Laughing Gas (24 page)

'Now, listen,' I began.

I got no further, because, as I spoke, she suddenly came bounding round the side of the chesterfield, and I saw that it was no time for words. Acting swiftly, I did a backwards leap of about five feet six. It was the manoeuvre which is known in America as beating the gun. With equal promptitude she did a forwards leap of perhaps four feet seven. And I, hearing that paper-knife whistle past my knickerbockers, put in a sideways leap of possibly three feet eight. This saved me for the nonce, but I could not but note that my strategic position had now changed considerably for the worse. She had driven me from my line of prepared fortifications, and I was right out in the open with both flanks exposed.

The moment seemed ripe for another attempt at conciliation.

'All this is most unpleasant,' I urged.

'It'll get worse,' she assured me.

I begged her not to do anything she would be sorry for later. She thanked me for the thought, but protested that I was the one who was going to be sorry. She then began to advance again, stealthily this time, like a leopard of the jungle; and, as I backed warily, I found myself reflecting how completely a few minutes c
an alter one's whole mental outl
ook. Of the love for this girl which so short a while before had animated my bosom there remained not a trace. That paper-knife of hers had properly put a stopper on the tender passion. When I remembered that I had once yearned to walk up the aisle by her side, with the organ playing 'The Voice That Breathed O'er Eden', and the clergyman waiting to do his stuff, I marvelled at my fat-headedness.

But she didn't give me time for anything lengthy in the way of musing. She leaped forward, and things began to brisk up again. And it was not long before I saw that this was going to be quite a vigorous evening.

To describe these great emotional experiences in detail is always pretty difficult. One is not in the frame of mind, while they are in progress, to note and observe and store away the sequence of events in the memory. One's recollections tend to be blurred.

I can recall setting a cracking pace, but twice the paper-knife caught me on the spot best adapted for its receipt, once when I had become entangled in the standard lamp by the fireplace, and again when I tripped over a small chair, and both were biffs of unparalleled juiciness. Their effect was to bring out all that was best in me both as a flat racer and as a performer over the sticks, and I nipped away and took almost in my stride the piano on which in happier circumstances she had once played me old folksongs. I found myself behind the chesterfield again.

And such was the lissomeness which peril had given me that I think that I might now have managed to reach the door and win my way to safety, had not an imperfect knowledge of local conditions caused me to make a fatal bloomer. She was coming up smartly on my right and like an ass, I thought that it would be quicker to go under the chesterfield instead of round it.

I have said that I had sat many a time in this room and knew it well, but when I did so I was referring to that part of it which met the eye. I had no acquaintance with the bits you couldn't see. And it was this that undid me. Thinking, as I say, to take a short cut by wriggling under the chesterfield and coming out on the other side - a manoeuvre, mind you, which would have been Napoleonic if it had come off, because it would have put me within nice easy distance of the door - I dropped to the ground. Only to discover, as I started to wriggle, that the bottom of the bally thing was not a foot from the floor. I got my head in, and then I stuck.

And before I could rise and make for more suitable cover, she was busy with the paper-knife.

It seemed to speak to my very soul. I remember, even in that supreme moment, wondering how the dickens a female of her slight build and apparently fragile physique could possibly get that wristy follow-through into her shots. I had always looked upon the head master of my first school as a very fine performer with the baton, but he was not in it with this slim, blue-eyed girl, I suppose it is all largely a matter of timing.

'There,' she said, at length.

I had got round the chesterfield now, and we stood regarding each other across it. The brisk exercise had brought a flush to her cheek and a sparkle to her eyes, and she had never looked more beautiful. Nevertheless, the ashes of my dead love showed no signs whatever of bursting into flame again. I rubbed the spot and eyed her sombrely. It gave me a certain moody satisfaction to think that she was not going to be warned of what awaited her when Reginald, Lord Havershot, at last found his way to her door.

'There,' she said again. 'That'll teach you. Now scram.' Even had the word been unfamiliar to me, I would have gathered from the gesture which accompanied it that I was being dismissed from her presence, and I was all for it. The quickest way out was the way for me. I made for the door forthwith.

And then, in spite of everything, my better self asserted itself.

'Listen,' I said. 'There's something —' She waved the paper-knife imperiously. 'Go on. Get out of here.' 'Yes, but listen
...'

'Scram,' she said haughtily. 'This means you.'

I sighed resignedly. I shrugged my shoulders. I think, though I am not sure, that I said: 'So be it.' Anyway, I started to move for the door again. And then something over by the window caught the corner of my eye, and I stopped.

There, with their noses pressed against the glass, were Tommy Murphy and Orlando Flower.

I stood congealed. I saw what had happened. From the fact of their standing side by side in apparent amity, it was evident that the state of friction which had existed between them existed no more. They must have talked things over after my departure and decided that the best results were to be obtained by calling a halt on cut-throat competition and pooling their resources. They had formed an alliance. A merger is, I believe, the technical term.

The faces disappeared. I knew what this meant. These two young blots had gone off to take up a commanding position outside the front door.

April June advanced a step.

'I told you to scram,' she said.

I still hesitated.

'But, I say,' I quavered, 'Tommy Murphy and Orlando Flower are out there.' 'What of it?'

'We're not on very chummy terms. In point of fact, they want to knock the stuffing out of me.' 'I hope they do.'

She hounded me to the front door, opened it, placed a firm hand on the small of my back, and shoved. Out into the night I shot, and as the door slammed behind me there was a whoop and a rush of feet, and with a sickening sense of doom I realized that I was for it. Only fleetness of foot could save me now, and I was no longer fleet of foot. Nothing slows up a runner like the sort of thing I had been going through. The limbs were stiff and in no sort of shape for sprinting.

The next moment eager hands had clutched at me, and with a s
tifled 'Play the game, you cads!
' I was down.

And then, just as I was trying to bite the nearest ankle in the hope of accomplishing something, however trivial, before the sticky finish came, a miracle happened. A voice cried: 'Stop that, you little beasts!', I heard the musical ring of two well-smacked heads, followed by two anguished yelps, and my assailants had melted away into the dusk.

A hand seized my wrist and helped me to my feet, and I found myself gazing into the sympathetic eyes of Ann Bannister.

Chapter 23

A
snort
of generous indignation told me that Ann's fine nature was deeply stirred. And even in the gathering darkness I could see her eyes flashing.

'The little brutes,' she said. 'Did they hurt you, Joey dear?'

'Not a bit, thanks.'

'Sure?'

'Quite. They hadn't time. Owing,' I said, with genuine feeling in my voice, 'to your prompt action. You were magnificent.'

'I did move pretty quick. I thought they were going to massacre you. Who were they?' 'Tommy Murphy and Orlando Flower.' 'I'd like to boil them in oil.'

I, too, felt that a touch of boiling in oil would do the young hell-hounds good, and regretted that it was not within the sphere of practical politics. However, I pointed out the bright side.

'You must have made them sit up a bit with those buffets of yours,' I said. 'They sounded good ones.'

'They were. I nearly sprained my wrist. I don't know whether it's Tommy or Orlando, but one of them's got a head like concrete, darn him. Still, al
l's well that ends well. Hullo!
I thought you told me they didn't hurt you?'

'No.'

'Then why are you limping?'

It was an embarrassing question. After the stand I had taken in our conversation that afternoon, championing April June's sweetness and gentleness against all counterargument, it would have made me feel a bit of a chump to reveal what I might call the paper-knife side of her character. I feared the horse-laugh and the scornful 'I told you so.' The best of women cannot refrain from these.

'I'm a bit stiff’ I said. ‘I’
ve been sitting.'

'And sitting makes you stiff, does it? You octogenarians! It's always your joints that go back on you. What were you doing there, anyway? Had you been calling on April June?'

'I did look in for a moment.'

'Knowing that Tommy Murphy and that Flower boy were just lurking and waiting for their chance! Really, young Joseph, you ought to scrap that head of yours. It isn't worth the upkeep. What did you want to see April June about?'

Here, too, I was unable to reveal the true facts.

'I went to give her a nosegay.'

'A
what?’

'Flowers, you know. A bouquet.' She seemed bewildered. 'You didn't.' 'Yes, I did.'

'Well, this beats me. I simply can't understand you, Joseph. One of these strange, inscrutable personalities, if ever there was one. I've heard you say a hundred times that you think April June a pill. In my presence, you have many a time and oft alluded to her as a piece of cheese. And yet you brave fearful perils to bring her gifts of flowers. And when I ventured on a few criticisms of her this afternoon, you drew yourself up to your full height and bit my head off.'

Remorse gripped me.

'I'm sorry about that.'

'Oh, don't apologize. All I'm saying is that it's puzzling. By the way, how much of that pork pie did you manage to get away with? I left early, if you remember.'

'Not much. I'm frightfully sorry about that, too.'

'I bet you are.'

'I mean that you should have lost your job because of your kindly act.'

'Oh, that's all right. I wasn't looking on it as my life work, anyway. Don't give i
t a thought, Joey. By this time
to-morrow I expect to be your late hostess's press agent. I was coming to see her, to talk things over, and that's how I happened to be on the spot just now. I suppose I ought to go back, but I don't like to leave you alone. I shouldn't be surprised if Tommy and his little friend weren't still lurking in the shadows somewhere. They're like the hosts of Midian. They prowl and prowl around.'

Precisely the same thought had occurred to me. I begged her with a good deal of earnestness on no account to leave me alone.

'Yes, I think you need my stout right arm.' She mused for a moment. 'I'll tell you what let's do. Could you manage a soda?'

'I certainly could.'

'All right. Then if you don't mind me taking you a little out of your way, we'll go to the Beverley-Wilshire drugstore and I'll buy you one. I can phone her from there.'

I assured her that I did not mind how much out of my way she took me, and in another jiffy we were breezing along - she talking idly of this and that; I silent, for my soul was a mere hash of seething emotions.

And if you want to know why my soul was a mere hash of seething emotions, I'll tell you. It was because in the brief space of time which had elapsed since she had caught Tommy Murphy and Orlando Flower those two snorters on their respective earholes, love had been reborn within me. Yes, all the love which I had lavished on this girl two years ago and which I had supposed her crisp remarks at Cannes had put the bee on for good was working away at the old stand once more, as vigorously as ever.

Many things, no doubt, had contributed to this. Reaction from the meretricious spell of April June, for one. Her gallant behaviour in the late turn-up, for another. But chiefly, I think it was her gay, warm-hearted sympathy, her easy kindness, her wholesome, genial camaraderie. And, of course, that pork pie. Anyway, be that as it may, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her.

And a lot of use it was loving her, I felt bitterly, as I champed a moody nut sundae at the drug store while she did her telephoning. Of all sad words of what-d'you-call-it and thingummy, the saddest are these - It might have been. If only I'd had the sense of realize right away that there could never be any other girl in the world for me, I wouldn't have fooled about eating ice-cream at that party of April June's, and I wouldn't have started the old tooth off, and I wouldn't have gone to I. J. Zizzbaum at the same time that little Joey Cooley was going to B. K. Burwash, and, in short, none of this business would have happened.