to indicate this, when the butler, carried along by his momentum, added:
“Cruickshank? Chalmers? Cutmore? Carpenter? Cheffins? Carr? Cartwright? Cadwallader?”
And something seemed to go off in Bingo’s brain like a spring.
“Cadwallader!”
“Is that the gentleman’s name, sir?”
“No,” said Bingo. “But it’ll do.”
He had suddenly recalled that Cadwallader was the name of the grocer from whom he had purchased the cheese. Starting from that grocer’s door, he was pretty sure that he could find his way to Chez Purkiss. His position was clear. Cadwallader ho! was the watchword.
The prudent thing, of course, would have been to postpone the expedition until darkness had fallen, for it is under cover of night that these delicate operations are best performed. But at this season of the year, what with summertime and all that, darkness fell so dashed late, and he was all keyed up for rapid action. Refreshing his memory with another look at Cadwallader’s address in the telephone book, he set out in the cool of the evening, hope in his heart and the Peke under his arm. And presently he found himself on familiar ground. Here was Cadwallader’s grocery establishment, there was the road down which he had sauntered, and there a few moments later was the box hedge that fringed the Purkiss’s domain and the gate through which he had entered.
He opened the gate, shoved the Peke in, bade it a brief farewell and legged it. And so home, arriving there shortly before six.
As he passed into the Little domain, he was feeling in some respects like a murderer who has at last succeeded in getting rid of the body and in other respects like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego on emerging from the burning fiery furnace. It was as if a great load had been lifted from him. Once, he tells me, in the days of his boyhood, while enjoying a game of football at school, he was compelled in pursuance of his duties to fall on the ball and immediately afterwards became the base of a sort of pyramid consisting of himself and eight beefy members of the opposing team with sharp elbows and cleated boots. Even after all these years, he says, he can still recall the sense of buoyancy and relief when this mass of humanity eventually removed itself from the small of his back. He was feeling exactly the same relief and buoyancy now. I don’t know if he actually sang, but I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he didn’t attempt a roundelay or two.
Bingo, like Jonah, is one of those fellows who always come up smiling. You may crush him to earth, but he will rise again. Resilient is, I believe, the word. And he now found the future, if not actually bright, at least beginning to look for the first time more or less fit for human consumption. Mistily, but growing every moment more solid, there had begun to shape itself in his mind a story which might cover that business of the Boddington and Biggs ten quid. The details wanted a bit of polishing, but the broad, basic structure was there. As for the episode at Charing Cross Station, there he proposed to stick to stout denial. It might or might not get by. It was at least worth trying. And, in any -vent, he was now straight on the Peke situation.
Walking on the tips of his toes with his hat on the’ side of his lead, Bingo drew near to the house. And it was at this point that something brushed against his leg with a cheery gurgle and, coking down, he saw that it was the Peke. Having conceived a warm regard for Bingo, and taking advantage of the fact that he had omitted to close the Purkiss’s gate, it had decided to toddle along with him.
And while Bingo stood rooted to the spot, staring wanly at the adhesive animal, along came Bagshaw.
”Might I inquire, sir,” said Bagshaw, “if you happen to know the telephone number of the house at which Mrs. Little is temporarily residing?”
“Why?” asked Bingo absently, his gaze still gummed to the Peke.
“Mrs. Little’s friend, Mr. Purkiss, called a short while back, desirous of obtaining information. He was anxious to telephone to Mrs. Little.”
The wanness with which Bingo had been staring at the Peke was as nothing compared to the wanness with which he now stared at the butler. With the mention of that name, memory had returned to him, sweeping away all the Jellabys and Winterbottoms which had been clogging up his thought processes.
“Purkiss?” he cried, tottering on his base. “Did you say Purkiss?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He has been calling here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He wanted to telephone to Mrs. Little?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did he … did Mr. Purkiss … Had he … Had Mr. Purkiss … Did Mr. Purkiss convey the impression of having something on his mind?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He appeared agitated?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You gathered…you inferred that he had some urgent communication to make to Mrs. Little?”
“Yes, sir.”
Bingo drew a deep breath.
“Bagshaw,” he said, “bring me a whisky and soda. A large whisky and soda. One with not too much soda in it, but with the whisky stressed. In fact, practically leave the soda out altogether.”
He needed the restorative badly, and when it came lost no time in introducing it into his system. The more he contemplated Purkiss’s call, the more darkly sinister did it seem to him.
Purkiss had wanted to telephone to Mrs. Bingo. He had appeared agitated. Facts like these were capable of but one interpretation. Bingo remembered the hat which he had left somewhere in the bush. Obviously, Purkiss must have found that hat, observed the initials in its band, leaped to the truth and was now trying to get hold of Mrs. Bingo to pour the whole story into her receptive ear.
There was only one thing to be done. Bingo shrank from doing it, but he could see that he had no other alternative. He must seek Purkiss out, explain all the circumstances and throw himself on his mercy, begging him as a sportsman and a gentleman to keep the whole thing under his hat. And what was worrying him was a grave doubt as to whether Purkiss was a sportsman and a gentleman. He had not much liked the man’s looks on the occasion of their only meeting. It seemed to him, recalling that meeting, that Purkiss had had the appearance of an austere sort of bird, with that cold, distant look in his eyes which he, Bingo, had so often seen in those of his bookie when he was trying to get him to let the settlement stand over till a week from Wednesday.
However, the thing had to be done, and he set forth to do it. He made his way to the Purkiss’s home, and the butler conducted him to the drawing-room.
“Mr. Little,” he announced, and left him. ‘And Bingo braced himself for the ordeal before him.
He could see at a glance that Purkiss was not going to be an easy audience. There was in his manner nothing of the genial host greeting the welcome popper-in. He had been standing with his back turned, looking out of the open french window, and he spun round with sickening rapidity and fixed Bingo with a frightful stare. A glare of loathing, Bingo diagnosed it as—the natural loathing of a ratepayer who sees before him the bloke has recently lured away his Peke with cheese. And he felt that it would be necessary for him, if anything in the nature of a happy ending was to be arrived at, to be winning and spending as never before.
“Well?” said Purkiss.
Bingo started to make a manly clean breast of it without preamble.
“I’ve come about that Peke,” he said.
And at that moment, before he could say another word, there barged down his windpipe, wiping speech from his lips and making him cough like the dickens, some foreign substance which might have been a fly—or a gnat—or possibly a small moth. And while he was coughing he saw Purkiss give a sort of despairing gesture.
“I was expecting this,” he said.
Bingo went on coughing.
“Yes,” said Purkiss, “I feared it. You are quite right. I stole the dog.”
Bingo had more or less dealt with the foreign substance by this time, but he still couldn’t speak. Astonishment held him dumb. Purkiss was looking like somebody in a movie caught with the goods. He w
as no longer glaring. There was a dull, hopeless agony in his eyes.
“You are a married man, Mr. Little,” he said, “so perhaps you will understand. My wife has gone to stay with an ailing aunt at Tunbridge Wells. Shortly before she left, she bought a Pekinese dog. This she entrusted to my care, urging me on no account ever to allow it out of the house except on a lead. Last night, as the animal was merely going to step out into the garden for a few moments, I omitted the precaution. I let it run out by itself. I never saw it again.”
He gulped a bit. Bingo breathed heavily a bit. He resumed.
“It was gone, and I saw that my only course was immediately to secure a substitute of similar appearance. I spent the whole of to-day going round the dog-shops of London, but without avail. And then I remembered that Mrs. Little owned several of these animals—all, as I recalled, singularly like the one I had lost. I thought she might possibly consent to sell me one of them.”
He sighed somewhat.
“This evening,” he went on, “I called at your house, to find that she was away and that I could not reach her by telephone. And it would be useless to write to her, for my wife returns to-morrow. So I turned away, and as I reached the gate something jumped against my leg. It was a Pekinese dog, Mr. Little, and the very image of the one I had lost. The temptation was too great …”
“You pinched it?” cried Bingo, shocked.
Purkiss nodded. Bingo clicked his tongue.
“A bit thick, Purkiss,” he said gravely.
“I know, I know. I am fully conscious of the heinousness of what I did. My only excuse must be that I was unaware that I was being observed.” He heaved another sigh. “The animal is in the kitchen,” he said, “enjoying a light supper. I will ring for the butler to bring it to you. And what my wife is going to say, I shudder to think,” said Purkiss, doing so.
“You fancy that she will be upset when she returns and finds no Peke to call her Mother?”
“I do, indeed.”
“Then, Purkiss,” said Bingo, slapping him on the shoulder, “keep this animal.”
He likes to think of himself at that moment. He was suave, kindly, full of sweetness and light. He rather imagines that Purkiss must have thought he had run up against an angel in human shape or something.
“Keep it?”
“Definitely.”
“But Mrs. Little–?”
“Have no concern. My wife doesn’t know from one day to another how many Pekes she’s got. Just so long as there is a reasonable contingent messing about, she is satisfied. Besides,” said Bingo, with quiet reproach, “she will have far too much on her mind, when she gets back, to worry about Pekes. You see, Purkiss, she had set her heart on my becoming editor of Wee Tots. She will be distressed when she learns of your attitude in that matter. You know what women are.”
Purkiss coughed. He looked at Bingo, and quivered a bit. Then he looked at him again, and quivered a bit more. Bingo received the impression that some sort of spiritual struggle was proceeding within him.
“Do you want to edit Wee Tots, Mr. Little?” he said at length.
“I do, indeed.”
“You’re sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“I should have thought that a young man in your position would have been too busy, too occupied–”
“Oh, no. I could have fitted it in.”
A touch of hope came into Purkiss’s manner.
“The work is hard.”
“No doubt I should have capable assistants.”
“The salary,” said Purkiss wistfully, “is not large.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Bingo, inspired. “Make it larger.”
Purkiss took another look, and quivered for the third time. Then his better self triumphed.
“I shall be delighted,” he said in a low voice, “if you will assume the editorship of Wee Tots.”
Bingo patted him on the shoulder once more.
“Splendid, Purkiss,” he said. “Capital. And now, in the matter of a small advance of salary…”
The Editor Regrets
WHEN Bingo Little’s wife, the well-known female novelist Rosie M. Banks, exerted her pull and secured for Bingo the editorship of Wee Tots, that popular and influential organ which has done so much to mould thought in the nursery, a sort of literary renaissance swept the Drones Club. Scarcely an Egg, Bean, Pieface or Crumpet on the list of members but took pen in hand with the feeling that here was where he cashed in and got back some of the stuff that had gone down the drain at Ally Pally and Kempton Park.
It was a painful shock to the intelligentsia, accordingly, when they discovered that their old friend was not going to prove the geyser of easy money they had anticipated. In quick succession he turned down the Egg who wanted to do Racing Notes, the Bean with the inside stuff on Night Clubs, and the Pieface who suggested that he should be given a sort of roving commission to potter round the south of France and contribute gossipy articles of human interest from such centres as Cannes and Monte Carlo. Even a Crumpet who had known him since they were in sailor suits had his thoughtful piece on Some Little Known Cocktails declined with thanks.
“On the plea,” said the Crumpet, “that his proprietor wouldn’t like it.”
“That’s what he told me,” said the Egg. “Who is this bally proprietor of Bingo’s?”
“A man named Purkiss. It was through her life-long friendship with Mrs. Purkiss that Mrs. Bingo was able to get Bingo the job.”
“Then Purkiss can have no red blood in him,” said the Egg.
“Purkiss lacks vision,” said the Bean.
“Purkiss is an ass,” said the Pieface.
The Crumpet shook his head.
“I’m not so sure,” he said. “My belief is that Bingo merely sees Purkiss as a blind or screen. I think the man is drunk with a sense of power and definitely enjoys rejecting contributions from outside talent. And one of these days he is going to get himself into serious trouble by coming the heavy editor like this. In fact, not long ago he very nearly did so. Only the luck of the Littles saved him from taking a toss which threatened to jar his fat trouser-seat clean out of the editorial chair, never to return. I allude, of course, to the Bella Mae Jobson affair.”
The Bean asked what the Bella Mae Jobson affair was, and the Crumpet, expressing surprise that he had not heard of it, said that it was the affair of Bella Mae Jobson.
The American authoress, he explained. Scarcely known in this country, she has for some years past been holding American childhood spellbound with her tales of Willie Walrus, Charlie Chipmunk, and other fauna. Purkiss, who had been paying a visit to New York, met her on the boat coming back, and she lent him Charlie Chipmunk Up the Orinoco. A single glance was enough to tell him that here was the circulation-building stuff for which Wee Tots had been waiting, and he entered into tentative negotiations for her whole output, asking her on arriving in London to look in at the office and fix things up with his editor—viz., Bingo.
Now, unfortunately, Purkiss’s absence from the centre of things had caused Bingo to get it up his nose a bit. When on the spot, the other had a way of making criticisms and suggestions, and an editor, he tells me, feels shackled when a proprietor with bronchial catarrh keeps popping in all the time, trying to dictate the policy of the “Uncle Joe to His Chickabiddies” page. All through these last weeks of freedom, therefore, he had been getting more and more above himself, with the result that, when informed per desk telephone that a Miss Jobson waited without he just tapped his teeth with a pencil and said: “Oh, she does, does she? Well, bung her out and tell her to write. We do not see callers without an appointment.”
He then returned to the “What a Tiny Girlie Can Do to Help Mother” feature, and was still roughing it out when the door opened and in walked Purkiss, looking bronzed and fit. And after a bit of Well-here-I-am-back-again-ing and Oh-hullo-Mr.-Purkiss-did-you-have-a-good-trip-ing, as is inevitable on these occasions, Purkiss said:
“By the way, Mr.
Little, a Miss Jobson will be calling shortly.”
Bingo gave a light laugh.
“Oh, jolly old Jobson?” he said airily. “She’s been and gone, leaving not a wrack behind. I gave her the air.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Turfed her out,” explained Bingo.
Purkiss reeled.
“You mean … you refused to see her?”
“That’s right,” said Bingo. “Busy. Busy, busy, busy. Much too busy to talk to females. I told her to write, stating her business legibly on one side of the paper only.”
I don’t know if any of you happened to see that picture, “The Hurricane”, that was on not long ago. Briefly, the plot of it was that there was a bevy of unfortunate blighters on a South Sea island and the dickens of a howling tempest came along and blew them cross-eyed. I bring it up because Bingo tells me that very much the same sort of thing happened now. For some moments, he says, all he was conscious of was a vast atmospheric disturbance, with him swaying in the middle of it, and then gradually, Purkiss’s remarks becoming clearer, he gathered that he had made something of a floater, and that this bird Jobson was a bird who should have been conciliated, sucked up to, given the old oil and generally made to feel that she was among friends and admirers.
“Well, I’m sorry,” he said, feeling that something in the nature of an apology was indicated. “I deeply regret the whole unfortunate occurrence. I was the victim of a misunderstanding. It never crossed my mind that the above was a sweet ginger specialising in chipmunks. The impression I received was of somebody trying to sell richly illustrated sets of Dumas on the easy payment plan.”
Then, seeing that Purkiss had buried his face in his hands and hearing him mutter something about “God’s gift to the nursery” and “ruin”, he stepped across and gave him a kindly pat on the shoulder.
“Cheer up,” he said. “You still have me.”
“No, I haven’t,” said Purkiss. “You’re fired.”
And in words whose meaning there was no mistaking he informed Bingo that the end of the month would see his finish as Ye Ed., and that it was his, Purkiss’s, dearest hope that when he, Bingo, finally left the premises, he would trip over the doormat and break his neck.
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