A Few Quick Ones (15 page)

The day was a bright, beautiful, balmy day, with an anticyclone doing its stuff and all nature smiling, but it too frequently occurs in this disturbed postwar world that, when all nature smiles, there are a whole lot of unfortunate toads beneath the harrow who cannot raise so much as a simper, and Bingo was one of them. The sun was shining, but there was no sunshine in his heart. The sky was blue, but he was bluer. It was not the fact that Mrs. Bingo was off to London to attend the annual dinner of the Pen and Ink Club that had caused melancholy to mark him for its own, sorely though he always missed her when she went away: what had so lowered his spirits and given the sleeve across the windpipe to his morale was a remark that had just fallen from her lips.

Speaking of the mysterious disappearance of his gold cuff links on the previous day, she was convinced, she said, that a professional cuff-link thief must have been at work, and Bingo was to place the matter immediately in the hands of the police.

"They will go round," she explained, "and make enquiries at all the pawn shops."

It was this that had blotted out the sunshine for Bingo and made him feel, warm though the day was, that centipedes with icy feet were walking up and down his spine. If there was one thing more than another which would be foreign to his policy, it was to have the police making enquiries at these establishments, particularly at the one in Seaview Road. For it was there that yesterday, in order to obtain five pounds with which to back a horse that had come in seventh, he had personally put those cuff links up the spout. And Mrs. Bingo's views on that sort of thing were rigid.

"You really think that would be advisable?" he faltered.

"Of course. It's the only thing to do."

"Throws a lot of extra work on the poor chaps."

"They are paid for it, and I think they really enjoy the excitement of the chase. Good gracious," said Mrs. Bingo, looking at her watch, "is that the time? I must be rushing. Goodbye, angel. Take care of Algy."

"His welfare shall be my constant concern."

"Don't let him out of your sight for a minute. I'll be back tomorrow night. Goodbye, my precious."

"Goodbye, tree on which the fruit of my life hangs," said Bingo, and a moment later was alone with his thoughts.

He was still deep in sombre meditation when a voice at his side said "Ah, Mr. Little. Good morning," and, emerging from his reverie with a start, he saw that he had with him the Purkisses, Mr. and Mrs.

"Kitchy kitchy," observed the female Purkiss, addressing Algernon Aubrey.

The child treated the remark with silent disdain, and Mrs. Purkiss, discouraged, said she must be getting along to keep an appointment with her hairdresser. As she withdrew, a stifled groan burst from Purkiss's lips, and Bingo saw that he was gazing with bulging eyes at the son and heir.

"Ugh!" said Purkiss, shuddering strongly.

"I beg your pardon?" said Bingo. He spoke coldly. He had no illusions about his first-born's appearance, being well aware that though Time, the great healer, would eventually turn Algernon Aubrey into a suave boulevardier like his father, he presented to the eye as of even date, like so many infants of tender years, the aspect of a mass murderer suffering from an ingrowing toenail. Nevertheless he resented this exhibition of naked horror. Purkiss, himself far from being an oil-painting, was, he felt, in no position to criticize.

Purkiss hastened to explain.

"I am sorry," he said. "I should not have let my feelings get the better of me. It is just that, situated as I am, the mere sight of the younger generation chills me to the marrow. Mr. Little," said Purkiss, avoiding Algernon Aubrey's eye, for the child was giving him the sort of cold, hard look which Jack Dempsey used to give his opponents in the ring, "there is to be a Bonny Babies contest here tomorrow, and I have got to act as judge."

Bingo's hauteur vanished. He could understand the other's emotion, for he knew what an assignment like that involved. Freddie Widgeon of the Drones had once got let in for judging a similar competition in the south of France, and his story of what he had gone through on that occasion had held the club smoking-room spellbound.

"Golly!" he said. "How did that happen?"

"Mrs. Purkiss arranged it. She felt that the appearance of its proprietor in the public eye would stimulate the circulation of Wee Tots, bringing in new subscribers. Subscribers!" said Purkiss, waving a passionate hand. "I don't want subscribers. All I want is to be allowed to enjoy a quiet and peaceful holiday completely free from bonny babies of every description. To be relieved of this hideous burden that has been laid upon me I would give untold gold."

It was as though an electric shock had passed through Bingo. He leaped perhaps six inches.

"You would?" he said. "Untold gold?"

"Untold gold."

"When you sav untold gold, would you go as high as a fiver?"

"Certainly, and consider the money well spent."

"Then hand it over," said Bingo, "and in return I will take your place on the judge's rostrum. It will stimulate the circulation of
Wee Tots
just as much as if its editor appears in the public eye."

For an instant ecstasy caused Purkiss to quiver from stem to stern. The word "Whoopee!" seemed to be trembling on his lips. Then the light died out of his face.

"But what of Mrs. Purkiss? She has issued her orders. How can I disobey them?"

"My dear Purkiss, use the loaf. All you have to do is sprain your ankle or dislocate your spine or something. Fall out of a window. Get run over by a lorry. Any lorry driver will be glad to run over you, if you slip him a couple of bob. Then you will be set. Obviously the old geezer…I should say Mrs. Purkiss…can't expect you to go bounding about judging bonny babies if you are lying crippled on a chesterfield of pain. You were saying something about a fiver, Purkiss. I should be glad to see the colour of your money."

As in a dream, Purkiss produced a five-pound note. As in a dream, he handed it over. As in a dream, Bingo took it.

"Mr. Little…" Purkiss began. Then words failed him, and with a defiant look at Algernon Aubrey such as an Indian coolie, safe up a tree, might have given the baffled crocodile at the foot of it, he strode away humming a gay air, his hat on the side of his head. And Bingo was gazing lovingly at the bank note and on the point of giving it a hearty kiss, when a nippy little breeze, springing up from the sea, blew it out of his hand and it went fluttering away in the direction of the esplanade as if equipped with wings.

It was a situation well calculated to nonplus the keenest-witted. It nonplussed Bingo completely. His primary impulse, of course, was to follow his lost treasure as it flew, it taking the high road and himself the low road, but even as he braced his muscles for the quick crosscountry run there flashed into his mind those parting words of Mrs. Bingo's about not letting Algernon Aubrey out of his sight. He knew what had been the thought behind them. Let out of sight, the child might well wander into the sea and go down for the third time or get on the wrong side of the law by hitting some holiday-maker on the head with his spade. None knew better than he how prone the little fellow was to cleave the casques of men, as the poet said, if you put a spade in his hands. There was a certain type of Homburg hat which had always proved irresistible to him.

It was borne in upon Bingo that he was on what is generally called the horns of a dilemma. He stood there, like Hamlet, moody and irresolute, and while he hesitated the issue was taken out of his hands. The five-pound note fluttered down into a car which was on the point of starting, and its driver, gathering it up with a look on his face that suggested a sudden conviction that the age of miracles was still with us, drove off.

It was some ten minutes later that Bingo, who had spent most of those ten minutes with his head buried in his hands, tottered on to the esplanade with Algernon Aubrey in his arms and was passing the door of the Hotel Magnifique, when Oofy Prosser came out.

The poet Wordsworth has told us that his heart was accustomed to leap up when he beheld a rainbow in the sky, and this was how Bingo's heart behaved when he beheld Oofy Prosser. It was not that Oofy was a thing of beauty… his pimples alone would have kept him out of the rainbow class…but he had that quality which so many disgustingly rich men have of looking disgustingly rich. And in addition to being disgustingly rich, he was Algernon Aubrey's godfather. It was with hope dawning in his soul that Bingo bounded forward.

"Oofy, old man!"

Observing what it was that Bingo was carrying, Oofy backed hastily.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "Don't point that thing at me!"

"It's only my baby."

"I dare say. But point it the other way."

"I think he wants to kiss you."

"Stand back!" cried Oofy, brandishing his panama hat. "I am armed!"

It seemed to Bingo that the conversation was straying from the right fines. He hastened to change the subject.

"I wonder if you have noticed, Oofy, that I am pale and haggard?" he said.

"You look all right to me. At least," said Oofy, qualifying this statement, "as right as you ever do."

"Ah, then, it doesn't show. I'm surprised. I should have thought it would have done. For I am in desperate straits, Oofy. If I don't get hold of someone who will lend me a fiver…"

"Very hard to find, that type of man. Why do you want a fiver?"

Bingo was only too ready to explain. He knew Oofy Prosser to be a man allergic to sharing the wealth, but his, he felt, was a story calculated to break down the toughest sales resistance. In accents broken with emotion he told it from its earliest beginnings to this final ghastly tragedy that had befallen him. When he had finished, Oofy remained for some moments plunged in thought. Then his eyes, generally rather dull, lit up, as if the thought into which he had been plunged had produced an inspiration.

"You say you're judging this Bonny Babies thing?"

"Yes, but that doesn't get me anywhere. I can't ask Purkiss for another fiver."

"You don't have to. As I see it, the matter is quite simple. Your primary object is to divert your wife's mind from gold cuff finks and pawn shops - to give her, in other words, something else to think about. Very well. Enter that little gargoyle of yours and award him the first prize, and she will be so delighted that gold cuff links will fade out of her mind. I guarantee this. I am not a mother myself, but I understand a mother's heart from soup to nuts. In her pride at the young plugugly's triumph everything else will be forgotten."

Bingo stared. It seemed to him that the other's brain, that brain whose subtle scheming had so often chiselled fellow members of the Drones out of half-crowns and even larger sums, must have blown a fuse.

"But, Oofy, old man, reflect. If I judge a Bonny Babies contest and raise the hand of my personal baby with the words 'The winnah!', I shall be roughly handled, if not. lynched. These mothers are tough stuff. You were there when Freddie Widgeon was telling us about what happened to him at Cannes."

Oofy clicked his tongue impatiently.

"Naturally I had not overlooked an obvious point like that. The child will not be entered as whatever-its-ghastly-name-is Little, but as whatever-its-ghastly-name-is Prosser. Putting it in words of one syllable, I will bring the young thug to the trysting place, affecting to be its uncle. You will then, after careful consideration, award it the first prize. And if you're worrying about whether such a scheme is strictly honest, forget it. The prize will only be an all-day sucker or a woolly muffler or something. It isn't as if money were involved."

"Something in that."

"There is everything in that. If money entered into it, I would never dream of suggesting such a ruse," said Oofy virtuously. "But who cares who wins a woolly muffler? Well, there it is. Take it or leave it. I'm simply trying to do the friendly thing and keep your home from being in the melting pot. I take it I am right in assuming that if this business of the cufflinks comes out, your home will be in the melting pot?"

"Yes, right in the melting pot"'

"Then I would certainly advise you to adopt my plan. You will? Fine. Excuse me a moment," said Oofy. "I have to make a telephone call."

He went into the hotel, rang up his bookmaker in London, and the following conversation ensued.

"Mr. McAlpin?"

"Speaking."

"This is Mr. Prosser."

"Oh, yes?"

"Listen, Mr. McAlpin, I'm down at Bramley-on-Sea, and they are having a Bonny Babies contest tomorrow. I'm entering my little nephew."

"Oh, yes?"

"And I thought it would add to the interest of the proceedings if I had a small bet on. Do your activities as a turf accountant extend to accepting wagers on seaside Bonny Baby competitions?"

"Certainly. We cover all sporting events."

"What odds will you give against the Prosser colt?"

"Your nephew, you say?"

"That's right."

"Does he look like you?"

"There is quite a resemblance."

"Then you can have fifty to one."

"Right. In tenners."

Oofy returned to Bingo.

"The only thing I’m afraid of," he said, "is that when it comes to the acid test, you may lose your nerve."

"Oh, I won't."

"You might, if there were no added inducement. So I'll tell you what I'll do. The moment you have given your decision, I will slip you five pounds and you will be able to take the cuff links out of pawn, thus avoiding all unpleasantness in the unlikely event of your wife continuing to bear them in mind despite her child's triumph. May as well be on the safe side."

Bingo could not speak. His heart was too full for words. The only thing that kept his happiness from being perfect was a sudden fear lest, before the event could take place, Oofy might be snatched up to heaven in a fiery chariot.

Nevertheless, as he made his way to the arena on the following afternoon, he was conscious of distinct qualms and flutterings. And his apprehensions were not relieved by the sight of the assembled competitors.