“I suppose,” said Mrs. Copley, acidly, “that while you were telephoning to all these people, it was too much trouble to think of your wife. I don't count at all, naturally. It's nothing to you that I should be left imagining all kinds of things. Well, don't blame me if the chicken is roasted to a chip and the potatoes are sodden, and you get indigestion.”
The chicken was roasted to a chip; the potatoes were sodden; and, in consequence, Mr. Copley did get a violent indigestion, to which his wife was obliged to minister with soda-mint and bismuth and hot-water bottles, voicing her opinion of him at every application. Not until six o'clock in the morning did he fall into a heavy and unrefreshing slumber, from which he was aroused at a quarter to eight by hearing Mrs. Copley say:
“If you are going to the office today, Frederick, you had better get up. If you are not going, you may as well say so, and I will send a message. I have called you three times, and your breakfast is getting cold.”
Mr. Copley, with a bilious headache over his right eye and a nasty taste in his mouth, would gladly have authorized her to send the message–gladly have turned over upon his pillow and buried his woes in sleep, but the recollection of the Nutrax half-double and the fifty pounds rushed over him in a flood and swept him groaning from between the sheets. Seen in the morning light, to the accompaniment of black spots dancing before his eyes, the prospect of his triumph had lost much of its glamour. Still, he could not let it go with a mere explanation by telephone. He must be on the spot. He shaved hastily, with a shaking hand and cut himself. The flow of blood would not be staunched. It invaded his shirt. He snatched the garment off, and called to his wife for a clean one. Mrs. Copley supplied it–not without reprimand. It seemed that the putting on of a clean shirt on a Friday morning upset the entire economy of the household. At ten minutes past eight, he came down to a breakfast he could not eat, his cheek ludicrously embellished with a tuft of cotton-wool and his ears ringing with migraine and conjugal rebuke.
It was impossible, now, to catch the 8.15. Sourly, he caught the 8.25.
At a quarter to nine, the 8.25 was hung up for twenty minutes outside King's Cross on account of an accident to a goods train.
At 9.30, Mr. Copley crawled drearily into Pym's, wishing he had never been born.
As he entered the office from the lift, the reception-clerk greeted him with a message that Mr. Armstrong would like to see him at once. Mr. Copley, savagely signing his name far away below the red line which divided the punctual from the dilatory, nodded, and then wished he had not, as a pang of agony shot through his aching head. He mounted the stair and encountered Miss Parton, who said brightly:
“Oh, here you are, Mr. Copley! We thought you were lost. Mr. Armstrong would like to see you.”
“I'm just going,” said Mr. Copley, savagely. He went to his room and took off his coat, wondering whether a phenacetin would cure his headache or merely make him sick. Ginger Joe knocked at the door.
“If you please, sir, Mr. Armstrong says, could you spare him a moment.”
“All right, all right,” said Mr. Copley. He tottered out into the passage, and nearly fell into the arms of Mr. Ingleby.
“Hullo!” said the latter, “you're wanted, Copley! We were just sending out the town-crier. You'd better nip along to Armstrong pronto. Tallboy's out for your blood.”
“Ar'rh!” said Mr. Copley.
He shouldered Mr. Ingleby aside and went on his way, only to encounter Mr. Bredon, lurking at the door of his own room, armed with an imbecile grin and a jew's harp.
“See the conquering hero comes,” cried Mr. Bredon, following up this remark with a blast upon his instrument.
“Jackanapes!” said Mr. Copley. Whereupon, to his horror, Mr. Bredon executed three handsome cart-wheels before him down the passage, finishing up accurately before Mr. Armstrong's door, and just out of Mr. Armstrong's line of sight.
Mr. Copley knocked upon the glass panel, through which he could see Mr. Armstrong, seated at his desk, Mr. Tallboy, upright and indignant, and Mr. Hankin standing, with his usual air of mild hesitation, on the far side of the room. Mr. Armstrong looked up and beckoned Mr. Copley in.
“Ah!” said Mr. Armstrong, “here's the man we want. Rather late this morning, aren't you, Mr. Copley?”
Mr. Copley explained that there had been an accident on the line.
“Something must be done about these accidents on the line,” said Mr. Armstrong. “Whenever Pym's staff travels, the trains break down. I shall have to write to the Superintendent of the line. Ha, ha!”
Mr. Copley realized that Mr. Armstrong was in one of his frivolous and tiresome moods. He said nothing.
“Now, Mr. Copley,” said Mr. Armstrong, “what's all this about the Nutrax half-double? We've just had an agitated telegram from Mr. Jollop. I can't get hold of the Morning Star man–what's his name?”
“Weekes,” said Mr. Tallboy.
“Weekes–golly, what a name! But I understand–or Mr. Tallboy understands–from somebody or other, that you altered the Nutrax headline last night. I've no doubt you've got an excellent explanation, but I should like to know just what we've got to say to Mr. Jollop.”
Mr. Copley pulled himself together and embarked on an account of the previous night's crisis. He felt that he was not doing himself justice. Out of the tail of his eye, he could see the dab of cotton-wool on his cheek waggling absurdly as he spoke. He pointed out with emphasis and acerbity the extremely unfortunate suggestion conveyed by the sketch and the original headline.
Mr. Armstrong burst into a hoot of laughter.
“My God!” he shouted. “They've got us there, Tallboy! Ho, ho, ho! Who wrote the headline? I must tell Mr. Pym about this. Why the devil didn't you catch it, Tallboy?”
“It never occurred to me,” said Mr. Tallboy, unaccountably crimson in the face. Mr. Armstrong hooted again.
“I think Ingleby wrote it,” added Mr. Tallboy.
“Ingleby, of all people!” Mr. Armstrong's mirth was not to be restrained. He pushed the buzzer on his desk. “Miss Parton, ask Mr. Ingleby to step in here.”
Mr. Ingleby arrived, cool and insolent as ever. Mr. Armstrong, half speechless with joy, thrust the original pull of the advertisement at him, with a comment so barbarically outspoken that Mr. Copley blushed.
Mr. Ingleby, unabashed, capped the comment with a remark still more immodest, and Miss Parton, lingering, note-book in hand, gave a refined snigger.
“Well, sir,” said Ingleby, “it's not my fault. My original rough was illustrated with a very handsome sketch of a gentleman overwhelmed with business cares. If the innocents in the Studio choose to turn down my refined suggestion in favour of a (male epithet) and a (female epithet) who look as though they'd been making a night of it, I refuse to be responsible.”
“Ha, ha!” said Mr. Armstrong. “That's Barrow all over. I don't suppose Barrow–”
The end of the sentence was more complimentary to the Studio-chief's virtue than to his virility. Mr. Hankin suddenly exploded into a loud snicker of laughter.
“Mr. Barrow is rather fond of cashiering any suggestion put forward by the Copy Department,” said Mr. Copley. “I hardly like to suggest that there is any inter-departmental jealousy behind it, but the fact remains–”
But Mr. Armstrong was feeling hilarious, and paid no attention. He recited a limerick, amid applause.
“Well, it's all right, Mr. Copley,” he said, when he had partially recovered himself. “You did quite right. I'll send an explanation to Mr. Jollop. He'll have a fit.”
“He'll be surprised that you passed it,” said Mr. Hankin.
“Well he may be,” agreed Mr. Armstrong, pleasantly. “It isn't often I overlook anything indecent. I must have been off-colour that day. So must you, Tallboy. Oh, dear! Mr. Pym will have something to say about it. I shall enjoy seeing his face. I only wish it had gone through. He'd have sacked the whole department.”
“It would have been very serious,” said Mr. Copley.
“Of course it would. I'm very glad the Morning Star spotted it. All right. Now that's settled. Mr. Hankin, about that whole page for Sopo–”
“I hope,” said Mr. Copley, “you are satisfied with what I did. There wasn't much time–”
“Quite all right, quite all right,” said Mr. Armstrong. “Very much obliged to you. But, by the way, you might have let somebody know. I was left rather up in the air this morning.”
Mr. Copley explained that he had endeavoured to get into touch with Mr. Pym, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Tallboy and Mr. Wedderburn, but without success.
“Yes, yes, I see,” said Mr. Armstrong. “But why didn't you ring up Mr. Hankin?”
“I am alwaysat home by six,” added Mr. Hankin, “and it is very seldom that I go out. When I do, I always leave directions where I am to be found.” (This was a dig at Mr. Armstrong.)
Dismay seized upon Mr. Copley. He had clean forgotten Mr. Hankin, and he knew well enough that Mr. Hankin, mild as were his manners, was quick to resent anything in the nature of a slight.
“Of course,” he stammered. “Of course, yes, I might have done that. But Nutrax being your client, Mr. Armstrong–I thought–it never occurred to me that Mr. Hankin–”
This was a bad tactical error. It was, to begin with, contrary to the great Pym Principle that any member of the Copy Department was supposed to be ready to carry on with any part of the work at any time, if called upon. And it also suggested that Mr. Hankin was, in that respect, less versatile than Mr. Copley himself.
“Nutrax,” said Mr. Hankin, in a thin manner, “is certainly not a favourite account of mine. But I have coped with it in my time.” (This was another side-blow at Mr. Armstrong, who had temperamental periods when he was apt to hand all his clients over to Mr. Hankin, pleading nervous exhaustion.) “It is really no further outside my scope than that of the junior copy-writers.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Armstrong, perceiving that Mr. Hankin was on the point of doing the undesirable thing, and ticking off a member of the department before a member of another department, “it's not of any great consequence, and you did your best in an awkward crisis. Nobody can think of everything. Now, Mr. Hankin”–he dismissed the small fry with a nod–“let's get this Sopo question settled once and for all. Don't go, Miss Parton, I want you to take a note. I'll see to Nutrax, Mr. Tallboy. Don't worry.”
The door closed behind Mr. Copley, Mr. Ingleby and Mr. Tallboy.
“My God!” said Ingleby, “what a howl! Went with a bang from start to finish. It only wanted Barrow to make it complete. That reminds me, I'll have to go and pull his leg. This'll teach him to turn down my intelligent suggestions. Hullo! there's the Meteyard. I must tell her what Armstrong said about old Barrow.”
He dived into Miss Meteyard's room, from which unladylike shouts of mirth were soon heard to proceed. Mr. Copley, feeling as though his head were filled with hard knobs of spinning granite that crashed with sickening thuds against his brain-pan, walked stiffly away to his own quarters. As he passed the Dispatching, he had a vision of Mrs. Crump, in tears, standing before Mrs. Johnson's desk, but he paid no attention. His one agonized yearning was to shake off Mr. Tallboy, who padded grimly at his heels.
“Oh, Mr. Tallboy!”
Mrs. Johnson's rather shrill voice came to Mr. Copley like an order of release. He shot home like a bolting rabbit. He must try phenacetin and chance the consequences. Hastily he swallowed three tablets without even troubling to fetch a glass of water, sat down in his revolving chair and closed his eyes.
Crash, crash, crash, went the lumps of granite in his brain. If only he could remain where he was, quite quietly, for half an hour–
The door was flung violently open.
“Look here, Copley,” said Mr. Tallboy, in a voice like a pneumatic drill, “when you were hugger-muggering round with my desk last night did you have the unprintable bloody impertinence to interfere with my private belongings?”
“For heaven's sake,” moaned Mr. Copley, “don't make such a row. I've got a splitting headache.”
“I don't care a highly-coloured damn if you've got a headache or not,” retorted Mr. Tallboy, flinging the door to behind him with a slam like the report of an 11-inch gun. “There was an envelope in my desk last night with fifty pounds in it, and it's gone, and that old (epithet) Mrs. Crump says she saw you (vulgar word)-ing about among my papers.”
“I have your fifty pounds here,” replied Mr. Copley, with as much dignity as he could muster. “I put it away safely for you, and I must say, Tallboy, that I consider it extremely thoughtless of you to leave your property about for the charwomen to find. It's not fair. You should have more consideration. And I did not rummage about in your desk as you suggest. I merely looked for the pull of the Nutrax half-double, and when I was closing the desk, this envelope fell out upon the floor.”
He stooped to unlock the drawer, experiencing a ghastly qualm as he did so.
“You mean to tell me,” said Mr. Tallboy, “that you had the all-fired cheek to take my money away to your own damned room–”
“In your own interests,” said Mr. Copley.
“Interests be damned! Why the devil couldn't you leave it in a pigeon-hole and not be so blasted interfering?”
“You do not realize–”
“I realize this,” said Mr. Tallboy, “that you're an expurgated superannuated interfering idiot. What you wanted to come poking your blasted nose in for–”
“Really, Mr. Tallboy–”
“What business was it of yours, anyway?”
“It was anybody's business,” said Mr. Copley–so angry that he almost forgot his headache–“who had the welfare of the firm at heart. I am considerably older than you, Tallboy, and in my day, a Group-manager would have been ashamed to leave the building before ascertaining that all was well with his advertisement for the next day's paper. How you came to let such an advertisement pass in the first place is beyond my understanding. You were then late with the block. Perhaps you do not know that it was not received by the Morning Star till five minutes past six–five minutes past six. And instead of being at your post to consider any necessary corrections–”
“I don't want you to teach me my job,” said Mr. Tallboy.
“Pardon me, I think you do.”
“Anyhow, what's that got to do with it? The point is, you stick your nose into my private affairs–”
“I did not. The envelope fell out–”
“That's a bloody lie.”
“Pardon me, it is the truth.”
“Don't keep saying 'pardon me' like a bloody kitchen-maid.”
“Leave my room!” shrieked Mr. Copley.
“I'm not going to leave your damned room till I get an apology.”
“I think I ought to receive the apology.”
“You?” Mr. Tallboy became almost inarticulate. “You–! Why the hell couldn't you have had the decency to ring me up and tell me, anyway?”
“You weren't at home.”
“How do you know? Did you try?”
“No. I knew you were out, because I saw you in Southampton Row.”
“You saw me in Southampton Row, and you hadn't the ordinary common decency to get hold of me and tell me what you'd been after? Upon my word, Copley, I believe you jolly well meant to get me into a row. And collar the cash for yourself, too, I shouldn't wonder.”
“How dare you suggest any such thing?”
“And all your rot about consideration for the charwomen! It's sheer damned hypocrisy. Of course I thought one of them had had it. I told Mrs. Crump–
“You accused Mrs. Crump?”
“I didn't accuse her. I told her I had missed fifty pounds.”
“That just shows you,” began Mr. Copley.
“And fortunately she'd seen you at my desk. Otherwise, I suppose I should never have heard anything more about my money.”
“You've no right to say that.”
“I've a damn sight more right to say it than you had
to steal the money.”
“Are you calling me a thief?”
“Yes, I am.”
“And I call you a scoundrel,” gasped Mr. Copley, beside himself, “an insolent scoundrel. And I say that if you came by the money honestly, which I doubt, sir, which I very much doubt–”
Mr. Bredon poked his long nose round the door.
“I say,” he bleated anxiously, “sorry to butt in, and all that, but Hankie's compliments and he says, would you mind talking a little more quietly? He's got Mr. Simon Brotherhood next door.”
A pause followed, in which both parties realized the thinness of the beaverboard partition between Mr. Hankin's room and Mr. Copley's. Then Mr. Tallboy thrust the recovered envelope into his pocket.
“All right, Copley,” he said. “I shan't forget your kind interference.” He bounced out.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” moaned Mr. Copley, clasping his head in his hands.
“Is anything up?” queried Mr. Bredon.
“Please go away,” pleaded Mr. Copley, “I'm feeling horribly ill.”
Mr. Bredon withdrew on catlike feet. His inquisitive face beamed with mischief. He pursued Mr. Tallboy into the Dispatching, and found him earnestly talking to Mrs. Johnson.
“I say, Tallboy,” said Mr. Bredon, “what's wrong with Copley? He looks jolly fed-up. Have you been twisting his tail?”
“It's no affair of yours, anyway,” retorted Mr. Tallboy, sullenly. “All right, Mrs. J., I'll see Mrs. Crump and put it right with her.”
“I hope you will, Mr. Tallboy. And another time, if you have any valuables, I should be obliged if you would bring them to me and let me put them in the safe downstairs. These upsets are not pleasant, and Mr. Pym would be greatly annoyed if he knew about it.”
Mr. Tallboy fled for the lift without vouchsafing any reply.
“Atmosphere seems a bit hectic this morning, Mrs. Johnson,” observed Mr. Bredon, seating himself on the edge of the good lady's desk. “Even the presiding genius of the Dispatching looks a trifle ruffled. But a righteous indignation becomes you. Gives sparkle to the eyes and a clear rosiness to the complexion.”
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