was giving up smoking that
brought about the change."
"What change?" asked the Tankard.
The Lemon Squash, who seemed to have taken offence at something, rose
and, walking stiffly to the door, disappeared into the night. Mr.
Mulliner gave a little sigh of relief.
"I am glad he has left us," he said. "Smoking is a subject on which I
hold strong views. I look upon tobacco as life's outstanding boon,
and it annoys me to hear these faddists abusing it. And how foolish
their arguments are, how easily refuted. They come to me and tell me
that if they place two drops of nicotine on the tongue of a dog the
animal instantly dies: and when I ask them if they have ever tried the
childishly simple device of not placing nicotine on the dog's tongue,
they have nothing to reply. They are non-plussed. They go away mumbling
something about never having thought of that."
He puffed at his cigar in silence for a few moments. His genial face
had grown grave.
"If you ask my opinion, gentlemen," he resumed, "I say it is not only
foolish for a man to give up smoking--it is not safe. Such an action
wakes the fiend that sleeps in all of us. To give up smoking is to
become a menace to the community. I shall not readily forget what
happened in the case of my nephew Ignatius. Mercifully, the thing had a
happy ending, but...."
* * * * *
Those of you (said Mr. Mulliner) who move in artistic circles are
possibly familiar with the name and work of my nephew Ignatius. He
is a portrait-painter of steadily growing reputation. At the time of
which I speak, however, he was not so well-known as he is to-day, and
consequently had intervals of leisure between commissions. These he
occupied in playing the ukulele and proposing marriage to Hermione,
the beautiful daughter of Herbert J. Rossiter and Mrs. Rossiter, of 3
Scantlebury Square, Kensington. Scantlebury Square was only just round
the corner from his studio, and it was his practice, when he had a
moment to spare, to pop across, propose to Hermione, get rejected, pop
back again, play a bar or two on the ukulele, and then light a pipe,
put his feet on the mantelpiece, and wonder what it was about him that
appeared to make him distasteful to this lovely girl.
It could not be that she scorned his honest poverty. His income was
most satisfactory.
It could not be that she had heard something damaging about his past.
His past was blameless.
It could not be that she objected to his looks for, like all the
Mulliners, his personal appearance was engaging and even--from certain
angles--fascinating. Besides, a girl who had been brought up in a home
containing a father who was one of Kensington's leading gargoyles and
a couple of sub-humans like her brother Cyprian and her brother George
would scarcely be an exacting judge of male beauty. Cyprian was pale
and thin and wrote art-criticism for the weekly papers, and George
was stout and pink and did no work of any kind, having developed at
an early age considerable skill in the way of touching friends and
acquaintances for small loans.
The thought occurred to Ignatius that one of these two might be able
to give him some inside information on the problem. They were often
in Hermione's society, and it was quite likely that she might have
happened to mention at one time or another what it was about him that
caused her so repeatedly to hand the mitten to a good man's love. He
called upon Cyprian at his flat and put the thing to him squarely.
Cyprian listened attentively, stroking his left side-whisker with a
lean hand.
"Ah?" said Cyprian. "One senses, does one, a reluctance on the girl's
part to entertain one's suggestions of marriage?"
"One does," replied Ignatius.
"One wonders why one is unable to make progress?"
"One does."
"One asks oneself what is the reason?"
"One does--repeatedly."
"Well, if one really desires to hear the truth," said Cyprian, stroking
his right whisker, "I happen to know that Hermione objects to you
because you remind her of my brother George."
Ignatius staggered back, appalled, and an animal cry escaped his lips.
"Remind her of George?"
"That's what she says."
"But I can't be like George. It isn't humanly possible for anybody to
be like George."
"One merely repeats what one has heard."
Ignatius staggered from the room and, tottering into the Fulham Road,
made for the Goat and Bottle to purchase a restorative. And the first
person he saw in the saloon-bar was George, taking his elevenses.
"What ho!" said George. "What ho, what ho, what ho!"
He looked pinker and stouter than ever, and the theory that he could
possibly resemble this distressing object was so distasteful to
Ignatius that he decided to get a second opinion.
"George," he said, "have you any idea why it is that your sister
Hermione spurns my suit?"
"Certainly," said George.
"You have? Then why is it?"
George drained his glass.
"You ask me why?"
"Yes."
"You want to know the reason?"
"I do."
"Well, then, first and foremost," said George, "can you lend me a quid
till Wednesday week without fail?"
"No, I can't."
"Nor ten bob?"
"Nor ten bob. Kindly stick to the subject and tell me why your sister
will not look at me."
"I will," said George. "Not only have you a mean and parsimonious
disposition, but she says you remind her of my brother Cyprian."
Ignatius staggered and would have fallen had he not placed a foot on
the brass rail.
"I remind her of Cyprian?"
"That's what she says."
With bowed head Ignatius left the saloon-bar and returned to his studio
to meditate. He was stricken to the core. He had asked for inside
information and he had got it, but nobody was going to make him like it.
He was not only stricken to the core, but utterly bewildered.
That a man--stretching the possibilities a little--might resemble
George Rossiter was intelligible. He could also understand that a
man--assuming that Nature had played a scurvy trick upon him--might
conceivably be like Cyprian. But how could anyone be like both of them
and live?
He took pencil and paper and devoted himself to making a list in
parallel columns of the qualities and characteristics of the brothers.
When he had finished, he scanned it carefully. This is what he found he
had written:
GEORGE
Face like pig
Pimples
Confirmed sponger
Says "What ho!"
Slaps backs
Eats too much
Tells funny stories
Clammy hands
CYPRIAN
Face like camel
Whiskers
Writes art-criticism
Says "One senses"
Has nasty, dry snigger
Fruitarian
Recites poetry
Bony hands
He frowned. The mystery was still unsolved. And then he came to the
last item.
GEORGE
Heavy smoker
CYPRIAN
Heavy smoker
A spasm ran through Ignatius Mulliner. Here, at last, was a common
factor. Was it possible...? Could it be...?
It seemed the only solution, and yet Ignatius fought against it. His
love for Hermione was the lodestar of his life, but next to it, beaten
only by a short head, came his love for his pipe. Had he really to
choose between the two?
Could he make such a sacrifice?
He wavered.
And then he saw the eleven photographs of Hermione Rossiter gazing
at him from the mantelpiece, and it seemed to him that they smiled
encouragingly. He hesitated no longer. With a soft sigh such as might
have proceeded from some loving father on the Steppes of Russia when
compelled, in order to ensure his own safety, to throw his children out
of the back of the sleigh to the pursuing wolf-pack, he took the pipe
from his mouth, collected his other pipes, his tobacco and his cigars,
wrapped them in a neat parcel and, summoning the charwoman who cleaned
his studio, gave her the consignment to take home to her husband, an
estimable man of the name of Perkins who, being of straitened means,
smoked, as a rule, only what he could pick up in the street.
Ignatius Mulliner had made the great decision.
* * * * *
As those of you who have tried it are aware, the deadly effects of
giving up smoking rarely make themselves felt immediately in their
full virulence. The process is gradual. In the first stage, indeed,
the patient not only suffers no discomfort but goes about inflated by
a sort of gaseous spiritual pride. All through the morning of the
following day, Ignatius, as he walked abroad, found himself regarding
such fellow-members of the community as had pipes and cigarettes in
their mouths with a pitying disdain. He felt like some saint purified
and purged of the grosser emotions by a life of asceticism. He longed
to tell these people all about pyridine and the intense irritation it
causes to the throats and other mucous surfaces of those who inhale the
tobacco smoke in which it lurks. He wanted to buttonhole men sucking
at their cigars and inform them that tobacco contains an appreciable
quantity of the gas known as carbon monoxide, which, entering into
direct combination with the colouring matter of the blood, forms so
staple a compound as to render the corpuscles incapable of carrying
oxygen to the tissues. He yearned to make it clear to them that smoking
was simply a habit which with a little exercise of the willpower a man
could give up at a moment's notice, whenever he pleased.
It was only after he had returned to his studio to put the finishing
touches to his Academy picture that the second stage set in.
Having consumed an artist's lunch consisting of two sardines, the
remnants of a knuckle of ham, and a bottle of beer, he found stealing
over him, as his stomach got onto the fact that the meal was not to
be topped off by a soothing pipe, a kind of vague sense of emptiness
and bereavement akin to that experienced by the historian Gibbon on
completing his _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. Its symptoms
were an inability to work and a dim feeling of oppression, as if he had
just lost some dear friend. Life seemed somehow to have been robbed of
all motive. He wandered about the studio, haunted by a sensation that
he was leaving undone something that he ought to be doing. From time to
time he blew little bubbles, and once or twice his teeth clicked, as if
he were trying to close them on something that was not there.