Young Men in Spats (24 page)

Yes, as I say, my nephew Archibald yearned for Mayfair as the hart pants for cooling streams when heated in the chase. But the problem was: How to get there. He had steeled himself to the prospect of having to walk. All he wanted to know was in what direction to walk. He asked a policeman the way to Piccadilly Circus, but you cannot ask a question like that in Bottleton East without exciting unpleasant suspicions. The policeman merely gave Archibald a narrow look and told him to pass along. Upon which, Archibald passed along and the episode concluded.

It was possibly some twenty minutes after this that he became conscious of a great hunger.

It had been his intention, on setting out for Bottleton East, to take his evening meal there. He had not supposed that the place would run to anything luxurious, but he rather enjoyed the prospect of roughing it as a sort of graceful gesture towards the Masses. And, after all, he was no hog. A little clear soup, with possibly a touch of smoked salmon or a bit of melon in front of it, followed by – say –
truite bleue
and the wing of a chicken and some sort of
soufflé
would do him nicely. And he had been about to look around him for a suitable restaurant when the affair of the anti-bread child had distracted his thoughts. And after that there had been all the
salon
stuff and then the race for life. The consequence was that he was now extremely peckish.

And it was at this moment that he found himself outside one of the myriad public-houses of the locality, staring through an open window into a room with two oilcloth-covered tables in it.
At one there sat a dishevelled man, asleep with his head on his arms. The other was unoccupied, except for a knife and fork which gave promise of rich entertainment.

For a while he stood, staring wolfishly. As he had no money, the situation seemed an
impasse.
But, as I said before, the crisis always brings out the Mulliner in a member of my family. Suddenly, like a flash, there shot into Archibald's mind the recollection that round his neck, carefully adjusted so that it should lie exactly over his heart, he always wore a miniature of Aurelia Cammarleigh in a neat little platinum case.

He hesitated. His spiritual side told him that it would be sacrilege to hand over the outer covering of that sweet girl's miniature in exchange for a meal. But his material self wanted steak and beer, and had him charging through the doorway like a mustang before the hesitation had lasted ten seconds.

Half an hour later, Archibald Mulliner was pushing back his plate and uttering a deep sigh.

It was a sigh of repletion, not of regret. And yet in it there was, perhaps, something of regret as well – for, his hunger now satisfied, kindlier feelings had once more begun to burgeon within him, and he was feeling a little remorseful that he should have allowed himself to think such hard thoughts about the Masses.

After all, reasoned Archibald, sipping his beer and glowing with the broad-minded charity of repletion, you had to admit that at the time of all that unpleasantness there had been something to be said for the view-point of the Masses. He meant to say, a nasty jar it must have been for those poor old proletarians, after having been martyred like the dickens since they were slips of boys, to suck down what they had been led to suppose were free drinks and then suddenly to realize that, owing to the donor
having no money, they were in ghastly danger of having to pay for them themselves.

And the shirt-sleeved man. Yes, he could follow the shirt-sleeved man's thought-processes. Perfect stranger comes in and starts strewing drinks all over the place . . . Can't pay for them . . . What to do? What to do?. . . Yes, attitude of shirt-sleeved man quite intelligible. Whole episode, Archibald considered, well calculated to cause a spot of alarm and despondency.

In fact, he had reached at this juncture such a pitch of sweetness and light that, had he been able at that moment to transport himself to his cosy rooms in Cork Street, W.1., it is highly probable that he would still be the same lover of the Masses who had set out that night with such benevolence for Bottleton East.

But more was to happen to my nephew Archibald in Bottleton East that night, and that which happened ruined the Masses' chances of winning his esteem finally.

I have mentioned, I think, that at the other table in this eating-room there was seated – or, rather, reclining – a dishevelled man who slept. He now awoke with a start and, hoisting himself up, blinked beerily at Archibald. He had been doing himself well that night, and the process known as sleeping it off was not yet quite completed. It was, therefore, a rather fishy and inflamed eye that now rested on my nephew. And as the dishevelled man was one of those people who are always a little cross on waking, there was in this eye nothing of the genial, the kindly, or the beaming. He looked at Archibald as if he disliked him, and it is extremely probable that he did. For one thing, Archibald was wearing a collar – slightly soiled after the experiences through which he had passed, but nevertheless a collar – and a sturdy
distaste for collars was part of this awakened sleeper's spiritual make-up.

‘Wot you doin' there?' he demanded.

Archibald replied cordially enough that he had just been enjoying a medium-grilled steak and fried.

‘R!' said the other. ‘And took it out of the mouth of the widow and the orphan, like as not.'

‘Absolutely no,' replied Archibald. ‘The waitress brought it on a tray.'

‘So you say.'

‘I give you my solemn word,' said Archibald. ‘I wouldn't dream of eating a steak that had been in the mouth of a widow or an orphan. I mean to say, in any case, what a beastly idea.'

‘And flaunting a collar,' grumbled the man.

‘Oh, no, dash it,' objected Archibald. ‘Would you say flaunting?'

‘Flaunting,' insisted the other.

Archibald was embarrassed.

‘Well, I'm awfully sorry,' he said. ‘If I'd only known we were going to meet and you would take it like this, I wouldn't have worn a collar. It isn't a stiff collar,' he added, more hopefully. ‘Just flannel, soft, gent's one. But, if you like, I'll take it off.'

‘Wear it while you can,' advised the dishevelled man. ‘The day's coming when collars'll run in streams down Park Lane.'

This puzzled Archibald.

‘You don't mean collars, do you? Blood, surely?'

‘Blood, too. Blood
and
collars.'

‘We'll be able to play boats,' suggested Archibald brightly.

‘
You
won't,' said the man. ‘And why? Because you'll be inside one of them collars and outside all that blood. Rivers of blood there'll be. Great flowing, bubbling rivers of spouting blood.'

‘I say, old lad,' begged Archibald, who was a little squeamish, ‘not quite so soon after dinner, if you don't mind.'

‘Eh?'

‘I say I've just finished dinner, and . . .'

‘Dinner! And took it out of the mouth of the widow and the . . .'

‘No, no. We went into all that before.'

‘Well, get on with it,' said the man, with a moody gesture. Archibald was perplexed.

‘Get on with it?'

‘Your dinner. You ain't got much time. Because soon you'll be flowing down Park Lane.'

‘But I've finished my dinner.'

‘No, you ain't.'

‘Yes, I have.'

‘No, you ain't. That's just where you make your ruddy error. If you've finished your dinner, what's all that fat doing there on the side of the plate?'

‘I never eat fat.'

The man had risen. He was now scowling menacingly at Archibald.

‘You don't eat fat?'

‘No, never.'

The man banged the table.

‘You eat that fat,' he bellowed. ‘That's what you do. I was taught when I was a nipper to always eat my fat.'

‘But, I say . . .'

‘You eat that fat!'

‘No, but listen, laddie . . .'

‘You eat that FAT!'

It was a difficult situation, and my nephew Archibald
recognized it as such. It was not easy to see how two individuals of such conflicting views as this dishevelled man and himself could ever find a formula. Where he liked collars and disliked fat, the other had this powerful anti-collar complex and, apparently, an equally strong fat-urge. He was glad when, presumably attracted by the voice of his companion, who for the last minute and a half had been shouting ‘Fat! Fat! Fat!' at the extreme limit of his lungs, somebody came hurrying along the corridor outside and burst into the room.

I say he was glad, but I must add that his gladness was of very brief duration. For the newcomer was none other than his old acquaintance, the shirt-sleeved man.

Yes, gentlemen, like all travellers lost in strange, desert lands, my nephew Archibald, after leaving the Goose and Gherkin, had been wandering round in a circle. And at long last his footsteps had taken him back to the Goose and Gherkin once more. And here he was, face to face again with the one man who, he had hoped, had passed permanently out of his life.

‘Wot's all this?' demanded the shirt-sleeved man.

The dishevelled customer had undergone a sudden change of mood. No longer meancing, he was now crying quietly into an ashtray.

‘He won't eat his fat,' he sobbed. ‘His fat, that's what he won't eat, and it's breakin' his poor father's heart.' He gulped. ‘Wears a blinkin' collar, goes runnin' in streams down Park Lane, and won't eat his fat. Make him eat his fat,' he begged, brushing away with a piece of potato the tears that coursed over his face.

‘Don't you pay no attention to him . . .' the shirt-sleeved man had begun to say to Archibald. And then the ingratiating note of host to customer faded from his voice. He stopped, stared, uttered a strangled gulp, stared again.

‘Gor-blimey!' he whispered, awed. ‘
You
again?'

He raised a hand, moistened it slightly: raised the other, and moistened that.

‘I say, listen . . .' begged Archibald.

‘I'm listenin',' said the dishevelled man. He was now in his old position, with head sunk on arms. ‘I'm listenin'. That's right,' he said, as a fearful crashing resounded through the room. ‘Make him eat his fat.'

It was as the hands of such clocks as were right by Greenwich time were pointing to five minutes past three on the following morning that an at first faint, then swelling ‘Charawk-chawk-chawk' made itself heard beneath the window of Aurelia Cammarleigh's bedroom at Number 36A, Park Street. Weary, footsore, remorseful, emptied of his love for the Masses, but full once more of passion for the girl he adored, Archibald Mulliner was fulfilling her behest and imitating for her the hen laying an egg. She had ordered him to come round to her house and give of his best, and here he was, doing it.

For a while, physical fatigue had rendered the performance a poor one. But gradually, as, artist-like, he became absorbed in his task, Archibald's voice gained in volume, in expression, and in all those qualities which make a hen-imitation a thing of beauty. Soon windows all along the street were opening, heads were being thrust out, and complaining voices calling for the police. All the world loves a lover, but not when imitating hens outside their bedroom windows at three in the morning.

The force manifested itself in the person of Constable C-44.

‘What,' he asked, ‘is all this?'

‘Charawk,' cried Archibald.

‘Pardon?' said the constable.

‘Charawk,' fluted Archibald. ‘Charawk.'

And now, having reached the point where it was necessary for the purposes of his art to run round in a circle, holding the sides of his coat, and finding the officer's hand on his shoulder an impediment, he punched the latter smartly in the wind and freed himself. And it was at this moment that Aurelia's window flew open. The lovely girl was a sound sleeper, and, at first, even when the mellow clucking had reached her ears, she had thought it but a dream.

But now she was awake, and her heart was filled with an ecstasy of relief and love.

Archibald!' she cried. ‘Is that really you, you old leper?'

‘In person,' replied Archibald, suspending his rendition for an instant.

‘Come in and have a spot.'

‘Thanks. I'd like to. No, sorry,' added Archibald, as the hand of the Law fell on his shoulder once more. ‘I'm afraid I can't.'

‘Why not?'

‘I've just been pinched by a bally policeman.'

‘And you'll stay pinched,' said Officer C-44 in a none too genial voice. His abdomen was still paining him.

‘And he says I'll stay pinched,' added Archibald. ‘Indeed, it looks very much as if I were even now off to chokey . . . for about how long would you say, Officer?'

‘For about fourteen days without the op.,' replied the other, rubbing his waistband with his disengaged hand. ‘Charged with resisting and assaulting the police in the execution of their duty, that's what you'll be.'

‘Fourteen days or two weeks, it begins to look like,' shouted Archibald, as he was dragged away. ‘Call it a fortnight.'

‘I will be waiting for you when you come out,' cried Aurelia.

‘You'll be what?' asked Archibald. His voice was barely audible to her now, for the officer was cutting out a good pace.

‘Waiting for you . . . When you come out,' shrieked Aurelia.

‘Then you love me still?'

‘Yes.'

‘What?'

‘Yes!!'

‘Sorry. I didn't get it.'

‘YES!!!' roared Aurelia.

And, as she stopped to ease her tortured throat, from round the corner there came to her ears a faint, barely audible ‘Charawk', and she knew that he understood.

Park Street closed its windows and went to sleep again.

OUR LITTLE GROUP
of serious thinkers in the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest had been discussing a breach of promise case to which the papers were giving a good deal of prominence at the moment: and a Whisky Sour had raised the question of how these fellows did it.