Nothing Serious (23 page)

“Ha!”
said Lord Emsworth. He remembered how he had frequently scrambled eggs at
school.

But his
school days lay half a century behind him, and time in its march robs us of our
boyhood gifts. Since the era when he had worn Eton collars and ink spots on his
face, he had lost the knack, and it all too speedily became apparent that
Operation Eggs was not going to be the walkover he had anticipated. Came a
moment when he would have been hard put to it to say whether he was scrambling
the eggs or the eggs were scrambling him. And he had paused to clarify his
thoughts on this point, when there was a ring at the front door bell. Deeply
incrusted in yolk, he shuffled off to answer the summons.

A girl
was standing in the porch. He inspected her through his pince-nez with the
vacant stare on which the female members of his family had so often commented
adversely. She seemed to him, as he drank her slowly in, a nice sort of girl. A
man with a great many nieces who were always bursting in on him and
ballyragging him when he wanted to read his pig book, he had come to fear and
distrust the younger members of the opposite sex, but this one’s looks he liked
immediately. About her there was none of that haughty beauty and stormy emotion
in which his nieces specialized. She was small and friendly and companionable.

“Good
morning,” he said.

“Good
morning. Would you like a richly bound encyclopædia of Sport?”

“Not in
the least,” said Lord Emsworth cordially. “Can you scramble eggs?”

“Why,
sure.”

“Then
come in,” said Lord Emsworth. “Come in. And if you will excuse me leaving you,
I will go and change my clothes.”

Women
are admittedly wonderful. It did not take Lord Emsworth long to remove his best
suit, which he had been wearing in deference to the wishes of Freddie, who was
a purist on dress, and don the older and shabbier one which made him look like
a minor employee in some shady firm of private detectives. but, brief though
the interval had been, the girl had succeeded in bringing order out of chaos.
Not only had she quelled what had threatened to become an ugly revolt among the
eggs, but she had found bacon and coffee and produced toast. What was virtually
a banquet was set out in the living-room, and Lord Emsworth was about to square
his elbows and have at it, when he detected an omission.

“Where
is your plate?” he asked.

“Mine?”
The girl seemed surprised. “Am I in on this?”

“Most
certainly.”

“That’s
mighty nice of you. I’m starving.”

“These
eggs,” said Lord Emsworth some moments later speaking thickly through a
mouthful of them, “are delicious Salt?”

“Thanks.”

“Pepper?
Mustard? Tell me,” said Lord Emsworth, for it was a matter that had been
perplexing him a good deal, “why do you go about the countryside offering
people richly bound encyclopædias of Sport? Deuced civil of you, of course,”
he added hastily, lest she might think that he was criticizing, “but why do you?”

“I’m
selling them.”

“Selling
them?”

“Yes.”

A
bright light shone upon Lord Emsworth. It had been well said of him that he had
an I.Q. some thirty points lower than that of a not too agile-minded
jelly-fish, but he had grasped her point. She was selling them.

“Of
course, yes. Quite. I see what you mean. You’re
selling
them.”

“That’s
right. They set you back five dollars and I get forty per cent. Only I don’t.”

“Why
not?”

“Because
people won’t buy them.”

“No?”

“No,
sir.”

“Don’t
people want richly bound encyclopædias of Sport?”

“If
they do, they keep it from me.”

“Dear,
dear.” Lord Emsworth swallowed a piece of bacon emotionally. His heart was
bleeding for this poor child. “That must be trying for you.”

“It is.”

“But
why do you have to sell the bally things?”

“Well,
it’s like this. I’m going to have a baby.”

“Good
God!”

“Oh,
not immediately. Next January. Well, that sort of thing costs money. Am I right
or wrong?”

“Right,
most decidedly,” said Lord Emsworth, who had never been a young mother himself
but knew the ropes. “I remember my poor wife complaining of the expense when my
son Frederick was born. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,’ I remember her saying. She
was alive at the time,” explained Lord Emsworth.

“Ed.
works in a garage.”

“Does
he? I don’t think I have met him. Who is Ed?”

“My
husband.”

“Oh,
your husband? You mean your husband. Works in a garage, does he?”

That’s
right. And the take-home pay doesn’t leave much over for extras.”

“Like
babies?”

“Like
babies. So I got this job. I didn’t tell Ed., of course. He’d have a fit.”

“He is
subject to fits?”

“He
wants me to lie down and rest.”

“I
think he’s right.”

“Oh, he’s
right, all right, but how can I? I’ve got to hustle out and sell richly bound
encyclopædias.”

“Of
Sport?”

“Of
Sport. And it’s tough going. You do become discouraged. Besides getting
blisters on the feet. I wish you could see my feet right now.”

On the
point of saying that he would be delighted, Lord Emsworth paused. He had had a
bright idea and it had taken his breath away. This always happened when he had
bright ideas. He had had one in the Spring of 1921 and another in the Summer of
1933, and those had taken his breath away, too.

“I will
sell your richly bound encyclopædias of Sport,” he said.

“You?”

The
bright idea which had taken Lord Emsworth’s breath away was that if he went out
and sold richly bound encyclopædias of Sport, admitted by all the cognoscenti
to be very difficult to dispose of, it would rid him once and for all of the
inferiority complex which so oppressed him when in the society of his son
Freddie. The brassiest of young men cannot pull that Spirit of Modern Commerce
stuff on a father if the father is practically a Spirit of Modern Commerce
himself.

“Precisely,”
he said.

“But
you couldn’t.”

Lord
Emsworth bridled. A wave of confidence and self-reliance was surging through
him.

“Who
says I couldn’t? My son Frederick sells things, and I resent the suggestion
that I am incapable of doing anything that Frederick can do.” He wondered if it
would be possible to explain to her what a turnip-headed young ass Frederick
was, then gave up the attempt as hopeless. “Leave this to me,” he said. “Lie
down on that sofa and get a nice rest.”

“But “

“Don’t
argue,” said Lord Emsworth dangerously, becoming the dominant male. “Lie down
on that sofa.”

Two
minutes later, he was making his way down the road, still awash with that wave
of confidence and self-reliance. His objective was the large white house where
the flowers were. He was remembering what Freddie had said about its owner. The
man, according to Freddie, threw parties and entertained blondes in his wife’s
absence. And while we may look askance from the moral standpoint at one who
does this, we have to admit that it suggests the possession of sporting blood.
That reckless, raffish type probably buys its encyclopædias of Sport by the
gross.

But one
of the things that make life so difficult is that waves of confidence and
self-reliance do not last. They surge, but they recede, leaving us with dubious
minds and cooling feet. Lord Emsworth had started out in uplifted mood, but as
he reached the gate of the white house the glow began to fade.

It was
not that he had forgotten the technique of the thing. Freddie had explained it
too often for him to do that. You rapped on the door. You said “I wonder if I
could interest you in a good dog biscuit?” And then by sheer personal magnetism
you cast a spell on the householder so that he became wax in your hands. All
perfectly simple and straightforward. And yet, having opened the gate and
advanced a few feet into the driveway, Lord Emsworth paused. He removed his pince-nez,
polished them, replaced them on his nose, blinked, swallowed once or twice and
ran a finger over his chin. The first fine frenzy had abated. He was feeling
like a nervous man who in an impulsive moment has volunteered to go over
Niagara Falls in a barrel.

He was
still standing in the driveway, letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would”, as
cats do in adages, when the air became full of tooting horns and grinding
brakes and screaming voices.

“God
bless my soul,” said Lord Emsworth, coming out of his coma.

The car
which had so nearly caused a vacancy in the House of Lords was bursting with
blondes. There was a blonde at the wheel, another at her side, further blondes
in the rear seats and on the lap of the blonde beside the blonde at the wheel a
blonde Pekinese dog. They were all shouting, and the Pekinese dog was hurling
abuse in Chinese.

“God
bless my soul,” said Lord Emsworth. “I beg your pardon. I really must
apologize. I was plunged in thought.”

“Oh,
was that what you were plunged in?” said the blonde at the wheel, mollified by
his suavity. Speak civilly to blondes, and they will speak civilly to you.

“I was
thinking of dog biscuits. Of dog biscuits. Of… er… in short … dog
biscuits. I wonder,” said Lord Emsworth, striking while the iron was hot, “if I
could interest you in a good dog biscuit?”

The
blonde at the wheel weighed the question.

“Not
me,” she said. “I never touch ‘em.”

“Nor
me,” said a blonde at the back. “Doctor’s orders.”

“And if
you’re thinking of making a quick sale to Eisenhower here,” said the blonde
beside the driver, kissing the Pekinese on the tip of its nose, a feat of
daring at which Lord Emsworth marvelled, “he only eats chicken.”

Lord
Emsworth corrected himself.

“When I
said dog biscuit,” he explained, “I meant a richly bound encyclopædia of Sport.”

The
blondes exchanged glances.

“Look,”
said the one at the wheel. “If you don’t know the difference between a dog
biscuit and a richly bound encyclopædia of Sport, seems to me you’d be doing
better in some other lie of business.”

“Much
better,” said the blonde beside her.

“A
whole lot better,” agreed the blonde at the back.

“No
future in it, the way you’re going,” said the blonde at the wheel, summing up. “That’s
the first thing you want to get straight on, the difference between dog
biscuits and richly bound encyclopædias of Sport. It’s a thing that’s cropping
up all the time. There
is
a difference. I couldn’t explain it to you
offhand, but you go off into a corner somewheres and mull it over quietly and
you’ll find it’ll suddenly come to you.”

“Like a
flash,” said the blonde at the back.

“Like a
stroke of lightning or sump’n,” assented the blonde at the wheel. “You’ll be
amazed how you ever came to mix them up. Well, good-bye. Been nice seeing you.”

The car
moved on toward the house, and Lord Emsworth, closing his burning ears to the
happy laughter proceeding from its interior, tottered out into the road. His
spirit was broken. It was his intention to return home and stay there. And he
had started on his way when there came stealing into his mind a disturbing
thought.

That
girl. That nice young Mrs Ed. who was going to have a fit in January … or,
rather, a baby. (It was her husband, he recalled, who had the fits.) She was
staking everything on his salesmanship. Could he fail her? Could he betray her
simple trust?

The
obvious answer was “Yes, certainly”, but the inherited chivalry of a long lie
of ancestors, all of whom had been noted for doing the square thing by damsels
in distress, caused Lord Emsworth to shrink from making it. In the old days when
knighthood was in flower and somebody was needed to rescue a suffering female
from a dragon or a two-headed giant, the cry was always “Let Emsworth do it!”,
and the Emsworth of the period had donned his suit of mail, stropped his sword,
parked his chewing gum under the round table and snapped into it. A pretty
state of things if the twentieth century holder of the name were to allow
himself to be intimidated by blondes.

Blushing
hotly, Lord Emsworth turned and made for the gate again.

In the
living-room of the white house, cool in the shade of the tree which stood
outside its window, there had begun to burgeon one of those regrettable
neo-Babylonian orgies which are so frequent when blondes and men who are
something in the lumber business get together. Cocktails were circulating, and
the blonde who had been at the wheel of the car was being the life and soul of
the party with her imitation of the man outside who had been unable to get
himself straightened out in the matter of dog biscuits and richly bound
encyclopædias. Her “Lord Ems-worth” was a nice bit of impressionistic work,
clever but not flattering.