A Few Quick Ones (23 page)

When he returned, a good deal shaken and breathing rather heavily through the nostrils, Jas Waterbury informed him that the treatment had begun to work already. The green-eyed monster, running up their legs and biting them, had caused Porky Jupp and Plug Bosher to watch the expedition set out with smouldering eyes and grinding teeth; and scarcely had Myrtle Cootes's patchouli faded away on the evening breeze before they were speaking to each other for the first time in days and, what is more, speaking in a friendly and cordial spirit.

The spirit of their conversation, as Jas Waterbury had predicted that it would be, was Oofy and the many things they found in him to dislike. Porky had criticized his pimples, Plug his little side-whiskers, and each had agreed unreservedly with the other's findings. On several occasions

Plug had said that Porky had taken the very words out of his mouth, and when Plug described Oofy as a la-di-da Gawd-help-us, Porky said Plug put these things so well. It has been a treat, Jas Waterbury asserted, to listen to them.

"It looks to me," he said, "as though the rift and breach was pretty near healed. Twice I heard Plug call Porky 'cully', and there was an affectionate look in Porky's eye when Plug said you reminded him of a licentious clubman in the films which it would have done you good to see. I helped the thing along by telling them that you'd been hanging around Myrtle for weeks, bringing her bouquets and taking her to the pictures, so one more push, cocky, and we're home. What you do now is kiss her."

Oofy rocked on his base.

"Kiss her?"

"It's the strategic move."

"But, dash it - "

"Come, come, come," said Jas Waterbury reprovingly, "you don't want to spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar. Think of that crowded hall at Huddersfield," he urged, for it was in that thriving town that they were billed to open. "Think of those rows and rows of seats, crammed to bursting. Think of the splosh that'll have been handed in at the box office to pay for those seats. Run your eye ever the standees at the back. And when you've done that, think of the return match and the rubber match and all the other matches at Leeds, Wigan, Middlesbrough, Sheffield, Sunderland, Newcastle, Hull and what not."

Oofy shut his eyes and did so. The result was immediate. He ceased to hesitate, and got the do-or-die spirit. It was true that many of the seats alluded to would be merely shilling ones, but Jas Waterbury had spoken freely of a ten-bob top and once you start thinking in tens the total soon mounts up. When he opened his eyes again, there was a gleam of courage and resolution in them.

A faint feeling lingered that he would much rather go over Niagara Falls in
a
barrel than kiss Myrtle Cootes, but nobody was asking him to go over Niagara Falls in
a
barrel.

"She'll be bringing in the dinner in a minute," said Jas Waterbury. "If you look slippy, you can catch her in the passage."

So Oofy looked slippy and caught Myrtle Cootes in the passage. As his eyes fell on that ginger hair and that fishlike face, there swept over him once more a feeling of regret that Freddie Widgeon was not available. There is probably not
a
girl in the world, not even Myrtle Cootes, whom Freddie couldn't kiss with relish. It seemed hard that with
a
specialist like that to hand, he couldn't utilize his services. Then he thought of Freddie's ten per cent commish, and was strong again.

Myrtle Cootes was looking so like her uncle, that kissing her was practically tantamount to kissing Jas Waterbury. but Oofy had at it. Shutting his eyes, for he felt happier that way, he commended his soul to God and folded her in a close embrace. And scarcely had he done so when the air was rent by a
couple of hoarse cries and a massive hand descended on his right shoulder. At the same moment another, equally massive, descended on his left shoulder, and he opened his eyes to find the two gorillas regarding him with all the aversion which good men feel towards licentious members of clubs.

His heart did three somersaults and dashed itself against his front teeth. He had not foreseen this angle.

"Coo!" said Porky Jupp.

"Cor!" said Plug Bosher.

They both then said, "Lor-love-a-duck!"

"Ho!" said Porky. "Making her the plaything of an idle hour, are you? Well, stand still while we break you in half."

"Into little pieces," said Plug Bosher.

“Into little pieces," said Porky Jupp, accepting his friend's suggestion. "When we've done with you, your mother won't know you."

Oofy. contriving to disentangle his heart from his front teeth, said he didn’t
have a mother, and the two gorillas said that that was immaterial. What they had meant was, supposing for the purpose of argument Oofy had had a mother, that mother wouldn't know him, and the conversation was threatening to get a bit abstruse, when Jas Waterbury took the floor.

"Hoys, boys," he said soothingly, "you've got the wrong slant. You misjudge Mr. Prosser. There's no harm in a gentleman cuddling the lady he's engaged to be married to, is there ?"

Porky Jupp looked at Plug Bosher. His eyes were so small that you could hardly see them, but Oofy could spot the agony. Plug Bosher looked back at Porky Jupp and it was plain that if he had had a forehead, it would have been seamed with lines of anguish.

"Coo!" said Porky. "Is that straight?"

"Cor!" said Plug. "Is it?"

"Certainly," said Jas Waterbury. "That's right, isn't it,

Mr, Prosser ?"

Oofy, who from the very inception of these proceedings had started to turn a pretty green, hastened to say that Jas Waterbury was perfectly correct. He had never liked the man, but he was conscious now of a positive reverence for his sterling qualities. A fellow who thought on his feet in an emergency and said the right thing. I believe if Jas Waterbury had tried to touch Oofy for half a crown at that moment, Oofy would have disgorged without a murmur.

At this point Myrtle Cootes announced dinner, and they all pushed in.

Dinner was a silent meal. It always checks the flow of small talk if fifty per cent of the company have broken hearts, and it was plain that those of Porky Jupp and Plug Bosher were smashed into hash. When they wiped their gravy up with bread, they did it dully, and there was a listlessness in the way they chivvied bits of rolypoly pudding about the plate with their fingers which told its own story. At the conclusion of the meal they went sadly off to the garden. Jas Waterbury following, no doubt to comfort and console. Oofy remained where he was, smoking a dazed cigarette and feeling like Daniel after he had shaken off the lions and had a moment to himself.

Still, though he had passed through the furnace and would have to absorb at least a quart of champagne before he could really be himself again, he was happy. Porky Jupp and Plug Bosher were reconciled, and would give of their best before the discriminating residents of Huddersfield, and that was all that mattered. He took out his pencil and paper, and started to work out the probable takings, assuming that at least the first six rows were ten-bobbers.

He was still at this task when Jas Waterbury returned. And the greasy bird's first words sent a black frost buzzing through his garden of dreams.

"Cocky," said Jas Waterbury briefly, with no attempt to break the bad news, "we're sunk. Everything's off."

"Whark?" cried Oofy. He meant to say "What?" but in the agitation of the moment he had swallowed his cigarette, and this prevented bell-like clarity.

"Off," repeated Jas Waterbury. "O-r-ruddy-double-f. The thing's gone and worked out all wrong."

"What do you mean ? They're like a couple of brothers."

"Ah," said Jas Waterbury, "but they've decided to chuck wrestling and go out to Africa together, where might is right and the strong man comes into his own. They say that after what's happened, they just wouldn’t have the heart to wrestle. What's that word that begins with a Z?"

"What word that begins with a Z ?"

"That's what I'm asking you. I've got it. Zest. They say the zest has gone. Porky says he never wants to be hit on the nose again, and Plug says the idea of having anyone jump on his stomach simply revolts him. Purged in the holocaust of a mighty love, they're going to wander out into the African sunset and become finer, deeper men. So there it is, cocky. Too bad, too bad."

They sat in silence for a while. Oofy, thinking of that tenner he had given Freddie, writhed like an electric fan, but from the look on his face it seemed that Jas Waterbury had spotted some sort of silver lining. A moment later he told Oofy what this was.

"Well, there's one good thing come out of it all," he said. "It's nice to think that Myrtle's going to be happy. I could wish her no better husband. You must start calling me 'Uncle James'", said Jas Waterbury, with a kindly smile. - Oofy stared at him.

"You don't seriously imagine I'm going to marry your blasted niece?"

"I haven't got a blasted niece. I've got three nieces who are all good, sweet girls and the apple of my eye, and the applest of the lot is Myrtle. Aren't you going to marry her?"

"I wouldn't marry her with a barge pole."

"What, not after announcing the betrothal before witnesses?" Jas Westbury pursed his lips. "Haven't you ever heard of breach of promise? And there's another thing," he went on. "I don't know how the boys are going to take this, I tell you straight I don't. They won't like it. I'm afraid they'll want to start breaking you into little pieces again. Still, we can settle the point by having them in and asking them. Boys," he called, going to the window, "just come here a minute, will you, boys?"

It took Oofy perhaps thirty seconds to find a formula. He looked Jas Waterbury in the eye and said:

"How much?"

"How much?"' Jas Waterbury seemed puzzled. Then his face cleared. "Ah, now I get you. You mean you want to break the engagement, and you feel it's your duty as a gentleman to see that Myrtle gets her bit of heart-balm. Well, that would be one way of doing it, of course. It'd have to be something pretty big, because there's her despair and desolation to be considered. She'll cry buckets."

"How much?"

"I'd put it at a thousand quid."

"A thousand quid!"

"Two thousand," said Jas Waterbury, correcting himself.

"Right," said Oofy. "I'll give you a cheque."

You may think it strange that a chap like Oofy, who loves money more than his right eye, should have acquiesced so readily in the suggestion that he pay out two thousand of the best and brightest. You are feeling, possibly, that this part of my story does not ring true. But you must remember that the two pluguglies were even now entering the room, each with small, glittering eyes, hands like hams and muscles like iron bands. Besides, a thought had floated into his mind like drifting thistledown.

This thought was that he could nip back to London in his car tonight and be at the bank first thing next morning, stopping the cheque. By these means all unpleasantness could be averted. The loss of the twopenny stamp he was prepared to accept in view of the urgency of the crisis.

So he wrote out the cheque, and Jas Waterbury, who had asked him to make it open, trousered it.

"Well, boys," he said, "all I wanted to tell you was that I'll have to leave you tonight. I've a little business to do in town."

"Me, too," said Oofy. "I might as well be starting now. Good-night, everybody, good-night, good-night."

Jas Waterbury was regarding him with incredulous amazement.

"Here, half a mo'. You're going back to London?"

"Yes."

"Tonight?"

"Yes."

"But how about Myrtle's birthday? Have you forgotten it's tomorrow? You can't possibly leave tonight, cocky. She's been looking forward for weeks to having you kiss her in the morning and give her the diamond sunburst or whatever it is you're giving her."

Oofy snapped his forehead.

"I clean forgot the diamond sunburst. I must be in London first thing tomorrow, to buy it."

"I could get it for you."

"No. I want to choose it myself."

"I see a way out," said Jas Waterbury. "Give her a posy of wild flowers instead. After all, it's the spirit behind the gift that counts. Plug and Porky will help you gather them. Eh, boys ?"

The two gorillas said they would.

"He's simply got to be here for Myrtle's birthday, hasn't he, boys?"

"R", said the two gorillas.

"You mustn't let him leave, boys."

They both said they wouldn't, and they didn't. When Jas Waterbury got up to go, saying that he would have to hurry or he would miss his train, Oofy tried to accompany him and make a quick dash for the two-seater; but those massive hands descended on his shoulders again and he fell bonelessly back into his chair. And Jas made a clean getaway.

It was about a week later that Freddie Widgeon, leaving the club, found Jas Waterbury on the steps and was stunned by the spectacle he presented. From head to foot the fellow was pure What The Well Dressed Man Is Wearing. His shoes glittered in the sunshine like yellow diamonds, and the hat alone couldn't have set him back much less than thirty bob. He explained that he had been fortunate in his investments of late, and what he wanted to see Freddie about was being put up for the Drones. He liked the place, he said, what he had seen of it, and would willingly become a
member.

He was just saying that he would leave all the arrangements in Freddie's hands, when Oofy came out of the door. And at the sight of Jas Waterbury there escaped his lips so animal a
snarl that Freddie says that if you had shut your eyes you might have supposed yourself in the Large Cats house at the Zoo at feeding time. The next moment he had hurled himself at the greasy bird and was trying to pull his head off at the roots.

Well, Freddie isn't particularly fond of Jas Waterbury and would be the first to applaud if he stepped on a
banana skin and sprained his ankle, but a human life is a
human life. He detached Oofy's clutching fingers from the blighter's throat, and Oofy, after having a shot at kicking Jas Waterbury on the shin, went reeling down the street and was lost to view.