Mabel nodded.
‘I was afraid not,' she said. 'I was hoping we could get that mouse for Josephine, Ikey.'
'Oh, yeah?' said Mr Llewellyn guardedly. This was the first he had heard of Josephine.
'Ikey,' explained Mabel, 'has a little crippled niece, and she had set her heart on a Mickey Mouse.'
Gertrude stirred uneasily. Monty stirred uneasily. Mr Llewellyn stirred hopefully. He did not like Mabel, but he liked her work. He gazed at her with a sudden sharp admiration. That 'crippled'. Exactly the touch the treatment needed to make it box-office.
'Crippled?' said Monty.
'Crip-pippled?' said Gertrude.
'She was run over by a car last year.’
'A Rolls-Royce,' said Mr Llewellyn, who liked to do things well.
'And she has been on her back ever since. Ah, well,' said Mabel, with a sigh, ‘I must go and hunt round the stores. Though I'm afraid they won't have just the right thing. It's so difficult to get exactly the kind she wants. You know how fanciful children are when they are ill and suffering -'
'She has golden hair,' said Mr Llewellyn.
'Monty,' said Reggie, who knew that his employer liked Service and Cooperation, 'are you going to be such a low-down hound as to withhold that mouse from this poor blighted child?'
'And blue eyes,’ said Mr Llewellyn.
'Monty!' cried Gertrude appealingly. 'Absolutely,' said Monty.
'Of course she must have it, poor little thing,’ said Gertrude’ 'I wouldn't dream of keeping it.'
"Well spoken, my young hockey-knocker,' said Reggie cordially, if perhaps a little patronizingly.
'You're sure?' said Mabel.
'Of course, of course,' said Gertrude, who had been eyeing Reggie in a rather unpleasant manner. 'Here it is, Mr Llewellyn.'
It was plainly something of a wrench for her to part with the precious object, and a really nice-minded man might have accepted it with a certain show of reluctance and hesitation. Mr Llewellyn snatched at it like a monkey jumping for a coconut. The next moment, he was backing towards the door, as if fearful of second thoughts.
At the door, he seemed to realize that he had fallen a little short of polish and courtesy.
'Well, say...' he began.
It is probable that he was meditating a stately speech of thanks. But the words would not come. He stood for an instant, beaming uncertainly. Then he was gone. And as the door closed behind him, the telephone rang.
Reggie went to answer it.
'Hullo? ... Right. Send him up. Albert Peasemarch below,' he said, 'demanding audience.' Monty smote his brow.
'Good Lord! I never tipped him! and I was in his state’ room half the voyage.'
In the interval which elapsed between the announcing of Albert Peasemarch and the appearance of Albert Peasemarch in the flesh, an informal debate took place in the sitting-room concerning the ethics of the thing. Lottie Blossom was anti-Peasemarch. She maintained that if this line of behaviour was to be allowed to continue and develop - if, that was to say, stewards of ocean liners were to be permitted to pursue forgetful clients to New York hotels, it would not be long before they started hunting them all over America with dogs. Reggie, more charitable, said that justice was justice and Monty ought to have slipped the fellow something. Monty was busy trying to secure two fives for a ten.
On Albert Peasemarch's face, when he finally entered, there was the old, familiar look of respectful reproach. He gazed at Monty as at an erring son.
'Sir,' he said.
'I know, I know.'
'It was not a right thing for you to have gone and done, sir -'
All idea of trying to get two fives for his ten had now left Monty. Looking into those reproachful eyes, hearing that reproachful voice, he burned with shame and remorse. It was with the ten in his hand that he now bounded upon Albert Peasemarch.
'I know, I know,’ he said. 'You're quite right. It beats me how I came to forget. I had a lot on my mind. Here you are.'
At the sight of the bill, Albert Peasemarch's austerity seemed momentarily to melt.
'Thank you, sir.'
·Not at all.’
'Very generous of you, sir.’ ‘Not a bit.'
'I am much obliged for the gift and the kind thought behind it,’ said Albert Peasemarch. He folded the bill and slipped it into his sock. ‘I wasn't expecting this, and it's made it difficult for me to speak as I ought to speak. Nevertheless, sir, I feel constrained to do so. As I was saying, sir, it was not a right thing for you to have gone and done. A thing's either right, or it's not right, and if it's not right it's a man's duty, especially if he feels as kindly disposed towards the bloke in question as I, if I may say so, do towards you, wishing you well and hoping to see you prosperous and successful -'
There were very few people in the world capable of damming Albert Peasemarch when in full flood, but most fortunately one of these happened to be in the room at this moment.
'Hoy!' said Lottie Blossom.
'Miss?'
Lottie was severe.
‘What's the idea, you poor fish,' she demanded warmly, 'coming butting in here on a pleasant gathering of friends and shooting your head off? What do you think this is? Some sort of a hall you've hired? Or Commencement Day, with you delivering the valedictory address?’
‘I fail to follow you, miss.'
'Well, let's put it this way. Who let you loose? What are you here for? Why the speech? And when do you propose to give us some idea of what you're talking about?'
Her manner pained Albert Peasemarch.
'Mr Bodkin knows what I'm talking about, miss.’
‘Do you?' asked Lottie, turning to Monty.
‘No,' said Monty. 'I was just wondering.'
'Come, come, sir,' said Albert Peasemarch. 'Look in your heart, sir.'
'Look in my-?’
'Examine your conscience. We all know,' said Albert Peasemarch, dropping easily into his stride once more, 'that there are things a gentleman does not want mentioned in the presence of others, but that is very different from saying you don't know what I'm talking about. Look in your heart, sir. Read its message. Think, sir... Reflect -'
'Steward,' said Lottie.
'Miss?'
'Mr Llewellyn has just given Mr Tennyson a five-year contract to go to Hollywood and write scenarios for him, and Mr Tennyson and I are getting married almost immediately.'
'I'm delighted, miss.'
'You should be. Because it's the one thing that's stopping me giving you a sock on the side of the head which you would remember for the rest of your life. If I wasn't feeling so happy, you'd be on your way to the hospital right now. Now, listen, steward. Will you tell us - get this, steward - in a few simple words - mark that clause - what it is that you are trying to get off that fat chest of yours?'
Albert Peasemarch, always a Bayard of courtesy towards the opposite sex, inclined his head.
'Certainly, miss, if Mr Bodkin has no objection.'
'I'd enjoy it,' said Monty.
Then, miss, I am alluding to Mr Bodkin's questionable action in endeavouring to smuggle a valuable pearl necklace through the New York Customs without paying duty on it as prescribed by law.'
'What!'
'Yes, miss.'
'Is that true?' said Lottie.
‘Certainly not,' said Monty. 'The man's loony.'
Then perhaps,' said Albert Peasemarch, with quiet triumph, ‘you will explain, sir, what it was doing inside of that Mickey Mouse what you gave me to wrap up into a brown paper parcel last night.'
‘What!'
That is what I said, sir - What? Last night,' said Albert Peasemarch, addressing the company at large, 'Mr Bodkin here rang his bell for his steward and sent him to request me to come to his state-room, and when I came Mr Bodkin said, "Peasemarch," and I said, "Sir?" and Mr Bodkin said, "Peasemarch, I have here a plush Mickey Mouse what I'd be obliged if you would wrap up into a brown paper parcel," and I said, "Certainly, sir," and I took it away to wrap it, and I hadn'
t hardly started doing so when I says to myself, "Hullo!" I said, "there's something inside of this mouse," and investigation proved that my surmise was correct, for I unscrewed the animal's head and there was this valuable pearl necklace to which I've been alluding. "Ho!" I said to myself. I was astonished, sir,' said Albert Peasemarch, looking at Monty like a governess, 'Astonished and grieved.'
'But, dash it-'
'Yes, sir,’ repeated Albert Peasemarch firmly. 'Astonished and grieved.' ·But, dash it, I know nothing -' Reggie felt compelled to intervene.
The matter is - what's that expression of yours? - the matter is susceptible of a ready explanation, old man. This necklace belongs to old Llewellyn. In return for certain concessions I agreed to smuggle it through for him. Watching you screwing off and screwing on the head of that mouse that night we chatted in your state-room gave me the idea for -'
‘And that,’ said Mabel, 'is why Ikey wanted the mouse so badly just now.'
Albert Peasemarch seemed uninterested in these exchanges.
'Yes, sir,' he resumed, ‘I said to myself, "Ho 1" and I was astonished and grieved, because smuggling is contrary to the law and I wouldn't have thought it of you, sir. So I said to myself -'
'Never mind what you said to yourself,' interposed Lottie. ‘What did you do with the thing?'
There is a strict rule, which every member of the corps of stewards is enjoined to obey, miss, which says that all valuables found or discovered by them must be took at once to the purser and placed in his charge.'
'Gosh 1'said Lottie.
She turned to the others, and read in their eyes that the word summed up their feelings, too. Mabel was the first to speak. 'Poor old IkeyI' Reggie endorsed this view.
'Quite. I don't say Pop Llewellyn is a man I would ever choose to go on a long walking tour with, but one feel? a pang of pity.'
'He'll have to pay duty, after all,' said Mabel.
'Ikey can afford to pay duty,' argued Lottie.
'Sure. But Grayce told him not to. That's where the trouble is. I'm afraid this is going to stir Grayce up quite a little. You know what she's like.'
Lottie nodded. Mrs Ivor Llewellyn was no stranger to her.
'She's quite apt to rush off and get a Paris divorce.'
That's true.'
'And another aspect of the matter,' Reggie pointed out, 'is that Pop Llewellyn on learning the news may quite easily explode. These men of full habit, as I dare say you know, frequently spin round and hand in their dinner pails under the influence of a sudden shock. They get what are called strokes. They clutch at their throats and keel over.'
That's true,' said Lottie.
'So they do,' said Mabel.
‘I should say,' said Reggie judiciously, 'that when Llewellyn discovers that he has given me a contract to superintend his English sequences and Ambrose a contract to write scenarios and Monty a contract to be a production expert - all at extremely high salaries - all for five years - and all for nothing, something in the nature of spontaneous combustion would supervene.'
'So I said to myself, "Ho!"' proceeded Albert Peasemarch, enabled by the silence that followed these remarks to secure the floor again. ‘ "Ho!" I said to myself. And then I thought for a bit and I said to myself, "H'm!" And then I thought for a bit more, and I said to myself, "Yes," I said. "I'll do it," I said to myself. "I wouldn't do it for everyone," I said to myself, "but I'll do it for Mr Bodkin, because he has always proved himself to be a pleasant, agreeable young gentleman, the sort of young gentleman a man likes to do a good turn for." So the upshot and outcome of it all was that I didn't take that necklace to the purser, as enjoined by the strict rule. I just slipped it into my pocket, and here it is.'
So saying, he produced from his trousers pocket a pencil, a ball of string, a piece of india-rubber, threepence in bronze, the necklace, a packet of chewing gum, two buttons and a small cough lozenge, and placed them on the table. He picked up the pencil, the ball of string, the piece of india-rubber, the threepence, the chewing gum, the buttons and the lozenge, and returned them to store.
It was some moments before any of those present were able to speak. Monty was the first to break the silence.
'Golly P said Monty. 'I wish you could get the stuff over here.'
'What stuff, darling?' asked Gertrude.
'Champagne,' said Monty. 'To me, the situation seems to call for about six bottles of the best. I mean to say, you and I are fixed up, Ambrose and Miss Blossom are fixed up, Reggie and Miss Spence are fixed up, and I intend shortly to present Albert Peasemarch, ass though he is in many respects, with a purse of gold. But what mars the whole binge is that we've nothing to wash it down with but ginger ale. In America,' he explained to Gertrude, 'they have a foul thing called prohibition, which prevents -'
Lottie was staring at him, amazed that there should exist a man so ignorant of the facts of Life.
'You poor sap, they repealed prohibition ages ago.’
'They did?' Monty was stunned. 'Nobody told me.'
'Sure. If you go to that phone and call Room Service, you can get all the champagne you want.'
For a moment, Monty stood where he was, still dazed. Then he walked with a firm step to the telephone.
'Room Service!' he said.
Table of Contents
‘No, no.'
Luck of the Bodkins Page 29