COMRADE BINGO
The thing really started in the Park--at the Marble Arch end--where
weird birds of every description collect on Sunday afternoons and stand
on soap-boxes and make speeches. It isn’t often you’ll find me there,
but it so happened that on the Sabbath after my return to the good old
Metrop. I had a call to pay in Manchester Square, and, taking a stroll
round in that direction so as not to arrive too early, I found myself
right in the middle of it.
Now that the Empire isn’t the place it was, I always think the Park on
a Sunday is the centre of London, if you know what I mean. I mean to
say, that’s the spot that makes the returned exile really sure he’s
back again. After what you might call my enforced sojourn in New York
I’m bound to say that I stood there fairly lapping it all up. It did me
good to listen to the lads giving tongue and realise that all had ended
happily and Bertram was home again.
On the edge of the mob farthest away from me a gang of top-hatted
chappies were starting an open-air missionary service; nearer at hand
an atheist was letting himself go with a good deal of vim, though
handicapped a bit by having no roof to his mouth; while in front of me
there stood a little group of serious thinkers with a banner labelled
“Heralds of the Red Dawn”; and as I came up, one of the heralds, a
bearded egg in a slouch hat and a tweed suit, was slipping it into the
Idle Rich with such breadth and vigour that I paused for a moment to
get an earful. While I was standing there somebody spoke to me.
“Mr. Wooster, surely?”
Stout chappie. Couldn’t place him for a second. Then I got him. Bingo
Little’s uncle, the one I had lunch with at the time when young Bingo
was in love with that waitress at the Piccadilly bun-shop. No wonder I
hadn’t recognised him at first. When I had seen him last he had been
a rather sloppy old gentleman--coming down to lunch, I remember, in
carpet slippers and a velvet smoking-jacket; whereas now dapper simply
wasn’t the word. He absolutely gleamed in the sunlight in a silk hat,
morning coat, lavender spats and sponge-bag trousers, as now worn.
Dressy to a degree.
“Oh, hallo!” I said. “Going strong?”
“I am in excellent health, I thank you. And you?”
“In the pink. Just been over to America.”
“Ah! Collecting local colour for one of your delightful romances?”
“Eh?” I had to think a bit before I got on to what he meant. Then I
remembered the Rosie M. Banks business. “Oh, no,” I said. “Just felt I
needed a change. Seen anything of Bingo lately?” I asked quickly, being
desirous of heading the old thing off what you might call the literary
side of my life.
“Bingo?”
“Your nephew.”
“Oh, Richard? No, not very recently. Since my marriage a little
coolness seems to have sprung up.”
“Sorry to hear that. So you’ve married since I saw you, what? Mrs.
Little all right?”
“My wife is happily robust. But--er--_not_ Mrs. Little. Since we last
met a gracious Sovereign has been pleased to bestow on me a signal mark
of his favour in the shape of--ah--a peerage. On the publication of the
last Honours List I became Lord Bittlesham.”
“By Jove! Really? I say, heartiest congratulations. That’s the stuff to
give the troops, what? Lord Bittlesham?” I said. “Why, you’re the owner
of Ocean Breeze.”
“Yes. Marriage has enlarged my horizon in many directions. My wife
is interested in horse-racing, and I now maintain a small stable. I
understand that Ocean Breeze is fancied, as I am told the expression
is, for a race which will take place at the end of the month at
Goodwood, the Duke of Richmond’s seat in Sussex.”
“The Goodwood Cup. Rather! I’ve got my chemise on it for one.”
“Indeed? Well, I trust the animal will justify your confidence. I
know little of these matters myself, but my wife tells me that it is
regarded in knowledgeable circles as what I believe is termed a snip.”
At this moment I suddenly noticed that the audience was gazing in our
direction with a good deal of interest, and I saw that the bearded
chappie was pointing at us.
“Yes, look at them! Drink them in!” he was yelling, his voice rising
above the perpetual-motion fellow’s and beating the missionary service
all to nothing. “There you see two typical members of the class which
has down-trodden the poor for centuries. Idlers! Non-producers! Look
at the tall thin one with the face like a motor-mascot. Has he ever
done an honest day’s work in his life? No! A prowler, a trifler, and a
blood-sucker! And I bet he still owes his tailor for those trousers!”
He seemed to me to be verging on the personal, and I didn’t think a lot
of it. Old Bittlesham, on the other hand, was pleased and amused.
“A great gift of expression these fellows have,” he chuckled. “Very
trenchant.”
“And the fat one!” proceeded the chappie. “Don’t miss him. Do you know
who that is? That’s Lord Bittlesham! One of the worst. What has he ever
done except eat four square meals a day? His god is his belly, and he
sacrifices burnt-offerings to it. If you opened that man now you would
find enough lunch to support ten working-class families for a week.”
“You know, that’s rather well put,” I said, but the old boy didn’t seem
to see it. He had turned a brightish magenta and was bubbling like a
kettle on the boil.
“Come away, Mr. Wooster,” he said. “I am the last man to oppose the
right of free speech, but I refuse to listen to this vulgar abuse any
longer.”
We legged it with quiet dignity, the chappie pursuing us with his foul
innuendoes to the last. Dashed embarrassing.
* * * * *
Next day I looked in at the club, and found young Bingo in the
smoking-room.
“Hallo, Bingo,” I said, toddling over to his corner full of bonhomie,
for I was glad to see the chump, “How’s the boy?”
“Jogging along.”
“I saw your uncle yesterday.”
Young Bingo unleashed a grin that split his face in half.
“I know you did, you trifler. Well, sit down, old thing, and suck a bit
of blood. How’s the prowling these days?”
“Good Lord! You weren’t there!”
“Yes, I was.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“Yes, you did. But perhaps you didn’t recognise me in the shrubbery.”
“The shrubbery?”
“The beard, my boy. Worth every penny I paid for it. Defies detection.
Of course, it’s a nuisance having people shouting ‘Beaver!’ at you all
the time, but one’s got to put up with that.”
I goggled at him.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s a long story. Have a martini or a small gore-and-soda, and I’ll
tell you all about it. Before we start, give me your honest opinion.
Isn’t she the most wonderful girl you ever saw in your puff?”
He had produced a photograph from somewhere, like a conjurer taking a
rabbit out of a hat, and was waving it in front of me. It appeared to
be a female of sorts, all eyes and teeth.
“Oh, Great Scott!” I said. “Don’t tell me you’re in love again.”
He seemed aggrieved.
“What do you mean--again?”
“Well, to my certain knowledge you’ve been in love with at least half
a dozen girls since the spring, and it’s only July now. There was that
waitress and Honoria Glossop and----”
“Oh, tush! Not to say pish! Those girls? Mere passing fancies. This is
the real thing.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“On top of a bus. Her name is Charlotte Corday Rowbotham.”
“My God!”
“It’s not her fault, poor child. Her father had her christened that
because he’s all for the Revolution, and it seems that the original
Charlotte Corday used to go about stabbing oppressors in their
baths, which entitles her to consideration and respect. You must
meet old Rowbotham, Bertie. A delightful chap. Wants to massacre the
bourgeoisie, sack Park Lane, and disembowel the hereditary aristocracy.
Well, nothing could be fairer than that, what? But about Charlotte.
We were on top of the bus, and it started to rain. I offered her my
umbrella, and we chatted of this and that. I fell in love and got her
address, and a couple of days later I bought the beard and toddled
round and met the family.”
“But why the beard?”
“Well, she had told me all about her father on the bus, and I saw that
to get any footing at all in the home I should have to join these Red
Dawn blighters; and naturally, if I was to make speeches in the Park,
where at any moment I might run into a dozen people I knew, something
in the nature of a disguise was indicated. So I bought the beard, and,
by Jove, old boy, I’ve become dashed attached to the thing. When I take
it off to come in here, for instance, I feel absolutely nude. It’s
done me a lot of good with old Rowbotham. He thinks I’m a Bolshevist
of sorts who has to go about disguised because of the police. You
really must meet old Rowbotham, Bertie. I tell you what, are you doing
anything to-morrow afternoon?”
“Nothing special. Why?”
“Good! Then you can have us all to tea at your flat. I had promised to
take the crowd to Lyons’ Popular Café after a meeting we’re holding
down in Lambeth, but I can save money this way; and, believe me,
laddie, nowadays, as far as I’m concerned, a penny saved is a penny
earned. My uncle told you he’d got married?”
“Yes. And he said there was a coolness between you.”
“Coolness? I’m down to zero. Ever since he married he’s been launching
out in every direction and economising on _me_. I suppose that peerage
cost the old devil the deuce of a sum. Even baronetcies have gone up
frightfully nowadays, I’m told. And he’s started a racing-stable. By
the way, put your last collar-stud on Ocean Breeze for the Goodwood
Cup. It’s a cert.”
“I’m going to.”
“It can’t lose. I mean to win enough on it to marry Charlotte with.
You’re going to Goodwood, of course?”
“Rather!”
“So are we. We’re holding a meeting on Cup day just outside the
paddock.”
“But, I say, aren’t you taking frightful risks? Your uncle’s sure to
be at Goodwood. Suppose he spots you? He’ll be fed to the gills if he
finds out that you’re the fellow who ragged him in the Park.”
“How the deuce is he to find out? Use your intelligence, you prowling
inhaler of red corpuscles. If he didn’t spot me yesterday, why should
he spot me at Goodwood? Well, thanks for your cordial invitation
for to-morrow, old thing. We shall be delighted to accept. Do us
well, laddie, and blessings shall reward you. By the way, I may have
misled you by using the word ‘tea.’ None of your wafer slices of
bread-and-butter. We’re good trenchermen, we of the Revolution. What
we shall require will be something on the order of scrambled eggs,
muffins, jam, ham, cake and sardines. Expect us at five sharp.”
“But, I say, I’m not quite sure----”
“Yes, you are. Silly ass, don’t you see that this is going to do you
a bit of good when the Revolution breaks loose? When you see old
Rowbotham sprinting up Piccadilly with a dripping knife in each hand,
you’ll be jolly thankful to be able to remind him that he once ate your
tea and shrimps. There will be four of us--Charlotte, self, the old
man, and Comrade Butt. I suppose he will insist on coming along.”
“Who the devil’s Comrade Butt?”
“Did you notice a fellow standing on my left in our little
troupe yesterday? Small, shrivelled chap. Looks like a haddock
with lung-trouble. That’s Butt. My rival, dash him. He’s sort of
semi-engaged to Charlotte at the moment. Till I came along he was the
blue-eyed boy. He’s got a voice like a fog-horn, and old Rowbotham
thinks a lot of him. But, hang it, if I can’t thoroughly encompass
this Butt and cut him out and put him where he belongs among the
discards--well, I’m not the man I was, that’s all. He may have a big
voice, but he hasn’t my gift of expression. Thank heaven I was once cox
of my college boat. Well, I must be pushing now. I say, you don’t know
how I could raise fifty quid somehow, do you?”
“Why don’t you work?”
“Work?” said young Bingo, surprised. “What, me? No, I shall have to
think of some way. I must put at least fifty on Ocean Breeze. Well, see
you to-morrow. God bless you, old sort, and don’t forget the muffins.”
* * * * *
I don’t know why, ever since I first knew him at school, I should have
felt a rummy feeling of responsibility for young Bingo. I mean to say,
he’s not my son (thank goodness) or my brother or anything like that.
He’s got absolutely no claim on me at all, and yet a large-sized chunk
of my existence seems to be spent in fussing over him like a bally old
hen and hauling him out of the soup. I suppose it must be some rare
beauty in my nature or something. At any rate, this latest affair of
his worried me. He seemed to be doing his best to marry into a family
of pronounced loonies, and how the deuce he thought he was going to
support even a mentally afflicted wife on nothing a year beat me. Old
Bittlesham was bound to knock off his allowance if he did anything of
the sort; and, with a fellow like young Bingo, if you knocked off his
allowance, you might just as well hit him on the head with an axe and
make a clean job of it.
“Jeeves,” I said, when I got home, “I’m worried.”
“Sir?”
“About Mr. Little. I won’t tell you about it now, because he’s bringing
some friends of his to tea to-morrow, and then you will be able to
judge for yourself. I want you to observe closely, Jeeves, and form
your decision.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And about the tea. Get in some muffins.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And some jam, ham, cake, scrambled eggs, and five or six wagonloads of
sardines.”
“Sardines, sir?” said Jeeves, with a shudder.
“Sardines.”
There was an awkward pause.
“Don’t blame me, Jeeves,” I said. “It isn’t my fault.”
“No, sir.”
“Well, that’s that.”
“Yes, sir.”
I could see the man was brooding tensely.
* * * * *
I’ve found, as a general rule in life, that the things you think are
going to be the scaliest nearly always turn out not so bad after all;
but it wasn’t that way with Bingo’s tea-party. From the moment he
invited himself I felt that the thing was going to be blue round the
edges, and it was. And I think the most gruesome part of the whole
affair was the fact that, for the first time since I’d known him, I
saw Jeeves come very near to being rattled. I suppose there’s a chink
in everyone’s armour, and young Bingo found Jeeves’s right at the drop
of the flag when he breezed in with six inches or so of brown beard
hanging on to his chin. I had forgotten to warn Jeeves about the beard,
and it came on him absolutely out of a blue sky. I saw the man’s jaw
drop, and he clutched at the table for support. I don’t blame him, mind
you. Few people have ever looked fouler than young Bingo in the fungus.
Jeeves paled a little; then the weakness passed and he was himself
again. But I could see that he had been shaken.
Young Bingo was too busy introducing the mob to take much notice. They
were a very C3 collection. Comrade Butt looked like one of the things
that come out of dead trees after the rain; moth-eaten was the word
I should have used to describe old Rowbotham; and as for Charlotte,
she seemed to take me straight into another and a dreadful world. It
wasn’t that she was exactly bad-looking. In fact, if she had knocked
off starchy foods and done Swedish exercises for a bit, she might have
been quite tolerable. But there was too much of her. Billowy curves.
Well-nourished, perhaps, expresses it best. And, while she may have had
a heart of gold, the thing you noticed about her first was that she
had a tooth of gold. I knew that young Bingo, when in form, could fall
in love with practically anything of the other sex; but this time I
couldn’t see any excuse for him at all.
“My friend, Mr. Wooster,” said Bingo, completing the ceremonial.
Old Rowbotham looked at me and then he looked round the room, and I
could see he wasn’t particularly braced. There’s nothing of absolutely
Oriental luxury about the old flat, but I have managed to make myself
fairly comfortable, and I suppose the surroundings jarred him a bit.
“Mr. Wooster?” said old Rowbotham. “May I say Comrade Wooster?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Are you of the movement?”
“Well--er----”
“Do you yearn for the Revolution?”
“Well, I don’t know that I exactly yearn. I mean to say, as far as I
can make out, the whole hub of the scheme seems to be to massacre coves
like me; and I don’t mind owning I’m not frightfully keen on the idea.”
“But I’m talking him round,” said Bingo. “I’m wrestling with him. A few
more treatments ought to do the trick.”
Old Rowbotham looked at me a bit doubtfully.
“Comrade Little has great eloquence,” he admitted.
“I think he talks something wonderful,” said the girl, and young Bingo
shot a glance of such succulent devotion at her that I reeled in my
tracks. It seemed to depress Comrade Butt a good deal too. He scowled
at the carpet and said something about dancing on volcanoes.
“Tea is served, sir,” said Jeeves.
“Tea, pa!” said Charlotte, starting at the word like the old war-horse
who hears the bugle; and we got down to it.
Funny how one changes as the years roll on. At school, I remember, I
would cheerfully have sold my soul for scrambled eggs and sardines at
five in the afternoon; but somehow, since reaching man’s estate, I had
rather dropped out of the habit; and I’m bound to admit I was appalled
to a goodish extent at the way the sons and daughter of the Revolution
shoved their heads down and went for the foodstuffs. Even Comrade
Butt cast off his gloom for a space and immersed his whole being in
scrambled eggs, only coming to the surface at intervals to grab another
cup of tea. Presently the hot water gave out, and I turned to Jeeves.
“More hot water.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Hey! what’s this? What’s this?” Old Rowbotham had lowered his cup and
was eyeing us sternly. He tapped Jeeves on the shoulder. “No servility,
my lad; no servility!”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Don’t call me ‘sir.’ Call me Comrade. Do you know what you are, my
lad? You’re an obsolete relic of an exploded feudal system.”
“Very good, sir.”
“If there’s one thing that makes the blood boil in my veins----”
“Have another sardine,” chipped in young Bingo--the first sensible
thing he’d done since I had known him. Old Rowbotham took three and
dropped the subject, and Jeeves drifted away. I could see by the look
of his back what he felt.
At last, just as I was beginning to feel that it was going on for ever,
the thing finished. I woke up to find the party getting ready to leave.
Sardines and about three quarts of tea had mellowed old Rowbotham.
There was quite a genial look in his eye as he shook my hand.
“I must thank you for your hospitality, Comrade Wooster,” he said.
“Oh, not at all! Only too glad----”
“Hospitality?” snorted the man Butt, going off in my ear like a
depth-charge. He was scowling in a morose sort of manner at young Bingo
and the girl, who were giggling together by the window. “I wonder the
food didn’t turn to ashes in our mouths! Eggs! Muffins! Sardines! All
wrung from the bleeding lips of the starving poor!”
“Oh, I say! What a beastly idea!”
“I will send you some literature on the subject of the Cause,” said old
Rowbotham. “And soon, I hope, we shall see you at one of our little
meetings.”
Jeeves came in to clear away, and found me sitting among the ruins. It
was all very well for Comrade Butt to knock the food, but he had pretty
well finished the ham; and if you had shoved the remainder of the jam
into the bleeding lips of the starving poor it would hardly have made
them sticky.
“Well, Jeeves,” I said, “how about it?”
“I would prefer to express no opinion, sir.”
“Jeeves, Mr. Little is in love with that female.”
“So I gathered, sir. She was slapping him in the passage.”
I clutched my brow.
“Slapping him?”
“Yes, sir. Roguishly.”
“Great Scott! I didn’t know it had got as far as that. How did Comrade
Butt seem to be taking it? Or perhaps he didn’t see?”
“Yes, sir, he observed the entire proceedings. He struck me as
extremely jealous.”
“I don’t blame him. Jeeves, what are we to do?”
“I could not say, sir.”
“It’s a bit thick.”
“Very much so, sir.”
And that was all the consolation I got from Jeeves.