Pelham Wodehouse - Spring Fever

The discovery that his offspring was contemplating marrying into celluloid circles had come as an unpleasant shock to Mr. Cobbold, filling him with alarm and, until he rallied and took action, despondency. During the first anxious days he had twice refused a second helping of spaghetti Caruso at lunch, and his golf handicap, always a sensitive plant, had gone up into the thirties.

He mistrusted Stanwood's ability to choose wisely in this vital matter of selecting a life partner, for though he loved his child he did not think highly of his intelligence. Stanwood, a doughty performer on the football field during his college career, was a mass of muscle and bone, and it was Mr. Cobbold's opinion that the bone extended to his head. And he had a good deal of support for this view. Even those who had applauded the young man when he made the All-American in his last season had never claimed for him that he was bright. Excellent at blocking a punt or giving a playmate the quick sleeve across the windpipe, but not bright. It seemed to Mr. Cobbold that he must be saved from himself.

If the bride-to-be had been the Lady Teresa Cobbold whose photograph he had seen in the English illustrated weekly, that would have been a vastly different matter. A union between his son and the daughter of the head of the family he would have welcomed with fervour. But a film star, no. He knew all about film stars. Scarcely had they settled down in the love nest before they were bringing actions for divorce on the ground of ingrowing incompatibility or whatever it might be and stinging the bridegroom for slathers of alimony. And the thought that at the conclusion of the romance under advisement it would be he, the groom's father, who would be called upon to foot the bills had acted on him as a powerful spur, causing him to think on his feet and do it now.

He had shipped Stanwood off to England on the next boat in the custody of an admirable fellow named Augustus Robb, whom he had engaged, principally on the strength of the horn-rimmed spectacles he wore, at an agency which supplied gentlemen's personal gentlemen, with instructions to remain in England till further notice. It is one of the great advantages of being a tycoon that your life trains you to take decisions at the drop of the hat. Where lesser men scratch their heads and twiddle their fingers, the tycoon acts.

To Mr. Cobbold, as he sat there drawing at his cigar, it was a very soothing reflection that three thousand miles of land and another three thousand miles of water separated his son and Miss Stoker, and for some moments he savoured it like some rare and refreshing fruit. Then with a contented sigh he opened his paper.

It was to the financial section that he turned first; then to the funnies, in which he surprisingly retained a boyish interest. After that he allowed his eye to wander at random through the remainder of the sheet. And it was while it was doing so, flitting idly from spot to spot like a hovering butterfly, that it found itself arrested by a photograph on one of the inner pages of a personable young woman with large eyes, curving lips and apparently lemon-coloured hair.

He had been on the verge of sleep at the moment, for he generally sank into a light doze at about this time in the evening, but there was something about those wistful eyes gazing into his, with their suggestion of having at last found a strong man on whom they could rely, which imparted sufficient wakefulness to lead him to glance at the name under the photograph. And having done so, he sat up with a jerk.

MISS EILEEN STOKER

A snort broke from Mr. Cobbold's lips. He frowned, as if he had found a snake on his lap.

So this was Eileen by golly Stoker, was it? No devotee of the silver screen, he had never seen her before, and now that he was seeing her he did not like her looks. A siren, he thought. Designing, he felt. Not to be trusted as far as you could throw an elephant, he considered, and just the sort who would spring with joy to the task of nicking a good man's bank roll. He eyed the lady askance, as he eyed all things askance that seemed potential threats to his current account.

MISS EILEEN STOKER

Universally Beloved Hollywood Star

The phrase "universally beloved" is, of course, a loose one. It cannot ever really include everybody. In this instance it did not include Mr. Cobbold. All over the United States, and in other countries, too, for Art knows no frontiers, there were clubs in existence whose aim it was to boost for Eileen Stoker, to do homage to Eileen Stoker and to get the public thinking the Eileen Stoker way, but the possibility of Ellery Cobbold joining one of them was remote. A society for dipping Eileen Stoker in tar and sprinkling feathers on her he would have supported with pleasure.

There were a few lines in smaller print below this absurd statement that Miss Stoker was universally beloved, and Mr. Cobbold's eye, having nothing

better to do at the moment, gave them a casual glance. And scarcely had it done so when its proprietor leaped in his chair with a wordless cry like that of a sleeping cat on whose tail some careless number-eleven shoe has descended.

Once at the country club, coming out of the showers in the nude and sitting down on the nearest bench to dry himself, Mr. Cobbold's attention had been drawn to the fact that a fellow member had left a lighted cigar there, and until tonight he had always regarded this as the high spot of his emotional life. He was now inclined to relegate it to second place.

For this was what he had read:

MISS EILEEN STOKER

Universally Beloved Hollywood Star

Has arrived in England to take up her contract for two pictures with the Beaumont Co. of London.

The words seemed to print themselves in letters of fire on his soul. So devastating was their effect that for quite an appreciable time he sat paralysed, blowing little air bubbles and incapable of movement. Then, once more his alert, executive self, he rose and bounded to the telephone.

"Gimme Western Union!"

It occurred to him as a passing thought that he seemed to be putting a lot of business in the way of Western Union these days.

"Western Union?"

He was suffering much the same mental anguish as that experienced by generals who have allowed themselves to become outflanked. But how, he asked himself, could he have anticipated this? How could he have foreseen this mobility on the part of the foe? He had always supposed that Hollywood stars were a permanency in Hollywood, like swimming pools and the relations by marriage of a studio chief.

"Western Union?" said Mr. Cobbold, still finding a difficulty in controlling his voice. "I want to send a couple of cables."

On the following morning, at about the time when the Lord Peebles of whose habits Miss Sharpies had spoken was accustomed to begin his day, a young man lay sleeping in the bedroom of a service flat at Bloxham House, Park Lane, London. A silk hat, dress trousers, a pair of evening shoes, two coloured ballons and a squeaker were distributed about the floor beside the bed. From time to time the young man moaned softly, as if in pain. He was dreaming that he was being bitten in half by a shark, which is always trying.

We really do not know why we keep saying "young man" in this guarded way. There is no need for secrecy and concealment. It was Stanwood Cob-bold, and he was sleeping at this advanced hour because he had got home at four in the morning from the party which he had given to welcome Miss Eileen Stoker to England.

Except for the bulge under the bedclothes which covered his enormous frame, very little of Stanwood Cobbold was visible, and that little scarcely worth a second look, for Nature, doubtless with the best motives, had given him. together with a heart of gold, a face like that of an amiable hippopotamus. And everybody knows that unless you are particularly fond of hippopotami, a single cursory glance at them is enough. Many blase explorers do not even take that.