Mr. Mulliner Speaking Page 3

  'Well, I do. Put a green-baize cloth over him or something.'

  Out on the moonlit balcony Archibald Mulliner stood shaking like a blancmange. Although he had contrived to maintain his great love practically intact when he had supposed the snores to proceed from the girl he worshipped, it had been tough going, and for an instant, as I have said, a very near thing. The relief that swept over him at the discovery that Aurelia could still justifiably remain on her pinnacle was so profound that it made him feel filleted. He seemed for a moment in a daze. Then he was brought out of the ether by hearing his name spoken.

  'Did Archie Mulliner arrive to-night?' asked Aurelia's friend.

  'I suppose so,' said Aurelia. 'He wired that he was motoring down.'

  'Just between us girls,' said Aurelia's friend, 'what do you think of that bird?'

  To listen to a private conversation – especially a private conversation between two modern girls when you never know what may come next – is rightly considered an action incompatible with the claim to be a gentleman. I regret to say, therefore, that Archibald, ignoring the fact that he belonged to a family whose code is as high as that of any in the land, instead of creeping away to his room, edged at this point a step closer to the curtains and stood there with his ears flapping. It might be an ignoble thing to eavesdrop, but it was apparent that Aurelia Cammarleigh was about to reveal her candid opinion of him: and the prospect of getting the true facts – straight, as it were, from the horse's mouth – held him so fascinated that he could not move.

  'Archie Mulliner?' said Aurelia meditatively.

  'Yes. The betting at the Junior Lipstick is seven to two that you'll marry him.'

  'Why on earth?'

  'Well, people have noticed he's always round at your place, and they seem to think it significant. Anyway, that's how the odds stood when I left London – seven to two.'

  'Get in on the short end,' said Aurelia earnestly, 'and you'll make a packet.'

  'Is that official?'

  'Absolutely,' said Aurelia.

  Out in the moonlight, Archibald Mulliner uttered a low, bleak moan rather like the last bit of wind going out of a dying duck. True, he had always told himself that he hadn't a chance, but, however much a man may say that, he never in his heart really believes it. And now from an authoritative source he had learned that his romance was definitely blue round the edges. It was a shattering blow. He wondered dully how the trains ran to the Rocky Mountains. A spot of grizzly-bear shooting seemed indicated.

  Inside the room, the other girl appeared perplexed.

  'But you told me at Ascot,' she said, 'just after he had been introduced to you, that you rather thought you had at last met your ideal. When did the good thing begin to come unstuck?'

  A silvery sigh came through the curtains.

  'I did think so then,' said Aurelia wistfully. 'There was something about him. I liked the way his ears wiggled. And I had always heard he was such a perfectly genial, cheery, merry old soul. Algy Wymondham-Wymondham told me that his imitation of a hen laying an egg was alone enough to keep any reasonable girl happy through a long married life.'

  'Can he imitate a hen?'

  'No. It was nothing but an idle rumour. I asked him, and he stoutly denied that he had ever done such a thing in his life. He was quite stuffy about it. I felt a little uneasy then, and the moment he started calling and hanging about the house I knew that my fears had been well-founded. The man is beyond question a flat tyre and a wet smack.'

  'As bad as that?'

  'I'm not exaggerating a bit. Where people ever got the idea that Archie Mulliner is a bonhomous old bean beats me. He is the world's worst monkey-wrench. He doesn't drink cocktails, he doesn't smoke cigarettes, and the thing he seems to enjoy most in the world is to sit for hours listening to the conversation of my aunt, who, as you know, is pure goof from the soles of the feet to the tortoiseshell comb and should long ago have been renting a padded cell in Earlswood. Believe me, Muriel, if you can really get seven to two, you are onto the best thing since Buttercup won the Lincolnshire.'

  'You don't say!'

  'I do say. Apart from anything else, he's got a beastly habit of looking at me reverently. And if you knew how sick I am of being looked at reverently! They will do it, these lads. I suppose it's because I'm rather an out-size and modelled on the lines of Cleopatra.'

  'Tough!'

  'You bet it's tough. A girl can't help her appearance. I may look as if my ideal man was the hero of a Viennese operetta, but I don't feel that way. What I want is some good sprightly sportsman who sets a neat booby-trap, and who'll rush up and grab me in his arms and say to me, ''Aurelia, old girl, you're the bee's roller-skates!'' '

  And Aurelia Cammarleigh emitted another sigh.

  'Talking of booby-traps,' said the other girl, 'if Archie Mulliner has arrived he's in the next room, isn't he?'

  'I suppose so. That's where he was to be. Why?'

  'Because I made him an apple-pie bed.'

  'It was the right spirit,' said Aurelia warmly. 'I wish I'd thought of it myself.'

  'Too late now.'

  'Yes,' said Aurelia. 'But I'll tell you what I can and will do. You say you object to Lysander's snoring. Well, I'll go and pop him in at Archie Mulliner's window. That'll give him pause for thought.'

  'Splendid,' agreed the girl Muriel. 'Well, good night.'

  'Good night,' said Aurelia.

  There followed the sound of a door closing.

  There was, as I have indicated, not much of my nephew Archibald's mind, but what there was of it was now in a whirl. He was stunned. Like every man who is abruptly called upon to revise his entire scheme of values, he felt as if he had been standing on top of the Eiffel Tower and some practical joker had suddenly drawn it away from under him. Tottering back to his room, he replaced the cake of soap in its dish and sat down on the bed to grapple with this amazing development.

  Aurelia Cammarleigh had compared herself to Cleopatra. It is not too much to say that my nephew Archibald's emotions at this juncture were very similar to what Mark Antony's would have been had Egypt's queen risen from her throne at his entry and without a word of warning started to dance the Black Bottom.

  He was roused from his thoughts by the sound of a light footstep on the balcony outside. At the same moment he heard a low woofly gruffle, the unmistakable note of a bulldog of regular habits who has been jerked out of his basket in the small hours and forced to take the night air.

  'She is coming, my own, my sweet!

  Were it never so airy a tread,

  My heart would hear her and beat,

  Were it earth in an earthy bed'

  whispered Archibald's soul, or words to that effect. He rose from his seat and paused for an instant, irresolute. Then inspiration descended on him. He knew what to do, and he did it.

  Yes, gentlemen, in that supreme crisis of his life, with his whole fate hanging, as you might say, in the balance, Archibald Mulliner, showing for almost the first time in his career a wellnigh human intelligence, began to give his celebrated imitation of a hen laying an egg.

  Archibald's imitation of a hen laying an egg was conceived on broad and sympathetic lines. Less violent than Salvini's Othello, it had in it something of the poignant wistfulness of Mrs Siddons in the sleep-walking scene of Macbeth. The rendition started quietly, almost inaudibly, with a sort of soft, liquid crooning – the joyful yet half-incredulous murmur of a mother who can scarcely believe as yet that her union has really been blessed, and that it is indeed she who is responsible for that oval mixture of chalk and albumen which she sees lying beside her in the straw.

  Then, gradually, conviction comes.

  'It looks like an egg,' one seems to hear her say. 'It feels like an egg. It's shaped like an egg. Damme, it is an egg!'

  And at that, all doubting resolved, the crooning changes; takes on a firmer note; soars into the upper register; and finally swells into a maternal pæan of joy – a 'Charawk-chawk-chawk-chawk' of such a
calibre that few had ever been able to listen to it dry-eyed. Following which, it was Archibald's custom to run round the room, flapping the sides of his coat, and then, leaping onto a sofa or some convenient chair, to stand there with his arms at right angles, crowing himself purple in the face.

  All these things he had done many a time for the idle entertainment of fellow-members in the smoking-room of the Drones, but never with the gusto, the brio, with which he performed them now. Essentially a modest man, like all the Mulliners, he was compelled, nevertheless, to recognize that to-night he was surpassing himself. Every artist knows when the authentic divine fire is within him, and an inner voice told Archibald Mulliner that he was at the top of his form and giving the performance of a lifetime. Love thrilled through every 'Brt-t't-t't' that he uttered, animated each flap of his arms. Indeed, so deeply did Love drive in its spur that he tells me that, instead of the customary once, he actually made the circle of the room three times before coming to rest on top of the chest of drawers.

  When at length he did so he glanced towards the window and saw that through the curtains the loveliest face in the world was peering. And in Aurelia Cammarleigh's glorious eyes there was a look he had never seen before, the sort of look Kreisler or somebody like that beholds in the eyes of the front row as he lowers his violin and brushes his forehead with the back of his hand. A look of worship.

  There was a long silence. Then she spoke.

  'Do it again!' she said.

  And Archibald did it again. He did it four times and could, he tells me, if he had pleased, have taken a fifth encore or at any rate a couple of bows. And then, leaping lightly to the floor, he advanced towards her. He felt conquering, dominant. It was his hour. He reached out and clasped her in his arms.

  'Aurelia, old girl,' said Archibald Mulliner in a clear, firm voice, 'you are the bee's roller-skates.'

  And at that she seemed to melt into his embrace. Her lovely face was raised to his.

  'Archibald!' she whispered.

  There was another throbbing silence, broken only by the beating of two hearts and the wheezing of the bulldog, who seemed to suffer a good deal in his bronchial tubes. Then Archibald released her.

  'Well, that's that,' he said. 'Glad everything's all settled and hotsy-totsy. Gosh, I wish I had a cigarette. This is the sort of moment a bloke needs one.'

  She looked at him, surprised.

  'But I thought you didn't smoke.'

  'Oh yes, I do.'

  'And do you drink as well?'

  'Quite as well,' said Archibald. 'In fact, rather better. Oh, by the way.'

  'Yes?'

  'There's just one other thing. Suppose that aunt of yours wants to come and visit us when we are settled down in our little nest, what, dearest, would be your reaction to the scheme of socking her on the base of the skull with a stuffed eelskin?'

  'I should like it,' said Aurelia warmly, 'above all things.'

  'Twin souls,' cried Archibald. 'That's what we are, when you come right down to it. I suspected it all along, and now I know. Two jolly old twin souls.' He embraced her ardently. 'And now,' he said, 'let us pop downstairs and put this bulldog in the butler's pantry, where he will come upon him unexpectedly in the morning and doubtless get a shock which will do him as much good as a week at the seaside. Are you on?'

  'I am,' whispered Aurelia. 'Oh, I am!'

  And hand in hand they wandered out together onto the broad staircase.

  2 THE MAN WHO GAVE UP SMOKING

  In a mixed assemblage like the little group of serious thinkers which gathers nightly in the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest it is hardly to be expected that there will invariably prevail an unbroken harmony. We are all men of spirit: and when men of spirit, with opinions of their own, get together, disputes are bound to arise. Frequently, therefore, even in this peaceful haven, you will hear voices raised, tables banged, and tenor Permit-me-to-inform-you-sir's competing with baritone And-jolly-well-permit-me-to-inform-you's. I have known fists to be shaken and on one occasion the word 'fathead' to be used.

  Fortunately, Mr Mulliner is always there, ready with the soothing magic of his personality to calm the storm before things have gone too far. To-night, as I entered the room, I found him in the act of intervening between a flushed Lemon Squash and a scowling Tankard of Ale who had fallen foul of one another in the corner by the window.

  'Gentlemen, gentlemen,' he was saying in his suave, ambassadorial way, 'what is all the trouble about?'

  The Tankard of Ale pointed the stem of his pipe accusingly at his adversary. One could see that he was deeply stirred.

  'He's talking Rot about smoking.'

  'I am talking sense.'

  'I didn't hear any.'

  'I said that smoking was dangerous to the health. And it is.'

  'It isn't.'

  'It is. I can prove it from my own personal experience. I was once,' said the Lemon Squash, 'a smoker myself, and the vile habit reduced me to a physical wreck. My cheeks sagged, my eyes became bleary, my whole face gaunt, yellow and hideously lined. It was giving up smoking that brought about the change.'

  'What change?' asked the Tankard.

  The Lemon Squash, who seemed to have taken offence at something, rose and, walking stiffly to the door, disappeared into the night. Mr Mulliner gave a little sigh of relief.

  'I am glad he has left us,' he said. 'Smoking is a subject on which I hold strong views. I look upon tobacco as life's outstanding boon, and it annoys me to hear these faddists abusing it. And how foolish their arguments are, how easily refuted. They come to me and tell me that if they place two drops of nicotine on the tongue of a dog the animal instantly dies: and when I ask them if they have ever tried the childishly simple device of not placing nicotine on the dog's tongue, they have nothing to reply. They are non-plussed. They go away mumbling something about never having thought of that.'

  He puffed at his cigar in silence for a few moments. His genial face had grown grave.

  'If you ask my opinion, gentlemen,' he resumed, 'I say it is not only foolish for a man to give up smoking – it is not safe. Such an action wakes the fiend that sleeps in all of us. To give up smoking is to become a menace to the community. I shall not readily forget what happened in the case of my nephew Ignatius. Mercifully, the thing had a happy ending, but . . .'

  Those of you (said Mr Mulliner) who move in artistic circles are possibly familiar with the name and work of my nephew Ignatius. He is a portrait-painter of steadily growing reputation. At the time of which I speak, however, he was not so well-known as he is to-day, and consequently had intervals of leisure between commissions. These he occupied in playing the ukulele and proposing marriage to Hermione, the beautiful daughter of Herbert J. Rossiter and Mrs Rossiter, of 3 Scantlebury Square, Kensington. Scantlebury Square was only just round the corner from his studio, and it was his practice, when he had a moment to spare, to pop across, propose to Hermione, get rejected, pop back again, play a bar or two on the ukulele, and then light a pipe, put his feet on the mantelpiece, and wonder what it was about him that appeared to make him distasteful to this lovely girl.

  It could not be that she scorned his honest poverty. His income was most satisfactory.

  It could not be that she had heard something damaging about his past. His past was blameless.

  It could not be that she objected to his looks for, like all the Mulliners, his personal appearance was engaging and even – from certain angles – fascinating. Besides, a girl who had been brought up in a home containing a father who was one of Kensington's leading gargoyles and a couple of sub-humans like her brother Cyprian and her brother George would scarcely be an exacting judge of male beauty. Cyprian was pale and thin and wrote art-criticism for the weekly papers, and George was stout and pink and did no work of any kind, having developed at an early age considerable skill in the way of touching friends and acquaintances for small loans.