“That is true. Yes, I had forgotten that.”
“It doesn’t matter whether a thing’s valuable or not. The point is what you insure it for. And it isn’t as if it’s going to hurt these Mutual Aid and Benefit birds to brass up. It’s sinful the amount of money those insurance companies have. Must be jolly bad for them, if you ask me.”
Anselm had not thought of that. Examining the point now, it seemed to him that Myrtle, with her woman’s intuition, had rather gone to the root of the matter and touched the spot.
Was there not, he asked himself, a great deal to be said for this theory of hers that insurance companies had much too much money and would be better, finer, more spiritual insurance companies if somebody came along occasionally and took a bit of the stuff off them? Unquestionably there was. His doubts were removed. He saw now that it was not only a pleasure, but a duty, to nick the London and Midland Counties Mutual Aid and Benefit Association for five thousand. It might prove the turning-point in the lives of its Board of Directors.
“Very well,” he said. “I will send in the claim.”
“At-a-boy! And the instant we touch, we’ll get married.”
“Myrtle!”
“Anselm!”
“Guv’nor,” said the voice of Joe Beamish at their side, “could I ‘ave a word with you?”
They drew apart with a start and stared dumbly at the man.
“Guv’nor,” said Joe Beamish, and it was plain from the thickness of his utterance that he was in the grip of some strong emotion, “I want to thank you, guv’nor, for that there sermon of yours. That there wonderful sermon.”
Anselm smiled. He had recovered from the shock of hearing this sudden voice in the night. It was a nuisance, of course, to be interrupted like this at such a moment, but one must, he felt, be courteous to the fans. No doubt he would have to expect a lot of this sort of thing from now on.
“I am rejoiced that my poor effort should have elicited so striking an encomium.”
“Wot say?”
“He says he’s glad you liked it,” said Myrtle, a little irritably, for she was not feeling her most amiable. A young girl who is nestling in the arms of the man she loves resents having cracksmen popping up through traps at her elbow.
“R,” said Joe Beamish, enlightened. “Yes, guv’nor, that was a sermon, that was. That was what I call a blinking sermon.”
“Thank you, Joe, thank you. It is nice to feel that you were pleased.”
“You’re right, I was pleased, guv’nor. I’ve ‘eard sermons in Pentonville, and I’ve ‘eard sermons in Wormwood Scrubs, and I’ve ‘eard sermons in Dartmoor, and very good sermons they were, but of all the sermons I’ve ‘eard I never ‘eard a sermon that could touch this ‘ere sermon for class and pep and …”
“Joe,” said Myrtle.
“Yes, lady?”
“Scram!”
“Pardon, lady?”
“Get out. Pop off. Buzz along. Can’t you see you’re not wanted? We’re busy.”
“My dear,” said Anselm, with gentle reproach, “is not your manner a little peremptory? I would not have the honest fellow feel…”
“R,” interrupted Joe Beamish, and there was a suggestion of unshed tears in his voice, “but I’m not an honest feller, guv’nor. There, if you don’t mind me saying so, no offence meant and none, I ‘ope, taken, is where you make your bloomin’ error. I’m a pore sinner and backslider and evildoer and …”
“Joe,” said Myrtle, with a certain menacing calm, “if you get a thick ear, always remember that you asked for it. The same applies to a lump the size of an egg on top of your ugly head through coming into violent contact with the knob of my parasol. Will you or will you not,” she said, taking a firmer grip of the handle of the weapon to which she had alluded, “push off?”
“Lady,” said Joe Beamish, not without a rough dignity, “as soon as I’ve done what I come to do, I will withdraw. But first I got to do what I come to do. And what I come to do is ‘and back in a meek and contrite spirit this ‘ere album of stamps what I snitched last night, never thinking that I was to ‘ear that there wonderful sermon and see the light. But ‘avin’ ‘eard that there wonderful sermon and seen the light, I now ‘ave great pleasure in doing what I come to do, namely,” said Joe Beamish, thrusting the late J. G. Beenstock’s stamp collection into Anselm’s hand, “this ‘ere. Lady… Guv’nor… With these few words, ‘opin’ that you are in the pink as it leaves me at present, I will now withdraw.”
“Stop!” cried Anselm.
“R?”
Anselm’s face was strangely contorted. He spoke with difficulty.
Joe… .
“Yes, guv’nor?”
“Joe … I would like … I would prefer … In a very real sense I do so feel… In short, I would like you to keep this stamp album, Joe.”
The burglar shook his head.
“No, guv’nor. It can’t be done. When I think of that there wonderful sermon and all those beautiful things you said in that there wonderful sermon about the ‘Ivites and the ‘Ittites and doing the right thing by the neighbours and ‘elping so far as in you lies to spread sweetness and light throughout the world, I can’t keep no albums which ‘ave come into my possession through gettin’ in at other folks’ french winders on account of not ‘avin’ seen the light. It don’t belong to me, not that album don’t, and I now take much pleasure in ‘andin’ it back with these few words. Goo’ night, guv’nor. Goo’ night, lady. Goo’ night all. I will now withdraw.”
His footsteps died) away, and there was silence in the quiet garden. Both Anselm and Myrtle were busy with their thoughts. Once more through Anselm’s mind there was racing that pithy address which the coach of his college boat had delivered when trying to do justice to the spectacle of Number Five’s obtrusive stomach: while Myrtle, on her side, was endeavouring not to give utterance to a rough translation of something she had once heard a French taxi-driver say to a gendarme during her finishing-school days in Paris. Anselm was the first to speak.
“This, dearest,” he said, “calls for discussion. One does so feel that little or nothing can be accomplished without earnest thought and a frank round-table conference. Let us go indoors and thresh the whole matter out in as calm a spirit as we can achieve.”
He led the way to the study and seated himself moodily, his chin in his hands, his brow furrowed. A deep sigh escaped him.
“I understand now,” he said, “why it is that curates are not permitted to preach on Sunday evenings during the summer months. It is not safe. It is like exploding a bomb in a public place. It upsets existing conditions too violently. When I reflect that, had our good vicar but been able to take evensong to-night, this distressing thing would not have occurred, I find myself saying in the words of the prophet Hosea to the children of Adullam…”
“Putting the prophet Hosea to one side for the moment and temporarily pigeon-holing the children of Adullam,” interrupted Myrtle, “what are we going to do about this?”
Anselm sighed again.
“Alas, dearest, there you have me. I assume that it is no longer feasible to submit a claim to the London and Midland Counties Mutual Aid and Benefit Association.”
“So we lose five thousand of the best and brightest?” Anselm winced. The lines deepened on his careworn face. “It is not an agreeable thing to contemplate, I agree. One had been looking on the sum as one’s little nest-egg. One did so want to see it safely in the bank, to be invested later in sound, income-bearing securities. I confess to feeling a little vexed with Joe Beamish.”
“I hope he chokes.”
“I would not go so far as that, darling,” said Anselm, with loving rebuke. “But I must admit that if I heard that he had tripped over a loose shoelace and sprained his ankle, it would—in the deepest and truest sense—be all right with me. I deplore the man’s tactless impulsiveness. ‘Officious’ is the word that springs to the lips.”
Myrtle was musing.
“Listen,�
� she said. “Why not play a little joke on these London and Midland bozos? Why tell them you’ve got the stamps back? Why not just sit tight and send in the claim and pouch their cheque? That would be a lot of fun.”
Again, for the second time in two days, Anselm found himself looking a little askance at his loved one. Then he reminded himself that she was scarcely to be blamed for her somewhat unconventional outlook. The niece of a prominent financier, she was perhaps entitled to be somewhat eccentric in her views. No doubt, her earliest childhood memories were of coming down to dessert and hearing her elders discuss over the nuts and wine some burgeoning scheme for trimming the investors.
He shook his head.
“I could hardly countenance such a policy, I fear. To me there seems something—I do not wish to hurt your feelings, dearest-something almost dishonest about what you suggest. Besides,” he added meditatively, “when Joe Beamish handed back that album, he did it in the presence of witnesses.”
“Witnesses?”
“Yes, dearest. As we came into the house, I observed a shadowy figure. Whose it was, I cannot say, but of this I feel convinced - that this person, whoever he may have been, heard all.”
“You’re sure?”
“Quite sure. He was standing beneath the cedar-tree, within easy earshot. And, as you know, our worthy Beamish’s voice is of a robust and carrying timbre.”
He broke off. Unable to restrain her pent-up feelings any longer, Myrtle Jellaby had uttered the words which the taxi-driver had said to the gendarme, and there was that about them which might well have rendered a tougher curate than Anselm temporarily incapable of speech. A throbbing silence followed the ejaculation. And during this silence there came to their ears from the garden without a curious sound. “Hark,” said Myrtle.
They listened. What they heard was unmistakably a human being sobbing.
“Some fellow creature in trouble,” said Anselm.
“Thank goodness,” said Myrtle.
“Should we go and ascertain the sufferer’s identity?”
“Let’s,” said Myrtle. “I have an idea it may be Joe Beamish. In which case, what I am going to do to him with my parasol will be nobody’s business.”
But the mourner was not Joe Beamish, who had long since gone off to the Goose and Grasshopper. To Anselm, who was shortsighted, the figure leaning against the cedar-tree, shaking with uncontrollable sobs, was indistinct and unrecognizable, but Myrtle, keener-eyed, uttered a cry of surprise.
“Uncle!”
“Uncle?” said Anselm, astonished. “It is Uncle Leopold.”
“Yes,” said the O.B.E., choking down a groan and moving away from the tree, “it is I. Is that Mulliner standing beside you, Myrtle?”
“Yes.”
“Mulliner,” said Sir Leopold Jellaby, “you find me in tears. And why am I in tears? Because, my dear Mulliner, I am still overwhelmed by that wonderful sermon of yours on Brotherly Love and our duty to our neighbours.”
Anselm began to wonder if ever a curate had had notices like these.
“Oh, thanks,” he said, shuffling a foot. “Awfully glad you liked it.”
“‘Liked it’, Mulliner, is a weak term. That sermon has revolutionized my entire outlook. It has made me a different man. I wonder, Mulliner, if you can find me pen and ink inside the house?”
“Pen and ink?”
“Precisely. I wish to write you a cheque for ten thousand pounds for that stamp collection of yours.”
“Ten thousand!”
“Come inside,” said Myrtle. “Come right in.”
“You see,” said Sir Leopold, as they led him to the study and plied him with many an eager query as to whether he preferred a thick nib or a thin, “when you showed me those stamps yesterday, I recognized their value immediately—they would fetch five thousand pounds anywhere—so I naturally told you they were worthless. It was one of those ordinary, routine business precautions which a man is bound to take. One of the first things I remember my dear father saying to me, when he sent me out to battle with the world, was ‘Never give a sucker an even break,’ and until now I have always striven not to do so. But your sermon to-night has made me see that there is something higher and nobler than a code of business ethics. Shall I cross the cheque?”
“If you please.”
“No,” said Myrtle. “Make it open.”
“Just as you say, my dear. You appear,” said the kind old squire, smiling archly through his tears, “to be showing considerable interest in the matter. Am I to infer–?”
“I love Anselm. We are engaged.”
“Mulliner! Is this so?”
“Er—yes,” said Anselm. “I was meaning to tell you about that.”
Sir Leopold patted him on the shoulder.
“I could wish her no better husband. There. There is your cheque, Mulliner. The collection, as I say, is worth five thousand pounds, but after that sermon, I give ten freely—freely!”
Anselm, like one in a dream, took the oblong slip of paper and put it in his pocket. Silently, he handed the album to Sir Leopold.
“Thank you,” said the latter. “And now, my dear fellow, I think I shall have to ask you for the loan of a clean pocket handkerchief. My own, as you see, is completely saturated.”
If was while Anselm was in his room, rummaging in the chest of drawers, that a light footstep caused him to turn. Myrtle was standing in the doorway, a ringer on her lip.
“Anselm,” she whispered, “have you a fountain-pen?”
“Certainly, dearest. There should be one in this drawer. Yes, here it is. You wish to write something?”
“I wish you to write something. Endorse that cheque here and now, and give it to me, and I will motor to London to-night in my two-seater, so as to be at the bank the moment it opens and deposit it. You see, I know Uncle Leopold. He might take it into his head, after he had slept on it and that sermon had worn off a bit, to ‘phone and stop payment. You know how he feels about business precautions. This way we shall avoid all rannygazoo.” Anselm kissed her fondly.
“You think of everything, dearest,” he said. “How right you are. One does so wish, does one not, to avoid rannygazoo.”
Romance at Droitgate Spa
WHEN young Freddie Fitch-Fitch went down to Droitgate Spa, that celebrated cure resort in the west of England, to ask his uncle and trustee, Major-General Sir Aylmer Bastable, to release his capital in order that he might marry Annabel Purvis, he was fully alive to the fact that the interview might prove a disagreeable one. However, his great love bore him on, and he made the journey and was shown into the room where the old man sat nursing a gouty foot.
“Hullo-ullo-ullo, uncle,” he cried, for it was always his policy on these occasions to be buoyant till thrown out. “Good morning, good morning, good morning.”
“Gaw!” said Sir Aylmer, with a sort of long, shuddering sigh. “It’s you, is it?”
And he muttered something which Freddie did not quite catch, though he was able to detect the words “last straw”.
Freddie’s heart sank a little. He could see that his flesh and blood was in difficult, mood, and he guessed what must have happened. No doubt Sir Aylmer had been to the Pump Room earlier in the day to take the waters, and while there had met and been high-hatted by some swell whom the doctors had twice given up for dead. These snobs, he knew, were always snubbing the unfortunate old man.
On coming to settle in Droitgate Spa, Sir Aylmer Bastable had had a humiliating shock. The head of a fine old family and the possessor of a distinguished military record, he had expected on his arrival to be received with open arms by the best people and welcomed immediately into the inner -set. But when it was discovered that all he had wrong with him was a touch of gout in the right foot, he found himself cold-shouldered by the men who mattered and thrust back on the society of the asthma patients and the fellows with slight liver trouble.
For though few people are aware of it—so true is it that half the world does not know how t
he other half lives—there is no section of the community in which class-consciousness is so rampant as among invalids. The ancient Spartans, one gathers, were far from cordial towards their Helots, and the French aristocrat of pre-Revolution days tended to be a little stand-offish with his tenantry, but their attitude was almost back-slapping compared with that of—let us say—the man who has been out in Switzerland taking insulin for his diabetes towards one who is simply undergoing treatment from the village doctor for an in-growing toe-nail. And this is particularly so, of course, in those places where invalids collect in gangs—Baden-Baden, for example, or Hot Springs, Virginia, or, as in Sir Aylmer’s case, Droitgate Spa.
In such resorts the atmosphere is almost unbelievably cliquy. The old aristocracy, the top-notchers with maladies that get written up in the medical journals, keep themselves to themselves pretty rigidly, and have a very short way with the smaller fry.
It was this that had soured Sir Aylmer Bastable’s once sunny disposition and caused him now to glare at Freddie with an unfriendly eye.
“Well,” he said, “what do you want?”
“Oh, I just looked in,” said Freddie. “How’s everything?”
“Rotten,” replied Sir Aylmer. “I’ve just lost my nurse.”
“Dead?”
“Worse. Married. The cloth-headed girl has gone off and got spliced to one of the canaille—a chap who’s never even had so much as athlete’s foot. She must be crazy.”
“Still, one sees her point of view.”
“No, one doesn’t.”
“I mean,” said Freddie, who felt strongly on this subject, “it’s love that makes the world go round.”
“It isn’t anything of the kind,” said Sir Aylmer. Like so many fine old soldiers, he was inclined to be a little literal-minded. “I never heard such dashed silly nonsense in my life. What makes the world go round is … Well, I’ve forgotten at the moment, but it certainly isn’t love. How the dooce could it?”
“Oh, right-ho. I see what you mean,” said Freddie. “But put it another way. Love conquers all. Love’s all right. Take it from me.”
Eggs, Beans and Crumpets Page 11
