 Chapter 3 Part 1 of Mismap. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jane Greensmith of JaneGS.com. Mismap by E. F. Benson. Chapter 3 Part 1. Diva was sitting at the open drawing room window of her house in the high street, cutting with a pair of sharp nail scissors into the old chins curtains which her maid had told her no longer paid for the mending. So, since they refused to pay for their mending anymore, she was preparing to make them pay, pretty smartly too, in other ways. The pattern was of little bunches of pink roses peeping out through trellis work, and it was these which she had just begun to cut out. Though Tilling was noted for the ingenuity with which its more fashionable ladies devised novel and quaint effects in their dress in an economical manner, Diva felt sure, ransack her memory though she might, that nobody had thought of this before. The hot weather had continued late into September and showed no signs of breaking yet, and it would be agreeable to her and acutely painful to others that just at the end of the summer she should appear in a perfectly new costume before the days of jumpers and heavy skirts and large woolen scarves came in. She was preparing, therefore, to take the light white jacket which she wore over her blouse and cover the broad collar and cuffs of it with these pretty roses. The belt of the skirt would be similarly decorated, and so would the edge of it, if there were enough clean ones. The jacket and skirt had already gone to the dyers and would be back in a day or two, white no longer but of a rich purple hue, and by that time she would have hundreds of these little pink roses ready to be tacked on. Perhaps a piece of the chins, trellis and all, could be sewn over the belt, but she was determined to have single little bunches of roses peppered all over the collar and cuffs of the jacket and, if possible, around the edge of the skirt. She had already tried the effect and was of the opinion that nobody could possibly guess what the origin of these roses was. Carefully sewn on, they looked as if they were a design in this stuff. She let the circumcised roses fall onto the window seat and from time to time when they grew numerous swept them into a cardboard box. Though she worked with zealous diligence, she had an eye to the movements in the street outside, for it was shopping hour, and there were many observations to be made. She had not anything like Miss Mapp's genius for conjecture, but her memory was appallingly good, and this was the third morning running on which Elizabeth had gone into the grocers. It was odd to go to your grocers every day like that. Groceries twice a week was sufficient for most people. From here on the floor above the street she could easily look into Elizabeth's basket, and she certainly was carrying nothing away with her from the grocers. For the only thing there was a small bottle done up in white paper with sealing wax, which Diva had no need to be told, certainly came from the chemists, and was no doubt connected with too many plums. Miss Mapp crossed the street to the pavement below Diva's house, and precisely as she reached it, Diva's maid opened the door into the drawing room, bringing in the second post, or rather not bringing in the second post, but the announcement that there wasn't any second post. This opening of the door caused a draft, and the bunches of roses which littered the window seat rose brightly in the air. Diva managed to beat most of them down again, but two fluttered out of the window. Precisely then, and at no other time, Miss Mapp looked up, and one settled on her face. The other fell into her basket. Her trained faculties were all on the alert, and she thrust them both inside her glove for future consideration without stopping to examine them just then. She only knew that they were little pink roses, and that they had fluttered out of Diva's window. She paused on the pavement and remembered that Diva had not yet expressed regret about the worsted, and that she still popped as much as ever. Thus Diva deserved a punishment of some sort, and happily at that very moment she thought of a subject on which she might be able to make her uncomfortable. The street was full, and it would be pretty to call up to her instead of ringing her bell in order to save trouble to poor overwork Janet. Diva only kept two servants, though, of course, poverty was no crime. Diva, darling! she cooed. Diva's head looked out like a cuckoo in a clock, preparing to chime the hour. Hello! she said. Want me? May I pop up for a moment, dear? said Miss Mapp. That's to say, if you're not very busy. Pop away! said Diva. She was quite aware that Miss Mapp said Pop, in crude inverted commas, so to speak, for purposes of mockery. And so she said it herself more than ever. I'll tell my maid to pop down and open the door. While this was being done, Diva bundled her chin's curtains together and stored them, and the roses she had cut out into her work cupboard. For secrecy wasn't essential to the construction of these decorations. But in order to appear naturally employed, she pulled out the woolen scarf she was knitting for the autumn and winter, forgetting for the moment that the rose-matter stripe at the end on which she was now engaged was made of that fatal worsted, which Miss Mapp considered to have been feloniously appropriated. That was the sort of thing Miss Mapp never forgot, even among her sweet flowers. Her eye fell on it the moment she entered the room and she tucked the two chin's roses more securely into her glove. I thought I would just pop across from the grocers, she said. What a pretty scarf, dear. That's a lovely shade of rose-matter. Where can I have seen something like it before? This was clearly ironical and had best be answered by irony. Diva was no coward. Couldn't say I'm sure, she said. Miss Mapp appeared to recollect and smiled as far back as her wisdom teeth. Diva couldn't do that. I have it, she said. It was the wool I ordered at Haynes and then he sold it to you and I couldn't get any more. So it was, said Diva. Upset you a bit. There was the wool in the shop. I bought it. Yes, dear, I see you did. But that wasn't what I popped in about. This coal strike, you know. Got a cellar full, said Diva. Diva, you've not been hoarding, have you? Ask Miss Mapp with great anxiety. They can take away every atom of coal you've got, if so, and find you I don't know what for every hundred weight of it. Poo, said Diva, rather forcing the indifference of this rude interjection. Yes, love, poo, by all means, if you like pooing, said Miss Mapp. But I should have felt very unfriendly if one morning I found you were fine. Found you were fine. Quite a play upon words. And I hadn't warned you. Diva felt a little less poo-ish. But how much do they allow you to have? She asked. Oh, quite a little. Enough to go on with, but I daresay they won't discover you. I just took the trouble to come and warn you. Diva did remember something about hoarding. There had surely been dreadful exposures of prudent housekeepers in the papers which were very uncomfortable reading. But all these orders were only for the period of the war, she said. No doubt you're right, dear, said Miss Mapp rightly. I'm sure I hope you are. Only if the coal strike comes on, I think you'll find that the regulations against hoarding are quite as severe as they ever were. Food hoarding, too. Tweenlow, such a civil man, tells me that he thinks we shall have plenty of food or any house sufficient for everybody for quite a long time, provided that there's no hoarding. Not been hoarding food, too, dear Diva. You naughty thing. I believe that great cupboard is full of sardines and biscuits and boverell. Nothing of the kind, said Diva, indignantly. You shall see for yourself. And then she suddenly remembered that the cupboard was full of chins, curtains, and little bunches of pink roses neatly cut out of them and a pair of nail scissors. There was a perfectly perceptible pause during which Miss Mapp noticed that there were no curtains over the window. There certainly used to be, and they matched with the chins' cover of the window seat, which was decorated with little bunches of pink roses peeping through trellis. This was in the nature of a bonus. She had not, up till then, connected the chins' curtains with the little things that had fluttered down upon her and were now safe in her glove. Her only real object in this call had been to instill a general uneasiness into Diva's mind about the coal strike and the danger of being well provided with fuel. That, she humbly hoped, that she had accomplished. She got up. Must be going, she said, such a lovely little chat. But what has happened to your pretty curtains? Gone to the wash, said Diva firmly. Liar thought Miss Mapp as she tripped downstairs. Diva would have sent the cover of the window seat, too, if that was the case. Liar, she thought again, as she kissed her hand to Diva, who was looking gloomily out of the window. As soon as Miss Mapp had gained her garden room, she examined the mysterious treasures in her left-hand glove. Without the smallest doubt, Diva had taken down her curtains. And high time, too, for they were sadly shabby, and was cutting the roses out of them. But what on earth was she doing that for? For what garish purpose could she want to use bunches of roses cut out of chins curtains? Miss Mapp had put the two specimens of which she had so providentially become possessed in her lab, and they looked very pretty against the navy blue of her skirt. Diva was very ingenious. She used up all sorts of odds and ends in a way that did credit to her undoubtedly parsimonious qualities. She could trim a hat with a toothbrush and a banana in such a way that it looked quite Parisian till you firmly analysed its component parts. And most of her ingenuity was devoted to dress. The more was the pity that she had such a round-bout figure that her waistband always reminded you of the equator. Eureka! said Miss Mapp aloud. And, though the telephone bell was ringing, and the postulate might be one of the servants' friends ringing them up at an hour when their mistress was usually in the high street, she got glided swiftly to the large cupboard underneath the stairs, which was full of the things which no right-minded person could bear to throw away. Broken basket-chairs, pieces of brown paper, cardboard boxes without lids, and cardboard lids without boxes, old bags with holes in them, keys without locks and locks without keys, and worn chins covers. There was one. It had once adorned the sofa in the garden room, covered with red poppies, very easy to cut out. And Miss Mapp dragged it dastily from its corner, setting in motion a perfect cascade of cardboard lids and some door handles. Withers had answered the telephone and came to announce that, Tweenlow, the grocer, regretted he had only two large tins of corn-beef, but, then say, I will have the tongue as well, and then I shall want you and Mary to do some cutting out for me. The three went to work with feverish energy, for Diva had got a start, and by four o'clock that afternoon there were enough poppies cut out to furnish, when in seed, a whole street of opium dens. The dress selected for decoration was, apart from a few mildewed spots, the color of ripe corn, which was superbly appropriate for September. Poppies in the corn, said Miss Mapp over and over to herself, remembering some sweet verses she had once read by Bernard Shaw or Clement Shorter or somebody like that about a garden of sleep somewhere in Norfolk. No one can work as neatly as you withers, as she said gaily, and I shall ask you to do the most difficult part. I want you to sew my lovely poppies over the collar and facings of the jacket, just spacing them a little and making a dainty irregularity. And then Mary, won't you Mary, will do the same with the waistband while I put a border of them around the skirt, and my dear old dress will look quite new and lovely. I shall be at home to nobody withers this afternoon, even if the Prince of Wales came and sat on my doorstep again. We'll all work together in the garden, shall we, and you and Mary must scold me if you think I'm not working hard enough. It will be delicious in the garden. Thanks to this pleasant plan, there was not much opportunity for withers and Mary to be idle. Just about the time that this harmonious party began their work, a far from harmonious couple were being just as industrious in the grand spacious bunker in front of the tea to the last hole on the golf links. It was a beautiful bunker consisting of a great slope of loose, steep sand against the face of the hill and solidly shored up with timber. The Navy had been in better form today, and after a decisive victory over the Army in the morning and an indemnity of half a crown, its match in the afternoon with just the last hole to play was all square. So Captain Puffin, having the honour, hit a low nervous drive that tapped loudly at the timbered wall of the bunker and cuddled down below it, well protected from any future assault. Phew, that about settles it, said Major Flint boisterously. Bad place to top a ball. Give me the hole. This insolent question needed no answer, and Major Flint drove, skying the ball to a prodigious height, but it had to come to Earth sometime, and it fell like Lucifer, son of the morning, in the middle of the same bunker. So the Army played three more and sweating profusely got out. Then it was the Navy's turn and the Navy had to lie on its keel above the boards of the bunker in order to reach its ball at all twice. Better give it up, bold chap, said Major Flint, unplayable. Then see me play it, said Captain Puffin, with a chewing motion of his jaws. We shall miss the trams, said the Major, and with the intention of giving annoyance he sat down in the bunker with his back to Captain Puffin and lit a cigarette. At his third attempt nothing happened. At the fourth the ball flew against the boards, rebounded briskly on the steep sandy slope and hit the Major's boot. Hit you, I think, said Captain Puffin. Ha! So it's my hole, Major. Major Flint had a short fit of aphasia. He opened and shut his mouth and foamed. Then he took a half crown from his pocket. Give that to the Captain, he said to his caddy, and without looking round walked away in the direction of the tram. He had not gone a hundred yards when the whistle sounded and it puffed away in some words with an ever-increasing velocity. Weak and trembling from passion, Major Flint found that after a few tottering steps in the direction of tilling, he would be totally unable to get there unless fortified by some strong stimulant and turned back to the clubhouse to obtain it. He was always dead lame when beaten at golf, while Captain Puffin was lame in any circumstances, and the two, no longer on speaking terms, hobbled into the clubhouse one after the other, unconscious of the other's presence. Summoning his last remaining strength, Major Flint roared for whiskey and was told that, according to regulation, he could not be served until six. There was lemonade and stone ginger beer. You might as well have offered a man-eating tiger bread and mel. Even the threat that he would instantly resign his membership unless provided with drink produced no effect on a polite steward, and he sat down to recover as best he might with an old volume of punch. This seemed to do him little good. His forced abstemiousness was rendered the more intolerable by the fact that Captain Puffin, hobbling in immediately afterwards, fetched from his locker a large flask of the required elixir and proceeded to mix himself a long strong tumblerful. After the Major's rudeness in the matter of the half-crown, it was impossible for any sailor of spirit to take the first step towards reconciliation. Thirst is a great leveler. By the time the refreshed Puffin had penetrated halfway down his glass, the Major found it impossible to be proud and proper any longer. He hated saying he was sorry, no man more, and he wouldn't have been sorry if he had been able to get a drink. He twirled his moustache a great many times and cleared his throat. It wanted more than that to clear it and capitulate it. Upon my word, Puffin, I'm ashamed of myself for not taking my defeat better, he said. A man's no business to let a game ruffle him. Puffin gave his alto cackling laugh. Oh, that's all right, Major, he said. I know it's awfully hard to lose like a gentleman. He let the sink in and then added, have a drink old chap? Major Flint flew to his feet. Well, thank you, thank you, he said. Now, where's that soda water you offered me just now? He shouted to the steward. The speed and completeness of the reconciliation was in no way remarkable. For when two men quarrel whenever they meet, it follows that they make it up again with corresponding frequency. Else there could be no fresh quarrels at all. This one had been a shade more acute than most and the drop into amity again was a shade more precipitous. Major Flint and his eagerness had put most of his moustache at giving tumbler and dried it on his handkerchief. After all, it was a most amusing incident, he said. There was I with my back turned waiting for you to give it up when your bl-wretched little ball hit my foot. I must remember that. I'll serve you with the same spoon some day. At least I would if I thought it's sportsman-like. Well, well, enough said, astonishing good whiskey that of yours. Captain Puffin helped himself to rather more than half of what now remained in the flask. Help yourself, Major, he said. Well, thank ye, I don't mind if I do. He said, reversing the flask over the tumbler. There's a good tramp in front of us now that the last tram has gone. Tram and tramp bomb my word, I've half a mind to telephone for a taxi. This, of course, was a direct hit. Puffin ought clearly to pay for a taxi, having won half crowns today. This casual drink did not constitute the usual drink stood by the winner and paid for with cash over the counter. A drink or two from a flask was not the same thing. Puffin naturally saw it in another light. He had paid for the whiskey which Major Flink had drunk, or owed for it, in his wine merchant's bill. That was money just as much as a floor and pushed across the counter. But he was so excessively pleased with himself over the adroitness with which he had claimed the last hole that he quite overstepped the bounds of his habitual parsimony. Well, you trot along to the telephone in order a taxi, he said, and I'll pay for it. Done with you, said the other. Their comradeship was now on its most felicitous level again, and they sat on the bench outside the clubhouse till the arrival of their unusual conveyance. Lunching at the poppets tomorrow, asked Major Flint. Yes, meet you there? Good. Bridge afterwards, I suppose. Sure to be. Wish there was a chance of more red currant fool. That was a decent tipple, all but the red currants. If I had had all the old brandy that was served from my ration in one glass and all the champagne in another, I should have been better content. Captain Puffin was a great cynic in his own misogynistic way. It was a camouflage for the fair sex, he said. A woman will lick up half a bottle of brandy if it's called plum pudding and ask for more, whereas if you offered her a small brandy and soda, she would think you were insulting her. Bless them, the funny little fairies, said the Major. Well, what I tell you is true, Major, said Puffin. There's old map. Tee-toddler, she calls herself. But she played a bosson's part in the red currant. But Rosie, I thought her as we escorted her home. So she was, said the Major. So she was, said goodbye to us on her doorstep as if she thought she was a perfect Venus Anna, Anna something. Anna Domini, giggled Puffin. Well, well, we all get along in the tooth of time, said Major Flint charitably. Fine, figure of a woman, though. Puffin archly. Now, none of your sailor talk ashore, Captain, said the Major in high good humor. I'm not a marrying man any more than you are. Better if I had been, perhaps, more years ago than I care to think about. Dear me, my wound's going to trouble me tonight. What do you do for it, Major? Ask Puffin. Do for it. Think of old times a bit over my diaries. Going to let the world have a look at them some day? Ask Puffin. No, sir, I am not, said Major Flint. Perhaps a hundred years hence the date I have named in my will for their publication, someone may think them not so uninteresting. But all this toasting and buttereaning, grilling and frying your friends and serving them a pot for all the old cats at a tea table to mew over, pah! Puffin was silent a moment in appreciation of these noble sentiments. But you put in a lot of work over them, he said at length. Often, when I'm going up to bed, I see the light still burning in your sitting-room window. And if it comes to that, rejoined the Major, I'm sure I've often dozed off when I'm in bed and awoken again and pulled up by blind and whatnot and there's your light still burning. Powerful long roads those old Romans must have made, Captain. The ice was not broken. But it was cracking in all directions under this unexampled thaw. The two had clearly indicated a mutual suspicion of each other's industrious habits after dinner. They had never got quite so far as this before. Some quarrel had congealed the surface again. But now, with a desperate disagreement just behind them and the unusual luxury of a taxi just in front, the vernal airs continued blowing in that most spring-like manner. Yes, that's true enough, said Puffin. Long roads they were and dry roads at that. And if I stuck to them from after my supper every evening till midnight or more, I should be smothered in dust. Unless you wash the dust down just once in a while, said Major Flint. Just so. Brain works an exhausting process requires a little stimulant now and again, said Puffin. I sit in my chair, you understand, and perhaps doze for a bit after my supper, and then I'll get my maps out and have them handy beside me. And then, if there's something interesting in the evening paper, perhaps I'll have a look at it and bless me if, by that time, it isn't already half past ten or eleven. And it seems useless to tackle archaeology then. And I just, just while away the time till I'm sleepy. But there seems to be a sort of legend among the ladies here that I'm a great student of local topography in Roman roads and all sorts of truck, and I find it better to leave it at that. Tiresome to go into long explanations. In fact, added Puffin in a burst of confidence, the study I've done on Roman roads these last six months wouldn't cover a three-penny piece. Major Flint gave a loud, choking guffaw and beat his fat leg. Well, if that's not the best joke I've heard for many a long day, he said. There, I've been in the house opposite you these last two years, seeing your light burning late night after night and thinking to myself, there's my friend Puffin still at it. Fine thing to be an enthusiastic archaeologist like that. That makes short work of a lonely evening for him if he's so buried in his books or his maps. Then he doesn't seem to notice whether it's twelve o'clock or what or two maybe. And all the time you've been sitting snoozing and boozing in your chair with your glass handy to wash the dust down. Puffin added his falsetto cackle to this merriment. And I've often thought to myself, he said, there's my friend the Major in his study opposite with all his diaries around him making a note here and copying an extract there and conferring with the Vice Roy one day and reprimanding the Maharaja of Bombaboo another. He's spending the evening on India's Coral Strand. He is having tiffin and shooting tigers and God knows what. The Major's laughter boomed out again. And I never kept a diary in my life, he cried. Why, there's enough cream in this situation to make a dish full of meringues. You and I, you know, the students of Tilly, the serious-minded students who do a hard day's work when all the pretty ladies have gone to bed. Often and often as old, I mean that fine woman Miss Mapp told me that I worked too hard at night. She recommended me to get earlier to bed and do my work between six and eight in the morning. Six and eight in the morning. That's a queer time of day to recommend an old campaigner to be awake at. Often she's talked to you too, I bet my hat, about sitting up late and exhausting the nervous faculties. Major Flint choked and laughed and inhaled tobacco smoke till he got purple in the face. And you sitting up one side of the street, he gasped, pretending to be interested in Roman roads and me on the other pulling a long face over my diaries and neither of us with a Roman road or a diary to our names. Let's have an end to such unsociable arrangements, old friend. You lining your Roman roads and the bottle to lay the dust over to me one night and all bring my diaries and my peg over to you the next. Never drink alone. One of the maxims in life, if you can find someone to drink with you. And there were you within a few yards of me all the time sitting by your old solitary self and there was I sitting by my old solitary self. We each thought the other a serious minded old buffer busy on his life work. I'm blessed if I ever heard of two such pompous old frauds as you and I, captain. What a sight of hypocrisy there is to be sure. No offence, mind. I'm as bad as you and you're as bad as me and we're both as bad as each other. But no more solitary confinement of an evening for Benjamin Flint as long as you're agreeable. The advent of the taxi was announced and arm and arm they limped down the steep path together to the road. A little way off to the left was the great bunker which primarily was the cause of their present amity. As they drove by it the major officer's red-handed it. A reservoir, he said. Back again soon. End of Chapter 3 Part 1 Chapter 3 Part 2 of Mismap This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jane Greensmith Mismap by E.F. Benson Chapter 3 Part 2 It was late that night when Mismap felt that she was physically incapable of tacking on a single poppy moor to the edge of her skirt and went to the window of the garden room where she had been working to close it. She glanced up at the top story of her own house and saw that the lights in the servants' rooms were out. She glanced to the right and concluded that her gardener had gone to bed. Finally she glanced down the street and saw with a pang of pleasure that the windows of the major's house showed no sign of midnight labor. This was intensely gratifying. It indicated that her influence was at work in him. For in response to her wish, so often and so tactfully urged on him that he would go to bed earlier and not work so hard at night, here was the darkened window and she dismissed as unworthy the suspicion which had been aroused by the red current fool. The window of his bedroom was dark too. He must have already put out his light and his map made haste over her little tidy eames so that she might not be found a transgressor to her own precepts. But there was a light in Captain Puffin's house. He had a less impressionable nature than the major and was in so many ways far inferior. And did he really find Roman Rhodes so wonderfully exhilarating? Miss Mapp sincerely hoped that he did and that it was nothing else of less pure and innocent allurement that kept him up. But it did just seem to her that there had been something equally baffling in Major Flint's egotistical vigils over his diaries that she had wondered whether there was not something else. She had hardly formulated what which kept his light burning so late. But she would now cross him, dear man, and his late habits out of the list of riddles about tilling which awaited solution. Whatever it had been, diaries or what not, that used to keep him had broken the habit now, whereas Captain Puffin had not. She took her poppy bordered skirt over her arm and smiled her thankful way to bed. She could allow herself to wonder, with a little more definiteness now that the major's lights were out and he was at bed, what it could be which rendered Captain Puffin so oblivious to the passage of time when he was investigating Roman Rhodes. How glad she was that the major was not with him. Benjamin Flint, she said to herself as, having put her window open, she trod softly so as not to disturb the slumberer next door, across her room on her fat white feet to her big white bed. Good night, Major Benji, she whispered as she put her light out. It was not to be supposed the diva would act on mismaps alarming hints that morning as to the fate of coal hoarders and give, say, a ton of fuel to the hospital at once in lieu of usual, smaller Christmas contribution without making further inquiries in the proper quarters as to the legal liabilities of having, so she ascertained, three tons in her cellar, and as soon as her visitor had left her this morning, she popped out to see Mr. Wooten, her coal merchant. She returned in a state of fury for there were no regulations whatever in existence with regard to the amount of coal that any householder might choose to amass, and Mr. Wooten complimented her prudence in having got in a reasonable supply, for he thought it quite probable that, if the coal strike took place, there would be some difficulty in a month's time from now in replenishing cellars. But we've had a good supply all the summer at a degreeable, Mr. Wooten, and all my customers have got their cellars well stocked. Diva rapidly recollected that the perfidious Elizabeth was among them. Oh, but Mr. Wooten, she said, mismap popped into see me just now, told me she had hardly got any. Mr. Wooten turned up his ledger. It was not etiquette to disclose the affairs of one client to another, but if there was a contankerous customer, one who was never satisfied with prices and quality, that client was mismap. He allowed a broad grin to overspread his agreeable face. Well, ma'am, if in a month's time I'm short of coal, there are friends of yours untiling who can let you have plenty, he permitted himself to say. It was idle to attempt to cut out bunches of roses while her hand was so feverish, and she had trundled up and down the high street to cool off. Had she not been so prudent as to make inquiries, as likely as not, she would have sent a ton of coal that very day to the hospital. So strongly had Elizabeth's perfidious warning inflamed her imagination as to the fate of hoarders, and all the time Elizabeth's own cellars were glutted, though she had asserted that she was almost fuelless. Why, she must have, in her possession, more coal than diver herself, since Mr. Wooten had clearly implied that it was Elizabeth who could be borrowed from, and all because of a wretched piece of rose matter worsted. By degrees she calmed down, for it was no use attempt to plan revenge with a brain at fever heat. She must be calmly and acely ingenious. As the cooling process went on, she began to wonder whether it was worsted alone that had prompted her friend's diabolical suggestion. It seemed more likely that another motive, one strangely Elizabethan, was the cause of it. Elizabeth might be taken for certain as being a coal hoarder herself, and it was ever so like her to divert suspicion by pretending her cellar was next empty. She had been equally severe on any who might happen to hoarding food, in case transport was disarranged and supplies fell short. And with a sudden flare of authentic intuition, Diva's mind blazed with the conjecture that Elizabeth was hoarding food as well. Luck ever attends the bold and constructive thinker. The apple, for instance, fell from the tree precisely when Newton's mind was groping after the law of gravity. And as Diva stepped into her grocers to begin her morning shopping, she had been occupied with roses ever since breakfast. The attendant was at the telephone at the back of the shop. He spoke in a lucid telephone voice. We've only two of the big tins of corned beef, he said, and there was a pause during which, to a psychic, Diva's ears might have seemed to grow as pointed with attention as a satyr's, but she could only hear little hollow quacks from the other end. Tongue as well, very good, I'll send them up at once, he added, and came forward into the shop. Good morning, said Diva. Her voice was tremulous with anxiety and investigation. Got any big tins of corned beef, the ones that contained six pounds? Very sorry, ma'am, we've only got two, and they've just been ordered. A small pot of ginger, then, please, said Diva recklessly. Will you send it round immediately? Yes, ma'am, the boy's just going out. That was luck. Diva hurried into the street and was absorbed by the headlines of the news outside the stationers. This was a favorite place for observation, for you appeared to be quite taken up by the topics of the day and kept an oblique eye on the true object of your scrutiny. She had not got to wait long for almost immediately the grocer's boy came out of the shop with a heavy basket on his arm, delivered the small pot of ginger at her own door, and proceeded along the street. Diva was, unfortunately, a popular and conversational youth who had a great deal to say to his friends in the period of waiting to see if he would turn up the steep street that led to Miss Mab's house was very protracted. At the corner he deliberately put down the basket altogether and lit a cigarette, and never had Diva so acutely deplored the spread of the tobacco habit among the juvenile population. Having refreshed himself, he turned up the steep street. He passed the fishmongers and the fruiterers. He did not take the turn down to the dentists and Mr. Weiss's. He had no errand to the major's house or to the captains. Then, oh, then, he rang the bell at Miss Mab's back door. All the time Diva had been following him, keeping her head well down so as to avert the possibility of observation from the window of the garden-room, and walking so slowly that the motion of her feet seemed not circular at all. Then the bell was answered, and he delivered into Wither's hands one two tins of corned beef and a round ox tongue. He put the basket on his head and came down the street again, shrilly-whistly. If Diva had had any reasonably small change in her pocket, she would assuredly have given him some small share in it. Lacking this, she trundled home with all speed and began cutting up roses with swift and certain strokes of the nail-scissors. Now, she had already noticed that Elizabeth had paid visits to the grocers on three consecutive days. Three consecutive days! Think of it! And given that her purchases on other occasions had been on the same substantial scale as today, it became a matter of thrilling interest as to where she kept these stores. She could not keep them in the coal cellar, for that was already bursting with coal, and Diva, who had assisted her, the base one, in making a prodigious quantity of jam that year from her well-starked garden, was aware that the kitchen cupboards were liked to be as replete as the coal cellar before those hoardings of dead oxen began. Then there was the big cupboard under the stairs, but that could scarcely be the site of this prodigious cash, for it was full of cardboard and curtains and carpets and all the rubbishy accumulations which Elizabeth could not bear to part with. Then she had large cupboards in her bedroom and spare rooms full to overflowing of moldy clothes, but there was positively not another cupboard in the house that Diva knew of, and she crushed her temples in her hands in the attempt to locate the hiding place of the hoard. Diva suddenly jumped up with a happy squeal of discovery, and in her excitement snapped her scissors with so random a stroke that she completely cut in half the bunch of roses that she was engaged on. There was another cupboard, the best and biggest of all, and the most secret and the most discreet. It lay embedded in the wall of the garden room, cloaked and concealed behind the shelves of a false bookcase which contained no more than the simulacra of books, just books with titles that had never yet appeared on any honest book. There were twelve volumes of the beauties of nature, a shelf full of elegant extracts, there were volumes simply called poems, there were commentaries, there were travels and astronomy, and the lowest and tallest shelf was full of music. A card table habitually stood in front of this false repository of learning, and it was only last week that Diva, prying casually around the room while Elizabeth had gone to take off her gardening gloves, had noticed a modest catch led into the woodwork, without doubt then. The bookcase was the door of the cupboard, and with a stroke of intuition too sure to be called a guess, Diva was aware that she had correctly inferred the storage of the nefarious hoard. It only remained to verify her conclusion and, if possible, expose it with every circumstance of public ignimony. She was in no hurry. She could bide her time, aware that, in all probability, every day the past would see an addition to its damning contents. Someday when she was playing bridge and the card table had been moved out, in some rubber when she herself was dummy and Elizabeth greedily playing the hand, she would secretly and accidentally press the catch, which her acute vision had so providentially revealed to her. She attacked her chins curtains again with her appetite for the pink roses to be wetted. Another hour's work would give her sufficient bunches for her purpose, and unless the dire was as perfidious as Elizabeth, her now purple jacket and skirt would arrive that afternoon. Two days' hard work would be sufficient for so accomplished a needlewoman as herself to make these original decorations. In the meantime, for Diva was never idle and was chiefly occupied with dress, she got out a certain American fashion paper. There was in it the description of a tea-gown worn by Mrs. Titus W. Trout, which she believed was within her dressmaking capacity. She would attempt it anyhow, and if it proved to be beyond her, she could entrust the more difficult parts to that little dressmaker whom Elizabeth employed and who was certainly very capable. The costume was of so daring and splendid a nature that she feared to take anyone into her confidence about it, lest some hint or gossip for tilling was a gossipy place might leak out. King Fischer Blue had made her mouth water to dwell on the sumptuous syllables. Miss Mapp was so feverishly occupied all next morning with the application of poppies to the corn-coloured skirt that she paid very little attention to the opening gambits of the day, either as regards the world in general or, more particularly, Major Benji. After his early retirement last night he was probably up with the lark this morning. And when, between half-past ten and eleven, his sonorous key-high sounded through her open window, the shock she experienced interrupted for a moment her floral industry. It was certainly very odd that having gone to bed at so respectable an hour last night, he should be calling for his porridge only now, but with an impulse of unusual optimism she figured him is having been at work on his diaries before breakfast, and in that absorbing occupation, having forgotten how late it was growing. That, no doubt, was the explanation, though it would be nice to know for certain if the information positively forced itself on her notice. As she worked, framing her lips with elaborate motions to the syllables, she dumbly practiced the phrase, Major Benji. Sometimes in moments of gallantry he called her Miss Elizabeth, and she meant when she had got accustomed to it by practice to say Major Benji to him by accident, and he would, no doubt, beg her to make a habit of that friendly slip of the tongue. Tongue led to a new train of thought, and presently she paused in her work, and pulling the card table away from the deceptive bookcase, she pressed the concealed catch of the door and peeped in. There was still room for further small precautions against starvation owing to the impending cold strike, and she took stock of her provisions. Even if the strike lasted quite a long time, there would now be no immediate lack of the necessaries of life, for the cupboard glistened with tinned meats, and the flower merchant had sent a very sensible sack. This, with considerable exertion, she transferred to a high shelf in the cupboard, instead of allowing it to remain standing on the floor, and others had informed her of an unpleasant rumour about a mouse which Mary had observed, lost in thought in front of the cupboard. So Mousey shall only find tins on the floor now, thought mismap. Mousey shall try his teeth on tins. There was tea and coffee in abundance. Jars of jam filled the kitchen shelves, and if this morning she laid in a moderate supply of dried fruits, there was no reason to face the future with nothing but fortitude. She would see about that now, for busy though she was, she could not miss the shopping parade. Would Diva, she wondered, be at her window, snipping roses out of chintz curtains? The careful, thrifty soul. Perhaps this time tomorrow Diva, looking out of her window, would see that somebody else had been quicker about being thrifty than she. That would be fun. The major's dining room window was open, and as Mismap passed it, she could not help hearing loud, angry remarks about eggs coming from inside. That made it clear that he was still at breakfast, and that, if he had been working at his diaries in the fresh morning hours and forgetting the time, early rising, despite of his early retirement last night, could not be supposed to suit his oriental temper. But a change of habits was invariably known to be upsetting, and Mismap was hopeful that in a day or two he would feel quite a different man. Farther down the street was Quaint Irene, lounging at the door of her new studio, a converted coach house, smoking a cigarette, and dressed like a jockey. Hello, Map! She said, come and have a look around my new studio. You haven't seen it yet. I shall give a housewarming party next week. Bridge party! Mismap tried to steal herself for the hundredth time, to appear quite bold, but she was being addressed when Irene said, Map! in that odious manner. But she never could summon up sufficient nerve to be rude to so awful a mimic. Good morning, dear one, she said sycophantically. Shall I peep in for a moment? The decoration of the studio was even more appalling than might have been expected. There was a German stove in the corner made of pink porcelain, the rafters and roof were painted scarlet, the walls were painted to distemper, and the floor was blue. In the corner was a very large orange-colored screen. The walls were hung with specimens of Irene's art. There was a stout female with no clothes on at all, whom it was impossible not to recognize as being Lucy. There were studies of fat legs and ample bosoms, and on the easel was a picture evidently in process of completion, which represented a man. From this Mismap instantly averted her eyes. Eve, said Irene, pointing to Lucy. Mismap naturally guessed that the gentleman who was almost in the same costume was Adam, and turned completely away from him. And what a lovely idea to have a blue floor, dear, she said. How original you are and that pretty scarlet ceiling. But don't you find when you're painting that all these bright colors disturb you? Not a bit. They stimulate your sense of color. Mismap moved towards the screen. What a delicious big screen, she said. Yes, but don't go behind it, Mapp, said Irene, or you'll see my model undressing. Mismap retreated from it precipitately as from a wasp's nest and examined some of the studies on the wall, for it was more than probable from the unfinished picture on the easel that Adam lurked behind the delicious screen. It was terrible though it all was. She was conscious of an unbridled curiosity to know who Adam was. It was dreadful to think that there could be any man in tilling so depraved as to stand to be looked at with so little on. Irene strolled round the walls with her. Studies of Lucy, she said. I see, dear, said Mismap, how clever. Legs and things. A bridge party? Won't you perhaps cover some of them up or turn them to the wall? We should all be looking at your pictures instead of attending to our cards and if you were thinking of asking the Padre, you know. They were approaching the corner of the room where the screen stood when a movement there as if Adam had hit it with his elbow made Mismap turn round. The screen fell flat on the ground and within a yard of her stood up the street. Often and often had Mismap had pleasant little conversations with it with a view to bringing down the price of flounders. He had little bathing drawers on. Hello, Hopkins, are you ready? Said Irene. You know Mismap, don't you? Mismap had not imagined that time and eternity combined could hold so embarrassing a moment. She did not know where to look but wherever she looked it should not be at Hopkins. But wherever she looked she could not be unaware that Hopkins raised his large bear arm and touched the place where his cap would have been if he had had one. Good morning, Hopkins. She said, Well, Irene, darling, I must be trotting and leave you to your... She hardly knew what to call it. To your work! She tripped from the room which seemed to be entirely full of unclothed limbs and redder hairs hurried down the street. She felt that she could never face him again but would be obliged to go to the establishment in the high street where Irene dealt when it was fish she wanted from a fish shop. Her head was in a whirl at the brazenness of mankind, especially womankind. How had Irene started the overtures that led to this? Had she said to Hopkins one morning Would you come to my studio and take off all your clothes? Had there not been such a wonderful mimic she would certainly have felt at her duty to go straight to the Padre and, pulling down her veil, confide to him the whole sad story. But as that was out of the question she went into Tremolos and ordered four pounds of dried apricots. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Part 1 of Mismap This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Mismap by E. F. Benson Chapter 4 Part 1 The dire, as Diva had feared, proved perfidious and it was not till the next morning that her maid brought her the parcel containing the coat and skirt of the projected costume. Diva had already done her marketing so that she might have no other calls than to interfere with the tacking on of the bunches of pink roses and she hoped to have the dress finished in time for Elizabeth's afternoon bridge party next day, an invitation to which had just reached her. She had also settled to have a cold lunch today so that her cook as well as her parlor maid could devote themselves to the job. She herself had taken the jacket for decoration and was just tacking the first rose onto the collar when she looked out of the window and what she saw caused her needle to fall from her nervous hand. Tripping along the opposite pavement was Elizabeth. She had on a dress the material of which, after a moment's gaze, Diva identified. It was that corn-colored coat and skirt which she had worn so much last spring. But the collar, the cuffs, the waistband, and the hem of the skirt were covered with staring red poppies. Next moment she called to remembrance the chints that had once covered Elizabeth's sofa in the garden room. Diva wasted no time but rang the bell. She had to make certain. Janet, she said, go straight out into the high street and walk close behind Miss Mapp. Look very carefully at her dress. See if the poppies on it are of chints. Janet's face fell. Why, ma'am, she's never gone and she began. Quick! said Diva in a strangled voice. Diva watched from her window. Janet went out, looked this way and that, spied the quarry, and skimmed up the high street on feet that twinkled as fast as her mistresses. She came back much out of breath with speed and indignation. Yes, ma'am, she said, their chints sure enough tacked on too, just as you were meaning to do. Oh, ma'am! Janet quite appreciated the magnitude of the calamity and her voice failed. What are we to do, ma'am? she added. Diva did not reply for a moment but sat with eyes closed in profound and concentrated thought. It required no reflection to decide how impossible it was to appear herself to-morrow in a dress which seemed to ape the costume which all tilling had seen Elizabeth wearing to-day. And at first it looked as if there was nothing to be done with all those laboriously acquired bunches of rose-buds, for it was clearly out of the question to use them as decoration for any costume and idle to think of sewing them back into the snipped and gashed curtains. She looked at the purple skirt and coat that hungered for their flowers and then she looked at Janet. Janet was a short, roundabout person. It was ill-naturedly supposed that she had much the same figure as her mistress. Then the light broke, dazzling and diabolical and Diva bounced to her feet blinded by its splendor. My coat and skirt are yours, Janet. She said, Get on with the work, both of you. Bustle, cover it with roses. Have it finished to-night. Wear it to-morrow. Wear it always. She gave a loud cackle of laughter and threaded her needle. That's a teaser, and thank you, ma'am. It was roses, roses all the way. Diva had quite miscalculated the number required and there were sufficient not only to cover collar, cuffs, and border of the skirt with them, but to make another line of them six inches above the hem. Original and gorgeous as the dress would be, it was yet a sort of parody of Elizabeth's costume which was attracting so much interest and attention as she popped in and out of shops today. Tomorrow that would be worn by Janet, and Janet, or Diva was much mistaken, should encourage her friends to get permission to use up old bits of chintz. Very likely chintz decoration would become quite a vogue among the servant maids of tilling. How Elizabeth had got hold of the idea mattered nothing, but anyhow she would be surfeted with the idea before Diva had finished with her. It was possible, of course. Anything was possible. That it had occurred to her independently, but Diva was loathed to give so innocent an ancestry to her adoption of it. It was far more sensible to take for granted that she had got wind of Diva's intention by some odious underhand piece of spying. What that might be must be investigated and probably determined later, but at present the business of Janet's roses eclipsed every other interest. Miss Maps shopping that morning was unusually prolonged, for it was important that every woman in tilling should see the puppies on the corn-coloured ground, and know that she had worn that dress before Diva appeared in some mean adaptation of it. Though the total cost of her entire purchases hardly amounted to a shilling, she went in and out of an amazing number of shops, and made a prodigious series of inquiries into the price of commodities that ranged from motor-cars to ceiling-wax, and often entered a shop twice because wreathed in smiling apologies for her stupidity, she had forgotten what she was told the first time. By twelve o'clock she was satisfied that practically everybody, with one exception, had seen her, and that her costume had aroused a deep sense of jealousy and angry admiration. So cunning was the handiwork of herself, withers and Mary, that she felt fairly sure that no one had the slightest notion of how this decoration of puppies was accomplished, for Evie had run round her in small, mouse-like circles, murmuring to herself, very effective idea! Is it woven into the cloth, Elizabeth? Dear me, I wonder where I could get some like it? And Mrs. Poppet had followed her all up the street, with eyes glued to the hem of her skirt, and a completely puzzled face. But then, so thought Elizabeth completely, even members of the order of the British Empire can't have everything their own way. As for the major, he had simply come to a dead stop when he bounced out of his house as she passed, and said something very gallant and appropriate. Even the absence of that one inhabitant of tilling, dear Diva, did not strike a jarring note in this pin of triumph, for Mismap was quite satisfied that Diva was busy indoors working her fingers to the bone over the application of bunches of roses, and, as usual, she was perfectly correct in her conjecture. But dear Diva would have to see the new frock tomorrow afternoon, at the latest when she came to the bridge-party. Perhaps she would then, for the first time, be wearing the roses herself, and everybody would very pleasantly pity her. This was so rapturous a thought that when Mismap, after her longed shopping and with her almost empty basket, passed Mr. Hopkins, standing outside his shop on her return home again, she gave him her usual smile, though without meeting his eye, and tried to forget how much of him she had seen yesterday. Perhaps she might speak to him to-morrow, and gradually resume ordinary relations, for the prices at the other fish-shop were as high as the quality of the fish was low. She told herself that there was truly immoral in the human skin, however embarrassing it was. Mismap had experienced a cruel disappointment last night, though the triumph of this morning had done something to soothe it, for Major Benjy's window had certainly been lit up to a very late hour, and so it was clear that he had not been able, twice in succession, to tear himself away from his diaries, or whatever else detained him, and go to bed at a proper time. Captain Puffin, however, had not sat up late. Indeed, he must have gone to bed quite unusually early, for his window was dark by half past nine. Tonight, again, the position was reversed, and it seemed that Major Benjy was good and Captain Puffin was bad. On the whole, then, there was cause for thankfulness, and as she added a tin of biscuits and two jars of bovereal to her prudent stores, she found herself a conscious skeptic about those diaries. Diaries, perhaps, were a little different, for egoism was a more potent force than archaeology, and for her part she now definitely believed that Roman roads spelt some form of drink. She was sorry to believe it, but it was her duty to believe something of the kind, and she really did not know what else to believe. She did not go so far as mentally to accuse him of drunkenness, but considering the rule, it was clear that he was no foe to alcohol and probably watered the Roman roads with it. With her vivid imagination she pictured him. Mismap recalled herself from this melancholy reflection and put up her hand just in time to save a bottle of bovereal, which she had put on the top shelf in front of the sack of flour, from tumbling to the ground. With the latest additions she had made the table ingenuity to fit all the tins and packages in, and for a while she diverted her mind from Captain Puffin's drinking to her own eating. But by careful packing and balancing she managed to stow everything away with sufficient economy of space to allow her to shut the door, and then put the card table in place again. It was then late, and with a fond look at her sweet flowers sleeping in the room. Captain Puffin's sitting room was still a light, and even as she deplored this his shadow in profile crossed the blind. Shadows were queer things. She could make a beautiful shadow rabbit on the wall by a dexterous interlacement of fingers and thumbs, and certainly this shadow in the momentary glance she had of it appeared to have a large mustache. She could make nothing from it, and this fingers and thumbs became a rabbit, so his nose became a mustache, for he could not have grown one since he came back from golf. She was out early for her shopping next morning, for there were some delicacies to be purchased for her bridge-party, more particularly some little chocolate cakes she had lately discovered which looked very small and innocent, but were in reality of so cloying and beautiful of making any serious inroads into other provisions. Naturally she was much on the alert today, for it was more than possible that Diva's dress was finished, and in evidence. What color it would be she did not know, but a large quantity of rose buds would, even at a distance, make identification easy. Diva was certainly not at her window this morning, so it seemed more than probable that they would soon meet. Far away, just crossing the high street at the farther end, she caught sight of a bright patch of purple, very much of the required shape. There was surely a pink border round the skirt, and a pink panel on the collar, and just as surely Mrs. Bartlett recognizable for her gliding mouse-like walk was moving in its fascinating wake. Then the purple patch vanished into a shop, and Mismap, all smiles and poppies, went with her basket up the street. Presently she encountered Evie, who, also all smiles, seemed to have some communication to make, but only got as far as, have you seen when she gave a little squeal of laughter, quite inexplicable, and glided into some dark entry. A minute afterwards the purple patch suddenly appeared from a shop, and almost collided with her. It was not Diva at all, but Diva's Janet. The shock was so indescribably severe that Mismap's smile was frozen, so to speak, as by some sudden congealment onto her face, and did not thaw off it till she had reached the sharp turn at the end of the street, where she leaned heavily on the railing, and breathed through her nose. A light autumnal mist overlayed the miles of marsh, but the sun was already drinking it up, promising the tilling-gites another golden day. The tidal river was at the flood, and the bright water lapped the bases of the turf-covered banks that kept it within its course. Beyond that was the tram station, towards which presently Major Benji and Captain Puffin would be hurrying to catch the tram, that would take them out to the golf-links. The straight road across the marsh was visible, and the railway bridge. All these things were pitilessly unchanged, and Miss Mapp noted them blankly, until Rage began to restore the numbed current of her mental process. If the records of history contained any similar instance of such treachery and low cunning as was involved in this plot of divas to dress Janet in the Rosebud chints, Miss Mapp would have liked to be told clearly and distinctly what it was. She could trace the workings of diva's base mind with absolute accuracy, and if all the archangels in the hierarchy of heaven had assured her that diva had originally intended the Rosebuds for Janet, she would have scorned them for their clumsy perjury. Diva had designed and executed that dress for herself, and just because Miss Mapp's ingenuity, inspired by the two Rosebuds that had fluttered out of the window, had called her, she had taken this fiendish revenge. It was impossible to pervade the High Street covered with chintz poppies when a parlor maid was being equally pervasive in chintz Rosebuds, and what was to be done with this frock executed with such mirth and malice by withers Mary and herself she had no idea. She might just as well give it to withers, for she could no longer wear it herself or tear the poppies from the hem High Street with them. Miss Mapp's face froze into immobility again for here. Trundling swiftly towards her was diva herself. Diva appeared not to see her till she got quite close. ''Morning, Elizabeth,'' she said. ''See my Janet anywhere?'' ''No,'' said Miss Mapp. ''Janet, no doubt, according to instructions received, popped out of a shop and came towards her mistress. ''Here she is,'' said diva. ''All right, Janet, you can go home. I'll see you to the other things.'' ''It's a lovely day,'' said Miss Mapp, beginning to lash her tail. ''So bright!'' ''Yes, pretty trimming of poppies,'' said diva. ''Janet, Scott Rosebuds!'' This was too much. ''Diva, I didn't think it of you,'' said Miss Mapp in a shaking voice. ''You saw my new frock yesterday overfilled with malice and envy, diva, just because I had thought of using flowers off an old chintz as well as you, and came out first with it. You had meant to wear that purple frock yourself, though I must say it fits Janet perfectly. And just because I was first in the field you did this. You gave Janet that frock so that I should be dressed in the same style as your parlor made. And you've got a black heart, hearts as red as anybody's, and talking of black hearts doesn't become you, Elizabeth. You knew I was cutting out roses from my curtains!'' Miss Mapp laughed shrilly. ''Well, if I happen to notice that you've taken your chintz curtains down,'' she said, with an awful distinctness that showed the wisdom teeth of which diva had got three at the most. And pink bunches of roses come flying out of my poor wits, small as they are, are equal to drawing the conclusion that you are cutting in roses out of curtains. Your well-known fondness for dress did the rest. With your permission, diva, I intend to draw exactly what conclusions I please on every occasion, including this one. ''Oh, that's how you got the idea, then,'' said diva. I knew you had cribbed it from me. In ironical ignorance of what so vulgar and slangy an expression meant. ''Cribbed means taking what isn't yours,'' said diva. ''Even then, if you had only acted in a straightforward manner!'' Miss Mapp, shaken as with palsy, regretted that she had let slip, out of pure childlike joy, in irony, the manner in which she had obtained the poppy notion. But in a quarrel useless, and she went on again. ''And would you very kindly explain how or when I have acted in a manner that was not straightforward?'' She asked with laborious politeness. ''Or do I understand that a monopoly of cutting up chintz curtains for personal adornment has been bestowed on you by Act of Parliament?'' ''You knew I was meaning to make a frock with chintz roses on it,'' said my idea, worked night and day to be first, just like you mean behaviour. ''It was meaner to give that frock to Janet,'' said Miss Mapp. ''You can give yours to withers,'' snapped diva. ''Much obliged, Mrs. Plasto,'' said Miss Mapp. End of Chapter 4 Part 1. Read by Karish Allenberg www.kray.org on October 13, 2008, in San Diego, California. Chapter 4 Part 2 of Miss Mapp. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Miss Mapp by E.F. 2 Diva had been watching Janet's retreating figure, and feeling that, though revenge was sweet, revenge was also strangely expensive, for she had sacrificed one of the most strikingly successful frocks she had ever made on that smoking altar. Now her revenge was gratified, and deeply she regretted the frock. Miss Mapp's heart was similarly rung by torture. Revenge, too, had been hers. General revenge on Diva for existing. But this dreadful counterstroke had made it quite impossible for her to enjoy the use of this frock any more, for she could not habit herself like a housemaid. Each, in fact, had, as matters at present stood, completely wrecked the other, like two express trains meeting in top speed collision. And since the quarrel had clearly risen to its utmost height, there was no further joy of battle to be anticipated, but only the melancholy task of counting the corpses. So they paused, breathing very quickly and trembling, while both sought for some way out. Besides, Miss Mapp had a bridge party this afternoon, and if they parted now in this extreme state of tension, Diva might conceivably not come, thereby robbing herself of her bridge and spoiling her hostess's table. Naturally any permanent quarrel was not contemplated by either of them, for if quarrels were permanent in tilling, nobody would be on speaking terms any more with any one else, in a day or two, and, hardly less disastrous, there could be no fresh quarrels with anybody, since you could not quarrel without words. There might be songs without words, as Mendelssohn had proved, but not rows without words. By what formula could this deadly antagonism be bridged without delay? Diva gazed out over the marsh. She wanted desperately to regain her rosebud frock, and she knew that Elizabeth was starving for further wearing of her poppies. Perhaps the wide serene plain below inspired her with a hatred of littleness. There would be no loss of dignity in making a proposal that her enemy, she felt sure, would accept. It merely showed a Christian spirit and set an example to Elizabeth to make the first move. Janet, she did not consider. If you are in a fit state to listen to reason, Elizabeth, she began. Mismap heaved a sigh of relief. Diva had thought of something. She swallowed the insults at a gulp. Yes, dear, she said. Got an idea. Take away Janet's frock and wear it myself. Then you can wear yours. Too pretty for parlor maids, eh? A heavenly brightness spread over Mismap's face. Oh, how wonderful of you to have thought of that, Diva, she said. But how shall we explain it all to everybody? Diva clung to her right, though clearly Christian she was human. Say I thought of tacking chintz on and told you, she said. Yes, darling, said Elizabeth, that's beautiful, I agree, but poor Janet. I'll give her some other old thing, said Diva. Good sort, Janet, wants me to win. And about her having been seen wearing it. Say she hasn't ever worn it. Say they're mad, said Diva. Mismap felt it better to tear herself away before she began distilling all sorts of acidities that welled up in her fruitful mind. She could, for instance, easily have agreed that nothing was more probable than that Janet had been mistaken for her mistress. O reservoir then, dear, she said tenderly, see you at about four, and will you wear your pretty rosebud frock? This was agreed to, and Diva went home to take it away from Janet. The reconciliation, of course, was strictly confined to matters relating to chintz and did not include such extraneous subjects as coal strike or food hoarding, and even in the first glowing moments of restored friendliness Diva began wondering whether she would have the opportunity that afternoon of testing the truth of her conjecture about the cupboard in the garden-room. Cudgel her brains as she might, she could think of no other cash that could contain the immense amount of provisions that Elizabeth had probably accumulated, and she was all on fire to get to practical grips with the problem. As far as tins of corned beef might possibly have buried them in her garden in the manner of a dog, but it was not likely that a hoarder would limit herself to things in tins. No, there was a cupboard somewhere ready to burst with strong supporting foods. Diva intentionally arrived a full quarter of an hour on the hither side of punctuality and was taken by withers out into the garden-room where tea was laid, and two card-tables were in readiness. She was, of course, the first of the guests, and the moment withers withdrew to tell her mistress that she had come, Diva stealthily glided to the cupboard, from in front of which the bridge-table had been removed, feeling the shrill joy of some romantic treasure-hunter. She found the catch, she pressed it, she pulled open the door, and the whole of the damning profusion of provisions burst upon her delighted eyes. Shelf after shelf was crowded with bowls, there were tins of corned beef and tongues. That she knew already. There was a sack of flour, there were tubes of bath-oliver biscuits, bottles of bovril, the yield of a thousand condensed Swiss cows, jars of prunes. All these were in the front-row, flush with the door, and who knew to what depth the cupboard extended? Even as she feasted her eyes on this incredible store, Shelf wavered and toppled, and she had only just time to shut the door again in order to prevent it falling out onto the floor. But this displacement prevented the door from wholly closing, and push and shove as Diva might, she could not get the catch to click home, and the only result of her energy and efforts was to give rise to a muffled explosion from within, just precisely as if something made of cardboard had burst. That mental image was so vivid that to her fevered imagination it seemed to be real. This was followed by certain faint taps from within, against elegant extracts and astronomy. Diva grew very red in the face, and said, dread it under her breath. She did not dare open the door again in order to push things back for fear of an uncontrollable stream of things pouring out. Some nicely balanced equilibrium had clearly been upset in those capacious shelves, and it was impossible to tell without looking how deep and how extensive the disturbance was, and in order to look she had to open the bookcase again. Luckily the pressure against the door was not sufficiently heavy to cause it to swing wide, so the best she could do was to leave it, just a jar with temporary quiescence inside. Simultaneously she heard mismapped step, and had no more than time to trundle at the utmost speed of her whirling feet across to the window where she stood looking out, and appeared quite unconscious of her hostess's entry. Diva, darling, how sweet of you to come so early, she said, a little cozy chat before the others arrive. Diva turned round, much startled. Hello, she said, didn't hear you. Got Janet's frock, you see? What makes Diva's face so red? thought Miss Mapp. So I see, darling, she said. Lovely rose-garden, how well it suits you, dear, did Janet mind? No, promised her a new frock at Christmas. That will be nice for Janet, said Elizabeth enthusiastically. Shall we pop into the garden, dear, till my guests come? Diva was glad to pop into the garden and get away from the immediate vicinity of the cupboard. For though she had planned to look forward to the exposure of Elizabeth's hoarding, she had not meant it to come, as it now probably would, in crashes of tins and bursting of bovereal bottles. Again she had intended to have opened that door quite casually and innocently while she was being dummy, so that everyone could see how accidental the exposure was, and to have gone poking about the cupboard in Elizabeth's absence was a shade too professional, so to speak, of effective work of tilling. But the fuse was set now. Sooner or later the explosion must come. She wondered as they went out to commune with Elizabeth's sweet flowers till the other guests arrived, how great a torrent would be let loose. She did not repent her exploration, far from it, but her pleasurable anticipations were strongly diluted with suspense. Mismap had found such difficulty with eight players together today that she had transgressed her principles and asked Mrs. Poppet, as well as Isabel, and they, with Diva, the two Bartlets and the major and the captain formed the party. The moment Mrs. Poppet appeared, Elizabeth hated her more than ever, for she put up her glasses and began to give her patronizing advice about her garden, which she had not been allowed to see before. You have quite a pretty little piece of garden, Mismap, she said, though, to be sure, I fancied from what you said that it was more extensive. Dear me, your roses do not seem to be doing very well. Probably they are old plants and want renewing. You must send your gardener round. You keep a gardener? And I will let you have a dozen vigorous young bushes." Mismap licked her dry lips. She kept a kind of gardener two days a week. Too good of you, she said, but that rose bed is quite sacred, dear Mrs. Poppet. Not all the vigorous young bushes in the world would tempt me. It's my friendship's border. Some dear friend gave me each of my rose-trees. Mrs. Poppet transferred her gaze to the wisteria that grew over the steps up to the garden-room. Some of the dear friends, she thought, must be centenarians. Your wisteria wants pruning, sadly, she said. Your gardener does not understand what there was made, I may say, for fuchsias. You should get a dozen choice fuchsias." Mismap laughed. Oh, you must excuse me, she said, with a glance at Mrs. Poppet's brocaded silk. I can't bear fuchsias. They always remind me of overdressed women. Ah, there's Mr. Bartlett. How to do, Padre? And dear Evie. Dear Evie appeared fascinated by Diva's dress. Such beautiful rose buds, and what a lovely shade of purple. And Elizabeth's puppies, too, quite a pair of you. But surely this morning, Diva, didn't I see your good Janet in just such another dress? And I thought at the time how odd it was that— If you saw Janet this morning, said Diva quite firmly, you saw her in her print dress. And here's Major Benji, said Mismap, who had made her slip about his Christian name yesterday, and had been duly to continue slipping. And Captain Puffin, well, that is nice. Shall we go into my little garden shed, dear Mrs. Poppet, and have our tea? Major Flint was still a little lame for his golf—today had been of the nature of gardening—and he hobbled up the steps behind the ladies, with that little cocksparrow sailor following him, and telling the Padre how badly and yet how successfully he himself had played. Pleasantest room in tilling, I always say, Miss Elizabeth, said he, diverting his mind from a mere game to the fairies. My dear little room, said Mismap, knowing that it was much larger than anything in Mrs. Poppet's house. So tiny! Oh, not a bad size, little room, said Mrs. Poppet, encouragingly, much the same proportions on a very small scale as the throne-room at Buckingham Palace. That beautiful throne-room exclaimed Mismap. A cup of tea, dear Mrs. Poppet, none of that naughty red-current fool, I am afraid, and a little chocolate cake? These substantial chocolate cakes soon did their fell work of producing the sense of surfeit, and presently Elizabeth's guests dropped off gorge from the tea-table. Diva fortunately remembered their consistency in time, and nearly cleared a plate of jumbles instead, which the hostess had hoped would be a pleasant accompaniment to her dessert at her supper this evening, and was still crashingly engaged on them when the general drifting movement towards the two bridge-tables set in. Mrs. Poppet, with her glasses up, followed by Isabelle, was employed in making a tour of the room, in case, as Mismap had already determined, she never saw it again, examining the quality of the carpet, the curtains, the chair-backs, with the air of a doubtful purchaser, and quite a quantity of books, I see, she announced as she came opposite the fatal cupboard. Look, Isabelle, what a quantity of books! There's something strange about them, though. I do not believe they are real. She put out her hand and pulled at the back of one of the volumes of elegant extracts. The door swung open, and from behind it came a noise of rattling, bumping, and clattering. Something soft and heavy clumped on to the floor, and a cloud of flowery dust arose. A bottle of bovereal embedded itself quietly there without damage, and a tin of bath Oliver biscuits beat a fierce tattoo on one of corned beef. Enumerable dried apricots from the burst package flew about like shrapnel and tapped at the tins. A jar of prunes, breaking its fall on the flower, rolled merrily out into the middle of the floor. The din was succeeded by complete silence. The Padre had said, what-ho, if eggs, during the tumult, but his voice had been drowned by the rattling of the dried apricots. The member of the Order of the British Empire stepped free of the provisions that bumped round her and examined them through her glasses. Diva crammed the last jumble into her mouth and disposed of it with the utmost rapidity. The birthday of her life had come, as Miss Rosetti said. Dear Elizabeth, she exclaimed, what a disaster! All your little stores in case of the coal strike. Let me help to pick them up. I do not think anything is broken. Isn't that lucky?" Evie hurried to the spot. Such a quantity of good things, she said rapidly under her breath. Tinned meats and bovereal and prunes, and ever so many apricots, let me pick them all up and with a little dusting. Why, what a big cupboard! And such a quantity of good things! Miss Mapp had certainly struck a streak of embarrassments. What with naked Mr. Hopkins and Janet's frock and this unveiling of her horde, life seemed at the moment really to consist of nothing else than beastly situations. How on earth that catch of the door had come undone she had no idea, but much as she would have liked to have found somebody, she was bound to conclude that Mrs. Poppet with her prying hands had accidentally pressed it. It was like Diva, of course, to break the silence with odious allusions to hoarding, and bitterly she wished that she had not started the topic the other day, but had been content to lay in her stores without so pointedly affirming that she was doing nothing of the kind. But this was no time for vain laments, and restraining a natural impulse to scratch and beat Mrs. Poppet, she exhibited an admirable inventiveness and composure. Though she knew it would deceive nobody, everybody had to pretend he was deceived. Oh, my poor little Christmas presents for your needy parishioners, Padre, she said, you've seen them before you were meant to, and you must forget all about them, and so little harm done just an apricot or two, withers will pick them all up, so let us get to our bridge. The others entered the room at this moment to clear away tea, and Miss Mapp explained it all over again. All our little Christmas presents have come tumbling out withers, she said, will you put as many as you can back in the cupboard, and take the rest indoors, don't tread on the apricots. It was difficult to avoid doing this, as the apricots were everywhere, and their color on the brown carpet was wonderfully protective. Miss Mapp herself had already stepped on two, and their adhesive stickiness was hard to get rid of. In fact, for the next few minutes the coal-shovel was in strong request for their removal from the soles of shoes, and the fender was littered with their squashed remains. The party generally was distinctly thoughtful as it sorted itself out into two tables, for every single member of it was trying to assimilate the amazing proposition that Miss Mapp had, halfway through September, loaded her cupboard with Christmas presents on a scale that staggered belief. The feet required thought. It required a faith so childlike as to verge on the imbecile. Conversation during deals had an awkward tendency towards discussion of the coal strike. As often as it drifted there the subject was changed very abruptly, just as if there was some occult reason for not speaking of so natural a topic. It concerned everybody, but it was rightly felt to concern Miss Mapp the most. End of Chapter 4 Read by Kara Schellenberg www.kray.org on October 13, 2008 in San Diego, California. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kelsey Molyneux. Miss Mapp by E. F. Benson Chapter 5 Part 1 It was the major's turn to entertain his friend, and by half-past nine, on a certain squally October evening, he and Puffin were seated by the fire in the diary room while the rain volleyed at the windows and occasional puffs of stinging smoke were driven down the chimney by the gale that squealed and buffeted around the house. Puffin, by way of keeping up the comedy of Roman roads, had brought a map of the district across from his house, but the more essential part of his equipment for the studious evening was a bottle of whiskey. Originally the host had provided whiskey for himself and his guest at these pleasant chats, but there were undeniable objections to this plan because the guest always proved unusually thirsty, which tempted his host to keep pace with him, while if they both drank at their own expense the causes of economy and abstinousness had a better chance. Also, while the major took his drinks short and strong in a tumbler, Puffin enriched his with lemons and sugar in a large one, so that nobody could really tell if equality as well as fraternity was realized, but if each brought his own bottle. It had been a trying day, and the major was very lame. A drenching storm had come up during their gulf, while they were far from the clubhouse, and Puffin, being three up, had naturally refused to accede to his opponent's suggestion to call the scoff. He was perfectly willing to be paid his half crown and go home, but Major Flint, remembering that Puffin's game usually went to peace as if it reigned, had rejected this proposal with the scorn that it deserved. There had been other disagreeable incidents as well. His driver, slippery from brain, had flown out of the major's hands on the twelfth tee, and had shot like a streamer of the northern morn, and landed in a pool of brackish water left by an unusually high tide. The ball had gone to another pool near the tree. The ground was greasy with moisture, and three holes farther on, Puffin had fallen flat on his face, instead of lashing his fifth shot home onto the green as he had intended. They had given each other stymies, and each had holed his opponent's ball by mistake. They had wrangled over the correct procedure if you lay in a rabbit, scrape, or on the tram lines. The major had lost a new ball. There was a mushroom on one of the greens between Puffin's ball All these untoward incidents had come crowding in together, and from the major's point of view, the worst of them all had been the collective incident that Puffin, so far from being put off by the rain, had, in spite of mushroom and falling down, played with the steadiness of which he was usually quite incapable. Consequently, Major Flint was lame, and his wound troubled him, while Puffin, in spite of his obvious reasons for complacency, was growing irritated with his companion's ill temper, as half-blinded by wood smoke. He wiped his streaming eyes. You should get your chimney swept, he observed. Major Flint had put his handkerchief over his face to keep the wood smoke out of his eyes. He blew it off with a loud and dignit puff. Oh! Ha! Indeed, he said. Puffin was rather taken back by the violence of these interjections. They dripped with angry sarcasm. Oh, well! No offence, he said. A man, said the major, and personally, makes an offensive remark and says, no offence. If your own fireside suits you better than mine, Captain Puffin, all I can say is that you are liberty to enjoy it. This was all rather irregular. They had indulged in a good stiff breeze this afternoon, and it was too early to ruffle a calm again. Puffin plucked and proffered an olive branch. There's your handkerchief, he said, picking it up. Now, let's have one of our comfortable talks. Hot glass of grog and a chat over the fire. That's the best thing after such a wedding as we got this morning. I'll take a slice of lemon if you'll be so good as to give it to me and a lump of sugar. The major got up and limped to his cupboard. It struck him precisely at that moment that Puffin scored considerably over lemons and sugar because he was supplied with them gratis every other night, whereas he himself, one Puffin's guest, took nothing off his host but hot water. He determined to ask for some biscuits anyhow, tomorrow. I hardly know whether there's a lemon left, he grumbled. I must stay in a store of lemons, as for sugar. Puffin chose to disregard the suggestion. Amusing incident the other day, he said brightly, when this map's cupboard door flew open, the old lady didn't like it. Don't suppose the poor of the parish will see much of that corn beef. The major became dignified. Pardon me, he said. What an esteemed friend like Miss Elizabeth tells me that certain provisions are destined for the poor of the parish. I take it that her statement is correct. I expect others of my friends while they are in my presence to do the same. I have the honour to give you a lemon, Captain Puffin, and a slice of sugar. I should say a lump of sugar. Pray make yourself comfortable. This dignified and lofty mood was often one of the after-effects of an unsuccessful game of golf. It generally yielded quite quickly to a little stimulant. Puffin filled his glass from the bottle in the kettle, while his friend put his handkerchief again over his face. I shall just have my grog before I turn in, he observed, according to custom. Aren't you going to join me, major? Presently, sir, said the major. Puffin knocked out the consumed cinders in his pipe against the edge of the fender. Major Flint apparently was waiting for this, for he withdrew his handkerchief and closely watched the process. On my new piece of ash fell from Puffin's pipe onto the hearth rug and he jumped to his feet and removed it very carefully with a shovel. I have your permission, I hope, he said certainly, certainly, said Puffin. Now get your glass, major. You'll feel better in a minute or two. Major Flint would have liked to have kept up this magnificent attitude, but the smell of Puffin's steaming glass beat dignity down and after glaring at him he limped back to the cupboard for his whiskey bottle. He gave a lamentable cry when he beheld it, but I got that bottle in only the day before yesterday, he shouted, and there's hardly a drink left in it. Well, you did yourself pretty well last night, said Puffin. Those small glasses of yours, if frequently filled up, empty a bottle quicker than you seem to realize. Motives of policy prevented the major from receiving this, with the resentments that was proper to it, and his face cleared. He would get quits over these incessant lemons and lumps of sugar. Well, you'll have to let me borrow from you tonight, he said genially, as he poured the rest of the contents of his bottle into the glass. Ah, that's more the ticket. A glass of whiskey a day keeps the doctor away. The prospect of sponging on Puffin was most exhilarating, and he put his large-slippered feet on to the fender. Yes indeed, that was a highly amusing incident about Miss Mapp's cupboard, he said, and wasn't Miss Plasto down on her like a knife about it? Our fair friends, you know, have a pretty sharp eye for each other's little failings. They've no sooner finished one squabble than they begin another, the Purt Little Fairies. They can't sit and enjoy themselves like two old cronies they can't tell you of, and feel at peace with all the world. He finished his glass as a gulp, and seemed much surprised to find it empty. I'll be borrowing a drop from you, old friend, he said. Help yourself, major, said Puffin, with a keen eye as to how much he took. Very obliging of you. I feel as if I caught a bit of a chill this afternoon, my wound. Be careful not to inflame it, said Puffin. Thank you for the warning. It's this beastly climate that touches it up. A winter wind adds years onto a man's life unless he takes care of himself. Take care of yourself, old boy. Have some more sugar. Before long, the major's hand was moving slowly and instinctively toward Puffin's whiskey bottle again. I reckon that big glass of yours, Puffin, he said, holds between three and a half times to four times what my little tumbler holds. Between three and a half and four I should reckon. I may be wrong. Reckoning the water in, I daresay you're not far out, major, said he, and according to my estimate, you mix your drink somewhere about three and a half times to four stronger than I mix mine. Oh, come, come, said the major. Three and a half to four times. I, should say, repeated Puffin, you won't find I'm far out. He replenished his tumbler, and instead of putting the bottle back on the table, absently deposited it on the floor, on the far side of his chair. This second tumbler usually marks the most convivial period of the evening. For the first would have healed whatever unhappy discourse had marred the harmony of the day, and those being disposed of, they very contentedly talked through their hats about past prowesses, and took a rosy view of the youth and energy which still beat in their vigorous pulses. They would begin, perhaps, by extolling each other. Puffin would inform that his friend would be fifty-four next-birthday, flatly refused, without a fence, to believe it, and indeed he was quite right in doing so, because the major was in reality fifty-six. In turn, Major Flint would say that his friend had the figure of a boy of twenty, which caused Puffin presently to feel a little cramped, and to wander negligently in front of the big-looking glass between the windows, and find this compliment much easier to swallow than the major's age. For the next half-hour, they would chiefly talk about themselves in a pleasant glow of self-satisfaction. Major Flint, looking at the various implements and trophies that adorned the room, would suggest putting a challenge in the times. "'Pardon my word, Puffin,' he said. "'I have half a mind to do it.' Retired Major of his Majesty's forces the King, God bless him, and he took us a substantial sip.' Retired Major, aged fifty-four, challenges any gentleman of fifty years or over. "'Forty,' said Puffin, sycophantically, as he thought over what he would say about himself when the old man had finished. "'Well, we'll have it. We'll say forty-five to please you, Puffin. Let's see, where had I got to?' Retired Major challenges any gentleman of forty-five years or over, too, to a shooting match in the morning, followed by half a dozen rounds with four ounce gloves, a game of golf, eighteen holes in the afternoon, and a billiards match of two hundred up after tea. Ha-ha! I shouldn't feel much anxiety as to the result.' "'My confounded leg,' said Puffin, but I know a retired captain from his Majesty's merchant service, the King, God bless him, aged fifty- said the Major, thinking to himself that a dried-up little man like Puffin might be as old as an Egyptian mummy. Who can tell the age of a kipper?' "'Not a day less, Major.' Retired Captain, aged fifty, will take on all comers of forty-two and over at a steeple-chase, round of golf, billiards match, hopping match, gymnastic competition, swinging Italian clubs, no objection, gentlemen, then carried mem, con.' This gaseous mood, athletic, amateury or otherwise, the amateury ones were the worst, usually faded slowly, like the light from the setting sun or an exhausted coal in the grate, about the end of Puffin's second tumbler and the gentlemen after that were usually somnolent, but occasionally laid the foundation for some disagreement next day, which they were too sleep to go into now. Major Flint, by this time, would have had some five small glasses of whiskey, equivalent, as he bitterly observed, to one in pre-war days, and as he measured his necks with extreme care and a slightly jerky movement, would announce it as being his nightcap, though you would have thought he had plenty of nightcaps on already. Puffin correspondingly took a thimble full more, the thimble apparently belonging to some housewife of Annick, and after another half-hour of sudden single snores and startings awake again, of pipes frequently lit and immediately going out, the guest, still perfectly capable of coherent speech and voluntary motion in the required direction, would stumble across the dark cobbles to his house, and doors would be very carefully closed for fear of attracting the attention of the old lady, who at this period of the evening was usually known as Old Mappy. The two were perfectly well aware of the sympathetic interest that Old Mappy took in all that concerned them, and that she had an eye on their evening sances, what was evidenced by the frequency with which the corner of her blind in the window of the garden room was raised between, say, half past nine and eleven at night. They had often watched with giggles a pencil of light that escaped, obscured at the lower end by the outline of Old Mappy s head and occasionally drank to the guardian angel. The guardian angel, in answer to direct inquiries, had been told by Major Benji during the last month that he worked at his diaries on three nights in the week, and went to bed early on the others to the vast improvement of his mental grasp. And on Saturday night, Dear Major Benji asked Old Mappy in the character of Guardian Angel, I don t think you knew my beloved, my reverend mother, Elizabeth, said Major Benji, I spend Sunday evening as well, well. The very next Sunday evening Guardian Angel had heard the sounds of singing, she could not catch the words and only fragments of the tune, which reminded her of the rosy at morn half past away. Brimming with emotion she sang it softly to herself as she undressed, and blamed herself very much for ever having thought that Dear Major Benji, she peeped out of her window when she had extinguished her light, but unfortunately, the singing had ceased. Tonight, however, the epoch of Puffin s second big tumbler was not accompanied by harmonious developments. Major Benji was determined to make the most of this unique opportunity of drinking his friend s whiskey, and whether Puffin put the bottle on the farther side of him or under his chair, or under the table, he came patting around in his slippers and standing near the ambush while he tried to interest his friend in the tales of love or tiger, shooting so as to distract his attention. When he mistakenly thought he had done so, he hastily refilled his glass, taking unusually stiff doses for fear of not getting another opportunity, and altogether admitting to ask Puffin s leaf for these maraudings. When this had happened four or five times, Puffin, acting on the instinct of the polar bear who eats her babies for fear that anybody else should get them, surreptitiously poured the rest of his bottle into his glass, and filled it up to the top with hot water, making a mixture of extraordinary power. Soon after this, Major Flint came rambling around the table again. He was not sure whether Puffin had put the bottle by his chair or behind the coal-scuttle, and was quite ignorant of the fact that wherever it was it was empty. Amorous reminiscences tonight had been the accompaniment to Puffin s second humbler. Devilish fine woman, she was, he said, and that was the last Benjamin Flint ever saw of her. She went up to the hills next morning. But the last you saw of her just now was on the deck of the pea, and oh, at Bombay, objected Puffin, or did she go up to the hills on the deck of the pea, and oh, wonderful line. No, sir, said Benjamin Flint. That was Helen. La Belle Elaine. It was La Belle Elaine whom I saw off at the Apollo Bunder. I don't know if I told you. By God, I've kicked the bottle over. No idea you'd put it there. Hope the cork's in. No harm if it isn't, said Puffin, beginning on his third most fiery glass. The strength of it rather astonished him. You don't mean to say it's empty, asked Major Flint. Why, just now, there was close on a quarter of the bottle left. As much as that, asked Puffin, glad to hear it. Not a drop less. You don't mean to say, well, if you can drink that and can say Hippopotamus afterwards, I should put that among your challenges to men of four hundred and two. I should say forty-two. It's a fine thing to have a strong head, though if I drank what you've got in your glass, I should be tipsy, sir. Puffin laughed in his irritating, falsetto manner. Good thing that it's in my glass then, and not your glass, he said. And let me tell you, Major, in case you don't know that when I've drunk every drop of this and sucked the lemon, you'll have had far more out of my bottle this evening than I have. My usual twice, and my usual nightcap, as you say, is what's my ration, and I've had no more than my ration, eight bells. And a pretty good ration you've got there, said the baffled Major, without your usual twice. Puffin was beginning to be aware of that as you swallowed the fiery mixture, but nothing in the world would now have prevented his drinking a drop of it. It was clear to him, among so much, that was dim, owing to the wood smoke, that the Major would miss a good many drives tomorrow morning. Whose whiskey is it, he said, globing down the fiery stuff. I know whose it's going to be, said the other. And I know whose it is now, reported Puffin, and I know whose whiskey it is that's filled you up, tight as a drum, tight as a drum, he repeated very carefully. Major Flint was conscious of an unusual activity of brain, and when he spoke of a sort of congestion and entanglement of words, it pleased him to think that he had drunk so much of somebody else's whiskey, but he felt that he ought to be angry. That's a very unmentionable sort of thing to say, he remarked, and if it wasn't for the sacred claims of hospitality, I'd make you explain just what you mean by that, and make you eat your words. Apologize, in fact. Puffin finished his glass at a gulp and rose to his feet. Apologies be blowed, he said. Hitopopimus. And you were addressing that to me, deadly calm? Of course I was. Hitpot. Same animal as before. Pleasant old boy, and as for the lemon you lent me, well, I don't want it anymore. Have a suck at it, old fellow. I don't want it anymore. The Major turned purple in the face, made a chorus for the door, like a knight's move at chess, a long step in one direction, and a short one at right angles to the first, and opened it. The door thus served as an aperture from the room and a support to himself. He spoke no word of any sort of kind, his silence spoke for him in a far more dignified manner than he could have managed for himself. Captain Puffin stood for a moment wreathed in smiles, and fingering the slice of lemon, which he had meant playfully to throw at his friend. But his smile faded, and by some sort of telepathic perception he realized how much more decorous it was to say, or better, to indicate, good night in a dignified manner than to throw lemons about. He walked in dots and dashes like a morse code out of the room, bestowing a navel salute on the majeure as he passed. The latter returned it with a military salute and a suppressed hiccup, not a word passed. Then Captain Puffin found his hat in coat without much difficulty, and marched out of the house, slamming the door behind him with a bang that echoed down the street and made mist-map dream about a thunderstorm. He let himself into his own house, and bent down before his expired fire, which he tried to blow into life again. This was unsuccessful, and he breathed out. He sat down by his table and began to think things out. He told himself that he was not drunk at all, but that he had taken an unusual quantity of whiskey, which seemed to produce much the same effect as intoxication. Allowing for that, he was conscious that he was extremely angry about something, and had a firm idea that the majeure was very angry too. But what's it all been about? he vainly asked himself. What's it all been about? He was roused from his puzzling over this unanswerable penundrum by the clink of the flap in his letterbox. Either this was the first post in the morning, in which case it was much later than you thought, and wonderfully still dark, or it was the last post at night, in which case it was much earlier than he thought. But, whichever it was, a letter had been slipped into his box, and he brought it in. The gum on the envelope was still wet, which saved trouble in opening it. Inside was a half-sheet, containing but a few words. This curt epistle ran as follows. Sir, my seconds will wait on you in the course of tomorrow morning. You're a faithful, obedient servant. Benjamin Flint, Captain Puffin. Puffin felt as calm as a tropic night, and as courageous as a captain, somewhere below his courage, and his calm was an appalling sense of misgiving. That, he successively stifled. Very proper, he said. Quite proper. Insults, blood, seconds won't have to wait a second. Better get a good sleep. He went up to his room, fell into his bed, and finally began to snore.