“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning. Would you like a richly bound encyclopædia of Sport?”
“Not in the least,” said Lord Emsworth cordially. “Can you scramble eggs?”
“Why, sure.”
“Then come in,” said Lord Emsworth. “Come in. And if you will excuse me leaving you, I will go and change my clothes.”
Women are admittedly wonderful. It did not take Lord Emsworth long to remove his best suit, which he had been wearing in deference to the wishes of Freddie, who was a purist on dress, and don the older and shabbier one which made him look like a minor employee in some shady firm of private detectives. but, brief though the interval had been, the girl had succeeded in bringing order out of chaos. Not only had she quelled what had threatened to become an ugly revolt among the eggs, but she had found bacon and coffee and produced toast. What was virtually a banquet was set out in the living-room, and Lord Emsworth was about to square his elbows and have at it, when he detected an omission.
“Where is your plate?” he asked.
“Mine?” The girl seemed surprised. “Am I in on this?”
“Most certainly.”
“That’s mighty nice of you. I’m starving.”
“These eggs,” said Lord Emsworth some moments later speaking thickly through a mouthful of them, “are delicious Salt?”
“Thanks.”
“Pepper? Mustard? Tell me,” said Lord Emsworth, for it was a matter that had been perplexing him a good deal, “why do you go about the countryside offering people richly bound encyclopædias of Sport? Deuced civil of you, of course,” he added hastily, lest she might think that he was criticizing, “but why do you?”
“I’m selling them.”
“Selling them?”
“Yes.”
A bright light shone upon Lord Emsworth. It had been well said of him that he had an I.Q. some thirty points lower than that of a not too agile-minded jelly-fish, but he had grasped her point. She was selling them.
“Of course, yes. Quite. I see what you mean. You’re selling them.”
“That’s right. They set you back five dollars and I get forty per cent. Only I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because people won’t buy them.”
“No?”
“No, sir.”
“Don’t people want richly bound encyclopædias of Sport?”
“If they do, they keep it from me.”
“Dear, dear.” Lord Emsworth swallowed a piece of bacon emotionally. His heart was bleeding for this poor child. “That must be trying for you.”
“It is.”
“But why do you have to sell the bally things?”
“Well, it’s like this. I’m going to have a baby.”
“Good God!”
“Oh, not immediately. Next January. Well, that sort of thing costs money. Am I right or wrong?”
“Right, most decidedly,” said Lord Emsworth, who had never been a young mother himself but knew the ropes. “I remember my poor wife complaining of the expense when my son Frederick was born. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,’ I remember her saying. She was alive at the time,” explained Lord Emsworth.
“Ed. works in a garage.”
“Does he? I don’t think I have met him. Who is Ed?”
“My husband.”
“Oh, your husband? You mean your husband. Works in a garage, does he?”
That’s right. And the take-home pay doesn’t leave much over for extras.”
“Like babies?”
“Like babies. So I got this job. I didn’t tell Ed., of course. He’d have a fit.”
“He is subject to fits?”
“He wants me to lie down and rest.”
“I think he’s right.”
“Oh, he’s right, all right, but how can I? I’ve got to hustle out and sell richly bound encyclopædias.”
“Of Sport?”
“Of Sport. And it’s tough going. You do become discouraged. Besides getting blisters on the feet. I wish you could see my feet right now.”
On the point of saying that he would be delighted, Lord Emsworth paused. He had had a bright idea and it had taken his breath away. This always happened when he had bright ideas. He had had one in the Spring of 1921 and another in the Summer of 1933, and those had taken his breath away, too.
“I will sell your richly bound encyclopædias of Sport,” he said.
“You?”
The bright idea which had taken Lord Emsworth’s breath away was that if he went out and sold richly bound encyclopædias of Sport, admitted by all the cognoscenti to be very difficult to dispose of, it would rid him once and for all of the inferiority complex which so oppressed him when in the society of his son Freddie. The brassiest of young men cannot pull that Spirit of Modern Commerce stuff on a father if the father is practically a Spirit of Modern Commerce himself.
“Precisely,” he said.
“But you couldn’t.”
Lord Emsworth bridled. A wave of confidence and self-reliance was surging through him.
“Who says I couldn’t? My son Frederick sells things, and I resent the suggestion that I am incapable of doing anything that Frederick can do.” He wondered if it would be possible to explain to her what a turnip-headed young ass Frederick was, then gave up the attempt as hopeless. “Leave this to me,” he said. “Lie down on that sofa and get a nice rest.”
“But “
“Don’t argue,” said Lord Emsworth dangerously, becoming the dominant male. “Lie down on that sofa.”
Two minutes later, he was making his way down the road, still awash with that wave of confidence and self-reliance. His objective was the large white house where the flowers were. He was remembering what Freddie had said about its owner. The man, according to Freddie, threw parties and entertained blondes in his wife’s absence. And while we may look askance from the moral standpoint at one who does this, we have to admit that it suggests the possession of sporting blood. That reckless, raffish type probably buys its encyclopædias of Sport by the gross.
But one of the things that make life so difficult is that waves of confidence and self-reliance do not last. They surge, but they recede, leaving us with dubious minds and cooling feet. Lord Emsworth had started out in uplifted mood, but as he reached the gate of the white house the glow began to fade.
It was not that he had forgotten the technique of the thing. Freddie had explained it too often for him to do that. You rapped on the door. You said “I wonder if I could interest you in a good dog biscuit?” And then by sheer personal magnetism you cast a spell on the householder so that he became wax in your hands. All perfectly simple and straightforward. And yet, having opened the gate and advanced a few feet into the driveway, Lord Emsworth paused. He removed his pince-nez, polished them, replaced them on his nose, blinked, swallowed once or twice and ran a finger over his chin. The first fine frenzy had abated. He was feeling like a nervous man who in an impulsive moment has volunteered to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
He was still standing in the driveway, letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would”, as cats do in adages, when the air became full of tooting horns and grinding brakes and screaming voices.
“God bless my soul,” said Lord Emsworth, coming out of his coma.
The car which had so nearly caused a vacancy in the House of Lords was bursting with blondes. There was a blonde at the wheel, another at her side, further blondes in the rear seats and on the lap of the blonde beside the blonde at the wheel a blonde Pekinese dog. They were all shouting, and the Pekinese dog was hurling abuse in Chinese.
“God bless my soul,” said Lord Emsworth. “I beg your pardon. I really must apologize. I was plunged in thought.”
“Oh, was that what you were plunged in?” said the blonde at the wheel, mollified by his suavity. Speak civilly to blondes, and they will speak civilly to you.
“I was thinking of dog biscuits. Of dog biscuits. Of… er… in short … do
g biscuits. I wonder,” said Lord Emsworth, striking while the iron was hot, “if I could interest you in a good dog biscuit?”
The blonde at the wheel weighed the question.
“Not me,” she said. “I never touch ‘em.”
“Nor me,” said a blonde at the back. “Doctor’s orders.”
“And if you’re thinking of making a quick sale to Eisenhower here,” said the blonde beside the driver, kissing the Pekinese on the tip of its nose, a feat of daring at which Lord Emsworth marvelled, “he only eats chicken.”
Lord Emsworth corrected himself.
“When I said dog biscuit,” he explained, “I meant a richly bound encyclopædia of Sport.”
The blondes exchanged glances.
“Look,” said the one at the wheel. “If you don’t know the difference between a dog biscuit and a richly bound encyclopædia of Sport, seems to me you’d be doing better in some other lie of business.”
“Much better,” said the blonde beside her.
“A whole lot better,” agreed the blonde at the back.
“No future in it, the way you’re going,” said the blonde at the wheel, summing up. “That’s the first thing you want to get straight on, the difference between dog biscuits and richly bound encyclopædias of Sport. It’s a thing that’s cropping up all the time. There is a difference. I couldn’t explain it to you offhand, but you go off into a corner somewheres and mull it over quietly and you’ll find it’ll suddenly come to you.”
“Like a flash,” said the blonde at the back.
“Like a stroke of lightning or sump’n,” assented the blonde at the wheel. “You’ll be amazed how you ever came to mix them up. Well, good-bye. Been nice seeing you.”
The car moved on toward the house, and Lord Emsworth, closing his burning ears to the happy laughter proceeding from its interior, tottered out into the road. His spirit was broken. It was his intention to return home and stay there. And he had started on his way when there came stealing into his mind a disturbing thought.
That girl. That nice young Mrs Ed. who was going to have a fit in January … or, rather, a baby. (It was her husband, he recalled, who had the fits.) She was staking everything on his salesmanship. Could he fail her? Could he betray her simple trust?
The obvious answer was “Yes, certainly”, but the inherited chivalry of a long lie of ancestors, all of whom had been noted for doing the square thing by damsels in distress, caused Lord Emsworth to shrink from making it. In the old days when knighthood was in flower and somebody was needed to rescue a suffering female from a dragon or a two-headed giant, the cry was always “Let Emsworth do it!”, and the Emsworth of the period had donned his suit of mail, stropped his sword, parked his chewing gum under the round table and snapped into it. A pretty state of things if the twentieth century holder of the name were to allow himself to be intimidated by blondes.
Blushing hotly, Lord Emsworth turned and made for the gate again.
In the living-room of the white house, cool in the shade of the tree which stood outside its window, there had begun to burgeon one of those regrettable neo-Babylonian orgies which are so frequent when blondes and men who are something in the lumber business get together. Cocktails were circulating, and the blonde who had been at the wheel of the car was being the life and soul of the party with her imitation of the man outside who had been unable to get himself straightened out in the matter of dog biscuits and richly bound encyclopædias. Her “Lord Ems-worth” was a nice bit of impressionistic work, clever but not flattering.
She was giving a second encore when her performance was interrupted by a shrill yapping from without, and the blonde who had sat beside her knitted her brow in motherly concern.
“Somebody’s teasing Eisenhower,” she said.
“Probably found a cat,” said the timber wolf. “Tell me more. What sort of a character was this character?”
“Tall,” said a blonde.
“Old,” said another blonde.
“Skinny,” said a third blonde.
And a fourth blonde added that he had worn pince-nez.
A sudden gravity fell upon the timber wolf. He was remembering that on several occasions these last few days he had seen just such a man peering over his hedge in a furtive and menacing manner, like Sherlock Holmes on the trail. This very morning he had seen him. He had been standing there outside the hedge, motionless … watching … watching …
The fly in the ointment of men who throw parties for blondes when their wives are away, the thing that acts as a skeleton at the feast and induces goose pimples when the revelry is at its height, is the fact that they can never wholly dismiss the possibility that these wives, though they ought to be ashamed of themselves for entertaining unworthy suspicions, may have engaged firms of private detectives to detect them privately and report on their activities. It was this thought that now came whistling like an east wind through the mind of the timber wolf, whose name, just to keep the record straight, was not Griggs or Follansbee but Spenlow (George).
And as he quivered beneath its impact, one of his guests, who had hitherto taken no part in the conversation, spoke as follows:
“Oo, look! Eisenhower’s got him up a tree!”
And George Spenlow, following her pointing finger, saw that she was correct. There the fellow was, roosting in the branches and adjusting his pince-nez as if the better to view the scene within. He quivered like a jelly and stared at Lord Emsworth. Lord Emsworth stared at him. Their eyes met.
Much has been written of the language of the eyes, but except between lovers it is never a very satisfactory medium of communication. George Spenlow, trying to read the message in Lord Emsworth’s, completely missed the gist.
What Lord Emsworth was trying to convey with the language of the eye was an apology for behaviour which at first sight, he admitted, might seem a little odd. He had rapped on the door, he was endeavouring to explain, but, unable to attract attention to his presence, had worked his way round the house to where he heard voices, not a thought on his mind except a passionate desire to sell richly bound encyclopædias of Sport, and suddenly something had exploded like a land mine on the ground beside him and, looking down, he had perceived a Pekinese dog advancing on him with bared teeth. This had left him no option but to climb the tree to avoid its slavering jaws. “Oh, for the wings of a dove!” he had said to himself, and had got moving. He concluded his remarks by smiling a conciliatory smile.
It pierced George Spenlow like a dagger. It seemed to him that this private investigator, elated at having caught him with the goods, was gloating evilly.
He gulped.
“You girls stay here,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll go talk to this fellow.”
He climbed through the window, scooped up the Pekinese, restored it to its proprietress and addressed Lord Emsworth in a quavering voice.
“Now listen,” he said.
These men high up in the lumber business are quick thinkers. George Spenlow had seen the way.
“Now listen,” said George Spenlow.
He had taken Lord Emsworth affectionately by the arm and was walking him up and down the lawn. He was a stout, pink, globular man, so like Lord Emsworth’s pig, Empress of Blandings, in appearance that the latter felt a wave of homesickness.
“Now listen,” said George Spenlow. “I think you and I can get together.”
Lord Emsworth, to show that his heart was in the right place, smiled another conciliatory smile.
“Yes, yes, I know,” said George Spenlow, wincing. “But I think we can. I’ll put my cards on the table. I know all about it. My wife. She gets ideas into her head. She imagines things.”
Lord Emsworth, though fogged was able to understand this.
“My late wife was like that” he said.
“All women are like that” said George Spenlow. “It’s something to do with the bone structure of their heads. They let their imagination run away with them. They entertain unworthy suspicions.”
&nb
sp; Here again Lord Emsworth was able to follow him. He said he had noticed the same thing in his sister Constance, and George Spenlow began to feel encouraged.
“Sure. Sisters, wives, late wives … they’re all the same, and it doesn’t do to let them get away with it. So here’s what. What you tell her is that you found me enjoying a quiet home afternoon with a few old college friends … Wait, wait,” said George Spenlow urgently. “Wait while I finish.”
He had observed his guest shake his head. This was because a mosquito had just bitten Lord Emsworth on the ear, but he had no means of divining this. Shakes of the head are as hard to interpret as the language of the eyes.
“Wait while I finish,” said George Spenlow. “Hear what I was going to say. You’re a man of the world. You want to take the broad, sensible outlook. You want to study the situation from every angle and find out what there is in it for you. Now then how much?”
“You mean how many?”
“Eh?”
“How many would you like?”
“How many what?”
“Richly bound encyclopædias of Sport.”
“Oh yes, yes, yes,” said George Spenlow, enlightened “Oh, sure sure, sure, sure, sure. I didn’t get you for a moment. About how many would you suggest? Fifty?”
Lord Emsworth shook his head again—petulantly, it seemed to George Spenlow. The mosquito had returned.
“Well, naturally,” proceeded George Spenlow, “when I said fifty, I meant a hundred. I think that’s a nice round number.”
“Very nice,” agreed Lord Emsworth. “Or would you care for a gross?”
“A gross might be better.”
“You can give them to you friends.”
“That’s right. On their birthdays.”
“Or at Christmas.”
“Of course. So difficult to think of a suitable Christmas present.”
“Extraordinarily difficult.”
“Shall we say five hundred dollars on account?”
“That would be capital.”
“And remember,” said George Spenlow, with all the emphasis at his disposal. “Old college friends.”
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