"Between singing 'Sonny Boy' in one's bath, Jeeves, and singing it
before a hall full of assorted blood-orange merchants and their young,
there is a substantial difference."
"Bertie," said Aunt Dahlia, "you'll sing, and like it!"
"I will not."
"Bertie!"
"Nothing will induce----"
"Bertie," said Aunt Dahlia firmly, "you will sing 'Sonny Boy' on
Tuesday, the third _prox._, or may an aunt's curse----"
"I won't!"
"Think of Angela!"
"Dash Angela!"
"Bertie!"
"No, I mean, hang it all!"
"You won't?"
"No, I won't."
"That is your last word, is it?"
"It is. Once and for all, Aunt Dahlia, nothing will induce me to let
out so much as a single note."
And so that afternoon I sent a prepaid wire to Beefy Bingham, offering
my services in the cause, and by nightfall the thing was fixed up. I
was billed to perform next but one after the intermission. Following
me, came Tuppy. And immediately after him, Miss Cora Bellinger, the
well-known operatic soprano.
How these things happen, I couldn't say. The chivalry of the Woosters,
I suppose.
"Jeeves," I said that evening, and I said it coldly, "I shall be glad
if you will pop round to the nearest music shop and procure me a copy
of 'Sonny Boy.' It will now be necessary for me to learn both verse and
refrain. Of the trouble and nervous strain which this will involve, I
say nothing."
"Very good, sir."
"But this I do say----"
"I had better be starting immediately, sir, or the shop will be closed."
"Ha!" I said.
And I meant it to sting.
* * * * *
Although I had steeled myself to the ordeal before me and had set out
full of the calm, quiet courage which makes men do desperate deeds with
proud, set faces, I must admit that there was a moment, just after I
had entered the Oddfellows' Hall at Bermondsey East and run an eye over
the assembled pleasure seekers, when it needed all the bulldog pluck of
the Woosters to keep me from calling it a day and taking a cab back to
civilization.
The clean, bright entertainment was in full swing when I arrived, and
somebody who looked as if he might be the local undertaker was reciting
"Gunga Din." And the audience, though not actually chiyiking in the
full technical sense of the term, had a grim look which I didn't like
at all.
As I scanned the multitude it seemed to me that they were for the nonce
suspending judgment. Did you ever tap on the door of one of those New
York speakeasy places and see the grille snap back and a Face appear?
There is one long, silent moment when its eyes are fixed on yours and
all your past life seems to rise up before you. Then you say that you
are a friend of Mr. Zinzinheimer and he told you they would treat you
right if you mentioned his name, and the strain relaxes.
Well, these costermongers and whelk stallers appeared to me to be
looking just like that Face. Start something, they seemed to say, and
they would know what to do about it. And I couldn't help feeling that
my singing "Sonny Boy" would come, in their opinion, under the head of
Starting Something.
"A nice, full house, sir," said a voice at my elbow.
It was Jeeves, watching the proceedings with an indulgent eye.
"You here, Jeeves?" I said coldly.
"Yes, sir. I have been present since the commencement."
"Oh?" I said. "Any casualties yet?"
"Sir?"
"You know what I mean, Jeeves," I said sternly, "and don't pretend you
don't. Anybody got the bird yet?"
"Oh, no, sir."
"I shall be the first, you think?"
"No, sir, I see no reason to expect such a misfortune. I anticipate
that you will be well received."
A sudden thought struck me. "And you think everything will go according
to plan?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, I don't," I said. "I've spotted a flaw in your beastly scheme."
"A flaw, sir?"
"Yes. Do you suppose for a moment that when Mr. Glossop hears me
singing that dashed song he'll come calmly on a minute after me and
sing it, too? Use your intelligence, Jeeves. He will perceive the chasm
in his path and pause in time. He will back out and refuse to go on at
all."
"Mr. Glossop will not hear you sing, sir. At my advice he has stepped
across the road to the Jug and Bottle, an establishment immediately
opposite the hall, and he intends to remain there until it is time for
him to appear on the platform."
"Oh!" I said.
"If I might suggest it, sir, there is another house named the Goat and
Grapes only a short distance down the street. I think it might be a
judicious move----"
"If I were to put a bit of custom in their way?"
"It would ease the nervous strain of waiting, sir."
I had not been feeling any too pleased with the man for having let
me in for this ghastly binge, but at these words I'm bound to say my
austerity softened a trifle. He was undoubtedly right.
He had studied the psychology of the individual, if you see what I
mean, and it had not led him astray. A quiet ten minutes at the Goat
and Grapes was exactly what my system required. To buzz off there and
inhale a couple of swift whisky-and-sodas was with Bertram Wooster the
work of a moment.
The treatment worked like magic. What they had put into the stuff,
besides vitriol, I could not have said; but it completely altered my
outlook on life. That curious, gulpy feeling passed. I was no longer
conscious of the sagging sensation at the knees. The limbs ceased
to quiver gently, the tongue became loosened in its socket, and the
backbone stiffened.
Pausing merely to order and swallow another of the same, I bade the
barmaid a cheery good-night, nodded affably to one or two fellows in
the bar whose faces I liked, and came prancing back to the hall, ready
for anything.
And shortly afterward I was on the platform with about a million
bulging eyes goggling up at me. There was a rummy sort of buzzing in
my ears, and then through the buzzing I heard the sound of a piano
starting to tinkle; and, commending my soul to God, I took a good long
breath and charged in.
Well, it was a close thing. If ever my grandchildren cluster about my
knee and want to know what I did in the Great War, I shall say, "Never
mind about the Great War. Ask me about the time I sang 'Sonny Boy' at
the Oddfellows' Hall at Bermondsey East."
The whole incident is a bit blurred, but I seem to recollect a kind of
murmur as I hit the refrain. I thought at the time it was an attempt on
the part of the many-headed to join in the chorus, and at the moment
it rather encouraged me.
I passed the thing over the larynx with all the vim at my disposal,
hit the high note, and off gracefully into the wings. I didn't come on
again to take a bow. I just receded and oiled round to where Jeeves
awaited me among the standees at the back.
"Well, Jeeves," I said, anchoring myself at his side and brushing the
honest perspiration from the brow. "They didn't rush the platform."
"No, sir."
"But you can spread it about that that's the last time I perform
outside my bath. My swan song, Jeeves. Anybody who wants to hear me
in future must present himself at the bathroom door and shove his ear
against the keyhole. I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that toward
the end they were hotting up a trifle. The bird was hovering in the
air. I could hear the beating of its wings."
"I did detect a certain restlessness, sir, in the audience. I fancy
they had lost their taste for that particular melody. I should have
informed you earlier, sir, that the song had already been sung twice
before you arrived."
"What!"
"Yes, sir. Once by a lady and once by a gentleman. It is a very popular
song, sir."
I gaped at the man. That, with this knowledge, he could calmly have
allowed the young master to step straight into the jaws of death, so to
speak, paralyzed me. It seemed to show that the old feudal spirit had
passed away altogether. I was about to give him my views on the matter
in no uncertain fashion, when I was stopped by the spectacle of young
Tuppy lurching onto the platform.
Young Tuppy had the unmistakable air of a man who has recently been
round to the Jug and Bottle. A few cheery cries of welcome, presumably
from some of his backgammon-playing pals who felt that blood was
thicker than water, had the effect of causing the genial smile on his
face to widen till it nearly met at the back.
He was plainly feeling about as good as a man can feel and still remain
on his feet. He waved a kindly hand to his supporters and bowed in a
regal sort of manner, rather like an Eastern monarch acknowledging the
plaudits of the mob.
Then the female at the piano struck up the opening bars of "Sonny Boy,"
and Tuppy swelled like a balloon, clasped his hands together, rolled
his eyes up at the ceiling in a manner denoting Soul, and began.
I think the populace was too stunned for the moment to take immediate
steps. It may seem incredible, but I give you my word that young Tuppy
got right through the verse without so much as a murmur. Then they
seemed to pull themselves together.
A costermonger roused is a terrible thing. I had never seen the
proletariat really stirred before, and I'm bound to say it rather awed
me. I mean, it gave you some idea of what it must have been like during
the French Revolution.
From every corner of the hall there proceeded simultaneously the sort
of noise you hear at one of those East End boxing places when the
referee disqualifies the popular favourite and makes the quick dash
for life. And then they passed beyond mere words and began to introduce
the vegetable motif.
I don't know why, but somehow I had got it into my head that the first
thing thrown at Tuppy would be a potato. One gets these fancies. It
was, however, as a matter of fact, a banana, and I saw in an instant
that the choice had been made by wiser heads than mine. These blokes
who have grown up from childhood in the knowledge of how to treat a
dramatic entertainment that doesn't please them are aware by a sort
of instinct just what is best to do, and the moment I saw that banana
splash on Tuppy's shirt front I realized how infinitely more effective
and artistic it was than any potato could have been.
Not that the potato school of thought had not also its supporters. As
the proceedings warmed up I noticed several intelligent-looking fellows
who threw nothing else.
The effect on young Tuppy was rather remarkable. His eyes bulged and
his hair seemed to stand up, and yet his mouth went on opening and
shutting, and you could see that in a dazed, automatic way he was still
singing "Sonny Boy."
Then, coming out of his trance, he began to pull for the shore with
some rapidity. The last seen of him, he was beating a tomato to the
exit by a short head.
Presently the tumult and the shouting died. I turned to Jeeves.
"Painful, Jeeves," I said. "But what would you?"
"Yes, sir."
"The surgeon's knife, what?"
"Precisely, sir."
"Well, with this happening beneath her eyes, I think that we may
definitely consider the Glossop-Bellinger romance off."
"Yes, sir."
At this point old Beefy Bingham came out upon the platform.
I supposed that he was about to rebuke his flock for the recent
expression of feeling. But such was not the case. No doubt he was
accustomed by now to the wholesome give-and-take of these clean, bright
entertainments and had ceased to think it worth while to make any
comment when there was a certain liveliness.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said old Beefy. "The next item on the program
was to have been songs by Miss Cora Bellinger, the well-known operatic
soprano. I have just received a telephone message from Miss Bellinger,
saying that her car has broken down. She is, however, on her way here
in a cab and will arrive shortly. Meanwhile, our friend Mr. Enoch
Simpson will recite 'The Charge of the Light Brigade.'"