The Sunny Side (18 page)

At times he used to say, “I must really take that cigar-case to Scotland Yard to-morrow.”

At other times he would say, “Somebody must really take that cigar-case to Scotland Yard to-day.”

And so the weeks rolled on…

It was about a year later that I first got mixed up with the thing. I must have dined with the Andrews several times without noticing the cigar
case, but on this occasion it caught my eye as we wandered out to join the ladies, and I picked it up carelessly. Well, not exactly carelessly; it was too heavy for that.

“Why didn't you tell me,” I said, “that you had stood for Parliament and that your supporters had consoled you with a large piece of plate? Hallo, they've put the wrong initials on it. How unbusiness-like.”

“Oh,
that
?” said Andrew. “Is it still there?”

“Why not? It's quite a solid little table. But you haven't explained why your constituents, who must have seen your name on hundreds of posters, thought your initials were E.M.W.”

Andrew explained.

“Then it isn't yours at all?” I said in amazement.

“Of course not.”

“But, my dear man, this is theft. Stealing by finding, they call it. You could get”—I looked at him almost with admiration—“you could get two years for this”; and I weighed the cigar-case in my hand. “I believe you're the only one of my friends who could be certain of two years,” I went on musingly. “Let's see, there's—”

“Nonsense,” said Andrew uneasily. “But still, perhaps I'd better take it back to Scotland Yard to-morrow.”

“And tell them you've kept it for a year? They'd run you in at once. No, what you want to do is to get rid of it without their knowledge. But how—that's the question. You can't give it away because of the initials.”

“It's easy enough. I can leave it in another cab, or drop it in the river.”

“Andrew, Andrew,” I cried, “you're determined to go to prison! Don't you know from all the humorous articles you've ever read that, if you
try
to lose anything, then you never can? It's one of the stock remarks one makes to women in the endeavour to keep them amused. No, you must think of some more subtle way of disposing of it.”

“I'll pretend it's yours,” said Andrew more subtly, and he placed it in my pocket.

“No, you don't,” I said. “But I tell you what I will do. I'll take it for a week and see if I can get rid of it. If I can't, I shall give it you back and wash my hands of the whole business—except, of course, for the monthly letter or whatever it is they allow you at the Scrubbs. You may still count on me for that.”

And then the extraordinary thing happened. The next morning I received a letter from a stranger, asking for some simple information which I could have given him on a post-card. And so I should have done—or possibly, I am afraid, have forgotten to answer at all—but for the way that the letter ended up.

“Yours very truly,

ERNEST M. WOOLMAN.”

The magic initials! It was a chance not to be missed. I wrote enthusiastically back and asked him to lunch.

He came. I gave him all the information he wanted, and more. Whether he was a pleasant sort of person or not I hardly noticed; I was so very pleasant myself.

He returned my enthusiasm. He asked me to dine with him the following week. A little party at the Savoy—his birthday, you know.

I accepted gladly. I rolled up at the party with my little present…a massive silver cigar-case…suitably engraved.

 

So there you are. He clings to me. He seems to have formed the absurd idea that I am fond of him. A few months after that evening at the Savoy he was married. I was invited to the wedding—confound him. Of course I had to live up to my birthday present; the least I could do was an enormous silver cigar-box (not engraved), which bound me to him still more strongly.

By that time I realized that I hated him. He was pushing, familiar, everything that I disliked. All my friends wondered how I had become so intimate with him…

Well, now they know. And the original E.M.W., if he has the sense to read this, also knows. If he cares to prosecute Ernest Merrowby Woolman for being in possession of stolen goods, I shall be glad to give him any information. Woolman is generally to be found leaving my rooms at about 6.30 in the evening, and a smart detective could easily nab him as he steps out.

To The Death

(In the Twentieth Century manner)

 

“Cauliflower!” shrieked Gaspard Volauvent across the little table in the
estaminet
. His face bristled with rage.

“Serpent!” replied Jacques Rissole, bristling with equal dexterity.

The two stout little men glared ferociously at each other. Then Jacques picked up his glass and poured the wine of the country over his friend's head.

“Drown, serpent!” he said magnificently. He beckoned to the waiter. “Another bottle,” he said. “My friend has drunk all this.”

Gaspard removed the wine from his whiskers with the local paper and leant over the table towards Jacques.

“This must be wiped out in blood,” he said slowly. “You understand?”

“Perfectly,” replied the other. “The only question is whose.”

“Name your weapons,” said Gaspard Volauvent grandly.

“Aeroplanes,” replied Jacques Rissole after a moment's thought.

“Bah! I cannot fly.”

“Then I win,” said Jacques simply.

The other looked at him in astonishment.

“What! You fly?”

“No; but I can learn.”

“Then I will learn too,” said Gaspard with dignity. “We meet—in six months?”

“Good.” Jacques pointed to the ceiling. “Say three thousand feet up.”

“Three thousand four hundred,” said Gaspard for the sake of disagreeing.

“After all, that is for our seconds to arrange. My friend Epinard of the Roullens Aerodrome will act for me. He will also instruct me how to bring serpents to the ground.”

“With the idea of cleansing the sky of cauliflowers,” said Gaspard, “I shall proceed to the flying-ground at Dormancourt; Blanchaille, the instructor there, will receive your friend.”

He bowed and walked out.

Details were soon settled. On a date six months
ahead the two combatants would meet three thousand two hundred feet above the little town in which they lived, and fight to the death. In the event of both crashing, the one who crashed last would be deemed the victor. It was Gaspard's second who insisted on this clause; Gaspard himself felt that it did not matter greatly.

The first month of instruction went by. At the end of it Jacques Rissole had only one hope. It was that when he crashed he should crash on some of Gaspard's family. Gaspard had no hope, but one consolation. It was that no crash could involve his stomach, which he invariably left behind him as soon as the aeroplane rose.

At the end of the second month Gaspard wrote to Jacques.

“My friend,” he wrote, “the hatred of you which I nurse in my bosom, and which fills me with the desire to purge you from the sky, is in danger of being transferred to my instructor. Let us therefore meet and renew our enmity.”

Jacques Rissole wrote back to Gaspard.

“My enemy,” he wrote, “there is nobody in the whole of the Roullens Aerodrome whom I do not detest with a detestation beside which my
hatred for you seems as maudlin adoration. This is notwithstanding the fact that I make the most marvellous progress in the art of flying. It is merely something in their faces which annoys me. Let me therefore see yours again, in the hope that it will make me think more kindly of theirs.”

They met, poured wine over each other and parted. After another month the need of a further stimulant was felt. They met again, and agreed to insult each other weekly.

On the last day of his training Gaspard spoke seriously to his instructor.

“You see that I make nothing of it,” he said. “My thoughts are ever with the stomach that I leave behind. Not once have I been in a position to take control. How then can I fight? My friend, I arrange it all. You shall take my place.”

“Is that quite fair to Rissole?” asked Blanchaille doubtfully.

“Do not think that I want you to hurt him. That is not necessary. He will hurt himself. Keep out of his way until he has finished with himself, and then fly back here. It is easy.”

It seemed the best way; indeed the only way. Gaspard Volauvent could never get to the
rendezvous alone, and it would be fatal to his honour if Jacques arrived there and found nobody to meet him. Reluctantly Blanchaille agreed.

At the appointed hour Gaspard put his head cautiously out of his bedroom window and gazed up into the heavens. He saw two aeroplanes straight above him. At the thought that he might have been in one of them he shuddered violently. Indeed, he felt so unwell that the need for some slight restorative became pressing. He tripped off to the
estaminet
.

It was empty save for one table. Gaspard walked towards it, hoping for a little conversation. The occupant lowered the newspaper from in front of his face and looked up.

It was too much for Gaspard.

“Coward!” he shrieked.

Jacques, who had been going to say the same thing, hastily substituted “Serpent!”

“I know you,” cried Gaspard. “You send your instructor up in your place. Poltroon!”

Jacques picked up his glass and poured the wine of the country over his friend's head.

“Drown, serpent,” he said magnificently. He beckoned to the waiter. “Another bottle,” he said. “My friend has drunk all this.”

Gaspard removed the wine from his whiskers with Jacques' paper, and leant over him.

“This must be wiped out in blood,” he said slowly. “Name your weapons.”

“Submarines,” said Jacques after a moment's thought.

The Legend Of Hi-you

I

In the days of Good King Carraway (dead now, poor fellow, but he had a pleasant time while he lasted) there lived a certain swineherd commonly called Hi-You. It was the duty of Hi-You to bring up one hundred and forty-one pigs for his master, and this he did with as much enthusiasm as the work permitted. But there were times when his profession failed him. In the blue days of summer Princes and Princesses, Lords and Ladies, Chamberlains and Enchanters would ride past him and leave him vaguely dissatisfied with his company, so that he would remove the straw from his mouth and gaze after them, wondering what it would be like to have as little regard for a swineherd as they. But when they were out of sight, he would replace the straw in his mouth and fall with great diligence to the counting of his herd and such other duties as are required of the expert pigtender, assuring himself that, if a man could not be lively with one hundred and forty-one companions, he must indeed be a poor-spirited sort of fellow.

Now there was one little black pig for whom Hi-You had a special tenderness. Just so, he often used to think, would he have felt towards a brother if this had been granted to him. It was not the colour of the little pig nor the curliness of his tail (endearing though this was), nor even the melting expression in his eyes which warmed the swineherd's heart, but the feeling that intellectually this pig was as solitary among the hundred and forty others as Hi-You himself. Frederick (for this was the name which he had given to it) shared their food, their sleeping apartments, much indeed as did Hi-You, but he lived, or so it seemed to the other, an inner life of his own. In short, Frederick was a soulful pig.

There could be only one reason for this: Frederick was a Prince in disguise. Some enchanter—it was a common enough happening in those days—annoyed by Frederick's father, or his uncle, or even by Frederick himself, had turned him into a small black pig until such time as the feeling between them had passed away. There was a Prince Frederick of Milvania who had disappeared suddenly; probably this was he. His complexion was darker now, his tail more curly, but the royal
bearing was unmistakable.

It was natural then that, having little in common with his other hundred and forty charges, Hi-You should find himself drawn into ever closer companionship with Frederick. They would talk together in the intervals of acorn-hunting, Frederick's share of the conversation limited to “Humphs,” unintelligible at first, but, as the days went on, seeming more and more charged with an inner meaning to Hi-You, until at last he could interpret every variation of grunt with which his small black friend responded. And indeed it was a pretty sight to see them sitting together on the top of a hill, the world at their feet, discussing at one time the political situation of Milvania, at another the latest ballad of the countryside, or even in their more hopeful moments planning what they should do when Frederick at last was restored to public life.

II

Now it chanced that one morning when Frederick and Hi-You were arguing together in a friendly manner over the new uniforms of the Town Guard (to the colours of which Frederick took exception) King Carraway himself passed that way, and being in a good humour stood for a moment listening to them.

“Well, well,” he said at last, “well, well, well.”

In great surprise Hi-You looked up, and then, seeing that it was the King, jumped to his feet and bowed several times.

“Pardon, Your Majesty,” he stammered, “I did not see Your Majesty. I was—I was talking.”

“To a pig,” laughed the King.

“To His Royal Highness Prince Frederick of Milvania,” said Hi-You proudly.

“I beg your pardon,” said the King; “could I trouble you to say that again?”

“His Royal Highness Prince Frederick of Milvania.”

“Yes, that was what it sounded like last time.”

“Frederick,” murmured Hi-You in his friend's ear, “this is His Majesty King Carraway. He lets me call him Frederick,” he added to the King.