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  "The prodigal son, by George! Creeping back into the fold after all this weary time! It seems years since I saw you, Freddie. The old gov'nor put his foot down--didn't he?--and stopped the funds. Damned shame! I take it that things have loosened up a bit since the engagement was announced--eh?"

  Freddie sat down and chewed the knob of his cane unhappily.

  "Well, as a matter of fact, Dickie, old top," he said, "not so that you could notice it, don't you know! Things are still pretty much the same. I managed to get away from Blandings for a night, because the gov'nor had to come to London; but I've got to go back with him on the three-o'clock train. And, as for money, I can't get a quid out of him. As a matter of fact, I'm in the deuce of a hole; and that's why I've come to you."

  Even fat, jovial men have their moments of depression. R. Jones' face clouded, and jerky remarks about hardness of times and losses on the Stock Exchange began to proceed from him. As Scotland Yard had discovered, he lent money on occasion; but he did not lend it to youths in Freddie's unfortunate position.

  "Oh, I don't want to make a touch, you know," Freddie hastened to explain. "It isn't that. As a matter of fact, I managed to raise five hundred of the best this morning. That ought to be enough."

  "Depends on what you want it for," said R. Jones, magically genial once more.

  The thought entered his mind, as it had so often, that the world was full of easy marks. He wished he could meet the money-lender who had been rash enough to advance the Honorable Freddie five hundred pounds. Those philanthropists cross our path too seldom.

  Freddie felt in his pocket, produced a cigarette case, and from it extracted a newspaper clipping.

  "Did you read about poor old Percy in the papers? The case, you know?"

  "Percy?"

  "Lord Stockheath, you know."

  "Oh, the Stockheath breach-of-promise case? I did more than that. I was in court all three days." R. Jones emitted a cozy chuckle. "Is he a pal of yours? A cousin, eh? I wish you had seen him in the witness box, with Jellicoe-Smith cross-examining him! The funniest thing I ever heard! And his letters to the girl! They read them out in court; and of all--"

  "Don't, old man! Dickie, old top--please! I know all about it. I read the reports. They made poor old Percy look like an absolute ass."

  "Well, Nature had done that already; but I'm bound to say they improved on Nature's work. I should think your Cousin Percy must have felt like a plucked chicken."

  A spasm of pain passed over the Honorable Freddie's vacant face. He wriggled in his chair.

  "Dickie, old man, I wish you wouldn't talk like that. It makes me feel ill."

  "Why, is he such a pal of yours as all that?"

  "It's not that. It's--the fact is, Dickie, old top, I'm in exactly the same bally hole as poor old Percy was, myself!"

  "What! You have been sued for breach of promise?"

  "Not absolutely that--yet. Look here; I'll tell you the whole thing. Do you remember a show at the Piccadilly about a year ago called "The Baby Doll"? There was a girl in the chorus."

  "Several--I remember noticing."

  "No; I mean one particular girl--a girl called Joan Valentine. The rotten part is that I never met her."

  "Pull yourself together, Freddie. What exactly is the trouble?"

  "Well--don't you see?--I used to go to the show every other night, and I fell frightfully in love with this girl--"

  "Without having met her?"

  "Yes. You see, I was rather an ass in those days."

  "No, no!" said R. Jones handsomely.

  "I must have been or I shouldn't have been such an ass, don't you know! Well, as I was saying, I used to write this girl letters, saying how much I was in love with her; and--and--"

  "Specifically proposing marriage?"

  "I can't remember. I expect I did. I was awfully in love."

  "How was that if you never met her?"

  "She wouldn't meet me. She wouldn't even come out to luncheon. She didn't even answer my letters--just sent word down by the Johnny at the stage door. And then----"

  Freddie's voice died away. He thrust the knob of his cane into his mouth in a sort of frenzy.

  "What then?" inquired R. Jones.

  A scarlet blush manifested itself on Freddie's young face. His eyes wandered sidewise. After a long pause a single word escaped him, almost inaudible:

  "Poetry!"

  R. Jones trembled as though an electric current had been passed through his plump frame. His little eyes sparkled with merriment.

  "You wrote her poetry!"

  "Yards of it, old boy--yards of it!" groaned Freddie. Panic filled him with speech. "You see the frightful hole I'm in? This girl is bound to have kept the letters. I don't remember whether I actually proposed to her or not; but anyway she's got enough material to make it worth while to have a dash at an action--especially after poor old Percy has just got soaked for such a pile of money and made breach-of-promise cases the fashion, so to speak.

  "And now that the announcement of my engagement is out she's certain to get busy. Probably she has been waiting for something of the sort. Don't you see that all the cards are in her hands? We couldn't afford to let the thing come into court. That poetry would dish my marriage for a certainty. I'd have to emigrate or something! Goodness knows what would happen at home! My old gov'nor would murder me! So you see what a frightful hole I'm in, don't you, Dickie, old man?"

  "And what do you want me to do?"

  "Why, to get hold of this girl and get back the letters--don't you see? I can't do it myself, cooped up miles away in the country. And besides, I shouldn't know how to handle a thing like that. It needs a chappie with a lot of sense and a persuasive sort of way with him."

  "Thanks for the compliment, Freddie; but I should imagine that something a little more solid than a persuasive way would be required in a case like this. You said something a while ago about five hundred pounds?"

  "Here it is, old man--in notes. I brought it on purpose. Will you really take the thing on? Do you think you can work it for five hundred?"

  "I can have a try."

  Freddie rose, with an expression approximating to happiness on his face. Some men have the power of inspiring confidence in some of their fellows, though they fill others with distrust. Scotland Yard might look askance at R. Jones, but to Freddie he was all that was helpful and reliable. He shook R. Jones' hand several times in his emotion.

  "That's absolutely topping of you, old man!" he said. "Then I'll leave the whole thing to you. Write me the moment you have done anything, won't you? Good-by, old top, and thanks ever so much!"

  The door closed. R. Jones remained where he sat, his fingers straying luxuriously among the crackling paper. A feeling of complete happiness warmed R. Jones' bosom. He was uncertain whether or not his mission would be successful; and to be truthful he was not letting that worry him much. What he was certain of was the fact that the heavens had opened unexpectedly and dropped five hundred pounds into his lap.

  CHAPTER III

  The Earl of Emsworth stood in the doorway of the Senior Conservative Club's vast diningroom, and beamed with a vague sweetness on the two hundred or so Senior Conservatives who, with much clattering of knives and forks, were keeping body and soul together by means of the coffee-room luncheon. He might have been posing for a statue of Amiability. His pale blue eyes shone with a friendly light through their protecting glasses; the smile of a man at peace with all men curved his weak mouth; his bald head, reflecting the sunlight, seemed almost to wear a halo.

  Nobody appeared to notice him. He so seldom came to London these days that he was practically a stranger in the club; and in any case your Senior Conservative, when at lunch, has little leisure for observing anything not immediately on the table in front of him. To attract attention in the dining-room of the Senior Conservative Club between the hours of one and two-thirty, you have to be a mutton chop--not an earl.

  It is possible that, lacking the initiative to make his
way down the long aisle and find a table for himself, he might have stood there indefinitely, but for the restless activity of Adams, the head steward. It was Adams' mission in life to flit to and fro, hauling would-be lunchers to their destinations, as a St. Bernard dog hauls travelers out of Alpine snowdrifts. He sighted Lord Emsworth and secured him with a genteel pounce.

  "A table, your lordship? This way, your lordship." Adams remembered him, of course. Adams remembered everybody.

  Lord Emsworth followed him beamingly and presently came to anchor at a table in the farther end of the room. Adams handed him the bill of fare and stood brooding over him like a providence.

  "Don't often see your lordship in the club," he opened chattily.

  It was business to know the tastes and dispositions of all the five thousand or so members of the Senior Conservative Club and to suit his demeanor to them. To some he would hand the bill of fare swiftly, silently, almost brusquely, as one who realizes that there are moments in life too serious for talk. Others, he knew, liked conversation; and to those he introduced the subject of food almost as a sub-motive.

  Lord Emsworth, having examined the bill of fare with a mild curiosity, laid it down and became conversational.

  "No, Adams; I seldom visit London nowadays. London does not attract me. The country--the fields--the woods--the birds----"

  Something across the room seemed to attract his attention and his voice trailed off. He inspected this for some time with bland interest, then turned to Adams once more.

  "What was I saying, Adams?"

  "The birds, your lordship."

  "Birds! What birds? What about birds?"

  "You were speaking of the attractions of life in the country, your lordship. You included the birds in your remarks."

  "Oh, yes, yes, yes! Oh, yes, yes! Oh, yes--to be sure. Do you ever go to the country, Adams?"

  "Generally to the seashore, your lordship--when I take my annual vacation."

  Whatever was the attraction across the room once more exercised its spell. His lordship concentrated himself on it to the exclusion of all other mundane matters. Presently he came out of his trance again.

  "What were you saying, Adams?"

  "I said that I generally went to the seashore, your lordship."

  "Eh? When?"

  "For my annual vacation, your lordship."

  "Your what?"

  "My annual vacation, your lordship."

  "What about it?"

  Adams never smiled during business hours--unless professionally, as it were, when a member made a joke; but he was storing up in the recesses of his highly respectable body a large laugh, to he shared with his wife when he reached home that night. Mrs. Adams never wearied of hearing of the eccentricities of the members of the club. It occurred to Adams that he was in luck to-day. He was expecting a little party of friends to supper that night, and he was a man who loved an audience.

  You would never have thought it, to look at him when engaged in his professional duties, but Adams had built up a substantial reputation as a humorist in his circle by his imitations of certain members of the club; and it was a matter of regret to him that he got so few opportunities nowadays of studying the absent-minded Lord Emsworth. It was rare luck--his lordship coming in to-day, evidently in his best form.

  "Adams, who is the gentleman over by the window--the gentleman in the brown suit?"

  "That is Mr. Simmonds, your lordship. He joined us last year."

  "I never saw a man take such large mouthfuls. Did you ever see a man take such large mouthfuls, Adams?"

  Adams refrained from expressing an opinion, but inwardly he was thrilling with artistic fervor. Mr. Simmonds eating, was one of his best imitations, though Mrs. Adams was inclined to object to it on the score that it was a bad example for the children. To be privileged to witness Lord Emsworth watching and criticizing Mr. Simmonds was to collect material for a double-barreled character study that would assuredly make the hit of the evening.

  "That man," went on Lord Emsworth, "is digging his grave with his teeth. Digging his grave with his teeth, Adams! Do you take large mouthfuls, Adams?"

  "No, your lordship."

  "Quite right. Very sensible of you, Adams--very sensible of you. Very sen---- What was I saying, Adams?"

  "About my not taking large mouthfuls, your lordship."

  "Quite right--quite right! Never take large mouthfuls, Adams. Never gobble. Have you any children, Adams?"

  "Two, your lordship."

  "I hope you teach them not to gobble. They pay for it in later life. Americans gobble when young and ruin their digestions. My American friend, Mr. Peters, suffers terribly from indigestion."

  Adams lowered his voice to a confidential murmur: "If you will pardon the liberty, your lordship--I saw it in the paper--"

  "About Mr. Peters' indigestion?"

  "About Miss Peters, your lordship, and the Honorable Frederick. May I be permitted to offer my congratulations?"

  "Eh, Oh, yes--the engagement. Yes, yes, yes! Yes--to be sure. Yes; very satisfactory in every respect. High time he settled down and got a little sense. I put it to him straight. I cut off his allowance and made him stay at home. That made him think--lazy young devil!"

  Lord Emsworth had his lucid moments; and in the one that occurred now it came home to him that he was not talking to himself, as he had imagined, but confiding intimate family secrets to the head steward of his club's dining-room. He checked himself abruptly, and with a slight decrease of amiability fixed his gaze on the bill of fare and ordered cold beef. For an instant he felt resentful against Adams for luring him on to soliloquize; but the next moment his whole mind was gripped by the fascinating spectacle of Mr. Simmonds dealing with a wedge of Stilton cheese, and Adams was forgotten.

  The cold beef had the effect of restoring his lordship to complete amiability, and when Adams in the course of his wanderings again found himself at the table he was once more disposed for light conversation.

  "So you saw the news of the engagement in the paper, did you, Adams?"

  "Yes, your lordship, in the Mail. It had quite a long piece about it. And the Honorable Frederick's photograph and the young lady's were in the Mirror. Mrs. Adams clipped them out and put them in an album, knowing that your lordship was a member of ours. If I may say so, your lordship--a beautiful young lady."

  "Devilish attractive, Adams--and devilish rich. Mr. Peters is a millionaire, Adams."

  "So I read in the paper, your lordship."

  "Damme! They all seem to be millionaires in America. Wish I knew how they managed it. Honestly, I hope. Mr. Peters is an honest man, but his digestion is bad. He used to bolt his food. You don't bolt your food, I hope, Adams?"

  "No, your lordship; I am most careful."

  "The late Mr. Gladstone used to chew each mouthful thirty-three times. Deuced good notion if you aren't in a hurry. What cheese would you recommend, Adams ?"

  "The gentlemen as speaking well of the Gorgonzola."

  "All right, bring me some. You know, Adams, what I admire about Americans is their resource. Mr. Peters tells me that as a boy of eleven he earned twenty dollars a week selling mint to saloon keepers, As they call publicans over there. Why they wanted mint I cannot recollect. Mr. Peters explained the reason to me and it seemed highly plausible at the time; but I have forgotten it. Possibly for mint sauce. It impressed me, Adams. Twenty dollars is four pounds. I never earned four pounds a week when I was a boy of eleven; in fact, I don't think I ever earned four pounds a week. His story impressed me, Adams. Every man ought to have an earning capacity. I was so struck with what he told me that I began to paint."

  "Landscapes, your lordship?"

  "Furniture. It is unlikely that I shall ever be compelled to paint furniture for a living, but it is a consolation to me to feel that I could do so if called on. There is a fascination about painting furniture, Adams. I have painted the whole of my bedroom at Blandings and am now engaged on the museum. You would be surprised at the fa
scination of it. It suddenly came back to me the other day that I had been inwardly longing to mess about with paints and things since I was a boy. They stopped me when I was a boy. I recollect my old father beating me with a walking stick--Tell me, Adams, have I eaten my cheese?"

  "Not yet, your lordship. I was about to send the waiter for it."

  "Never mind. Tell him to bring the bill instead. I remember that I have an appointment. I must not be late."

  "Shall I take the fork, your lordship?"

  "The fork?"

  "Your lordship has inadvertently put a fork in your coat pocket."

  Lord Emsworth felt in the pocket indicated, and with the air of an inexpert conjurer whose trick has succeeded contrary to his expectations produced a silver-plated fork. He regarded it with surprise; then he looked wonderingly at Adams.

  "Adams, I'm getting absent-minded. Have you ever noticed any traces of absent-mindedness in me before?"

  "Oh, no, your lordship."

  "Well, it's deuced peculiar! I have no recollection whatsoever of placing that fork in my pocket... Adams, I want a taxicab." He glanced round the room, as though expecting to locate one by the fireplace.

  "The hall porter will whistle one for you, your lordship."

  "So he will, by George!--so he will! Good day, Adams."

  "Good day, your lordship."

  The Earl of Emsworth ambled benevolently to the door, leaving Adams with the feeling that his day had been well-spent. He gazed almost with reverence after the slow-moving figure.

  "What a nut!" said Adams to his immortal soul.

  Wafted through the sunlit streets in his taxicab, the Earl of Emsworth smiled benevolently on London's teeming millions. He was as completely happy as only a fluffy-minded old man with excellent health and a large income can be. Other people worried about all sorts of things--strikes, wars, suffragettes, the diminishing birth rate, the growing materialism of the age, a score of similar subjects.

  Worrying, indeed, seemed to be the twentieth-century specialty. Lord Emsworth never worried. Nature had equipped him with a mind so admirably constructed for withstanding the disagreeableness of life that if an unpleasant thought entered it, it passed out again a moment later. Except for a few of life's fundamental facts, such as that his check book was in the right-hand top drawer of his desk; that the Honorable Freddie Threepwood was a young idiot who required perpetual restraint; and that when in doubt about anything he had merely to apply to his secretary, Rupert Baxter--except for these basic things, he never remembered anything for more than a few minutes.