Produced by The United States Members of the Blandings E-Group
A MAN OF MEANS
A SERIES OF SIX STORIES
By Pelham Grenville Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
From the _Pictorial Review_, May-October 1916
CONTENTS
THE EPISODE OF THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER
THE EPISODE OF THE FINANCIAL NAPOLEON
THE EPISODE OF THE THEATRICAL VENTURE
THE EPISODE OF THE LIVE WEEKLY
THE DIVERTING EPISODE OF THE EXILED MONARCH
THE EPISODE OF THE HIRED PAST
THE EPISODE OF THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER
First of a Series of Six Stories [First published in _Pictorial Review_,
May 1916]
When a seed-merchant of cautious disposition and an eye to the main
chance receives from an eminent firm of jam-manufacturers an extremely
large order for clover-seed, his emotions are mixed. Joy may be said to
predominate, but with the joy comes also uncertainty. Are these people,
he asks himself, proposing to set up as farmers of a large scale, or do
they merely want the seed to give verisimilitude to their otherwise bald
and unconvincing raspberry jam? On the solution of this problem
depends the important matter of price, for, obviously, you can charge
a fraudulent jam disseminator in a manner which an honest farmer would
resent.
This was the problem which was furrowing the brow of Mr. Julian
Fineberg, of Bury St. Edwards, one sunny morning when Roland Bleke
knocked at his door; and such was its difficulty that only at the
nineteenth knock did Mr. Fineberg raise his head.
“Come in--that dashed woodpecker out there!” he shouted, for it was his
habit to express himself with a generous strength towards the junior
members of his staff.
The young man who entered looked exactly like a second clerk in a
provincial seed-merchant's office--which, strangely enough, he chanced
to be. His chief characteristic was an intense ordinariness. He was a
young man; and when you had said that of him you had said everything.
There was nothing which you would have noticed about him, except the
fact that there was nothing to notice. His age was twenty-two and his
name was Roland Bleke.
“Please, sir, it's about my salary.”
Mr. Fineberg, at the word, drew himself together much as a British
square at Waterloo must have drawn itself together at the sight of a
squadron of cuirassiers.
“Salary?” he cried. “What about it? What's the matter with it? You get
it, don't you?”
“Yes, sir, but----”
“Well? Don't stand there like an idiot. What is it?”
“It's too much.”
Mr. Fineberg's brain reeled. It was improbable that the millennium could
have arrived with a jerk; on the other hand, he had distinctly heard
one of his clerks complain that his salary was too large. He pinched
himself.
“Say that again,” he said.
“If you could see your way to reduce it, sir----”
It occurred to Mr. Fineberg for one instant that his subordinate was
endeavoring to be humorous, but a glance at Roland's face dispelled that
idea.
“Why do you want it reduced?”
“Please, sir, I'm going to be married.”
“What the deuce do you mean?”
“When my salary reaches a hundred and fifty, sir. And it's a hundred and
forty now, so if you could see your way to knocking off ten pounds----”
Mr. Fineberg saw light. He was a married man himself.
“My boy,” he said genially, “I quite understand. But I can do you better
than that. It's no use doing this sort of thing in a small way. From now
on your salary is a hundred and ten. No, no, don't thank me. You're an
excellent clerk, and it's a pleasure to me to reward merit when I find
it. Close the door after you.”
And Mr. Fineberg returned with a lighter heart to the great clover-seed
problem.
The circumstances which had led Roland to approach his employer may
be briefly recounted. Since joining the staff of Mr. Fineberg, he had
lodged at the house of a Mr. Coppin, in honorable employment as porter
at the local railway-station. The Coppin family, excluding domestic
pets, consisted of Mr. Coppin, a kindly and garrulous gentleman of
sixty, Mrs. Coppin, a somewhat negative personality, most of whose life
was devoted to cooking and washing up in her underground lair, Brothers
Frank and Percy, gentleman of leisure, popularly supposed to be engaged
in the mysterious occupation known as “lookin' about for somethin',”
and, lastly, Muriel.
For some months after his arrival, Muriel had been to Roland Bleke
a mere automaton, a something outside himself that was made only for
neatly-laid breakfast tables and silent removal of plates at dinner.
Gradually, however, when his natural shyness was soothed by use
sufficiently to enable him to look at her when she came into the room,
he discovered that she was a strikingly pretty girl, bounded to the
North by a mass of auburn hair and to the South by small and shapely
feet. She also possessed what, we are informed--we are children in these
matters ourselves--is known as the R. S. V. P. eye. This eye had met
Roland's one evening, as he chumped his chop, and before he knew what he
was doing he had remarked that it had been a fine day.
From that wonderful moment matters had developed at an incredible speed.
Roland had a nice sense of the social proprieties, and he could not
bring himself to ignore a girl with whom he had once exchanged easy
conversation about the weather. Whenever she came to lay his table, he
felt bound to say something. Not being an experienced gagger, he found
it more and more difficult each evening to hit on something bright,
until finally, from sheer lack of inspiration, he kissed her.
If matters had progressed rapidly before, they went like lightning then.
It was as if he had touched a spring or pressed a button, setting vast
machinery in motion. Even as he reeled back stunned at his audacity, the
room became suddenly full of Coppins of every variety known to science.
Through a mist he was aware of Mrs. Coppin crying in a corner, of
Mr. Coppin drinking his health in the remains of sparkling limado,
of Brothers Frank and Percy, one on each side trying to borrow
simultaneously half-crowns, and of Muriel, flushed but demure, making
bread-pellets and throwing them in an abstracted way, one by one, at the
Coppin cat, which had wandered in on the chance of fish.
Out of the chaos, as he stood looking at them with his mouth open, came
the word “bans,” and smote him like a blast of East wind.
It is not necessary to trace in detail Roland's mental processes from
that moment till the day when he applied to Mr. Fineberg for a
reduction of salary. It is enough to say that for quite a month he was
extraordinarily happy. To a man who has had nothing to do with women, to
be engaged is an intoxicating experience, and at first life was one
long golden glow to Roland. Secretly, like all mild men, he had always
nourished a desire to be esteemed a nut by his fellow men; and his
engagement satisfied that desire. It was pleasant to hear Brothers
Frank and Percy cough knowingly when he came in. It was pleasant to walk
abroad with a girl like Muriel in the capacity of the accepted wooer.
Above all, it was pleasant to sit holding Muriel's hand and watching the
ill-concealed efforts of Mr. Albert Potter to hide his mortification.
Albert was a mechanic in the motor-works round the corner, and hitherto
Roland had always felt something of a worm in his presence. Albert was
so infernally strong and silent and efficient. He could dissect a car
and put it together again. He could drive through the thickest traffic.
He could sit silent in company without having his silence attributed to
shyness or imbecility. But--he could not get engaged to Muriel Coppin.
That was reserved for Roland Bleke, the nut, the dasher, the young man
of affairs. It was all very well being able to tell a spark-plug from a
commutator at sight, but when it came to a contest in an affair of the
heart with a man like Roland, Albert was in his proper place, third at
the pole.
Probably, if he could have gone on merely being engaged, Roland would
never have wearied of the experience. But the word marriage began to
creep more and more into the family conversation, and suddenly panic
descended upon Roland Bleke.
All his life he had had a horror of definite appointments. An invitation
to tea a week ahead had been enough to poison life for him. He was one
of those young men whose souls revolt at the thought of planning out any
definite step. He could do things on the spur of the moment, but plans
made him lose his nerve.
By the end of the month his whole being was crying out to him in
agonized tones: “Get me out of this. Do anything you like, but get me
out of this frightful marriage business.”
If anything had been needed to emphasize his desire for freedom, the
attitude of Frank and Percy would have supplied it. Every day they made
it clearer that the man who married Muriel would be no stranger to them.
It would be his pleasing task to support them, too, in the style to
which they had become accustomed. They conveyed the idea that they went
with Muriel as a sort of bonus.
* * * * *
The Coppin family were at high tea when Roland reached home. There was
a general stir of interest as he entered the room, for it was known that
he had left that morning with the intention of approaching Mr. Fineberg
on the important matter of a rise in salary. Mr. Coppin removed his
saucer of tea from his lips. Frank brushed the tail of a sardine from
the corner of his mouth. Percy ate his haddock in an undertone. Albert
Potter, who was present, glowered silently.
Roland shook his head with the nearest approach to gloom which his
rejoicing heart would permit.
“I'm afraid I've bad news.”
Mrs. Coppin burst into tears, her invariable practise in any crisis.
Albert Potter's face relaxed into something resembling a smile.
“He won't give you your raise?”
Roland sighed.
“He's reduced me.”
“Reduced you!”
“Yes. Times are bad just at present, so he has had to lower me to a
hundred and ten.”
The collected jaws of the family fell as one jaw. Muriel herself seemed
to be bearing the blow with fortitude, but the rest were stunned. Frank
and Percy might have been posing for a picture of men who had lost their
fountain pens.
Beneath the table the hand of Albert Potter found the hand of Muriel
Coppin, and held it; and Muriel, we regret to add, turned and bestowed
upon Albert a half-smile of tender understanding.
“I suppose,” said Roland, “we couldn't get married on a hundred and
ten?”
“No,” said Percy.
“No,” said Frank.
“No,” said Albert Potter.
They all spoke decidedly, but Albert the most decidedly of the three.
“Then,” said Roland regretfully, “I'm afraid we must wait.”
It seemed to be the general verdict that they must wait. Muriel said she
thought they must wait. Albert Potter, whose opinion no one had asked,
was quite certain that they must wait. Mrs. Coppin, between sobs, moaned
that it would be best to wait. Frank and Percy, morosely devouring
bread and jam, said they supposed they would have to wait. And, to end a
painful scene, Roland drifted silently from the room, and went up-stairs
to his own quarters.
There was a telegram on the mantel.
“Some fellows,” he soliloquized happily, as he opened it, “wouldn't
have been able to manage a little thing like that. They would have given
themselves away. They would----”
The contents of the telegram demanded his attention.
For some time they conveyed nothing to him. The thing might have been
written in Hindustani.
It would have been quite appropriate if it had been, for it was from the
promoters of the Calcutta Sweep, and it informed him that, as the holder
of ticket number 108,694, he had drawn Gelatine, and in recognition of
this fact a check for five hundred pounds would be forwarded to him in
due course.
* * * * *
Roland's first feeling was one of pure bewilderment. As far as he
could recollect, he had never had any dealings whatsoever with these
open-handed gentlemen. Then memory opened her flood-gates and swept him
back to a morning ages ago, so it seemed to him, when Mr. Fineberg's
eldest son Ralph, passing through the office on his way to borrow money
from his father, had offered him for ten shillings down a piece of
cardboard, at the same time saying something about a sweep. Partly
from a vague desire to keep in with the Fineberg clan, but principally
because it struck him as rather a doggish thing to do, Roland had passed
over the ten shillings; and there, as far as he had known, the matter
had ended.
And now, after all this time, that simple action had borne fruit in the
shape of Gelatine and a check for five hundred pounds.
Roland's next emotion was triumph. The sudden entry of checks for five
hundred pounds into a man's life is apt to produce this result.
For the space of some minutes he gloated; and then reaction set in. Five
hundred pounds meant marriage with Muriel.
His brain worked quickly. He must conceal this thing. With trembling
fingers he felt for his match-box, struck a match, and burnt the
telegram to ashes. Then, feeling a little better, he sat down to think
the whole matter over. His meditations brought a certain amount of balm.
After all, he felt, the thing could quite easily be kept a secret. He
would receive the check in due course, as stated, and he would bicycle
over to the neighboring town of Lexingham and start a bank-account with
it. Nobody would know, and life would go on as before.
He went to bed, and slept peacefully.
* * * * *
It was about a week after this that he was roused out of a deep sleep
at eight o'clock in the morning to find his room full of Coppins. Mr.
Coppin was there in a nightshirt and his official trousers. Mrs.
Coppin was there, weeping softly in a brown dressing-gown. Modesty had
apparently kept Muriel from the gathering, but brothers Frank and Percy
stood at his bedside, shaking him by the shoulders and shouting. Mr.
Coppin thrust a newspaper at him, as he sat up blinking.
These epic moments are best related swiftly. Roland took the paper, and
the first thing that met his sleepy eye and effectually drove the sleep
from it was this head-line:
ROMANCE OF THE CALCUTTA SWEEPSTAKES
And beneath it another in type almost as large as the first:
POOR CLERK WINS £40,000
His own name leaped at him from the printed page, and with it that of
the faithful Gelatine.
Flight! That was the master-word which rang in Roland's brain as day
followed day. The wild desire of the trapped animal to be anywhere
except just where he was had come upon him. He was past the stage when
conscience could have kept him to his obligations. He had ceased to
think of anything or any one but himself. All he asked of Fate was to
remove him from Bury St. Edwards on any terms.
It may be that some inkling of his state of mind was wafted
telepathically to Frank and Percy, for it can not be denied that their
behavior at this juncture was more than a little reminiscent of the
police force. Perhaps it was simply their natural anxiety to keep an eye
on what they already considered their own private gold-mine that made
them so adhesive. Certainly there was no hour of the day when one or the
other was not in Roland's immediate neighborhood. Their vigilance
even extended to the night hours, and once, when Roland, having tossed
sleeplessly on his bed, got up at two in the morning, with the wild idea
of stealing out of the house and walking to London, a door opened as he
reached the top of the stairs, and a voice asked him what he thought he
was doing. The statement that he was walking in his sleep was accepted,
but coldly.
It was shortly after this that, having by dint of extraordinary strategy
eluded the brothers and reached the railway-station, Roland, with his
ticket to London in his pocket and the express already entering the
station, was engaged in conversation by old Mr. Coppin, who appeared
from nowhere to denounce the high cost of living in a speech that lasted
until the tail-lights of the train had vanished and Brothers Frank and
Percy arrived, panting.
A man has only a certain capacity for battling with Fate. After this
last episode Roland gave in. Not even the exquisite agony of hearing
himself described in church as a bachelor of this parish, with the grim
addition that this was for the second time of asking, could stir him to
a fresh dash for liberty.
Altho the shadow of the future occupied Roland's mind almost to the
exclusion of everything else, he was still capable of suffering a
certain amount of additional torment from the present; and one of the
things which made the present a source of misery to him was the fact
that he was expected to behave more like a mad millionaire than a sober
young man with a knowledge of the value of money. His mind, trained from
infancy to a decent respect for the pence, had not yet adjusted itself
to the possession of large means; and the open-handed role forced upon
him by the family appalled him.
When the Coppins wanted anything, they asked for it; and it seemed to
Roland that they wanted pretty nearly everything. If Mr. Coppin had
reached his present age without the assistance of a gold watch, he might
surely have struggled along to the end on gun-metal. In any case, a man
of his years should have been thinking of higher things than mere gauds
and trinkets. A like criticism applied to Mrs. Coppin's demand for a
silk petticoat, which struck Roland as simply indecent. Frank and Percy
took theirs mostly in specie. It was Muriel who struck the worst blow by
insisting on a hired motor-car.
Roland hated motor-cars, especially when they were driven by Albert
Potter, as this one was. Albert, that strong, silent man, had but one
way of expressing his emotions, namely to open the throttle and shave
the paint off trolley-cars. Disappointed love was giving Albert a good
deal of discomfort at this time, and he found it made him feel better
to go round corners on two wheels. As Muriel sat next to him on these
expeditions, Roland squashing into the tonneau with Frank and Percy, his
torments were subtle. He was not given a chance to forget, and the only
way in which he could obtain a momentary diminution of the agony was to
increase the speed to sixty miles an hour.
It was in this fashion that they journeyed to the neighboring town of
Lexingham to see M. Etienne Feriaud perform his feat of looping the loop
in his aeroplane.
It was Brother Frank's idea that they should make up a party to go and
see M. Feriaud. Frank's was one of those generous, unspoiled natures
which never grow _blasé_ at the sight of a fellow human taking a
sporting chance at hara-kiri. He was a well-known figure at every wild
animal exhibition within a radius of fifty miles, and M. Feriaud drew
him like a magnet.
“The blighter goes up,” he explained, as he conducted the party into the
arena, “and then he stands on his head and goes round in circles. I've
seen pictures of it.”
It appeared that M. Feriaud did even more than this. Posters round the
ground advertised the fact that, on receipt of five pounds, he would
take up a passenger with him. To date, however, there appeared to have
been no rush on the part of the canny inhabitants of Lexingham to avail
themselves of this chance of a breath of fresh air. M. Feriaud, a small
man with a chubby and amiable face, wandered about signing picture cards
and smoking a lighted cigaret, looking a little disappointed.
Albert Potter was scornful.
“Lot of rabbits,” he said. “Where's their pluck? And I suppose they call
themselves Englishmen. I'd go up precious quick if I had a five-pound
note. Disgrace, I call it, letting a Frenchman have the laugh of us.”
It was a long speech for Mr. Potter, and it drew a look of respectful
tenderness from Muriel. “You're so brave, Mr. Potter,” she said.
Whether it was the slight emphasis which she put on the first word, or
whether it was sheer generosity that impelled him, one can not say; but
Roland produced the required sum even while she spoke. He offered it to
his rival.
Mr. Potter started, turned a little pale, then drew himself up and waved
the note aside.
“I take no favors,” he said with dignity.
There was a pause.
“Why don't you do it.” said Albert, nastily. “Five pounds is nothing to
you.”
“Why should I?”
“Ah! Why should you?”
It would be useless to assert that Mr. Potter's tone was friendly. It
stung Roland. It seemed to him that Muriel was looking at him in an
unpleasantly contemptuous manner.
In some curious fashion, without doing anything to merit it, he had
apparently become an object of scorn and derision to the party.
“All right, then, I will,” he said suddenly.
“Easy enough to talk,” said Albert.
Roland strode with a pale but determined face to the spot where M.
Feriaud, beaming politely, was signing a picture post-card.
Some feeling of compunction appeared to come to Muriel at the eleventh
hour.
“Don't let him,” she cried.
But Brother Frank was made of sterner stuff. This was precisely the sort
of thing which, in his opinion, made for a jolly afternoon.
For years he had been waiting for something of this kind. He was
experiencing that pleasant thrill which comes to a certain type
of person when the victim of a murder in the morning paper is an
acquaintance of theirs.
“What are you talking about?” he said. “There's no danger. At least, not
much. He might easily come down all right. Besides, he wants to. What do
you want to go interfering for?”
Roland returned. The negotiations with the bird-man had lasted a little
longer than one would have expected. But then, of course, M. Feriaud was
a foreigner, and Roland's French was not fluent.
He took Muriel's hand.
“Good-by,” he said.
He shook hands with the rest of the party, even with Albert Potter. It
struck Frank that he was making too much fuss over a trifle--and, worse,
delaying the start of the proceedings.
“What's it all about?” he demanded. “You go on as if we were never going
to see you again.”
“You never know.”
“It's as safe as being in bed.”
“But still, in case we never meet again----”
“Oh, well,” said Brother Frank, and took the outstretched hand.
* * * * *
The little party stood and watched as the aeroplane moved swiftly along
the ground, rose, and soared into the air. Higher and higher it rose,
till the features of the two occupants were almost invisible.
“Now,” said Brother Frank. “Now watch. Now he's going to loop the loop.”
But the wheels of the aeroplane still pointed to the ground. It grew
smaller and smaller. It was a mere speck.
“What the dickens?”
Far away to the West something showed up against the blue of the
sky--something that might have been a bird, a toy kite, or an aeroplane
traveling rapidly into the sunset.
Four pairs of eyes followed it in rapt silence.
THE EPISODE OF THE FINANCIAL NAPOLEON
Second of a Series of Six Stories [First published in _Pictorial
Review_, June 1916]
Seated with his wife at breakfast on the veranda which overlooked the
rolling lawns and leafy woods of his charming Sussex home, Geoffrey
Windlebird, the great financier, was enjoying the morning sun to the
full. His chubby features were relaxed in a smile of lazy contentment;
and his wife, who liked to act sometimes as his secretary, found it
difficult to get him to pay any attention to his morning's mail.
“There's a column in to-day's _Financial Argus_,” she said, “of which
you really must take notice. It's most abusive. It's about the Wildcat
Reef. They assert that there never was any gold in the mine, and that
you knew it when you floated the company.”
“They will have their little joke.”
“But you had the usual mining-expert's report.”
“Of course we had. And a capital report it was. I remember thinking at
the time what a neat turn of phrase the fellow had. I admit he depended
rather on his fine optimism than on any examination of the mine. As a
matter of fact, he never went near it. And why should he? It's down in
South America somewhere. Awful climate--snakes, mosquitoes, revolutions,
fever.”
Mr. Windlebird spoke drowsily. His eyes closed.
“Well, the Argus people say that they have sent a man of their own out
there to make inquiries, a well-known expert, and the report will be in
within the next fortnight. They say they will publish it in their next
number but one. What are you going to do about it?”
Mr. Windlebird yawned.
“Not to put too fine a point on it, dearest, the game is up. The
Napoleon of Finance is about to meet his Waterloo. And all for twenty
thousand pounds. That is the really bitter part of it. To-morrow we sail
for the Argentine. I've got the tickets.”
“You're joking, Geoffrey. You must be able to raise twenty thousand.
It's a flea-bite.”
“On paper--in the form of shares, script, bonds, promissory notes, it
is a flea-bite. But when it has to be produced in the raw, in flat, hard
lumps of gold or in crackling bank-notes, it's more like a bite from a
hippopotamus. I can't raise it, and that's all about it. So--St. Helena
for Napoleon.”
Altho Geoffrey Windlebird described himself as a Napoleon of Finance, a
Cinquevalli or Chung Ling Soo of Finance would have been a more accurate
title. As a juggler with other people's money he was at the head of his
class. And yet, when one came to examine it, his method was delightfully
simple. Say, for instance, that the Home-grown Tobacco Trust, founded by
Geoffrey in a moment of ennui, failed to yield those profits which the
glowing prospectus had led the public to expect. Geoffrey would appease
the excited shareholders by giving them Preference Shares (interest
guaranteed) in the Sea-gold Extraction Company, hastily floated to meet
the emergency. When the interest became due, it would, as likely as not,
be paid out of the capital just subscribed for the King Solomon's Mines
Exploitation Association, the little deficiency in the latter being
replaced in its turn, when absolutely necessary and not a moment before,
by the transfer of some portion of the capital just raised for yet
another company. And so on, ad infinitum. There were moments when it
seemed to Mr. Windlebird that he had solved the problem of Perpetual
Promotion.
The only thing that can stop a triumphal progress like Mr. Windlebird's
is when some coarse person refuses to play to the rules, and demands
ready money instead of shares in the next venture. This had happened
now, and it had flattened Mr. Windlebird like an avalanche.
He was a philosopher, but he could not help feeling a little galled that
the demand which had destroyed him had been so trivial. He had handled
millions--on paper, it was true, but still millions--and here he was
knocked out of time by a paltry twenty thousand pounds.
“Are you absolutely sure that nothing can be done?” persisted Mrs.
Windlebird. “Have you tried every one?”
“Every one, dear moon-of-my-delight--the probables, the possibles, the
highly unlikelies, and the impossibles. Never an echo to the minstrel's
wooing song. No, my dear, we have got to take to the boats this time.
Unless, of course, some one possessed at one and the same time of twenty
thousand pounds and a very confiding nature happens to drop from the
clouds.”
As he spoke, an aeroplane came sailing over the tops of the trees beyond
the tennis-lawn. Gracefully as a bird it settled on the smooth turf, not
twenty yards from where he was seated.
* * * * *
Roland Bleke stepped stiffly out onto the tennis-lawn. His progress
rather resembled that of a landsman getting out of an open boat in
which he has spent a long and perilous night at sea. He was feeling more
wretched than he had ever felt in his life. He had a severe cold. He had
a splitting headache. His hands and feet were frozen. His eyes smarted.
He was hungry. He was thirsty. He hated cheerful M. Feriaud, who had
hopped out and was now busy tinkering the engine, a gay Provencal air
upon his lips, as he had rarely hated any one, even Muriel Coppin's
brother Frank.
So absorbed was he in his troubles that he was not aware of Mr.
Windlebird's approach until that pleasant, portly man's shadow fell on
the turf before him.
“Not had an accident, I hope, Mr. Bleke?”
Roland was too far gone in misery to speculate as to how this genial
stranger came to know his name. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Windlebird,
keen student of the illustrated press, had recognized Roland by his
photograph in the Daily Mirror. In the course of the twenty yards' walk
from house to tennis-lawn she had put her husband into possession of
the more salient points in Roland's history. It was when Mr. Windlebird
heard that Roland had forty thousand pounds in the bank that he sat up
and took notice.
“Lead me to him,” he said simply.
Roland sneezed.
“Doe accident, thag you,” he replied miserably. “Somethig's gone wrong
with the worgs, but it's nothing serious, worse luck.”
M. Feriaud, having by this time adjusted the defect in his engine, rose
to his feet, and bowed.
“Excuse if we come down on your lawn. But not long do we trespass. See,
_mon ami_,” he said radiantly to Roland, “all now O. K. We go on.”
“No,” said Roland decidedly.
“No? What you mean--no?”
A shade of alarm fell on M. Feriaud's weather-beaten features. The
eminent bird-man did not wish to part from Roland. Toward Roland he
felt like a brother, for Roland had notions about payment for little
aeroplane rides which bordered upon the princely.
“But you say--take me to France with you----”
“I know. But it's all off. I'm not feeling well.”
“But it's all wrong.” M. Feriaud gesticulated to drive home his point.
“You give me one hundred pounds to take you away from Lexingham. Good.
It is here.” He slapped his breast pocket. “But the other two hundred
pounds which also you promise me to pay me when I place you safe in
France, where is that, my friend?”
“I will give you two hundred and fifty,” said Roland earnestly, “to
leave me here, and go right away, and never let me see your beastly
machine again.”
A smile of brotherly forgiveness lit up M. Feriaud's face. The generous
Gallic nature asserted itself. He held out his arms affectionately to
Roland.
“Ah, now you talk. Now you say something,” he cried in his impetuous
way. “Embrace me. You are all right.”
Roland heaved a sigh of relief when, five minutes later, the aeroplane
disappeared over the brow of the hill. Then he began to sneeze again.
“You're not well, you know,” said Mr. Windlebird.
“I've caught cold. We've been flying about all night--that French ass
lost his bearings--and my suit is thin. Can you direct me to a hotel?”
“Hotel? Nonsense.” Mr. Windlebird spoke in the bluff, breezy voice which
at many a stricken board-meeting had calmed frantic shareholders as
if by magic. “You're coming right into my house and up to bed this
instant.”
It was not till he was between the sheets with a hot-water bottle at his
toes and a huge breakfast inside him that Roland learned the name of his
good Samaritan. When he did, his first impulse was to struggle out of
bed and make his escape. Geoffrey Windlebird's was a name which he had
learned, in the course of his mercantile career, to hold in something
approaching reverence as that of one of the mightiest business brains of
the age.
To have to meet so eminent a man in the capacity of invalid, a nuisance
about the house, was almost too much for Roland's shrinking nature. The
kindness of the Windlebirds--and there seemed to be nothing that they
were not ready to do for him--distressed him beyond measure. To have a
really great man like Geoffrey Windlebird sprawling genially over
his bed, chatting away as if he were an ordinary friend, was almost
horrible. Such condescension was too much.
Gradually, as he became convalescent, Roland found this feeling replaced
by something more comfortable. They were such a genuine, simple, kindly
couple, these Windlebirds, that he lost awe and retained only gratitude.
He loved them both. He opened his heart to them. It was not long before
he had told them the history of his career, skipping the earlier years
and beginning with the entry of wealth into his life.
“It makes you feel funny,” he confided to Mr. Windlebird's sympathetic
ear, “suddenly coming into a pot of money like that. You don't seem
hardly able to realize it. I don't know what to do with it.”
Mr. Windlebird smiled paternally.
“The advice of an older man who has had, if I may say so, some little
experience of finance, might be useful to you there. Perhaps if you
would allow me to recommend some sound investment----”
Roland glowed with gratitude.
“There's just one thing I'd like to do before I start putting my money
into anything. It's like this.”
He briefly related the story of his unfortunate affair with Muriel
Coppin. Within an hour of his departure in the aeroplane, his conscience
had begun to trouble him on this point. He felt that he had not acted
well toward Muriel. True, he was practically certain that she didn't
care a bit about him and was in love with Albert, the silent mechanic,
but there was just the chance that she was mourning over his loss; and,
anyhow, his conscience was sore.
“I'd like to give her something,” he said. “How much do you think?”
Mr. Windlebird perpended.
“I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send my own lawyer to her with--say,
a thousand pounds--not a check, you understand, but one thousand golden
sovereigns that he can show her--roll about on the table in front of her
eyes. That'll console her. It's wonderful, the effect money in the raw
has on people.”
“I'd rather make it two thousand,” said Roland. He had never really
loved Muriel, and the idea of marrying her had been a nightmare to him;
but he wanted to retreat with honor.
“Very well, make it two thousand, if you like. Tho I don't quite know
how old Harrison is going to carry all that money.”
As a matter of fact, old Harrison never had to try. On thinking it
over, after he had cashed Roland's check, Mr. Windlebird came to the
conclusion that seven hundred pounds would be quite as much money as it
would be good for Miss Coppin to have all at once.
Mr. Windlebird's knowledge of human nature was not at fault. Muriel
jumped at the money, and a letter in her handwriting informed Roland
next morning that his slate was clean. His gratitude to Mr. Windlebird
redoubled.
“And now,” said Mr. Windlebird genially, “we can talk about that money
of yours, and the best way of investing it. What you want is something
which, without being in any way what is called speculative, nevertheless
returns a fair and reasonable amount of interest. What you want is
something sound, something solid, yet something with a bit of a kick to
it, something which can't go down and may go soaring like a rocket.”
Roland quietly announced that was just what he did want, and lit another
cigar.
“Now, look here, Bleke, my boy, as a general rule I don't give tips--But
I've taken a great fancy to you, Bleke, and I'm going to break my rule.
Put your money--” he sank his voice to a compelling whisper, “put every
penny you can afford into Wildcat Reefs.”
He leaned back with the benign air of the Alchemist who has just
imparted to a favorite disciple the recently discovered secret of the
philosopher's stone.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Windlebird,” said Roland gratefully. “I will.”
The Napoleonic features were lightened by that rare, indulgent smile.
“Not so fast, young man,” laughed Mr. Windlebird. “Getting into Wildcat
Reefs isn't quite so easy as you seem to think. Shall we say that you
propose to invest thirty thousand pounds? Yes? Very well, then. Thirty
thousand pounds! Why, if it got about that you were going to buy Wildcat
Reefs on that scale the market would be convulsed.”
Which was perfectly true. If it had got about that any one was going to
invest thirty thousand pounds--or pence--in Wildcat Reefs, the market
would certainly have been convulsed. The House would have rocked with
laughter. Wildcat Reefs were a standing joke--except to the unfortunate
few who still held any of the shares.
“The thing will have to be done very cautiously. No one must know. But I
think--I say I think--I can manage it for you.”
“You're awfully kind, Mr. Windlebird.”
“Not at all, my dear boy, not at all. As a matter of fact, I shall be
doing a very good turn to another pal of mine at the same time.” He
filled his glass. “This--” he paused to sip--“this pal of mine has a
large holding of Wildcats. He wants to realize in order to put the money
into something else, in which he is more personally interested.” Mr.
Windlebird paused. His mind dwelt for a moment on his overdrawn current
account at the bank. “In which he is more personally interested,” he
repeated dreamily. “But of course you couldn't unload thirty pounds'
worth of Wildcats in the public market.”
“I quite see that,” assented Roland.
“It might, however, be done by private negotiation,” he said. “I
must act very cautiously. Give me your check for the thirty thousand
to-night, and I will run up to town to-morrow morning, and see what I
can do.”
* * * * *
He did it. What hidden strings he pulled, what levers he used, Roland
did not know. All Roland knew was that somehow, by some subtle means,
Mr. Windlebird brought it off. Two days later his host handed him twenty
thousand one-pound shares in the Wildcat Reef Gold-mine.
“There, my boy,” he said.
“It's awfully kind of you, Mr. Windlebird.”
“My dear boy, don't mention it. If you're satisfied, I'm sure I am.”
Mr. Windlebird always spoke the truth when he could. He spoke it now.
It seemed to Roland, as the days went by, that nothing could mar the
pleasant, easy course of life at the Windlebirds. The fine weather, the
beautiful garden, the pleasant company--all these things combined to
make this sojourn an epoch in his life.
He discovered his mistake one lovely afternoon as he sat smoking idly
on the terrace. Mrs. Windlebird came to him, and a glance was enough to
show Roland that something was seriously wrong. Her face was drawn and
tired.
A moment before, Roland had been thinking life perfect. The only
crumpled rose-leaf had been the absence of an evening paper. Mr.
Windlebird would bring one back with him when he returned from the city,
but Roland wanted one now. He was a great follower of county cricket,
and he wanted to know how Surrey was faring against Yorkshire. But even
this crumpled rose-leaf had been smoothed out, for Johnson, the groom,
who happened to be riding into the nearest town on an errand, had
promised to bring one back with him. He might appear at any moment now.
The sight of his hostess drove all thoughts of sport out of his mind.
She was looking terribly troubled.
It flashed across Roland that both his host and hostess had been
unusually silent at dinner the night before; and later, passing Mr.
Windlebird's room on his way to bed, he had heard their voices, low and
agitated. Could they have had some bad news?
“Mr. Bleke, I want to speak to you.”
Roland moved like a sympathetic cow, and waited to hear more.
“You were not up when my husband left for the city this morning, or he
would have told you himself. Mr. Bleke, I hardly know how to break it to
you.”
“Break it to me!”
“My husband advised you to put a very large sum of money in a mine
called Wildcat Reefs.”
“Yes. Thirty thousand pounds.”
“As much as that! Oh, Mr. Bleke!”
She began to cry softly. She pressed his hand. Roland gaped at her.
“Mr. Bleke, there has been a terrible slump in Wildcat Reefs. To-day,
they may be absolutely worthless.”
Roland felt as if a cold hand had been laid on his spine.
“Wor-worthless!” he stammered.
Mrs. Windlebird looked at him with moist eyes.
“You can imagine how my husband feels about this. It was on his advice
that you invested your money. He holds himself directly responsible. He
is in a terrible state of mind. He is frantic. He has grown so fond of
you, Mr. Bleke, that he can hardly face the thought that he has been the
innocent instrument of your trouble.”
* * * * *
Roland felt that it was an admirable comparison. His sensations were
precisely those of a leading actor in an earthquake. The solid earth
seemed to melt under him.
“We talked it over last night after you had gone to bed, and we came to
the conclusion that there was only one honorable step to take. We must
make good your losses. We must buy back those shares.”
A ray of hope began to steal over Roland's horizon.
“But----” he began.
“There are no buts, really, Mr. Bleke. We should neither of us know a
minute's peace if we didn't do it. Now, you paid thirty thousand pounds
for the shares, you said? Well”--she held out a pink slip of paper to
him--“this will make everything all right.”
Roland looked at the check.
“But--but this is signed by you,” he said.
“Yes. You see, if Geoffrey had to sign a check for that amount, it would
mean selling out some of his stock, and in his position, with every
movement watched by enemies, he can not afford to do it. It might ruin
the plans of years. But I have some money of my own. My selling out
stock doesn't matter, you see. I have post-dated the check a week,
to give me time to realize on the securities in which my money is
invested.”
Roland's whole nature rose in revolt at this sacrifice. If it had
been his host who had made this offer, he would have accepted it.
But chivalry forbade his taking this money from a woman. A glow of
self-sacrifice warmed him. After all, what was this money of his? He had
never had any fun out of it. He had had so little acquaintance with it
that for all practical purposes it might never have been his.
With a gesture which had once impressed him very favorably when
exhibited on the stage by the hero of the number two company of “The
Price of Honor,” which had paid a six days' visit to Bury St. Edwards a
few months before, he tore the check into little pieces.
“I couldn't accept it, Mrs. Windlebird,” he said. “I can't tell you how
deeply I appreciate your wonderful kindness, but I really couldn't. I
bought the shares with my eyes open. The whole thing is nobody's fault,
and I can't let you suffer for it. After the way you have treated me
here, it would be impossible. I can't take your money. It's noble and
generous of you in the extreme, but I can't accept it. I've still got a
little money left, and I've always been used to working for my living,
anyway, so--so it's all right.”
“Mr. Bleke, I implore you.”
Roland was hideously embarrassed. He looked right and left for a way of
escape. He could hardly take to his heels, and yet there seemed no other
way of ending the interview. Then, with a start of relief, he perceived
Johnson the groom coming toward him with the evening paper.
“Johnson said he was going into the town,” said Roland apologetically,
“so I asked him to get me an evening paper. I wanted to see the lunch
scores.”
If he had been looking at his hostess then, an action which he was
strenuously avoiding, he might have seen a curious spasm pass over her
face. Mrs. Windlebird turned very pale and sat down suddenly in the
chair which Roland had vacated at the beginning of their conversation.
She lay back in it with her eyes closed. She looked tired and defeated.
Roland took the paper mechanically. He wanted it as a diversion to
the conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and
Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference in competition
with Mrs. Windlebird's news.
Equally mechanically he unfolded it and glanced at front page; and, as
he did do, a flaring explosion of headlines smote his eye.
Out of the explosion emerged the word “WILD-CATS”.
“Why!” he exclaimed. “There's columns about Wild-cats on the front page
here!”
“Yes?” Mrs. Windlebird's voice sounded strangely dull and toneless. Her
eyes were still closed.
Roland took in the headlines with starting eyes.
THE WILD-CAT REEF GOLD-MINE
ANOTHER KLONDIKE
FRENZIED SCENES ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE
BROKERS FIGHT FOR SHARES
RECORD BOOM
UNPRECEDENTED RISE IN PRICES
Shorn of all superfluous adjectives and general journalistic exuberance,
what the paper had to announce to its readers was this:
The “special commissioner” sent out by The _Financial Argus_ to
make an exhaustive examination of the Wild-cat Reef Mine--with
the amiable view, no doubt, of exploding Mr. Geoffrey Windlebird
once and for all with the confiding British public--has found,
to his unbounded astonishment, that there are vast quantities of
gold in the mine.
The discovery of the new reef, the largest and richest, it is
stated, since the famous Mount Morgan, occurred with dramatic
appropriateness on the very day of his arrival. We need scarcely
remind our readers that, until that moment, Wild-cat Reef shares
had reached a very low figure, and only a few optimists retained
their faith in the mine. As the largest holder, Mr. Windlebird
is to be heartily congratulated on this new addition to his
fortune.
The publication of the expert's report in The _Financial Argus_ has
resulted in a boom in Wild-cats, the like of which can seldom have
been seen on the Stock Exchange. From something like one shilling
and sixpence per bundle the one pound shares have gone up to nearly
ten pounds a share, and even at this latter figure people were
literally fighting to secure them.
The world swam about Roland. He was stupefied and even terrified. The
very atmosphere seemed foggy. So far as his reeling brain was capable
of thought, he figured that he was now worth about two hundred thousand
pounds.
“Oh, Mrs. Windlebird,” he cried, “It's all right after all.”
Mrs. Windlebird sat back in her chair without answering.
“It's all right for every one,” screamed Roland joyfully. “Why, if I've
made a couple of hundred thousand, what must Mr. Windlebird have netted.
It says here that he is the largest holder. He must have pulled off the
biggest thing of his life.”
He thought for a moment.
“The chap I'm sorry for,” he said meditatively, “is Mr. Windlebird's
pal. You know. The fellow whom Mr. Windlebird persuaded to sell all his
shares to me.”
A faint moan escaped from his hostess's pale lips. Roland did not hear
it. He was reading the cricket news.
THE EPISODE OF THE THEATRICAL VENTURE
Third of a Series of Six Stories [First published in _Pictorial Review_,
July 1916]
It was one of those hard, nubbly rolls. The best restaurants charge you
sixpence for having the good sense not to eat them. It hit Roland Bleke
with considerable vehemence on the bridge of the nose. For the moment
Roland fancied that the roof of the Regent Grill-room must have fallen
in; and, as this would automatically put an end to the party, he was not
altogether sorry. He had never been to a theatrical supper-party before,
and within five minutes of his arrival at the present one he had
become afflicted with an intense desire never to go to a theatrical
supper-party again. To be a success at these gay gatherings one must
possess dash; and Roland, whatever his other sterling qualities, was a
little short of dash.
The young man on the other side of the table was quite nice about it.
While not actually apologizing, he went so far as to explain that it was
“old Gerry” whom he had had in his mind when he started the roll on
its course. After a glance at old Gerry--a chinless child of about
nineteen--Roland felt that it would be churlish to be angry with a young
man whose intentions had been so wholly admirable. Old Gerry had one of
those faces in which any alteration, even the comparatively limited
one which a roll would be capable of producing, was bound to be for the
better. He smiled a sickly smile and said that it didn't matter.
The charming creature who sat on his assailant's left, however, took a
more serious view of the situation.
“Sidney, you make me tired,” she said severely. “If I had thought you
didn't know how to act like a gentleman I wouldn't have come here with
you. Go away somewhere and throw bread at yourself, and ask Mr. Bleke to
come and sit by me. I want to talk to him.”
That was Roland's first introduction to Miss Billy Verepoint.
“I've been wanting to have a chat with you all the evening, Mr. Bleke,”
she said, as Roland blushingly sank into the empty chair. “I've heard
such a lot about you.”
What Miss Verepoint had heard about Roland was that he had two hundred
thousand pounds and apparently did not know what to do with it.
“In fact, if I hadn't been told that you would be here, I shouldn't have
come to this party. Can't stand these gatherings of nuts in May as a
general rule. They bore me stiff.”
Roland hastily revised his first estimate of the theatrical profession.
Shallow, empty-headed creatures some of them might be, no doubt, but
there were exceptions. Here was a girl of real discernment--a thoughtful
student of character--a girl who understood that a man might sit at a
supper-party without uttering a word and might still be a man of parts.