Laughing Gas (10 page)

'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

A
nn
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 Me
xican horned toad in Miss Brink
meyer'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, such 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 co
me 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.

'Don't be silly.'

'No! Never!'

'You've got to have a bath.' 'Not in your presence.'

She seemed a bit nonplussed. No doubt a situation of this tenseness had not arisen before.

'You can have your toy duck in the water.' I waved the suggestion aside.

'It is useless to tempt me with bribes,' I said firmly. 'I will not be tubbed by you.' 'Oh, come along
.' 'No, no, a thousand times no!
'

Matters appeared to have reached a deadlock. She gazed at me imploringly. I met her gaze with undiminished determination. The door opened. Miss Brinkmeyer entered.

'It's time you had —'

'Now, don't you begin.'

'- your bath,' she concluded.

'That's what I've been telling him,' said Ann.

'Then why isn't he having it?'

Ann hesitated. I could see that she did not wish to make trouble for me with the big white chieftainess, and I honoured her for the kindly thought. I helped her out.

'I don't want to,' I said.

'Want to?' The Brinkmeyer came through with one of her well-known snorts. 'It isn't a question of what you want, it's a question —'

'Of modesty,' I thundered, cutting her short. 'The whole matter is one of principle. One has one's code. To a bath,
qua
bath,' I said, borrowing some of old Horace Plimsoll's stuff, 'I have no objection whatever. In fact, I should enjoy one. But when I am asked to countenance turning the thing into a sort of Babylonian orgy —'

The Brinkmeyer looked at Ann.

'What is he talking about?'

'I don't understand. He's funny to-night.'

'He doesn't amuse
me.'

'Strange, I mean.'

'Nothing strange about it,' snorted the Brinkmeyer. 'That's what that fool of a dentist said. Tried to make me believe it was delirium. I told him the child was just being a pest, the way he always is. And that's what he's being now.'

I delivered my ultimatum. I was civil but adamant. 'I will take my bath, but I cross that bathroom threshold alone.'

'Yes, and splash your hand around in the water and come out pretending you've had it.'

I treated the slur with the silent contempt it deserved. I grabbed my pyjamas and nipped into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. Swift, decisive action while they're still gabbling - that's the only way to handle women. They are helpless in face of the
fait accompli.

I fancy that the Brinkmeyer shouted a good many things, all probably in derogatory vein, through the door, but the rush of the water mercifully drowned her voice. I drew a piping-hot tub and sank into it luxuriantly. I could now hear what the Brinkmeyer was saying - something about scrubbing behind the ears - but I ignored her. One does not discuss these things with women. I found the toy duck, and it surprised me what pleasure I derived from sporting with it. And what with that and what with the soothing effects of a good long soak, I came out some twenty minutes later with my nervous system much restored. My feeling of
bien e
tre
was completed by the discovery that the Brinkmeyer was no longer with us. Worsted by my superior generalship, she had withdrawn, no doubt in discomfiture. Only Ann remained to tuck me up.

This she did in a motherly manner which, I confess, occasioned me some surprise. I had always been fond of Ann - indeed, as we have seen, there had been a time when I had loved her - but in my dealings with her I had been conscious right along of - I won't say a hardness exactly but a sort of bright, cocksure, stand-no-nonsense bossiness, such as so many self-supporting American girls have, and this I had always considered a defect. She had lacked that sweet, soft, tender gentleness which had so drawn me to April June. But now she might have stepped straight into that poem about 'A ministering angel, thou', and no questions asked. As I say, it surprised me.

She assembled the blankets about my person, rallying me affably as she did so.

'You are a nut, young Joseph. What's the matter with you to-night?'

'I'm all right.'

'Just one of your humorous efforts, I suppose. You're a funny old bird, aren't you? One of these days, though, if you go on joshing Miss Brinkmeyer, she'll haul off and paste you one. I'm surprised she didn't do it just now.'

These words had rather a sobering effect. I recognized their truth. Now that I looked back on the recent scene, I recalled that I had noticed her hand quiver once or twice, as if itching for the slosh.