Mainprice, of Cork Street.'
'No, I don't.'
'Then who the devil are you?'
'My name is Mulliner.'
Lord Biddlecombe rang the bell furiously.
'Fotheringay!'
'Your lordship?'
'You told me this man was the feller I was expecting from Gusset and
Mainprice.'
'He certainly led me to suppose so, your lordship.'
'Well, he isn't. His name is Mulliner. And--this is the point,
Fotheringay. This is the core and centre of the thing--what the blazes
does he want?'
'I could not say, your lordship.'
'I came here, Lord Biddlecombe,' said Lancelot, 'to ask your consent to
my immediate marriage with your daughter.'
'My daughter?'
'Your daughter.'
'Which daughter?'
'Angela.'
'My daughter Angela?'
'Yes.'
'You want to marry my daughter Angela?'
'I do.'
'Oh? Well, be that as it may,' said Lord Biddlecombe, 'can I interest
you in an ingenious little combination mousetrap and pencil-sharpener?'
Lancelot was for a moment a little taken aback by the question. Then,
remembering what Angela had said of the state of the family finances,
he recovered his poise. He thought no worse of this Grecian-beaked
old man for ekeing out a slender income by acting as agent for the
curious little object which he was now holding out to him. Many of the
aristocracy, he was aware, had been forced into similar commercial
enterprises by recent legislation of a harsh and Socialistic trend.
'I should like it above all things,' he said, courteously. 'I was
thinking only this morning that it was just what I needed.'
'Highly educational. Not a toy. Fotheringay, book one Mouso-Penso.'
'Very good, your lordship.'
'Are you troubled at all with headaches, Mr Mulliner?'
'Very seldom.'
'Then what you want is Clark's Cure for Corns. Shall we say one of the
large bottles?'
'Certainly.'
'Then that--with a year's subscription to _Our Tots_--will come
to precisely one pound, three shillings, and sixpence. Thank you. Will
there be anything further?'
'No, thank you. Now, touching the matter of--'
'You wouldn't care for a scarf-pin? Any ties, collars, shirts? No? Then
good-bye, Mr Mulliner.'
'But--'
'Fotheringay,' said Lord Biddlecombe, 'throw Mr Mulliner out.'
As Lancelot scrambled to his feet from the hard pavement of Berkeley
Square, he was conscious of a rush of violent anger which deprived him
momentarily of speech. He stood there, glaring at the house from which
he had been ejected, his face working hideously. So absorbed was he
that it was some time before he became aware that somebody was plucking
at his coat-sleeve.
'Pardon me, sir.'
Lancelot looked round. A stout smooth-faced man with horn-rimmed
spectacles was standing beside him.
'If you could spare me a moment--'
Lancelot shook him off impatiently. He had no desire at a time like
this to chatter with strangers. The man was babbling something, but the
words made no impression upon his mind. With a savage scowl, Lancelot
snatched the fellow's umbrella from him and, poising it for an instant,
flung it with a sure aim through Lord Biddlecombe's study window. Then,
striding away, he made for Berkeley Street. Glancing over his shoulder
as he turned the corner, he saw that Fotheringay, the butler, had
come out of the house and was standing over the spectacled man with a
certain quiet menace in his demeanour. He was rolling up his sleeves,
and his fingers were twitching a little.
* * * * *
Lancelot dismissed the man from his thoughts. His whole mind now was
concentrated on the coming interview with Angela. For he had decided
that the only thing to do was to seek her out at her club, where she
would doubtless be spending the afternoon, and plead with her to follow
the dictates of her heart and, abandoning parents and wealthy suitors,
come with her true mate to a life of honest poverty sweetened by love
and _vers libre_.
Arriving at the Junior Lipstick, he inquired for her, and the
hall-porter dispatched a boy in buttons to fetch her from the
billiard-room, where she was refereeing the finals of the Débutantes'
Shove-Ha'penny Tournament. And presently his heart leaped as he saw
her coming towards him, looking more like a vision of Springtime than
anything human and earthly. She was smoking a cigarette in a long
holder, and as she approached she inserted a monocle inquiringly in her
right eye.
'Hullo, laddie!' she said. 'You here? What's on the mind besides hair?
Talk quick. I've only got a minute.'
'Angela,' said Lancelot, 'I have to report a slight hitch in the
programme which I sketched out at our last meeting. I have just been to
see my uncle and he has washed his hands of me and cut me out of his
will.'
'Nothing doing in that quarter, you mean?' said the girl, chewing her
lower lip thoughtfully.
'Nothing. But what of it? What matters it so long as we have each
other? Money is dross. Love is everything. Yes, love indeed is light
from heaven, a spark of that immortal fire with angels shared, by
Allah given to lift from earth our low desire. Give me to live with
Love alone, and let the world go dine and dress. If life's a flower,
I choose my own. 'Tis Love in Idleness. When beauty fires the blood,
how love exalts the mind! Come, Angela, let us read together in a book
more moving than the Koran, more eloquent than Shakespeare, the book
of books, the crown of all literature--Bradshaw's Railway Guide. We
will turn up a page and you shall put your finger down, and wherever
it rests there we will go, to live for ever with our happiness. Oh,
Angela, let us--'
'Sorry,' said the girl. 'Purvis wins. The race goes by the form-book
after all. There was a time when I thought you might be going to crowd
him on the rails and get your nose first under the wire with a quick
last-minute dash, but apparently it is not to be. Deepest sympathy, old
crocus, but that's that.'
Lancelot staggered.
'You mean you intend to marry this Purvis?'
'Pop in about a month from now at St George's, Hanover Square, and see
for yourself.'
'You would allow this man to buy you with his gold?'
'Don't overlook his diamonds.'
'Does love count for nothing? Surely you love me?'
'Of course I do, my desert king. When you do that flat-footed Black
Bottom step with the sort of wiggly twiggle at the end, I feel as if
I were eating plovers' eggs in a new dress to the accompaniment of
heavenly music.' She sighed. 'Yes, I love you, Lancelot. And women are
not like men. They do not love lightly. When a woman gives her heart,
it is for ever. The years will pass, and you will turn to another. But
I shall not forget. However, as you haven't a bob in the world--' She
beckoned to the hall-porter. 'Margerison.'
'Your ladyship?'
'Is it raining?'
'No, your ladyship.'
'Are the front steps clean?'
'Yes, your ladyship.'
'Then throw Mr Mulliner out.'
Lancelot leaned against the railings of the Junior Lipstick, and looked
out through a black mist upon a world that heaved and rocked and seemed
on the point of disintegrating into ruin and chaos. And a lot he would
care, he told himself bitterly, if it did. If Seamore Place from the
west and Charles Street from the east had taken a running jump and
landed on the back of his neck, it would have added little or nothing
to the turmoil of his mind. In fact, he would rather have preferred it.
Fury, as it had done on the pavement of Berkeley Square, robbed him of
speech. But his hands, his shoulders, his brows, his lips, his nose,
and even his eyelashes seemed to be charged with a silent eloquence.
He twitched his eyebrows in agony. He twiddled his fingers in despair.
Nothing was left now, he felt, as he shifted the lobe of his left ear
in a nor'-nor'-easterly direction, but suicide. Yes, he told himself,
tightening and relaxing the muscles of his cheeks, all that remained
now was death.
But, even as he reached this awful decision, a kindly voice spoke in
his ear.
'Oh, come now, I wouldn't say that,' said the kindly voice.
And Lancelot, turning, perceived the smooth-faced man who had tried to
engage him in conversation in Berkeley Square.
'Say, listen,' said the smooth-faced man, sympathy in each lens of his
horn-rimmed spectacles. 'Tempests may lower and a strong man stand face
to face with his soul, but hope, like a healing herb, will show the
silver lining where beckons joy and life and happiness.'
Lancelot eyed him haughtily.
'I am not aware--' he began.
'Say, listen,' said the other, laying a soothing hand on his shoulder.
'I know just what has happened. Mammon has conquered Cupid, and once
more youth has had to learn the old, old lesson that though the face be
fair the heart may be cold and callous.'
'What--?'
The smooth-faced man raised his hand.
'That afternoon. Her apartment. "No. It can never be. I shall wed a
wealthier wooer."'
Lancelot's fury began to dissolve into awe. There seemed something
uncanny in the way this total stranger had diagnosed the situation. He
stared at him, bewildered.
'How did you know?' he gasped.
'You told me.'
'I?'
'Your face did. I could read every word. I've been watching you for the
last two minutes, and, say, boy, it was a wow!'
'Who are you?' asked Lancelot.
The smooth-faced man produced from his waistcoat pocket a fountain-pen,
two cigars, a packet of chewing-gum, a small button bearing the legend,
'Boost for Hollywood', and a visiting-card--in the order named.
Replacing the other articles, he handed the card to Lancelot.
'I'm Isadore Zinzinheimer, kid,' he said. 'I represent the Bigger,
Better, and Brighter Motion-Picture Company of Hollywood, Cal.,
incorporated last July for sixteen hundred million dollars. And if
you're thinking of asking me what I want, I want you. Yes, sir! Say,
listen. A fellow that can register the way you can is needed in my
business; and, if you think money can stop me getting him, name
the biggest salary you can think of and hear me laugh. Boy, I use
bank-notes for summer underclothing, and I don't care how bad you've
got the gimme's if only you'll sign on the dotted line. Say, listen. A
bozo that with a mere twitch of the upper lip can make it plain to one
and all that he loves a haughty aristocrat and that she has given him
the air because his rich uncle, who is a pickle manufacturer living
in Putney, won't have anything more to do with him, is required out
at Hollywood by the next boat if the movies are ever to become an
educational force in the truest and deepest sense of the words.'
Lancelot stared at him.
'You want me to come to Hollywood?'
'I want you, and I'm going to get you. And if you think you're going to
prevent me, you're trying to stop Niagara with a tennis racket. Boy,
you're great! When you register, you register. Your face is as chatty
as a board of directors. Say, listen. You know the great thing we folks
in the motion-picture industry have got to contend with? The curse of
the motion-picture industry is that in every audience there are from
six to seven young women with adenoids who will insist on reading out
the titles as they are flashed on the screen, filling the rest of
the customers with harsh thoughts and dreams of murder. What we're
trying to collect is stars that can register so well that titles won't
be needed. And, boy, you're the king of them. I know you're feeling
good and sore just now because that beazle in there spurned your
honest love; but forget it. Think of your Art. Think of your Public.
Come now, what shall we say to start with? Five thousand a week? Ten
thousand? You call the shots, and I'll provide the blank contract and
fountain-pen.'
Lancelot needed no further urging. Already love had turned to hate,
and he no longer wished to marry Angela. Instead, he wanted to make
her burn with anguish and vain regrets; and it seemed to him that
Fate was pointing the way. Pretty silly the future Lady Angela Purvis
would feel when she discovered that she had rejected the love of a
man with a salary of ten thousand dollars a week. And fairly foolish
her old father would feel when news reached him of the good thing he
had allowed to get away. And racking would be the remorse, when he
returned to London as Civilized Girlhood's Sweetheart and they saw
him addressing mobs from a hotel balcony, of his Uncle Jeremiah, of
Fotheringay, of Bewstridge, and of Margerison.
A light gleamed in Lancelot's eye, and he rolled the tip of his nose in
a circular movement.
'You consent?' said Mr Zinzinheimer, delighted. ''At-a-boy! Here's the
pen and here's the contract.'
'Gimme!' said Lancelot.
A benevolent glow irradiated the other's spectacles.
'Came the Dawn!' he murmured. 'Came the Dawn!'
6
THE STORY OF WILLIAM
Miss Postlethwaite, our able and vigilant barmaid, had whispered to us
that the gentleman sitting over there in the corner was an American
gentleman.
'Comes from America,' added Miss Postlethwaite, making her meaning
clearer.
'From America?' echoed we.
'From America,' said Miss Postlethwaite. 'He's an American.'
Mr Mulliner rose with an old-world grace. We do not often get Americans
in the bar-parlour of the Anglers' Rest. When we do, we welcome them.
We make them realize that Hands Across the Sea is no mere phrase.
'Good evening, sir,' said Mr Mulliner. 'I wonder if you would care to
join my friend and myself in a little refreshment?'
'Very kind of you, sir.'
'Miss Postlethwaite, the usual. I understand you are from the other
side, sir. Do you find our English country-side pleasant?'
'Delightful. Though, of course, if I may say so, scarcely to be
compared with the scenery of my home State.'
'What State is that?'
'California,' replied the other, baring his head. 'California, the
Jewel State of the Union. With its azure sea, its noble hills, its
eternal sunshine, and its fragrant flowers, California stands alone.
Peopled by stalwart men and womanly women....'
'California would be all right,' said Mr Mulliner, 'if it wasn't for
the earthquakes.'
Our guest started as though some venomous snake had bitten him.
'Earthquakes are absolutely unknown in California,' he said, hoarsely.
'What about the one in 1906?'
'That was not an earthquake. It was a fire.'
'An earthquake, I always understood,' said Mr Mulliner. 'My Uncle
William was out there during it, and many a time has he said to me, "My
boy, it was the San Francisco earthquake that won me a bride".'
'Couldn't have been the earthquake. May have been the fire.'
'Well, I will tell you the story, and you shall judge for yourself.'
'I shall be glad to hear your story about the San Francisco fire,' said
the Californian, courteously.
* * * * *
My Uncle William (said Mr Mulliner) was returning from the East at
the time. The commercial interests of the Mulliners had always been
far-flung: and he had been over in China looking into the workings of a
tea-exporting business in which he held a number of shares. It was his
intention to get off the boat at San Francisco and cross the continent
by rail. He particularly wanted to see the Grand Canyon of Arizona.
And when he found that Myrtle Banks had for years cherished the same
desire, it seemed to him so plain a proof that they were twin souls
that he decided to offer her his hand and heart without delay.
This Miss Banks had been a fellow-traveller on the boat all the way
from Hong Kong; and day by day William Mulliner had fallen more and
more deeply in love with her. So on the last day of the voyage, as they
were steaming in at the Golden Gate, he proposed.
I have never been informed of the exact words which he employed, but no
doubt they were eloquent. All the Mulliners have been able speakers,
and on such an occasion, he would, of course, have extended himself.
When at length he finished, it seemed to him that the girl's attitude
was distinctly promising. She stood gazing over the rail into the water
below in a sort of rapt way. Then she turned.
'Mr Mulliner,' she said, 'I am greatly flattered and honoured by what
you have just told me.' These things happened, you will remember, in
the days when girls talked like that. 'You have paid me the greatest
compliment a man can bestow on a woman. And yet....'
William Mulliner's heart stood still. He did not like that 'And yet--'
'Is there another?' he muttered.
'Well, yes, there is. Mr Franklyn proposed to me this morning. I told
him I would think it over.'
There was a silence. William was telling himself that he had been
afraid of that bounder Franklyn all along. He might have known, he
felt, that Desmond Franklyn would be a menace. The man was one of those
lean, keen, hawk-faced, Empire-building sort of chaps you find out
East--the kind of fellow who stands on deck chewing his moustache with
a far-away look in his eyes, and then, when the girl asks him what he
is thinking about, draws a short, quick breath and says he is sorry to
be so absent-minded, but a sunset like that always reminds him of the
day when he killed the four pirates with his bare hands and saved dear
old Tuppy Smithers in the nick of time.
'There is a great glamour about Mr Franklyn,' said Myrtle Banks. 'We
women admire men who do things. A girl cannot help but respect a man
who once killed three sharks with a Boy Scout pocket-knife.'
'So he says,' growled William.
'He showed me the pocket-knife,' said the girl, simply. 'And on another
occasion he brought down two lions with one shot.'
William Mulliner's heart was heavy, but he struggled on.
'Very possibly he may have done these things,' he said, 'but surely
marriage means more than this. Personally, if I were a girl, I would
go rather for a certain steadiness and stability of character. To
illustrate what I mean, did you happen to see me win the Egg-and-Spoon
race at the ship's sports? Now there, it seems to me, in what I might
call microcosm, was an exhibition of all the qualities a married
man most requires--intense coolness, iron resolution, and a quiet,
unassuming courage. The man who under test conditions has carried an
egg once and a half times round a deck in a small spoon is a man who
can be trusted.'
She seemed to waver, but only for a moment.
'I must think,' she said. 'I must think.'
'Certainly,' said William. 'You will let me see something of you at the
hotel, after we have landed?'
'Of course. And if--I mean to say, whatever happens, I shall always
look on you as a dear, dear friend.'
'M'yes,' said William Mulliner.
* * * * *
For three days my Uncle William's stay in San Francisco was as pleasant
as could reasonably be expected, considering that Desmond Franklyn was
also stopping at his and Miss Banks's hotel. He contrived to get the
girl to himself to quite a satisfactory extent; and they spent many
happy hours together in the Golden Gate Park and at the Cliff House,
watching the seals basking on the rocks. But on the evening of the
third day the blow fell.
'Mr Mulliner,' said Myrtle Banks, 'I want to tell you something.'
'Anything,' breathed William tenderly, 'except that you are going to
marry that perisher Franklyn.'
'But that is exactly what I was going to tell you, and I must not let
you call him a perisher, for he is a very brave, intrepid man.'
'When did you decide on this rash act?' asked William dully.
'Scarcely an hour ago. We were talking in the garden, and somehow or
other we got on to the subject of rhinoceroses. He then told me how he
had once been chased up a tree by a rhinoceros in Africa and escaped
by throwing pepper in the brute's eyes. He most fortunately chanced to
be eating his lunch when the animal arrived, and he had a hard-boiled
egg and the pepper-pot in his hands. When I heard this story, like
Desdemona, I loved him for the dangers he had passed, and he loved me
that I did pity them. The wedding is to be in June.'
William Mulliner ground his teeth in a sudden access of jealous rage.
'Personally,' he said, 'I consider that the story you have just related
reveals this man Franklyn in a very dubious--I might almost say
sinister--light. On his own showing, the leading trait in his character
appears to be cruelty to animals. The fellow seems totally incapable
of meeting a shark or a rhinoceros or any other of our dumb friends
without instantly going out of his way to inflict bodily injury on it.
The last thing I would wish is to be indelicate, but I cannot refrain
from pointing out that, if your union is blessed, your children will
probably be the sort of children who kick cats and tie tin cans to
dogs' tails. If you take my advice, you will write the man a little
note, saying that you are sorry but you have changed your mind.'
The girl rose in a marked manner.
'I do not require your advice, Mr Mulliner,' she said, coldly. 'And I
have not changed my mind.'
Instantly William Mulliner was all contrition. There is a certain stage
in the progress of a man's love when he feels like curling up in a ball
and making little bleating noises if the object of his affections so
much as looks squiggle-eyed at him; and this stage my Uncle William had
reached. He followed her as she paced proudly away through the hotel
lobby, and stammered incoherent apologies. But Myrtle Banks was adamant.
'Leave me, Mr Mulliner,' she said, pointing at the revolving door that
led into the street. 'You have maligned a better man than yourself, and
I wish to have nothing more to do with you. Go!'
William went, as directed. And so great was the confusion of his mind
that he got stuck in the revolving door and had gone round in it no
fewer than eleven times before the hall-porter came to extricate him.
'I would have removed you from the machinery earlier, sir,' said the
hall-porter deferentially, having deposited him safely in the street,
'but my bet with my mate in there called for ten laps. I waited till
you had completed eleven so that there should be no argument.'
William looked at him dazedly.
'Hall-porter,' he said.
'Sir?'
'Tell me, hall-porter,' said William, 'suppose the only girl you have
ever loved had gone and got engaged to another, what would you do?'
The hall-porter considered.
'Let me get this right,' he said. 'The proposition is, if I have
followed you correctly, what would I do supposing the Jane on whom I
had always looked as a steady mamma had handed me the old skimmer and
told me to take all the air I needed because she had gotten another
sweetie?'
'Precisely.'
'Your question is easily answered,' said the hall-porter. 'I would go
around the corner and get me a nice stiff drink at Mike's Place.'
'A drink?'
'Yes, sir. A nice stiff one.'
'At where did you say?'
'Mike's Place, sir. Just round the corner. You can't miss it.'
William thanked him and walked away. The man's words had started a new,
and in many ways interesting, train of thought. A drink? And a nice
stiff one? There might be something in it.
William Mulliner had never tasted alcohol in his life. He had promised
his late mother that he would not do so until he was either twenty-one
or forty-one--he could never remember which. He was at present
twenty-nine; but wishing to be on the safe side in case he had got his
figures wrong, he had remained a teetotaller. But now, as he walked
listlessly along the street towards the corner, it seemed to him that
his mother in the special circumstances could not reasonably object if
he took a slight snort. He raised his eyes to heaven, as though to ask
her if a couple of quick ones might not be permitted; and he fancied
that a faint, far-off voice whispered, 'Go to it!'
And at this moment he found himself standing outside a brightly-lighted
saloon.
For an instant he hesitated. Then, as a twinge of anguish in the region
of his broken heart reminded him of the necessity for immediate
remedies, he pushed open the swing doors and went in.
The principal feature of the cheerful, brightly-lit room in which he
found himself was a long counter, at which were standing a number of
the citizenry, each with an elbow on the woodwork and a foot upon the
neat brass rail which ran below. Behind the counter appeared the upper
section of one of the most benevolent and kindly-looking men that
William had ever seen. He had a large smooth face, and he wore a white
coat, and he eyed William, as he advanced, with a sort of reverent joy.
'Is this Mike's Place?' asked William.
'Yes, sir,' replied the white-coated man.
'Are you Mike?'
'No, sir. But I am his representative, and have full authority to act
on his behalf. What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?'