 CHAPTER XIII of Bill the Conqueror by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Bill makes a discovery. His long form, draped in a flowered dressing-gown, Judson Coker sat breakfasting in the dining-room of No. 9 Marmont Mansion's Battersea. A gentle breeze, floating in through the open window, brought pleasant spring scents from the park across the road to blend with the robust aroma of coffee and fried bacon. Propped up against the coffee-pot was a copy of The New York World, which had arrived that morning by the American Mail. The hour was 10.30. A strange sense of well-being filled Judson. He took another mouthful of bacon and marvelled. As he had been in the habit of marvelling lately, how extraordinarily fit he felt these days. It seemed to him that this mystery of his glowing health was one that would interest doctors. Achieved, as it had been, in spite of the fact that for nearly two months now he had been deprived of that regular stimulus of alcohol, so highly recommended, indeed insisted upon by the medical profession, he was in tremendous shape. Why, back in New York, he would have shied like a startled horse, if anyone had suggested that he should wrap himself round half a dozen slices of bacon at daybreak like this. Whereas now he was in two minds whether or not to send out to the kitchen for a further supply, he came to the conclusion that it must be something to do with the London air. Yet probably possessed curious tonic properties. And having decided, definitely, that another order of bacon was essential, he went down the passage to the kitchen to put it in commission. When he came back he found Bill West staring moodily at the laden table. Hello, Bill, old man! said Judson buoyantly. Come to join me in a bite. Sit down and draw up a chair. I mean, draw up a chair and sit down. A relief expedition is on its way with more food. I had my breakfast hours ago, said Bill with gloomy unresponsiveness. Haven't you finished yet? I want to use the table to write a letter. The champagne-like air of London, which had brought new youth to Judson, seemed to have missed Bill out when distributing joy and elasticity about the metropolis. For the last few weeks Bill had been restless and subject to sudden fits of irritability, a fact which had disturbed Judson not a little. Filled as he was nowadays with an almost maudlin benevolence towards all created things, Judson wanted to have smiling faces around him. Move all day before you, he pointed out. Park yourself on a chair and watch me eat. Shant belong. There is a letter for you in the sitting-room, said Bill from Alice. Yes, said Judson with a brother's indifference. He scanned his paper. Listen to this. Broadcasts his love. Sweetheart muffs it. Wellington mass. Miss Luella Phipps of this city took her ear from her radio phone at just the wrong time last night, for she failed to hear her Sweetheart's voice in Forest Hills, New York, announcing their engagement. James J. Roper of Forest Hills, New York is the lucky man and is a radio expert. It occurred to him to let his fiance hear his voice tell the world the glad tidings of their approaching nuptials. Why did they print drivel like that? said Bill sourly. Don't you think it's rather touching? inquired the Pollyanna behind the coffee-pot. In his sunny mood he was prepared to find heart interest everywhere. No. Oh, Judson returned to his literary research. Would match Miss Bauer against men's swimmers? he proceeded, having now meandered on to the sporting page. Who would? Her pals, I suppose. During the recent six-day swimming carnival Miss Bauer hung up four new world standards and two new American marks. What of it? Judson turned the pages. Here's a good one, he said, chuckling. Girl tries to get into a taxi. Taxi-man says, I'm engaged. That's fine, says the girl. I hope you'll be very happy. He gazed wistfully at his companion, but Bill's face remained coldly unresponsive. And Judson, having now tried him with heart interest, sporting gossip, and humor, gave the thing up and looked at him with concern. What's the matter, Bill, man? Nothing's the matter. Oh, but there is. You've become a regular gloom all the time these days. You're acting like a wet Sunday in Pittsburgh. I believe you're sickening for something. I'm not. How do you know you're not? said Judson earnestly. You've got all the symptoms. You're jumpy and restless, and you haven't smiled since six weeks ago last Wednesday. I'll tell you what it is, Bill, old man. I'm becoming more and more convinced that we ought to keep a little brandy or some other healing spirit always in the house in case of sickness. You are, are you? I've heard of fellows who were saved from the tomb by a tot of brandy administered at just the right moment. Dozens of them. Absolutely snatched from the undertaker's grasp. We could keep it in here, urged Judson. In that closet. It wouldn't take up any room. He scanned Bill's forbidding features for a moment with a hope that swiftly ebbed. Oh, very well. He said, stiffly, I was only suggesting it for your own good. The second installment of Bacon had arrived, and he attacked it with an offended aloofness. Presently, having finished his meal, he took himself off to the sitting-room, and Bill, clearing a space on the table, sat down to write. Bill's days for writing to Alice Coker were Tuesday and Friday. Today was Friday, and it was consequently to compose a letter of love that he was now addressing himself. One would have supposed that with such a treat before him, his eye would have gleamed with a tender light. But no, it was dull and fishy. And after he had written half a dozen words, he stopped, and began to chew his pen drearily. Literary composition can often be a slow and painful process, but if there is one occasion when a writer should surely find the golden sentences bubbling up without an effort, it is when he is indicting a letter to the girl he loves. The fact that for some time it had been getting harder and harder to think of things to fill up the pages on these occasions was beginning to weigh upon Bill's spirits. Impious as it was to entertain even for an instant the supposition that writing letters to Alice could have become a bore, honesty compelled him to admit that his primary motive in routing Judson out of the room at this early hour had been the desire to tackle the task and get it finished and off his mind. He ran his fingers through his hair. It was no good. Words would not come. What made it all the more strange was the fact that in the earlier days of his sojourn in London he had handled these bi-weekly prose poems with an absolutely inspired ease. His pen had started racing the moment he sat down. Phrases of the most admirable and pulpy sentiment had leaped into his mind so quickly that he could not keep pace with them, and stuff that you could have bound up in mauve covers and sold a dozen editions of had cost him practically no effort at all. And here he was now without an idea in his head. He got up and went into the sitting-room. If anything could give him inspiration it would be those twelve photographs of Alice that smiled down with such queenly sweetness from the mantelpiece, the what-not, and the console-table. He was inspecting the one third from the left on the mantelpiece. Dully conscious that it was giving him no kick whatever when a grave voice addressed him from the depths of the armchair. Bill, oh man! Bill turned sharply. What's the matter now? He snapped. It was wrong, of course, of him to speak so curtly to his faithful friend, but one cannot deny that he had a certain amount of justification. Judson was eyeing him with a peculiar and inscrutable expression on his face, gobbling at him in an indescribable sort of sad, leering way that crashed into his nerve-centres like a bullet. To a man in his condition of irritable despondency, the spectacle of Judson's face, even in its normal state, was hard enough to bear. With this peculiar expression added it had become intolerable. What are you looking at me like that for? He demanded. Judson made no direct reply to the question. Instead he heaved himself up from his chair and, stalking to Bill, padded him gently on the shoulder. Then he grasped his hand and shook it for a few moments, and finally, having padded him on the shoulder once more, resumed his seat. I've got news for you, Bill Oman," he said in a hushed voice. What news? Bill Oman, said Judson solemnly, you were wrong just now. Believe me, you were wrong in the attitude you took up about my suggestion that we should keep a little brandy in the place, I mean. What is this news of yours? Anybody, said Judson, is liable to get ill at any moment, and every house, therefore, should have its supply, however small, of brandy or some other healing spirit, always ready, so that you can get at it at a moment's notice. I've been reading up about brandy, Bill Oman. It is employed a great deal medicinally, as a food capable of supplying energy in a particularly labile form to the body. It is also a very valuable stimulant, carminative, and hypnotic. Well, I mean, that shows you. Will you stop driveling about brandy and tell me? There have been thousands of cases where the sudden breaking of bad news has caused apparently healthy people to keel over and faint, and if there hadn't happened to be somebody in the offing with a nip of the right stuff, their name would have been mud. If you'll give me the money, Bill Oman, I'll be only too glad to pop round the corner to a pub and get a pint or two. What is this news? I heard my father say once that when he got badly hammered in the panic of 1907— No? said Judson carefully. I'm lying to you. It wasn't my father. It was a pal of his. This bimbo was ruined in the panic, and he went straight home and opened up a bottle and took a couple of good strong snifters quick, and before he knew where he was he was feeling like a two-year-old again. And what's more, those drinks gave him an inspiration, which enabled him to pull half his fortune out of the wreck—more than half. It's not far to the pub. I can get there and back in ten minutes. Look here, said Bill tensely. If you don't tell me what this news of yours is, I'll step on you. Judson shook his head, sadly. He seemed to be deploring the headlong impetuosity of youth. All right, he said, if you must have it. Alice has gone and got engaged to a bird-in-the-steel business with pots of money. She asked me to break it to you gently. Bill stared dumbly. The fateful words sank slowly into his consciousness. Engaged? Judson nodded a death-bed nod. That's right. To a fellow in the steel business? Absolutely in the steel business, old man. There was a long silence, and suddenly Bill became aware with a sort of shock that his only clearly defined and recognizable emotion in this stupendous moment was a feeling of intense relief at the thought that now he would not have to finish that letter. All the morning it had been pressing on him like some heavy weight, and try as he would he could not check a horrible sense of exhilaration. He realized, dully, that it was all wrong to be feeling like this. It was shameful that a man in his position confronted with the wreck of all his hopes and dreams. Could find nothing better to do than to stand congratulating himself on having got out of writing a difficult letter. Besides, the letter ought not to have been difficult. All the evidence, in short, appeared to point to one conclusion, that he was utterly lacking in the most rudimentary spirituality. Presently, as he stood there trying not to feel gay and light-hearted, he perceived that the air of the cokers was behaving in an odd manner. Judson had risen once more from his chair, and now, sidling up, he was thrusting into Bill's hand a sheet of paper. As the latter's fingers closed over this, he sighed, patted him on the shoulder again, and began to steel softly towards the door. Posing on the threshold, he nodded twice with extraordinary solemnity. Then he slid out. It was only after he had been gone some moments that it dawned upon Bill that this was Judson's idea of handling a delicate situation with gentlemanly tact. There are times, Judson seemed to consider, when the strong man prefers to be left to wrestle with his grief alone. Left thus alone, Bill endeavored to carry out his part of the program. He glanced at the document in his hand, recognizing Alice's handwriting. He deduced that this must be the letter which had brought the news. Presumably, Judson had intended him to read it, but what was the use? Once a man has grasped the essential fact that the girl to whom he was under the impression that he was betrothed has gone and got engaged to birds in the steel business with pots of money? Treatises on the subject are superfluous. He put the letter down on the table unread. There now came to him a pleasing theory that seemed to offer an explanation of his strange lack of decent sorrow. Men who are shot frequently feel no immediate discomfort beyond a dull shock. This, he came to the conclusion, must be what had happened in his case. His faculties must have been stunned. Later on, no doubt, the agony would commence. Feeling considerably relieved by this reflection, he decided to go out and grapple with his tragedy in the open air. Dimly remembered novels whose heroes had received the same sort of blow, suggested that this was the correct course for one in his position to pursue. In those novels, he recalled, shepherds tending their flocks on the windswept hills used to be startled by the swift passing of tall, soldierly men with pale, drawn faces, striding through the storm, with mouths set like bars of steel, and eyes glittering like flames, staring sightlessly out from under the peaks of their caps. He put on his shoes and was about to go in search of his hat when suddenly there presented itself the problem of the photographs. Those twelve photographs, what to do with them? In the matter of the faithless one's photographs, two plans of action are open to the jilted swain. He can either lay them up in lavender and live out his lonely life brooding over them as his hair gradually whitens, or he can do the strong manly thing and destroy them out of hand. It came as a further shock to Bill when, after five minutes' tense thought, he decided on the latter course to realize how little anguish the prospect caused him. He made his decision without a tremor and did the photographs up in a brown paper parcel with as little remorse as a grocer wrapping a pound of tea. Undoubtedly his faculties must have been stunned. It was Bill's intention to get rid of these mementos of a dead past somewhere in the great outdoors. For over a week now the weather had been too warm for fires, which prevented one handy way of disposing of the things, and it was obviously impossible for a sensitive man to tear them up and put them in the waste-paper basket where Judson would see them. Bill wanted no jarring comments on his action. He was grateful now for the other's indifferent attitude towards all photographs of his sister. Judson was not an observant young man, and the odds were that the novel bareness of the walls and mantelpiece would entirely escape him. It is one of the defects of London, from the point of view of a man whose heart has just been broken, that it is practically devoid of wild spots in which to stride with a sightless stare. The nearest thing it seemed to provide to the windswept hills was Battersea Park, and thither Bill betook himself with his parcel, stepping lightly down the passage to the front door in order not to be intercepted by Bob the Selium, who, if aware that one of the gang contemplated going for a walk, would, he knew, show a disposition to count himself in. And much as Bill respected and liked Bob, he had no wish for his company now. The Bob's of Battersea are not permitted inside the park's exclusive boundaries unless attached to a leash, and it seemed to Bill scarcely decent that on this supreme occasion he should be hampered by a wriggling dog. Any moment now the agony might be beginning, making solitude essential. He tiptoed out and hurried down the stairs. It was a lovely morning. Comment has already been made in these records on the callousness of nature in times of man's distress. And it is enough to say that on this occasion nature more than lived up to her reputation. It was a day when the most prudent would have left his umbrella at home. And Bill, wandering through the green avenues and listening to the merry cries of children sporting in the sunshine, continued to have that peculiar illusion of light-heartedness. If he had not known that such a thing was impossible, he would have said that his spirits were rising higher and higher every moment. The way he jerked his wrist when having reached a spot secluded from human eye, he threw the brown paper parcel containing the photographs from him, was positively rollicking. He heard it flop behind him without a pang, and was caracalling gaily on down the path when a shrill voice spoke in his ear. Hi, mister! So unexpected was this voice that had had for one brief instant an uncanny effect of being the voice of the brown paper parcel. A moment before Bill had been convinced that there was not a soul within a hundred yards. But it is a peculiarity of the London Parks that no spot in them is ever really secluded from the human eye. And now there had sprung up, apparently through the asphalt, a small and grubby girl in a print frock. She was trotting towards him, her face beaming with helpfulness and goodwill. With her left hand she dragged along a small male relation, who in his turn dragged a still smaller male relation. With her right she waved the brown paper parcel. You dropped this, mister! Bill was a kind-hearted young man, and he shrank from wounding the child. He took the parcel with as much gratitude as he was able to summon up on the spur of the moment, and with a smile a little too mechanical to be really brilliant, handed over six pence as a reward, the family melted away. Bill walked on. The episode had had the effect of shaking his nerve, and though he passed several deserted nooks which might have been constructed by the London County Council with the sole purpose of acting as dumping grounds for the photographs of girls about to marry into the steel business, he made no use of them. And presently roaming aimlessly, he found himself on the edge of a large sheet of water. Here, like Alastor on the long Chorazmian shore, he paused. The margin of the pool was fringed with children and dogs. The latter held in leash by nurses, or tied to benches. The nurses exchanged dignified confidences, one with another. The children sailed toy boats. The dogs barked continuously. In the trees, on a small island in the middle of the water, a colony of rooks, cod, in raucous competition with the dogs. It was a jolly spot. But to Bill, its chief charm, lay in the fact that every individual present, whether nurse, or child, or dog, or rook, appeared to be intensely occupied with his own affairs, and consequently, in no position to observe and comment upon the strange behavior of any well-dressed young man who should stroll up and start throwing brown paper parcels into the depths. It seemed too good a chance to miss. With an abstracted eye on the rooks, he sent the parcel spinning through the air, and was just turning away, humming a careless air, when the splash was followed by another of such magnitude that he thought for a moment that the rather stout child who had been trimming the sails of his yacht close by must have fallen in. And it is shameful to have to record that the first emotion that came to Bill, a man with one life saved from drowning already to his credit, was a feeling of regret at the prospect of having to go in after the little chump. But he had wronged the stout child. There he was, still safely on the water's edge. The creature that had caused the splash was an enormous dog with long black hair and an expression of genial imbecility, and was now swimming vigorously out to where the brown paper parcel floated. And even as Bill looked, he snapped it up between two rows of shark-like teeth and started for the shore. A moment later, he had laid it at Bill's feet, shaken himself like a shower-bath, and was gazing up into his playmate's face, his idiot grin urging him as plainly as if he had made a set speech, to keep the fun going by throwing the thing in again. Bill picked up the parcel and hurried away. He was now in a mood of acute exasperation. It was not the fact that he was quite noticeably wet that infuriated him, nor was his indignation due to disapproval of the phenomenon of an unleashed dog where, according to the park's clearly printed by-laws, no unleashed dog should have been. What was gnawing at his vitals was a dull hatred of this brown paper parcel and all it stood for. It amazed him now that he could ever have supposed himself in love with Alice Coker. Apart from anything else, apart altogether from her evil habit of going about marrying birds in the steel business, there must be a curse of some sort on a girl whose photographs were so impossible to get rid of. It was with all the depression of a eugen-erum that he strode from the pond and buried himself in a quiet, leafy by-way. If anything could have soothed Bill's mood of raging fury, this murmurous lane with its fringe of tall trees, in which he now found himself, should have done so. Even more than any of the other nooks through which he had passed that morning, it seemed, apart from the world of men, birds sang in the branches to his left and in the flower beds to his right, bees were buzzing happily. It is proof of the shattered state of Bill's morale that the solitude of this silver retreat did not encourage him at once to drop his parcel. He was in the grip of a sort of superstitious coma. He had a presentiment that, solitary though the place seemed, he would not be alone for long, and a moment later his presentiment was fulfilled. Round the bend in the walk, concealed until they were almost on him, by a large bush, came pacing slowly a young couple, a man and a girl. The girl was trim and pretty, but it was the man who arrested Bill's attention. He was a tall young man with brown eyes and chestnut hair, of an aspect rendered vaguely artistic by a long and flowing tie of mauve silk, and the thing about him that attracted Bill's notice was his oddly familiar look. Somewhere, he felt, he had met the fellow before. The man looked up, and as he did so there came into his face an expression which Bill could not interpret. It was recognition, that was clear enough, but it was also something more than recognition. If the idea had not been so absurd he would almost have said it was fear. The brown eyes widened and a breeze rippling through the chestnut hair. He was carrying his hat in his hand, gave it a momentary suggestion of standing on end. Hello! said Bill. He could not place the fellow, but it was plain from the other's expression that they must have met. Hello! said the young man, huskily. Nice day! said Bill. The observation seemed to have a reassuring effect on the other. It was as if he had expected hostility from Bill and was pleasantly relieved by the cordiality of his tone. He brightened visibly. Beautiful! he said. Beautiful! beautiful! beautiful! Each having shot his conversational bolt there followed one of those awkward silences. And then Bill, acting automatically under the influence of a powerful urge, proceeding he knew not whence, extended his hand. Here, he said briefly, and thrusting the brown paper parcel into the other's grasp he walked rapidly away. He was conscious as he went of a whirl of mixed emotions, but the one that stood out above all the others was a stupendous feeling of relief. A memory of his boyhood came to him of a time when he had first read Vincent's bottle-imp. It must have been quite a dozen years ago, but he could still recall the exquisite exultation he had felt on reaching the passage where the hero gets rid of the fatal bottle to the drunken sailor. It was exactly so that he was feeling now. His recent acquaintance might, probably would, think him mad, but the chances were all against him running after him to tell him so and to force the parcel back upon him. If he did it would be necessary to take firm steps. Bill stopped. His train of thought had just been jarred violently off the rails by the sudden discovery of the reason why the man's face had been familiar. He knew him now, and he remembered where it was that they had last seen each other. In the garden of Holly House, Wimbledon, when he, Bill, had chased him hither, thither and round about through the darkness with the intent to do violence upon his person, it was the man Roderick Pike. Bill smiled grimly, Roderick Pike. No, there was no likelihood of Roderick Pike running after him with parcels. And then his thoughts began to flow in such a rapid stream that he could not keep up with them. The discovery that this man was Roderick Pike immediately caused him to wonder what on earth he was doing strolling about Battersea Park with a girl. Why, by all the laws of romance and even decency, he should have been brooding forlornly on his vanished fiancé. It offended Bill to think that a man who has so recently lost flick should be behaving so callously. And then his thoughts shot off at another tangent, and this time they were such weighty thoughts that he was obliged to sit down on a handy bench to grapple with them. Flick! Of course he had never actually forgotten flick for an instant, but it was certainly true that his meeting Roderick had brought her into his mind with a curious vividness that had all the effect of making her seem like something suddenly remembered. Flick! He could see her now as clearly as if she were standing before him. Flick! Happy and smiling. Flick! Tired and tearful. Flick! Frightened and looking to him for support. A whole gallery of flicks, each more attractive than the last. And quite suddenly, as if he had known it all along, Bill realized that he loved flick. Of course he was a fool not to have guessed it earlier. Judson had accused him of being like a wet Sunday in Pittsburgh. Quite justly. He had been like a wet Sunday in Pittsburgh. And why? Because the withdrawal of Flick from his life had made that life seem so empty and unprofitable. This was what had been troubling his spirit all these weeks. Bill got up, he was glowing now with that fervor which comes upon men in their hour of clear vision. He felt in his pocket for his pipe. The situation was distinctly one that demanded a series of thoughtfully smoked pipes, and found that he had left it in the flat. It being obviously impossible to think coherently without it, he returned home. Judson, that model of tact and delicacy, was still out, and Bill was glad of it. He wanted solitude. He found his pipe where he had left it in the dining room, beside that scarcely begun letter to Alice Coker, and proceeded to the sitting room. A Marconi Gram was lying on the table. Bill opened it, hoping faintly that it might be from Flick, and experienced disappointment on discovering that it was from his Uncle Cooley. Uncle Cooley, said the Marconi Gram, was due to dock at Southampton on the following morning. He hoped that Bill would meet him at the Antiquarian's Club in Paul Mall at three in the afternoon. It was news to Bill that Mr. Paradine was on the ocean at all, and his immediate feeling was a regret that he had not more stimulating news to give him of his activities in connection with Mr. Wilfred Slingsby. Yes, on the whole, it was a nuisance that Uncle Cooley had chosen just this time to come over. However, being here, he could not be ignored. Bill came to the conclusion that it would be more respectful and would make a better impression. If, instead of waiting till three o'clock, he went to Waterloo Station on the morrow and met the boat train. Having made this decision, he sat down and plunged into pleasant rosy-eight dreams about Flick. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of Bill the Conqueror by P. G. Woodhouse This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Unforeseen Enchantment at Waterloo Station It was with a light and jaunty step that Bill strode over Chelsea Bridge next morning on his way to Waterloo. There had been a time in the silent watches of the night when, lying in bed, reviewing the position of affairs, he had had certain uncomfortable doubts as to the stability of his character. Was not a man, he asked himself, who could so swiftly rebound from one love to another, incapable of love in its deepest sense? Was not such a man incurably shallow and trivial and worthy of nothing but contempt? From twelve-thirty till a quarter to two he had been inclined to answer these questions in the affirmative. But at one-forty-five precisely there had slid into his beavered mind the consoling recollection of Romeo. Now there was a chap, generations of lovers had taken him as the archetype of their kind, and yet on Shakespeare's own showing the fellow had been a perfect byword among his friends up till, say, nine-thirty p.m. one night for his hopeless adoration of Rosaline. And it couldn't have been much more than nine-forty-five the same night before he was worshipping Juliet. And certainly nobody had ever accused Romeo of shallowness and triviality. No, everything was absolutely all right. All that had happened was that the scales had fallen from his eyes, if you liked to put it that way, and that was the sort of thing that might happen to any one. With each step that took him nearer to his destination, Bill became more wholeheartedly convinced that Flick was the only girl in the world for him. What he had felt for Alice Coker had been the mere immature infatuation of a lad with no knowledge of life. He looked back to himself as he had been two months ago, and seemed to be contemplating another being. In addition to having settled this soul problem, he had also got the practical side of the thing straight. As soon as there was a boat he must go over to America, find Flick, and pour out his heart. Every moment that he spent three thousand miles away from her was a moment irreparably wasted, and somehow the thought of pouring out his heart to Flick affected him with none of that nervous paralysis, which had come upon him on the occasion when he had, mistakenly, revealed his emotions to Alice Coker. Flick was different. Flick was—well, she was Flick. She was a pal. By the time Bill reached Westminster Bridge he was smiling at passersby and telling policemen it was a nice morning. And in York Road he went so far as to give a hawker half a crown for a penny-box of matches, thereby converting one who had always been a stubborn skeptic to a belief in miracles. He entered the bustling precincts of Waterloo at a sort of joyous trot, which increased to a gallop when a porter informed him that the boat-train was even now discharging its passengers at Platform 13. Bill had no difficulty in finding Platform 13. The march of progress has robbed Waterloo Station of its mysteries. Once it used to be a quaint, dim wonderland in which bewildered Alice's and their male counterparts wandered helplessly seeking information of officials as naively at sea as themselves. But now it is orderly and efficient. Bill, not having known it in the days of its picturesqueness, had no sense of romantic loss. Yielding up a penny for a Platform ticket he charged past the barrier into the swirl of the crowd. The Platform was full of travellers and their friends and relatives. His native shrewdness telling him that Uncle Cooley would probably be at the far end of the train looking after his baggage, Bill wasted no time. It was his intention to show zeal to save his uncle trouble and annoyance by attending to the baggage himself, and incidentally to reveal himself in the light of the capable young man of affairs. He brushed aside a boy who was trying to sell him oranges and chocolates, and sped upon his way, and was rewarded by the spectacle of Mr. Paradine hovering on the outskirts of the crowd like an undersized sportsman trying to get a glimpse of a dog fight. Hello, Uncle Cooley! How are you? Have a good voyage? Shall I get you a porter? said Bill efficiently. Why, William, said Mr. Paradine, turning and speaking with an agreeable cordiality. I never expected to see you, nice of you to come and meet me. Thought I might save you trouble with your trunks. Very good of you, but I'll look after them myself. I've got some valuable books I want to keep an eye on. I'll meet you down the platform. You'll find Horace there. The prospect of a chat with Horace did not cause Bill any noticeable elation, but Mr. Paradine, who had now intercepted a passing porter and was pointing out trunks to him in the manner of a connoisseur exhibiting the gems of his collection to a sympathetic fellow enthusiast, seemed anxious to be alone. Go along and talk to him, he said. That big one, that little one, and there are five more, he added to the porter. You'll find another friend of yours with him. At least she said she knew you. She, girl named Sheridan, Felicia Sheridan, niece of Sinclair Hammond, the man I've come to stay with. Waterloo Station is always in a seizing and effervescent condition when a boat train comes in. But to Bill, as he heard these words, it seemed to boil and bubble like a cauldron. Travellers, travellers' friends, travellers' relations, porters, paper boys, station masters, and the persevering lad who was still trying to sell him oranges and chocolates, danced before his eyes in a weird cereband. The solid platform seemed to heave beneath his feet. The whistle of an engine sounded like a scream of joy. Flick, he gasped, is, is flick here? But Mr. Peridine was too busy to reply. Accompanied by the porter, he was now in the centre of the maelstrom, burrowing after trunks like a terrier in a rabbit-warren. Bill, though he would have liked to ask a number of questions, respected his uncle's preoccupation and, drawing a deep breath, plunged down the platform with as much direct forcefulness as if he had been in sight of the enemy's goal line with a football under his arm. Indignant humanity scattered like smoke wreaths before him, and presently, after causing more hard feelings among his fellow creatures than a judge at a baby contest, he came to a space that was comparatively open, and there, her hand in the uncouth paw of the boy Horus, stood flick. In a world full of people who, happening upon Horus, immediately wished him elsewhere—nobody had ever wished him so far elsewhere, as did Bill at that moment—not even Mr. Sherman Bastable, in his least affectionate mood, could have found the boy's society more distasteful. His mere presence was bad enough, but far worse was that look of sardonic scorn on his freckled face—a look that seemed to ridicule all romance, and wither it with a chilling blast. For an instant Bill had a sense of defeat. There was something hideously immobile about the boy's attitude that seemed to suggest that nothing could shift him. Come one, come all, this platform shall fly from its firm base as soon as I," his demeanor said, and Bill was at a loss to know what to do about it, till suddenly an inspiration came to him. Few boys are averse, from a quiet snack at any hour, and Horus was probably no exception to the rule. Hello, Horus," he said. You're looking tired and thin. Take this. You'll find the refreshment room down there through those gates. The words acted like some magic spell. Horus's stomach had that quality which optimists try to persuade us belongs to the latter of fortune. There was always plenty of room at the top. Without a word, or indeed any acknowledgement, unless a sharp grunt was intended for a speech of thanks, he seized the money which Bill was thrusting upon him and hurried off. Bill turned to Flick, who during this brief business interview had been drinking him in with round and astonished eyes. Flick, said Bill, Bill, said Flick, you darling, said Bill, I love you. I love you. I, oranges and chocolates," said a dispassionate voice at his elbow, oranges, sandwiches, and chocolates. With prismatic dreams of murder filling his mind, Bill turned. Apart from the fact that any interruption at such a moment would have affected him like a blow behind the ear from a sandbag, he had supposed that in his previous conversations with this lad he had disposed once and for all of this matter of oranges and chocolates. It was a perfectly straight issue, to settle which both sides had only to show a little reasonableness and intelligence. The boy thought Bill wanted oranges and chocolates. Bill did not want oranges and chocolates, and he had said so perfectly plainly, yet it seemed now that they had been shouting at one another across seas of misunderstanding. I don't want any oranges," he said tensely. Chocolates suggested the boy chocolates for the lady. The lady doesn't want chocolates, sandwiches, nor sandwiches. Ban sweets of all descriptions, chocolate nut, chocolate, sandwiches, oranges, apples, Banberry kikes, and bananas. Bill grasped Flick's arm and hurried her along the platform. It is supposed to be a universal illusion on the part of the young, when in love, that they are entirely alone in the world. But Bill, great though his passion was, could not achieve this state of mind, Waterloo Station seemed to him absolutely congested. How there were enough people in London, large city though it was, to fill it up to such an extent amazed him. The entire population of the British Isles, together with visitors from every part of America, seemed to have banded together to prevent him getting a quiet word with Flick. Ever since you went away, he resumed, coming to a halt behind a luggage-laden truck. I, the truck, became suddenly endowed with movement. It thrust itself between them, like a juggernaut. And when it had passed, and he was about to speak again, a finger tapped him energetically upon the shoulder. Pardon me, sir, asked a voice in rich Minnesotan. But could you direct me to the telegraph office? Adversity makes strategists of us all. Bill grasped the other's arm and whirled him round. I don't know myself, he said, but that boy over there could tell you, the one with the orange and chocolate tray? Thank you, sir. Thank you. Don't mention it. Flick, darling, said Bill, ever since you went away, I've been perfectly miserable. I couldn't make out at first what was the matter with me, then I suddenly realized, I've got to talk quick, so get this, I love you, I—I beg your pardon. He broke off, icily, turning as he received a sharp prod in the ribs from what felt like the feral of an umbrella. The stout woman with the brown veil flying from her hat repeated her question. Where can you get a porter? Bill spoke in an overwrought voice. What there was about him that made all these people flock to him as to some human information bureau. He was at a loss to understand. Goodness knew he had been trying to make his face look forbidding enough, and yet they kept surging up to him in their thousands as if he were their guardian angel. He began to feel like one of those, ask Mr. Holleran, men whose cheery advertisements dot the roadside throughout Long Island. Anywhere around here, they're popping about all over the place. There's one over there, standing by that boy with the chocolate and orange tray. I don't see him. He was there a moment ago. The stout woman wandered away discontentedly, her veil flying behind her. Bill turned to flick again. By leave, sir! A porter this time with a truck. The irony of the situation afflicted Bill. Here was a porter interrupting him, doubtless in search of stout women with baggage. And a moment before the stout woman had interrupted him in search of a porter. It would have been a kindly act on his part to bring these kindred spirits together, but he was otherwise occupied. You know what you're saying, he resumed. You're saying, what about Alice Coker? Never mind about Alice Coker. That was a mere infatuation, simply an infatuation. I love you, and only you. And I believe, I honestly believe, I've loved you from the very first moment we met. Amazing how easy it was to talk to her like this. The mere sight of her encouraged him to eloquence. She radiated confidence and comfort. It was as simple as telling an old friend that you were glad to see him. No trace now he felt of that fluttering self-consciousness which had set him stammering under the queenly gaze of Alice Coker. Silly nonsense that had been, imagining for a single moment that he could be in love with a girl who made him self-conscious. The whole essence of love, and Bill now considered himself an expert on this subject, was that it made you feel at home with a girl, happy with her, at your ease with her, just as if she were a part of you. Flick, darling, he said, let's go off and get married quick. Her eyes were smiling up into his, the brightest, bluest eyes that had ever danced in human face, and Waterloo's station seemed to blaze with a brilliant and unearthly light. It soothed every nerve in his body, that smile of hers, it set him aglow with a happiness beyond all dreaming. It was like a lighted window welcoming a weary traveller home across the snow, and taking advantage of the fact that this delightful station was full of people who were kissing one another, he bent over with no more words and kissed Flick. And the kiss seemed like nothing so much as the formal affixing of a signature to a document whose pleasant terms had long since been agreed upon and settled. It was so entirely simple, so perfectly natural, and in order, and somehow it seemed to put matters on such a sound and satisfactory footing that for the first time since she had come to him out of this whirl of restless humanity he found himself able to talk coherently and conversationally. Well, what are you doing over here? He asked. I was just coming over to America to find you. I ran short of money and I had to cable home and they cabled back that I was to go to your uncle. He has brought me over. But didn't Alice Coker look after you? I never went near her. Why not? Oh, why, of course you wouldn't, said Bill with a flash of belated intelligence. What a consummate fool I was ever to think you would! The more I look back at myself, the more it seems to me that of all the hope was fools in the world I was the worst. You weren't. I was, taking all that time to realize that I loved you. Do you really love me, Flicky? Of course I do. I always have. I'm hanged if I can see why, said Bill candidly. I know you do. I can feel it in my bones. But why? Because you're the most wonderful man on earth. By Jove, I believe I am. Anyway, I feel I am when you look at me like that. Flick squeezed his arm. Bill, darling, what are we going to do? Bill looked at her in astonishment. Why, get married, as soon as ever we can. That reminds me, I shall have to be looking for work. Can't live on nothing. But that will be all right. I have a hunch that Uncle Cooley will come out strong. All I need is a start. It's going to be very difficult. Not a bit. Watch me. I mean about me. I'm supposed to have come back to marry Roderick. What? You don't mean to say, demanded Bill, with honest amazement, that that silly business is still on? Do you mean to tell me that in this 20th century people still think they can force a girl to marry someone she doesn't want to? When you get a man like Uncle George and a woman like Aunt Francie making up their minds, it doesn't matter what century it is, said Flick simply. You wouldn't do it, said Bill with a sudden swift spasm of fear. Of course I wouldn't, said Flick stoutly. But, oh, Bill, darling, we've got to hurry up and do something. After what has happened, I know as well as I know anything that I shall be a sort of prisoner at Holly House. I'm in disgrace. I'm like a convict that has tried to escape. I dare not risk running away again until everything is quite settled. You must let me know the moment you're ready for me. All right to you. No, don't. They might see your letters and then it would be more difficult than ever. She broke off. Bill, whose eyes had never left her face, saw her start. What is it? he asked. Bill, said Flick quickly in a low voice. Don't do a thing. Just stand where you are and try to look as if you were perfectly ordinary. Aunt Francie is coming. I might have guessed that she would be here to meet me. That woman advancing up the platform was so exactly what Bill would have imagined any sister of Flick's Uncle George that he had a feeling almost as if they were old acquaintances. Nevertheless he was far from being at his ease. Aunt Francie was finding some difficulty in maneuvering around a truck and Flick seized the opportunity for further counsel. Stay where you are. She'll think you're somebody I met on board. How am I to let you know? Bill hurriedly as the enemy appeared round the truck. I've got it. What paper do you take in the morning? The daily record. It's Uncle George's paper. Watch the agony column!" whispered Bill. Flick nodded briefly and turned to greet her formidable aunt. Aunt Francie! she exclaimed. There was a noticeable chill in the bearing of Mrs. Sinclair Hammond as she pecked at the cheek of her airing niece. Mrs. Hammond had much to say to her of a nature that could not well be said in front of strangers. The lecture of a lifetime hung on her firm lips, only waiting for Bill's departure to be released. Flick turned to Bill. Good-bye, Mr. Rollinson! She said brightly, extending her hand, Thank you so much for looking after me! Bill took his cue with a courteous bow in the direction of the more formidable-than-ever aunt Francie. He moved off down the platform. He had, as he went, something of the emotions of a night of old compelled by other engagements to ride off and leave a maiden at the mercy of a dragon. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of Bill the Conqueror by P. G. Woodhouse This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Jetson finds an old friend. The waiter, having brought coffee and cigars, retired, and Bill, leaning across the table, spoken a low and confidential voice. Jettie, he said, I've got something I want to tell you, old man. Several times during the meal, which had just come to a conclusion, he had been meaning to speak, but on each occasion the orchestra of the regent grill room, which has a nasty habit of bursting at unexpected moments into la bohème and even louder classics, had been seized with a spasm which had rendered low-voiced confidences impossible. This had caused Bill good deal of annoyance for the necessity of confiding his affairs to a sympathetic ear had become imperative. A week had elapsed since his momentous meeting with Flick at Waterloo Station, and all through that week he had been going about laden down with a secret which it had grown more and more irksome to keep to himself. The time had arrived when he simply had to talk about it to someone. And in all this great city there was no one except Jetson, whom he could elect to the position of confidant. Jetson puffed comfortably at his cigar. Bill it! he said, amiably. He looked at his companion with friendly eyes. Apart from the fact that, having a pleasant secret of his own tucked away in his bosom, he was feeling well disposed towards all humanity, he felt particularly genial towards Bill. During this past week all his old affection and esteem had returned. Bill, for so long a blighted flower, had suddenly revived as if someone had poured water on him. He had gone whistling about the flat, and to-night had reached such heights of jovial camaraderie as actually to suggest a dinner at the regent followed by a visit to the Alhambra Review. Jetson thoroughly approved of the change. Bill looked about him cautiously. The waiter had disappeared. The nearest diners were out of earshot. The orchestra, its fever passed, was convalescing limply and seemed incapable of further noise for quite a time. He felt justified in continuing. I wonder, he said, if you've noticed that I have seemed somehow different these last few days. I should say so! Ascented Jetson cordially. Much more the little ray of sunshine. Well, I'll tell you why, Jetty Old Man. I've discovered what love really means. What, again? said Jetson. Bill frowned. Confidence ought to be more tactful. If you're thinking of Alice, he said that was just infatuation. I see. This time it's the real thing. Ah! What do you mean? Ah! demanded Bill. He was sensitive. Nothing, Old Man! Nothing! Just ah! Surely! said Jetson, who came of a free race. A fellow can say, ah! You said it as if you thought I wasn't serious. Not a bit of it. I was only thinking. Thinking what? Well, isn't it a bit rapid? I mean to say, a week ago you were waving about Alice, and it seems to have taken you just seven days to forget her and tack on to someone else. Not that I'm blaming you, mind, said Jetson handsomely. I admire a quick worker. Bill knocked his cigar ash against his coffee-cup. He was wishing that he had not been so peculiarly situated as to be compelled to waste his finest thoughts on a fellow like Jetson. No soul. There you had Jetson Coker in two words. All right within his limitations and a pleasant chap to exchange trivialities with, but no soul. I don't know what you mean by a quick worker, he said. Perhaps it doesn't seem quick to you, said Jetson pacifically. I've known Flick for years. Ah! Flick! said Jetson with enthusiasm. Now there's a girl in a million. If you'd been in love with Flick, I am in love with Flick. Now let's get this thing straight," said Jetson. He drank coffee to clear his mind. The entertainment had been on a strictly T-total basis, but nevertheless he was feeling slightly foggy. A week ago you were crazy about my sister Alice. Then you switched to this other girl you're telling me about, and now you say you're in love with Flick. I don't get it, Bill, oh man. I don't get it. Sounds to me as if you were headed straight for Bigamy. Not," he added, broad-mindedly, that I've anything personally against Bigamy. Must be nice to have two homes to go to. Bill groaned in spirit. Better to have poured out his heart into a dictaphone than to be squandering words on this poor worm. If you had twice as much sense, you'd be half-witted, he said, sourly. Can't you understand that I've been talking about Flick all the time? You mean Flick's the girl you're in love with? Groped Jetson. The second girl, I mean not the third girl? There isn't any third girl, said Bill between his teeth. But you said there was. I didn't. I should have thought that anyone with one ounce more brains than a billiard ball could have understood. I've suddenly realized that Flick is the only girl I have ever loved. Ah, now I see. Flick is the only girl you have ever loved? Well, it's a pity you didn't find it out before you let her go off to America. If she hadn't gone to America, I might never have known what I felt. Well, what are you going to do? Send her a cable? She's back. No, really? Yes, I found her at Waterloo last Saturday when I went to meet my uncle. Bill's voice shook. I told her that I loved her, Judi, and she said she loved me. Atta boy! What she can see in me, said Bill, I can't imagine. No, assented Judson heartily. No. But there's a difficulty. You see, she has come back to marry that man, Pike. Judson started. Not the fellow who said it was Toddy Van Riter who founded the silks. Good Lord Bill, you must stop that. That would never do. I've nothing against Toddy. Toddy, I may as well tell you, has come out of the business extremely well. I had a letter from him this morning. But this bird, Pike, is one of the worst. On no account must you permit a corker like Flick to marry him. I won't, said Bill firmly. But you see the position? She got broke in New York and was scared and cabled her people that she wanted to come home. They fixed it up for her to come home. But naturally it was on the understanding that she went ahead and married the fellow Pike. The world's worst, said Judson. The world's very punkest. It must not be. It isn't going to be, said Bill impatiently. But you see the difficulty. Obviously she can't run away from home again until she is quite certain that I can look after her. And just at present it's difficult to see how I am going to be able to look after her unless I get in really strong with my uncle. You want to expose that crook Slingsby and then he would eat out of your hand. But how do we know he is a crook? He is, Bill, old man. He is, said Judson earnestly. I didn't tell you before, but I went to get a drink out of him one night and he palmed off a cup of cocoa on me saying that it contained nourishing fats. And now Flick writes and tells me that they are trying to rush this wedding through, said Bill. I've been putting messages in the agony column of the record every day, so we've kept in touch. And this morning I got a letter from her saying that they want to have the wedding come off next week. I seem to see myself letting them do it, growled Bill. If they try to start anything like that, I'll take Flick away and marry her and get a job of some kind, any sort of job. Just something that will carry us along till I make good. Hmm, yes, said Judson doubtfully. The only trouble is, Bill, old man, when it comes to getting jobs, I should imagine that you're a sort of half-way Henry. A half-way Henry? A fellow with not enough brains to own streets and too much to sweep them, explained Judson. I'll sweep them if it comes to that. You don't know what love is or you would realize that a man will do anything for the girl he wants to marry. The butterfly existence of a bachelor suited Judson so perfectly that this sort of thing was rather above his head. Can't say I've ever wanted to marry myself, he mused. Still, I suppose there's something to be said for it. Must make a fellow feel pretty good, I imagine, to get up and say, No more, boys, not any more for me. Got to be going now, little woman waiting for me at home. Exactly, agreed Bill, pleasantly surprised at this evidence of sentiment in one whom he had supposed incapable of the finer emotions. But then, proceeded Judson thoughtfully, there's the other side of the picture. When you sneak home at three in the morning and tiptoe up the steps and shove the key quietly into the keyhole, which you carefully oiled the day before, and turn the lock without a sound, only to discover that she has put the chain on the door. You've got to look at it from every angle, Bill, oh man. Bill beckoned to the waiter, who had reappeared and was hovering in a meaning manner about the table. He was too revolted for speech. Once more he was regretting that necessity had compelled him ever to make a confidant of such a man. He paid the bill in silence and rose from the table. One thing I've thought of, said Judson trotting in his wake down the aisle, you'll have to get a license. Suppose you have to make a quick job of it, you'll need a license. Can't get action without a license. I've got a license," said Bill coldly, and spoke no more till they were in their seats at the Alhambra. Then it was only to say, shut up, to his companion, whose researches in the program had caused him to start babbling excitedly. But it must be the same! Judson was arguing with animation, thrusting his program into Bill's face and indicating the name of one of the personnel of the ensemble with an eager finger. Such an unusual name must be the same girl I used to know in the follies back in New York. I'll tell you in a second, directly the chorus come on. Yes, there she is! Second girl from that end. Well, I'm darned. Fancy her being over here. He relapsed into a momentary silence, only to emerge once more with a long and rambling story, told in a hissing undertone, about the night when he and Jimmy Bool and Freddie Osgood and Miss Stryker, and a pal of Miss Stryker's, whose name was on the tip of his tongue, and a pal of Miss Stryker's pal, whose name had sounded like Biscuit, only it could hardly be that. Anyway, something that had sounded very like Biscuit, had gone to celebrate Jimmy's birthday down at that place in Greenwich Village, and Freddie had got so plastered and tried to play the trapped drums, though in his calmer moments, Mark you, Freddie would have been the first to admit that he knew about as much about playing trapped drums as Shut up, said Bill. Oh, all right. Said Judson, aggrieved. Anyway, it's the same girl. There is a brisk delirium about a modern review, which, while entertaining to the carefree mind, has the unfortunate effect of irritating the man on whose soul anything in the nature of a deep problem is weighing. It was not long before Bill, rendered distraite by thoughts of that letter from Flick, began to regret that he had been foolish enough to suggest this expedition. The Blair of the music and the restlessness of the chorus afflicted his nerves. By the time the curtain fell at the end of the first portion of the entertainment, he was convinced that he could endure no more. What he wanted was a long walk. I'm going home, he announced. Going home? Gasped Judson. But look here. You needn't come if you want to sit out the rest of it. I want to get away and think. Oh, think. All right then. See you later. Bill left the Alhambra, and crossing Leicester Square, wandered aimlessly in the direction of Piccadilly. After the heat and turmoil of the theatre, the cool night air was like a caress. The sky was a deep and mysterious blue, picked out with little stars that winked down at him as he walked, as if they knew how he felt and would have liked to do something to help. It was a night for lovers to stand beneath their lady's window, and— Bill stopped so abruptly that he was nearly run down by a taxi cab. He wondered he had not thought of that before. Obviously there was but one place for him on such a night. He hailed the taxi, which after some slight eloquence on the part of its driver, was about to move on. Wimbled in common, he said. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 of Bill the Conqueror by P. G. Woodhouse. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. A Dinner Engagement for Bill London was a dead and empty city when Bill turned the corner into the Prince of Wales Road, Battersea. Even the coffee stall at the end of the road was silent and deserted. Just how late it was he did not know, for his watch, like time itself, seemed to have stopped. He was dimly aware of a not unpleasant fatigue. For, like Judson on a previous occasion, he had walked all the way back from Wimbledon. Not, as had been the case with Judson, because he had to, but because his uplifted mood made any other form of locomotion impossible. Lovers are a curious and unpractical race. If Bill had been asked what he imagined himself to have gained by his journey to Holly House and those hours of silent, sentinel duty in the shadows of its garden, he would not have been able to say. Yet he was not conscious of having wasted his time. The fact, too, that it had been quite impossible for one, with his slight knowledge of the topography of the House, to guess which of those windows, whose lights had gone out one by one as he watched, belonged to Flick, did not in any way take the edge off his fervour. For all he knew he might have been expending his emotional energy on the window of his Uncle Cooley, or even on that of Mrs. Hammond, but he did not care. He had done the only thing possible on such a night, and now he was ready to drop into bed and dream of quickly made fortunes, and a life lived happily ever after. He climbed the five flights of stairs that led to number nine Marmot Mansions, and stepping delicately to avoid waking Judson reached his room. Ten minutes later he was asleep. Exactly when it was that he was woken by a noise that sounded like the sudden collapse of the roof, he could not have said. The evidence of his window, which had been an oblong of black and was now an oblong of dingy gray, seemed to point to the fact of several hours having passed. He was on the point of dismissing the noise as part of a dream, when the sound of a hearty chuckle outside his door came to convince him of its reality. There was somebody in the passage. And, however unpleasant it might be to get out of bed, it behooved him to go and look into the matter. Only an idiot burglar would burgle a place like this and laugh while doing so. But even idiot burglars must be thrown out by the conscientious householder. Bill put on a pair of slippers, grasped a chair as the handiest weapon, and charged forth. The noise had evidently been caused by the falling of the hat stand, and what had caused the hat stand to fall had just as evidently been the efforts of Judson Coker to hang his hat on it. He was now leaning placidly against the front door, and he turned a happy face in Bill's direction as the latter came out of his room. He was still in full evening dress, with the exception of the white tie conventionally worn with that costume. This he had apparently lost or given away, and in place of this he was decorated with a ribbon of light blue of the kind used to adorn the female hair, hanging diagonally a thwart his shirt front and giving him a vaguely ambassadorial look. His hair was disordered, and he beamed at Bill with an almost overpowering friendliness. Battersea at that moment contained no sunnier man than Judson Coker. Hello, Bill, oh man! he cried jubilantly. Say, I can't get this darn thing to stand up, Bill, oh man. Every time I try to make it stand up it falls down, and every time it falls down it makes the most awful noise, and every time it makes the most awful noise I try to stand it up, and every time I try to stand it up it falls down, and every time—where was I? he asked, puzzled. Bill lowered his chair and regarded him sternly, then stooped and restored the hat-stand to an upright position. Judson, who had watched the process with a tense interest, which would have been almost excessive if his friend had been trying to walk a tightrope across Niagara Falls, uttered an excited cry. You did it! There was nothing petty or envious, no hidden note of jealousy about his admiration. You did it! First shot! You're a better man than I am, Gangadine! Don't make such an infernal noise. You're quite right, Bill, oh man. Noise, yes, but not infernal noise. Well, Bill, proceeded Judson genially. It's great seeing you again after all this long time. Yes, sir. That's what it is. Great. What have you been doing with yourself? Sit down and tell me all about it. What have you been doing? That's what I would like to know. Judson nodded, owlishly. You're absolutely right, Bill. Absolutely right. You're always absolutely right. And a great gift it is, too. Nothing to beat it. Well, Bill, oh man, I've been out to supper. You remember my pointing out a girl to you at the owl-owl? Ow-owl. Wait, said Judson, with dignity, raising a compelling hand. Lots of fellows think I can't say the word. Oh yes, they do. It's all over London that I cannot pronounce the word owl-hum-bur-er. But I can. I can. I can. And I'm glad. Glad. Glad. Where was I? Bill, somewhat recovered now from the morose-ness which comes to those abruptly awakened in the small hours, was growing interested. Did you meet someone who took you to supper? He asked. No, sir, replied Judson with a touch of hauteur. I was the one that took someone to supper? Yes, I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, where did I get the money to take someone to supper? And very frank and honest of you, too, to say so. Manly. That's what I call it. Manly. I got that money, Bill, old man, because I've got a head. You'll have one tomorrow, all right. Said Bill, unkindly. A smart business head, resumed Judson. Lots of fellows haven't got smart business heads. And where are they? Streeping the sweets. You know what I did? Well, listen, then, because you're a young man, trying to get along, and this'll be useful to you. Alhambra! I've said it once, and I can say it again. You remember that piece there was in all the London papers about Toddy Van Rijder, founding the Silks? Well, I clipped that out, and mailed it to Toddy, and told him I'd had it put in all the London papers, because he was a young man trying to get along, and I wanted to do him a good turn. At the same time, and mark this, Bill, always bearing in mind the word Alhambra, at the same time I asked him to lend me a hundred smackers, and what ensued, he sent them. They arrived this morning, and that's what I say to you, and I want to lay stress on this, Bill, that anyone who thinks that just because I've been having a bite of supper, I can't say the word Alhambra, lies, lies, said Judson, waving his hand spaciously, and restoring his balance by a swift snatch at the hat stand. In his teeth, and you know as well as I do, Bill, that it's the worst possible thing to lie in your teeth, because four in every five will get Pioria. You'd better go to bed, said Bill. I will, agreed Judson, with the sage nod of his smart business head. That's just one little thing that I will do. I'd like, he went on, eyeing the hat stand with sudden truculence, to see the man who will stop me going to bed. That's me, blunt and straightforward, and if people don't like it, they can do the other thing. I'm going to bed, just like that. This way, said Bill, watch your step. Funny you should have said that, Bill, man, chuckled Judson. That's just what that girl said, the girl I met at the Alhau. He halted. Bill, there's something at the back of my mind that I want to tell you. Something important, but what is it? Ah, there you have me, but it'll come back. Oh yes, it'll come back. Never forget that, Bill. However black the sky, however dark the outlook, it'll come back. It'll come. Well, good night, Bill, man. Mustn't keep me up, said Judson, and with a brief Alhambra, vanished into his room. Daylight was now streaming pinkly in through the window, and the bird population of Battersea Park had begun to greet it with a vociferous chirping. The light and the noise combined prevented Bill from dropping off to sleep, which was just as well, for an hour later his door opened and Judson made his appearance, clad now in a suit of blue pajamas. Just looking in to tell you that thing I forgot, said Judson, it came to me in a flash only half a minute ago. Well, Judson plunged into thoughtful silence for a moment. Oh, sorry. He said, forgotten it again. Good night, old man. He retired. Bill closed his eyes, and after what seemed to the lapse of a few minutes, awoke to find that the morning was well advanced, so well advanced that he could hear down the passage, as he opened his door, the pleasing sound of one who prepared breakfast. He made his way to the bathroom, to the accompaniment of a musical snoring from behind Judson's closed door. It was only after Bill had finished breakfast and was reading the Sunday papers that the air of the cokers presented himself. A trifle pale. He seemed, nevertheless, in far better condition than one meeting him some hours back would have supposed possible. His mental equilibrium also seemed to have re-established itself. He bade Bill a subdued but friendly good morning and drank four cups of coffee in rapid succession. Did I dream it? He said, or did I make a certain amount of noise coming in last night? Seemed to remember crashing into something. That was when you upset the hat stand. The hat stand, said Judson, pleased. That was the clue I wanted. Now it all comes back to me. How much did I tell you, old man, when I came in? Or didn't I? I seemed to remember having a chat with you. You told me Todd Yvonne Ryder had sent you a hundred dollars. That's right. Judson helped himself to more coffee, but declined with a gentle shake of the head and the soft sad smile of a suffering saint. Bill's offer of scrambled eggs. In fact, he confessed, with reference to these wholesome food-stuffs, I don't believe I can even stand a sight of them. You might put a paper up in front of your plate, Bill. Thanks. It's funny about eggs on the morning after. They sort of look at you. He drank deeply from his coffee cup. Well, now let's see. Did I tell you about taking Prudence Stryker to supper? You told me you took someone to supper. That's right. Prudence Stryker. The girl I pointed out to you. A dear old pal of mine back in New York. Remind me some time to tell you about the night she and I and Jimmy Bool and Freddie Osgood. Thanks, said Bill. You told me about that at the Alhambra. Did I? Oh, well, there she was, prancing about on the stage last night. And after the show I popped round and took her out for a bite of supper. We had quite a good time. So I gathered, got in with a bunch of hearty mixers, went on to a fellow's apartment. Just a nice home evening. It wasn't till about half past three in the morning that the people in the apartment below sent for the police. Well, what I'm trying to tell you, Bill, is that Prudence handed me a bit of information that's going to send you singing up and down Battersea Park Road. I meant to tell you last night only it slipped my memory. Are you sure you remember it now? I certainly do. It was about that mutt, Slingsby. Slingsby? Bill laid down his knife and fork, the better to attend. For the first time he permitted himself to hope that this news of Judson's might really be of importance. How does Slingsby come into it? Judson shook his head, sadly, as one morning over the wickedness of the world. Slingsby treated that poor girl darn badly, Bill, man. I didn't get an absolute stranglehold on the facts of the case, because between ourselves I wasn't feeling as bright as I could have wished at the moment, but I did get on to this. That Prudence and this fellow's Slingsby were extremely matey for quite a time, and then he sneaked off and started going around with a girl from the gaiety. And one thing leading to another, Prudence did the square straightforward thing by blacking his eye and passing out of his life forever. She blacked his eye, then that was... Exactly! It happened the night before Flick went to work in his office. But that's neither here nor there, old man. I'm coming to the really important part. We, somehow or other, got talking about you, and I mentioned that you were old Prudence's nephew and had come over to London to try to find out why the profits on the old boy's business had fallen off. And then she said that you were just the fellow she wanted to meet, because she could put you wise to where the dirty work was. Bill sat up excitedly. There really has been dirty work? As far as I could gather from Prudence, it has been running on all six cylinders for years. And here's the point. I was verging on a state which you might call pie-eyed when she told me, but I gathered this much, that one night Slingsby, who must have been pretty well tanked himself to do such a bonehead thing, confided the whole business to her, told her everything. Oh, man, where the body was buried and all about it. The way, fellas, you would ordinarily think darn shrewd, level-headed birds make goofs of themselves with women, beats me. Look at Samson, or Mark Antony for the matter of that. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. But what was it? What has Slingsby been up to? Ah, now that, said Judson, she didn't tell me because she's saving it up for you. She wants to give you the low-down in person so that you can hand it on to the old man, thereby doing Slingsby dirt and putting him where he belongs. I've arranged everything. You're heard to give her dinner tonight. Tonight? This very night. I'll come, too, if you like. No thanks. Sure? No trouble, you know. Quite sure. Thanks. Very well, said Judson, resignedly. Maybe you're right at that. He went on, after a moment's meditation, the idea of a quiet evening and an early bed doesn't look so bad to me. I'm bound to admit. For some reason or other, I've got an odd sort of headache-y feeling today. I guess it's the weather. Well, she will meet you at Mario's at 8.15. You can't miss her. Tall, dark, handsome girl, built rather on the lines of a motor-truck. Mario's? Said Bill. No, hang it all. Not Mario's. Eh, why not? Mario's is sacred. It was there that I dined with Flick the last time we had dinner together before she went off to America. You'll go to Mario's and like it, said Judson firmly. Good heavens! You can't expect the girl to start chopping and changing just to humor your whims. It's darned decent ever to take the trouble to meet you at all. Yes, admitted Bill. I suppose it is. 8.15 sharp in the lobby then. You won't have any difficulty spotting her. She'll be wearing a red dress. She's rather Spanish in appearance, with great gleaming eyes and a good lot of teeth. Ug. Hey, said Judson sharply. Nothing. She's a thoroughly nice girl, full of pep. You'll like her. I will if she really tells me something important about Slingsby. Gosh, Juddy, do you realize that this may mean the straightening out of everything? If she can tell me as much as you think she can, I shall be in the strongest possible position with Uncle Cooley. Aces and aides. Agreed, Judson. And then I shall be able to take Flick away from those confounded people of hers and marry her without any more delay. Juddy, you don't know how I feel about Flick. She's like a wonderful inspiration. Sometimes, when I'm sitting all alone, I can see her face with those dear blue eyes of hers. Judson reached for the referee and hoisted it defensively in front of him. There are limits to the obligations of friendship. One other time, oh man, he said. End of Chapter 16