THE METROPOLITAN TOUCH
Nobody is more alive than I am to the fact that young Bingo Little
is in many respects a sound old egg. In one way and another he has
made life pretty interesting for me at intervals ever since we were
at school. As a companion for a cheery hour I think I would choose
him before anybody. On the other hand, I’m bound to say that there
are things about him that could be improved. His habit of falling in
love with every second girl he sees is one of them; and another is his
way of letting the world in on the secrets of his heart. If you want
shrinking reticence, don’t go to Bingo, because he’s got about as much
of it as a soap-advertisement.
I mean to say--well, here’s the telegram I got from him one evening in
November, about a month after I’d got back to town from my visit to
Twing Hall:
_I say Bertie old man I am in love at last. She is the most
wonderful girl Bertie old man. This is the real thing at last
Bertie. Come here at once and bring Jeeves. Oh I say you know that
tobacco shop in Bond Street on the left side as you go up. Will
you get me a hundred of their special cigarettes and send them to
me here. I have run out. I know when you see her you will think
she is the most wonderful girl. Mind you bring Jeeves. Don’t
forget the cigarettes.--Bingo._
It had been handed in at Twing Post Office. In other words, he
had submitted that frightful rot to the goggling eye of a village
post-mistress who was probably the main spring of local gossip and
would have the place ringing with the news before nightfall. He
couldn’t have given himself away more completely if he had hired the
town-crier. When I was a kid, I used to read stories about knights and
vikings and that species of chappie who would get up without a blush
in the middle of a crowded banquet and loose off a song about how
perfectly priceless they thought their best girl. I’ve often felt that
those days would have suited young Bingo down to the ground.
Jeeves had brought the thing in with the evening drink, and I slung it
over to him.
“It’s about due, of course,” I said. “Young Bingo hasn’t been in love
for at least a couple of months. I wonder who it is this time?”
“Miss Mary Burgess, sir,” said Jeeves, “the niece of the Reverend Mr.
Heppenstall. She is staying at Twing Vicarage.”
“Great Scott!” I knew that Jeeves knew practically everything in the
world, but this sounded like second-sight. “How do you know that?”
“When we were visiting Twing Hall in the summer, sir, I formed a
somewhat close friendship with Mr. Heppenstall’s butler. He is good
enough to keep me abreast of the local news from time to time. From his
account, sir, the young lady appears to be a very estimable young lady.
Of a somewhat serious nature, I understand. Mr. Little is very _épris_,
sir. Brookfield, my correspondent, writes that last week he observed
him in the moonlight at an advanced hour gazing up at his window.”
“Whose window! Brookfield’s?”
“Yes, sir. Presumably under the impression that it was the young
lady’s.”
“But what the deuce is he doing at Twing at all?”
“Mr. Little was compelled to resume his old position as tutor to
Lord Wickhammersley’s son at Twing Hall, sir. Owing to having been
unsuccessful in some speculations at Hurst Park at the end of October.”
“Good Lord, Jeeves! Is there anything you don’t know?”
“I could not say, sir.”
I picked up the telegram.
“I suppose he wants us to go down and help him out a bit?”
“That would appear to be his motive in dispatching the message, sir.”
“Well, what shall we do? Go?”
“I would advocate it, sir. If I may say so, I think that Mr. Little
should be encouraged in this particular matter.”
“You think he’s picked a winner this time?”
“I hear nothing but excellent reports of the young lady, sir. I think
it is beyond question that she would be an admirable influence for Mr.
Little, should the affair come to a happy conclusion. Such a union
would also, I fancy, go far to restore Mr. Little to the good graces of
his uncle, the young lady being well connected and possessing private
means. In short, sir, I think that if there is anything that we can do
we should do it.”
“Well, with you behind him,” I said, “I don’t see how he can fail to
click.”
“You are very good, sir,” said Jeeves. “The tribute is much
appreciated.”
Bingo met us at Twing station next day, and insisted on my sending
Jeeves on in the car with the bags while he and I walked. He started in
about the female the moment we had begun to hoof it.
“She is very wonderful, Bertie. She is not one of these flippant,
shallow-minded modern girls. She is sweetly grave and beautifully
earnest. She reminds me of--what is the name I want?”
“Marie Lloyd?”
“Saint Cecilia,” said young Bingo, eyeing me with a good deal of
loathing. “She reminds me of Saint Cecilia. She makes me yearn to be a
better, nobler, deeper, broader man.”
“What beats me,” I said, following up a train of thought, “is what
principle you pick them on. The girls you fall in love with, I mean. I
mean to say, what’s your system? As far as I can see, no two of them
are alike. First it was Mabel the waitress, then Honoria Glossop, then
that fearful blister Charlotte Corday Rowbotham----”
I own that Bingo had the decency to shudder. Thinking of Charlotte
always made me shudder, too.
“You don’t seriously mean, Bertie, that you are intending to
compare the feeling I have for Mary Burgess, the holy devotion, the
spiritual----”
“Oh, all right, let it go,” I said. “I say, old lad, aren’t we going
rather a long way round?”
Considering that we were supposed to be heading for Twing Hall, it
seemed to me that we were making a longish job of it. The Hall is about
two miles from the station by the main road, and we had cut off down a
lane, gone across country for a bit, climbed a stile or two, and were
now working our way across a field that ended in another lane.
“She sometimes takes her little brother for a walk round this way,”
explained Bingo. “I thought we would meet her and bow, and you could
see her, you know, and then we would walk on.”
“Of course,” I said, “that’s enough excitement for anyone, and
undoubtedly a corking reward for tramping three miles out of one’s way
over ploughed fields with tight boots, but don’t we do anything else?
Don’t we tack on to the girl and buzz along with her?”
“Good Lord!” said Bingo, honestly amazed. “You don’t suppose I’ve got
nerve enough for that, do you? I just look at her from afar off and all
that sort of thing. Quick! Here she comes! No, I’m wrong!”
It was like that song of Harry Lauder’s where he’s waiting for the
girl and says “This is her-r-r. No, it’s a rabbut.” Young Bingo made
me stand there in the teeth of a nor’east half-gale for ten minutes,
keeping me on my toes with a series of false alarms, and I was just
thinking of suggesting that we should lay off and give the rest of the
proceedings a miss, when round the corner there came a fox-terrier, and
Bingo quivered like an aspen. Then there hove in sight a small boy, and
he shook like a jelly. Finally, like a star whose entrance has been
worked up by the _personnel_ of the _ensemble_, a girl appeared, and
his emotion was painful to witness. His face got so red that, what with
his white collar and the fact that the wind had turned his nose blue,
he looked more like a French flag than anything else. He sagged from
the waist upwards, as if he had been filleted.
He was just raising his fingers limply to his cap when he suddenly saw
that the girl wasn’t alone. A chappie in clerical costume was also
among those present, and the sight of him didn’t seem to do Bingo a
bit of good. His face got redder and his nose bluer, and it wasn’t till
they had nearly passed that he managed to get hold of his cap.
The girl bowed, the curate said, “Ah, Little. Rough weather,” the dog
barked, and then they toddled on and the entertainment was over.
* * * * *
The curate was a new factor in the situation to me. I reported his
movements to Jeeves when I got to the hall. Of course, Jeeves knew all
about it already.
“That is the Reverend Mr. Wingham, Mr. Heppenstall’s new curate, sir. I
gather from Brookfield that he is Mr. Little’s rival, and at the moment
the young lady appears to favour him. Mr. Wingham has the advantage of
being on the premises. He and the young lady play duets after dinner,
which acts as a bond. Mr. Little on these occasions, I understand,
prowls about in the road, chafing visibly.”
“That seems to be all the poor fish is able to do, dash it. He can
chafe all right, but there he stops. He’s lost his pep. He’s got no
dash. Why, when we met her just now, he hadn’t even the common manly
courage to say ‘Good evening’!”
“I gather that Mr. Little’s affection is not unmingled with awe, sir.”
“Well, how are we to help a man when he’s such a rabbit as that? Have
you anything to suggest? I shall be seeing him after dinner, and he’s
sure to ask first thing what you advise.”
“In my opinion, sir, the most judicious course for Mr. Little to pursue
would be to concentrate on the young gentleman.”
“The small brother? How do you mean?”
“Make a friend of him, sir--take him for walks and so forth.”
“It doesn’t sound one of your red-hottest ideas. I must say I expected
something fruitier than that.”
“It would be a beginning, sir, and might lead to better things.”
“Well, I’ll tell him. I liked the look of her, Jeeves.”
“A thoroughly estimable young lady, sir.”
I slipped Bingo the tip from the stable that night, and was glad to
observe that it seemed to cheer him up.
“Jeeves is always right,” he said. “I ought to have thought of it
myself. I’ll start in to-morrow.”
It was amazing how the chappie bucked up. Long before I left for town
it had become a mere commonplace for him to speak to the girl. I mean
he didn’t simply look stuffed when they met. The brother was forming
a bond that was a dashed sight stronger than the curate’s duets. She
and Bingo used to take him for walks together. I asked Bingo what they
talked about on these occasions, and he said Wilfred’s future. The girl
hoped that Wilfred would one day become a curate, but Bingo said no,
there was something about curates he didn’t quite like.
The day we left, Bingo came to see us off with Wilfred frisking about
him like an old college chum. The last I saw of them, Bingo was
standing him chocolates out of the slot-machine. A scene of peace and
cheery good-will. Dashed promising, I thought.
* * * * *
Which made it all the more of a jar, about a fortnight later, when his
telegram arrived. As follows:--
_Bertie old man I say Bertie could you possibly come down here
at once. Everything gone wrong hang it all. Dash it Bertie
you simply must come. I am in a state of absolute despair and
heart-broken. Would you mind sending another hundred of those
cigarettes. Bring Jeeves when you come Bertie. You simply must
come Bertie. I rely on you. Don’t forget to bring Jeeves. Bingo._
For a chap who’s perpetually hard-up, I must say that young Bingo is
the most wasteful telegraphist I ever struck. He’s got no notion of
condensing. The silly ass simply pours out his wounded soul at twopence
a word, or whatever it is, without a thought.
“How about it, Jeeves?” I said. “I’m getting a bit fed up. I can’t go
chucking all my engagements every second week in order to biff down to
Twing and rally round young Bingo. Send him a wire telling him to end
it all in the village pond.”
“If you could spare me for the night, sir, I should be glad to run down
and investigate.”
“Oh, dash it! Well, I suppose there’s nothing else to be done. After
all, you’re the fellow he wants. All right, carry on.”
Jeeves got back late the next day.
“Well?” I said.
Jeeves appeared perturbed. He allowed his left eyebrow to flicker
upwards in a concerned sort of manner.
“I have done what I could, sir,” he said, “but I fear Mr. Little’s
chances do not appear bright. Since our last visit, sir, there has been
a decidedly sinister and disquieting development.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“You may remember Mr. Steggles, sir--the young gentleman who was
studying for an examination with Mr. Heppenstall at the Vicarage?”
“What’s Steggles got to do with it?” I asked.
“I gather from Brookfield, sir, who chanced to overhear a conversation,
that Mr. Steggles is interesting himself in the affair.”
“Good Lord! What, making a book on it?”
“I understand that he is accepting wagers from those in his immediate
circle, sir. Against Mr. Little, whose chances he does not seem to
fancy.”
“I don’t like that, Jeeves.”
“No, sir. It is sinister.”
“From what I know of Steggles there will be dirty work.”
“It has already occurred, sir.”
“Already?”
“Yes, sir. It seems that, in pursuance of the policy which he had been
good enough to allow me to suggest to him, Mr. Little escorted Master
Burgess to the church bazaar, and there met Mr. Steggles, who was in
the company of young Master Heppenstall, the Reverend Mr. Heppenstall’s
second son, who is home from Rugby just now, having recently
recovered from an attack of mumps. The encounter took place in the
refreshment-room, where Mr. Steggles was at that moment entertaining
Master Heppenstall. To cut a long story short, sir, the two gentlemen
became extremely interested in the hearty manner in which the lads were
fortifying themselves; and Mr. Steggles offered to back his nominee
in a weight-for-age eating contest against Master Burgess for a pound
a side. Mr. Little admitted to me that he was conscious of a certain
hesitation as to what the upshot might be, should Miss Burgess get
to hear of the matter, but his sporting blood was too much for him
and he agreed to the contest. This was duly carried out, both lads
exhibiting the utmost willingness and enthusiasm, and eventually Master
Burgess justified Mr. Little’s confidence by winning, but only after a
bitter struggle. Next day both contestants were in considerable pain;
inquiries were made and confessions extorted, and Mr. Little--I learn
from Brookfield, who happened to be near the door of the drawing-room
at the moment--had an extremely unpleasant interview with the young
lady, which ended in her desiring him never to speak to her again.”
There’s no getting away from the fact that, if ever a man required
watching, it’s Steggles. Machiavelli could have taken his
correspondence course.
“It was a put-up job, Jeeves!” I said. “I mean, Steggles worked the
whole thing on purpose. It’s his old nobbling game.”
“There would seem to be no doubt about that, sir.”
“Well, he seems to have dished poor old Bingo all right.”
“That is the prevalent opinion, sir. Brookfield tells me that down
in the village at the ‘Cow and Horses’ seven to one is being freely
offered on Mr. Wingham and finding no takers.”
“Good Lord! Are they betting about it down in the village, too?”
“Yes, sir. And in adjoining hamlets also. The affair has caused
widespread interest. I am told that there is a certain sporting
reaction in even so distant a spot as Lower Bingley.”
“Well, I don’t see what there is to do. If Bingo is such a chump----”
“One is fighting a losing battle, I fear, sir, but I did venture
to indicate to Mr. Little a course of action which might prove of
advantage. I recommended him to busy himself with good works.”
“Good works?”
“About the village, sir. Reading to the bedridden--chatting with the
sick--that sort of thing, sir. We can but trust that good results will
ensue.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” I said doubtfully. “But, by gosh, if I was a sick
man I’d hate to have a looney like young Bingo coming and gibbering at
my bedside.”
“There _is_ that aspect of the matter, sir,” said Jeeves.
* * * * *
I didn’t hear a word from Bingo for a couple of weeks, and I took it
after a while that he had found the going too hard and had chucked in
the towel. And then, one night not long before Christmas, I came back
to the flat pretty latish, having been out dancing at the Embassy. I
was fairly tired, having swung a practically non-stop shoe from shortly
after dinner till two a.m., and bed seemed to be indicated. Judge of my
chagrin and all that sort of thing, therefore, when, tottering to my
room and switching on the light, I observed the foul features of young
Bingo all over the pillow. The blighter had appeared from nowhere and
was in my bed, sleeping like an infant with a sort of happy, dreamy
smile on his map.
A bit thick I mean to say! We Woosters are all for the good old
mediæval hosp. and all that, but when it comes to finding chappies
collaring your bed, the thing becomes a trifle too mouldy. I hove a
shoe, and Bingo sat up, gurgling.
“’s matter? ’s matter?” said young Bingo.
“What the deuce are you doing in my bed?” I said.
“Oh, hallo, Bertie! So there you are!”
“Yes, here I am. What are you doing in my bed?”
“I came up to town for the night on business.”
“Yes, but what are you doing in my bed?”
“Dash it all, Bertie,” said young Bingo querulously, “don’t keep
harping on your beastly bed. There’s another made up in the spare
room. I saw Jeeves make it with my own eyes. I believe he meant it
for me, but I knew what a perfect host you were, so I just turned in
here. I say, Bertie, old man,” said Bingo, apparently fed up with the
discussion about sleeping-quarters, “I see daylight.”
“Well, it’s getting on for three in the morning.”
“I was speaking figuratively, you ass. I meant that hope has begun to
dawn. About Mary Burgess, you know. Sit down and I’ll tell you all
about it.”
“I won’t. I’m going to sleep.”
“To begin with,” said young Bingo, settling himself comfortably against
the pillows and helping himself to a cigarette from my special private
box, “I must once again pay a marked tribute to good old Jeeves. A
modern Solomon. I was badly up against it when I came to him for
advice, but he rolled up with a tip which has put me--I use the term
advisedly and in a conservative spirit--on velvet. He may have told you
that he recommended me to win back the lost ground by busying myself
with good works? Bertie, old man,” said young Bingo earnestly, “for the
last two weeks I’ve been comforting the sick to such an extent that, if
I had a brother and you brought him to me on a sick-bed at this moment,
by Jove, old man, I’d heave a brick at him. However, though it took it
out of me like the deuce, the scheme worked splendidly. She softened
visibly before I’d been at it a week. Started to bow again when we met
in the street, and so forth. About a couple of days ago she distinctly
smiled--in a sort of faint, saint-like kind of way, you know--when I
ran into her outside the Vicarage. And yesterday--I say, you remember
that curate chap, Wingham? Fellow with a long nose.”
“Of course I remember him. Your rival.”
“Rival?” Bingo raised his eyebrows. “Oh, well, I suppose you could have
called him that at one time. Though it sounds a little far-fetched.”
“Does it?” I said, stung by the sickening complacency of the chump’s
manner. “Well, let me tell you that the last I heard was that at the
‘Cow and Horses’ in Twing village and all over the place as far as
Lower Bingley they were offering seven to one on the curate and finding
no takers.”
Bingo started violently, and sprayed cigarette-ash all over my bed.
“Betting!” he gargled. “Betting! You don’t mean that they’re betting on
this holy, sacred---- Oh, I say, dash it all! Haven’t people any sense
of decency and reverence? Is nothing safe from their beastly, sordid
graspingness? I wonder,” said young Bingo thoughtfully, “if there’s
a chance of my getting any of that seven-to-one money? Seven to one!
What a price! Who’s offering it, do you know? Oh, well, I suppose it
wouldn’t do. No, I suppose it wouldn’t be quite the thing.”
“You seem dashed confident,” I said. “I’d always thought that
Wingham----”
“Oh, I’m not worried about him,” said Bingo. “I was just going to
tell you. Wingham’s got the mumps, and won’t be out and about for
weeks. And, jolly as that is in itself, it’s not all. You see, he was
producing the Village School Christmas Entertainment, and now I’ve
taken over the job. I went to old Heppenstall last night and clinched
the contract. Well, you see what that means. It means that I shall be
absolutely the centre of the village life and thought for three solid
weeks, with a terrific triumph to wind up with. Everybody looking
up to me and fawning on me, don’t you see, and all that. It’s bound
to have a powerful effect on Mary’s mind. It will show her that I am
capable of serious effort; that there is a solid foundation of worth
in me; that, mere butterfly as she may once have thought me, I am in
reality----”
“Oh, all right, let it go!”
“It’s a big thing, you know, this Christmas Entertainment. Old
Heppenstall is very much wrapped up in it. Nibs from all over the
countryside rolling up. The Squire present, with family. A big chance
for me, Bertie, my boy, and I mean to make the most of it. Of course,
I’m handicapped a bit by not having been in on the thing from the
start. Will you credit it that that uninspired doughnut of a curate
wanted to give the public some rotten little fairy play out of a book
for children published about fifty years ago without one good laugh
or the semblance of a gag in it? It’s too late to alter the thing
entirely, but at least I can jazz it up. I’m going to write them in
something zippy to brighten the thing up a bit.”
“You can’t write.”
“Well, when I say write, I mean pinch. That’s why I’ve popped up to
town. I’ve been to see that revue, ‘Cuddle Up!’ at the Palladium,
to-night. Full of good stuff. Of course, it’s rather hard to get
anything in the nature of a big spectacular effect in the Twing Village
Hall, with no scenery to speak of and a chorus of practically imbecile
kids of ages ranging from nine to fourteen, but I think I see my way.
Have you seen ‘Cuddle Up’?”
“Yes. Twice.”
“Well, there’s some good stuff in the first act, and I can lift
practically all the numbers. Then there’s that show at the Palace. I
can see the _matinée_ of that to-morrow before I leave. There’s sure
to be some decent bits in that. Don’t you worry about my not being able
to write a hit. Leave it to me, laddie, leave it to me. And now, my
dear old chap,” said young Bingo, snuggling down cosily, “you mustn’t
keep me up talking all night. It’s all right for you fellows who have
nothing to do, but I’m a busy man. Good night, old thing. Close the
door quietly after you and switch out the light. Breakfast about ten
to-morrow, I suppose, what? Right-o. Good night.”
* * * * *
For the next three weeks I didn’t see Bingo. He became a sort of Voice
Heard Off, developing a habit of ringing me up on long-distance and
consulting me on various points arising at rehearsal, until the day
when he got me out of bed at eight in the morning to ask whether I
thought “Merry Christmas!” was a good title. I told him then that this
nuisance must now cease, and after that he cheesed it, and practically
passed out of my life, till one afternoon when I got back to the flat
to dress for dinner and found Jeeves inspecting a whacking big poster
sort of thing which he had draped over the back of an arm-chair.
“Good Lord, Jeeves!” I said. I was feeling rather weak that day, and
the thing shook me. “What on earth’s that?”
“Mr. Little sent it to me, sir, and desired me to bring it to your
notice.”
“Well, you’ve certainly done it!”
I took another look at the object. There was no doubt about it, he
caught the eye. It was about seven feet long, and most of the lettering
in about as bright red ink as I ever struck.
This was how it ran:
TWING VILLAGE HALL,
Friday, December 23rd,
RICHARD LITTLE
presents
A New and Original Revue
Entitled
WHAT HO, TWING!!
Book by
RICHARD LITTLE
Lyrics by
RICHARD LITTLE
Music by
RICHARD LITTLE.
With the Full Twing Juvenile
Company and Chorus.
Scenic Effects by
RICHARD LITTLE
Produced by
RICHARD LITTLE.
“What do you make of it, Jeeves?” I said.
“I confess I am a little doubtful, sir. I think Mr. Little would have
done better to follow my advice and confine himself to good works about
the village.”
“You think the things will be a frost?”
“I could not hazard a conjecture, sir. But my experience has been that
what pleases the London public is not always so acceptable to the rural
mind. The metropolitan touch sometimes proves a trifle too exotic for
the provinces.”
“I suppose I ought to go down and see the dashed thing?”
“I think Mr. Little would be wounded were you not present, sir.”
* * * * *
The Village Hall at Twing is a smallish building, smelling of apples.
It was full when I turned up on the evening of the twenty-third, for I
had purposely timed myself to arrive not long before the kick-off. I
had had experience of one or two of these binges, and didn’t want to
run any risk of coming early and finding myself shoved into a seat in
one of the front rows where I wouldn’t be able to execute a quiet sneak
into the open air half-way through the proceedings, if the occasion
seemed to demand it. I secured a nice strategic position near the door
at the back of the hall.
From where I stood I had a good view of the audience. As always
on these occasions, the first few rows were occupied by the
Nibs--consisting of the Squire, a fairly mauve old sportsman with white
whiskers, his family, a platoon of local parsons and perhaps a couple
of dozen of prominent pew-holders. Then came a dense squash of what you
might call the lower middle classes. And at the back, where I was, we
came down with a jerk in the social scale, this end of the hall being
given up almost entirely to a collection of frankly Tough Eggs, who had
rolled up not so much for any love of the drama as because there was
a free tea after the show. Take it for all in all, a representative
gathering of Twing life and thought. The Nibs were whispering in a
pleased manner to each other, the Lower Middles were sitting up very
straight, as if they’d been bleached, and the Tough Eggs whiled away
the time by cracking nuts and exchanging low rustic wheezes. The girl,
Mary Burgess, was at the piano playing a waltz. Beside her stood the
curate, Wingham, apparently recovered. The temperature, I should think,
was about a hundred and twenty-seven.
Somebody jabbed me heartily in the lower ribs, and I perceived the man
Steggles.
“Hallo!” he said. “I didn’t know you were coming down.”
I didn’t like the chap, but we Woosters can wear the mask. I beamed a
bit.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Bingo wanted me to roll up and see his show.”
“I hear he’s giving us something pretty ambitious,” said the man
Steggles. “Big effects and all that sort of thing.”
“I believe so.”
“Of course, it means a lot to him, doesn’t it? He’s told you about the
girl, of course?”
“Yes. And I hear you’re laying seven to one against him,” I said,
eyeing the blighter a trifle austerely.
He didn’t even quiver.
“Just a little flutter to relieve the monotony of country life,” he
said. “But you’ve got the facts a bit wrong. It’s down in the village
that they’re laying seven to one. I can do you better than that, if you
feel in a speculative mood. How about a tenner at a hundred to eight?”
“Good Lord! Are you giving that?”
“Yes. Somehow,” said Steggles meditatively, “I have a sort of feeling,
a kind of premonition that something’s going to go wrong to-night.
You know what Little is. A bungler, if ever there was one. Something
tells me that this show of his is going to be a frost. And if it is, of
course, I should think it would prejudice the girl against him pretty
badly. His standing always was rather shaky.”
“Are you going to try and smash up the show?” I said sternly.
“Me!” said Steggles. “Why, what could I do? Half a minute, I want to go
and speak to a man.”
He buzzed off, leaving me distinctly disturbed. I could see from the
fellow’s eye that he was meditating some of his customary rough stuff,
and I thought Bingo ought to be warned. But there wasn’t time and I
couldn’t get at him. Almost immediately after Steggles had left me the
curtain went up.
Except as a prompter, Bingo wasn’t much in evidence in the early part
of the performance. The thing at the outset was merely one of those
weird dramas which you dig out of books published around Christmas time
and entitled “Twelve Little Plays for the Tots,” or something like
that. The kids drooled on in the usual manner, the booming voice of
Bingo ringing out from time to time behind the scenes when the fatheads
forgot their lines; and the audience was settling down into the sort of
torpor usual on these occasions, when the first of Bingo’s interpolated
bits occurred. It was that number which What’s-her-name sings in that
revue at the Palace--you would recognise the tune if I hummed it, but
I can never get hold of the dashed thing. It always got three encores
at the Palace, and it went well now, even with a squeaky-voiced child
jumping on and off the key like a chamois of the Alps leaping from crag
to crag. Even the Tough Eggs liked it. At the end of the second refrain
the entire house was shouting for an encore, and the kid with the voice
like a slate-pencil took a deep breath and started to let it go once
more.
At this point all the lights went out.
* * * * *
I don’t know when I’ve had anything so sudden and devastating happen
to me before. They didn’t flicker. They just went out. The hall was in
complete darkness.
Well, of course, that sort of broke the spell, as you might put it.
People started to shout directions, and the Tough Eggs stamped their
feet and settled down for a pleasant time. And, of course, young Bingo
had to make an ass of himself. His voice suddenly shot at us out of the
darkness.
“Ladies and gentlemen, something has gone wrong with the lights----”
The Tough Eggs were tickled by this bit of information straight from
the stable. They took it up as a sort of battle-cry. Then, after about
five minutes, the lights went up again, and the show was resumed.
It took ten minutes after that to get the audience back into its state
of coma, but eventually they began to settle down, and everything was
going nicely when a small boy with a face like a turbot edged out in
front of the curtain, which had been lowered after a pretty painful
scene about a wishing-ring or a fairy’s curse or something of that
sort, and started to sing that song of George Thingummy’s out of
“Cuddle Up.” You know the one I mean. “Always Listen to Mother, Girls!”
it’s called, and he gets the audience to join in and sing the refrain.
Quite a ripeish ballad, and one which I myself have frequently sung
in my bath with not a little vim; but by no means--as anyone but a
perfect sapheaded prune like young Bingo would have known--by no means
the sort of thing for a children’s Christmas entertainment in the old
village hall. Right from the start of the first refrain the bulk of the
audience had begun to stiffen in their seats and fan themselves, and
the Burgess girl at the piano was accompanying in a stunned, mechanical
sort of way, while the curate at her side averted his gaze in a pained
manner. The Tough Eggs, however, were all for it.
At the end of the second refrain the kid stopped and began to sidle
towards the wings. Upon which the following brief duologue took place:
YOUNG BINGO (_Voice heard off, ringing against the
rafters_): “Go on!”
THE KID (_coyly_): “I don’t like to.”
YOUNG BINGO (_still louder_): “Go on, you little
blighter, or I’ll slay you!”
I suppose the kid thought it over swiftly and realised that Bingo,
being in a position to get at him, had better be conciliated, whatever
the harvest might be; for he shuffled down to the front and, having
shut his eyes and giggled hysterically, said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I
will now call upon Squire Tressidder to oblige by singing the refrain!”
You know, with the most charitable feelings towards him, there are
moments when you can’t help thinking that young Bingo ought to be in
some sort of a home. I suppose, poor fish, he had pictured this as the
big punch of the evening. He had imagined, I take it, that the Squire
would spring jovially to his feet, rip the song off his chest, and all
would be gaiety and mirth. Well, what happened was simply that old
Tressidder--and, mark you, I’m not blaming him--just sat where he was,
swelling and turning a brighter purple every second. The lower middle
classes remained in frozen silence, waiting for the roof to fall. The
only section of the audience that really seemed to enjoy the idea was
the Tough Eggs, who yelled with enthusiasm. It was jam for the Tough
Eggs.
And then the lights went out again.
* * * * *
When they went up, some minutes later, they disclosed the Squire
marching stiffly out at the head of his family, fed up to the eyebrows;
the Burgess girl at the piano with a pale, set look; and the curate
gazing at her with something in his expression that seemed to suggest
that, although all this was no doubt deplorable, he had spotted the
silver lining.
The show went on once more. There were great chunks of
Plays-for-the-Tots dialogue, and then the girl at the piano struck up
the prelude to that Orange-Girl number that’s the big hit of the Palace
revue. I took it that this was to be Bingo’s smashing act one finale.
The entire company was on the stage, and a clutching hand had appeared
round the edge of the curtain, ready to pull at the right moment. It
looked like the finale all right. It wasn’t long before I realised that
it was something more. It was the finish.
I take it you know that Orange number at the Palace? It goes:
Oh, won’t you something something oranges,
My something oranges,
My something oranges;
Oh, won’t you something something something I forget,
Something something something tumty tumty yet:
Oh----
or words to that effect. It’s a dashed clever lyric, and the tune’s
good, too; but the thing that made the number was the business where
the girls take oranges out of their baskets, you know, and toss them
lightly to the audience. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed it, but
it always seems to tickle an audience to bits when they get things
thrown at them from the stage. Every time I’ve been to the Palace the
customers have simply gone wild over this number.
But at the Palace, of course, the oranges are made of yellow wool, and
the girls don’t so much chuck them as drop them limply into the first
and second rows. I began to gather that the business was going to be
treated rather differently to-night when a dashed great chunk of pips
and mildew sailed past my ear and burst on the wall behind me. Another
landed with a squelch on the neck of one of the Nibs in the third row.
And then a third took me right on the tip of the nose, and I kind of
lost interest in the proceedings for awhile.
When I had scrubbed my face and got my eye to stop watering for a
moment, I saw that the evening’s entertainment had begun to resemble
one of Belfast’s livelier nights. The air was thick with shrieks and
fruit. The kids on the stage, with Bingo buzzing distractedly to and
fro in their midst, were having the time of their lives. I suppose they
realised that this couldn’t go on for ever, and were making the most of
their chances. The Tough Eggs had begun to pick up all the oranges that
hadn’t burst and were shooting them back, so that the audience got it
both coming and going. In fact, take it all round, there was a certain
amount of confusion; and, just as things had begun really to hot up,
out went the lights again.
It seemed to me about my time for leaving, so I slid for the door. I
was hardly outside when the audience began to stream out. They surged
about me in twos and threes, and I’ve never seen a public body so
dashed unanimous on any point. To a man--and to a woman--they were
cursing poor old Bingo; and there was a large and rapidly growing
school of thought which held that the best thing to do would be to
waylay him as he emerged and splash him about in the village pond a bit.
There were such a dickens of a lot of these enthusiasts and they looked
so jolly determined that it seemed to me that the only matey thing to
do was to go behind and warn young Bingo to turn his coat-collar up
and breeze off snakily by some side exit. I went behind, and found him
sitting on a box in the wings, perspiring pretty freely and looking
more or less like the spot marked with a cross where the accident
happened. His hair was standing up and his ears were hanging down, and
one harsh word would undoubtedly have made him burst into tears.
“Bertie,” he said hollowly, as he saw me, “it was that blighter
Steggles! I caught one of the kids before he could get away and got
it all out of him. Steggles substituted real oranges for the balls of
wool which with infinite sweat and at a cost of nearly a quid I had
specially prepared. Well, I will now proceed to tear him limb from
limb. It’ll be something to do.”
I hated to spoil his day-dreams, but it had to be.
“Good heavens, man,” I said, “you haven’t time for frivolous amusements
now. You’ve got to get out. And quick!”
“Bertie,” said Bingo in a dull voice, “she was here just now. She said
it was all my fault and that she would never speak to me again. She
said she had always suspected me of being a heartless practical joker,
and now she knew. She said---- Oh, well, she ticked me off properly.”
“That’s the least of your troubles,” I said. It seemed impossible to
rouse the poor zib to a sense of his position. “Do you realise that
about two hundred of Twing’s heftiest are waiting for you outside to
chuck you into the pond?”
“No!”
“Absolutely!”
For a moment the poor chap seemed crushed. But only for a moment. There
has always been something of the good old English bulldog breed about
Bingo. A strange, sweet smile flickered for an instant over his face.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I can sneak out through the cellar and
climb over the wall at the back. They can’t intimidate _me_!”
* * * * *
It couldn’t have been more than a week later when Jeeves, after he had
brought me my tea, gently steered me away from the sporting page of
the _Morning Post_ and directed my attention to an announcement in the
engagements and marriages column.
It was a brief statement that a marriage had been arranged and would
shortly take place between the Hon. and Rev. Hubert Wingham, third son
of the Right Hon. the Earl of Sturridge, and Mary, only daughter of the
late Matthew Burgess, of Weatherly Court, Hants.
“Of course,” I said, after I had given it the east-to-west, “I expected
this, Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She would never forgive him what happened that night.”
“No, sir.”
“Well,” I said, as I took a sip of the fragrant and steaming, “I don’t
suppose it will take old Bingo long to get over it. It’s about the
hundred and eleventh time this sort of thing has happened to him.
You’re the man I’m sorry for.”
“Me, sir?”
“Well, dash it all, you can’t have forgotten what a deuce of a lot of
trouble you took to bring the thing off for Bingo. It’s too bad that
all your work should have been wasted.”
“Not entirely wasted, sir.”
“Eh?”
“It is true that my efforts to bring about the match between Mr. Little
and the young lady were not successful, but still I look back upon the
matter with a certain satisfaction.”
“Because you did your best, you mean?”
“Not entirely, sir, though of course that thought also gives me
pleasure. I was alluding more particularly to the fact that I found the
affair financially remunerative.”
“Financially remunerative? What do you mean?”
“When I learned that Mr. Steggles had interested himself in the
contest, sir, I went shares with my friend Brookfield and bought the
book which had been made on the issue by the ‘Cow and Horses.’ It has
proved a highly profitable investment. Your breakfast will be ready
almost immediately, sir. Kidneys on toast and mushrooms. I will bring
it when you ring.”