Mr Pusely-Smythe’s air of saturnine melancholy was pronounced as he
took the chair at the forty-fourth monthly meeting of the Problem
Club.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ he began, ‘the waiters are supposed to have left
the room, but in view of the nature of the problem before us to-night
you would probably wish to be quite sure on the point. Will somebody
kindly examine the screen by the waiters’ entrance?’
Mr Quillian, K.C., reported that no waiter was concealed, and further
that the door was locked.
‘Thank you, my learned friend. Leonard—admirable as a head-waiter,
ingenious and generally innocuous as the inventor of our problems—has
on this occasion undergone a moral lapse. I will give you the words of
this lamentable problem: “It is required within the space of one hour
to kiss upon the cheek ten females of the age of courtship and not
cousins or any nearer relative of the kisser, without giving offence
to any one of them.”
‘Major Byles protested against this problem on the ground that it gave
an unfair advantage to the young and unattached. The Rev. Septimus
Cunliffe seconded the protest on the ground that, broad-minded though
he was, after all there was a limit. A vote being taken, it was
found—to the eternal shame of the club, if I may say so—that there was
a considerable majority in favour of the problem being retained.’
Every member being well aware that the chairman himself had voted with
the majority, there was some hilarious interruption.
‘Gentlemen,’ said the chairman severely, ‘this is not the spirit in
which to approach stories of wrecked homes and blasted reputations,
and these stories we must now hear. I observe that Mr Quillian has had
his face scratched recently, doubtless the work of outraged modesty,
but before I——’
‘I really must protest,’ said Mr Quillian. ‘The slight marks on my
left cheek are not scratches, but were caused—as they say at the
inquests—by some blunt instrument, to wit, a safety razor.’
‘Well,’ the chairman continued, ‘you will have an opportunity later to
explain how the girl got hold of the razor. I will begin with some of
our younger Lotharios. What have you to tell us, Mr Feldane?’
The Hon. James Feldane put down his cigarette, and spoke wearily:
‘It’s like this, you know. I claim to have won unless my score’s
beaten. Ten in an hour is an impossible demand on the part of our
friend Leonard, and I doubt if bogey would be more than four. May I
take it that I win, if I am nearest to Leonard’s figure?’
‘That is so. Continue your loathsome confessions.’
‘It’s strictly masonic and all that, ain’t it?’
‘Mr Feldane may be assured that his hideous secret will die with us,’
said the chairman. ‘The club rule of secrecy has never yet been
broken.’
‘That being so, I’ll get on. I’d planned it all for a dance I was
going to, and I’d put in a deal of conscientious preliminary work,
getting certain girls up to a certain mark, if you understand what I
mean. On the appointed night a perfectly dear old thing with two
daughters some years older than myself called to take me on to that
dance. They’ve known me all my life. They knew me when I’d got golden
curls and played with a wool rabbit. They’re no sort of relation, and
so they count for the purpose of this competition. Well, I’ve always
kissed them when we met, and I kissed them that time as soon as I
boarded the car. So when we got to the house where the dance was I was
three up and still had fifty-three minutes to go.’
Here Feldane was interrupted by an appeal to the chairman. It was made
by his friend Hesseltine, a tall and dark young man, as good-looking
as Feldane himself, though of a very different type.
‘Mr Chairman,’ said Hesseltine, ‘before Jimmy goes any further I
should like to ask for your ruling. The mother of those two girls is
to my certain knowledge sixty-two years of age. I claim that Jimmy
cannot score her, as she is above the age of courtship.’
‘Sorry, Mr Hesseltine, but your claim is disallowed. It has been well
observed that a man is as old as he feels, but that a woman is rather
younger than she doesn’t look. There is no historical instance of any
woman being over the age of courtship.’
‘Then I’m pipped,’ said Hesseltine gloomily. ‘Go on, Jimmy.’
‘I kissed four more in the time left me, but one of them told me that
she would never speak to me again, and so I can’t count her, though
it’s what she always says. I was done by the time limit. You can’t in
decency kiss a girl and then do an immediate bunk. You must keep on
telling her how maddeningly beautiful she is for a few minutes.
Besides, at a dance you can’t always find the girl you want at the
moment you want her. Still, I claim a score of six.’
‘The claim is allowed. And what was your sad experience, Mr
Hesseltine?’
‘Much the same as Jimmy’s. I went to the same dance. I also played the
friends-of-my-childhood, but I could only raise five of them. So
Jimmy’s one ahead. If you had disallowed his old lady we should have
tied. I might add that, being rather carried away, I got engaged to
two different girls in the course of the hour, and though it’s all
right now, I don’t monkey with a buzzsaw again. The next kiss problem
will find little Bobby seated with the spectators.’
‘Possibly,’ said the chairman, ‘the finesse and experience of riper
years will have accomplished more than the attractions of untutored
youth. May I interrupt your secretarial duties, Sir Charles?’
Sir Charles laid down his pencil, smiled, and shook his head. ‘This
time you must place me also with the spectators,’ he said, and quoted
an apt line of Horace.
‘It is seldom that you miss. I wish Mr Harding Pope, that I could say
the same of you. What have you done this time to redeem yourself?’
‘What could I do?’ said Mr Pope, with an oratorical gesture. ‘I
represent a Nonconformist constituency which is not tolerant of the
least laxity in the private life of its member. The mere suspicion
that I had taken part in a competition of this kind might end my
political career.’
‘Possibly. Failure to take part in the next competition will actually
end your career as a member of this club, as you will see if you refer
to rule eleven. The club does not regard onlookers as sportsmen. I
suppose, Major Byles, since you protested against the problem, that
for the first time in your membership you have failed to compete.’
‘That is so, but my protest had very little to do with it. Matter of
fact, I had a superstitious idea that it might change my luck if I
gave a miss this time.’
‘Then I will turn to Dr Alden. What was your adventure, doctor?’
‘Mine was more a tragedy than an adventure,’ said the doctor. ‘On the
evening of Sunday the twelfth, acting on information received, I
presented myself at the residence of my married sister. She said that
I must have forgotten that she was entertaining the girls of her
Tennyson Club that night, and that she had never wanted me less, but
that, as I was there, I could stop. I stopped, that being what I had
come for. Her suggestion that her husband and myself, the only two
males present, should go off to the billiard-room after supper, was
negatived by both of us. In accordance with plan I then directed the
conversation to the subject of face-powder, condemning it on
scientific grounds and maintaining that it deceived nobody. My sister
said that it was not intended to deceive, but that as a matter of fact
no man would ever detect it unless it had been put on with a shovel. I
said that, on the contrary, given a certain condition, any man with a
scientific training could detect it with his eyes shut.
‘Several of the girls asked me how. This was not unexpected.
‘I replied that he would only have to touch with his lips a cheek on
which there was face-powder and he would know it instantly and
infallibly.
‘My sister said she did not believe a word of it.
‘My answer was that I could easily prove it. Let them blindfold me.
Then twelve times in succession let a cheek touch my lips. In each
case I would state whether or not face-powder had been used, and would
employ no other means of detection. I was so certain of it that I
would gladly contribute a guinea to the charitable fund of the
Tennyson Club for every mistake that I made.
‘My sister said that it was very easy to make an impossible offer that
could not be accepted. Somewhat to my surprise the prettiest girl
there said that she did not think it an impossible offer at all. It
was a scientific experiment and might benefit a very good cause. I
would never know the identity of the twelve who took part in the
experiment. Its very publicity made it innocuous. But I should have to
give them a little time to settle which were the twelve to be
sacrificed and the order in which they were to present themselves. To
this I at once agreed.
‘I was put in a chair and blindfolded—really blindfolded. I need
hardly tell the members of this club that my claim to be able to
detect the presence of face-powder in the way indicated was a piece of
monumental spoof. This did not alarm me. I could not lose more than
twelve guineas, and I was out to win our prize of one hundred and ten
pounds. I could assign my mistakes to the fact that I had just smoked
a cigarette, thus spoiling the delicacy of my perception.
‘I heard a sound of whispering and suppressed laughter as the girls
held their consultation, and then the experiment began in silence,
broken only by the rustle of feminine garments. Twelve times in
succession I felt a gentle touch upon my lips, and never once did I
fail to take advantage of it. I gave six decisions for face-powder and
six against, and was just thinking how I would spend the hundred and
ten pounds when I heard a roar of laughter. I tore off the bandage and
asked what was the matter.
‘As soon as they could speak they told me. The only person that I
had kissed on all twelve occasions was my own sister. Sometimes she
had touched my lips with her cheek, on which there was face-powder,
and sometimes with the back of her hand, on which there was none.
And nine times I had been mistaken in my diagnosis. The treasurer
of the charitable fund—she was the pretty girl of whom I have
spoken—collected the money. Then they all resumed their merriment, and
no excuse for my mistakes was ever heard.
‘All things considered, I think I have a fair claim for a consolation
prize.’
‘The club does not give prizes of that description,’ said the
chairman. ‘But I can offer you our sympathy, which is more valuable
than mere money. I will now call upon Mr Quillian.’
Mr Quillian adjusted his pince-nez. ‘I will ask the chairman’s
permission to argue that the whole of this competition is null and
void, and that the prize should be added to that for the next
competition.’
‘I will hear you, Mr Quillian, but you must be brief and to the point.
You are not in court now, you know.’
‘If you please, I submit that a kiss has a psychical as well as a
physical side, and that kisses for competition purposes are so
deficient on the psychical or emotional side that they cannot be
considered as kisses in the ordinary sense of the word.’
‘I do not admit that. Possibly the competition kiss does not come up
to the standard demanded by a voluptuary like my learned friend, but
it is still a kiss. If he kissed this match-box, it would be a kiss
and could not be described otherwise, although presumably the
emotional side would be absent. Enough of these legal quibbles. I will
now ask Mr Matthews if he has been as successful in the part of
Lothario as he invariably is in that of Lucullus.’
Mr Matthews, the club epicure, said that a decent upbringing had
caused him to fail in a shameful enterprise, and gave his account of
it.
He advertised in the name of Mrs Elsmere Twiss, giving an
accommodation address, for a companion to an elderly lady. The salary
offered was magnificent, and it was intimated that accomplishments
would be less valued than youthful charm and an affectionate nature.
Applicants were to enclose photographs.
Ten of the applicants—and it is to be feared that they were the ten
whose photographs were the most attractive—were given an appointment
with Mrs Elsmere Twiss at a West End hotel on a certain day. On the
morning of that day Mr Matthews placed himself in the hands of a
famous costumier, who had guaranteed to convert him into such an
excellent imitation of an old lady that even at close quarters the
disguise would not be detected. The costumier spent two hours on
effecting a most artistic transformation and then, after submitting
himself to the photographer in attendance, Mr Matthew drove off to the
hotel. A passer-by who had happened to glance into the cab might have
observed a sweet-looking old lady smoking a large cigar.
[Illustration: An older person wearing a Victorian-era hat with a
train, a black dress with a fur collar, and white gloves, with a lit
cigar in ‘her’ mouth. Caption: ‘A sweet-looking old lady smoking a
large cigar.’]
He now proceeded to interview the selected ten, it being his
abominable intention to kiss each applicant as he said good-bye to
her.
The first applicant to be brought in from the waiting-room was Miss
Grace Porter. Everything went well until the moment came for the
affectionate good-bye. But then it chanced that Miss Porter dropped
her handkerchief.
Now Mr Matthews had from the nursery upwards been taught habits of
politeness, and his decent upbringing now proved his undoing.
Forgetting that he was supposed to be an elderly lady and the girl’s
prospective employer, he flew to pick up that handkerchief. And as he
stooped his hat and wig fell off. For a few awful moments he remained
stooping, waiting for Miss Porter’s scream. But no scream came. She
had realised that Mrs Elsmere Twiss wore a wig, but not that she was a
man. And the tactful Miss Porter had retired from the room.
Mr Matthews was safe, but his nerve was gone. He replaced the hat and
wig, and sent a waiter with a message to the remaining applicants.
When Mr Matthews had finished his story two other members narrated how
they had conspired together to get the game of kiss-in-the-ring played
at a rectory garden party and had failed miserably.
‘Now the only member left,’ said the chairman, ‘is Mr Cunliffe, and as
he protested against the problem, and will not have competed——’
‘Pardon me,’ said the sonorous and ecclesiastical voice of the Rev.
Septimus Cunliffe. ‘I have not only competed, but I claim to be the
winner.’
‘One moment. This is a shock, and some restorative seems indicated.’
The chairman fetched himself a brandy-and-soda from the side-table and
resumed. ‘Now, if the reverend gentleman will continue the account of
his exploits——’
‘It has pained me to hear to-night aspersions on the character of our
admirable Leonard. I admit that when I first heard the problem I was
myself inclined to misjudge him. But on examining it more closely I
saw that never had he risen to a higher pitch of austere, though
cynical, morality. I saw that he intended that this prize should be
won by the most high-minded member of the club—by the man whose mind
was the least obsessed by thoughts of frivolity or flirtation.’
‘Might I suggest,’ said the chairman, ‘that you should stop throwing
bouquets to yourself, and tell us about these ten women that you’ve
kissed?’
‘That is precisely my point. Leonard does not say women. He does not
say girls. He says females. My aunt is interested in smoke-gray
Persian cats. She breeds them and deals in them on behalf of a
charity, and you will generally find thirty or forty of them at her
house. It is unhygienic to kiss cats, but I kissed ten of them, and my
aunt was greatly pleased at this unusual demonstration of affection
for her pets. Some of them seemed slightly bored, but not one was
offended. When a cat is offended it tells you so. They were of an age
for courtship—by males of their own species. Briefly, the cats and I
conformed in all respects with the requirements of the problem.’
‘Gentlemen,’ said the chairman, ‘the subtlety of our theologian has
overcome you. Our cheque for one hundred and ten pounds will be drawn
to the order of Mr Septimus Cunliffe.
‘I will now read out the problem which will next engage your
attention. It is entitled “The Free Meal Problem.” It is required
within the space of twenty-four consecutive hours to be the guest of
one person at breakfast, of another at luncheon, and of a third at
dinner, the host being in each case a person whom the competitor has
not to his knowledge seen, and with whom he has held no communication
previous to the sunrise preceding the meal. No direct request for a
meal may be made and no remuneration may be given in return for any
meal.
‘The adjudicator will be my learned friend Mr Quillian.’
No. III.