‘But why the beard?’
‘Well, she had told me all about her father on the bus, and I saw that to get any footing at all in the home I should have to join these Red Dawn blighters; and naturally, if I was to make speeches in the park, where at any moment I might run into a dozen people I knew, something in the nature of a disguise was indicated. So I bought the beard, and, by Jove, old boy, I’ve become dashed attached to the thing. When I take it off to come in here, for instance, I feel absolutely nude. It’s done me a lot of good with old Rowbotham. He thinks I’m a Bolshevist of sorts who has to go about disguised because of the police. You really must meet old Rowbotham, Bertie. I tell you what, are you doing anything tomorrow afternoon?’
‘Nothing special. Why?’
‘Good! Then you can have us all to tea at your flat. I had promised to take the crowd to Lyons’ Popular Café after a meeting we’re holding down in Lambeth, but I can save money this way; and, believe me, laddie, nowadays, as far as I’m concerned, a penny saved is a penny earned. My uncle told you he’d got married?’
‘Yes. And he said there was a coolness between you.’
‘Coolness? I’m down to zero. Ever since he married he’s been launching out in every direction and economizing on me. I suppose that peerage cost the old devil the deuce of a sum. Even baronetcies have gone up frightfully nowadays, I’m told. And he’s started a racing-stable. By the way, put your last collar stud on Ocean Breeze for the Goodwood Cup. It’s a cert.’
‘I’m going to.’
‘It can’t lose. I mean to win enough on it to marry Charlotte with. You’re going to Goodwood, of course?’
‘Rather!’
‘So are we. We’re holding a meeting on Cup day just outside the paddock.’
‘But, I say, aren’t you taking frightful risks? Your uncle’s sure to be at Goodwood. Suppose he spots you? He’ll be fed to the gills if he finds out that you’re the fellow who ragged him in the park.’
‘How the deuce is he to find out? Use your intelligence, you prowling inhaler of red corpuscles. If he didn’t spot me yesterday, why should he spot me at Goodwood? Well, thanks for your cordial invitation for tomorrow, old thing. We shall be delighted to accept. Do us well, laddie, and blessings shall reward you. By the way, I may have misled you by using the word “tea”. None of your wafer slices of bread-and-butter. We’re good trenchermen, we of the Revolution. What we shall require will be something on the order of scrambled eggs, muffins, jam, ham, cake and sardines. Expect us at five sharp.’
‘But, I say, I’m not quite sure –’
‘Yes, you are. Silly ass, don’t you see that this is going to do you a bit of good when the Revolution breaks loose? When you see old Rowbotham sprinting up Piccadilly with a dripping knife in each hand, you’ll be jolly thankful to be able to remind him that he once ate your tea and shrimps. There will be four of us Charlotte, self, the old man, and Comrade Butt. I suppose he will insist on coming along.’
‘Who the devil’s Comrade Butt?’
‘Did you notice a fellow standing on my left in our little troupe yesterday? Small, shrivelled chap. Looks like a haddock with lung-trouble. That’s Butt. My rival, dash him. He’s sort of semi-engaged to Charlotte at the moment. Till I came along he was the blue-eyed boy. He’s got a voice like a foghorn, and old Rowbotham thinks a lot of him. But, hang it, if I can’t thoroughly encompass this Butt and cut him out and put him where he belongs among the discards – well, I’m not the man I was, that’s all. He may have a big voice, but he hasn’t my gift of expression. Thank heaven I was once cox of my college boat. Well, I must be pushing now. I say, you don’t know how I could raise fifty quid somehow, do you?’
‘Why don’t you work?’
‘Work?’ said young Bingo, surprised. ‘What, me? No, I shall have to think of some way. I must put at least fifty on Ocean Breeze. Well, see you tomorrow. God bless you, old sort, and don’t forget the muffins.’
I don’t know why, ever since I first knew him at school, I should have felt a rummy feeling of responsibility for young Bingo. I mean to say, he’s not my son (thank goodness) or my brother or anything like that. He’s got absolutely no claim on me at all, and yet a large-sized chunk of my existence seems to be spent in fussing over him like a bally old hen and hauling him out of the soup. I suppose it must be some rare beauty in my nature or something. At any rate, this latest affair of his worried me. He seemed to be doing his best to marry into a family of pronounced loonies, and how the deuce he thought he was going to support even a mentally afflicted wife on nothing a year beat me. Old Bittlesham was bound to knock off his allowance if he did anything of the sort and, with a fellow like young Bingo, if you knocked off his allowance, you might just as well hit him on the head with an axe and make a clean job of it.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, when I got home, ‘I’m worried.’
‘Sir?’
‘About Mr Little. I won’t tell you about it now, because he’s bringing some friends of his to tea tomorrow, and then you will be able to judge for yourself. I want you to observe closely, Jeeves, and form your decision.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘And about the tea. Get in some muffins.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And some jam, ham, cake, scrambled eggs, and five or six wagon-loads of sardines.’
‘Sardines, sir?’ said Jeeves, with a shudder.
‘Sardines.’
There was an awkward pause.
‘Don’t blame me, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘It isn’t my fault.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, that’s that.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I could see the man was brooding tensely.
I’ve found, as a general rule in life, that the things you think are going to be the scaliest nearly always turn out not so bad after all; but it wasn’t that way with Bingo’s tea-party. From the moment he invited himself I felt that the thing was going to be blue round the edges, and it was. And I think the most gruesome part of the whole affair was the fact that, for the first time since I’d known him, I saw Jeeves come very near to being rattled. I suppose there’s a chink in everyone’s armour, and young Bingo found Jeeves’s right at the drop of the flag when he breezed in with six inches or so of brown beard hanging on to his chin. I had forgotten to warn Jeeves about the beard, and it came on him absolutely out of a blue sky. I saw the man’s jaw drop, and he clutched at the table for support. I don’t blame him, mind you. Few people have ever looked fouler than young Bingo in the fungus. Jeeves paled a little; then the weakness passed and he was himself again. But I could see that he had been shaken.
Young Bingo was too busy introducing the mob to take much notice. They were a very C3 collection. Comrade Butt looked like one of the things that come out of dead trees after the rain; moth-eaten was the word I should have used to describe old Rowbotham; and as for Charlotte, she seemed to take me straight into another and a dreadful world. It wasn’t that she was exactly bad-looking. In fact, if she had knocked off starchy foods and done Swedish exercises for a bit, she might have been quite tolerable. But there was too much of her. Billowy curves. Well-nourished, perhaps, expresses it best. And, while she may have had a heart of gold, the thing you noticed about her first was that she had a tooth of gold. I know that young Bingo, when in form, could fall in love with practically anything of the other sex; but this time I couldn’t see any excuse for him at all.
‘My friend, Mr Wooster,’ said Bingo, completing the ceremonial.
Old Rowbotham looked at me and then he looked round the room, and I could see he wasn’t particularly braced. There’s nothing of absolutely Oriental luxury about the old flat, but I have managed to make myself fairly comfortable, and I suppose the surroundings jarred him a bit.
‘Mr Wooster?’ said old Rowbotham. ‘May I say Comrade Wooster?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Are you of the movement?’
‘Well – er –’
?
??Do you yearn for the Revolution?’
‘Well, I don’t know that I exactly yearn. I mean to say, as far as I can make out, the whole hub of the scheme seems to be to massacre coves like me; and I don’t mind owning I’m not frightfully keen on the idea.’
‘But I’m talking him round,’ said Bingo. ‘I’m wrestling with him. A few more treatments ought to do the trick.’
Old Rowbotham looked at me a bit doubtfully.
‘Comrade Little has great eloquence,’ he admitted.
‘I think he talks something wonderful,’ said the girl, and young Bingo shot a glance of such succulent devotion at her that I reeled in my tracks. It seemed to depress Comrade Butt a good deal too. He scowled at the carpet and said something about dancing on volcanoes.
‘Tea is served, sir,’ said Jeeves.
‘Tea, Pa!’ said Charlotte, starting at the word like the old war-horse who hears the bugle; and we got down to it.
Funny how one changes as the years roll on. At school, I remember, I would cheerfully have sold my soul for scrambled eggs and sardines at five in the afternoon; but somehow, since reaching man’s estate, I had rather dropped out of the habit; and I’m bound to admit I was appalled to a goodish extent at the way the sons and daughter of the Revolution shoved their heads down and went for the foodstuffs. Even Comrade Butt cast off his gloom for a space and immersed his whole being in scrambled eggs, only coming to the surface at intervals to grab another cup of tea. Presently the hot water gave out, and I turned to Jeeves.
‘More hot water.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Hey! What’s this? What’s this?’ Old Rowbotham had lowered his cup and was eyeing us sternly. He tapped Jeeves on the shoulder. ‘No servility, my lad; no servility!’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘Don’t call me “sir.” Call me Comrade. Do you know what you are, my lad? You’re an absolute relic of an exploded feudal system.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘If there’s one thing that makes my blood boil in my veins –’
‘Have another sardine,’ chipped in young Bingo – the first sensible thing he’d done since I had known him. Old Rowbotham took three and dropped the subject, and Jeeves drifted away. I could see by the look of his back what he felt.
At last, just as I was beginning to feel that it was going on for ever, the thing finished. I woke up to find the party getting ready to leave.
Sardines and about three quarters of tea had mellowed old Rowbotham. There was quite a genial look in his eye as he shook my hand.
‘I must thank you for your hospitality, Comrade Wooster,’ he said.
‘Oh, not at all! Only too glad –’
‘Hospitality?’ snorted the man Butt, going off in my ear like a depth-charge. He was scowling in a morose sort of manner at young Bingo and the girl, who were giggling together by the window. ‘I wonder the food didn’t turn to ashes in our mouths! Eggs! Muffins! Sardines! All wrung from the bleeding lips of the starving poor!’
‘Oh, I say! What a beastly idea!’
‘I will send you some literature on the subject of the Cause,’ said old Rowbotham. ‘And soon, I hope, we shall see you at one of our little meetings.’
Jeeves came in to clear away, and found me sitting among the ruins. It was all very well for Comrade Butt to knock the food, but he had pretty well finished the ham; and if you had shoved the remainder of the jam into the bleeding lips of the starving poor it would hardly have made them sticky.
‘Well, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘how about it?’
‘I would prefer to express no opinion, sir.’
‘Jeeves, Mr Little is in love with that female.’
‘So I gathered, sir. She was slapping him in the passage.’
I clutched my brow.
‘Slapping him?’
‘Yes, sir. Roguishly.’
‘Great Scott! I didn’t know it had got as far as that. How did Comrade Butt seem to be taking it? Or perhaps he didn’t see?’
‘Yes, sir, he observed the entire proceedings. He struck me as extremely jealous.’
‘I don’t blame him. Jeeves, what are we to do?’
‘I could not say, sir.’
‘It’s a bit thick.’
‘Very much so, sir.’
And that was all the consolation I got from Jeeves.
12
* * *
Bingo has a Bad Goodwood
I HAD PROMISED to meet young Bingo next day, to tell him what I thought of his infernal Charlotte, and I was mooching slowly up St James’s Street, trying to think how the dickens I could explain to him, without hurting his feelings, that I considered her one of the world’s foulest, when who should come toddling out of the Devonshire Club but old Bittlesham and Bingo himself. I hurried on and overtook them.
‘What ho!’ I said.
The result of this simple greeting was a bit of a shock. Old Bittlesham quivered from head to foot like a poleaxed blancmange. His eyes were popping and his face had gone sort of greenish.
‘Mr Wooster!’ He seemed to recover somewhat, as if I wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to him. ‘You gave me a severe start.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
‘My uncle,’ said young Bingo in a hushed, bedside sort of voice, ‘isn’t feeling quite himself this morning. He’s had a threatening letter.’
‘I go in fear of my life,’ said old Bittlesham.
‘Threatening letter?’
‘Written,’ said old Bittlesham, ‘in an uneducated hand and couched in terms of uncompromising menaces. Mr Wooster, do you recall a sinister, bearded man who assailed me in no measured terms in Hyde Park last Sunday?’
I jumped, and shot a look at young Bingo. The only expression on his face was one of grave, kindly concern.
‘Why – ah – yes,’ I said. ‘Bearded man. Chap with a beard.’
‘Could you identify him, if necessary?’
‘Well, I – er – how do you mean?’
‘The fact is, Bertie,’ said Bingo, ‘we think this man with the beard is at the bottom of all this business. I happened to be walking late last night through Pounceby Gardens, where Uncle Mortimer lives, and as I was passing the house a fellow came hurrying down the steps in a furtive sort of way. Probably he had just been shoving the letter in at the front door. I noticed that he had a beard. I didn’t think any more of it, however, until this morning, when Uncle Mortimer showed me the letter he had received and told me about the chap in the park. I’m going to make inquiries.’
‘The police should be informed,’ said Lord Bittlesham.
‘No,’ said young Bingo firmly, ‘not at this stage of the proceedings. It would hamper me. Don’t you worry, Uncle; I think I can track this fellow down. You leave it all to me. I’ll pop you into a taxi now, and go and talk it over with Bertie.’
‘You’re a good boy, Richard,’ said old Bittlesham, and we put him in a passing cab and pushed off. I turned and looked young Bingo squarely in the eyeball.
‘Did you send that letter?’ I said.
‘Rather! You ought to have seen it, Bertie! One of the best gent’s ordinary threatening letters I ever wrote.’
‘But where’s the sense of it?’
‘Bertie, my lad,’ said Bingo, taking me earnestly by the coat-sleeve, ‘I had an excellent reason. Posterity may say of me what it will, but one thing it can never say – that I have not a good solid business head. Look here!’ He waved a bit of paper in front of my eyes.
‘Great Scott!’ It was a cheque – an absolute, dashed cheque for fifty of the best, signed Bittlesham, and made out to the order of R. Little.
‘What’s that for?’
‘Expenses,’ said Bingo, pouching it. ‘You don’t suppose an investigation like this can be carried on for nothing, do you! I now proceed to the bank and startle them into a fit with it. Later I edge round to my bookie and put the entire sum on Ocean Breeze. What you want in situations of this kind, Bertie, is tact.
If I had gone to my uncle and asked him for fifty quid, would I have got it? No! But by exercising tact – Oh! by the way, what do you think of Charlotte?’
‘Well – er –’
Young Bingo massaged my sleeve affectionately.
‘I know, old man, I know. Don’t try to find words. She bowled you over, eh? Left you speechless, what? I know! That’s the effect she has on everybody. Well, I leave you here, laddie. Oh, before we part – Butt! What of Butt? Nature’s worst blunder, don’t you think?’
‘I must say I’ve seen cheerier souls.’
‘I think I’ve got him licked, Bertie. Charlotte is coming to the Zoo with me this afternoon. Alone. And later on to the pictures. That looks like the beginning of the end, what? Well, toodle-oo, friend of my youth. If you’ve nothing better to do this morning, you might take a stroll along Bond Street and be picking out a wedding present.’
I lost sight of Bingo after that. I left messages a couple of times at the club, asking him to ring me up, but they didn’t have any effect. I took it that he was too busy to respond. The Sons of the Red Dawn also passed out of my life, though Jeeves told me he had met Comrade Butt one evening and had a brief chat with him. He reported Butt as gloomier than ever. In the competition for the bulging Charlotte, Butt had apparently gone right back in the betting.
‘Mr Little would appear to have eclipsed him entirely, sir,’ said Jeeves.
‘Bad news, Jeeves; bad news.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I suppose what it amounts to, Jeeves, is that, when young Bingo really takes his coat off and starts in, there is no power of God or man that can prevent him making a chump of himself.’
‘It would seem so, sir,’ said Jeeves.
Then Goodwood came along, and I dug out the best suit and popped down.
I never know, when I’m telling a story, whether to cut the thing down to plain facts or whether to drool on and shove in a lot of atmosphere, and all that. I mean, many a cove would no doubt edge into the final spasm of this narrative with a long description of Goodwood, featuring the blue sky, the rolling prospect, the joyous crowds of pickpockets, and the parties of the second part who were having the pockets picked, and – in a word, what not. But better give it a miss, I think. Even if I wanted to go into details about the bally meeting I don’t think I’d have the heart to. The thing’s too recent. The anguish hasn’t had time to pass. You see, what happened was that Ocean Breeze (curse him!) finished absolutely nowhere for the Cup. Believe me, nowhere.