In louder tones calculated to convey an impression of intense
impatience, he cried: "Come _in_!"
He heard the outer door open, and immediately, upon an impulse esoteric
even in his own understanding, he chose to pretend to be extravagantly
busy--as busy as by rights he should have been. For a minute or longer
he acted most vividly the part of a man madly bent on catching his train
though he were to perish of the attempt. And this despite a suspicion
that he played to a limited audience of one, and that one unappreciative
of the finer phases of everyday histrionic impersonation: an audience
answering to the name of Milly, whose lowly station of life was that of
housemaid-in-lodgings and whose imagination was as ill-nourished and
sluggish as might be expected of one whose wages were two-and-six a
week.
Remembering this in time, the novelty of make-believe palled on Staff.
Not that alone, but he could hear Milly insisting in accents not in the
least apologetic: "Beg pardon, sir ..."
He paused in well-feigned surprise and looked enquiringly over his
shoulder, as though to verify a surmise that somebody had spoken. Such
proving to be the case, he turned round to confront Milly--Milly true to
type, wearing a grimy matutinal apron, an expression half sleepy, half
sullen, and a horrid soot smudge on her ripe, red, right cheek.
In this guise (so sedulously does life itself ape the conventions of its
literature and drama) Milly looked as lifelike as though viewed through
the illusion of footlights. Otherwise, as Staff never failed to be
gratified to observe, she differed radically from the stock article of
our stage. For one thing, she refrained from dropping her _aitches_ and
stumbling over them on her first entrance in order merely to win a laugh
and so lift her little role from the common rut of "lines" to the
dignity of "a bit." For another, she seldom if ever brandished that
age-honoured wand of her office, a bedraggled feather-duster. Nor was
she by any means in love with the tenant of the fust-floor-front.
But though Staff was grateful for Milly because of this strong and
unconventional individuality of hers, he wasn't at all pleased to be
interrupted, and he made nothing whatever of the ostensible excuse for
the interruption; the latter being a very large and brilliantly
illuminated bandbox, which Milly was offering him in pantomime.
"It have just come," said Milly calmly, in response to his enquiring
stare. "Where would you wish me to put it, sir?"
"Put what?"
Milly gesticulated eloquently with the bandbox.
"That thing?" said Staff with scorn.
"Yessir."
"I don't want you to put it anywhere. Take it away."
"But it's for you, sir."
"Impossible. Some mistake. Please don't bother--just take it away.
There's a good girl."
Milly's disdain of this blandishment was plainly visible in the added
elevation of her already sufficiently tucked-up nose.
"Beg pardon, sir," she persisted coldly, "but it's got your nime on it,
and the boy as left it just now asked if you lived here."
Staff's frown portrayed indignation, incredulity and impatience.
"Mistake, I tell you. I haven't been buying any millinery. Absurd!"
"Beg pardon, sir, but you can see as it's addressed to you."
It was: the box being held out for examination, Staff saw plainly that
it was tagged with a card inscribed in fashionably slapdash feminine
handwriting with what was unquestionably the name and local address of
Benjamin Staff, Esq.
Because of this, he felt called upon to subject the box to more minute
inspection.
It was nothing more nor less than the everyday milliners' hat-box of
commerce: a capacious edifice of stout pasteboard neatly plastered with
wall-paper in whose design narrow stripes of white alternated with
aggressive stripes of brown, the whole effectively setting off an
abundance of purple blossoms counterfeiting no flower known to
botanists. And one gibbous side was further decorated with bold black
script advertising the establishment of its origin.
"_Maison Lucille, New Bond Street, West_," Staff read aloud, completely
bewildered. "But I never heard of the d---- the place!"
Helplessly he sought Milly's eyes, and helpfully Milly rose to the
occasion.
"Nossir," said she; and that was all.
"I know nothing whatever about the thing," Staff declared severely.
"It's all a mistake. Take it away--it'll be sent for as soon as the
error's discovered."
A glimmer of intelligence shone luminous in Milly's eyes. "Mebbe," she
suggested under inspiration of curiosity--"Mebbe if you was to open it,
you'd find a note or--or something."
"Bright girl!" applauded Staff. "You open it. I'm too busy--packing
up--no time--"
And realising how swiftly the golden minutes were fleeting beyond
recall, he cast desperately about for his pipe.
By some miracle he chanced to find it, and so resumed packing.
Behind him, Milly made noises with tissue-paper.
Presently he heard a smothered "O sir!" and looked round to discover the
housemaid in an attitude of unmitigated adoration before what he could
not deny was a perfect dream of a hat--the sort of a hat that only a
woman or a society reporter could do justice to. In his vision it bore a
striking resemblance to a Gainsborough with all modern improvements--as
most big hats do to most men. Briefly, it was big and black and trimmed
with an atmosphere of costly simplicity, a monstrous white "willow"
plume and a huge buckle of brilliants. It impressed him, hazily, as just
the very hat to look ripping on an ash-blonde. Aside from this he was
aware of no sensation other than one of aggravated annoyance.
Milly, to the reverse extreme, was charmed to distraction, thrilled to
the core of her and breathless--though by no means dumb. Women are
never dumb with admiration.
"O sir!" she breathed in ecstasy--"it's a real creashun!"
"Daresay," Staff conceded sourly. "Did you find a note?"
"And the price-tag, sir--it says _twen_-ty five pounds!"
"I hope there's a receipted bill, then.... Do you see anything remotely
resembling a note--or something?"
With difficulty subduing her transports--"I'll see, sir," said Milly.
Grunting with exasperation, Staff bent over a trunk and stuffed things
into it until Milly committed herself to the definite announcement: "I
don't seem to find nothing, sir."
"Look again, please."
Again Milly pawed the tissue-paper.
"There ain't nothing at all, sir," she declared finally.
Staff stood up, thrust his hands into his pockets and champed the stem
of his pipe--scowling.
"It is a bit odd, sir, isn't it?--having this sent to you like this and
you knowing nothing at all about it!"
Staff said something indistinguishable because of the obstructing
pipe-stem.
"It's perfectly beautiful, sir--a won'erful hat, really."
"The devil fly away with it!"
"Beg pardon, sir?"
"I said, I'm simply crazy about it, myself."
"Oh, did you, sir?"
"Please put it back and tie it up."
"Yessir." Reluctantly Milly restored the creation to its tissue-paper
nest. "And what would you wish me to do with it now, sir?" she resumed
when at length the ravishing vision was hidden away.
"Do with it?" stormed the vexed gentleman. "I don't care what the
d--ickens you do with it. It isn't my hat. Take it away. Throw it into
the street. Send it back to the place it came from. Give it ... or,
wait!"
Pausing for breath and thought, he changed his mind. The hat was too
valuable to be treated with disrespect, no matter who was responsible
for the mistake. Staff felt morally obligated to secure its return to
the Maison Lucille.
"Look here, Milly ..."
"Yessir?"
"I'll just telephone ... No! Half a minute!"
He checked, on the verge of yielding to an insane impulse. Being a
native of New York, it had been his instinctive thought to call up the
hat-shop and demand the return of its delivery-boy. Fortunately the
instinct of a true dramatist moved him to sketch hastily the ground-plot
of the suggested tragedy.
In _Act I_ (_Time: the Present_) he saw himself bearding the telephone
in its lair--that is, in the darkest and least accessible recess of the
ground-floor hallway. In firm, manful accents, befitting an intrepid
soul, he details a number to the central operator--and meekly submits to
an acidulated correction of his Amurrikin accent.
_Act II_ (_fifteen minutes have elapsed_): He is clinging desperately to
the receiver, sustained by hope alone while he attends sympathetically
to the sufferings of an English lady trying to get in communication with
the Army and Navy Stores.
_Act III_ (_ten minutes later_): He has exhausted himself grinding away
at an obsolete rotary bell-call. Abruptly his ears are enchanted by a
far, thin, frigid moan. It says: "_Are_ you theah?" Responding savagely
"NO!" he dashes the receiver back into its hook and flings away to
discover that he has lost both train and steamer. Tag line: For this is
London in the Twentieth Century. _Curtain: End of the Play._...
Disenchanted by consideration of this tentative synopsis, the playwright
consulted his watch. Already the incident of the condemnable bandbox
had eaten up much invaluable time. He would see himself doomed to
unending perdition if he would submit to further hindrance on its
behalf.
"Milly," said he with decision, "take that ... thing down-stairs, and
tell Mrs. Gigg to telephone the hat-shop to call for it."
"Yessir."
"And after that, call me a taxi. Tell it to wait. I'll be ready by ten
or know--"
Promptly retiring, Milly took with her, in addition to the bandbox, a
confused impression of a room whose atmosphere was thick with flying
garments, in the wild swirl of which a lanky lunatic danced weirdly,
muttering uncouth incantations....
Forty minutes later (on the stroke of ten) Mr. Staff, beautifully
groomed after his habit, his manner (superbly nonchalant) denying that
he had ever known reason why he should take a single step in haste,
followed his trunks down to the sidewalk and, graciously bidding his
landlady adieu, presented Milly with a keepsake in the shape of a golden
coin of the realm.
A taxicab, heavy-laden with his things, fretted before the door. Staff
nodded to the driver.
"Euston," said he; "and a shilling extra if you drive like sin."
"Right you are, sir."
In the act of entering the cab, Staff started back with bitter
imprecations.
Mrs. Gigg, who had not quite closed the front door, opened it wide to
his remonstrant voice.
"I say, what's this bandbox doing in my cab? I thought I told Milly--"
"Sorry, sir; I forgot," Mrs. Gigg interposed--"bein' that flustered--"
"Well?"
"The woman what keeps the 'at-shop said as 'ow the 'at wasn't to come
back, sir. She said a young lidy bought it yestiddy ahfternoon and
awsked to 'ave it sent you this mornin' before nine o'clock."
"The deuce she did!" said Staff blankly.
"An' the young lidy said as 'ow she'd write you a note explynin'. So I
tells Milly not to bother you no more abaht it, but put the 'at-box in
the keb, sir--wishin' not to 'inder you."
"Thoughtful of you, I'm sure. But didn't the--ah--woman who keeps the
hat-shop mention the name of the--ah--person who purchased the hat?"
By the deepening of its corrugations, the forehead of Mrs. Gigg betrayed
the intensity of her mental strain. Her eyes wore a far-away look and
her lips moved, at first silently. Then--"I ain't sure, sir, as she did
nime the lidy, but _if_ she did, it was somethin' like Burnside, I
fancy--or else Postlethwayt."
"Nor Jones nor Brown? Perhaps Robinson? Think, Mrs. Gigg! Not Robinson?"
"I'm sure it may 'ave been eyether of them, sir, now you puts it to me
pl'in."
"That makes everything perfectly clear. Thank you so much."
With this, Staff turned hastily away, nodded to his driver to cut along,
and with groans and lamentations squeezed himself into what space the
bandbox did not demand of the interior of the vehicle.