Luck of the Bodkins

by P. G. Wodehouse

  'Well,' said Reggie, 'that seems to clean you up nicely as far as the writing on the wall is concerned. As regards your playing kiss-in-the-ring with Lottie Blossom in your state-room -’

  'We weren't playing kiss-in-the-ring!'

  'Well, postman's knock, or whatever it was.'

  ‘I told you we were simply talking about Ambrose.'

  'It sounds a little thin to me,' said Reggie critically. 'Still, if that's your story, you are no doubt wise to stick to it All I'm saying is that with regard to Lottie you must use your own efforts to put things right. But I can certainly square you over the writing, and I will do so without delay. I'll see Gertrude immediately, and after that I'm going to throw out a drag-net for Mabel Spence. In which connection, would you say - suede shoes, white flannel bags, the tie and a Trinity Hall blazer, or suede shoes, white flannel bags, the tie and neat blue jacket?'

  Monty reflected.

  'Neat blue jacket, if you ask me.'

  'Right,' said Reggie.

  Mabel Spence, meanwhile, all unaware of the treat in store for her, was in Ivor Llewellyn's state-room, hearing from that agitated man's lips the story of the breakdown of yesterday's negotiations. Mr Llewellyn was still in bed, and the salmon-pink of his pyjama jacket seemed to take on a deeper hue in contrast to the apprehensive pallor of the face above it.

  'The guy said he had other views!'

  The motion-picture magnate's voice shook as he spoke these sinister words, and Mabel Spence also seemed to find them ominous. She gave a little whistle and with a thoughtful tightness about her Hps took a cigarette from the box beside the bed, a simple action which somehow had the effect of stirring Mr Llewellyn to extreme irritability.

  'I wish you wouldn't use my cigarettes. Haven't you got any of your own?'

  'All right, old Southern Hospitality. I'll put it back... Other views, eh?' ‘That's what he said.' ‘I don't like that.' 'You and me both.'

  'It looks to me as if he wasn't going to play ball. Tell me exactly what happened.’

  Mr Llewellyn hitched himself up against the pillows.

  'I sent young Tennyson to him with a blank contract. See what I mean? Money wasn't to be any object, see? All I wanted to know was would he come and act for the S.-L., because if so he could fill in the figures just as it suited him. And back comes Tennyson and says the guy thanks me, but he has other views.'

  Mabel Spence shook her head.

  ‘I don't like it.'

  The remark seemed to infuriate her brother-in-law as much as her helping herself to his cigarettes had done.

  'Where's the sense in standing there saying you don't like it? Of course you don't like it. ‘ don't like it. You don't see me dancing about and clapping my hands, do you? I'm not singing, am I? I'm not calling for three rousing cheers, am I?'

  Mabel continued to ponder. She was completely puzzled. If she had been Monty Bodkin, she would have said that the thing was inexplicable. What she did say was that it beat her.

  'Sure. And it beat me,' said Mr Llewellyn, 'till Tennyson went on and told me something else. Do you know what he told me? He said this guy Bodkin is next door to a millionaire. See what that means? It means he just does this spying work for the kick he gets out of it. Like a ghoul or something. The money end don't mean nothing to him. All he wants is to watch people suffer. How can you fix a man like that?'

  He brooded for a moment. He seemed to be feeling that it was just his luck that the only Customs spy he had ever fallen foul of should be one who combined large private means with a fiendish disposition.

  'Well, this lets me out. I know when I'm licked. I'm going to declare that necklace of Grayce's and pay the duty.'

  ‘I wouldn't.'

  'I don't give a darn what you would do. I'm going to.’ 'Oh, well, suit yourself.' 'You're right. I'll suit myself.’

  ‘I was only thinking,’ said Mabel pensively, 'of the wireless I had from Grayce last night.'

  Something of Mr Llewellyn's sturdy resolution left him. His face, which emotion had made almost a match for the pyjama jacket, lost some of its colour. As Monty Bodkin had done on another occasion, he moistened his lips with the tip of the tongue.

  ‘Wireless? From Grayce?'

  ‘Yes.'

  'Let's see it.'

  'It's in my state-room.’

  'What did she say?'

  'I can't remember the exact words. Something about "tell you that if you didn't come through she knew what she was going to do about it".'

  'She knew,' murmured Mr Llewellyn, like a man in a trance, 'what she was going to do about it.'

  Mabel Spence eyed him with a certain commiseration.

  'Honestly, Ikey,' she said, 'I'd go ahead with the thing. I wouldn't take chances with Grayce. You know what she's like. Impulsive. And don't forget she's actually in Paris, so all she's got to do if she wants a Paris divorce is to put on her hat and call a taxi.'

  Mr Llewellyn was not forgetting this.

  'And even if this fellow Bodkin won't sit in, why worry? Suppose he does know you're planning to put something over. Suppose he does tip off his pals on shore to keep their eyes skinned when you show up at the Customs sheds. What of it? There won't be anything doing till they start to examine your baggage, and by that time George will be a mile away with the stuff.'

  Mr Llewellyn refused to be comforted. It was probably the fact that his wife's brother George was to be a principal in the affair that prejudiced him against what he had come to label in his mind the Hat Sequence, but prejudiced he undoubtedly was. Instead of the happy smile, Mabel's optimism produced only the bitter sneer.

  ‘You think a smart guy like that won't get to thinking things when he sees George and me knocking each other's hats off and changing them like a couple of fellows in vaudeville? The second he sees it he'll know that there's funny business going on.'

  'He won't see it. He won't be there.’

  ‘Won't be there? He'll be tagging along a yard behind me from the minute we get ashore.'

  ‘No, he won't. We'll hold him on board till you've got off and met George.'

  'Yes? And how are you going to do that?'

  'Easy. Reggie Tennyson can get him out of the way somehow. They're friends. Reggie can take him off somewhere to talk about something. You leave it to me. I'll fix it.'

  Mr Llewellyn, as we have seen, could never be really fond of his sister-in-law, but he had to admit that there was something about her personality that inspired confidence. His breathing became easier.

  ‘I won't tell Reggie why he's got to do it, of course. I'll just say I want him to.'

  'And that'll be enough?’

  'Sure.'

  'Say, you two seem to be getting along pretty well together."

  'Yes. I like Reggie. And I'm sorry for him. Poor boy, his family are sending him to work in an office in Montreal, and he's all broken up about it. He says, if he's got to work at all, he'd prefer it to be somewhere out in the great open spaces where men are men and, more particularly, women are women - like Hollywood.’

  Mr Llewellyn's eyes narrowed warily. A suspicious expression came into them. He smelt a rat. He saw it floating in the air.

  ‘Oh?' he said. 'He does, does he?’

  "Yes. And I was wondering,’ said Mabel, 'if you couldn't find him something to do at Llewellyn City, Ikey?'

  All that was visible of Ivor Llewellyn above the bedclothes shook as with a palsy, and a ripple among the blankets showed that the invisible part of him was shaking, too. Often as he had been through discussions of this kind, he was never able to remain quite calm when they came up. When an opportunity of doing something at Llewellyn City for a relative or a friend of a relative or a relative by marriage or a friend of a relative by marriage was offered to him, it always made him feel as if his interior organs were being stirred up with a pole. On these occasions it was his practice to bark like a sea-lion asking for fish, and he did so now.

  'Ha!’ he cried. 'I was wondering when that was coming. I wa
s just waiting for that.’

  'Reggie could be very useful to you.’

  'How? There's already a fellow sweeps out my office.,

  'You often use English sequences in your pictures. He could keep you straight on them. Couldn't you, Reggie?' said Mabel, addressing the vision in shining flannel trousers and neat blue jacket which had just sauntered in without, as Mr Llewellyn sourly noted, bothering to knock. People who wished to enter Ivor Llewellyn's presence on the S.-L. lot at Llewellyn City had to wait anything from one to two hours in an ante-room, and this was not the first time the motion-picture magnate had found himself irked by the less formal conditions prevailing on shipboard.

  'What ho!' said Reggie cheerily. 'What ho, what ho, and again what ho. Good morning, Mabel, and you, Llewellyn. You're both looking extraordinarily well and attractive. I like those pink pyjamas, Llewellyn. Every man his own sunset. I've been scouring the ship for you, young M. Spence, and they told me you were in here. How do you react to the idea of a spot of shuffleboard?'

  'I'd love it.'

  'I'd love it, too. Extraordinary, have you ever realized, how similar our tastes are? Twin souls is about what it tots up at, if you ask me. Ah, cigarettes?' said Reggie, observing the box by the bedside. He helped himself and began to smoke with a nod of appreciation. 'You buy good cigarettes, Llewellyn,' he said genially. 'I like them. Did I,' he went on, 'hear you ask me some question as I came in? The words "Couldn't you, Reggie?" seem to be floating in the memory. Couldn't I what?’ 'Help Ikey.'

  'I am always pleased to help Ikey, when and if feasible. How?’

  'We were discussing the possibility of your working for the Superba-Llewellyn. I know how you hate the prospect of this Montreal job of yours.’

  ‘I loathe it. It would make me feel like a bird in a gilded cage. What an admirable ideal ‘ said Reggie, rewarding Mr Llewellyn with an approving smile. ‘A really first-class notion. My dear fellow, I shall be delighted to work for the Superba-Llewellyn. It was like your kind heart to suggest it. In what capacity would you propose?'

  'I was saying that you could put him right on his English sequences. You know all about English Society life.’

  ‘I invented it.'

  'You hear that, Ikey? Now you won't have any more people fox-hunting in July.'

  'By Jove, no. No, from today, my dear Llewellyn, you may be quite easy in your mind about your English sequences. Leave them entirely to me. And now,’ said Reggie, taking another cigarette, 'about terms. My brother Ambrose tells me that you are paying him fifteen hundred dollars a week. I should be perfectly satisfied to start with that. No doubt you will let me have a line in writing at your convenience. No hurry. Any time that suits you, my dear Llewellyn.’

  Mr Llewellyn found speech. Until this moment the emotion which any reference to that fox-hunting in July thing always caused him had held him dumb. It was a sore subject with him. One of the features of his super-film, Glorious Devon, it had been the occasion of much indignation in the English Press and of such a choking and spluttering and outraged what-whatting among purple-faced Masters of Hounds in the Shires as had threatened to produce an epidemic of apoplexy. This Mr Llewellyn could have borne with fortitude. But it had also resulted in the complete failure of the picture throughout the island kingdom, and that had cut him to the quick.

  'Get out of here!' he cried.

  Reggie was surprised. Not quite the note, he considered 'Get out of here?'

  'Yes, get out of here. You and your English sequences!’ ‘Ikey!’

  'And you,' boomed Mr Llewellyn, turning his batteries on his sister-in-law, 'you stop saying "Ikey". So you want that I should hire more loafers to pick my pockets, do you? It's not enough, your brother George and your Uncle Wilmot and your cousin Egbert and your cousin Genevieve?'

  Here Mr Llewellyn had to pause for an instant in order to grasp at the receding skirts of his self-control. He was greatly affected by those concluding words. There had always been something about that weekly three hundred and fifty dollars paid out to his wife's cousin Egbert's sister Genevieve which for some odd reason afflicted him more than all his other grievances put together. A spectacled child with a mouth that hung open like a letter-box, Genevieve was so manifestly worth a maximum of thirty cents per annum to any employer.

  'You want, do you,' he resumed, thrusting the image of the adenoid-ridden girl from his mental vision with a powerful effort, 'not just that I should support your whole damned family, but when there isn't any more family I'm to go out and find strangers to give my money away to, because maybe if I didn't I might have a couple of dollars I could call my own? I'm to fill up Llewellyn City till there isn't standing room with English dudes what except eat and sleep they've never done a thing in their lives but hold hands with my wife's sister on promenade decks?'

  'Boat decks,’ corrected Mabel.

  'I'm to buy a pack of bloodhounds, am I, and set them to smelling after fresh young guys who if I hadn't bloodhounds I might overlook? I'm to buy a pack of St Bernards, am I, and train them to go out and drag them in?'

  Reggie turned to Mabel, eyebrows raised. Mr Llewellyn's words, to which he had been listening with great interest, seemed to him to point to but one conclusion.

  ‘I believe the deal's off,' he said.

  'I'm to buy a pack of fox-hounds, am I -’

  Reggie checked him with a gesture.

  'Llewellyn, my dear fellow, please,’ he said, a little stiffly. ‘We are not interested in your kennel plans. Do I understand that you do not wish me to assist you with your English sequences?'

  'I guess that's what he's hinting at,' said Mabel. Reggie clicked his tongue regretfully. 'You're missing a good thing, Llewellyn. Better think again.’ Mr Llewellyn resumed, in another vein of imagery. 'I'm the United States Sub-Treasury, am I, that I should waste good money on loafers like him?' This struck Mabel as unfair discrimination. 'You're paying George a thousand,' she argued. Mr Llewellyn quivered. 'Don't talk to me about George.’ 'And Genevieve -’

  Mr Llewellyn quivered again, more noticeably. 'And don't,' he begged, 'talk to me about Genevieve.’ 'And Reggie's brother Ambrose fifteen hundred. If you can afford to pay Reggie's brother Ambrose fifteen hundred dollars a week, I shouldn't have thought you were so particular about loosening up.'

  Mr Llewellyn stared, genuinely astonished. He had been about to inquire of his sister-in-law if she had by some error of judgement mistaken him for Rockefeller, Pierpont Morgan, Death Valley Scotty or one of these Indian Maharajahs, but this remark diverted him.

  'Ambrose Tennyson? What do you mean? He's cheap at fifteen hundred a week.'

  'You think so?'

  'Of course I think so.’

  'What's he ever done?’

  'He's a great writer.’

  'Have you read his books?’

  'No. When do I ever get time to read? But everyone else has. Even your brother George. Matter of fact, it was George that told me I ought to get him for the S.-L.'

  'George must be crazy.'

  Reggie felt compelled to intervene. Except when the latter was chasing him along corridors and threatening to wring his neck, he was fond of Ambrose, and this sort of talk, he felt, was calculated to do him harm in his chosen profession. Subversive.

  'I wouldn't say that,' he urged. 'Ambrose turns out pretty good stuff.'

  'What do you mean, pretty good stuff?’ said Mr Llewellyn indignantly. 'He's famous. He's one of the big noises.’ Mabel sniffed. 'Who told you that?'

  'You did, for one,’ said Mr Llewellyn triumphantly. He enjoyed the experience, which came his way but rarely, of being able to bathe his sister-in-law in confusion.

  ‘Me?'

  'Yes, you. At dinner one night at my house, when that English playwright that I hired was shooting off his head about books and all that. The fellow with the horn-rimmed glasses. He was saying that Tennyson was all wet, and you came right back at him and said Tennyson was swell and it was only a few smart Alecks said he wasn't. You s
aid people would be reading Tennyson when this guy with the glasses wasn't even a number in the telephone book, and he sort of sniggered and said: "Oh, come, dear lady!" and ate a banana. And I happened to be talking to George next day and I asked him if this Tennyson was really such a hot number and George said he was a smacko and when I was in London I should certainly ought to get after him.'

  A choking sound proceeded from Mabel Spence.

  'Ikey!' she moaned.

  She was staring at him with something of awe in her gaze, the awe with which we look at an object which is the only one of its kind.

  'Ikey! Tell me it ain't so!'

  ‘Hey?'

  ·It can't be. It's too good to be. You haven't gone and signed Reggie's brother up, thinking he was the Tennyson?'

  Mr Llewellyn blinked. He was beginning to feel uneasy. A suspicion was growing with him that, in some way which he did not at present understand, he had been gypped. Then, on top of this uneasiness, came a consoling thought. Ambrose's contract was not yet signed. 'Isn't he?'

  'You poor fish, Tennyson's been dead forty years.’ 'Dead?'

  'Certainly. George was just stringing you. You ought to know by this time what a kidder he is. It's a wonder he didn't advise you to sign up Dante.'

  'Who,' asked Mr Llewellyn, 'is Dante?’

  'He's dead, too.'

  Mr Llewellyn, as we say, could understand by no means all of this, but one thing was clear to him, that his brother-in-law George, not content with drawing from the coffers of the firm a thousand dollars a week more than he was worth, had been trying to fill the Superba-Llewellyn lot up with corpses: and for a moment all he felt was a very justifiable resentment against George. Overlooking the fact that corpses would probably be just as good at treatment and dialogue as most of the living authors already employed by him, he objected to George's indulgence in his celebrated sense of fun and expressed himself to that effect in a few well-chosen words.

  Then bewilderment returned.