by Saki
A DEFENSIVE DIAMOND
Treddleford sat in an easeful arm-chair in front of a slumberous fire,with a volume of verse in his hand and the comfortable consciousness thatoutside the club windows the rain was dripping and pattering withpersistent purpose. A chill, wet October afternoon was merging into ableak, wet October evening, and the club smoking-room seemed warmer andcosier by contrast. It was an afternoon on which to be wafted away fromone’s climatic surroundings, and “The Golden Journey to Samarkand”promised to bear Treddleford well and bravely into other lands and underother skies. He had already migrated from London the rain-swept toBagdad the Beautiful, and stood by the Sun Gate “in the olden time” whenan icy breath of imminent annoyance seemed to creep between the book andhimself. Amblecope, the man with the restless, prominent eyes and themouth ready mobilised for conversational openings, had planted himself ina neighbouring arm-chair. For a twelvemonth and some odd weeksTreddleford had skilfully avoided making the acquaintance of his volublefellow-clubman; he had marvellously escaped from the infliction of hisrelentless record of tedious personal achievements, or allegedachievements, on golf links, turf, and gaming table, by flood and fieldand covert-side. Now his season of immunity was coming to an end. Therewas no escape; in another moment he would be numbered among those whoknew Amblecope to speak to—or rather, to suffer being spoken to.
The intruder was armed with a copy of _Country Life_, not for purposes ofreading, but as an aid to conversational ice-breaking.
“Rather a good portrait of Throstlewing,” he remarked explosively,turning his large challenging eyes on Treddleford; “somehow it reminds mevery much of Yellowstep, who was supposed to be such a good thing for theGrand Prix in 1903. Curious race that was; I suppose I’ve seen everyrace for the Grand Prix for the last—”
“Be kind enough never to mention the Grand Prix in my hearing,” saidTreddleford desperately; “it awakens acutely distressing memories. Ican’t explain why without going into a long and complicated story.”
“Oh, certainly, certainly,” said Amblecope hastily; long and complicatedstories that were not told by himself were abominable in his eyes. Heturned the pages of _Country Life_ and became spuriously interested inthe picture of a Mongolian pheasant.
“Not a bad representation of the Mongolian variety,” he exclaimed,holding it up for his neighbour’s inspection. “They do very well in somecovers. Take some stopping too, once they’re fairly on the wing. Isuppose the biggest bag I ever made in two successive days—”
“My aunt, who owns the greater part of Lincolnshire,” broke inTreddleford, with dramatic abruptness, “possesses perhaps the mostremarkable record in the way of a pheasant bag that has ever beenachieved. She is seventy-five and can’t hit a thing, but she always goesout with the guns. When I say she can’t hit a thing, I don’t mean to saythat she doesn’t occasionally endanger the lives of her fellow-guns,because that wouldn’t be true. In fact, the chief Government Whip won’tallow Ministerial M.P.’s to go out with her; ‘We don’t want to incurby-elections needlessly,’ he quite reasonably observed. Well, the otherday she winged a pheasant, and brought it to earth with a feather or twoknocked out of it; it was a runner, and my aunt saw herself in danger ofbeing done out of about the only bird she’d hit during the present reign.Of course she wasn’t going to stand that; she followed it through brackenand brushwood, and when it took to the open country and started across aploughed field she jumped on to the shooting pony and went after it. Thechase was a long one, and when my aunt at last ran the bird to astandstill she was nearer home than she was to the shooting party; shehad left that some five miles behind her.”
“Rather a long run for a wounded pheasant,” snapped Amblecope.
“The story rests on my aunt’s authority,” said Treddleford coldly, “andshe is local vice-president of the Young Women’s Christian Association.She trotted three miles or so to her home, and it was not till the middleof the afternoon that it was discovered that the lunch for the entireshooting party was in a pannier attached to the pony’s saddle. Anyway,she got her bird.”
“Some birds, of course, take a lot of killing,” said Amblecope; “so dosome fish. I remember once I was fishing in the Exe, lovely troutstream, lots of fish, though they don’t run to any great size—”
“One of them did,” announced Treddleford, with emphasis. “My uncle, theBishop of Southmolton, came across a giant trout in a pool just off themain stream of the Exe near Ugworthy; he tried it with every kind of flyand worm every day for three weeks without an atom of success, and thenFate intervened on his behalf. There was a low stone bridge just overthis pool, and on the last day of his fishing holiday a motor van ranviolently into the parapet and turned completely over; no one was hurt,but part of the parapet was knocked away, and the entire load that thevan was carrying was pitched over and fell a little way into the pool.In a couple of minutes the giant trout was flapping and twisting on baremud at the bottom of a waterless pool, and my uncle was able to walk downto him and fold him to his breast. The van-load consisted ofblotting-paper, and every drop of water in that pool had been sucked upinto the mass of spilt cargo.”
There was silence for nearly half a minute in the smoking-room, andTreddleford began to let his mind steal back towards the golden road thatled to Samarkand. Amblecope, however, rallied, and remarked in a rathertired and dispirited voice:
“Talking of motor accidents, the narrowest squeak I ever had was theother day, motoring with old Tommy Yarby in North Wales. Awfully goodsort, old Yarby, thorough good sportsman, and the best—”
“It was in North Wales,” said Treddleford, “that my sister met with hersensational carriage accident last year. She was on her way to agarden-party at Lady Nineveh’s, about the only garden-party that evercomes to pass in those parts in the course of the year, and therefore athing that she would have been very sorry to miss. She was driving ayoung horse that she’d only bought a week or two previously, warranted tobe perfectly steady with motor traffic, bicycles, and other commonobjects of the roadside. The animal lived up to its reputation, andpassed the most explosive of motor-bikes with an indifference that almostamounted to apathy. However, I suppose we all draw the line somewhere,and this particular cob drew it at travelling wild beast shows. Ofcourse my sister didn’t know that, but she knew it very distinctly whenshe turned a sharp corner and found herself in a mixed company of camels,piebald horses, and canary-coloured vans. The dogcart was overturned ina ditch and kicked to splinters, and the cob went home across country.Neither my sister nor the groom was hurt, but the problem of how to getto the Nineveh garden-party, some three miles distant, seemed ratherdifficult to solve; once there, of course, my sister would easily findsome one to drive her home. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care for the loan ofa couple of my camels?’ the showman suggested, in humorous sympathy. ‘Iwould,’ said my sister, who had ridden camel-back in Egypt, and sheoverruled the objections of the groom, who hadn’t. She picked out two ofthe most presentable-looking of the beasts and had them dusted and madeas tidy as was possible at short notice, and set out for the Ninevehmansion. You may imagine the sensation that her small but imposingcaravan created when she arrived at the hall door. The entiregarden-party flocked up to gape. My sister was rather glad to slip downfrom her camel, and the groom was thankful to scramble down from his.Then young Billy Doulton, of the Dragoon Guards, who has been a lot atAden and thinks he knows camel-language backwards, thought he would showoff by making the beasts kneel down in orthodox fashion. Unfortunatelycamel words-of-command are not the same all the world over; these weremagnificent Turkestan camels, accustomed to stride up the stony terracesof mountain passes, and when Doulton shouted at them they went side byside up the front steps, into the entrance hall, and up the grandstaircase. The German governess met them just at the turn of thecorridor. The Ninevehs nursed her with devoted attention for weeks, andwhen I last heard from them she was well enough to go about her dutiesagain, but the doc
tor says she will always suffer from Hagenbeck heart.”
Amblecope got up from his chair and moved to another part of the room.Treddleford reopened his book and betook himself once more across
The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea.
For a blessed half-hour he disported himself in imagination by the “gayAleppo-Gate,” and listened to the bird-voiced singing-man. Then theworld of to-day called him back; a page summoned him to speak with afriend on the telephone.
As Treddleford was about to pass out of the room he encounteredAmblecope, also passing out, on his way to the billiard-room, where,perchance, some luckless wight might be secured and held fast to listento the number of his attendances at the Grand Prix, with subsequentremarks on Newmarket and the Cambridgeshire. Amblecope made as if topass out first, but a new-born pride was surging in Treddleford’s breastand he waved him back.
“I believe I take precedence,” he said coldly; “you are merely the clubBore; I am the club Liar.”