Blanding Castle Omnibus

by P. G. Wodehouse

  In ordinary circumstances (said Mr Mulliner) this gorilla would have been to my distant cousin Montrose merely one of a thousand fellow-workers on the lot. If you had asked him, he would have said that he wished the animal every kind of success in its chosen profession but that, for all the chance there was of them ever, as it were, getting together, they were just ships that pass in the night. It is doubtful, indeed, if he would even have bothered to go down to its cage and look at it, had not Rosalie Beamish asked him to do so. As he put it to himself, if a man's duties brought him into constant personal contact with Mr Schnellenhamer, the President of the Corporation, where was the sense of wasting time looking at gorillas? Blasé about sums up his attitude.

  But Rosalie was one of the extra girls in 'Black Africa' and so had a natural interest in a brother-artist. And as she and Montrose were engaged to be married her word, of course, was law. Montrose had been planning to play draughts that afternoon with his friend, George Pybus, of the Press department, but he good-naturedly cancelled the fixture and accompanied Rosalie to the animal's head-quarters.

  He was more than ordinarily anxious to oblige her to-day, because they had recently been having a little tiff. Rosalie had been urging him to go to Mr Schnellenhamer and ask for a rise of salary: and this Montrose, who was excessively timid by nature, was reluctant to do. There was something about being asked to pay out money that always aroused the head of the firm's worst passions.

  When he met his betrothed outside the commissary, he was relieved to find her in a more amiable mood than she had been of late. She prattled merrily of this and that as they walked along, and Montrose was congratulating himself that there was not a cloud on the sky when, arriving at the cage, he found Captain Jack Fosdyke there, prodding at the gorilla with a natty cane.

  This Captain Jack Fosdyke was a famous explorer who had been engaged to superintend the production of 'Black Africa.' And the fact that Rosalie's professional duties necessitated a rather close association with him had caused Montrose a good deal of uneasiness. It was not that he did not trust her, but love makes a man jealous and he knew the fascination of these lean, brown, hard-bitten adventurers of the wilds.

  As they came up, the explorer turned, and Montrose did not like the chummy look in the eye which he cocked at the girl. Nor, for the matter of that, did he like the other's bold smile. And he wished that in addressing Rosalie Captain Fosdyke would not preface his remarks with the words Ah, there, girlie.'

  'Ah, there, girlie,' said the Captain. 'Come to see the monk.?'

  Rosalie was staring open-mouthed through the bars.

  'Doesn't he look fierce!' she cried.

  Captain Jack Fosdyke laughed carelessly.

  'Tchah!' he said, once more directing the ferrule of his cane at the animal's ribs. 'If you had led the rough, tough, slam-bang, every-man-for-himself life I have, you wouldn't be frightened of gorillas. Bless my soul, I remember once in Equatorial Africa I was strolling along with my elephant gun and my trusty native bearer, 'Mlongi, and a couple of the brutes dropped out of a tree and started throwing their weight about and behaving as if the place belonged to them. I soon put a stop to that, I can tell you. Bang, bang, left and right, and two more skins for my collection. You have to be firm with gorillas. Dining anywhere to-night, girlie?'

  'I am dining with Mr Mulliner at the Brown Derby.'

  'Mr who?'

  'This is Mr Mulliner.'

  'Oh, that?' said Captain Fosdyke, scrutinizing Montrose in a supercilious sort of way as if he had just dropped out of a tree before him. 'Well, some other time, eh?'

  And, giving the gorilla a final prod, he sauntered away.

  Rosalie was silent for a considerable part of the return journey. When at length she spoke it was in a vein that occasioned Montrose the gravest concern.

  'Isn't he wonderful!' she breathed. 'Captain Fosdyke, I mean.'

  'Yes?' said Montrose coldly.

  'I think he's splendid. So strong, so intrepid. Have you asked Mr Schnellenhamer for that raise yet?'

  'Er – no,' said Montrose. 'I am – how shall I put it? – biding my time.'

  There was another silence.

  'Captain Fosdyke isn't afraid of Mr Schnellenhamer,' said Rosalie pensively. 'He slaps him on the back.'

  'Nor am I afraid of Mr Schnellenhamer,' replied Montrose, stung. 'I would slap him on the back myself if I considered that it would serve any useful end. My delay in asking for that raise is simply due to the fact that in these matters of finance a certain tact and delicacy have to be observed. Mr Schnellenhamer is a busy man, and I have enough consideration not to intrude my personal affairs on him at a time when he is occupied with other matters.'

  'I see,' said Rosalie, and there the matter rested. But Montrose remained uneasy. There had been a gleam in her eyes and a rapt expression on her face as she spoke of Captain Fosdyke which he had viewed with concern. Could it be, he asked himself, that she was falling a victim to the man's undeniable magnetism? He decided to consult his friend, George Pybus, of the Press department, on the matter. George was a knowledgeable young fellow and would doubtless have something constructive to suggest.

  George Pybus listened to his tale with interest and said it reminded him of a girl he had loved and lost in Des Moines, Iowa.

  'She ditched me for a prizefighter,' said George. 'There's no getting away from it, girls do get fascinated by the strong, tough male.'

  Montrose's heart sank.

  'You don't really think—?'

  'It is difficult to say. One does not know how far this thing has gone. But I certainly feel that we must lose no time in drafting out some scheme whereby you shall acquire a glamour which will counteract the spell of this Fosdyke. I will devote a good deal of thought to the matter.'

  And it was on the very next afternoon, as he sat with Rosalie in the commissary sharing with her a Steak Pudding Marlene Dietrich, that Montrose noticed that the girl was in the grip of some strong excitement.

  'Monty,' she exclaimed, almost before she had dug out the first kidney, 'do you know what Captain Fosdyke said this morning?'

  Montrose choked.

  'If that fellow has been insulting you,' he cried, 'I'll ... Well, I shall be extremely annoyed,' he concluded with a good deal of heat.

  'Don't be silly. He wasn't talking to me. He was speaking to Luella Benstead. You know she's getting married again soon ...'

  'Odd how these habits persist.'

  '... and Captain Fosdyke said why didn't she get married in the gorilla's cage. For the publicity.'

  'He did?'

  Montrose laughed heartily. A quaint idea, he felt. Bizarre, even.

  'She said she wouldn't dream of it. And then Mr Pybus, who happened to be standing by, suddenly got the most wonderful idea. He came up to me and said why shouldn't you and I get married in the gorilla's cage.'

  Montrose's laughter died away.

  'You and I?'

  'Yes.'

  'George Pybus suggested that?'

  'Yes.'

  Montrose groaned in spirit. He was telling himself that he might have known that something like this would have been the result of urging a member of the Press department to exercise his intellect. The brains of members of the Press departments of motion-picture studios resemble soup at a cheap restaurant. It is wiser not to stir them.

  'Think what a sensation it would make! No more extra work for me after that. I'd get parts, and good ones. A girl can't get anywhere in this business without publicity.'

  Montrose licked his lips. They had become very dry. He was thinking harshly of George Pybus. It was just loose talking like George Pybus's, he felt, that made half the trouble in this world.

  'But don't you feel,' he said, 'that there is something a little undignified about publicity? In my opinion, a true artist ought to be above it. And I think you should not overlook another, extremely vital aspect of the matter. I refer to the deleterious effect which such an exhibition as Pybus suggests would have upon
those who read about it in the papers. Speaking for myself,' said Montrose, 'there is nothing I should enjoy more than a quiet wedding in a gorilla's cage. But has one the right to pander to the morbid tastes of a sensation-avid public? I am not a man who often speaks of these deeper things – on the surface, no doubt, I seem careless and happy-go-lucky – but I do hold very serious views on a citizen's duties in this fevered modern age. I consider that each one of us should do all that lies in his power to fight the ever-growing trend of the public mind towards the morbid and the hectic. I have a very real feeling that the body politic can never become healthy while this appetite for sensation persists. If America is not to go the way of Babylon and Rome, we must come back to normalcy and the sane outlook. It is not much that a man in my humble position can do to stem the tide, but at least I can refrain from adding fuel to its flames by getting married in gorillas' cages.'

  Rosalie was gazing at him incredulously.

  'You don't mean you won't do it?'

  'It would not be right.'

  'I believe you're scared.'

  'Nothing of the kind. It is purely a question of civic conscience.'

  'You are scared. To think,' said Rosalie vehemently, 'that I should have linked my lot with a man who's afraid of a teentsy-weentsy gorilla.'

  Montrose could not let this pass.

  'It is not a teentsy-weentsy gorilla. I should describe the animal's muscular development as well above the average.'

  'And the keeper would be outside the cage with a spiked stick.'

  'Outside the cage!' said Montrose thoughtfully.

  Rosalie sprang to her feet in sudden passion.

  'Good-bye!'

  'But you haven't finished your steak-pudding.'

  'Good-bye,' she repeated. 'I see now what your so-called love is worth. If you are going to start denying me every little thing before we're married, what would you be like after? I'm glad I have discovered your true character in time. Our engagement is at an end.'

  Montrose was pale to the lips, but he tried to reason with her.

  'But, Rosalie,' he urged, 'surely a girl's wedding-day ought to be something for her to think of all her life – to recall with dreamily smiling lips as she knits the tiny garments or cooks the evening meal for the husband she adores. She ought to be able to look back and live again through the solemn hush in the church, savour once more the sweet scent of the lilies-of-the-valley, hear the rolling swell of the organ and the grave voice of the clergyman reading the service. What memories would you have if you carried out this plan that you suggest? One only – that of a smelly monkey. Have you reflected upon this, Rosalie?'

  But she was obdurate.

  'Either you marry me in the gorilla's cage, or you don't marry me at all. Mr Pybus says it is certain to make the front page, with photographs and possibly even a short editorial on the right stuff being in the modern girl despite her surface irresponsibility.'

  'You will feel differently to-night, dear, when we meet for dinner.'

  'We shall not meet for dinner. If you are interested, I may inform you that Captain Fosdyke invited me to dine with him and I intend to do so.'

  'Rosalie!'

  'There is a man who really is a man. When he meets a gorilla, he laughs in its face.'

  'Very rude.'

  'A million gorillas couldn't frighten him. Good-bye, Mr Mulliner. I must go and tell him that when I said this morning that I had a previous engagement I was mistaken.'

  She swept out, and Montrose went on with his steak-pudding like one in a dream.

  It is possible (said Mr Mulliner, taking a grave sip of his hot Scotch and lemon and surveying the company with a thoughtful eye) that what I have told you may have caused you to form a dubious opinion of my distant cousin Montrose. If so, I am not surprised. In the scene which I have just related, no one is better aware than myself that he has not shown up well. Reviewing his shallow arguments, we see through them, as Rosalie did: and, like Rosalie, we realize that he had feet of clay- and cold ones, to boot.

  But I would urge in extenuation of his attitude that Montrose Mulliner, possibly through some constitutional defect such as an insufficiency of hormones, had been from childhood timorous in the extreme. And his work as an assistant director had served very noticeably to increase this innate pusillanimity.

  It is one of the drawbacks to being an assistant director that virtually everything that happens to him is of a nature to create an inferiority-complex – or, if one already exists, to deepen it. He is habitually addressed as 'Hey, you' and alluded to in the third person as 'that fathead.' If anything goes wrong on the set, he gets the blame and is ticked off not only by the producer but also by the director and all the principals involved. Finally, he has to be obsequious to so many people that it is little wonder that he comes in time to resemble one of the more shrinking and respectful breeds of rabbit. Five years of assistant-directing had so sapped Montrose's moral that nowadays he frequently found himself starting up and apologizing in his sleep.

  It is proof, then, of the great love which he had for Rosalie Beamish that, encountering Captain Jack Fosdyke a few days later, he should have assailed him with bitter reproaches. Only love could have impelled him to act in a manner so foreign to his temperament.

  The fact was, he blamed the Captain for all that had occurred. He considered that he had deliberately unsettled Rosalie and influenced her mind with the set purpose of making her dissatisfied with the man to whom she had plighted her troth.

  'If it wasn't for you,' he concluded warmly, 'I feel sure I could have reasoned her out of what is nothing but a passing girlish whim. But you have infatuated her, and now where do I get off?'

  The Captain twirled his moustache airily.

  'Don't blame me, my boy. All my life I have been cursed by this fatal attraction of mine for the sex. Poor little moths, they will beat their wings against the bright light of my personality. Remind me to tell you some time of an interesting episode which occurred in the harem of the King of the 'Mbongos. There is something about me which is – what shall I say? – hypnotic. It is not my fault that this girl has compared us. It was inevitable that she should compare us. And having compared us what does she see? On the one hand, a man with a soul of chilled steel who can look his gorilla in the eye and make it play ball. On the other – I use the term in the kindliest possible sense – a crawling worm. Well, good-bye, my boy, glad to have seen you and had this little chat,' said Captain Fosdyke. 'I like you young fellows to bring your troubles to me.'

  For some moments after he had gone, Montrose remained standing motionless, while all the repartees which he might have made surged through his mind in a glittering procession. Then his thoughts turned once more to the topic of gorillas.

  It is possible that it was the innuendoes uttered by Captain Fosdyke that now awoke in Montrose something which bore a shadowy resemblance to fortitude. Certainly, until this conversation, he had not intended to revisit the gorilla's cage, one sight of its occupant having been ample for him. Now, stung by the other's slurs, he decided to go and have another look at the brute. It might be that further inspection would make it seem less formidable. He had known this to happen before. The first time he had seen Mr Schnellenhamer, for example, he had had something not unlike a fit of what our grandparents used to call the 'vapours.' Now, he could bear him with at least an assumption of nonchalance.

  He made his way to the cage, and was presently exchanging glances with the creature through the bars.

  Alas, any hope he may have had that familiarity would breed contempt died as their eyes met. Those well-gnashed teeth, that hideous shagginess (a little reminiscent of a stockbroker motoring to Brighton in a fur coat) filled him with all the old familiar qualms. He tottered back and, with some dim idea of pulling himself together, took a banana from the bag which he had bought at the commissary to see him through the long afternoon. And, as he did so, there suddenly flashed upon him the recollection of an old saw which he had heard in
his infancy – The Gorilla Never Forgets. In other words, Do the square thing by gorillas, and they will do the square thing by you.

  His heart leaped within him. He pushed the banana through the bars with a cordial smile, and was rejoiced to find it readily accepted. In rapid succession he passed over the others. A banana a day keeps the gorilla away, he felt jubilantly. By standing treat to this animal regardless of cost, he reasoned, he would so ingratiate himself with it as to render the process of getting married in its cage both harmless and agreeable. And it was only when his guest had finished the last of the fruit that he realised with a sickening sense of despair that he had got his facts wrong and that his whole argument, based on a false premise, fell to the ground and became null and void.

  It was the elephant who never forgot – not the gorilla. It all came back to him now. He was practically sure that gorillas had never been mentioned in connection with the subject of mnemonics. Indeed, for all he knew, these creatures might be famous for the shortness of their memory – with the result that if later on he were to put on pin-striped trousers and a top-hat and enter this animal's cage with Rosalie on his arm and the studio band playing the Wedding March, all recollection of those bananas would probably have passed completely from its fat head, and it would totally fail to recognize its benefactor.

  Moodily crumpling the bag, Montrose turned away. This, he felt, was the end.

  I have a tender heart (said Mr Mulliner), and I dislike to dwell on the spectacle of a human being groaning under the iron heel of Fate. Such morbid gloating, I consider, is better left to the Russians. I will spare you, therefore, a detailed analysis of my distant cousin Montrose's emotions as the long day wore on. Suffice it to say that by a few minutes to five o'clock he had become a mere toad beneath the harrow. He wandered aimlessly to and fro about the lot in the growing dusk, and it seemed to him that the falling shades of evening resembled the cloud that had settled upon his life.