'Well, I've been doing it all my life,' said Lord Biskerton stoutly, 'and – God willing – I hope to go on doing it till I am old and grey. Do you suppose for a moment, old bag, that I'm any richer than you are? Why, I only know what money is by hearsay.'
'You don't mean that?'
'I certainly do. If you want to see real destitution, old boy, take a look at my family. I'm broke. My guv'nor's broke. My Aunt Vera's broke. It's a ruddy epidemic. I owe every tradesman in London. The guv'nor hasn't tasted meat for weeks. And, as for Aunt Vera, relict of the late Colonel Archibald Mace, C.V.O., she's reduced to writing Glad articles for the evening papers. You know – things on the back page pointing out that there's always sunshine somewhere and that we ought to be bright, like the little birds in the trees. Why, I've known that woman's circumstances to become so embarrassed that she actually made an attempt to borrow money from me. Me, old boy! Lazarus in person.'
He laughed again, tickled by the recollection. Then, helping himself to fruit salad, he became grave once more and pointed the moral earnestly.
'The fact of the matter is, laddie, there's nothing in being an Earl nowadays. It's a mug's game. If ever they try to make you one, punch them in the eye and run. And being an Earl's son and heir is one degree worse.'
'But I've always thought of you as rolling in money, Biscuit. You've got that enormous place in Sussex—?'
'That's just what's wrong with it. Too enormous. Eats up all the family revenues, old boy. Oh, I know how you came to be misled. The error is a common one. You see a photograph in Country Life of an Earl standing in a negligent attitude outside the north-east piazza of his seat in Loamshire, and you say to yourself, "Lucky devil! I'll make that bird's acquaintance and touch him." Little knowing that even as the camera clicked the poor old deadbeat was wondering where on earth the money was coming from to give the piazza the lick of paint it so badly needed. What with the Land Tax and the Income Tax and the Super Tax and all the rest of the little Taxes, there's not much in the family sock these days, old boy. It all comes down to this,' said the Biscuit, summing up. 'If England wants a happy, well-fed aristocracy, she mustn't have wars. She can't have it both ways.'
He sighed, and fell into a thoughtful silence.
'I wish I could find some way of making a bit of money,' he said, resuming his remarks. 'I don't seem able to do it, racing. And I don't seem able to do it at Bridge. But there must be some method. Look at all the wealthy blighters you see running round. They've managed to find it. I read a book the other day where a bloke goes up to another bloke in the street – perfect stranger with a rich sort of look about him – and whispers in his ear – the first bloke does – "A word with you, sir!" Addressing the second bloke, you understand. "A word with you, sir. I know your secret!" Upon which, the second bloke turns ashy white and supports him in luxury for the rest of his life. I thought there might be something in it.'
'About seven years, I should think.'
'Well, if I try it, I'll let you know. And if they send me to the Bastille, you can come and see me on Visiting Days and hand me tracts through the bars.'
He ate cheese, and returned to an earlier point in the conversation.
'What did you mean about buzzing off round the world on a tramp steamer?' he asked. 'You said, if I remember, that when the fuse blew out that was what you were planning to do. It sounded cuckoo to me. Why buzz round the world in tramp steamers?'
'Well, that's what I wanted to do – get off somewhere and have adventures. You know that thing of Kipling's? "I'd like to roll to 'Rio, roll down, roll down to 'Rio. Oh, I'd like to . . ." '
'Sh!' said the Biscuit, scandalized. 'My dear chap! You can't recite here. Against the club rules. Strong letter from the committee.'
'I was talking to a fellow the other day,' said Berry, with a smouldering eye, 'who had just come back from Arizona. He was telling me about the Mojave Desert. He had been prospecting out there. It made me feel like a caged eagle.'
'A what?'
'Caged eagle.'
'Why?'
'Because I felt that I should never get away from Valley Fields and see anything worth seeing.'
'You've seen me,' said the Biscuit.
'Think of the Grand Canyon!'
Lord Biskerton closed his eyes dutifully.
'I am,' he said. 'What next? Double it?'
'What chance have I of ever seeing the Grand Canyon?'
'Why not?'
Berry writhed.
'Haven't you been listening?' he demanded.
'Certainly I've been listening,' replied the Biscuit, with spirit. 'I haven't missed a word. And your statement seems to me confused and rambling. As I understand you, you wish to roll to 'Rio. And you appear to be beefing because you can't. Why can't you? 'Rio is open for being rolled to at this season, I presume?'
'What about Attwater and that money he lent me? I can't pay him back unless I go on earning money, can I? And how can I earn money if I chuck my job and go tramping round the world?'
'You want to pay him back?' said the Biscuit, startled.
'Of course I do.'
'In that case, there is nothing more to be said. If you intend to go through life deliberately paying back money,' said the Biscuit, a little severely, 'you must be content not to roll.'
There was a silence. Berry's face clouded.
'I get so damned restless sometimes,' he said, 'I don't know what to do with myself. Don't you ever get restless?'
'Never. London's good enough for me.'
'It isn't for me. That man who had come from Arizona was telling me how you prospect in the Mojave.'
'A thing I wouldn't do on a bet.'
'You tramp about under a blazing sun and sleep under the stars and single-jack holes in the solid rock—'
'How perfectly foul. And not a chance of getting a drink anywhere, I take it? Well, if that's the sort of thing you've missed, you're well out of it, my lad. Yes, dashed well out of it. No matter how much you may feel like a prawn in aspic.'
'I didn't say I felt like a prawn in aspic. I said I felt like a caged eagle.'
'It's the same thing.'
'It isn't at all the same thing.'
'All right,' said the Biscuit, pacifically. 'Let it go. Have it your own way. But do you mean to say you can't raise even a couple of hundred quid? Weren't any of these shares your aunt left you any good at all?'
'Just waste paper.'
'What were they?'
'I can't remember them all. There were about five thousand of a thing called Federal Dye, and three thousand of another called the Something Development Company. . . . Oh, and a mine. I'd forgotten the mine.'
'What! You really own a mine? Then you're on velvet.'
'But it's a dud, like everything else my aunt bought.'
'What sort of a mine?'
'I don't know how you would describe it, because it hasn't anything in it. It started out with some idea of being a copper mine, I believe. It's called the Dream Come True, but it sounds to me more like a nightmare.'
'Berry, old boy,' said the Biscuit, 'I repeat, and with all the emphasis at my command, that you are on velvet. Why people want copper, I can't say. If you carry it in your trouser-pocket, it rattles. And if you put it in your waistcoat, you feel as if you had a tumour or something. And what can you buy with it? An evening paper or a packet of butterscotch from a slot-machine. Nevertheless, it is an established fact that people do tumble over themselves to buy copper mines. What you must do – and instantly – is to sell this thing, pay old Attwater his money (if you really are resolved on that mad project), lend me what you may see fit of the remainder, and then you would be free to go anywhere and do what you jolly well liked.'
'But I keep telling you the Dream Come True hasn't any copper in it.'
'Well, there are always mugs in the world, aren't there? It will be a sorry day for old England,' said Lord Biskerton, 'when one can't find some mug to buy a mine, however dud. You say yours hasn't anythi
ng in it? What of that? My old guv'nor once bought shares in an oil-well, and not only was there no oil, there wasn't even a well. I venture to say that, if you look about you, you will find a dozen fatheads willing and anxious to give you a few hundred quid for the thing.'
Berry picked at the table-cloth. His was an imagination that never required a great deal of firing.
'Do you really think so?'
'Of course I do.'
Berry's eyes were glowing.
'If I could find somebody who would give me enough to pay back old Attwater's loan I wouldn't stay here a day. I'd get on the first boat to America and push West. I can just picture it, Biscuit. Miles of desert, with mountain ranges that seem to change their shape as you look at them. Wagon tracks. Red porphyry cliffs. People going about in sombreros and blue overalls.'
'Probably fearful bounders, all of them,' said the Biscuit. 'Keep well away, is my advice. You're not leaving me?' he asked, as Berry rose.
'I must, I'm afraid. I've got to get back to work.'
'Already.'
'I'm only supposed to take an hour for lunch, and today isn't a good day for breaking rules. Old Frisby's got dyspepsia again, and is a bit edgy.'
'Well, push off, if you must,' said the Biscuit resignedly. 'And don't forget what I said about that mine. I wish I had had an aunt who had left me something like that. There have only been two aunts in my life. One is Vera, on whom I have already touched. The other, Caroline, passed on some years ago, respected by all, owing me two-and-sixpence for a cab fare.'
II
At about the moment when Berry Conway, having reluctantly torn himself away from his old school friend, entered the Underground train which was to take him back to the City and the resumption of the daily round of toil, T. Paterson Frisby, his employer, was seated in his office at 6, Pudding Lane, E.C.4, talking to his sister Josephine on the telephone.
T. Paterson Frisby was a little man who looked as if he had been constructed of some leathern material and subsequently pickled in brine. His expression, as he took up the instrument, was one of acute exasperation. His sister always irritated him, especially on the telephone, when her natural tendency to babble became intensified; and he was also suffering severely from those pangs of indigestion to which Berry had alluded in his conversation with Lord Biskerton.
The fact that he had been expecting these pangs did nothing to mitigate them. Indeed, it added to the physical anguish a spiritual remorse which was almost as unpleasant. A whole medical college of doctors had told Mr Frisby to avoid roast duck, and as a rule he was strong enough to do so. But last night the craving had been too much for him. He had wallowed madly and recklessly in roast duck, tucking into the stuffing like a farmhand. Today had come the inevitable retribution. And on top of that Josephine was calling him on the telephone.
''Lo?' said Mr Frisby, and the word was like a cry from the pit.
He took a pepsine tablet from the bottle on the desk and tossed it into his mouth – not in the gay, dashing manner of some debonair monarch flinging largess to the multitude, but sullenly, with the air of one reluctantly compelled to lend money to an importunate cadger. His gastric juices, he knew, would give him no peace till they had had the stuff, so he gave it to them.
In a world so full of beautiful things, it seems a pity that one has got to talk about Mr Frisby's gastric juices, but it is the duty of the historian to see life steadily and see it whole.
''Lo?' said Mr Frisby.
A clear soprano answered him.
'Paterson!'
'Ugh?'
'Is that you?'
'Ugh.'
'Listen.'
'I'm listening.'
'Well, listen, then.'
'I am listening, I tell you. Get to the point. And talk quick, darn it. Remember it's costing forty-five bucks every three minutes.'
For Mrs Moon was speaking from her apartment on Park Avenue, New York. And though it was the woman who would pay, waste even of other people's money was agony to Mr Frisby. He possessed twenty million dollars himself, and loved every cent of them.
'Paterson! Listen!'
'What is it?'
'Can you hear?'
'Of course I can hear.'
'Well, listen. I'm going to Japan next week with the Henry Bessemers.'
A low moan escaped Mr Frisby. His face, which was rather like that of a horse, twisted in pain. Of the broad principle of his sister going to Japan he approved, Japan being further away than New York. What rived his very soul was that she should be squandering her cash to tell him so. A picture postcard from Tokyo, with a cross and a 'This is my room' against one of the windows of a hotel, would so easily have met the case.
'Is that,' he asked in a strained voice, 'all you called up to say?'
'No. Listen.'
'I AM listening.'
'It's about Ann.'
'Oh, Ann?' said Mr Frisby, grunting to suggest that he found this a little better. His interest in his sister's affairs was tepid, but her daughter he rather liked. He had not seen her for some years, for the shifting of the centre of his business operations had taken him away from his native land, but he remembered her as a pretty girl with a pleasingly vivacious manner.
'Really, Paterson, I am at my wits' end about Ann.'
Mr Frisby grunted again, this time to indicate the opinion that she had not had to travel far.
'Paterson!'
'Well?'
'Listen.'
'I am—'
'I said I was at my wits' end about Ann.'
'I heard you.'
'Do you know what she did last week?'
Mr Frisby gave a lifelike imitation of a man who has just discovered that he is sitting on an ants' nest.
'How the devil should I know what she did last week? Do you think I'm a clairvoyant?'
'She refused Clarence Dumphry, the son of Mortimer J. Dumphry. She said he was a stiff. And Clarence is the nicest young fellow. He doesn't drink or smoke, and he will have millions some day. And do you know what she said to the Burwash boy?'
'Who is the Burwash boy?'
'Twombley Burwash. You know. The Dwight N. Burwashes. She told him she would marry him if he would hit a policeman.'
'Do what?'
'Hit a policeman.'
'What policeman?'
'Any policeman. She said he could choose his policeman. Naturally Twombley refused. He would not do anything like that. And it's that sort of thing all the time. I am in despair about getting her married and settled down, and I'm always in a state of the greatest alarm lest she may run off with someone impossible. She is so appallingly romantic. The ordinary young man isn't good enough for her, it seems. Oh dear, no! I asked her the other day what she did want, and she said something like a mixture of Gene Tunney and T. E. Lawrence and Lindbergh would do if he looked like Ronald Colman. So, as I am going to Japan, it seems an excellent opportunity to send her over to England for the summer. Perhaps if she has a London Season she may meet someone nice.'
Mr Frisby choked.
'Listen!' he said tensely, reckless of plagiarism. 'If you think you're going to plant her on me—'
'Of course not. A bachelor establishment like yours would be most unsuitable. She must have every chance of meeting the right people. I want you to put an advertisement in the papers, asking for a lady of title to chaperon her. Somebody she can live with and go around with.'
'Ah!' said Mr Frisby, relieved.
'And be careful what sort of a title you choose. Mrs Henry Bessemer was telling me about a friend of hers who advertised and got a Lady Something, and she turned out to be merely the widow of a man who had been knighted for being mayor of some town in Lancashire where the King opened a City Hall or something. Remember that the best kind always have a Christian name – Lady Agatha This or Lady Agatha That. That means that they're related to a Duke or an Earl.'
'All right.'
'It's very confusing, of course, but there seems nothing to be done about it.
How is your lumbago?'
'I don't get it.'
'Don't be so silly. You know you're a martyr to it.'
'I mean I can't hear what you're talking about. Spell it.'
'How is your L for lizard, U for union, M for mayonnaise, B for . . .'
'My God!' cried Mr Frisby, deeply moved. 'Are you spending solid money to ask after that? It's better.'
'What?'
'Better – better –BETTER! B for blasted, E for extravagance, T for telephone, T for toll, E for extravagance again, and R for ruin. For Heaven's sake, woman, hang up that receiver before you have to go over the hill to the poorhouse.'
For some minutes after the tumult and shouting had died, Mr Frisby sat brooding and inactive. Then he reached out a hand to where a pair of detachable cuffs stood stacked beside the inkpot. A sloppy dresser, who aimed at comfort rather than elegance, he was in the habit of removing these before settling down to the day's work. And, as always happened with him in times of mental stress, their glistening surface invited literary composition. What his tablets are to the poet, his cuffs were to T. Paterson Frisby.
He picked up one of the horrible objects, and in a scrawling hand wrote the following pensée:
Josephine is a pest
The contemplation of this seemed to soothe him somewhat. And he was not altogether satisfied. He licked his pencil, and between the words 'a' and 'pest' inserted the addendum
gosh-darned
It made the thing ever so much better. Stronger. More striking. A writer's prose may come from the heart, but it is seldom that he does not need to polish, to touch up, to heighten the colour.
Content at last that he had given of his best, he hitched his chair forward a couple of inches and returned to his work.
He had been working for what seemed to him about a quarter of an hour, when he was informed that New York wanted him on the telephone again. And presently, across three thousand miles of land and water, there floated to his ears the musical voice of a young girl.
'Hello! Uncle Paterson?'
'Ugh.'
'Hello there, Uncle Paterson. This is Ann.'
'I know it.'
'Isn't it funny how distinctly you can hear!' said the voice chattily. ' It's just as if—'