Ann came to the rescue in characteristically direct fashion.
"Get out, Ogden," she said.
Ogden tried to meet her eye mutinously, but failed. Why he should be afraid of Ann he had never been able to understand, but it was a fact that she was the only person of his acquaintance whom he respected. She had a bright eye and a calm, imperious stare which never failed to tame him.
"Why?" he muttered. "You're not my boss."
"Be quick, Ogden."
"What's the big idea--ordering a fellow--"
"And close the door gently behind you," said Ann. She turned to Jerry, as the order was obeyed.
"Has he been bothering you, Jerry?"
Jerry Mitchell wiped his forehead.
"Say, if that kid don't quit butting in when I'm working in the gym--You heard what he was saying about Maggie, Miss Ann?"
Celestine had been born Maggie O'Toole, a name which Mrs. Pett stoutly refused to countenance in any maid of hers.
"Why on earth do you pay any attention to him, Jerry? You must have seen that he was making it all up. He spends his whole time wandering about till he finds some one he can torment, and then he enjoys himself. Maggie would never dream of going out in the car with Biggs."
Jerry Mitchell sighed a sigh of relief.
"It's great for a fellow to have you in his corner, Miss Ann."
Ann went to the door and opened it. She looked down the passage, then, satisfied as to its emptiness, returned to her seat.
"Jerry, I want to talk to you. I have an idea. Something I want you to do for me."
"Yes, Miss Ann?"
"We've got to do something about that child, Ogden. He's been worrying uncle Peter again, and I'm not going to have it. I warned him once that, if he did it again, awful things would happen to him, but he didn't believe me. I suppose, Jerry--what sort of a man is your friend, Mr. Smethurst?"
"Do you mean Smithers, Miss Ann?"
"I knew it was either Smithers or Smethurst. The dog man, I mean. Is he a man you can trust?"
"With my last buck. I've known him since we were kids."
"I don't mean as regards money. I am going to send Ogden to him for treatment, and I want to know if I can rely on him to help me."
"For the love of Mike."
Jerry Mitchell, after an instant of stunned bewilderment, was looking at her with worshipping admiration. He had always known that Miss Ann possessed a mind of no common order, but this, he felt, was genius. For a moment the magnificence of the idea took his breath away.
"Do you mean that you're going to kidnap him, Miss Ann?"
"Yes. That is to say, -you- are--if I can persuade you to do it for me."
"Sneak him away and send him to Bud Smithers' dog-hospital?"
"For treatment. I like Mr. Smithers' methods. I think they would do Ogden all the good in the world."
Jerry was enthusiastic.
"Why, Bud would make him part-human. But, say, isn't it taking big chances? Kidnapping's a penitentiary offence."
"This isn't that sort of kidnapping."
"Well, it's mighty like it."
"I don't think you need be afraid of the penitentiary. I can't see aunt Nesta prosecuting, when it would mean that she would have to charge us with having sent Ogden to a dogs' hospital. She likes publicity, but it has to be the right kind of publicity. No, we do run a risk, but it isn't that one. You run the risk of losing your job here, and I should certainly be sent to my grandmother for an indefinite sentence. You've never seen my grandmother, have you, Jerry? She's the only person in the world I'm afraid of! She lives miles from anywhere and has family prayers at seven-thirty sharp every morning. Well, I'm ready to risk her, if you're ready to risk your job, in such a good cause. You know you're just as fond of uncle Peter as I am, and Ogden is worrying him into a breakdown. Surely you won't refuse to help me, Jerry?"
Jerry rose and extended a calloused hand.
"When do we start?"
Ann shook the hand warmly.
"Thank you, Jerry. You're a jewel. I envy Maggie. Well, I don't think we can do anything till they come back from England, as aunt Nesta is sure to take Ogden with her."
"Who's going to England?"
"Uncle Peter and aunt Nesta were talking just now of sailing to try and persuade a young man named Crocker to come back here."
"Crocker? Jimmy Crocker? Piccadilly Jim?"
"Yes. Why, do you know him?"
"I used to meet him sometimes when he was working on the -Chronicle- here. Looks as if he was cutting a wide swathe in dear old London. Did you see the paper to-day?"
"Yes, that's what made aunt Nesta want to bring him over. Of course, there isn't the remotest chance that she will be able to make him come. Why should he come?"
"Last time I saw Jimmy Crocker," said Jerry, "it was a couple of years ago, when I went over to train Eddie Flynn for his go with Porky Jones at the National. I bumped into him at the N. S. C. He was a good deal tanked."
"He's always drinking, I believe."
"He took me to supper at some swell joint where they all had the soup-and-fish on but me. I felt like a dirty deuce in a clean deck. He used to be a regular fellow, Jimmy Crocker, but from what you read in the papers it begins to look as if he was hitting it up too swift. It's always the way with those boys when you take them off a steady job and let them run around loose with their jeans full of mazuma."
"That's exactly why I want to do something about Ogden. If he's allowed to go on as he is at present, he will grow up exactly like Jimmy Crocker."
"Aw, Jimmy Crocker ain't in Ogden's class," protested Jerry.
"Yes, he is. There's absolutely no difference between them."
"Say! You've got it in for Jim, haven't you, Miss Ann?" Jerry looked at her wonderingly. "What's your kick against him?"
Ann bit her lip. "I object to him on principle," she said. "I don't like his type.... Well, I'm glad we've settled this about Ogden, Jerry. I knew I could rely on you. But I won't let you do it for nothing. Uncle Peter shall give you something for it--enough to start that health-farm you talk about so much. Then you can marry Maggie and live happily ever afterwards."
"Gee! Is the boss in on this, too?"
"Not yet. I'm going to tell him now. Hush! There's some one coming."
Mr. Pett wandered in. He was still looking troubled.
"Oh, Ann--good morning, Mitchell--your aunt has decided to go to England. I want you to come, too."
"You want me? To help interview Jimmy Crocker?"
"No, no. Just to come along and be company on the voyage. You'll be such a help with Ogden, Ann. You can keep him in order. How you do it, I don't know. You seem to make another boy of him."
Ann stole a glance at Jerry, who answered with an encouraging grin. Ann was constrained to make her meaning plainer than by the language of the eye.
"Would you mind just running away for half a moment, Jerry?" she said winningly. "I want to say something to uncle Peter."
"Sure. Sure."
Ann turned to Mr. Pett as the door closed.
"You'd like somebody to make Ogden a different boy, wouldn't you, uncle Peter?"
"I wish it was possible."
"He's been worrying you a lot lately, hasn't he?" asked Ann sympathetically.
"Yes," sighed Mr. Pett.
"Then that's all right," said Ann briskly. "I was afraid that you might not approve. But, if you do, I'll go right ahead."
Mr. Pett started violently. There was something in Ann's voice and, as he looked at her, something in her face which made him fear the worst. Her eyes were flashing with an inspired light of a highly belligerent nature, and the sun turned the red hair to which she owed her deplorable want of balance to a mass of flame. There was something in the air. Mr. Pett sensed it with every nerve of his apprehensive person. He gazed at Ann, and as he did so the years seemed to slip from him and he was a boy again, about to be urged to lawless courses by the superior will of his boyhood's hero, Hammond Chester. In
the boyhood of nearly every man there is a single outstanding figure, some one youthful hypnotic Napoleon whose will was law and at whose bidding his better judgment curled up and died. In Mr. Pett's life Ann's father had filled this role. He had dominated Mr. Pett at an age when the mind is most malleable. And now--so true is it that though Time may blunt our boyish memories the traditions of boyhood live on in us and an emotional crisis will bring them to the surface as an explosion brings up the fish that lurk in the nethermost mud--it was as if he were facing the youthful Hammond Chester again and being irresistibly impelled to some course of which he entirely disapproved but which he knew that he was destined to undertake. He watched Ann as a trapped man might watch a ticking bomb, bracing himself for the explosion and knowing that he is helpless. She was Hammond Chester's daughter, and she spoke to him with the voice of Hammond Chester. She was her father's child and she was going to start something.
"I've arranged it all with Jerry," said Ann. "He's going to help me smuggle Ogden away to that friend of his I told you about who keeps the dog-hospital: and the friend is going to keep him until he reforms. Isn't it a perfectly splendid idea?"
Mr. Pett blanched. The frightfulness of reality had exceeded anticipation.
"But, Ann!"
The words came from him in a strangled bleat. His whole being was paralysed by a clammy horror. This was beyond the uttermost limit of his fears. And, to complete the terror of the moment, he knew, even while he rebelled against the insane lawlessness of her scheme, that he was going to agree to it, and--worst of all--that deep, deep down in him there was a feeling toward it which did not dare to come to the surface but which he knew to be approval.
"Of course Jerry would do it for nothing," said Ann, "but I promised him that you would give him something for his trouble. You can arrange all that yourselves later."
"But, Ann!... But, Ann!... Suppose your aunt finds out who did it!"
"Well, there will be a tremendous row!" said Ann composedly. "And you will have to assert yourself. It will be a splendid thing for you. You know you are much too kind to every one, uncle Peter. I don't think there's any one who would put up with what you do. Father told me in one of his letters that he used to call you Patient Pete as a boy."
Mr. Pett started. Not for many a day had a nickname which he considered the most distasteful of all possible nicknames risen up from its grave to haunt him. Patient Pete! He had thought the repulsive title buried forever in the same tomb as his dead youth. Patient Pete! The first faint glimmer of the flame of rebellion began to burn in his bosom.
"Patient Pete!"
"Patient Pete!" said Ann inexorably.
"But, Ann,"--there was pathos in Mr. Pett's voice--"I like a peaceful life."
"You'll never have one if you don't stand up for yourself. You know quite well that father is right. You do let every one trample on you. Do you think father would let Ogden worry him and have his house filled with affected imitation geniuses so that he couldn't find a room to be alone in?"
"But, Ann, your father is different. He likes fusses. I've known your father contradict a man weighing two hundred pounds out of sheer exuberance. There's a lot of your father in you, Ann. I've often noticed it."
"There is! That's why I'm going to make you put your foot down sooner or later. You're going to turn all these loafers out of the house. And first of all you're going to help us send Ogden away to Mr. Smithers."
There was a long silence.
"It's your red hair!" said Mr. Pett at length, with the air of a man who has been solving a problem. "It's your red hair that makes you like this, Ann. Your father has red hair, too."
Ann laughed.
"It's not my fault that I have red hair, uncle Peter. It's my misfortune."
Mr. Pett shook his head.
"Other people's misfortune, too!" he said.
CHAPTER II
THE EXILED FAN
London brooded under a grey sky. There had been rain in the night, and the trees were still dripping. Presently, however, there appeared in the laden haze a watery patch of blue: and through this crevice in the clouds the sun, diffidently at first but with gradually increasing confidence, peeped down on the fashionable and exclusive turf of Grosvenor Square. Stealing across the square, its rays reached the massive stone walls of Drexdale House, until recently the London residence of the earl of that name; then, passing through the window of the breakfast-room, played lightly on the partially bald head of Mr. Bingley Crocker, late of New York in the United States of America, as he bent over his morning paper. Mrs. Bingley Crocker, busy across the table reading her mail, the rays did not touch. Had they done so, she would have rung for Bayliss, the butler, to come and lower the shade, for she endured liberties neither from Man nor from Nature.
Mr. Crocker was about fifty years of age, clean-shaven and of a comfortable stoutness. He was frowning as he read. His smooth, good-humoured face wore an expression which might have been disgust, perplexity, or a blend of both. His wife, on the other hand, was looking happy. She extracted the substance from her correspondence with swift glances of her compelling eyes, just as she would have extracted guilty secrets from Bingley, if he had had any. This was a woman who, like her sister Nesta, had been able all her life to accomplish more with a glance than other women with recrimination and threat. It had been a popular belief among his friends that her late husband, the well-known Pittsburg millionaire G. G. van Brunt, had been in the habit of automatically confessing all if he merely caught the eye of her photograph on his dressing table.
From the growing pile of opened envelopes Mrs. Crocker looked up, a smile softening the firm line of her lips.
"A card from Lady Corstorphine, Bingley, for her at-home on the twenty-ninth."
Mr. Crocker, still absorbed, snorted absently.
"One of the most exclusive hostesses in England.... She has influence with the right sort of people. Her brother, the Duke of Devizes, is the Premier's oldest friend."
"Uh?"
"The Duchess of Axminster has written to ask me to look after a stall at her bazaar for the Indigent Daughters of the Clergy."
"Huh?"
"Bingley! You aren't listening. What is that you are reading?"
Mr. Crocker tore himself from the paper.
"This? Oh, I was looking at a report of that cricket game you made me go and see yesterday."
"Oh? I am glad you have begun to take an interest in cricket. It is simply a social necessity in England. Why you ever made such a fuss about taking it up, I can't think. You used to be so fond of watching baseball and cricket is just the same thing."
A close observer would have marked a deepening of the look of pain on Mr. Crocker's face. Women say this sort of thing carelessly, with no wish to wound: but that makes it none the less hard to bear.
From the hall outside came faintly the sound of the telephone, then the measured tones of Bayliss answering it. Mr. Crocker returned to his paper.
Bayliss entered.
"Lady Corstorphine desires to speak to you on the telephone, madam."
Half-way to the door Mrs. Crocker paused, as if recalling something that had slipped her memory.
"Is Mr. James getting up, Bayliss?"
"I believe not, madam. I am informed by one of the house-maids who passed his door a short time back that there were no sounds."
Mrs. Crocker left the room. Bayliss, preparing to follow her example, was arrested by an exclamation from the table.
"Say!"
His master's voice.
"Say, Bayliss, come here a minute. Want to ask you something."
The butler approached the table. It seemed to him that his employer was not looking quite himself this morning. There was something a trifle wild, a little haggard, about his expression. He had remarked on it earlier in the morning in the Servants' Hall.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Crocker's ailment was a perfectly simple one. He was suffering from one of those acute spasms of home-sickness, which invaria
bly racked him in the earlier Summer months. Ever since his marriage five years previously and his simultaneous removal from his native land he had been a chronic victim to the complaint. The symptoms grew less acute in Winter and Spring, but from May onward he suffered severely.
Poets have dealt feelingly with the emotions of practically every variety except one. They have sung of Ruth, of Israel in bondage, of slaves pining for their native Africa, and of the miner's dream of home. But the sorrows of the baseball bug, compelled by fate to live three thousand miles away from the Polo Grounds, have been neglected in song. Bingley Crocker was such a one, and in Summer his agonies were awful. He pined away in a country where they said "Well played, sir!" when they meant "'at-a-boy!"
"Bayliss, do you play cricket?"
"I am a little past the age, sir. In my younger days..."
"Do you understand it?"
"Yes, sir. I frequently spend an afternoon at Lord's or the Oval when there is a good match."
Many who enjoyed a merely casual acquaintance with the butler would have looked on this as an astonishingly unexpected revelation of humanity in Bayliss, but Mr. Crocker was not surprised. To him, from the very beginning, Bayliss had been a man and a brother who was always willing to suspend his duties in order to answer questions dealing with the thousand and one problems which the social life of England presented. Mr. Crocker's mind had adjusted itself with difficulty to the niceties of class distinction: and, while he had cured himself of his early tendency to address the butler as "Bill," he never failed to consult him as man to man in his moments of perplexity. Bayliss was always eager to be of assistance. He liked Mr. Crocker. True, his manner might have struck a more sensitive man than his employer as a shade too closely resembling that of an indulgent father towards a son who was not quite right in the head: but it had genuine affection in it.
P G Wodehouse - Piccadilly Jim Page 3