'Eh?
'
'My mother, sir.' 'On an iceberg?' 'Yes, sir.'
'When was your mother ever on an iceberg?'
Albert Peasemarch perceived that his remarks had not secured his overlord's undivided attention.
'My mother was never on an iceberg, sir. I'm simply saying that if she had been she'd have lost her spectacles. And it's just the same with all women, on account of the bone structure of their heads. As I say, they're always losing things and forgetting things.'
'I expect you're right.'
‘I
know I'm right, sir. Why, that young lady in here just now, your Miss Blossom -'
'I wish you wouldn't call her my Miss Blossom.'
'No, sir. Very good, sir. But what I was about to say was that she'd got half-way down the corridor without remembering to take her plaything with her. I had to run after her and give it to her. "Hi, miss," I said, "you omitted to fetch away your mouse." And she said: "Oh, thank you, steward, so I did."... Sir?'
Monty had not spoken. What had proceeded from his lips had been a mere animal wail. He raked the dressing-table with starting eyes, hoping against hope that he had not heard his companion aright.
But there was no mistake. That broad, friendly smile was not there to greet him. Desolation reigned on the dressing-table. The Mickey Mouse had gone.
'Everything in good shape now?'
‘
Oh, yes."
Reggie was a little piqued. A man may say to himself that he desires no thanks, that he is only too delighted and so forth, but he does like a certain measure of recognition of his acts of kindness.
'You don't seem overpleased,' he said frigidly. 'Reggie,' said Monty, 'the most awful thing has happened. The Blossom has got away wi
th Gertrude's mouse.' 'Mouse?' ‘
Yes.'
‘
White mouse?'
‘
Mickey Mouse. You remember that Mickey Mouse I gave her and she sent back...'
'Ah, yes.' Reggie shook his head rather censoriously. 'You shouldn't have given Gertrude's mouse to Lottie, old man.'
Monty raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if pleading with heaven not to allow him to be pushed too far.
‘
I didn't give it to her.
’
'But she's got it?'
‘
Yes.'
Tell me the story in your own words,' said Reggie. 'So far, it sounds goofy to me.'
But when the tale had been told he had no comfort to offer. It seeme
d to him that his friend was in
a spot, and he said so
’
'Your best plan is to get that mouse back,' he suggested.
'Yes,' said Monty. This had occurred to him independently.
‘
If Gertrude sees it in Lottie's possession-'
'Yes,' said Monty.
'She'll-'
'Yes,' said Monty.
Reggie clicked his tongue impatiently.
‘
You'll have to do something better than go about looking like a frog and saying "Yes", my lad. I'd get in touch with her immediately, if I were you.
’
'But I've got to meet Gertrude in the library.
’
'Well, directly you've pushed her off. What are you going to say to Gertrude, by the way, if she asks you for the thing?
’
'I don't know.'
'You don't know much, do you? Listen. This is what you say. No,' said Reggie, after a moment's thought, 'that's no good. How about this? No, that's no good, either. I'll tell you what to do. Go off in a corner somewhere and think of something.'
And with these helpful words Reggie Tennyson took his departure. He had suddenly remembered that, what with one thing and another, he had not yet had that game of shuffle
’
board with Mabel Spence.
Monty tottered off to the library.
The library was empty. Gertrude had not yet arrived at the tryst, and even the most hardened indoor knitters and picture-postcard writers had been shamed into the open by the glorious sunshine. Sinking into a chair and clutching his head with both hands in order to assist thought, Monty gave himself up to
a
supreme effort to formulate a plan of action.
The mouse - how to recover it?
It would be no easy task. That much was certain, If ever Monty had seen love at first sight, it was when Lotus Blossom had come into«his state-room and focused that mouse. She had unmistakably yearned for it. And now that Fate, aided by its old crony Albert Peasemarch, had enabled her to secure it, would she lightly let it go?
Monty feared not. Her whole attitude had been so patently that of a girl from whose grasp it was going to be exceedingly difficult to prise this particular mouse, once she had frozen on to it. Still...
Yes, it might be done. The woman presumably had a conscience and had been taught, either at her mother's knee or elsewhere, the fundamentals of an ethical system. If he could get in touch with her and point out to her that in accepting at Albert Peasemarch's hands a Mickey Mouse which she was perfectly well aware it was not in his power to bestow she had been guilty of something approaching very close to grand larceny, she might consent to disgorge. Much, of course, depended on the extent to which life in Hollywood had warped her sense of right and wrong. If it had warped it a good deal, all was lost. If, on the other hand, it had not warped it very much, surely an appeal to her better feelings ...
A voice broke in upon his thoughts, just as he seemed to be beginning to get somewhere.
‘
Hullo, Monty
’
He looked up, distrait.
'Oh, hullo,' he said.
If anybody had told Monty Bodkin - say, while he shaved that morning - that a time would come, and that ere yonder sun had set, when he would not be glad to see Gertrude Butterwick, he would have placed the speaker in the mental class to which Albert Peasemarch belonged. Yet now he felt no responsive thrill as his eyes met hers. She represented merely an obstacle between himself and the task that lay before him, the task of getting hold of Lottie Blossom and somehow choking that mouse out of her. He wanted to think, not to have to talk, even to the divinest of her sex.
Gertrude's gaze was melting. Remorse had softened her up, A child could have taken a hockey ball from her.
'What a lovely morning !
'
‘
Yes
’
'Did you get my note?
’
‘
Yes
’
A look of anxiety came into Gertrude's shining eyes. In the dreams she had dreamed of this lovers' meeting she had not budgeted for a rigid Monty, a smileless Monty, a Monty who looked as if he had been stuffed by some good taxidermist. She had been expecting something that beamed and prattled and rather leaped about a bit. Could it be, she asked herself, that the Bodkins never forgave?
‘
Monty,' she faltered, 'you aren't cross?'
‘
Cross?'
'You seem so funny
’
Monty came out of his reverie with a start. He pulled him-' self together. Preoccupation, he realized, was causing him to squander a golden moment. Whatever might happen subse
’
quently, the present was the present.
'I'm awfully sorry
’
he said. 'I was thinking of something. Sort of musing, don't you know.'
'You aren't cross?'
‘
No, I'm not cross
’
'You looked cross
’
'Well, I wasn't cross
’
'I was afraid you might be cross because I thought such
horrid things about you. Can you ever forgive me, darling?
’
‘
Forgive you?'
'I seem to do nothing but make
a
f
ool of myself.' ‘
No, no.'
‘
Wel
l, I'm glad you're not cross.' ‘No, I'm not cross at all.' ‘
Monty!
’
'Gertrude!
’
It was not for some moments that a reporter, had one been lurking in the vicinity with his note-book, would have overheard any conversation worthy of being recorded. Each party to the scene seemed to feel instinctively that it was one that called for business rather than dialogue. But presently, the first emotional transports over, Monty straightened his tie and Gertrude patted her hair, and conversation was resumed.
Gertrude, opening it, began to speak of Reginald Tennyson, throwing out the opinion that he ought to be skinned. Alive, she specified. And, she added, for she was not a girl who believed in spoiling the ship for
a
ha'porth of tar, dipped in boiling oil. It was her view that that would teach him.
Monty was conscious of
a
pang. Indeed, his heart ached for his friend. Lightly though Reggie had talked about not valuing Gertrude's good opinion, he could not bring himself to believe that he could possibly really feel like that. To himself a world in which Gertrude Butterwick was going about saying that he ought to be skinned alive and dipped in boiling oil would have been a desert, and he could not imagine how anyone could hold a different view.
'Oh, Reggie's all right,' he said awkwardly.
'All right?' Gertrude's voice was that of one who is thunderstruck. 'After the way he has behaved?'
·Oh, well.'
'What do you mean - "Oh, well"?'
‘I
mean, see jewness saway,' said Monty, once more availing himself of Albert Peasemarch's non-copyright material. 'I mean to say, I suppose he was rather an ass, but young blood, don't you know, if you know what I mean.'
'I certainly don't know what you mean. There's no excuse for him whatsoever. He might have ruined both our lives. I can't imagine a man being so idiotic. For quite a long while, when he came and told me that it was he who had written that stuff on the wall, I couldn't believe him. Jane Passenger was so certain that it had been done by a woman.'
Monty passed a finger round his collar. A perfect fit, made to measure by the finest hosier in London, it seemed to be too tight.
'You shouldn't listen to Jane Passenger.
’
'Well, I thought it was a woman's handwriting myself. And then I remembered.' 'Eh?'
'I suddenly remembered that when we were children together Reggie used to write things on walls. Things like -'
'Yes, yes,' said Monty hurriedly. 'I know what you mean.
’
'Things like "Death t
o Blenkinsop".' Monty blinked.
"Death to-"?'
'We had a butler called Blenkinsop in those days, and he reported Reggie to father for stealing jam, and father beat Reggie, and Reggie went out and wrote "Death to Harold Blenkinsop" on all the walls in white chalk. Blenkinsop was very annoyed about it. He said it would weaken his authority with the lower domestics, especially as he had always been most careful to keep it from them that his name was Harold. Well, when I remembered that, I knew that Reggie was telling the truth this morning.'
A silent vote of thanks to H. Blenkinsop, in whatever quiet haven he might be passing the evening of his life, floated out from Monty's soul. But for that sterling butler's admirably austere attitude towards the stealing of jam ...
'I suppose, really,' said Gertrude, more charitably, 'he must be mad. But don't let's waste time talking of Reggie. I can only stay a minute, because Jane wants all the team to show up in the gymnasium before lunch. She saw Angela Prosser, our inside left, take three helpings of pudding at dinner last night, and she's scared of our getting out of condition on board. When are you going to give me back my mouse?'
There were probably moments when Damocles forgot about the sword which hung over his head. Certainly, during these last few rapturous minutes, the thought of the peril menacing him had been completely purged from Monty's mind. It now returned in full measure, and he quivered from stem to stern like some vessel buffeted by the storm.
'Mer-mouse?' he said, in a low, hoarse voice.
'My Mickey Mouse. I wish you would go down and get it now. I shan't feel that everything is really all right again till
I
have it.
’