Laughing Gas Page 7

  'Good afternoon,' it said.

  'Good afternoon,' said Eggy.

  'Are you the owner of this bungalow?'

  'Oh, no.'

  'You seem to be making yourself at home.'

  'Oh, that's all right. It belongs to a chap called Havershot, and I'm his flesh and blood. Havershot's. He's my cousin.'

  'I see.'

  'And on his behalf - I feel sure he would spring to the task, if he were here - may I offer you a spot?' 'A what?'

  'A snifter. I can recommend the Scotch.'

  'Are you suggesting that I should drink liquor?'

  'That's the idea.'

  'Well, let me tell you, Mr Man, —'

  '- ering.'

  'Pardon?’

  'The name is Mannering.'

  'Oh? Well, let me tell you, Mr Mannering, that I don't drink liquor. I have come here collecting subscriptions for the Temple of the New Dawn.'

  'The - what was that again?'

  'Haven't you ever heard of the Temple of the New Dawn?'

  'Not that I remember.'

  'Haven't you ever heard of Sister Lora Luella Stott?'

  'No. Who is she?'

  'She is the woman who is leading California out of the swamp of alcohol.'

  'Good God!' I could tell by Eggy's voice that he was interested. 'Is there a swamp of alcohol in these parts? What an amazing country America is. Talk about every modern convenience. Do you mean you can simply go there and lap?'

  'I was speaking figuratively.'

  'I knew there was a catch,' said Eggy, disappointed. 'Sister Lora Luella is converting California to true temperance.' 'How perfectly frightful.'

  There was a silence. From her next words, I fancied that the female must have been examining Eggy with a certain intentness, for she said:

  'My! You look terrible.'

  Eggy said there was no need to be personal. She said yes, there was.

  'You're all twitchy, and your eyes are like a fish's. And your skin!'

  'It's the best I've got,' said Eggy, a bit stiffly, it seemed to me.

  'Yes, and it's the best you'll always have, so long as you go on steeping yourself in that foul stuff. Do you know what that is you're drinking?'

  'White Thistle.'

  'Black ruin. Shall I tell you what Sister Lora Luella Stott would do if she were here?' 'What?'

  'She would dash the glass from your hand.'

  'Oh?' said Eggy, and I'm not sure it wasn't 'Ho?' 'She would, would she?'

  'That's what she'd do. And she would be right. Even a poor human wreck like you is worth saving.'

  'Poor human wreck?'

  'That was what I said.'

  'Ho?' said Eggy, quite distinctly this time.

  There was another silence.

  'Tell me,' said Eggy at length, and there was hauteur in his voice. 'Just tell me this, Miss —' 'Prescott.'

  'Just tell me this, Miss Prescott. Are you by any chance under the impression - have you allowed yourself to run away with the foolish notion - are you really such a poor judge of form as to imagine that I am stinko?'

  'If by "stinko" you mean —'

  'I mean stinko. Listen,' said Eggy, with a certain quiet pride. 'British Constitution. Truly rural. The Leith police dismisseth us. She stood at the door of Burgess's fish-sauce shop in Ethelbertha Street, Oswaldtwistle, welcoming him in. Now what?'

  I must say I couldn't have found an answer to that, but the female did.

  'Pshaw!' Very educational for the kiddies, no doubt, but that doesn't mean a thing. All those silly shibboleths.'

  'I can say that, too. Silly shibboleths. There. Ethelbertha Oswaldtwistle stood at the door of Burgess's fish-sauce shop, dismissing the Leith police with silly shibboleths. You hear? As clear as a bell. And you cast innuendos on my sobriety.'

  'Pshaw!' said the female, continuing. 'The mere fact that you can say all that makes it all the worse. It means that you have passed the stage where your tongue goes back on you and are headed straight for the danger-line. I know what I'm talking about. My father used to drink till he saw the light, and he prided himself on being able to say anything at any time of the day or night, no matter how swacked he might be, without tripping over a syllable. I always remember what the doctor said to him. "That's only a wayside station," the doc. said. "You're an express and you don't stop at the wayside stations. But, oh boy! Wait till you hit that terminus." '

  'Terminus?'

  'He meant when he would begin to see things —' 'Don't talk about seeing things I' '- and hear voices —'

  'And don't,' said Eggy, 'talk about hearing voices!'

  'That's just what I am going to talk about. Somebody's got to do something to snap you out of it. I'm being your best friend, really. You ought to be thanking me on your knees for warning you. Yes, sir, unless you pull up mighty quick, you're slated to get yours. I know the symptoms. What made Pop see the light was meeting a pink rabbit that asked him for a match, and something like that's going to happen to you if you don't take a brace on yourself. So think it over. Well, I mustn't stay here all afternoon, talking to you. I've my subscriptions to collect. How do you feel about a small donation to the cause?'

  'Pshaw I' said Eggy, rather cleverly coming back at her with her own stuff.

  'Well, I wasn't counting on it,' said the female. 'But you just remember what I've told you.'

  She apparently popped off at this point, for the armchair gave a scrunch as Eggy dropped into it again. I could hear him breathing heavily.

  Now, during this conversation, though I had been listening attentively to every word, I suppose what they call my subconscious mind must have been putting in a lot of solid work without my knowing it. Because when I turned to my personal affairs once more, I found that my whole mental outlook had changed. I had switched completely round from my former view of things and now saw that in avoiding Eggy I had been making a strategic error.

  That frightful hunger for doughnuts and the rest of the outfit was still gnawing me, and I now perceived that something constructive might be done about it. Eggy, instead of being a pest, might prove a life-saver. He wasn't a millionaire, of course, but he had a comfortable income and would surely, I felt, be good for the price of an all-day sucker, if properly approached. I rose, accordingly, with the intention of making a touch.

  Mark you, I can see now, looking back, that the moment was ill-chosen. But this didn't occur to me at the time. All I was thinking about was getting the needful. And so, as I say, I rose.

  The prospect whom I was planning to contact, as they call it in America, was leaning back in the arm-chair, still breathing in that rather stertorous manner, and my head came up just behind his. I was thus nicely placed for addressing my remarks to his left ear.

  'Eggy,' I said.

  I remember once, when a kid - from what motive I cannot recall, but no doubt just in a spirit of clean fun -hiding in a sort of alcove on the main staircase at Biddleford Castle and saying 'Bool' to a butler who was coming up with a tray containing a decanter, a syphon, and glasses. Biddleford is popularly supposed to be haunted by a Wailing Lady, and the first time the butler touched ground was when he came up against a tiger-skin rug in the hall two flights down. And I had always looked on this as the high spot in emotional expression until, as I have related, I rose quietly from behind the arm-chair and said: 'Eggy.'

  The old boy's reaction wasn't quite so immediate as the butler's had been. The latter had got off the mark instantly, as if he had had the wings of a dove, but Eggy for perhaps six seconds just sat in a frozen kind of way, staring straight in front of him without moving a muscle. Then his head came slowly round and our eyes met.

  This was the point at which he really buckled down to it. It was now that after a leisurely start he showed a genuine flash of speed. One piercing scream escaped his lips, and it was still ringing in the air when I found myself alone. Despite the fact that he had been lying back in an arm-chair when the idea of moving occurred to him, Egremont Man
nering was through the front door in - I should say - considerably under a second and a quarter. He was just a blur and a whizzing noise.

  I hurried to the window and peered cautiously out. I was curious to see where the dear old chap had landed. At the rate at which he had been travelling, it seemed incredible that he could still be in California, but to my surprise there he was, only a few yards away. I suppose he must have braked very quickly.

  With him was a girl in beige, and when she spoke I knew that this must be our recent caller. Presumably she had been starting to walk away, when that fearful yell had brought her back to get the news bulletin. Eggy was clutching at her arm, like a drowning man at a straw.

  I must say the girl's appearance surprised me a bit. From the tone of her voice and the general trend of her conversation I had somehow got the impression of somebody of the Beulah Brinkmeyer type, but she was quite pretty in, I admit, a rather austere kind of way. She looked like a vicar's daughter who plays hockey and ticks off the villagers when they want to marry their deceased wives' sisters.

  'Now what?' she said.

  Eggy continued to clutch at her arm.

  'Woof!' he said. 'In there'

  'What's in there?'

  'A ghastly imp's in there. It poked its head over the back of my chair - absolutely cheek by jowl — and said: "Eggy, old top, I've come for you, Eggy! " '

  'It did.'

  'You bet it did. "I've come for you, Eggy, old top," it said. Dashed familiar. I'd never met the little bounder in my life.'

  'You're sure it wasn't a pink rabbit?' 'No, no, no. It was an imp. Do you think I don't know an imp when I see one?' 'What sort of imp?'

  'The very worst type. I disliked it at first sight.' The girl pursed her lips. 'Well, I warned you.'

  'Yes, but how was I to know it was going to happen to me right away like that? It was the awful suddenness of the thing that jarred me. This cad of an imp just appeared. Without a word of warning.'

  'What did you expect it to do? Forward a letter of introduction?'

  ' "I've come for you, Eggy," it said. In a sort of hideous, leering way. "Yoo-hoo, Eggy," it said. "I've come for you, old sport." What ought I to do, do you think?'

  'Shall I tell you what you ought to do?'

  'That's what I want to know. It said:

  "Pip-pip,

  'There's only one thing to do. Come with me and put yourself in Sister Lora Luella Stott's hands.' 'Is she good about imps?' 'Imps are what she's best at.' 'And has she a cellar?' 'A what?'

  'Well, naturally I need a bracer. And I need it quick. It's no use my going to this Stott if she isn't likely to set 'em up.'

  The girl was staring at him incredulously.

  'You don't mean you're thinking of drinking liquor after what has happened?'

  'I never needed a snifter more in my life. Drink liquor? Of course I'm going to drink liquor. I'm going to suck it up in a bucket.'

  'You aren't going to swear off?'

  It was Eggy's turn to stare incredulously. The girl had spoken as if she couldn't believe her ears, and now he spoke as if he couldn't believe his.

  'Swear off? At a moment like this? When every nerve in my body has been wrenched from its moorings and tied in knots? What a perfectly fantastic idea! I can't understand an intelligent girl like you entertaining it. Have you overlooked the fact that all this has left me very, very shaken? My ganglions are vibrating like a jelly in a high wind. I don't believe you realize the sheer horror of the thing. "Eggy," it said, just like that, "here I am, Eggy, old bird...."*

  She gave a sort of despairing gesture, like a vicar's daughter who has discovered Erastianism in the village.

  'Well, go your own way. Act just as you please. It's your funeral....'

  'I do hate that expression.'

  'But when you want it - and you're going to want it pretty soon and mighty bad - remember that there is always a warm welcome waiting for you at the Temple of the New Dawn. No human flotsam and jetsam is so degraded that it cannot find a haven there.'

  She walked off, leaving Eggy flat. He, after looking at the bungalow in a hesitating sort of way, as if wondering if it would be safe to go back there and have another go at the Scotch, decided that it wasn't, and tottered off over the horizon to get his bracer elsewhere. And I, having given the Cooley kid another quarter of an hour to turn up, pushed off myself. And presently, after an easy climb on to the outhouse roof, I was back in the bedroom once more, feeling hollower than ever.

  Only just in time, as it turned out, for scarcely had I sat down on the bed when a key turned in the lock and there was Miss Brinkmeyer.

  'Have you had your sleep?' she asked.

  The way this woman harped on sleep annoyed me.

  'No,' I said. 'I haven't.'

  'Why not?'

  'I was too hungry.'

  'Well, my goodness, if you were hungry, why didn't you ring the bell? I'll send you up your supper.'

  She withdrew, and after a bit a footman of sorts appeared - a Filipino, apparently, by the look of him. And conceive my emotion when I observed that on the tray which he carried there was nothing but a few dry biscuits, a glass of milk, and a saucerful of foul prunes.

  Well, I tried to reason with the man, pointing out the merits of chump chops and steak puddings, but all he would say was 'Excuse, yes', and 'Very good, hullo', and 'No, perhaps, also', and a lot of rot like that, so eventually

  I dismissed him with a weary gesture. I then cleaned up the contents of the tray and sank into a reverie.

  The shades of evening fell. And after they had been falling for quite some little while I heard footsteps coming along the corridor. A moment later the door opened and Ann Bannister came in.

  Chapter 10

  ANN was looking marvellous. The sight of her cheerful face, to one who when the door began to open had been expecting to see the Brinkmeyer, was like manna in the wilderness. It warmed the cockles of the heart, and I don't mind telling you that they were in need of a spot of warming. Those prunes had tested me sorely.

  She smiled at me like one old pal at another.

  'Well, Joseph,' she said. 'How are you feeling?'

  'Extremely hollow,' I replied.

  'But otherwise all right?'

  'Oh, quite.'

  'No pain where the little toofy-peg used to be?' 'Not a bit, thanks.'

  'That's good. Well, sir, you had a great send-off.' 'Eh?'

  'All those newspaper boys and girls.' 'Oh, yes.'

  'By the way, I gave them the stuff they wanted. It was your press agent's job, really, but he was down fussing over those Michigan Mothers, so I took it upon myself to step into the breach before they tore you asunder. I told them they might quote you as saying that the President had your full support. Was that right?'

  'Oh, quite.'

  'Good. I wasn't sure how you stood politically. And then they wanted to know what your views were on the future of the screen, and I said you wished to go on record a^ stating that in your opinion the future of the screen was safe in the hands of men like T. P. Brinkmeyer. It struck me that it wouldn't hurt, giving old B. a boost. You like him, and it will please Miss Brinkmeyer - who, if you recall, has not been any too friendly since you put the Mexican horned toad in her bed.'

  'What!'

  'How do you mean - what?'

  'I didn't put a Mexican horned toad in Miss Brinkmeyer's bed, did I?'

  'Surely you haven't forgotten that? Of course you did, and very amusing it all was, though Miss Brinkmeyer, perhaps, did not laugh as heartily as some.'

  I chewed the lip quite a bit. You wouldn't be far out in saying that I was appalled. I could see that in assuming the identity of this blasted child I had walked into quite a spot. If ever there was a child with a past, he was it, and I didn't wonder that he was a shade unpopular in certain quarters. The thing that astonished me was how he had managed to escape unscathed all this time.

  I had had no notion that this apparently peaceful home was, in reality, suc
h a maelstrom of warring passions. The bally kid was plainly a regular Public Enemy, and I was not surprised that when Miss Brinkmeyer grabbed my wrist and pulled she did it with the air of one who wished it was my neck. I don't say I felt exactly in sympathy with La B., for she was not a woman who invited sympathy, but I did see her point of view. I could follow her mental processes.

  'I thought it might soften her a little if you gave the old boy a build-up. You approve?'

  'Oh, absolutely,' I replied. I was all for anything that would help the situation in that quarter.

  'Well, then they asked for a message to the people of America, and I said something about keeping up courage because Prosperity was just around the corner. Not good, but the best I could do on the spur of the moment. And "Prosperity Just Around Corner, Says Joey Cooley" won't look too bad in the headlines.'

  'Far from it.'

  'And then I called up the head office of the Perfecto Prune Corporation and told them that you attributed the wonderful way you had come through to the fact that you ate Perfecto Prunes at every meal.'

  This hit me very hard.

  'Every meal?'

  'Well, don't you?'

  'Do I?' I said, still shaken.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  'I can't make you out to-night, Joseph. Your manner is strange. You seem all woozy. First you forget about putting the horned toad in Miss Brinkmeyer's bed, which was certainly last week's high spot, and now you show a shaky grip of the prune situation. I don't believe you've ever really come properly out from under that gas. The effects still linger. What you need is a good rest. You'd better hurry into bed.'

  'Bed? At this time of day?'

  'It's your regular time. Don't tell me you've forgotten that, too. Come along. I'll give you your bath.'

  You might have expected that, after all I had gone through, I would have been hardened to shocks by this time, but such was not the case. At these frightful words the room seemed to swim about me and I gaped at her as through a mist. Although she had told me that she was Joey Cooley's governess-companion-nursemaid, it had never occurred to me that their relations were of this peculiar intimacy. My essential modesty rose in passionate revolt.

  'No!' I cried.