*' A Hkely story ! But I cannot stay here wasting time. If you will not give me the key, I shall go up and break in the door."
" Do ! " Once more the baronet laughed like a tortured soul. '' And see what she'll say."
Wilfred could make nothing of this last remark. He could, he thought, imagine very clearly what Angela would say. He could picture her sobbing on his chest, murmuring that she knew he would come, that she had never doubted him for an instant. He leapt ■for the door.
" Here ! Hi! Aren't you going to let me out ? "
" Presently," said Wilfred. " Keep cool." He raced up the stairs.
"Angela," he cried, pressing his Hps against the panel. " Angela ! "
" Who's that ? " answered a weU-re-membered voice from within.
"It is I—Wilfred. I am going to burst open the door. Stand clear of the gates."
He drew back a few paces, and hurled himself at the woodwork. There was a grinding crash, as the lock gave. And Wilfred, staggering on, found himself in a room so dark that he could see nothing.
'* Angela, where are you ? "
"I'm here. And I'd like to know why you are, after that letter I wrote you. Some men/' continued the strangely cold voice, " do not seem to know how to take a hint."
Wilfred staggered, and would have fallen had he not clutched at his forehead.
" That letter ? " he stammered. " You surely didn't mean what you wrote in that letter ? "
" I meant every word and I wish I had put in more."
" But—but—but But don't you love
me, Angela ? "
A hard, mocking laugh rang through the room.
" Love you ? Love the man who recommended me to try Mulliner's Raven Gipsy Face-Cream ! "
" What do you mean ? "
" I will tell you what I mean. Wilfred Mulliner, look on your handiwork ! "
The room became suddenly flooded with hght. And there, standing with her hand on the switch, stood Angela—a queenly, lovely figure, in whose radiant beauty the sternest critic would have noted but one flaw—the fact that she was piebald.
Wilfred gazed at her with adoring eyes. Her face was partly brow^n and partly white, and on her snowy neck were patches of sepia that looked like the thumb-prints you find on the pages of books in the Free Library : but he thought her the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He longed to fold her in his arms : and but for the fact that her eyes told him that she would undoubtedly land an upper-cut on him if he tried it he would have done so.
" Yes," she went on, " this is what you have made of me, Wilfred MulUner—you and that awful stuff you call the Raven Gipsy Face-Cream. This is the skin you loved to touch ! I took your advice and bought one of the large jars at seven and six, and see the result! Barely twenty-four hours after the first appUcation, I could have walked
into any circus and named my owti terms as the Spotted Princess of the Fiji Islands. I fled here to my childhood home, to hide myself. And the first thing that happened " —her voice broke—" was that my favourite hunter shied at me and tried to bite pieces out of his manger : while Ponto, my httle dog, whom I have reared from a puppy, caught one sight of my face and is now in the hands of the vet. and unhkely to recover. And it was you, Wilfred Mulhner, who brought this curse upon me ! "
Many men would have wilted beneath these searing words, but Wilfred Mulhner merely smiled with infinite compassion and understanding.
"It is quite all right," he said. *' I should have warned you, sweetheart, that this occasionally happens in cases where the skin is exceptionally delicate and finely-textured. It can be speedily remedied by an apphcation of the Mulliner Snow of the Mountains Lotion, four shillings the medium-sized bottle."
'' Wilfred ! Is this true ? "
" Perfectly true, dearest. And is this all
that stands between us ? "
c
" No ! " shouted a voice of thunder.
Wilfred wheeled sharply. In the doorway stood Sir Jasper ffinch-ffarrowmere. He was swathed in a bath-towel, what was visible of his person being a bright crimson. Behind him, toying with a horse-whip, stood Murgatroyd, the butler.
" You didn't expect to see me, did you ? "
" I certainly," repUed Wilfred, severely, " did not expect to see you in a lady's presence in a costume like that."
" Never mind my costume." Sir Jasper turned.
" Murgatroyd, do your duty ! "
The butler, scowhng horribly, advanced into the room.
" Stop ! " screamed Angela.
*' I haven't begun yet, miss," said the butler, deferentially.
" You shan't touch Wilfred. I love him."
" What ! " cried Sir Jasper. " After all that has happened ? "
" Yes. He has explained everything."
A grim frown appeared on the baronet's vermilion face.
" I'll bet he hasn't explained why he left
me to be cooked in that infernal Turkish Bath. I was beginning to throw out clouds of smoke when Murgatroyd, faithful fellow, heard my cries and came and released me."
" Though not my work," added the butler.
Wilfred eyed him steadily.
** If," he said, '' you used Mulliner's Reduc-o, the recognised specific for obesity, whether in the tabloid form at three shillings the tin, or as a liquid at five and six the flask, you would have no need to stew in Turkish Baths. MulUner's Reduc-o, which contains no injurious chemicals, but is compounded purely of health-giving herbs, is guaranteed to remove excess weight, steadily and without weakening after-effects, at the rate of two pounds a week. As used by the nobihty."
The glare of hatred faded from the baronet's eyes.
*' Is that a fact ? " he whispered.
" It is." You guarantee it ? " All the Mulliner preparations are fully guaranteed."
" My boy ! " cried the baronet. He shook Wilfred by the hand. " Take her," he said, brokenly. " And with her my b-blessing."
A discreet cough sounded in the background.
" You haven't anything, by any chance, sir," asked Murgatroyd, " that's good for lumbago ? "
" MuUiner's Ease-o will cure the most stubborn case in six days."
" Bless you, sir, bless you," sobbed Murgatroyd. " Where can I get it ? "
" At all chemists."
" It catches me in the small of the back principally, sir."
" It need catch you no longer," said Wilfred.
There is little to add. Murgatroyd is now the most lissom butler in Yorkshire. Sir Jasper's weight is down under the fifteen stone and he is thinking of taking up hunting again. Wilfred and Angela are man and wife ; and never, I am informed, have the wedding-bells of the old church at ffinch village rung out a blither peal than they did on that June morning when Angela, raising to her love a face on which the brown was as evenly distributed as on an antique walnut table, replied to the clergyman's question, " Wilt thou, Angela, take this
Wilfred ? " with a shy, " I will." They now have two bonny bairns—the small, or Percival, at a preparatory school in Sussex, and the large, or Ferdinand, at Eton.
Here Mr. Mulhner, having finished his hot Scotch, bade us farewell and took his departure.
A silence followed his exit. The company seemed plunged in deep thought. Then somebody rose.
" Well, good night all," he said.
It seemed to sum up the situation
MULLINER'S BUCK-U-UPPO
THE village Choral Society had been giving a performance of Gilbert and SuUivan's "Sorcerer" in aid of the Church Organ Fund ; and, as we sat in the window of the Anglers' Rest, smoking our pipes, the audience came streaming past us down the little street. Snatches of song floated to our ears, and Mr. MuUiner began to croon in unison.
" ' Ah me ! I was a pa-ale you-oung curate then I ' " chanted Mr. Mulliner in the rather snuffling voice in which the amateur singer seems to find it necessary to render the old songs.
" Remarkable," he said, resuming his natural tones, " how fashions change, even in clergymen.
There are very few pale young curates nowadays."
''True," I agreed. "Most of them are
68
beefy young fellows who rowed for their colleges. I don't believe I have ever seen a pale young curate."
*' You never met my nephew Augustine, I think ? "
" Never."
" The description in the song would have fitted him perfectly. You will want to hear all about my nephew Augustine."
At the time of which I am speaking (said Mr. MuHiner) my nephew Augustine was a curate, and very young and extremely pale. As a boy he had completely outgrown his strength, and I rather think that at his Theological College some of the wilder spirits must have bullied him ; for when he went to Lower Briskett-in-the-Midden to assist the vicar, the Rev. Stanley Brandon, in his cure of souls, he was as meek and mild a young man as you could meet in a day's journey. He had flaxen hair, weak blue eyes, and the general demeanour of a saintly but timid codfish. Precisely, in short, the sort of young curate who seems to have been so common in the 'eighties, or whenever it was that Gilbert wrote "The Sorcerer."
The personality of his immediate supenor did httle or nothing to help him to overcome his native diffidence. The Rev. Stanley Brandon was a huge and sinewy man of violent temper, whose red face and glittering eyes might well have intimidated the toughest curate. The Rev. Stanley had been a heavyweight boxer at Cambridge, and I gather from Augustine that he seemed to be always on the point of introducing into debates on parish matters the methods which had made him so successful in the roped ring. I remember Augustine telHng me that once, on the occasion when he had ventured to oppose the other's views in the matter of decorating the church for the Harvest Festival, he thought for a moment that the vicar was going to drop him with a right hook to the chin. It was some qmte trivial point that had come up—a question as to whether the pumpkin would look better in the apse or the clerestory, if I recollect rightly—but for several seconds it seemed as if blood was about to be shed.
Such was the Rev. Stanley Brandon. And yet it was to the daughter of this formidable man that Augustine MuUiner had
permitted himself to lose his heart. Truly, Cupid makes heroes of us all.
Jane was a very nice girl, and just as fond of Augustine as he was of her. But, as each lacked the nerve to go to the girl's father and put him abreast of the position of affairs, they were forced to meet surreptitiously. This jarred upon Augustine, who, hke all the MuUiners, loved the truth and hated any form of deception. And one evening, as they paced beside the laurels at the bottom of the vicarage garden, he rebelled.
" My dearest," said Augustine, "I can no longer brook this secrecy. I shall go into the house immediately and ask your father for your hand."
Jane paled and clung to his arm. She knew so well that it was not her hand but her father's foot which he would receive if he carried out this mad scheme.
" No, no, Augustine ! You must not! "
" But, darhng, it is the only straightforward course."
" But not to-night. I beg of you, not
to-night."
" Why not ? "
c 2
** Because father is in a very bad temper. He has just had a letter from the bishop, rebuking him for wearing too many orphreys on his chasuble, and it has upset him terribly. You see, he and the bishop were at school together, and father can never forget it. He said at dinner that if old Boko Bickerton thought he was going to order him about he would jolly well show him."
" And the bishop comes here to-morrow for the Confirmation services! " gasped Augustine.
" Yes. And I'm so afraid they will quarrel. It's such a pity father hasn't some other bishop over him. He always remembers that he once hit this one in the eye for pouring ink on his collar, and this lowers his respect for his spiritual authority. So you won't go in and tell him to-night, will you ?
" I will not," Augustine assured her with a slight shiver.
" And you will be sure to put your feet in hot mustard and x^-ater when you get home ? The dew has made the grass so wet."
" I will indeed, dearest."
" You are not strong, you know."
" No, I am not strong."
" You ought to take some really good tonic."
" Perhaps I ought. Good night, Jane."
" Good night, Augustine."
The lovers parted. Jane shpped back into the vicarage, and Augustine made liis way to his cosy rooms in the High Street. And the first thing he noticed on entering was a parcel on the table, and beside it a letter.
He opened it listlessly, his thoughts far away.
" My dear Augustine."
He turned to the last page and glanced at the signature. The letter was from his Aunt Angela, the wife of my brother, Wilfred MulHner. You may remember that I once told you the story of how these two came together. If so, you will recall that my brother Wilfred was the eminent chemical researcher who had invented, among other specifics, such world-famous preparations as Mulliner's Raven Gipsy Face-Cream and the Mulliner Snow of the Mountains Lotion. He and Augustine had never been particularly intimate, but between Augustine and his
aunt there had always existed a warm friendship.
My dear Augustine (wrote Angela MuUiner), / have been thinking so much about you lately, and I cannot forget that, when I saw you last, you seemed very fragile and deficient in vitamines. I do hope you take care of yourself .
I have been feeling for some time that you ought to take a tonic, and by a lucky chance Wilfred has just invented one which he tells me is the finest thing he has ever done. It is called Buck-U-Uppo, and acts directly on the red corpuscles. It is not yet on the market, but I have managed to smuggle a sample bottle from Wilfred's laboratory, and I want you to try it at once. I am sure it is just what vou need.
Your affectionate aunt,
Angela MuUiner.
P.S. — Yott take a tablespoonful before going to bed, and another just before breakfast.
Augustine was not an unduly superstitious young man, but the coincidence of this tonic
arriving so soon after Jane had told him that a tonic was what he needed affected him deeply. It seemed to him that this thing must have been meant. He shook the bottle, uncorked it, and, pouring out a liberal table-spoonful, shut his eyes and swallowed it.
The medicine, he was glad to find, was not unpleasant to the taste. It had a slightly pungent flavour, rather like old boot-soles beaten up in sherry. Having taken the dose, he read for a while in a book of theological essays, and then went to bed.
And as his feet slipped between the sheets, he was annoyed to find that Mrs. Wardle, his housekeeper, had once more forgotten his hot-water bottle.
" Oh, dash ! " said Augustine.
He was thoroughly upset. He had told the woman over and over again that he suffered from cold feet and could not get to sleep unless the dogs were properly warmed up. He sprang out of bed and went to the head of the stairs.
" Mrs. Wardle ! " he cried.
There was no reply.
** Mrs. Wardle ! " bellowed Augustine in a voice that rattled the window-panes hke
a strong nor'-easter. Until to-night he had always been very much afraid of his housekeeper and had both walked and talked softly in her presence. But now he was conscious of a strange new fortitude. His head was singing a httle, and he felt equal to a dozen Mrs. Wardles.
Shuffling footsteps made themselves heard.
" Well, what is it now ? " asked a querulous voice.
Augustine snorted.
"I'll tell you what it is now," he roared. " How many times have I told you always to put a hot-water bottle in my bed ? You've forgotten it again, you old cloth-head ! "
Mrs. Wardle peered up, astounded and mihtant.
" Mr. Mulliner, I am not accustomed "
" Shut up! " thundered Augustine. ** What I want from you is less back-chat and more hot-water bottles. Bring it up at once, or I leave to-morrow. Let me endeavour to get it into your concrete skull that you ar
en't the only person letting rooms in this village. Any more Hp and I walk straight round the comer, where I'll be
appreciated. Hot-water bottle ho ! And look slippy about it."
" Yes, Mr. Mulliner. Certainly, Mr. Mulliner. In one moment, Mr. Mulliner."
" Action ! Action ! " boomed Augustine. " Show some speed. Put a little snap into it."
■' Yes, yes, most decidedly, Mr. Mulliner," repHed the chastened voice from below.
An hour later, as he was dropping off to sleep, a thought crept into Augustine's mind. Had he not been a little brusque with Mrs. Wardle ? Had there not been in his manner something a shade abrupt—almost rude ? Yes, he decided regretfully, there had. He lit a candle and reached for the diary which lay on the table at his bedside.
He made an entry.
The meek shall inherit the earth. Am I sufficiently meek ? I wonder. This evening, when reproaching Mrs. Wardle, my worthy housekeeper, for omitting to place a hot-water bottle in my bed, I spoke quite crossly. The provocation was severe, hut still I was surely to hlame for allowing my passions to rim riot. Mem : Must guard agst this.
But when he woke next morning, different feehngs prevailed. He took his ante-break-
fast dose of Buck-U-Uppo : and looking at the entry in the diary, could scarcely beheve that it was he who had written it. " Quite cross ? " Of course he had been quite cross. Wouldn't anybody be quite cross who was for ever being persecuted by beetle-wits who forgot hot-water bottles ?
Erasing the words with one strong dash of a thick-leaded pencil, he scribbled in the margin a hasty " Mashed potatoes ! Served the old idiot right ! " and went down to breakfast.
He felt most amazingly fit. Undoubtedly, in asserting that this tonic of his acted forcefully upon the red corpuscles, Ms Uncle Wilfred had been right. Until that moment Augustine had never supposed that he had any red corpuscles ; but now, as he sat waiting for Mrs. Wardle to bring him his fried egg, he could feel them dancing about all over him. They seemed to be forming rowdy parties and sliding down his spine. His eyes sparkled, and from sheer joy of hving he sang a few bars from the hymn for those of riper years at sea.
He was still singing when Mrs. Wardle entered with a dish.
" What's this ? " demanded Augustine, eyeing it dangerously.