Luck of the Bodkins (21 page)

'I'd love it.'

'I'd love it, too. Extraordinary, have you ever realized, how similar our tastes are? Twin souls is about what it tots up at, if you ask me. Ah, cigarettes?' said Reggie, observing the box by the bedside. He helped himself and began to smoke with
a
nod of appreciation. 'You buy good cigarettes, Llewellyn,' he said genially. 'I like them. Did I,' he went on, 'hear you ask me some question as I came in? The words "Couldn't you, Reggie?" seem to be floating in the memory. Couldn't I what?
’
'Help Ikey.'

'I
am always pleased to help Ikey,
when and if feasible.
How?
’

'We were discussing the possibility of your working for the Superba-Llewellyn. I know how you hate the prospect of this Montreal job of yours.
’

‘I
loathe it. It would make me feel like a bird in a gilded cage. What an admirable ideal
‘
said Reggie, rewarding Mr Llewellyn with an approving smile.
‘
A really first-class notion. My dear fellow, I shall be delighted to work for the Superba-Llewellyn. It was like your kind heart to suggest it. In what capacity would you propose?'

'I was saying that you could put him right on his English sequences. You know all about English Society life.
’

‘I
invented it.'

'You hear that, Ikey? Now you won't have any more people fox-hunting in July.'

'By Jove, no. No, from today, my dear Llewellyn, you may be quite easy in your mind about your English sequences. Leave them entirely to me. And now,
’
said Reggie, taking another cigarette, 'about terms. My brother Ambrose tells me that you are paying him fifteen hundred dollars a week. I should be perfectly satisfied to start with that. No doubt you will let me have a line in writing at your convenience. No hurry. Any time that suits you, my dear Llewellyn.
’

Mr Llewellyn found speech. Until this moment the emotion which any reference to that fox-hunting in July thing always caused him had held him dumb. It was a sore subject with him. One of the features of his super-film,
Glorious Devon,
it had been the occasion of much indignation in the English Press and of such a choking and spluttering and outraged what-whatting among purple-faced Masters of Hounds in the Shires as had threatened to produce an epidemic of apoplexy. This Mr Llewellyn could have borne with fortitude. But it had also resulted in the complete failure of the picture throughout the island kingdom, and that had cut him to the quick.

'Get out of here!' he cried.

Reggie was surprised. Not quite the note, he considered 'Get out of here?'

'Yes, get out of here. You and your English sequences!
’
‘Ikey!’

'And you,' boomed Mr Llewellyn, turning his batteries on his sister
-in-law, 'you stop saying "Ikey
". So you want that I should hire more loafers to pick my pockets, do you? It's not enough, your brother George and your Uncle Wilmot and your cousin Egbert and your cousin Genevieve?'

Here Mr Llewellyn had to pause for an instant in order to grasp at the receding skirts of his self-control. He was greatly affected by those concluding words. There had always been something about that weekly three hundred and fifty dollars paid out to his wife's cousin Egbert's sister Genevieve which for some odd reason afflicted him more than all his other grievances put together. A spectacled child with a mouth that hung open like a letter-box, Genevieve was so manifestly worth a maximum of thirty cents per annum to any employer.

'You want, do you,' he resumed, thrusting the image of the adenoid-ridden girl from his mental vision with a powerful effort, 'not just that I should support your whole damned family, but when there isn't any more family I'm to go out and find strangers to give my money away to, because maybe if I didn't I might have a couple of dollars I could call my own? I'm to fill up Llewellyn City till there isn't standing room with English dudes what except eat and sleep they've never done a thing in their lives but hold hands with my wife's sister on promenade decks?'

'Boat decks,
’
corrected Mabel.

'I'm to buy a pack of bloodhounds, am I, and set them to smelling after fresh young guys who if I hadn't bloodhounds I might overlook? I'm to buy a pack of St Bernards, am I, and train them to go out and drag them in?'

Reggie turned to Mabel, eyebrows raised. Mr Llewellyn's words, to which he had been listening with great interest, seemed to him to point to but one conclusion.

‘I
believe the deal's off,' he said.

'I'm to buy a pack of fox-hounds, am I -
’

Reggie checked him with a gesture.

'Llewellyn, my dear fellow, please,
’
he said, a little stiffly.
‘
We are not interested in your kennel plans. Do I understand that you do
not
wish me to assist you with your English sequences?'

'I guess that's what he's hinting at,' said Mabel. Reggie clicked his tongue regretfully. 'You're missing a good thing, Llewellyn. Better think again.
’
Mr Llewellyn resumed, in another vein of imagery. 'I'm the United States Sub-Treasury, am I, that I should waste good money on loafers like him?' This struck Mabel as unfair discrimination. 'You're paying George a thousand,' she argued. Mr Llewellyn quivered. 'Don't talk to me about George.
’
'And Genevieve -
’

Mr Llewellyn quivered again, more noticeably. 'And don't,' he begged, 'talk to me about Genevieve.
’
'And Reggie's brother Ambrose fifteen hundred. If you can afford to pay Reggie's brother Ambrose fifteen hundred dollars a week, I shouldn't have thought you were so particular about loosening up.'

Mr Llewellyn stared, genuinely astonished. He had been about to inquire of his sister-in-law if she had by some error of judgement mistaken him for Rockefeller, Pierpont Morgan, Death Valley Scotty or one of these Indian Maharajahs, but this remark diverted him.

'Ambrose Tennyson? What do you mean? He's cheap at fifteen hundred a week.'

'You think so?'

'Of course I think so.
’

'What's he ever done?
’

'He's a great writer.
’

'Have you read his books?
’

'No. When do I ever get time to read? But everyone else has. Even your brother George. Matter of fact, it was George that told me I ought to get him for the S.-L.'

'George must be crazy.'

Reggie felt compelled to intervene. Except when the latter was chasing him along corridors and threatening to wring his neck, he was fond of Ambrose, and this sort of talk, he felt, was calculated to do him harm in his chosen profession. Subversive.

'I wouldn't say that,' he urged. 'Ambrose turns out pretty good stuff.'

'What do you mean, pretty good stuff?
’
said Mr Llewellyn indignantly. 'He's famous. He's one of the big noises.
’
Mabel sniffed. 'Who told you that?'

'You did, for one,
’
said Mr Llewellyn triumphantly. He enjoyed the experience, which came his way but rarely, of being able to bathe his sister-in-law in confusion.

‘
Me?'

'Yes, you. At dinner one night at my house, when that English playwright that I hired was shooting off his head about books and all that. The fellow with the horn-rimmed glasses. He was saying that Tennyson was all wet, and you came right back at him and said Tennyson was swell and it was only a few smart Alecks said he wasn't. You said people would be reading Tennyson when this guy with the glasses wasn't even a number in the telephone book, and he sort of sniggered and said: "Oh, come, dear lady!" and ate a banana. And I happened to be talking to George next day and I asked him if this Tennyson was really such a hot number and George said he was a smacko and when I was in London I should certainly ought to get after him.'

A choking sound proceeded from Mabel Spence.

'Ikey!' she moaned.

She was staring at him with something of awe in her gaze, the awe with which we look at an object which is the only one of its kind.

'Ikey! Tell me it ain't so!'

‘
Hey?'

·It can't be. It's too good to be. You haven't gone and signed Reggie's brother up, thinking he was the Tennyson?'

Mr Llewellyn blinked. He was beginning to feel uneasy. A suspicion was growing with him that, in some way which he did not at present understand, he had been gypped. Then, on top of this uneasiness, came a consoling thought. Ambrose's contract was not yet signed. 'Isn't he?'

'You poor fish, Tennyson's been dead forty years.
’
'Dead?'

'Certainly. George was just stringing you. You ought to know by this time what a kidder he is. It's a wonder he didn't advise you to sign up Dante.'

'Who,' asked Mr Llewellyn, 'is Dante?
’

'He's dead, too.'

Mr Llewellyn, as we say, could understand by no means all of this, but one thing was clear to him, that his brother-in-law George, not content with drawing from the coffers of the firm a thousand dollars a week more than he was worth, had been trying to fill the Superba-Llewellyn lot up with corpses: and for a moment all he felt was a very justifiable resentment against George. Overlooking the fact that corpses would probably be just as good at treatment and dialogue as most of the living authors already employed by him, he objected to George's indulgence in his celebrated sense of fun and expressed himself to that effect in a few well-chosen words.

Then bewilderment returned.

'Well, who's this guy Ambrose Tennyson?
’

'Just Reggie's brother.'

'Is that all?
’

'Yes, that about lets him out
’
'Isn't he an author?' 'Of a sort.' 'Not a smacko?
’
'No, not a smacko.'

Mr Llewellyn bounded at the bell and placed a thumb on it 'Sir?' said Albert Peasemarch. 'Fetch Mr Tennyson.'

'Mr Tennyson is already present, sir,
’
said Albert Pease
march, with an indulgent smile. 'Mr Ambrose Tennyson.'

'Oh, Mr Ambrose Tennyson? Oh, yes, sir. Pardon me, sir. Yes, sir. Very good, sir,' said Albert Peasemarch. The Ambrose Tennyson who entered the state-room some few minutes later was a very different person from the morose misogynist whose manner and deportment had so depressed the passengers of R.M.S.
Atlantic
during the last two days. A fervent reconciliation with Lotus Blossom on the boat deck just before lunch on the previous afternoon had completely restored him to his customary buoyancy and good humour. He came in now like a one-man procession of revellers in an old-fashioned comic opera, radiating cheeriness and goodwill.

There is no actual rule about it, of course, and the programme is subject to change without notice, but Nature, in supplying the world with young English novelists, seems to prefer that they shall fall into one of two definite classes - the cocktails-and-cynicism or the heartiness-and-beer. It was to the latter division that Reggie's brother Ambrose belonged. He was large and muscular, with keen eyes, a jutting chin, a high colour and hands like hams, and was apt, when on holiday, to dash off and go climbing the Pyrenees - and, what is more, to sing while he did it.

He was looking as if with the smallest encouragement he would burst into song now, and Mabel Spence, seeing him, was pierced by a pang of remorse. She regretted the impulsive candour which had led her to open her brother-in-law's eyes to the inside facts on the Tennyson situation.

Reggie, also, was disturbed. He had listened to the recent exchanges in silence, dazed by the rapidity with which events had developed. This effervescent bird before him was, he knew, walking into a spot, and he eyed him pityingly, feeling that somebody - himself, if he could only think what to say - ought to prepare the poor blighter for what lay before him.

There was, however, little opportunity for anyone to do much in the way of preparing Ambrose Tennyson's mind. Mr Llewellyn had begun to speak almost before he was inside the room.

'Hey, you!
‘
he barked.