"I'll have a small Scotch and soda," I decided.
"This is on the house," said the eccentric landlord.
He produced two glasses and filled them, and I noticed that he took
money from his pocket and placed it in the till.
"Well, success to the new management!" I said, raising my glass to his.
"Cheerio, and thank you," said he, smiling genially upon me.
He seemed to me more self-possessed and less eccentric than he had
appeared upon our arrival. I determined to draw him out.
"It's funny that an Australian should have owned an hotel away up in
the Welsh hills," I hazarded. "Did he die recently?"
"Australia? You must have misunderstood me," said Mr. Gunthorpe with a
hunted look in his eyes. "Very likely--very likely I said Ostend."
"Ostend? Well, possibly I did," I agreed, feeling certain that I had
made no mistake. "Had he a hotel there as well?"
"Yes, yes. Of course, of course, of course," agreed the landlord,
largely redundant.
"And are you running that as well?"
"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed, with a shudder. "You see ... this--this
is just a small legacy. It'll be all right by and by. All right, all
right. Let's have another drink."
"With me," I insisted.
"Not at all, not at all. On the house. All for the good of the house.
Come along, Bob, have a drink!"
It was the boots who had now entered, and he strolled up to the bar
with all the self-possession of a welcome guest.
"Just a spot of Scotch, old thing!" he said brightly. "It's a hard
life. Shaking down good and comfy, laddie?"--this last to me. "Ask for
anything you fancy. It doesn't follow you'll get it, but if we have it,
it's yours. Tinkle, tinkle; crash, crash!" With this unusual toast he
raised his glass and drained it.
"Have another," he said. "Three Scotches, Boniface."
I protested. This was too hot and fast for me altogether. Besides, I
did not fancy being indebted to this somewhat overwhelming boots. My
protest was of no avail. The glasses were filled while yet the words
were upon my lips. I thought of Tony, and trembled. Common decency
would force me to stand still another round before I could cry a halt.
"All well in the buttery?" asked the boots, in a confidential tone of
the landlord.
"The banquet is in preparation," replied the latter. "Everything is in
train."
"Heaven grant that it comes out of train reasonably, laddie," said
boots fervently. "But you know Molly. I wouldn't trust an ostrich to
her cooking. Here's hoping for the best."
He drained his glass again, and this time I managed to get a show.
"Three more whiskies, please landlord," and Tony in clear view cut up
into nice squares by the little leaded panes. I got mine absorbed just
in time, and was on the doorstep to meet her, draggle-skirted and
untidy, but enthusiastic about her "burn." She broke her vows three
times on the way up to number ten, and excused her lapses on the ground
that the "burn" was the perfect image of one near a place she called
"Pairth."
When she rang for hot water to wash away the traces of her ablutions in
the burn, I had my first view of the chambermaid. I found her even more
ravishing than the waitress downstairs, and with the additional
advantage that she was not stand-offish--indeed, she was a giggler. She
giggled at my slightest word, and Tony altered her first impression and
dubbed her a forward hussy. Personally, I liked the girl, though she
broke all precedent by attending upon us in a silk blouse and a
tailor-made tweed skirt.
When I wandered downstairs before dinner I came upon her again, this
time unmistakably in the arms of the ubiquitous boots. I had walked
innocently into a small sitting-room where a lamp already shone, and I
came upon the romantic picture unexpectedly. With a murmured word of
inarticulate apology I made to retire.
"It's all right, old fruit, don't hurry away," said boots affably.
"Awfully sorry, and all that. Quite forgot it was a public room, don't
you know."
The chambermaid giggled once more and bolted, straightening her cap as
she went.
"You don't mind, do you?" continued boots, making a clumsy show of
trimming the lamp. "Warm is the greeting when seas have rolled between
us. Perhaps not quite that, but you see the idea, eh?"
He would doubtless have said more, being evidently of a cheery nature,
had not the waitress of the afternoon appeared in the doorway, her face
as frozen as a mask of ice.
"Bob--kennel!" she said sharply, and held the door wide.
The cheeriness vanished and the boots followed it through the open
doorway.
"I trust you will excuse him, sir," said the waitress deferentially.
"He is just a little deranged, but quite harmless. We employ him out of
charity, sir."
I may have been mistaken, but a sound uncommonly like the chambermaid's
giggle came to me from the passage without.
The sound of a car stopping outside the hotel drew me to the window as
the waitress left me, and I was in time to see an old gentleman with a
long white beard step from the interior of a Daimler landaulette, the
door of which was held open by a dignified chauffeur, whose attire
seemed to consist mainly of brass buttons.
A consultation evidently took place in the smoking-room or bar between
this patriarch and the proprietor, and then I heard agitated voices in
the passage without.
"It's a blinking invasion," said Mr. Gunthorpe. "I tell you we can't do
it. Good heavens, they threaten to stop a month if they are
comfortable."
"Don't worry then, old bean. They won't stop long." This in the voice
of boots.
"And they want special diet. Old girl can't eat meat. Suffers from a
duodenal ulcer. I tell you, we got quick intimate! We can't do it,
Molly."
"Fathead, of course we can. I'll concoct her something the like of
which her what-you-may-call-it has never before tackled. Run along,
Bill, and be affable."
"Shall I stand them a drink?"--Mr. Gunthorpe again.
"Do, old bean. I'll come and have one, too," said boots.
"You won't, Bob. You'll see to the chauffeur and the car, _and_ the
luggage."
"Hang the luggage! I'll stand the chauffeur a drink."
Then the female voice spoke warningly.
"You've had enough drinks already, both of you," it said. "You ought to
bear in mind that you're not running the hotel just for your two
selves."
"It's all right, old girl. There's plenty for everybody. Cellar's full
of it."
The voices died away, and I strolled out into the bar once more. Mr.
Gunthorpe was being affable, according to instructions, to the old
gentleman, while an old lady in a bonnet looked on piercingly.
"Quite all right about the diet," the landlord was saying as I entered.
"We make a specialty of special diets. In fact, our ordinary diet is a
special diet. Certainly, of course. We've got mulligatawny soup,
sardines, roast beef, trifle and gorgonzola cheese. Perhaps you'll have
a drink while you wait?"
"Certainly not, sir," replied the old gentleman testily. "You seem to
be unable to comprehend. My wife has a duodenal ulcer, sir. Had it for
fourteen years in September, and you talk to me of mulligatawny soup."
"I quite understand, of course, of course," replied Mr. Gunthorpe
urbanely. "Everything of a--an irritating character will be left out of
the--"
"Then it won't be mulligatawny soup, you fool!" exploded the old lady,
whose pressure I had seen rising for some time.
"Certainly not, madam. Of course, indubitably. We'll call it beef-tea,
and it will never know."
"What will never know?" asked the old gentleman, with an air of
puzzlement.
"Madam's duodenal ulcer, sir," replied the landlord, with a deferential
bow, dedicated, doubtless, to that organ.
Each separate hair in the old gentleman's beard began to curl and coil
with the electricity of exasperation, and at every moment I expected to
see sparks fly out from it. The old lady folded her hands across her
treasure, and looked daggers at the landlord.
"How far is it to the nearest hotel, John?" she demanded acidly.
"Too far to go to-night, Mary. I'm afraid we must put up with
this--this sanatorium," replied her husband.
As a diversion I demanded an appetizer--a gin and bitters.
Mr. Gunthorpe's face lit up and he bolted behind the bar.
"Certainly, of course. Have it with me!" he exclaimed eagerly, his eyes
full of gratitude for the diversion.
I had the greatest difficulty in paying for our two drinks, for of
course Mr. Gunthorpe would not let me drink alone, and I was equally
insistent that the house had done enough for me.
"Then we must have another," he declared, as the only way out of the
difficulty.
Fortunately for me, Tony appeared on the scene, clothed and in her
right mind, speaking once more the English language, and I contrived to
avoid further stimulation. Mr. Gunthorpe looked at me reproachfully as
I moved off with my wife. I could see that he dreaded further
interrogation on the subject of diets.
Nothing further of moment occurred before dinner. Tony and I went out
and admired the wonderful view in the dim half-light, and just as the
midges got the better of us--even my foul old pipe did not give us the
victory--the gong sounded for dinner and covered our retreat.
It was the maddest dinner in which I have ever participated. Three
tables were laid in the little coffee-room, and, as Tony and I were the
first to put in an appearance, I had the curiosity to look at the bill
of fare at the first table I came to.
"This way, sir, if you please," said the chilling voice of our
exemplary waitress.
Already I had deciphered "beef-tea" and "steamed sole" on the card, and
concluded that the table was reserved for the duodenal ulcer. At the
table to which we were conducted I found "mulligatawny soup" figuring
on the menu, and I wondered.
The old lady and gentleman were ushered to their seats by the boots,
now smartly dressed in striped trousers and black coat and waistcoat. I
say "smartly," because the clothes were of good material, and the
wearer looked easily the best-clad man in the hotel.
The two places laid at the third table were taken by a boy and girl of
such youthful appearance that both Tony and I were astonished to find
them living alone in an hotel. The boy might have been fifteen and the
girl twelve at the most; but that they were overwhelmingly at home in
their surroundings was quickly manifest, as was the fact that they were
brother and sister. This latter fact was evidenced by the manner in
which the boy bullied the girl, and contradicted her at every
opportunity.
There was something of a strained wait when all of us had taken our
places. I saw the old gentleman, eye-glasses on the tip of his nose,
studying the bill of fare intently. Then he turned to his wife.
"Minced chicken and rice--peptonized," he said suspiciously. "Did you
ever hear of such a dish, Mary?"
"Never. But nothing would surprise me in this place," replied his wife,
looking round the room with a censorious eye that even included the
innocent Tony and myself.
The two children chuckled. They wore an air of expectancy such as I
have noticed in my nephews and nieces when I have been inveigled into
taking them to Maskelyne's show. They seemed on very intimate terms
with the waitress, and the mere sight of the boots sent them into fits
of suppressed chuckling. He, standing by the sideboard, napkin over
arm, added to their hilarity by winking violently at regular intervals.
Catching my eye upon him, he crossed to our table.
"Everything all right, eh?" he said, glancing over the lay-out of our
table.
"Everything--except that so far we have had no food," I replied.
"It's the soup," he said, leaning confidentially to my ear. "The cat
fell into it, and they're combing it out of her fur. Have a drink while
you wait? No! All right, old thing. I dare say you know best when
you've had enough. Shut up, you kids! Don't you see you're irritating
the old boy."
This in a hoarse aside to the children at the next table. It made them
giggle the more.
"Surely they are very young to be stopping here alone!" said Tony, with
a touch of her national inquisitiveness.
"Very sad case, madam," replied the boots. "We found them here when we
came. You know--wrapped in a blanket on the doorstep. Not quite,
perhaps, but you see the idea. Sort of wards of the hotel."
He was interrupted by the entrance of the waitress with soup. She gave
him a frozen glance and a jerk of the head, and he vanished to the
kitchen, to return with more soup, and at last we got a start on our
meal. The soup was good notwithstanding the story of the cat. It really
was mulligatawny. There was no doubt about that.
The old couple were not so well satisfied. They sipped a little, had a
whispered consultation, and beckoned the boots.
"Waiter, why do you call this beef-tea?" demanded the old gentleman.
"You can't have me there, my lad," retorted boots cheerily. "From the
Latin beef, beef and tea, tea--beef-tea. Take a spoonful of tea and a
lump of beef, shake well together, simmer gently till ready, and serve
with a ham-frill."
The old gentleman's face showed deep purple against his white whiskers,
and the waitress left our table hurriedly, hustled the boots from the
room, and crossed to the old couple. I could not hear all she said, but
I understood that the boots was liable to slight delusions, but quite
harmless. The beef-tea was the best that could be prepared on such
short notice, and so on.
It was the main course of the meal that brought the climax. It was
roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, excellently cooked, and, so far as we
were concerned, efficiently served. The irrepressible boots had,
however, by this time drifted back to duty. I saw him bear plates to
the old people's table containing a pale mess which I rightly concluded
was the "minced chicken and rice--peptonized," already referred to by
the old gentleman. The couple eyed it suspiciously while their
attendant hovered near, apparently awaiting the congratulations which
were bound to follow the consumption of the dish.
"John, it's beef!" screamed the old lady, starting to her feet and
spluttering.
"Damme, so it is!" confirmed her husband, after a bare mouthful. "Hi,
you--scoundrel, poisoner, assassin--send the manager here at once."
He waved his napkin in fury, and boots cocked an eye at him curiously.
"Won't you have another try?" he urged. "Be sporty about it. Hang it,
it looks like chopped chicken, and it is chopped. I chopped it myself.
Have another try. You'll believe it in time if you persevere. It's the
first step that counts, you know. I used to be able to say that in
French, but--"
He only got so far because the old gentleman had been inarticulate with
rage.
"Fetch the manager, and don't dare utter another word, confound you!"
he shouted.
A few moments later our friend Mr. Gunthorpe entered. His eyes were
bright, and a satisfied smile rested on his lips.
"Good evening, sir," he began affably. "I believe you sent for me. I
hope everything is to your taste?"
"Everything is nothing of the sort, sir!" retorted the old gentleman.
"You have attempted a gross fraud upon us, sir. I find on the menu,
chicken, and it is nothing more nor less than chopped beef. And
'peptonized'--peptonized be hanged, sir! It's no more peptonized than
my hat!"
"Well, sir, as for your hat I can say nothing, but--"
"None of your insolence, sir. I insist on having this--filth taken away
and something suitable put before us. My wife has possessed a duodenal
ulcer for fourteen years come September, and--"
"Be hanged to your duodenal ulcer! As this isn't its birthday, why
should it have a blinking banquet. Let it take pot-luck with the rest
of us."
A sudden burst of uncontrollable laughter made me turn sharply, to find
that the reserve had fallen from our chilly waitress, who was vainly
endeavouring to smother her laughter in her professional napkin.
"Oh, Bill!" she cried, "you've done it now. The game's up."
The old lady and gentleman arose in outraged dignity and started to
leave the room, when a diversion was caused by the entrance of a
pleasant-faced lady in hat and cloak. I had been semi-conscious for
some moments of a motor-engine running at the hotel door.
"Oh, Mr. Gunthorpe, what luck!" cried the newcomer. "I've collected a
full staff, and brought them all up from Dolgelly with me, look you."
"Thank heaven!" exclaimed the proprietor. "As soon as your barmaid is
on her job we'll drink all their healths. I hope you won't be annoyed,
Miss Jones, but I fear, I very greatly fear, you will lose a couple of
likely customers at dawn or soon after. Here they are. Perhaps you can
still pacify them. I can't."
Miss Jones turned to the old couple, who were waiting for the doorway
to clear, with a disarming and conciliatory smile.
"I hope you will make allowances," she said, with a musical Welsh
intonation. "I am the manageress, and everything is at sixes and
sevens, look you. This morning I had trouble with the staff, and just
to annoy me they all cleared off together. I had to leave the hotel to
see what I could find in Dolgelly. Mr. Gunthorpe and the other guests
in the hotel very kindly offered to see to things while I was away, and
I'm sure they have done their best, indeed."
"Done their best to poison us, certainly," growled the old gentleman.
"My wife has a duo--"
"That's all right, old chap," interrupted Mr. Gunthorpe. "Miss Jones is
an expert in those things. She'll feed it the proper tack, believe me.
Give her a chance, and don't blame her for our shortcomings."
By this time the whole mock staff had taken the stage--waitress, boots,
chambermaid, and a pleasant-faced lady of matronly appearance who, I
learnt, was Mrs. Gunthorpe and the mother of the two children of whom
we had been told such a harrowing history.
"And just think, dear," said Tony, smiling at me across the table. "The
boots and the chambermaid are on their honeymoon. He is a journalist."
"How do you know all this?" I demanded suspiciously.
"I wormed the whole thing out of the chambermaid at the very
beginning," said Tony. "I didn't tell you because I thought it would be
more fun."
Miss Jones succeeded in pacifying the old couple somehow--mainly, I
think, by promises of a new régime--and we left them in the coffee-room
looking almost cheerful.
Tony and I went out to talk in the moonlight, while I smoked an
after-dinner cigar. We were gone for some time, and on our return
decided to go straight upstairs to bed. I noticed that lights still
burned in the coffee-room, and heard the sound of voices from that
direction. Thinking that some late guests had arrived during our
absence, I had the curiosity to glance round the door. The whole of our
late staff sat round a table, on which were arrayed much food and
several gilt-topped bottles.
"Come along. Do join us!" cried Mr. Gunthorpe, sighting us at once.
"Come and celebrate the end of this bat in the belfry sort of
management," added boots, holding high a sparkling glass.
It ended in _Tony_ and I being dragged into the celebration, and _that_
ended in quite a late sitting.
Tony and I lingered on for over a week at the Bat and Belfry Inn, as we
all called it, and so, strange to say, did the duodenal couple, whom,
indeed, we left there, special-dieting to their hearts' content.