THE LONG ARM OF LOONEY COOTE
Given private means sufficiently large to pad them against the
moulding buffets of Life, it is extraordinary how little men change
in after years from the boys they once were. There was a youth in
my house at school named Coote. J. G. Coote. And he was popularly
known as Looney on account of the vain and foolish superstitions
which seemed to rule his every action. Boys are hard-headed,
practical persons, and they have small tolerance for the view-point
of one who declines to join in a quiet smoke behind the gymnasium
not through any moral scruples—which, to do him justice, he would
have scorned—but purely on the ground that he had seen a magpie
that morning. This was what J. G. Coote did, and it was the first
occasion on which I remember him being addressed as Looney.
But, once given, the nickname stuck; and this in spite of the
fact—seeing that we were caught half-way through the first cigarette
and forcefully dealt with by a muscular head master—that that
magpie of his would appear to have known a thing or two. For five
happy years, till we parted to go to our respective universities,
I never called Coote anything but Looney; and it was as Looney that
I greeted him when we happened upon each other one afternoon at
Sandown, shortly after the conclusion of the three o’clock race.
“Did you do anything on that one?” I asked, after we had exchanged
salutations.
“I went down,” replied Looney, in the subdued but not heart-broken
manner of the plutocrat who can afford to do these things. “I had
a tenner on My Valet.”
“On My Valet!” I cried, aghast at this inexplicable patronage of
an animal which, even in the preliminary saunter round the paddock,
had shown symptoms of lethargy and fatigue, not to mention a
disposition to trip over his feet. “Whatever made you do that?”
“Yes, I suppose he never had a chance,” agreed Coote, “but a week
ago my man Spencer broke his leg, and I thought it might be an
omen.”
And then I knew that, for all his moustache and added weight, he
was still the old Looney of my boyhood.
“Is that the principle on which you always bet?” I enquired.
“Well, you’d be surprised how often it works. The day my aunt was
shut up in the private asylum I collected five hundred quid by
backing Crazy Jane for the Jubilee Cup. Have a cigarette?”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, my Lord!”
“Now what?”
“My pocket has been picked,” faltered Looney Coote, withdrawing a
trembling hand. “I had a note-case with nearly a hundred quid, and
it’s gone!”
The next moment I was astounded to observe a faint, resigned smile
on the man’s face.
“Well, that makes two,” he murmured, as if to himself.
“Two what?”
“Two misfortunes. These things always go in threes, you know.
Whenever anything rotten happens, I simply brace myself up for the
other two things. Well, there’s only one more to come this time,
thank goodness.”
“What was the first one?”
“I told you my man Spencer broke his leg.”
“I should have thought that would have ranked as one of Spencer’s
three misfortunes. How do you come in?”
“Why, my dear fellow, I’ve been having the devil of a time since
he dropped out. The ass they sent me from the agency as a substitute
is no good at all. Look at that!” He extended a shapely leg. “Do
you call that a crease?”
From the humble standpoint of my own bagginess, I should have
called it an excellent crease, but he seemed thoroughly dissatisfied
with it, so there was nothing to do but tell him to set his teeth
and bear it like a man, and presently, the bell having rung for
the three-thirty race, we parted.
“Oh, by the way,” said Looney, as he left me, “are you going to
be at the old Wrykinian dinner next week?”
“Yes, I’m coming. So is Ukridge.”
“Ukridge? Good Lord, I haven’t seen old Ukridge for years.”
“Well, he will be there. And I expect he’ll touch you for a
temporary loan. That will make your third misfortune.”
Ukridge’s decision to attend the annual dinner of the Old Boys of
the school at which he and I had been—in a manner of speaking—educated
had come as a surprise to me; for, though the meal was likely to
be well-cooked and sustaining, the tickets cost half a sovereign
apiece, and it was required of the celebrants that they wear
evening-dress. And, while Ukridge sometimes possessed ten shillings
which he had acquired by pawning a dress-suit, or a dress-suit
which he had hired for ten shillings, it was unusual for him to
have the two things together. Still, he was as good as his word,
and on the night of the banquet turned up at my lodgings for a
preliminary bracer faultlessly clad and ready for the feast.
Tactlessly, perhaps, I asked him what bank he had been robbing.
“I thought you told me a week ago that money was tight,” I said.
“It was tighter,” said Ukridge, “than these damned trousers. Never
buy ready-made dress-clothes, Corky, my boy. They’re always
unsatisfactory. But all that’s over now. I have turned the corner,
old man. Last Saturday we cleaned up to an extraordinary extent at
Sandown.”
“We?”
“The firm. I told you I had become a sleeping-partner in a bookie’s
business.”
“For Heaven’s sake! You don’t mean to say that it is really making
money?”
“Making money? My dear old lad, how could it help making money? I
told you from the first the thing was a gold-mine. Affluence stares
me in the eyeball. The day before yesterday I bought half-a-dozen
shirts. That’ll show you!”
“How much have you made?”
“In some ways,” said Ukridge, sentimentally, “I regret this
prosperity. I mean to say, those old careless impecunious days were
not so bad. Not so bad, Corky, old boy, eh? Life had a tang then.
It was swift, vivid, interesting. And there’s always the danger
that one may allow oneself to grow slack and enervated with wealth.
Still, it has its compensations. Yes, on the whole I am not sorry
to have made my pile.”
“How much have you made?” I asked again, impressed by this time.
The fact of Ukridge buying shirts for himself instead of purloining
mine suggested an almost Monte Cristo-like opulence.
“Fifteen quid,” said Ukridge. “Fifteen golden sovereigns, my boy!
And out of one week’s racing! And you must remember that the thing
is going on all the year round. Month by month, week by week, we
shall expand, we shall unfold, we shall develop. It wouldn’t be a
bad scheme, old man, to drop a judicious word here and there among
the lads at this dinner to-night, advising them to lodge their
commissions with us. Isaac O’Brien is the name of the firm, 3 Blue
Street, St. James’s. Telegraphic address, ‘Ikobee, London.’ and
our representative attends all the recognised meetings. But don’t
mention my connection with the firm. I don’t want it generally
known, as it might impair my social standing. And now, laddie, if
we don’t want to be late for this binge, we had better be starting.”
Ukridge, as I have recorded elsewhere, had left school under
something of a cloud. Not to put too fine a point on it, he had
been expelled for breaking out at night to attend the local fair,
and it was only after many years of cold exclusion that he had been
admitted to the pure-minded membership of the Old Boys’ Society.
Nevertheless, in the matter of patriotism he yielded to no one.
During our drive to the restaurant where the dinner was to be held
he grew more and more sentimental about the dear old school, and
by the time the meal was over and the speeches began he was in the
mood when men shed tears and invite people, to avoid whom in calmer
moments they would duck down side-streets, to go on long walking
tours with them. He wandered from table to table with a large cigar
in his mouth, now exchanging reminiscences, anon advising
contemporaries who had won high positions in the Church to place
their bets with Isaac O’Brien, of 3 Blue Street, St. James’s—a
sound and trustworthy firm, telegraphic address “Ikobee, London.”
The speeches at these dinners always opened with a long and
statistical harangue from the President, who, furtively consulting
his paper of notes, announced the various distinctions gained by
Old Boys during the past year. On this occasion, accordingly, he
began by mentioning that A. B. Bodger (“Good old Bodger!”—from
Ukridge) had been awarded the Mutt-Spivis Gold Medal for Geological
Research at Oxford University—that C. D. Codger had been appointed
to the sub-junior deanery of Westchester Cathedral—(“That’s the
stuff, Codger, old horse!”)—that as a reward for his services in
connection with the building of the new waterworks at Strelsau J.
J. Swodger had received from the Government of Ruritania the Order
of the Silver Trowel, third class (with crossed pickaxes).
“By the way,” said the President, concluding, “before I finish
there is one more thing I would like to say. An old boy, B. V.
Lawlor, is standing for Parliament next week at Redbridge. If any
of you would care to go down and lend him a hand, I know he would
be glad of your help.”
He resumed his seat, and the leather-lunged toastmaster behind him
emitted a raucous “My Lord, Mr. President, and gentlemen, pray
silence for Mr. H. K. Hodger, who will propose the health of ‘The
Visitors.’” H. K. Hodger rose with the purposeful expression only
to be seen on the face of one who has been reminded by the remarks
of the last speaker of the story of the two Irishmen; and the
company, cosily replete, settled down to give him an indulgent
attention.
Not so Ukridge. He was staring emotionally across the table at his
old friend Lawlor. The seating arrangements at these dinners were
usually designed to bring contemporaries together at the same
table, and the future member for Redbridge was one of our platoon.
“Boko, old horse,” demanded Ukridge, “is this true?”
A handsome but rather prominent nose had led his little playmates
to bestow this affectionate sobriquet upon the coming M.P. It was
one of those boyish handicaps which are never lived down, but I
would not have thought of addressing B. V. Lawlor in this fashion
myself, for, though he was a man of my own age, the years had made
him extremely dignified. Ukridge, however, was above any such
weakness. He gave out the offensive word in a vinous bellow of such
a calibre as to cause H. K. Hodger to trip over a “begorra” and
lose the drift of his story.
“’Sh!” said the President, bending a reproving gaze at our table.
“’Sh!” said B. V. Lawlor, contorting his smooth face.
“Yes, but is it?” persisted Ukridge.
“Of course it is,” whispered Lawlor. “Be quiet!”
“Then, damme,” shouted Ukridge, “rely on me, young Boko. I shall
be at your side. I shall spare no efforts to pull you through. You
can count on me to——”
“Really! Please! At that table down there,” said the President,
rising, while H. K. Hodger, who had got as far as “Then, faith and
begob, it’s me that’ll be afther——” paused in a pained manner and
plucked at the table-cloth.
Ukridge subsided. But his offer of assistance was no passing whim,
to be lightly forgotten in the slumbers of the night. I was still
in bed a few mornings later when he burst in, equipped for travel
to the last button and carrying a seedy suit-case.
“Just off, laddie, just off!”
“Fine!” I said. “Good-bye.”
“Corky, my boy,” boomed Ukridge, sitting creakingly on the bed and
poisoning the air with his noisome tobacco, “I feel happy this
morning. Stimulated. And why? Because I am doing an altruistic
action. We busy men of affairs, Corky, are too apt to exclude
altruism from our lives. We are too prone to say ‘What is there in
it for me?’ and, if there proves on investigation to be nothing in
it for us, to give it the miss-in-balk. That is why this business
makes me so confoundedly happy. At considerable expense and
inconvenience I am going down to Redbridge to-day, and what is
there in it for me? Nothing. Nothing, my boy, except the pure
delight of helping an old schoolfellow over a tough spot. If I can
do anything, however little, to bring young Boko in at the right
end of the poll, that will be enough reward for me. I am going to
do my bit, Corky, and it may be that my bit will turn out to be
just the trifle that brings home the bacon. I shall go down there
and talk——”
“I bet you will.”
“I don’t know much about politics, it’s true, but I can bone up
enough to get by. Invective ought to meet the case, and I’m pretty
good at invective. I know the sort of thing. You accuse the rival
candidate of every low act under the sun, without giving him quite
enough to start a libel action on. Now, what I want you to do,
Corky, old horse——”
“Oh heavens!” I moaned at these familiar words.
“——is just to polish up this election song of mine. I sat up half
the night writing it, but I can see it limps in spots. You can put
it right in half an hour. Polish it up, laddie, and forward without
fail to the Bull Hotel, Redbridge, this afternoon. It may just be
the means of shoving Boko past the post by a nose.”
He clattered out hurriedly; and, sleep being now impossible, I
picked up the sheet of paper he had left and read the verses.
They were well meant, but that let them out. Ukridge was no poet
or he would never have attempted to rhyme “Lawlor” with “before
us.”
A rather neat phrase happening to occur to me at the breakfast
table, coincident with the reflection that possibly Ukridge was
right and it did behove his old schoolfellows to rally round the
candidate, I spent the morning turning out a new ballad. Having
finished this by noon, I despatched it to the Bull Hotel, and went
off to lunch with something of that feeling of satisfaction which,
as Ukridge had pointed out, does come to altruists. I was strolling
down Piccadilly, enjoying an after-luncheon smoke, when I ran into
Looney Coote.
On Looney’s amiable face there was a mingled expression of chagrin
and satisfaction.
“It’s happened,” he said.
“What?”
“The third misfortune. I told you it would.”
“What’s the trouble now? Has Spencer broken his other leg?”
“My car has been stolen.”
A decent sympathy would no doubt have become me, but from earliest
years I had always found it difficult to resist the temptation to
be airy and jocose when dealing with Looney Coote. The man was so
indecently rich that he had no right to have troubles.
“Oh, well,” I said, “you can easily get another. Fords cost
practically nothing nowadays.”
“It wasn’t a Ford,” bleated Looney, outraged. “It was a brand-new
Winchester-Murphy. I paid fifteen hundred pounds for it only a
month ago, and now it’s gone.”
“Where did you see it last?”
“I didn’t see it last. My chauffeur brought it round to my rooms
this morning, and, instead of staying with it as he should have
done till I was ready, went off round the corner for a cup of
coffee, so he says! And when he came back it had vanished.”
“The coffee?”
“The car, you ass. The car had disappeared. It had been stolen.”
“I suppose you have notified the police?”
“I’m on my way to Scotland Yard now. It just occurred to me. Have
you any idea what the procedure is? It’s the first time I’ve been
mixed up with this sort of thing.”
“You give them the number of the car, and they send out word to
police-stations all over the country to look out for it.”
“I see,” said Looney Coote, brightening. “That sounds rather
promising, what? I mean, it looks as if someone would be bound to
spot it sooner or later.”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course, the first thing a thief would do would
be to take off the number-plate and substitute a false one.”
“Oh, Great Scott! Not really?”
“And after that he would paint the car a different colour.”
“Oh, I say!”
“Still, the police generally manage to find them in the end. Years
hence they will come on it in an old barn with the tonneau stoved
in and the engines taken out. Then they will hand it back to you
and claim the reward. But, as a matter of fact, what you ought to
be praying is that you may never get it back. Then the thing would
be a real misfortune. If you get it back as good as new in the next
couple of days, it won’t be a misfortune at all, and you will have
number three hanging over your head again, just as before. And who
knows what that third misfortune may be? In a way, you’re tempting
Providence by applying to Scotland Yard.”
“Yes,” said Looney Coote, doubtfully. “All the same, I think I
will, don’t you know. I mean to say, after all, a fifteen-hundred-quid
Winchester-Murphy _is_ a fifteen-hundred-quid Winchester-Murphy,
if you come right down to it, what?”
Showing that even in the most superstitious there may be grains of
hard, practical common sense lurking somewhere.
It had not been my intention originally to take any part in the
by-election in the Redbridge division beyond writing three verses
of a hymn in praise of Boko Lawlor and sending him a congratulatory
wire if he won. But two things combined to make me change my mind.
The first was the fact that it occurred to me—always the keen young
journalist—that there might be a couple of guineas of _Interesting
Bits_ money in it (“How a Modern Election is Fought: Humours of
the Poll”); the second, that, ever since his departure Ukridge had
been sending me a constant stream of telegrams so stimulating that
eventually they lit the spark.
I append specimens:—
“Going strong. Made three speeches yesterday.
Election song a sensation. Come on down.—Ukridge.”
“Boko locally regarded as walk-over. Made four
speeches yesterday. Election song a breeze. Come on
down.—Ukridge.”
“Victory in sight. Spoke practically all yesterday.
Election song a riot. Children croon it in cots. Come on
down.—Ukridge.”
I leave it to any young author to say whether a man with one
solitary political lyric to his credit could have resisted this.
With the exception of a single music-hall song (“Mother, She’s
Pinching My Leg,” tried out by Tim Sims, the Koy Komic, at the
Peebles Hippodrome, and discarded, in response to a popular appeal,
after one performance), no written words of mine had ever passed
human lips. Naturally, it gave me a certain thrill to imagine the
enlightened electorate of Redbridge—at any rate, the right-thinking
portion of it—bellowing in its thousands those noble lines:—
“No foreign foe’s insidious hate
Our country shall o’erwhelm
So long as England’s ship of state
Has LAWLOR at the helm.”
Whether I was technically correct in describing as guiding the ship
of state a man who would probably spend his entire Parliamentary
career in total silence, voting meekly as the Whip directed, I had
not stopped to enquire. All I knew was that it sounded well, and
I wanted to hear it. In addition to which, there was the opportunity,
never likely to occur again, of seeing Ukridge make an ass of
himself before a large audience.
I went to Redbridge.
The first thing I saw on leaving the station was a very large
poster exhibiting Boko Lawlor’s expressive features, bearing the
legend:—
Lawlor
for
Redbridge.
This was all right, but immediately beside it, evidently placed
there by the hand of an enemy, was a still larger caricature of
this poster which stressed my old friend’s prominent nose in a
manner that seemed to me to go beyond the limits of a fair debate.
To this was appended the words:—
Do You
Want
_THIS_
For a Member?
To which, if I had been a hesitating voter of the constituency, I
would certainly have replied “No!” for there was something about
that grossly elongated nose that convicted the man beyond hope of
appeal of every undesirable quality a Member of Parliament can
possess. You could see at a glance that here was one who, if
elected, would do his underhand best to cut down the Navy, tax the
poor man’s food, and strike a series of blows at the very root of
the home. And, as if this were not enough, a few yards farther on
was a placard covering almost the entire side of a house, which
said in simple, straightforward black letters a foot high:—
Down With
Boko,
The Human Gargoyle.
How my poor old contemporary, after passing a week in the constant
society of these slurs on his personal appearance, could endure to
look himself in the face in his shaving-mirror of a morning was
more than I could see. I commented on this to Ukridge, who had met
me at the station in a luxurious car.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Ukridge, huskily. The first thing I had
noticed about him was that his vocal cords had been putting in
overtime since our last meeting. “Just the usual give-and-take of
an election. When we get round this next corner you’ll see the
poster we’ve got out to tickle up the other bloke. It’s a pippin.”
I did, and it was indeed a pippin. After one glance at it as we
rolled by, I could not but feel that the electors of Redbridge were
in an uncommonly awkward position, having to choose between Boko,
as exhibited in the street we had just passed, and this horror now
before me. Mr. Herbert Huxtable, the opposition candidate, seemed
to run as generously to ears as his adversary did to nose, and the
artist had not overlooked this feature. Indeed, except for a mean,
narrow face with close-set eyes and a murderer’s mouth, Mr. Huxtable
appeared to be all ears. They drooped and flapped about him like
carpet-bags, and I averted my gaze, appalled.
“Do you mean to say you’re _allowed_ to do this sort of thing?” I
asked, incredulously.
“My dear old horse, it’s expected of you. It’s a mere formality.
The other side would feel awkward and disappointed if you didn’t.”
“And how did they find out about Lawlor being called Boko?” I
enquired, for the point had puzzled me. In a way, you might say
that it was the only thing you could possibly call him, but the
explanation hardly satisfied me.
“That,” admitted Ukridge, “was largely my fault. I was a bit
carried away the first time I addressed the multitude, and I
happened to allude to the old chap by his nickname. Of course, the
opposition took it up at once. Boko was a little sore about it for
a while.”
“I can see how he might be.”
“But that’s all over now,” said Ukridge, buoyantly. “We’re the
greatest pals. He relies on me at every turn. Yesterday he admitted
to me in so many words that if he gets in it’ll be owing to my help
as much as anything. The fact is, laddie, I’ve made rather a hit
with the manyheaded. They seem to like to hear me speak.”
“Fond of a laugh, eh?”
“Now, laddie,” said Ukridge, reprovingly, “this is not the right
tone. You must curb that spirit of levity while you’re down here.
This is a dashed serious business, Corky, old man, and the sooner
you realise it the better. If you have come here to gibe and to
mock——”
“I came to hear my election song sung. When do they sing it?”
“Oh, practically all the time. Incessantly, you might say.”
“In their baths?”
“Most of the voters here don’t take baths. You’ll gather that when
we reach Biscuit Row.”
“What’s Biscuit Row?”
“It’s the quarter of the town where the blokes live who work in
Fitch and Weyman’s biscuit factory, laddie. It’s what you might
call,” said Ukridge, importantly, “the doubtful element of the
place. All the rest of the town is nice and clean-cut, they’re
either solid for Boko or nuts on Huxtable—but these biscuit blokes
are wobbly. That’s why we have to canvass them so carefully.”
“Oh, you’re going canvassing, are you?”
“_We_ are,” corrected Ukridge.
“Not me!”
“Corky,” said Ukridge, firmly, “pull yourself together. It was
principally to assist me in canvassing these biscuit blighters that
I got you down here. Where’s your patriotism, laddie? Don’t you
want old Boko to get into Parliament, or what is it? We must strain
every nerve. We must set our hands to the plough. The job you’ve
got to tackle is the baby-kissing——”
“I won’t kiss their infernal babies!”
“You will, old horse, unless you mean to spend the rest of your
life cursing yourself vainly when it is too late that poor old Boko
got pipped on the tape purely on account of your poltroonery.
Consider, old man! Have some vision! Be an altruist! It may be that
your efforts will prove the deciding factor in this desperately
close-run race.”
“What do you mean, desperately close-run race? You said in your
wire that it was a walk-over for Boko.”
“That was just to fool the telegraph-bloke, whom I suspect of being
in the enemy camp. As a matter of fact, between ourselves, it’s
touch and go. A trifle either way will do the business now.”
“Why don’t _you_ kiss these beastly babies?”
“There’s something about me that scares ’em, laddie. I’ve tried it
once or twice, but only alienated several valuable voters by
frightening their offspring into a nervous collapse. I think it’s
my glasses they don’t like. But you—now, you,” said Ukridge, with
revolting fulsomeness, “are an ideal baby-kisser. The first time
I ever saw you, I said: ‘There goes one of Nature’s baby-kissers.’
Directly I started to canvass these people and realised what I was
up against, I thought of you. ‘Corky’s the man,’ I said to myself;
‘the fellow we want is old Corky. Good-looking. And not merely
good-looking but _kind_-looking.’ They’ll take to you, laddie.
Yours is a face a baby can trust——”
“Now, listen!”
“And it won’t last long. Just a couple of streets and we’re through.
So stiffen your backbone, laddie, and go at it like a man. Boko is
going to entertain you with a magnificent banquet at his hotel
to-night. I happen to know there will be champagne. Keep your mind
fixed on that and the thing will seem easy.”
The whole question of canvassing is one which I would like some
time to go into at length. I consider it to be an altogether
abominable practice. An Englishman’s home is his castle, and it
seems to me intolerable that, just as you have got into shirt-sleeves
and settled down to a soothing pipe, total strangers should be
permitted to force their way in and bother you with their nauseous
flattery and their impertinent curiosity as to which way you mean
to vote. And, while I prefer not to speak at length of my
experiences in Biscuit Row, I must say this much, that practically
every resident of that dingy quarter appeared to see eye to eye
with me in this matter. I have never encountered a body of men who
were consistently less chummy. They looked at me with lowering
brows, they answered my limping civilities with gruff monosyllables,
they snatched their babies away from me and hid them, yelling, in
distant parts of the house. Altogether a most discouraging
experience, I should have said, and one which seemed to indicate
that, as far as Biscuit Row was concerned, Boko Lawlor would score
a blank at the poll.
Ukridge scoffed at this gloomy theory.
“My dear old horse,” he cried, exuberantly, as the door of the last
house slammed behind us and I revealed to him the inferences I had
drawn, “you mustn’t mind that. It’s just their way. They treat
everybody the same. Why, one of Huxtable’s fellows got his hat
smashed in at that very house we’ve just left. I consider the
outlook highly promising, laddie.”
And so, to my surprise, did the candidate himself. When we had
finished dinner that night and were talking over our cigars, while
Ukridge slumbered noisily in an easy chair, Boko Lawlor spoke with
a husky confidence of his prospects.
“And, curiously enough,” said Boko, endorsing what until then I
had looked on as mere idle swank on Ukridge’s part, “the fellow
who will have really helped me more than anybody else, if I get
in, is old Ukridge. He borders, perhaps, a trifle too closely on
the libellous in his speeches, but he certainly has the knack of
talking to an audience. In the past week he has made himself quite
a prominent figure in Redbridge. In fact, I’m bound to say it has
made me a little nervous at times, this prominence of his. I know
what an erratic fellow he is, and if he were to become the centre
of some horrible scandal it would mean defeat for a certainty.”
“How do you mean, scandal?”
“I sometimes conjure up a dreadful vision,” said Boko Lawlor, with
a slight shudder, “of one of his creditors suddenly rising in the
audience and denouncing him for not having paid for a pair of
trousers or something.”
He cast an apprehensive eye at the sleeping figure.
“You’re all right if he keeps on wearing that suit,” I said,
soothingly, “because it happens to be one he sneaked from me. I
have been wondering why it was so familiar.”
“Well, anyhow,” said Boko, with determined optimism, “I suppose,
if anything like that was going to happen, it would have happened
before. He has been addressing meetings all the week, and nothing
has occurred. I’m going to let him open the ball at our last rally
to-morrow night. He has a way of warming up the audience. You’ll
come to that, of course?”
“If I am to see Ukridge warming up an audience, nothing shall keep
me away.”
“I’ll see that you get a seat on the platform. It will be the
biggest affair we have had. The polling takes place on the next
day, and this will be our last chance of swaying the doubters.”
“I didn’t know doubters ever came to these meetings. I thought the
audience was always solid for the speakers.”
“It may be so in some constituencies,” said Boko, moodily, “but it
certainly isn’t at Redbridge.”
The monster meeting in support of Boko Lawlor’s candidature was
held at that popular eyesore, the Associated Mechanics’ Hall. As
I sat among the elect on the platform, waiting for the proceedings
to commence, there came up to me a mixed scent of dust, clothes,
orange-peel, chalk, wood, plaster, pomade, and Associated
Mechanics—the whole forming a mixture which, I began to see, was
likely to prove too rich for me. I changed my seat in order to
bring myself next to a small but promising-looking door, through
which it would be possible, if necessary, to withdraw without being
noticed.
The principle on which chairmen at these meetings are selected is
perhaps too familiar to require recording here at length, but in
case some of my readers are not acquainted with the workings of
political machines, I may say that no one under the age of
eighty-five is eligible and the preference is given to those with
adenoids. For Boko Lawlor the authorities had extended themselves
and picked a champion of his class. In addition to adenoids, the
Right Hon. the Marquess of Cricklewood had—or seemed to have—a
potato of the maximum size and hotness in his mouth, and he had
learned his elocution in one of those correspondence schools which
teach it by mail. I caught his first sentence—that he would only
detain us a moment—but for fifteen minutes after that he baffled
me completely. That he was still speaking I could tell by the way
his Adam’s apple wiggled, but what he was saying I could not even
guess. And presently, the door at my side offering its silent
invitation, I slid softly through and closed it behind me.
Except for the fact that I was now out of sight of the chairman,
I did not seem to have bettered my position greatly. The scenic
effects of the hall had not been alluring, but there was nothing
much more enlivening to look at here. I found myself in a
stone-flagged corridor with walls of an unhealthy green, ending in
a flight of stairs. I was just about to proceed towards these in
a casual spirit of exploration, when footsteps made themselves
heard, and in another moment a helmet loomed into view, followed
by a red face, a blue uniform, and large, stout boots—making in
all one constable, who proceeded along the corridor towards me with
a measured step as if pacing a beat. I thought his face looked
stern and disapproving, and attributed it to the fact that I had
just lighted a cigarette—presumably in a place where smoking was
not encouraged. I dropped the cigarette and placed a guilty heel
on it—an action which I regretted the next moment, when the
constable himself produced one from the recesses of his tunic and
asked me for a match.
“Not allowed to smoke on duty,” he said, affably, “but there’s no
harm in a puff.”
I saw now that what I had taken for a stern and disapproving look
was merely the official mask. I agreed that no possible harm could
come of a puff.
“Meeting started?” enquired the officer, jerking his head towards
the door.
“Yes. The chairman was making a few remarks when I came out.”
“Ah! Better give it time to warm up,” he said, cryptically. And
there was a restful silence for some minutes, while the scent of
a cigarette of small price competed with the other odours of the
corridor.
Presently, however, the stillness was interrupted. From the unseen
hall came the faint clapping of hands, and then a burst of melody.
I started. It was impossible to distinguish the words, but surely
there was no mistaking that virile rhythm:—
“Tum tumty tumty tumty tum,
Tum tumty tumty tum,
Tum tumty tumty tumty tum,
Tum TUMTY tumty tum.”
It was! It must be! I glowed all over with modest pride.
“That’s mine,” I said, with attempted nonchalance.
“Ur?” queried the constable, who had fallen into a reverie.
“That thing they’re singing. Mine. My election song.”
It seemed to me that the officer regarded me strangely. It may have
been admiration, but it looked more like disappointment and
disfavour.
“You on this Lawlor’s side?” he demanded, heavily.
“Yes. I wrote his election song. They’re singing it now.”
“I’m opposed to ’im _in toto_ and root and branch,” said the
constable, emphatically, “I don’t like ’is views—subversive, that’s
what I call ’em. Subversive.”
There seemed nothing to say to this. This divergence of opinion
was unfortunate, but there it was. After all, there was no reason
why political differences should have to interfere with what had
all the appearance of being the dawning of a beautiful friendship.
Pass over it lightly, that was the tactful course. I endeavoured
to steer the conversation gently back to less debatable grounds.
“This is my first visit to Redbridge,” I said, chattily.
“Ur?” said the constable, but I could see that he was not
interested. He finished his cigarette with three rapid puffs and
stamped it out. And as he did so a strange, purposeful tenseness
seemed to come over him. His boiled-fish eyes seemed to say that
the time of dalliance was now ended and constabulary duty was to
be done. “Is that the way to the platform, mister?” he asked,
indicating my door with a jerk of the helmet.
I cannot say why it was, but at this moment a sudden foreboding
swept over me.
“Why do you want to go on the platform?” I asked, apprehensively.
There was no doubt about the disfavour with which he regarded me
now. So frigid was his glance that I backed against the door in
some alarm.
“Never you mind,” he said, severely, “why I want to go on that
platform. If you really want to know,” he continued, with that
slight inconsistency which marks great minds, “I’m goin’ there to
arrest a feller.”
It was perhaps a little uncomplimentary to Ukridge that I should
so instantly have leaped to the certainty that, if anybody on a
platform on which he sat was in danger of arrest, he must be the
man. There were at least twenty other earnest supporters of Boko
grouped behind the chairman beyond that door, but it never even
occurred to me as a possibility that it could be one of these on
whom the hand of the law proposed to descend. And a moment later
my instinct was proved to be unerring. The singing had ceased, and
now a stentorian voice had begun to fill all space. It spoke, was
interrupted by a roar of laughter, and began to speak again.
“That’s ’im,” said the constable, briefly.
“There must be some mistake,” I said. “That is my friend, Mr.
Ukridge.”
“I don’t know ’is name and I don’t care about ’is name,” said the
constable, sternly. “But if ’e’s the big feller with glasses that’s
stayin’ at the Bull, that’s the man I’m after. He may be a ’ighly
’umorous and diverting orator,” said the constable, bitterly, as
another happy burst of laughter greeted what was presumably a
further sally at the expense of the side which enjoyed his support,
“but, be that as it may, ’e’s got to come along with me to the
station and explain how ’e ’appens to be in possession of a stolen
car that there’s been an enquiry sent out from ’eadquarters about.”
My heart turned to water. A light had flashed upon me.
“Car?” I quavered.
“Car,” said the constable.
“Was it a gentleman named Coote who lodged the complaint about his
car being stolen? Because——”
“I don’t——”
“Because, if so, there has been a mistake. Mr. Ukridge is a personal
friend of Mr. Coote, and——”
“I don’t know whose name it is’s car’s been stolen,” said the
constable, elliptically. “All I know is, there’s been an enquiry
sent out, and this feller’s got it.”
At this point something hard dug into the small of my back as I
pressed against the door. I stole a hand round behind me, and my
fingers closed upon a key. The policeman was stooping to retrieve
a dropped notebook. I turned the key softly and pocketed it.
“If you would kindly not object to standing back a bit and giving
a feller a chance to get at that door,” said the policeman,
straightening himself. He conducted experiments with the handle.
“’Ere, it’s locked!”
“Is it?” I said. “Is it?”
“’Ow did you get out through this door if it’s locked?”
“It wasn’t locked when I came through.”
He eyed me with dull suspicion for a moment, then knocked
imperatively with a large red knuckle.
“Shush! Shush!” came a scandalised whisper through the keyhole.
“Never you mind about ‘Shush! Shush!’” said the constable, with
asperity. “You open this door, that’s what you do.” And he
substituted for the knuckle a leg-of-mutton-like fist. The sound
of his banging boomed through the corridor like distant thunder.
“Really, you know,” I protested, “you’re disturbing the meeting.”
“I _want_ to disturb the meeting,” replied this strong but not
silent man, casting a cold look over his shoulder. And the next
instant, to prove that he was as ready with deeds as with words,
he backed a foot or two, lifted a huge and weighty foot, and
kicked.
For all ordinary purposes the builder of the Associated Mechanics’
Hall had done his work adequately, but he had never suspected that
an emergency might arise which would bring his doors into
competition with a policeman’s foot. Any lesser maltreatment the
lock might have withstood, but against this it was powerless. With
a sharp sound like the cry of one registering a formal protest the
door gave way. It swung back, showing a vista of startled faces
beyond. Whether or not the noise had reached the audience in the
body of the hall I did not know, but it had certainly impressed
the little group on the platform. I had a swift glimpse of forms
hurrying to the centre of the disturbance, of the chairman gaping
like a surprised sheep, of Ukridge glowering; and then the constable
blocked out my view as he marched forward over the debris.
A moment later there was no doubt as to whether the audience was
interested. A confused uproar broke out in every corner of the
hall, and, hurrying on to the platform, I perceived that the hand
of the Law had fallen. It was grasping Ukridge’s shoulder in a
weighty grip in the sight of all men.
There was just one instant before the tumult reached its height in
which it was possible for the constable to speak with a chance of
making himself heard. He seized his opportunity adroitly. He threw
back his head and bellowed as if he were giving evidence before a
deaf magistrate.
“’E’s—stolen—a—mo—tor—car! I’m a-r-resting—’im—for—’avin’—sto—len—a—norter-mo_bile!_”
he vociferated in accents audible to all. And then, with the sudden
swiftness of one practised in the art of spiriting felons away from
the midst of their friends, he was gone, and Ukridge with him.
There followed a long moment of bewildered amazement. Nothing like
this had ever happened before at political meetings at Redbridge,
and the audience seemed doubtful how to act. The first person to
whom intelligence returned was a grim-looking little man in the
third row, who had forced himself into prominence during the
chairman’s speech with some determined heckling. He bounded out of
his chair and stood on it.
“Men of Redbridge!” he shouted.
“Siddown!” roared the audience automatically.
“Men of Redbridge,” repeated the little man, in a voice out of all
proportion to his inches, “are you going to trust—do you mean to
support—-is it your intention to place your affairs in the hands
of one who employs _criminals_——”
“Siddown!” recommended many voices, but there were many others that
shouted “’Ear, ’Ear!”
“——who employs _criminals_ to speak on his platform? Men of
Redbridge, I——”
Here someone grasped the little man’s collar and brought him to
the floor. Somebody else hit the collar-grasper over the head with
an umbrella. A third party broke the umbrella and smote its owner
on the nose. And after that the action may be said to have become
general. Everybody seemed to be fighting everybody else, and at
the back of the hall a group of serious thinkers, in whom I seemed
to recognise the denizens of Biscuit Row, had begun to dismember
the chairs and throw them at random. It was when the first rush
was made for the platform that the meeting definitely broke up.
The chairman headed the stampede for my little door, moving well
for a man of his years, and he was closely followed by the rest of
the elect. I came somewhere midway in the procession, outstripped
by the leaders, but well up in the field. The last I saw of the
monster meeting in aid of Boko Lawlor’s candidature was Boko’s
drawn and agonised face as he barked his shin on an overturned
table in his efforts to reach the exit in three strides.
The next morning dawned bright and fair, and the sun, as we speeded
back to London, smiled graciously in through the windows of our
third-class compartment. But it awoke no answering smile on
Ukridge’s face. He sat in his corner scowling ponderously out at
the green countryside. He seemed in no way thankful that his
prison-life was over, and he gave me no formal thanks for the
swiftness and intelligence with which I had obtained his release.
A five-shilling telegram to Looney Coote had been the means of
effecting this. Shortly after breakfast Ukridge had come to my
hotel, a free man, with the information that Looney had wired the
police of Redbridge directions to unbar the prison cell. But
liberty he appeared to consider a small thing compared with his
wrongs, and now he sat in the train, thinking, thinking, thinking.
I was not surprised when his first act on reaching Paddington was
to climb into a cab and request the driver to convey him immediately
to Looney Coote’s address.
Personally, though I was considerate enough not to say so, I was
pro-Coote. If Ukridge wished to go about sneaking his friends’ cars
without a word of explanation, it seemed to me that he did so at
his own risk. I could not see how Looney Coote could be expected
to know by some form of telepathy that his vanished Winchester-Murphy
had fallen into the hands of an old schoolfellow. But Ukridge, to
judge by his stony stare and tightened lips, not to mention the
fact that his collar had jumped off its stud and he had made no
attempt to adjust it, thought differently. He sat in the cab,
brooding silently, and when we reached our destination and were
shown into Looney’s luxurious sitting-room, he gave one long, deep
sigh, like that of a fighter who hears the gong go for round one.
Looney fluttered out of the adjoining room in pyjamas and a flowered
dressing-gown. He was evidently a late riser.
“Oh, here you are!” he said, pleased. “I say, old man, I’m awfully
glad it’s all right.”
“All right!” An overwrought snort escaped Ukridge. His bosom
swelled beneath his mackintosh. “All right!”
“I’m frightfully sorry there was any trouble.”
Ukridge struggled for utterance.
“Do you know I spent the night on a beastly plank bed,” he said,
huskily.
“No, really? I say!”
“Do you know that this morning I was washed by the authorities?”
“I say, no!”
“And you say it’s all right!”
He had plainly reached the point where he proposed to deliver a
lengthy address of a nature calculated to cause alarm and
despondency in Looney Coote, for he raised a clenched fist, shook
it passionately, and swallowed once or twice. But before he could
embark on what would certainly have been an oration worth listening
to, his host anticipated him.
“I don’t see that it was my fault,” bleated Looney Coote, voicing
my own sentiments.
“You don’t see that it was your fault!” stuttered Ukridge.
“Listen, old man,” I urged, pacifically. “I didn’t like to say so
before, because you didn’t seem in the mood for it, but what else
could the poor chap have done? You took his car without a word of
explanation——”
“What?”
“——and naturally he thought it had been stolen and had word sent
out to the police-stations to look out for whoever had got it. As
a matter of fact, it was I who advised him to.”
Ukridge was staring bleakly at Looney.
“Without a word of explanation!” he echoed. “What about my letter,
the long and carefully-written letter I sent you explaining the
whole thing?”
“Letter?”
“Yes!”
“I got no letter,” said Looney Coote.
Ukridge laughed malevolently.
“You’re going to pretend it went wrong in the post, eh? Thin, very
thin. I am certain that letter was posted. I remember placing it
in my pocket for that purpose. It is not there now, and I have been
wearing this suit ever since I left London. See. These are all the
contents of my——”
His voice trailed off as he gazed at the envelope in his hand.
There was a long silence. Ukridge’s jaw dropped slowly.
“Now, how the deuce did that happen?” he murmured.
I am bound to say that Looney Coote in this difficult moment
displayed a nice magnanimity which I could never have shown. He
merely nodded sympathetically.
“I’m always doing that sort of thing myself,” he said. “Never can
remember to post letters. Well, now that that’s all explained, have
a drink, old man, and let’s forget about it.”
The gleam in Ukridge’s eye showed that the invitation was a welcome
one, but the battered relics of his conscience kept him from
abandoning the subject under discussion as his host had urged.
“But upon my Sam, Looney, old horse,” he stammered, “I—well, dash
it, I don’t know what to say. I mean——”
Looney Coote was fumbling in the sideboard for the materials for
a friendly carouse.
“Don’t say another word, old man, not another word,” he pleaded.
“It’s the sort of thing that might have happened to anyone. And,
as a matter of fact, the whole affair has done me a bit of good.
Dashed lucky it has turned out for me. You see, it came as a sort
of omen. There was an absolute outsider running in the third race
at Kempton Park the day after the car went called Stolen Goods,
and somehow it seemed to me that the thing had been sent for a
purpose. I crammed on thirty quid at twenty-five to one. The
people round about laughed when they saw me back this poor,
broken-down-looking moke, and, dash it, the animal simply romped
home! I collected a parcel!”
We clamoured our congratulations on this happy ending. Ukridge was
especially exuberant.
“Yes,” said Looney Coote, “I won seven hundred and fifty quid. Just
like that! I put it on with that new fellow you were telling me
about at the O. W. dinner, old man—that chap Isaac O’Brien. It sent
him absolutely broke and he’s had to go out of business. He’s only
paid me six hundred quid so far, but says he has some sort of a
sleeping partner or something who may be able to raise the balance.”