‘I’ve just been talking to Mr Plimsoll, Jeeves, and everything is straight now. He bids me lose no time in establishing contact with a medico of the name of E. Jimpson Murgatroyd. He says if I want a sunny practitioner who will prod me in the ribs with his stethoscope and tell me an anecdote about two Irishmen named Pat and Mike and then another about two Scotsmen named Mac and Sandy, E. Jimpson is not my man, but if what I’m after is someone to cure my spots, he unquestionably is, as he knows his spots from A to Z and has been treating them since he was so high. It seems that Tipton had the same trouble not long ago and Murgatroyd fixed him up in no time. So while I am getting out of these clothes into something more spectacular will you give him a buzz and make an appointment.’
When I had doffed the sweater and flannels in which I had breakfasted, Jeeves informed me that E. Jimpson could see me at eleven, and I thanked him and asked him to tell the garage to send the car round at ten-forty-five.
‘Somewhat earlier than that, sir,’ he said, ‘if I might make the suggestion. The traffic. Would it not be better to take a cab?’
‘No, and I’ll tell you why. After I’ve seen the doc, I thought I might drive down to Brighton and get a spot of sea air. I don’t suppose the traffic will be any worse than usual, will it?’
‘I fear so, sir. A protest march is taking place this morning.’
‘What, again? They seem to have them every hour on the hour these days, don’t they?’
‘They are certainly not infrequent, sir.’
‘Any idea what they’re protesting about?’
‘I could not say, sir. It might be one thing or it might be another. Men are suspicious, prone to discontent. Subjects still loathe the present Government.’
‘The poet Nash?’
‘No, sir. The poet Herrick.’
‘Pretty bitter.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I wonder what they had done to him to stir him up like that. Probably fined him five quid for failing to abate a smoky chimney.’
‘As to that I have no information, sir.’
Seated in the old sports model some minutes later and driving to keep my tryst with E. Jimpson Murgatroyd, I was feeling singularly lighthearted for a man with spots on his chest. It was a beautiful morning, and it wouldn’t have taken much to make me sing Tra-la as I bowled along. Then I came abaft of the protest march and found myself becalmed. I leaned back and sat observing the proceedings with a kindly eye.
2
* * *
WHATEVER THESE BIMBOS were protesting about, it was obviously something they were taking to heart rather. By the time I had got into their midst not a few of them had decided that animal cries were insufficient to meet the case and were saying it with bottles and brickbats, and the police who were present in considerable numbers seemed not to be liking it much. It must be rotten being a policeman on these occasions. Anyone who has got a bottle can throw it at you, but if you throw it back, the yell of police brutality goes up and there are editorials in the papers next day.
But the mildest cop can stand only so much, and it seemed to me, for I am pretty shrewd in these matters, that in about another shake of a duck’s tail hell’s foundations would be starting to quiver. I hoped nobody would scratch my paint.
Leading the procession, I saw with surprise, was a girl I knew. In fact, I had once asked her to marry me. Her name was Vanessa Cook, and I had met her at a cocktail party, and such was her radiant beauty that it was only a couple of minutes after I had brought her a martini and one of those little sausages on sticks that I was saying to myself, ‘Bertram, this is a good thing. Push it along.’ And in due season I suggested a merger. But apparently I was not the type, and no business resulted.
This naturally jarred the Wooster soul a good deal at the moment, but reviewing the dead past now I could see that my guardian angel had been on the job all right and had known what was good for me. I mean, radiant beauty is all very well, but it isn’t everything. What sort of a married life would I have had with the little woman perpetually going on protest marches and expecting me to be at her side throwing bottles at the constabulary? It made me shudder to think what I might have let myself in for if I had been a shade more fascinating. Taught me a lesson, that did – viz. never to lose faith in your guardian angel, because these guardian angels are no fools.
Vanessa Cook was accompanied by a beefy bloke without a hat in whom I recognized another old acquaintance, O. J. (Orlo) Porter to wit, who had been on the same staircase with me at Oxford. Except for borrowing an occasional cup of sugar from one another and hulloing when we met on the stairs we had never been really close, he being a prominent figure at the Union, where I was told he made fiery far-to-the-left speeches, while I was more the sort that is content just to exist beautifully.
Nor did we get together in our hours of recreation, for his idea of a good time was to go off with a pair of binoculars and watch birds, a thing that has never appealed to me. I can’t see any percentage in it. If I meet a bird, I wave a friendly hand at it, to let it know that I wish it well, but I don’t want to crouch behind a bush observing its habits. So, as I say, Orlo Porter was in no sense a buddy of mine, but we had always got on all right and I still saw him every now and then.
Everybody at Oxford had predicted a pretty hot political future for him, but it hadn’t got started yet. He was now in the employment of the London and Home Counties Insurance Company and earned the daily b. by talking poor saps – I was one of them – into taking out policies for larger amounts than they would have preferred. Making fiery far-to-the-left speeches naturally fits a man for selling insurance, enabling him to find the mot juste and enlarging the vocabulary. I for one had been corn before his sickle, as the expression is.
The bottle-throwing had now reached the height of its fever and I was becoming more than ever nervous about my paint, when all of a sudden there occurred an incident which took my mind off that subject. The door of the car opened and what the papers call a well-nourished body, male, leaped in and took a seat beside me. Gave me a bit of a start, I don’t mind admitting, the Woosters not being accustomed to this sort of thing so soon after breakfast. I was about to ask to what I was indebted for the honour of this visit, when I saw that what I had drawn was Orlo Porter and I divined that after the front of the procession had passed from my view he must have said or done something which London’s police force could not overlook, making instant flight a must. His whole demeanour was that of the hart that pants for cooling streams when heated in the chase.
Well, you don’t get cooling streams in the middle of the metropolis, but there was something I could do to give his morale a shot in the arm. I directed his attention to the Drones Club scarf lying on the seat, at the same time handing him my hat. He put them on, and the rude disguise proved effective. Various rozzers came along, but they were looking for a man without a hat and he was definitely hatted, so they passed us by. Of course, I was bareheaded, but one look at me was enough to tell them that this polished boulevardier could not possibly be the dubious character they were after. And a few minutes later the crowd had melted.
‘Drive on, Wooster,’ said Orlo. ‘Get a move on, blast you.’
He spoke irritably, and I remembered that he had always been an irritable chap, as who would not have been, having to go through life with a name like Orlo and peddling insurance when he had hoped to electrify the House of Commons with his molten eloquence. I took no umbrage, accordingly, if umbrage is the thing you take when people start ordering you about, making allowances for his state of mind. I drove on, and he said ‘Phew’ and removed a bead of persp. from the brow.
I hardly knew what to do for the best. He was still panting like a hart, and some fellows when panting like harts enjoy telling you all about it, while others prefer a tactful silence. I decided to take a chance.
‘Spot of trouble?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘Often the way during these protest marches. What happened???
?
‘I socked a cop.’
I could see why he was a bit emotional. Socking cops is a thing that should be done sparingly, if at all. I resumed the quiz.
‘Any particular reason? Or did it just seem a good idea at the time?’
He gnashed a tooth or two. He was a red-headed chap, and my experience of the red-headed is that you can always expect high blood pressure from them in times of stress. The first Queen Elizabeth had red hair, and look what she did to Mary Queen of Scots.
‘He was arresting the woman I love.’
I could understand how this might well have annoyed him. I have loved a fair number of women in my time, though it always seems to wear off after a while, and I should probably have drained the bitter cup a bit if I had seen any of them pinched by the police.
‘What had she done?’
‘She was heading the procession with me and shouting a good deal as always happens on these occasions when the emotions of a generous girl are stirred. He told her to stop shouting. She said this was a free country and she was entitled to shout as much as she pleased. He said not if she was shouting the sort of things she was shouting, and she called him a Cossack and socked him. Then he arrested her, and I socked him.’
A pang of pity for the stricken officer passed through me. Orlo, as I have said, was well nourished, and Vanessa was one of those large girls who pack a hefty punch. A cop socked by both of them would have entertained no doubt as to his having been in a fight.
But this was not what was occupying my thoughts. At the words ‘she was heading the procession with me’ I had started visibly. It seemed to me that, coupled with that ‘woman I love’ stuff, they could mean only one thing.
‘Good Lord,’ I said. ‘Is Vanessa Cook the woman you love?’
‘She is.’
‘Nice girl,’ I said, for there is never any harm in giving the old salve. ‘And, of course, radiant-beauty-wise in the top ten.’
A moment later I was regretting that I had pitched it so strong, for the effect on Orlo was most unpleasant. His eyes bulged, at the same time flashing, as if he were on the verge of making a fiery far-to-the-left speech.
‘You know her?’ he said, and his voice was low and guttural, like that of a bull-dog which has attempted to swallow a chump chop and only got it down half-way.
I saw that I would do well to watch my step, for it was evident that what I have heard Jeeves call the green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on was beginning to feel the rush of life beneath its keel. You never know what may happen when the g.-e.m. takes over.
‘Slightly,’ I said. ‘Very slightly. We just met for a moment at some cocktail party or other.’
‘That was all?’
‘That was all.’
‘You were not – how shall I put it? – in any sense intimate?’
‘No, no. Simply on Good-morning-good-morning-lovely-morn-ing-is-it-not terms if I happened to run into her in the street.’
‘Nothing more?’
‘Nothing more.’
I had said the right thing. He went off the boil, and when he next spoke, it was without bull-dog and chump chop effects.
‘You call her a nice girl. That puts in a nutshell my own opinion of her.’
‘And she, I imagine, thinks highly of you?’
‘Correct.’
‘You’re engaged, possibly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Many happy returns.’
‘But we can’t get married because of her father.’
‘He objects?’
‘Strongly.’
‘But surely you don’t have to have Father’s consent in these enlightened days?’
A look of pain came into his face and he writhed like an electric fan. It was plain that my words had touched a sore s.
‘You do if he is trustee for your money and you don’t make enough at your job to marry on. My Uncle Joe left me enough to get married to twenty girls. He was Vanessa’s father’s partner in one of those big provision businesses. But I can’t touch it because he made old Cook my trustee, and Cook refuses to part.’
‘Why?’
‘He disapproves of my political views. He says he has no intention of encouraging any damned Communists.’
I think at this juncture I may have looked askance at him a bit. I hadn’t realized that that was what he was, and it rather shocked me, because I’m not any too keen on Communists. However, he was my guest, so to speak, so I merely said that that must have been unpleasant, and he said Yes, very unpleasant, adding that only Cook’s grey hairs had saved him from getting plugged in the eye, which shows that it’s not such a bad thing to let your hair go grey.
‘And in addition to disliking my political views he considers that I have led Vanessa astray. He has heard about her going on these protest marches, and he considers me responsible. But for me, he says, she would never have done such a thing, and that if she ever made herself conspicuous and got her name in the papers, she would come straight home and stay there. He has a big house in the country with a stable of racehorses, as he can well afford to after his years of grinding the faces of the widow and the orphan.’
I could have corrected him here, pointing out that you don’t grind people’s faces by selling them pressed beef and potato chips at a lower price than they would be charged elsewhere, but, as I say, he was my guest, so I refrained. I was conscious of a passing thought that Vanessa Cook would not be remaining long in London now that she had developed this habit of socking policemen, but I did not share this with Orlo Porter, not wishing to rub salt into the wound.
‘But let’s not talk about it any more,’ he said, closing the subject with a bang. ‘You can drop me anywhere round here. Thanks for the ride.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Harley Street, to see a doctor. I’ve got spots on my chest.’
The effect of this disclosure was rather remarkable. A keen go-getter look came into his face, and I could see that Orlo Porter the lover had been put in storage for the time being, his place taken by Orlo Porter the zealous employee of the London and Home Counties Insurance Company.
‘Spots?’ he said.
‘Pink,’ I said.
‘Pink spots,’ he said. ‘That’s serious. You’d better take out a policy with me.’
I reminded him that I had already done so. He shook his head.
‘Yes, yes, yes, but that was only for accidents. What you must have now is a life policy, and most fortunately,’ he said, drawing papers from his pocket like a conjuror taking rabbits from a hat, ‘I happen to have one on me. Sign here, Wooster,’ he said, this time producing a fountain pen.
And such was his magnetism that I signed there.
He registered approval.
‘You have done the wise thing, Wooster. Whatever the doctor may tell you when you see him, however brief your span of life, it will be a comfort to you to know that your widow and the little ones are provided for. Drop me here, Wooster.’
I dropped him, and drove on to Harley Street.
3
* * *
IN SPITE OF being held up by the protest march I was a bit early for my appointment, and was informed on arrival that the medicine man was tied up for the moment with another gentleman. I took a seat and was flitting idly through the pages of an Illustrated London News of the previous December when the door of E. Jimpson Murgatroyd’s private lair opened and there emerged an elderly character with one of those square, empire-building faces, much tanned as if he was accustomed to sitting out in the sun without his parasol. Seeing me, he drank me in for a while and then said ‘Hullo’, and conceive my emotion when I recognized him as Major Plank the explorer and Rugby football aficionado, whom I had last seen at his house in Gloucestershire when he was accusing me of trying to get five quid out of him under false pretences. A groundless charge, I need scarcely say, self being as pure as the driven snow, if not purer, but things had got a bi
t difficult and the betting was that they would become difficult now. I sat waiting for him to denounce me and was wondering what the harvest would be, when he spoke, to my astonishment, in the most bonhomous way, as if we were old buddies.
‘We’ve met before. I never forget a face. Isn’t your name Allen or Allenby or Alexander or something?’
‘Wooster,’ I said, relieved to the core. I had been anticipating a painful scene.
He clicked his tongue.
‘I could have sworn it was something beginning with Al. It’s this malaria of mine. Picked it up in Equatorial Africa, and it affects my memory. So you’ve changed your name, have you? Secret enemies after you?’
‘No, no secret enemies.’
‘That’s generally why one changes one’s name. I had to change mine that time I shot the chief of the ’Mgombis. In self-defence, of course, but that made no difference to his widows and surviving relatives who were looking for me. If they had caught me, they would have roasted me alive over a slow fire, which is a thing one always wants to avoid. But I baffled them. Plank was the man they were trying to contact, and it never occurred to them that somebody called George Bernard Shaw could be the chap they were after. They are not very bright in those parts. Well, Wooster, how have you been since we last met? Pretty bobbish?’
‘Oh, fine, thanks, except that I’ve got spots on my chest.’
‘Spots? That’s bad. How many?’
I said I had not actually taken a census, but there were quite a few, and he shook his head gravely.
‘Might be bubonic plague or possibly sprue or schistosomiasis. One of my native bearers got spots on his chest, and we buried him before sundown. Had to. Delicate fellows, these native bearers, though you wouldn’t think so to look at them. Catch everything that’s going around – sprue, bubonic plague, schistosomiasis, jungle fever, colds in the head – the lot. Well, Wooster, it’s been nice seeing you again. I would ask you to lunch, but I have a train to catch. I’m off to the country.’