Pelham Wodehouse - The Coming of Bill

"You're Steve."

"That's right. Stick to that and we'll get along fine."

"I thought you were a germ."

"A what?"

"They get at you and hurt you."

"Who said so?"

"Mamie."

"Are you scared of germs?"

The White Hope nodded gravely.

"I have to be sterilized because of them. Are you sterilized?"

"Nobody ever told me so. But, say, kid, you don't want to be frightened of germs or microbes or bacilli or any of the rest of the circus. You don't want to be frightened of nothing. You're the White Hope, the bear-cat that ain't scared of anything on earth. What's this germ thing like, anyway?"

"It's a——I've never seen one, but Mamie says they get at you and hurt you. I think it's a kind of big sort of ugly man that creeps in when you're asleep."

"So that's why you thought I was one?"

The White Hope nodded.

"Forget it!" said Steve. "Mamie is a queen, all right, believe me, but she's got the wrong dope on this microbe proposition. You don't need to be scared of them any more. Why, some of me best pals are germs."

"What's pals?"

"Why, friends. You and me are pals. Me and your pop are pals."

"Where's pop?"

"He's gone away."

"I remember."

"He thought he needed a change of air. Don't you ever need a change of air?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you do. Take it from me. This is about the punkest joint I ever was in. You don't want to stay in a dairy-kitchen like this."

"What's dairy-kitchen?"

"This is. All these white tiles and fixings. It makes me feel like a pint of milk to look at 'em."

"It's because of the germs."

"Ain't I telling you the germs don't want to hurt you?"

"Aunt Lora told Mamie they do."

"Say, cull, you tell your Aunt Lora to make a noise like an ice-cream in the sun and melt away. She's a prune, and what she says don't go. Do you want to know what a germ or a microbe—it's the same thing—really is? It's a fellow that has the best time you can think of. They've been fooling you, kid. They saw you were easy, so they handed it to you on a plate. I'm the guy that can put you wise about microbes."

"Tell me."

"Sure. Well, a microbe is a kid that just runs wild out in the country. He don't have to hang around in a white-tiled nursery and eat sterilized junk and go to bed when they tell him to. He has a swell time out in the woods, fishing and playing around in the dirt and going after birds' eggs and picking berries, and—oh, shucks, anything else you can think of. Wouldn't you like to do that?"

William Bannister nodded.

"Well, say, as it happens, there's a fine chance for you to be a germ right away. I know a little place down in the Connecticut woods which would just hit you right. You could put on overalls——"

"What's overalls?"

"Sort of clothes. Not like the fussed-up scenery you have to wear now, but the real sort of clothes which you can muss up and nobody cares a darn. You can put 'em on and go out and tear up Jack like a regular kid all you want. Say, don't you remember the fool stunts you and me used to pull off in the studio?"

"What studio?"

"Gee! you're a bit shy on your English, ain't you? It makes it sort of hard for a guy to keep up what you might call a flow of talk. Still, you should worry. Why, don't you remember where you used to live before you came to this joint? Big, dusty sort of place, where you and me used to play around on the floor?"

The White Hope nodded.

"Well, wouldn't you like to do that again?"

"Yes."

"And be a regular microbe?"

"Yes."

Steve looked at his watch.

"Well, that's lucky," he said. "It happens to be exactly the right time for starting out to be one. That's curious, ain't it?"

"Yes."

"I've got a pal—friend, you know——"

"Is he a germ?"

"Sure. He's waiting for me now in an automobile in the park——"

"Why?"

"Because I asked him to. He owns a garage. Place where automobiles live, you know. I asked him to bring out a car and wait around near by, because I might be taking a pal of mine—that's you—for a ride into the country to-night. Of course, you don't have to come if you don't want to. Only it's mighty nice out there. You can spend all to-morrow rolling about in the grass and listening to the birds. I shouldn't wonder if we couldn't borrow a farmer's kid for you to play with. There's lots of them around. He should show you the best time you've had in months."

William Bannister's eyes gleamed. The finer points of the scheme were beginning to stand out before him with a growing clarity.

"Would I have to take my bib?" he asked excitedly.

Steve uttered a scornful laugh.

"No, sir ! We don't wear bibs out there."

As far as William Bannister was concerned, this appeared to settle it. Of all the trials of his young life he hated most his bib.

"Let's go!"

Steve breathed a sigh of relief.

"Right, squire; we will," he said. "But I guess we had best leave a letter for Mamie, so's she won't be wondering where you've got to."

"Will Mamie be cross?"

"Not on your life. She'll be tickled to death."

He scribbled a few lines on a piece of paper and left them on the cot, from which William Bannister had now scrambled.

"Can you dress yourself?" asked Steve.

"Oh, yes." It was an accomplishment of which the White Hope was extremely proud.

"Well, go to it, then."

"Steve."

"Hello?"

"Won't it be a surprise for Mamie?"

"You bet it will. And she won't be the only one, at that."

"Will mother be surprised?"

"She sure will."

"And pop?"

"You bet!"

William Bannister chuckled delightedly.

"Ready?" said Steve.

"Yes."

"Now listen. We've got to get out of this joint as quiet as mice. It would spoil the surprise if they was to hear us and come out and ask what we were doing. Get that?"

"Yes."

"Well, see how quiet you can make it. You don't want even to breathe more than you can help."

They left the room and crept down the dark stairs. In the hall Steve lit a match and switched on the electric light. He unbolted the door and peered out into the avenue. Close by, under the trees, stood an automobile, its headlights staring into the night.

"Quick!" cried Steve.

He picked up the White Hope, closed the door, and ran.

It was fortunate, considering the magnitude of the shock which she was to receive, that circumstances had given Steve's Mamie unusual powers of resistance in the matter of shocks. For years before her introduction into the home of the Winfield family her life had been one long series of crises. She had never known what the morrow might bring forth, though experience had convinced her that it was pretty certain to bring forth something agitating which would call for all her well-known ability to handle disaster.

The sole care of three small brothers and a weak-minded father gives a girl exceptional opportunities of cultivating poise under difficult conditions. It had become second nature with Mamie to keep her head though the heavens fell.

Consequently, when she entered the nursery next morning and found it empty, she did not go into hysterics. She did not even scream. She read Steve's note twice very carefully, then sat down to think what was her best plan of action.

Her ingrained habit of looking on the bright side of things, the result of a life which, had pessimism been allowed to rule it, might have ended prematurely with what the papers are fond of calling a "rash act," led her to consider first those points in the situation which she labelled in her meditations as "bits of luck."

It was a bit of luck that Mrs. Porter happened to be away for the moment. It gave her time for reflection. It was another bit of luck that, as she had learned from Keggs, whom she met on the stairs on her way to the nursery, a mysterious telephone-call had caused Ruth to rise from her bed some three hours before her usual time and depart hurriedly in a cab. This also helped.