Plum Pie (16 page)

Finally he gave up the struggle. Replacing the machine, he flung himself into his chair and with his head in his hands uttered a hollow groan. And as he did so, he got the impression that there was a curious echo in the room, but looking up he saw that he had been in error in attributing this to the acoustics. There had been two groans in all, and the second one had proceeded from the lips of H. C. Purkiss. The proprietor of
Wee Tots
was standing in the doorway of his private office, propping himself against the woodwork with an outstretched hand, and it was obvious at a glance that he was not the' suave dapper H. C. Purkiss of yesterday. There were dark circles under his eyes, and those eyes could have stepped straight on to any breakfast plate and passed without comment as poached eggs. His nervous system, too, was plainly far from being in midseason form, for when one of the local sparrows, perching on the window sill, uttered a sudden cheep
,
he quivered in every limb and made what looked to Bingo like a spirited attempt to lower the European record for the standing high jump.

"Ah, Mr. Little," he said huskily. "Busy at work, I see. Good, good. Is there anything of interest in the morning post bag?"

"Mostly the usual gibbering," said Bingo. "Amazing how many of our young subscribers seem to have softening of the brain. There is a letter from Wilfred Waterson (aged seven) about his parrot Percy which would serve him as a passport into any but the most choosy lunatic asylum. He seems to think it miraculous that the bird should invite visitors to have a nut, as if that wasn't the first conversational opening every parrot makes."

Mr. Purkiss took a more tolerant view.

"I see your point, Mr. Little, but we must not expect old heads on young shoulders. And speaking of heads," he went on, quivering like an Ouled Nail stomach dancer, "I wonder if you could oblige me with a couple of aspirins? Or a glass of tomato
juice with a drop of Worcester sauce in it would do. You have none? Too bad. It might have brought a certain relief."

Illumination flashed upon Bingo. If an editor's respect for his proprietor had been less firmly established, it might have flashed sooner.

"Good Lord! " he cried. "Were you on a toot last night?" Mr. Purkiss waved a deprecating hand, nearly overbalancing in the process.

"Toot is a harsh word, Mr. Little. I confess that in Mrs. Purkiss's absence I attempted to alleviate my loneliness by joining a group of friends who wished to play poker. It was a lengthy session, concluding only an hour ago, and it is possible that in the course of the evening I may have exceeded—slightly —my customary intake of alcoholic refreshment. It seemed to be expected of me, and I did not like to refuse. But when you use the word 'toot'..."

Bingo had no wish to be severe, but except when throwing together stories to tell Mrs. Bingo he liked accuracy.

"It sounds like a toot to me," he said. "The facts all go to show that..."

He broke off. An idea of amazing brilliance had struck him. Twenty-four hours ago he would never have had the moral courage to suggest such a thing, but now that H. C. Purkiss had shown himself to be one of the boys—poker parties in the home and all that—he was convinced that if he, Bingo, begged him, Purkiss, to say that he, Bingo, had been with him, Purkiss, last night, he, Purkiss, would not have the inhumanity to deny him, Bingo, a little favour which would cost him, Purkiss, nothing and would put him, Bingo, on velvet. For Mrs. Bingo would not dream of disbelieving a statement from such a source. And he had just opened his lips to speak, when Mr. Purkiss resumed his remarks.

"Perhaps you are right, Mr. Little. Quite possibly toot may be the
mot-juste.
But however we describe the episode, one thing is certain, it has placed me in a position of the gravest peril. The party—'party' is surely a nicer word—took place at the house of one of the friends I was mentioning, and I am informed by my maidservant that Mrs. Purkiss made no fewer than five attempts to reach me on the telephone last night—at 10.30 p.m., at 11.15 p.m., shortly after midnight, at
2
a.m. and again at 4.20 p.m., and I greatly fear..."

"You mean you were away from home all
night
!"

"Alas, Mr. Little, I was."

Bingo's heart sank. He would have reeled beneath the shock, had he not been seated. This was the end. This put the frosting on the cake. Impossible now to assure Mrs. Bingo that he had been with Mr. Purkiss during the hours he had spent in his Bosher Street cell. So poignant was his anguish that he uttered a piercing cry, and Mr. Purkiss rose into the air, dislodging some plaster from the ceiling with the top of his head.

"So," the stricken man went on, having returned to terra firma, "I should be infinitely grateful to you, Mr. Little, if you would vouch for it that I was with you till an advanced hour at your home. It would, indeed, do no harm if you were to tell Mrs. Purkiss that we sat up so long discussing matters of office policy that you allowed me to spend the night in your spare room."

Bingo drew a deep breath. It has been sufficiently established that the proprietor of
Wee Tots
was not as of even date easy on the eye, but to him he seemed a lovely spectacle. He could not have gazed on him with more appreciation if he had been the Taj Mahal by moonlight.

His manner, however, was austere. A voice had seemed to whisper in his ear that this was where, if he played his cards right, he could do himself a bit of good. There was, so he had learned from a reliable source, a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.

He frowned, at the same time pursing his lips.

"Am I to understand, Purkiss, that you are asking me to tell a deliberate falsehood?"

"You would be doing me a great kindness."

In order to speak, Bingo had been obliged to unpurse his lips, but he still frowned.

"I'm not sure," he said coldly, "that I feel like doing you kindnesses. Yesterday I asked you for a raise of salary and you curtly refused."

"Not curtly. Surely not curtly, Mr. Little."

"Well, fairly curtly."

"Yes, I remember. But I have given the matter thought, and I am now prepared to increase your stipend by—shall we say ten pounds a month?"

"Make it fifty."

"Fifty!"

"Well, call it forty."

"You would not consider thirty?"

"Certainly not."

"Very well."

"You agree?"

"I do."

The telephone rang.

"Ah," said Bingo. "That is probably my wife again. Hullo?"

Bingo?"

"Oh, hullo, moon of my delight. What became of you when we were talking before? Why, did you buzz off like a jack rabbit?"

"I had to go and look after Mrs. Purkiss."

"Something wrong with her?"

"She was distracted because Mr. Purkiss was not at home all night."

Bingo laughed a jolly laugh.

"Of course he wasn't. He was with me."

"What!"

"Certainly. We had office matters to discuss, and I took him home with me. We sat up so long that I put him up in the spare room. He spent the night there."

There was a long silence at the other end of the wire. Then Mrs. Bingo spoke.

"But that photograph! "

"Which photograph? Oh, you mean the one in the paper, and I think I know what's in your mind. It looked rather like me, didn't it? I was quite surprised. I've often heard of this thing of fellows having doubles, but I've never come across an instance of it before. Except in books, of course. I remember one by Phillips Oppenheim where there was an English bloke who looked just like a German bloke, and the English bloke posed with complete success as the German bloke or vice versa, I've forgotten which. I believe it caused quite a bit of confusion. But, getting back to that photograph, obviously if I spent the night with Mr. Purkiss I couldn't have spent it in a dungeon cell, as my double presumably did. But perhaps you would care to have a word with Mr. Purkiss, who is here at my side. For you, Purkiss," said Bingo, handing him the telephone.

Our Man in America

One seems to be writing a good deal about criminals these days, but owing to the eccentricity of their methods the subject is really too fascinating to leave. A gang—probably international—operating in Gold Hill, North Carolina, have just pulled off a big coup, but not having thought the thing out properly beforehand are finding themselves in a rather aggravating position, unable to establish connection with a fence willing to handle the swag. They got their booty all right, but what is holding everything up is that there seems no way of cashing in on it. There they are, all loaded up with church pews and no market in sight.

The pews in question were those in St. John's Lutheran church of Gold Hill. The gang got away with ten of them the first time, and in a second and more successful raid collected twenty-five, plus the pulpit. And now—too late—they are beginning to realise that there is no real money in this branch of industry. It is no good lurking in dark street corners and popping out on passers-by with a whispered "Psst! Want a pulpit?". Business almost never results. Even if you shade the price a bit to suit all purses it is only a very occasional customer who is tempted by the offer of a hot pulpit. And the same thing applies to hot pews.

*

In Newark, N.J., the authorities have been doing some rather interesting research work. Superior Court Judge Mark A. Sullivan wanted the other day to find out how much alcohol a motorist had to absorb to be incapable of driving, so he rounded up a bunch of human guinea pigs and in the words of the
N.Y. Herald-Tribune
'turned the bar of justice into a plain ordinary drinking bar'. (No, sorry, I wronged Judge Sullivan. He was on vacation, and the host at the party was Essex County Prosecutor Charles V. Webb.)

Well, sir, you'd oughta been there. In next to no time the courtroom was just a shambles of potato chips, olive pips, empty bottles and popcorn. Five citizens submitted themselves to the test, and it was not long before additional Scotch and rye had to be sent for to keep-up with their capacities. And of course all five of them singing Sweet Adeline in close harmony and telling the County Prosecutor (a) that their wives did not understand them and (b) that they could lick any man in the' room. And the horrible thing is that all this started at ten in the morning. Really, Charles Webb, I am as broadminded as the next man, but I do feel there are limits.

And how, you ask, did it all come out? Well, as far as the Drunk-O-Meter could gather, it is unwise to drive your car in anything approaching heavy traffic after you have imbibed fourteen ounces of Scotch. Unless you happen to be an undertaker's assistant. That is how one of the five earns his living, and he got up to nineteen ounces before the Drunk-O-'Meter blew the whistle on him.

(I was so busy shaking my head and pursing my lips over the above orgy that I forgot to mention that one of the experimenters drank his whisky with orange soda. It has haunted me in my dreams ever since.)

*

The impression left on the mind when one reads in the papers of the local rules and regulations in force all over the country is that life in America can be very difficult. Almost every avenue to wholesome fun seems to be barred. In Rumford, Maine, for instance, it is illegal for a tenant to bite his landlord, while in Youngstown, Ohio, stiff sentences are passed on those who tie giraffes to light standards. In Nogales, Arizona, there is an ordinance prohibiting the wearing of braces; in San Francisco one which won't let you shoot jack rabbits from cable cars; and in Dunn, South Carolina, unless you have the permission of the headmistress, a permission very sparingly granted, it is unlawful to 'act in an obnoxious manner on the campus of a girls' school'.

You hardly know where to live in America these days, especially if you are a woman. Go to Owensboro, Kentucky, and you get arrested for buying a new hat without having your husband try it on first, while if you decide on Carmel, California, you find you are not allowed to take a bath in a business office, the one thing all women want to do on settling down in a new community. For men probably the spot to be avoided with the greatest care is Norton, Virginia, where 'it is illegal to tickle a girl'.

*

A recently published history of Macy's department store contains many arresting anecdotes of the late Jacob Strauss, one of the partners. The one which touched me most was of the occasion when Mr. Strauss came upon a lad, who described himself I as a stock boy, playing with an electric train in the toy department and dismissed him instantly with a week's salary and two weeks' severance pay. It was not until the money had changed hands and the child had departed that Mr. Strauss discovered that his young friend, though unquestionably a stock boy, was a stock boy not at Macy's, but at Gimbel's down the street.

6. Stylish Stouts

"Ah, there you are, Mr. Little," said H. C. Purkiss. "Are you engaged for dinner tonight?" Bingo replied …

But before recording Bingo's reply it is necessary to go back a step or two-and do what is known to lawyers as laying the proper foundation.

It was the practice of H. C. Purkiss, proprietor of
Wee Tots,
the journal for the nursery and the home, to take his annual holiday in July. This meant that Bingo, the paper's up-and-coming young editor, had to take his in June or August. This year, as in the previous year, he had done so towards the middle of the former month, and he rejoined the human herd, looking bronzed and fit, a few days before the Eton and Harrow match. And he was strolling along Piccadilly, thinking of this and that, when he ran into his fellow clubman Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright (Claude Cattermole, the popular actor of juvenile roles) and after a conversation of great brilliance but too long to be given in detail Catsmeat asked him if he would care to have a couple of seats next week for the dramatic entertainment in which he was appearing. And Bingo, enchanted at the prospect of getting into a theatre on the nod, jumped at the offer like a rising trout. He looked forward with bright enthusiasm to seeing Catsmeat bound on with a racquet at the beginning of act one shouting "Tennis, anyone?" as he presumed he would do.