Pelham Wodehouse - The Coming of Bill

Steve's ignorance of the locality in which he found himself was complete; but he had a general impression that farmers as a class were people who delighted in providing breakfasts for the needy, if the needy possessed the necessary price. Acting on this assumption, he postponed his trip to the nearest town and drove slowly along the roads with his eyes open for signs of life.

He found a suitable farm and, applying the brakes, gathered up William Bannister and knocked at the door.

His surmise as to the hospitality of farmers proved correct, and presently they were sitting down to a breakfast which it did his famished soul good to contemplate.

William Bannister seemed less enthusiastic. Steve, having disposed of two eggs in quick succession, turned to see how his young charge was progressing with his repast, and found him eyeing a bowl of bread-and-milk in a sort of frozen horror.

"What's the matter, kid?" he asked. "Get busy."

"No paper," said William Bannister.

"For the love of Pete! Do you expect your morning paper out in the woods?"

"No paper," repeated the White Hope firmly.

Steve regarded him thoughtfully.

"I didn't have this trip planned out right," he said regretfully. "I ought to have got Mamie to come along. I bet a hundred dollars she would have got next to your meanings in a second. I pass. What's your kick, anyway? What's all this about paper?"

"Aunty Lora says not to eat bread that doesn't come wrapped up in paper," said the White Hope, becoming surprisingly lucid. "Mamie undoes it out of crinkly paper."

"I get you. They feed you rolls at home wrapped up in tissue-paper, is that it?"

"What's tissue?"

"Same as crinkly. Well, see here. You remember what we was talking about last night about germs?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's one thing germs never do, eat bread out of crinkly paper. You want to forget all the dope they shot into you back in New York and start fresh. You do what I tell you and you can't go wrong. If you're going to be a regular germ, what you've got to do is to wrap yourself round that bread-and-milk the quickest you can. Get me? Till you do that we can't begin to start out to have a good time."

William Bannister made no more objections. He attacked his meal with an easy conscience, and about a quarter of an hour later leaned back with a deep sigh of repletion.

Steve, meanwhile had entered into conversation with the lady of the house.

"Say, I guess you ain't got a kid of your own anywheres, have you?"

"Sure I have," said the hostess proudly. "He's out in the field with his pop this minute. His name's Jim."

"Fine. I want to get hold of a kid to play with this kid here. Jim sounds pretty good to me. About the same age as this one?"

"For the Lord's sake! Jim's eighteen and weighs two hundred pounds."

"Cut out Jim. I thought from the way you spoke he was a regular kid. Know any one in these parts who's got something about the same weight as this one?"

The farmer's wife reflected.

"Kids is pretty scarce round here," she said. "I reckon you won't get one that I knows of. There's that Tom Whiting, but he's a bad boy. He ain't been raised right."

"What's the matter with him?"

"I don't want to speak harm of no one, but his father used to be a low prize-fighter, and you know what they are."

Steve nodded sympathetically.

"Regular plug-uglies," he said. "A friend of mine used to have to mix with them quite a lot, poor fellah! He used to say they was none of them truly refined. And this kid takes after his pop, eh? Kind of scrappy kid, is that it?"

"He's a bad boy."

"Well, maybe I'd better look him over, just in case. Where's he to be found?"

"They live in the cottage by the big house you can see through them trees. His pop looks after Mr. Wilson's prize dawgs. That's his job."

"What's Wilson?" asked the White Hope, coming out of his stupor.

"You beat me to it by a second, kid. I was just going to ask it myself."

"He's one of them rich New Yawkers. He has his summer place here, and this Whiting looks after his prize dawgs."

"Well, I guess I'll give him a call. It's going to be lonesome for my kid if he ain't got some one to show him how to hit it up. He's not used to country life. Come along. We'll get into the bubble and go and send your pop a telegram."

"What's telegram?" asked William Bannister.

"I got you placed now," said Steve, regarding him with interest. "You're not going to turn into an ambassador or an artist or any of them things. You're going to be the greatest district attorney that ever came down the pike."

It was past seven o'clock when Kirk, bending over the wheel, with Mamie at his side came in sight of the shack. The journey had been checked just outside the city by a blow-out in one of the back tyres. Kirk had spent the time, while the shirt-sleeved rescuer from the garage toiled over the injured wheel, walking up and down with a cigar. Neither he nor Mamie had shown much tendency towards conversation. Mamie was habitually of a silent disposition, and Kirk's mind was too full of his thoughts to admit of speech.

Ever since he had read Steve's telegram he had been in the grip of a wild exhilaration. He had not stopped to ask himself what this mad freak of Steve's could possibly lead to in the end—he was satisfied to feel that its immediate result would be that for a brief while, at any rate, he would have his son to himself, away from all the chilling surroundings which had curbed him and frozen his natural feelings in the past.

He tried to keep his mind from dwelling upon Ruth. He had thought too much of her of late for his comfort. Since they had parted that day of the thunder-storm the thought that he had lost her had stabbed him incessantly. He had tried to tell himself that it was the best thing they could do, to separate, since it was so plain that their love had died; but he could not cheat himself into believing it.

It might be true in her case—it must be, or why had she let him go that afternoon?—but, for himself, the separation had taught him that he loved her as much as ever, more than ever. Absence had purified him of that dull anger which had been his so short a while before. He looked back and marvelled that he could ever have imagined for a moment that he had ceased to love her.

Now, as he drove along the empty country roads, he forced his mind to dwell, as far as he could, only upon his son. There was a mist before his eyes as he thought of him. What a bully lad he had been! What fun they had had in the old days! But that brought his mind back to Ruth, and he turned his mind resolutely to the future again.

He chuckled silently as he thought of Steve. Of all the mad things to do! What had made him think of it? How had such a wild scheme ever entered his head? This, he supposed, was what Steve called punching instead of sparring. But he had never given him credit for the imagination that could conceive a punch of this magnitude.

And how had he carried it out? He could hardly have broken into the house. Yet that seemed the only way in which it could have been done.

From Steve his thoughts returned to William Bannister. He smiled again. What a time they would have—while it lasted! The worst of it was, it could not last long. To-morrow, he supposed, he would have to take the child back to his home. He could not be a party to this kidnapping raid for any length of time. This must be looked on as a brief holiday, not as a permanent relief.

That was the only flaw in his happiness as he stopped the car at the door of the shack, for by now he had succeeded at last in thrusting the image of Ruth from his mind.

There was a light in the ground-floor window. He raised his head and shouted: