Pelham Wodehouse - Spring Fever

"Those boots, Stanwood," said Mike. "Be as quick as you can."

Augustus Robb capitulated. He had never actually seen Stanwood on the football field, but his imagination was good and he could picture him punting.

"Well, all right. 'Ave it your own way, chums. But no good's going to come of this."

"Splendid, Augustus," said Mike. "We knew you wouldn't fail us. How about tools?"

"I'll have to go to London and fetch 'em, I suppose."

"You still have the dear old things, then?"

"Yus. I 'adn't the 'eart to get rid of 'em. They're with a gentleman friend of mine that lives in Seven Dials. I'll go and get 'em. More trouble," said Augustus Robb, and, moving broodingly to the door, was gone.

"Stanwood!" cried Terry. "You're marvellous! How did you think of it?"

"Oh, it just came to me," said Stanwood modestly.

"In these delicate negotiations," explained Mike, "it often happens that where skilled masters of the spoken word fail to bring home the bacon, success is achieved by some plain, blunt, practical man who ignores the niceties of diplomacy and goes straight to the root of the matter. The question now arises, How do we procure the needful? We can't very well raid the cellar. It seems to me that the best plan will be for me to run up to London tomorrow with Augustus and lay in supplies."

"Get plenty," advised Stanwood.

"I will."

"And of all varieties," added Lord Shortlands, who in matters like this was a farseeing man. "There's no telling what the chap will prefer. Many people, for instance, dislike the taste of whiskey. I have never been able to see eye to eye with them, but it is an undoubted fact. Get a good representative mixed assortment, my boy, and put it in my room. He will need a quiet place in which to prepare himself. And anything that's left over," said Lord Short-lands, a sudden brightness coming into his eyes, "I can use myself."

In every human enterprise, if success is to be achieved, there must always be behind the operations the directing brain. In the matter of breaking open the library safe at Beevor Castle and abstracting the Spanish 1851 dos reales stamp, blue unused, it was Mike who had framed the plan of campaign and issued the divisional orders.

These were as follows:

1 . Zero hour to be 1.30 a.m.

Start the attack earlier, Mike had pointed out, and it might find members of the household awake. Start it later, and it cut into one's night too much. He wanted his sleep, he said, and Lord Shortlands said he wanted his, too.

2. All units to assemble in the study at one-fifteen.

Because they had to assemble somewhere, and it would be wisest if

Augustus Robb, before repairing to the library, were to remove a pane of glass from the study window and make a few chisel marks on the woodwork, thus conveying the suggestion that the job had been an outside one. This ruse was strongly approved of by Lord Shortlands, who did not conceal his opinion that the more outside the job could be made to look, the better.

3. Lord Shortlands to be O. C. Robbs.

His task was to smuggle Augustus Robb into his bedroom and there ply him with drink until in his, Augustus's, opinion his nerve was back in the midseason form of the old days. He would then conduct him to the study, reporting there at one-fifteen. This would allow five minutes for a pep talk from the general in charge of operations, eight minutes for the breaking of the window and the chisel marks and two for getting upstairs. A margin would also be left for kicking Augustus Robb, should he render this necessary by ringing in that conscience of his again.

4. Stanwood was to go to bed.

And darned well stay there. Because, though it was impossible to say offhand just how, if permitted to be present, he would gum the game, that he would somehow find a way of doing so was certain.

5. Terry was to go to bed, too.

Because in moments of excitement she had the extraordinary habit of squeaking like a basketful of puppies, and in any case in an enterprise of this kind girls were in the way. (Seconded by Lord Shortlands, who said that in the mystery thriller which Desborough Topping had given him for his birthday the detective had been seriously hampered in his activities by the adhesiveness of a girl named Mabel, who had hair the color of ripe wheat.)

6. Terry was to stop arguing and do as she was told.

Discussion on this point threatened for a time to become acrimonious, but on Mike challenging her to deny that her hair was the color of ripe wheat she had been obliged to yield.

Nevertheless, as the clock over the stable struck the hour of one, Terry was lying on the sofa in the study, reading the second of the three volumes of a novel entitled Percy's Promise, by Marcia Huddlestone (Popgood and Grooly, 1869). She had found it lying on the table and had picked it up for want of anything better. She was looking charming in pajamas, a kimono and mules.

At three minutes past the hour Lord Shortlands entered, looking charming in pajamas, a dressing gown and slippers. His eyes, as always in times of emotion, were protruding, and at the sight of his daughter they protruded still further.

"Good Lord, Terry! What are you doing here?"

"Just reading, darling, to while away the time."

"But Cardinal said you were to go to bed."

"So he did, didn't he? Bless my soul, what a nerve that young man has, to be sure. Bed, indeed! Well, you certainly have got a frightful collection of books, Shorty. There wasn't anything in your shelves published later than 1870."

"Eh? Oh, those aren't mine," said Lord Shortlands. He spoke absently. While he deplored his child's presence, it had just occurred to him what an admirable opportunity this was for speaking that word in season. "My old uncle's."

"Did he like Victorian novels?"

"I suppose so."

"I believe you do, too. This one was lying on the table, obviously recently perused."

"Young Cardinal borrowed it, and returned it this afternoon. He said it had given him food for thought. I don't know what he meant. Terry," said Lord Shortlands, welcoming the cue, "I've been thinking about young Cardinal."

"Have you, angel? He rather thrusts himself on the attention, doesn't he?"

"He's a smart chap."

"Yes. I suppose he would admit that himself."

"Look at the way he baffled Spink."

"Very adroit."

"Brave as a lion, too. Faces Adela without a tremor."

"What's all this leading up to, darling?"

"Well, I was—er—wondering if by any chance you might be beginning to change your mind about him."

"Oh, I see."

"Are you?"

"No."

"Ho," said Lord Shortlands, damped.

There was a pause. The thing was not going quite so well as the fifth earl had hoped.

"Why not?"

"There's a reason."

"I'm dashed it I can see what it is. I should have thought he would have been just the chap for you. Rich. Good-looking. Amusing. And loves you like the dickens. You can tell that by the way he looks at you. Its's a sort of—how shall I describe it?"

"A sort of melting look?"

"That's right. You've got it first shot. A sort of melting look."

"And your complaint is that it doesn't melt me?"

"Exactly."

"Well, I'll tell you something, Shorty. I am by no means insensible, as the heroine of Percy's Promise would say, to this look you mention. It may interest you to know that it goes through me like a burning dart."

"It does?" cried Lord Shortlands, greatly encouraged. This was more the sort of stuff he wanted to hear.

"It seems to pump me full of vitamines. It makes me feel as if the sun was shining and my hat was right and my shoes right and my frock was right and my stockings were right and somebody had just left me ten thousand a year."