“Vell, Bonker, vat show to-day?” said the Baron.
Mr Bunker sipped his coffee and smiled back at his friend.
“What would you like?” said he.
They were sitting in the Baron’s private room finishing one of the
renowned Hôtel Mayonaise breakfasts. Out of the windows they could see the
bright curving river, the bare tops of the Embankment trees, a file of
barges drifting with the tide, and cold-looking clouds hurrying over the
chaos of brick on the opposite shore. It was a bright breezy morning, and
the Baron felt in high good-humour with his surroundings. On maturer
consideration, the entertaining experience of the night before had greatly
raised Mr Bunker in his estimation. He had chuckled his way through a
substantial breakfast, and in such good company felt ready for any
adventure that might turn up.
He lit a cigar, pushed back his chair, and replied blandly, “I am in your
hands. I am ready to enjoy anyzing.”
“Do you wish instruction or entertainment?”
“Mix zem, Bonker. Entertain by instrogtion; instrogt by entertaining.”
“You are epigrammatic, Baron, but devilish vague. I presume, however, that
you wish entertaining experience from which a man of your philosophical
temperament can draw a moral—afterwards.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed the Baron. “Excellent! You provide ze experiences—I draw
ze moral.”
“And we share the entertainment. The theory is perfect, but I’m afraid we
need a programme. Now, on my own first visit to London I remember being
taken—by the hand—to Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, the Tower, St Paul’s
Cathedral, the fishmarket at Billingsgate, the British Museum, and a
number of other damnably edifying spectacles. You might naturally suppose
that after such a round it would be quite superfluous for me ever to come
up to town again. Yet, surprising as it may appear, most of the knowledge
of London I hope to put at your disposal has been gained in the course of
subsequent visits.”
“Bot zese places—Tousaud, Tower, Paul’s—are zey not instrogtif?”
“If you wish to learn that a great number of years ago a vast quantity of
inconsequent events occurred, or that in an otherwise amusing enough world
there are here and there collected so many roomfuls of cheerless articles,
I can strongly recommend a visit to the Tower of London or the British
Museum.”
“In mine own gontry,” said the Baron, thoughtfully, “I can lairn zo moch.”
“Then, my dear Baron, while you are here forget it all.”
“And yet,” said the Baron, still thoughtfully, “somzing I should lairn
here.”
“Certainly; you will learn something of what goes on underneath a
waistcoat and a little of the contents of a corset and petticoat. Also of
the strange customs of this city and the excellence of British
institutions.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the Baron, who thought that if his friend had not
actually made a jest, it was at least time for one to occur. “I see, I
see. I draw ze moral, ha, ha!”
“This morning,” Mr Bunker continued, reflectively, “we might—let me
see—well, we might do a little shopping. To tell you the truth, Baron, my
South African experiences have somewhat exhausted my wardrobe.”
“Ach, zo. Cairtainly ve vill shop. Bot, Bonker, Soud Africa? Vas it not
Soud America?”
“Did I say Africa? America of course I meant. Well, let us shop if you
have no objections: then we might have a little lunch, and afterwards
visit the Park. For the evening, what do you say to a theatre?”
“Goot!” cried the Baron. “Make it tzos.”
Mr Bunker’s shopping turned out to be a pretty extensive operation.
“Loan vat you please of money,” said his friend. “A gentleman should be
dressed in agreement.”
With now and then an apology for his extravagance, he took full advantage
of the Baron’s generosity, and ordered such an assortment of garments that
his tailor could hardly bow low enough to express his gratification.
After an excellent lunch in the most expensive restaurant to be found,
they walked arm-in-arm westwards along Piccadilly, Mr Bunker pointing out
the various objects of historical or ephemeral interest to be seen in that
thoroughfare, the Baron drinking in this information with the serious air
of the distinguished traveller.
“And now we come to the Park,” said Mr Bunker. “Guard your heart, Baron.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” replied the Baron. “Zo instrogtion is feenished, and now
goms entertainment, ha?”
“With the moral always running through it, remember.”
“I shall not forget.”
The sunshine had brought out a great many carriages and a sprinkling of
walkers along the railings. The two friends strolled among them, eyeing
the women and stopping now and then to look back at a carriage.
“I suppose,” said the Baron, “zat vile you haf been avay your frients have
forgot you.”
As he spoke a young man looked hard at Mr Bunker, and even made a movement
as though he would stop and speak to him. Mr Bunker looked blandly through
him and walked on.
“Do you not know zat gentleman?”
“Which gentleman?”
“Ze young man zat looked so at you.”
“Some young men have a way of staring here, Baron.”
A few minutes later a lady in a passing carriage looked round sharply at
them with an air of great surprise, and half bowed.
“Surely,” exclaimed the Baron, “zat vas a frient of yours!”
“I am not a friend of hers, then,” Mr Bunker replied with a laugh. “Her
bow I think must have been aimed at you.”
The Baron shook his head, and seemed to be drawing a moral.
“Baron,” his friend exclaimed, suddenly, “let us go back; here comes one
of our most popular phenomena, a London fog. We need not stay in the Park
to observe it.”
The sun was already obscured; there stole a most insidious chill through
the air; like the changing of a scene on the stage they found themselves
in a few minutes walking in a little ring of trees and road and iron
railings instead of a wide sunny park; the roar of the streets came from
behind a wall of mist that opened mysteriously to let a phantom carriage
in and out, and closed silently behind it again.
“I like not zis,” said the Baron, with a shiver.
By the time they had found Piccadilly again there was nothing at all to be
seen but the light of the nearest lamp, as large and far away as a
struggling sun, and the shadowy people who flitted by.
Their talk ceased. The Baron turned up his collar and sucked his cigar
lugubriously, and Mr Bunker seemed unusually thoughtful. They had walked
nearly as far as Piccadilly Circus when they were pulled up by a cab
turning down a side-street. There was a lamp-post at the corner, and under
it stood a burly man, his red face quite visible as they came up to his
shoulder.
In an instant Mr Bunker seized the Baron by the arm, pulled him round, and
began to walk hastily back again.
“Vat for zis?” said the Baron, in great astonishment.
“We have come too far, thanks to this infernal fog. We must cross the
street and take the first turning on the other side. I must apologise,
Baron, for my absence of mind.”
* * * * *
The cab passed by and the red-faced man strolled on.
“Like lookin’ for a needle in a bloomin’ haystack,” he said to himself. “I
might as well go back to Clankwood. ’E’s a good riddance, I say.”