IN WHICH THE GENTLE READER HAS THE HONOR OF AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
SEVENTH UNMARRIED DAUGHTER OF NOT QUITE A HUNDRED EARLS
THE _Ne Plus Ultra_ had just achieved the feat of crossing from the
Green Park in the charge of a quadruped of whom we are at a loss to
furnish a description more explicit. How and why it had been allowed
to escape a death by violence at the instance of the passing motor
and other mechanically propelled vehicles was yet another of the dark
secrets which must be left in the keeping of its Maker.
“Hulloa, Adela!”
Jamming the brakes hard on, the heir to the barony was just able to
avert a forcible impact with the fearsome four-footed beast which
measured eighteen inches and a quarter from the tip of its tail to the
end of its muzzle.
“What is it, Adela? Win it in a raffle?”
The seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls was a
little inclined to stiffen at this freedom with an Honorable Mention at
the Crystal Palace.
“It is a pure-bred rough-haired Himalayan Dust Spaniel, and they are
very rare.”
“I hope so.”
This ill-timed remark did not seem to help the conversation. The
seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls--she was the
daughter of only three earls really, although for that she cannot
accept responsibility--tilted her chin to its most aristocratic angle
and displayed considerable reserve of manner.
An eyelash, lengthy and sarcastic, flickered upon her cheek.
“Pure-bred rough-coated Himalayan Dust Spaniel,” said the heir to the
barony. “Stick him in your muff, or you might lose him.”
“You are coming to the concert, aren’t you?” said the seventh unmarried
daughter in a tone singularly detached and cool.
“No, I’m afraid,” said the heir to the barony. “Awfully sorry, Adela,
but fact is I’ve got mixed in the day. Thought it was next Saturday.”
“Oh, really.”
“So I’ve promised five little kidlets I’d take ’em to the Pantomime at
Drury Lane. You don’t mind, Adela, do you?--or I say, would you care to
come? You’ll find it a deal more amusin’ than Paderewski. We’ve got a
box, and there’ll be any amount of room. And you won’t need a chaperone
with five kids and their nannas, and the Mater needn’t go to Kubelik
then, because she hates all decent music worse than I do. Better come,
Adela. Pantomime is awfully amusin’, and you’ll like Clapham if you
haven’t met him--chap, you know, that married poor little Bridgit
Brady.”
“Thanks,” said the young madam, “but I think I prefer Busoni.”
The heir to the barony was rather concerned by the tone of Miss
Insolence.
“You aren’t rattled, are you, Adela?” said he. “I’ve made a horrid mess
of it, and I’m to blame and all that, but you can’t go back on your
word with kids, can you? If you come I’m sure you’ll like it, and that
little Marge is a nailer, and she is only five.”
The long-lashed orb from beneath the charming mutch showed very cold
and blue.
“Thanks, but I think I prefer Busoni. Come, Fritz.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” said the penitent heir; and the rather tight hobble
and the charming mutch and the pure-bred Himalayan dust spaniel moved
round the corner of Hamilton Place in review order.
Humbled and undone, the heir to the barony sauntered up the street,
past the Cavalry, past the Savile and past the Bath, until, broken in
spirit he stayed his course before the chocolate shop of B. Venoist.
“She’s as cross as two sticks,” sighed the heir to the barony, as he
gazed in at the window. “Always was a muddlin’ fool--but you can’t go
back on your word with kids, can you? Now I must be careful which sort
I choose. I expect that sort in pink boxes will make ’em as sick as
Monday mornin’.”
In this opinion, however, B. Venoist did not concur. He assured the
heir to the barony that it was exactly the same quality as that
supplied to Buckingham Palace, The Durdans, High Cliff Castle and Eaton
Hall.
“If that is so,” said the heir to the barony, “I think I’ll risk a
box.” “Looks pretty poisonous,” he added--although not to B. Venoist.
“You’ll find that all right, sir,” said B. Venoist. “Precisely the same
quality as supplied to York Cottage.”
“I’m glad o’ that,” said the heir to the barony, disbursing a sum in
gold and dangling a large but neat white paper parcel from his index
finger.
“Cross as two sticks,” mused the stricken young man, putting forth from
the chocolate shop of B. Venoist, and bestowing a nod in passing upon a
choice light blue striped necktie.
By some odd association of ideas this article of attire was responsible
for his course being stayed before his favorite shop window a little
farther along the street: to wit, of Mr. Thomas Ling, whose neckties in
the opinion of some are as nice as any in London.
“Have you an Old Etonian Association necktie?” he asked of Mr. Thomas
Ling, although he knew quite well that Mr. Thomas Ling had, and a
Ramblers’ also if he had required it.
“The narrow or the broad, sir?” said Mr. Thomas Ling.
“The broad,” said the heir to the barony; but at Mr. Thomas Ling’s look
of frank incredulity, he corrected it to “the narrow.”
Armed with the narrow, the heir to the barony left the shop of Mr.
Thomas Ling poorer by the sum of five and sixpence, and also by a
box of the best assorted chocolates from B. Venoist which he had the
misfortune to leave upon the counter.
“Cross as two sticks,” muttered the stricken young man as he reached
the very end of the celebrated thoroughfare, and gazed an instant into
the window of Messrs. Wan & Sedgar to see how their famous annual
winter sale was getting on in the absence of the winter.
The mind of the heir to the barony hovered not unpleasantly, for all
its unhappiness, over a peculiarly chaste display of silk and woolen
pajamas, three pairs for two guineas, guaranteed unshrinkable, when
with a shock he awoke to the fact that he was no longer the proud
possessor of a box of the best assorted chocolates from B. Venoist.
“I’m all to pieces this mornin’,” registered the vain young man on the
inner tablets of his nature. Thereupon he took out his watch, a gold
hunting repeater, a present from his mother when he came of age, and in
a succinct form apostrophized his Maker.
“My God! nine minutes to one and I’ve got to collect the kids from
Eaton Place and the bally show begins at one-thirty. Here, I say!”
The heir to the barony hailed a passing taxi.
“Call at Ling’s up on the right, and then drive like the devil to 300
Eaton Place.”
“Right you are, sir,” said the driver of the taxi, in such flagrant
contravention of the spirit of the Public Vehicles Act 9 Edwardus VII
Cap III that we much regret being unable to remember his number.
It was the work of two minutes for the heir to the barony to retrieve
the box of best assorted chocolates from the custody of Mr. Thomas
Ling up on the right, and then the driver of the taxi sat down in the
saddle and was just proceeding to let her out a bit, in accordance with
instructions, when Constable X held him up peremptorily at the point
where Bond Street converges upon B. Venoist. Not, however, we are sorry
to say, in order to take the number of this wicked chauffeur, engaged
in breaking an Act of Parliament for purposes of private emolument, but
merely to enable an old lady in a stole of black mink and a black hat
with white trimmings, together with a Pekinese sleeve dog, lately the
property of the Empress of China, to cross the street and buy a box of
water colors for her youngest nephew.
Certainly she was a very dear old lady; but the heir to the barony
cursed her bitterly, as, gold hunting repeater in hand, he vowed that
the kids would not be in time for the rising of the curtain. Part of
his blame overflowed upon the head of Constable X; and we ourselves
concur in this, because we certainly think that, if stop the traffic he
must, it behooved him, as the appointed guardian of the public peace,
to take the number of this guilty chauffeur.
As it was, the driver of the taxi, owing to this dereliction of duty
upon the part of Constable X--a kind man certainly, and about to become
a sergeant--sat down again in the saddle and proceeded to let her out
a bit further. So that anon, swinging along that perilous place where
four-and-twenty metropolitan ways converge, yclept Hyde Park Corner, he
came within an ace of running down a perfectly blameless young man in
an old bowler hat and a reach-me-down, the author of this narrative,
who was on his way to consult with his respected publisher as to
whether a work of ripe philosophy would do as well in the autumn as in
the spring.
The young man in the old bowler hat--old but good of its kind,
purchased of Mr. Lock in the street of Saint James on the strength of
“the success of the spring season” (for the reach-me-down no defense
is offered)--the young man in the old bowler hat stepped back on to the
pavement with as much agility as an old footballer’s knee would permit,
and cursed the occupant of the taxi by all his gods for a bloated
plutocrat, and in the unworthy spirit of revenge vowed to make him the
hero of his very next novel.
A cruel revenge, but not, we think, unjustified. Idle rich young
fellow--toiled not, neither did he spin--nursing a gold hunting
repeater in a coat with an astrachan collar and one of Messrs.
Scott’s latest--with a red face and a suspicion of fur upon the upper
lip--taking five kids who had lost their mother to the pantomime
without his lunch--how dare he run down a true pillar of democracy at
the rate of thirty-five miles an hour!
At nine minutes past one by the gold hunting repeater, in the middle
of Victoria Street, the hard thought occurred to the young man that
he would get no lunch. Still, let us not overdo our regard for his
heroism. He had not finished his breakfast until something after
eleven, and his breakfast had consisted of three devilled kidneys on
toast, a plate of porridge, a grilled sole, muffins, marmalade and
fruit _ad libitum_, but still the young chap was undoubtedly going to
miss his luncheon.
At twelve minutes past one by the gold hunting repeater, the heir to
the barony was acclaimed in triumph from the threshold of Number 300
Eaton Place by five kids and their nannas, who were beginning almost to
fear that Uncle Phil had forgotten to call for ’em.
“It is only Aunty Cathy that forgets,” said Marge, who, considering
that at present she is only five, has excellent powers of observation.
“Uncle Phil never forgets nothink.”
Shrill cheers greeted the idle, rich young fellow. Blow, blow thy
whistle, Butler. Let us have another taxi up at once. Marge and Timothy
and Alice Clara in taxi the first with Uncle Phil; Nannas Helen and
Lucy with Dick and the Babe in taxi the second.
“Must be at Drury Lane,” said Uncle Phil to Messieurs les Chauffeurs,
“before the risin’ of the curtain at one-thirty.”
Those grim evil-doers nodded darkly, and away they tootle-tootled round
the corner into the Buckingham Palace Road. One fourteen, said the gold
hunting repeater. Bar accidents, we shall do it on our heads.
“Oh, Uncle Phil,” said Marge, “we’ve forgotten Daddy.”
“Comin’ on from the city,” said Uncle Phil.