"'Put the butter or drippings in a kettle on the range, and when
hot add the onions and fry them; add the veal and cook until
brown. Add the water, cover closely, and cook very slowly until
the meat is tender; then add the seasoning and place the potatoes
on top of the meat. Cover and cook until the potatoes are tender,
but not falling to pieces.'"
"Sure," said Mr. Peters--"not falling to pieces. That's right.
Go on."
"'Then add the cream and cook five minutes longer'" read Ashe.
"Is that all?"
"That's all of that one."
Mr. Peters settled himself more comfortably in bed.
"Read me the piece where it tells about curried lobster."
Ashe cleared his throat.
"'Curried Lobster,'" he read. "'Materials: Two one-pound
lobsters, two teaspoonfuls lemon juice, half a spoonful curry
powder, two tablespoonfuls butter, a tablespoonful flour, one
cupful scalded milk, one cupful cracker crumbs, half teaspoonful
salt, quarter teaspoonful pepper.'"
"Go on."
"'Way of Preparing: Cream the butter and flour and add the
scalded milk; then add the lemon juice, curry powder, salt and
pepper. Remove the lobster meat from the shells and cut into
half-inch cubes.'"
"Half-inch cubes," sighed Mr. Peters wistfully. "Yes?"
"'Add the latter to the sauce.'"
"You didn't say anything about the latter. Oh, I see; it means
the half-inch cubes. Yes?"
"'Refill the lobster shells, cover with buttered crumbs, and bake
until the crumbs are brown. This will serve six persons.'"
"And make them feel an hour afterward as though they had
swallowed a live wild cat," said Mr. Peters ruefully.
"Not necessarily," said Ashe. "I could eat two portions of that
at this very minute and go off to bed and sleep like a little
child."
Mr. Peters raised himself on his elbow and stared at him. They
were in the millionaire's bedroom, the time being one in the
morning, and Mr. Peters had expressed a wish that Ashe should
read him to sleep. He had voted against Ashe's novel and produced
from the recesses of his suitcase a much-thumbed cookbook. He
explained that since his digestive misfortunes had come on him he
had derived a certain solace from its perusal.
It may be that to some men sorrow's crown of sorrow is
remembering happier things; but Mr. Peters had not found that to
be the case. In his hour of affliction it soothed him to read of
Hungarian Goulash and escaloped brains, and to remember that he,
too, the nut-and-grass eater of today, had once dwelt in Arcadia.
The passage of the days, which had so sapped the stamina of the
efficient Baxter, had had the opposite effect on Mr. Peters. His
was one of those natures that cannot deal in half measures.
Whatever he did, he did with the same driving energy. After the
first passionate burst of resistance he had settled down into a
model pupil in Ashe's one-man school of physical culture. It had
been the same, now that he came to look back on it, at Muldoon's.
Now that he remembered, he had come away from White Plains
hoping, indeed, never to see the place again, but undeniably a
different man physically. It was not the habit of Professor
Muldoon to let his patients loaf; but Mr. Peters, after the
initial plunge, had needed no driving. He had worked hard at his
cure then, because it was the job in hand. He worked hard now,
under the guidance of Ashe, because, once he had begun, the thing
interested and gripped him.
Ashe, who had expected continued reluctance, had been astonished
and delighted at the way in which the millionaire had behaved.
Nature had really intended Ashe for a trainer; he identified
himself so thoroughly with his man and rejoiced at the least
signs of improvement.
In Mr. Peters' case there had been distinct improvement already.
Miracles do not happen nowadays, and it was too much to expect
one who had maltreated his body so consistently for so many years
to become whole in a day; but to an optimist like Ashe signs were
not wanting that in due season Mr. Peters would rise on
stepping-stones of his dead self to higher things, and though
never soaring into the class that devours lobster a la Newburg
and smiles after it, might yet prove himself a devil of a fellow
among the mutton chops.
"You're a wonder!" said Mr. Peters. "You're fresh, and you have
no respect for your elders and betters; but you deliver the
goods. That's the point. Why, I'm beginning to feel great! Say,
do you know I felt a new muscle in the small of my back this
morning? They are coming out on me like a rash."
"That's the Larsen Exercises. They develop the whole body."
"Well, you're a pretty good advertisement for them if they need
one. What were you before you came to me--a prize-fighter?"
"That's the question everybody I have met since I arrived here
has asked me. I believe it made the butler think I was some sort
of crook when I couldn't answer it. I used to write stories--
detective stories."
"What you ought to be doing is running a place over here in
England like Muldoon has back home. But you will be able to write
one more story out of this business here, if you want to. When
are you going to have another try for my scarab?"
"To-night."
"To-night? How about Baxter?"
"I shall have to risk Baxter."
Mr. Peters hesitated. He had fallen out of the habit of being
magnanimous during the past few years, for dyspepsia brooks no
divided allegiance and magnanimity has to take a back seat when
it has its grip on you.
"See here," he said awkwardly; "I've been thinking this over
lately--and what's the use? It's a queer thing; and if anybody
had told me a week ago that I should be saying it I wouldn't have
believed him; but I am beginning to like you. I don't want to get
you into trouble. Let the old scarab go. What's a scarab anyway?
Forget about it and stick on here as my private Muldoon. If it's
the five thousand that's worrying you, forget that too. I'll give
it to you as your fee."
Ashe was astounded. That it could really be his peppery employer
who spoke was almost unbelievable. Ashe's was a friendly nature
and he could never be long associated with anyone without trying
to establish pleasant relations; but he had resigned himself in
the present case to perpetual warfare.
He was touched; and if he had ever contemplated abandoning his
venture, this, he felt, would have spurred him on to see it
through. This sudden revelation of the human in Mr. Peters was
like a trumpet call.
"I wouldn't think of it," he said. "It's great of you to suggest
such a thing; but I know just how you feel about the thing, and
I'm going to get it for you if I have to wring Baxter's neck.
Probably Baxter will have given up waiting as a bad job by now if
he has been watching all this while. We've given him ten nights
to cool off. I expect he is in bed, dreaming pleasant dreams.
It's nearly two o'clock. I'll wait another ten minutes and then
go down." He picked up the cookbook. "Lie back and make yourself
comfortable, and I'll read you to sleep first."
"You're a good boy," said Mr. Peters drowsily.
"Are you ready? 'Pork Tenderloin Larded. Half pound fat pork--'"
A faint smile curved Mr. Peters' lips. His eyes were closed and
he breathed softly. Ashe went on in a low voice: "'four large
pork tenderloins, one cupful cracker crumbs, one cupful boiling
water, two tablespoonfuls butter, one teaspoonful salt, half
teaspoonful pepper, one teaspoonful poultry seasoning.'"
A little sigh came from the bed.
"'Way of Preparing: Wipe the tenderloins with a damp cloth. With
a sharp knife make a deep pocket lengthwise in each tenderloin.
Cut your pork into long thin strips and, with a needle, lard each
tenderloin. Melt the butter in the water, add the seasoning and
the cracker crumbs, combining all thoroughly. Now fill each
pocket in the tenderloin with this stuffing. Place the
tenderloins--'"
A snore sounded from the pillows, punctuating the recital like a
mark of exclamation. Ashe laid down the book and peered into the
darkness beyond the rays of the bed lamp. His employer slept.
Ashe switched off the light and crept to the door. Out in the
passage he stopped and listened. All was still. He stole
downstairs.
* * *
George Emerson sat in his bedroom in the bachelors' wing of the
castle smoking a cigarette. A light of resolution was in his
eyes. He glanced at the table beside his bed and at what was on
that table, and the light of resolution flamed into a glare of
fanatic determination. So might a medieval knight have looked on
the eve of setting forth to rescue a maiden from a dragon.
His cigarette burned down. He looked at his watch, put it back,
and lit another cigarette. His aspect was the aspect of one
waiting for the appointed hour. Smoking his second cigarette, he
resumed his meditations. They had to do with Aline Peters.
George Emerson was troubled about Aline Peters. Watching over
her, as he did, with a lover's eye, he had perceived that about
her which distressed him. On the terrace that morning she had
been abrupt to him--what in a girl of less angelic disposition
one might have called snappy. Yes, to be just, she had snapped at
him. That meant something. It meant that Aline was not well. It
meant what her pallor and tired eyes meant--that the life she was
leading was doing her no good.
Eleven nights had George dined at Blandings Castle, and on each
of the eleven nights he had been distressed to see the manner in
which Aline, declining the baked meats, had restricted herself to
the miserable vegetable messes which were all that doctor's
orders permitted to her suffering father. George's pity had its
limits. His heart did not bleed for Mr. Peters. Mr. Peters' diet
was his own affair. But that Aline should starve herself in this
fashion, purely by way of moral support for her parent, was
another matter.
George was perhaps a shade material. Himself a robust young man
and taking what might be called an outsize in meals, he attached
perhaps too much importance to food as an adjunct to the perfect
life. In his survey of Aline he took a line through his own
requirements; and believing that eleven such dinners as he had
seen Aline partake of would have killed him he decided that his
loved one was on the point of starvation.
No human being, he held, could exist on such Barmecide feasts.
That Mr. Peters continued to do so did not occur to him as a flaw
in his reasoning. He looked on Mr. Peters as a sort of machine.
Successful business men often give that impression to the young.
If George had been told that Mr. Peters went along on gasoline,
like an automobile, he would not have been much surprised. But
that Aline--his Aline--should have to deny herself the exercise
of that mastication of rich meats which, together with the gift
of speech, raises man above the beasts of the field---- That was
what tortured George.
He had devoted the day to thinking out a solution of the problem.
Such was the overflowing goodness of Aline's heart that not even
he could persuade her to withdraw her moral support from her
father and devote herself to keeping up her strength as she
should do. It was necessary to think of some other plan.
And then a speech of hers had come back to him. She had
said--poor child:
"I do get a little hungry sometimes--late at night generally."
The problem was solved. Food should be brought to her late at
night.
On the table by his bed was a stout sheet of packing paper. On
this lay, like one of those pictures in still life that one sees
on suburban parlor walls, a tongue, some bread, a knife, a fork,
salt, a corkscrew and a small bottle of white wine.
It is a pleasure, when one has been able hitherto to portray
George's devotion only through the medium of his speeches, to
produce these comestibles as Exhibit A, to show that he loved
Aline with no common love; for it had not been an easy task to
get them there. In a house of smaller dimensions he would have
raided the larder without shame, but at Blandings Castle there
was no saying where the larder might be. All he knew was that it
lay somewhere beyond that green-baize door opening on the hall,
past which he was wont to go on his way to bed. To prowl through
the maze of the servants' quarters in search of it was
impossible. The only thing to be done was to go to Market
Blandings and buy the things.
Fortune had helped him at the start by arranging that the
Honorable Freddie, also, should be going to Market Blandings in
the little runabout, which seated two. He had acquiesced in
George's suggestion that he, George, should occupy the other
seat, but with a certain lack of enthusiasm it seemed to George.
He had not volunteered any reason as to why he was going to
Market Blandings in the little runabout, and on arrival there had
betrayed an unmistakable desire to get rid of George at the
earliest opportunity.
As this had suited George to perfection, he being desirous of
getting rid of the Honorable Freddie at the earliest opportunity,
he had not been inquisitive, and they had parted on the outskirts
of the town without mutual confidences.
George had then proceeded to the grocer's, and after that to
another of the Market Blandings inns, not the Emsworth Arms,
where he had bought the white wine. He did not believe in the
local white wine, for he was a young man with a palate and
mistrusted country cellars, but he assumed that, whatever its
quality, it would cheer Aline in the small hours.
He had then tramped the whole five miles back to the castle with
his purchases. It was here that his real troubles began and the
quality of his love was tested. The walk, to a heavily laden man,
was bad enough; but it was as nothing compared with the ordeal of
smuggling the cargo up to his bedroom. Superhuman though he was,
George was alive to the delicacy of the situation. One cannot
convey food and drink to one's room in a strange house without,
if detected, seeming to cast a slur on the table of the host. It
was as one who carries dispatches through an enemy's lines that
George took cover, emerged from cover, dodged, ducked and ran;
and the moment when he sank down on his bed, the door locked
behind him, was one of the happiest of his life.
The recollection of that ordeal made the one he proposed to
embark on now seem slight in comparison. All he had to do was to
go to Aline's room on the other side of the house, knock softly
on the door until signs of wakefulness made themselves heard from
within, and then dart away into the shadows whence he had come,
and so back to bed. He gave Aline credit for the intelligence
that would enable her, on finding a tongue, some bread, a knife,
a fork, salt, a corkscrew and a bottle of white wine on the mat,
to know what to do with them--and perhaps to guess whose was the
loving hand that had laid them there.
The second clause, however, was not important, for he proposed to
tell her whose was the hand next morning. Other people might hide
their light under a bushel--not George Emerson.
It only remained now to allow time to pass until the hour should
be sufficiently advanced to insure safety for the expedition. He
looked at his watch again. It was nearly two. By this time the
house must be asleep.
He gathered up the tongue, the bread, the knife, the fork, the
salt, the corkscrew and the bottle of white wine, and left the
room. All was still. He stole downstairs.
* * *
On his chair in the gallery that ran round the hall, swathed in
an overcoat and wearing rubber-soled shoes, the Efficient Baxter
sat and gazed into the darkness. He had lost the first fine
careless rapture, as it were, which had helped him to endure
these vigils, and a great weariness was on him. He found
difficulty in keeping his eyes open, and when they were open the
darkness seemed to press on them painfully. Take him for all in
all, the Efficient Baxter had had about enough of it.
Time stood still. Baxter's thoughts began to wander. He knew that
this was fatal and exerted himself to drag them back. He tried to
concentrate his mind on some one definite thing. He selected the
scarab as a suitable object, but it played him false. He had
hardly concentrated on the scarab before his mind was straying
off to ancient Egypt, to Mr. Peters' dyspepsia, and on a dozen
other branch lines of thought.
He blamed the fat man at the inn for this. If the fat man had not
thrust his presence and conversation on him he would have been
able to enjoy a sound sleep in the afternoon, and would have come
fresh to his nocturnal task. He began to muse on the fat man.
And by a curious coincidence whom should he meet a few moments
later but this same man!
It happened in a somewhat singular manner, though it all seemed
perfectly logical and consecutive to Baxter. He was climbing up
the outer wall of Westminster Abbey in his pyjamas and a tall
hat, when the fat man, suddenly thrusting his head out of a
window which Baxter had not noticed until that moment, said,
"Hello, Freddie!"
Baxter was about to explain that his name was not Freddie when he
found himself walking down Piccadilly with Ashe Marson. Ashe said
to him: "Nobody loves me. Everybody steals my grapefruit!" And
the pathos of it cut the Efficient Baxter like a knife. He was on
the point of replying; when Ashe vanished and Baxter discovered
that he was not in Piccadilly, as he had supposed, but in an
aeroplane with Mr. Peters, hovering over the castle.
Mr. Peters had a bomb in his hand, which he was fondling with
loving care. He explained to Baxter that he had stolen it from
the Earl of Emsworth's museum. "I did it with a slice of cold
beef and a pickle," he explained; and Baxter found himself
realizing that that was the only way. "Now watch me drop it,"
said Mr. Peters, closing one eye and taking aim at the castle.
"I have to do this by the doctor's orders."
He loosed the bomb and immediately Baxter was lying in bed
watching it drop. He was frightened, but the idea of moving did
not occur to him. The bomb fell very slowly, dipping and
fluttering like a feather. It came closer and closer. Then it
struck with a roar and a sheet of flame.
Baxter woke to a sound of tumult and crashing. For a moment he
hovered between dreaming and waking, and then sleep passed from
him, and he was aware that something noisy and exciting was in
progress in the hall below.
* * *
Coming down to first causes, the only reason why collisions of
any kind occur is because two bodies defy Nature's law that a
given spot on a given plane shall at a given moment of time be
occupied by only one body.
There was a certain spot near the foot of the great staircase
which Ashe, coming downstairs from Mr. Peters' room, and George
Emerson, coming up to Aline's room, had to pass on their
respective routes. George reached it at one minute and three
seconds after two a.m., moving silently but swiftly; and Ashe,
also maintaining a good rate of speed, arrived there at one
minute and four seconds after the hour, when he ceased to walk
and began to fly, accompanied by George Emerson, now going down.
His arms were round George's neck and George was clinging to his
waist.
In due season they reached the foot of the stairs and a small
table, covered with occasional china and photographs in frames,
which lay adjacent to the foot of the stairs. That--especially
the occasional china--was what Baxter had heard.
George Emerson thought it was a burglar. Ashe did not know what
it was, but he knew he wanted to shake it off; so he insinuated a
hand beneath George's chin and pushed upward. George, by this
time parted forever from the tongue, the bread, the knife, the
fork, the salt, the corkscrew and the bottle of white wine, and
having both hands free for the work of the moment, held Ashe with
the left and punched him in the ribs with the right.
Ashe, removing his left arm from George's neck, brought it up as
a reinforcement to his right, and used both as a means of
throttling George. This led George, now permanently underneath,
to grasp Ashe's ears firmly and twist them, relieving the
pressure on his throat and causing Ashe to utter the first vocal
sound of the evening, other than the explosive Ugh! that both had
emitted at the instant of impact.
Ashe dislodged George's hands from his ears and hit George in the
ribs with his elbow. George kicked Ashe on the left ankle. Ashe
rediscovered George's throat and began to squeeze it afresh; and
a pleasant time was being had by all when the Efficient Baxter,
whizzing down the stairs, tripped over Ashe's legs, shot forward
and cannoned into another table, also covered with occasional
china and photographs in frames.
The hall at Blandings Castle was more an extra drawing-room than
a hall; and, when not nursing a sick headache in her bedroom,
Lady Ann Warblington would dispense afternoon tea there to her
guests. Consequently it was dotted pretty freely with small
tables. There were, indeed, no fewer than five more in various
spots, waiting to be bumped into and smashed.
The bumping into and smashing of small tables, however, is a task
that calls for plenty of time, a leisured pursuit; and neither
George nor Ashe, a third party having been added to their little
affair, felt a desire to stay on and do the thing properly. Ashe
was strongly opposed to being discovered and called on to account
for his presence there at that hour; and George, conscious of the
tongue and its adjuncts now strewn about the hall, had a similar
prejudice against the tedious explanations that detection must
involve.
As though by mutual consent each relaxed his grip. They stood
panting for an instant; then, Ashe in the direction where he
supposed the green-baize door of the servants' quarters to be,
George to the staircase that led to his bedroom, they went away
from that place.
They had hardly done so when Baxter, having disassociated himself
from the contents of the table he had upset, began to grope his
way toward the electric-light switch, the same being situated
near the foot of the main staircase. He went on all fours, as a
safer method of locomotion, though slower, than the one he had
attempted before.
Noises began to make themselves heard on the floors above. Roused
by the merry crackle of occasional china, the house party was
bestirring itself to investigate. Voices sounded, muffled and
inquiring.
Meantime Baxter crawled steadily on his hands and knees toward
the light switch. He was in much the same condition as one White
Hope of the ring is after he has put his chin in the way of the
fist of a rival member of the Truck Drivers' Union. He knew that
he was still alive. More he could not say. The mists of sleep,
which still shrouded his brain, and the shake-up he had had from
his encounter with the table, a corner of which he had rammed
with the top of his head, combined to produce a dreamlike state.
And so the Efficient Baxter crawled on; and as he crawled his
hand, advancing cautiously, fell on something--something that was
not alive; something clammy and ice-cold, the touch of which
filled him with a nameless horror.
To say that Baxter's heart stood still would be physiologically
inexact. The heart does not stand still. Whatever the emotions of
its owner, it goes on beating. It would be more accurate to say
that Baxter felt like a man taking his first ride in an express
elevator, who has outstripped his vital organs by several floors
and sees no immediate prospect of their ever catching up with him
again. There was a great cold void where the more intimate parts
of his body should have been. His throat was dry and contracted.
The flesh of his back crawled, for he knew what it was he had
touched.
Painful and absorbing as had been his encounter with the table,
Baxter had never lost sight of the fact that close beside him a
furious battle between unseen forces was in progress. He had
heard the bumping and the thumping and the tense breathing even
as he picked occasional china from his person. Such a combat, he
had felt, could hardly fail to result in personal injury to
either the party of the first part or the party of the second
part, or both. He knew now that worse than mere injury had
happened, and that he knelt in the presence of death.
There was no doubt that the man was dead. Insensibility alone
could never have produced this icy chill. He raised his head in
the darkness, and cried aloud to those approaching. He meant to
cry: "Help! Murder!" But fear prevented clear articulation. What
he shouted was: "Heh! Mer!" On which, from the neighborhood of
the staircase, somebody began to fire a revolver.
The Earl of Emsworth had been sleeping a sound and peaceful sleep
when the imbroglio began downstairs. He sat up and listened. Yes;
undoubtedly burglars! He switched on his light and jumped out of
bed. He took a pistol from a drawer, and thus armed went to look
into the matter. The dreamy peer was no poltroon.
It was quite dark when he arrived on the scene of conflict, in
the van of a mixed bevy of pyjamaed and dressing-gowned
relations. He was in the van because, meeting these relations in
the passage above, he had said to them: "Let me go first. I have
a pistol." And they had let him go first. They were, indeed,
awfully nice about it, not thrusting themselves forward or
jostling or anything, but behaving in a modest and self-effacing
manner that was pretty to watch.
When Lord Emsworth said, "Let me go first," young Algernon
Wooster, who was on the very point of leaping to the fore, said,
"Yes, by Jove! Sound scheme, by Gad!"--and withdrew into the
background; and the Bishop of Godalming said: "By all means,
Clarence undoubtedly; most certainly precede us."
When his sense of touch told him he had reached the foot of the
stairs, Lord Emsworth paused. The hall was very dark and the
burglars seemed temporarily to have suspended activities. And
then one of them, a man with a ruffianly, grating voice, spoke.
What it was he said Lord Emsworth could not understand. It
sounded like "Heh! Mer!"--probably some secret signal to his
confederates. Lord Emsworth raised his revolver and emptied it in
the direction of the sound.
Extremely fortunately for him, the Efficient Baxter had not
changed his all-fours attitude. This undoubtedly saved Lord
Emsworth the worry of engaging a new secretary. The shots sang
above Baxter's head one after the other, six in all, and found
other billets than his person. They disposed themselves as
follows: The first shot broke a window and whistled out into the
night; the second shot hit the dinner gong and made a perfectly
extraordinary noise, like the Last Trump; the third, fourth and
fifth shots embedded themselves in the wall; the sixth and final
shot hit a life-size picture of his lordship's grandmother in the
face and improved it out of all knowledge.
One thinks no worse of Lord Emsworth's grandmother because she
looked like Eddie Foy, and had allowed herself to be painted,
after the heavy classic manner of some of the portraits of a
hundred years ago, in the character of Venus--suitably draped, of
course, rising from the sea; but it was beyond the possibility of
denial that her grandson's bullet permanently removed one of
Blandings Castle's most prominent eyesores.
Having emptied his revolver, Lord Emsworth said, "Who is there?
Speak!" in rather an aggrieved tone, as though he felt he had
done his part in breaking the ice, and it was now for the
intruder to exert himself and bear his share of the social
amenities.
The Efficient Baxter did not reply. Nothing in the world could
have induced him to speak at that moment, or to make any sound
whatsoever that might betray his position to a dangerous maniac
who might at any instant reload his pistol and resume the
fusillade. Explanations, in his opinion, could be deferred until
somebody had the presence of mind to switch on the lights. He
flattened himself on the carpet and hoped for better things. His
cheek touched the corpse beside him; but though he winced and
shuddered he made no outcry. After those six shots he was through
with outcries.
A voice from above, the bishop's voice, said: "I think you have
killed him, Clarence."
Another voice, that of Colonel Horace Mant, said: "Switch on
those dashed lights! Why doesn't somebody? Dash it!"
The whole strength of the company began to demand light.
When the lights came, it was from the other side of the hall.
Six revolver shots, fired at quarter past two in the morning,
will rouse even sleeping domestics. The servants' quarters were
buzzing like a hive. Shrill feminine screams were puncturing the
air. Mr. Beach, the butler, in a suit of pink silk pajamas, of
which no one would have suspected him, was leading a party of men
servants down the stairs--not so much because he wanted to lead
them as because they pushed him.
The passage beyond the green-baize door became congested, and
there were cries for Mr. Beach to open it and look through and
see what was the matter; but Mr. Beach was smarter than that and
wriggled back so that he no longer headed the procession. This
done, he shouted:
"Open that door there! Open that door! Look and see what the
matter is."
Ashe opened the door. Since his escape from the hall he had been
lurking in the neighborhood of the green-baize door and had been
engulfed by the swirling throng. Finding himself with elbowroom
for the first time, he pushed through, swung the door open and
switched on the lights.
They shone on a collection of semi-dressed figures, crowding the
staircase; on a hall littered with china and glass; on a dented
dinner gong; on an edited and improved portrait of the late
Countess of Emsworth; and on the Efficient Baxter, in an overcoat
and rubber-soled shoes, lying beside a cold tongue. At no great
distance lay a number of other objects--a knife, a fork, some
bread, salt, a corkscrew and a bottle of white wine.
Using the word in the sense of saying something coherent, the
Earl of Emsworth was the first to speak. He peered down at his
recumbent secretary and said:
"Baxter! My dear fellow--what the devil?"
The feeling of the company was one of profound disappointment.
They were disgusted at the anticlimax. For an instant, when the
Efficient one did not move, a hope began to stir; but as soon as
it was seen that he was not even injured, gloom reigned. One of
two things would have satisfied them--either a burglar or a
corpse. A burglar would have been welcome, dead or alive; but, if
Baxter proposed to fill the part adequately it was imperative
that he be dead. He had disappointed them deeply by turning out
to be the object of their quest. That he should not have been
even grazed was too much.
There was a cold silence as he slowly raised himself from the
floor. As his eyes fell on the tongue, he started and remained
gazing fixedly at it. Surprise paralyzed him.
Lord Emsworth was also looking at the tongue and he leaped to a
not unreasonable conclusion. He spoke coldly and haughtily; for
he was not only annoyed, like the others, at the anticlimax, but
offended. He knew that he was not one of your energetic hosts who
exert themselves unceasingly to supply their guests with
entertainment; but there was one thing on which, as a host, he
did pride himself--in the material matters of life he did his
guests well; he kept an admirable table.
"My dear Baxter," he said in the tones he usually reserved for
the correction of his son Freddie, "if your hunger is so great
that you are unable to wait for breakfast and have to raid my
larder in the middle of the night, I wish to goodness you would
contrive to make less noise about it. I do not grudge you the
food--help yourself when you please--but do remember that people
who have not such keen appetites as yourself like to sleep during
the night. A far better plan, my dear fellow, would be to have
sandwiches or buns--or whatever you consider most sustaining--
sent up to your bedroom."
Not even the bullets had disordered Baxter's faculties so much as
this monstrous accusation. Explanations pushed and jostled one
another in his fermenting brain, but he could not utter them. On
every side he met gravely reproachful eyes. George Emerson was
looking at him in pained disgust. Ashe Marson's face was the face
of one who could never have believed this had he not seen it with
his own eyes. The scrutiny of the knife-and-shoe boy was
unendurable.
He stammered. Words began to proceed from him, tripping and
stumbling over each other. Lord Emsworth's frigid disapproval did
not relax.
"Pray do not apologize, Baxter. The desire for food is human. It
is your boisterous mode of securing and conveying it that I
deprecate. Let us all go to bed."
"But, Lord Emsworth-----"
"To bed!" repeated his lordship firmly.
The company began to stream moodily upstairs. The lights were
switched off. The Efficient Baxter dragged himself away. From the
darkness in the direction of the servants' door a voice spoke.
"Greedy pig!" said the voice scornfully.
It sounded like the fresh young voice of the knife-and-shoe boy,
but Baxter was too broken to investigate. He continued his
retreat without pausing.
"Stuffin' of 'isself at all hours!" said the voice.
There was a murmur of approval from the unseen throng of
domestics.