The Tale of Lal

by Raymond Paton

  CHAPTER IX

  THE WRITER PLANS WICKED PLANS

  Now it so happened that the Writer chanced to be quite as fond of jokesas the Pleasant-Faced Lion, and the Writer contended, taking all thecircumstances into consideration, that an action for libel with thePleasant-Faced Lion involved in it would be an excellent great bigjoke, to say nothing of a graceful retaliation upon the Pleasant-FacedLion himself for a few of the jokes which that Pleasant Animal hadplayed upon the Writer. Not to mention the fact that such a casepromised to supply the Writer with a little light recreation almost inthe nature of a holiday, after the labours of producing his last book.

  Consequently, as soon as Sir Simon had left, the Writer selected hisfavourite pipe, filled it with his choicest tobacco, and having lit it,stretched himself at ease upon the most comfortable divan in his rooms,and thought out subtle schemes.

  There he lay laughing and chuckling for all the world like a wickedPuck, bent upon mischief, joyfully and solely devised for a confusionof his enemies, particularly Mr. Learned Bore.

  Cheered and emboldened by such happy reflections, the Writer hit upon ascheme haphazard which for sheer unscrupulous impudence would baffleall description; gradually embroidering his machinations with thatwhimsicality that had always served him so well as an author, until hisplans appeared to be complete.

  "Very fortunate," murmured the Writer as he knocked out his pipe, "thatthose kids told me all about the Pleasant-Faced Lion's party. Greatheavens, what a chance! and it will be worth a fifty-pound note to haveLal brought into Court and to hear the Griffin's song sang in Court,and sung it shall be, only I must alter the words to fit the occasion."Here the Writer sat upon the edge of the table and rocked withdelighted laughter.

  "Ha! ha! ha!" gurgled the Writer, "only one man in London who can setit, and, by Jove, I'll ring him up on the 'phone at once; a fewjudicious rehearsals--before Vellum and Crackles, the solicitors, arecommunicated with--to say nothing of Gentle Gammon, and--ha! ha!ha!--what a glorious joke. What's Billy Cracker's number in the book?"

  A quarter of an hour afterwards, in answer to a most urgent summons bytelephone, Mr. William Cracker made his appearance in the Writer'srooms.

  Mr. William Cracker, called Billy by his friends, was rapidly rising tofame as a writer of musical comedy--a tall, sleek personage, withstraw-coloured hair brilliantined very flat over his head, andcarefully parted in the centre, wearing a monocle in one eye, whichappeared to grow there, and was always lavishly adorned as an exact andliving replica of the latest fashion plate.

  Billy greeted the Writer and stared at him through his eyeglassquizzically.

  "Whenever I hear you give that Mephistophelean chuckle at the end ofthe 'phone," commented Billy, "I always know you have got someparticularly impish scheme on. Well, what is it?"

  "Oh, Billy, Billy," chuckled the Writer, "I have indeed got a scheme,and it is funnier, Billy, than any of your musical comedies."

  "In that case," announced Billy, as he leisurely helped himself to asmoke which the Writer offered, "I shall steal the plot."

  "Listen, Billy. Could you write a tune, a refrain, an air, whateveryou call it, so catchy that people would hum it and sing it on thespot? I want a perfectly irresistible tune, Billy."

  "All my tunes are irresistible," confessed Billy modestly.

  "Yes, but I want an absolute dead cert. The sort of thing you used towrite at Oxford before you took up music as a profession; you know, oneof those catchy things we all used to stand round and sing the instantyou played it."

  "Of course," returned Billy equably, "it's my profession. I turn outany amount of such things."

  "Oh, yes; but, Billy, this has got to be a Comic Classic."

  Billy considered for a space.

  "Is it to be sung in a Comic Opera?" he asked.

  "No, it's going to be sung in Court."

  Billy stared through his eyeglass.

  "You're joking!" he said.

  "Of course I'm joking," retorted the Writer, "you only have to read thewords to gather that fact."

  "Have you got the words?"

  "Yes, here they are; but wait a minute, old chap, that isn't all, youhave got to coach a youngster I know to sing them."

  "Oh, that's a very different matter," demurred Billy; "I don't teach,and anyway it would be awful waste of time."

  "I will pay you your own fee," grinned the Writer, as he fingered acheque-book, artlessly placed upon the top of a desk. "Nice fatcheque, Billy, always useful."

  Mr. Billy Cracker appeared instantly to succumb to this suggestion andto take very kindly to it.

  "Here are the words," said the Writer modestly, handing two half-sheetsof notepaper to his friend, "there is the grand piano, Billy, openedalready, a medium of expression only waiting for your musical genius."

  "Let's see the words," said Billy.

  Mr. Cracker perused the lines offered for his inspection with amazement.

  "I say," he observed, "they seem awful rot."

  The Writer laughed.

  "Ah, Billy, that's only because you don't know the situation yet."

  "True," assented Billy; "I've had worse given me to set in musicalcomedies. Now let me see," murmured Mr. Cracker as he seated himselfat the pianoforte, "scansion is the great thing--scansion and rhythm."

  Thereupon followed a curious procession of tum tiddle, tum tiddle, tumtiddle, tiddle tums, varied by little tinkling outbursts upon thepianoforte, which there could be no doubt that Mr. Billy Cracker playedastonishingly well.

  "Easy or difficult to set?" inquired the Writer.

  "Oh, child's play!"

  "That's just what I want it for," remarked the Writer encouragingly,"child's play, and the sort of tune a child would sing whilst heplayed."

  "Half a mo," murmured Billy, "I'm getting it fine--lum, lum, lum, lum,lum, lum, lum, lum, lum. Ha! What do you think of this?"

  Out rippled a delicious melody, harmonised with rich full chords thistime.

  "That's it!" shouted the Writer excitedly. "Oh! lovely!! Billy,you're a treasure. Oh! play it again!"

  Mr. Billy Cracker obligingly consented.

  The Writer was dancing round the room and singing at one and the sametime.

  "Ripping! Billy, Ripping! Write it down at once!"

  "Suppose you haven't got any music-paper in the place? No, I thoughtnot; never mind, I can soon manufacture some from thismanuscript-paper."

  "No, not that," exclaimed the Writer hastily, "that's my new poem."

  "Humph! Hope it's better than the one you have given me to set."

  "Billy," exclaimed the Writer enthusiastically, "I am going to standyou a tip-top lunch, and then I'm going to take you to Balham."

  "Balham, good gracious! what on earth for?"

  "You've got to give a music lesson in Balham after lunch, Billy, onelesson will be enough with that tune. Why, it's in my head now, Ican't forget the thing."

  "Isn't that exactly what you required?" asked Billy languidly, as hewrote down notes.

  * * * * *

  Messrs. Vellum and Crackles, most concise and conservative ofsolicitors, found themselves suffering for the first time in thehistory of the firm from a fit of astonishment, not to mention dismay,regarding the strange nature and unusual features of a case concerningwhich their firm had recently received instructions.

  The case was considered so unusual that a sort of hastily contrivedboard meeting was deemed expedient, and was accordingly held in Mr.Vellum's private room.

  At the end of the meeting, Mr. Vellum gave instructions for the writingof a letter to the Board of Works, for special permission to have oneof the Lions, which would be, hereinafter, especially pointed out andspecified, removed from Trafalgar Square to the Law Courts, as itspresence in Court was deemed indispensable in a case of a peculiar andspecial nature.

  "It is a very singular application," remarked Mr. Crackles thoughtfully.

  "I hope the request will not brin
g ridicule upon the firm," rejoinedMr. Vellum.