Laughing Gas

CHAPTER 1

I HAD JUST begun to write this story, when a literary pal of mine who had had a sticky night out with the P. E. N. Club blew in to borrow bicarbonate of soda, and I thought it would be as well to have him vet what I’d done, in case I might have foozled my tee-shot. Because, except for an occasional anecdote in the Drones smoking-room about Scotsmen, Irishmen, and Jews, and even then I generally leave out the point, I’ve never told a story in my life. And the one thing all the cognoscenti stress is that you must get started right.

So I said: ‘I say, can I read you something?’ and he said: ‘If you must,’ and I said: ‘Right ho.’

‘I am trying to get down on paper,’ I said, ‘a rather rummy experience that happened to me about a year ago. I haven’t got very far yet. I start with where I met the kid.’

‘What kid?’

‘The kid I met,’ I said, and kicked off as follows:

The kid was sitting in one arm-chair. I was sitting in another. His left cheek was bulging. My left cheek was bulging. He was turning the pages of the National Geographic Magazine. So was I. In short, there we both were.

He seemed a bit restless, I thought, as if the National Geographic wasn’t holding him absolutely spellbound. He would put it down for a minute and take it up for a minute and then put it down for a minute again, and it was during one of these putting-it-down-for-a-minute phases that he looked over at me.

‘Where,’ he asked, ‘are the rest of the boys?’

At this point, my literary pal opened his eyes, which he had closed in a suffering sort of way. His manner was that of one who has had a dead fish thrust under his nose.

‘Is this bilge,’ he asked, ‘to be printed?’

‘Privately. It will be placed in the family archives for the benefit of my grandchildren.’

‘Well, if you ask me,’ he said, ‘the little perishers won’t be able to make head or tail of it. Where’s it all supposed to be happening?’

‘In Hollywood.’

‘Well, you’ll have to explain that. And these arm-chairs. What about them? What arm-chairs? Where?’

‘Those were in a dentist’s waiting-room. That’s where the kid and I met.’

‘Who is this kid?’

‘He turns out to be little Joey Cooley, the child film star, the Idol of American Motherhood.’

‘And who are you?’

‘Me?’ I said, a bit surprised, for we had been at school together. ‘Why, you know me, old man. Reggie Havershot.’

‘What I mean is, you’ve got to introduce yourself to the reader. He doesn’t know by intuition who you are.’

‘You wouldn’t let it gradually dawn upon him in the course of the narrative?’

‘Certainly not. The first rule in telling a story is to make it thoroughly clear at the outset who’s who, when, where, and why. You’d better start again from the beginning.’

He then took his bicarbonate and withdrew.

Well, then, harking back and buckling down to it once more, my name, as foreshadowed in the foregoing, is Reggie Havershot. Reginald John Peter Swithin, third Earl of Havershot, if you want to be formal, but Reggie to my pals. I’m about twenty-eight and a bit, and at the time of which I am writing was about twenty-seven and a bit. Height six feet one, eyes brown, hair a sort of carroty colour.

Mark you, when I say I’m the third Earl of Havershot, I don’t mean that I was always that. No, indeed. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. For years and years I plugged along as plain R. J. P. Swithin, fully expecting that that would be the name carved on my tombstone when the question of tombstones should arise. As far as my chances of ever copping the title went, I don’t suppose I was originally more than about a hundred-to-eight shot, if that. The field was full of seasoned performers who could give me a couple of stone.

But you know how it is. Uncles call it a day. Cousins hand in their spades and buckets. And little by little and bit by bit, before you know where you are – why, there you are, don’t you know.

Well, that’s who I am, and apart from that I don’t know that there is much of interest to tell you re self. I got my boxing Blue at Cambridge, but that’s about all. I mean to say, I’m just one of those chaps. So we’ll shift on at once to how I happened to be in Hollywood.

One morning, as I was tucking away the eggs and bacon at my London residence, the telephone rang, and it was old Horace Plimsoll asking if I could look in at his office on a matter of some importance. Certainly, I said, certainly, and off I went. Only too pleased.

I liked old Plimsoll. He was the family lawyer, and recently, what with all the business of taking over and all that, we had been seeing a good deal of one another. I pushed round to his office and found him, as usual, up to the thorax in bills of replevin and what not. He brushed these aside and came to the surface and looked at me over his spectacles.

‘Good morning, Reginald,’ he said.

‘Good morning,’ I said.

He took off his spectacles, polished them and put them on again.

‘Reginald,’ he said, giving me the eye once more, ‘you are now the head of the family.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it a scream? Have I got to sign something?’

‘Not at the moment. What I wished to see you about today has to do with a more personal matter. I wished to point out to you that, as head of the family, certain responsibilities devolve upon you, which I feel sure you will not neglect. You have obligations now, Reginald, and those obligations must be fulfilled, no matter what the cost. Noblesse oblige.’

‘Oh, ah?’ I said, not liking the sound of this much. It began to look to me like a touch. ‘What’s the bad news? Does one of the collateral branches want to dip into the till?’

‘Let me begin at the beginning,’ said old Plimsoll. He picked a notice of distraint or something off his coat sleeve. ‘I have just been in communication with your Aunt Clara. She is worried.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Extremely worried, about your Cousin Egremont.’

Well, of course, I tut-tutted sympathetically, but I can’t say I was surprised. Ever since he grew to man’s estate, this unfortunate aunt has been chronically worried about the lad under advisement, who is pretty generally recognized as London W.1’s most prominent souse. For years everybody has been telling Eggy that it’s hopeless for him to attempt to drink up all the alcoholic liquor in England, but he keeps on trying. The good old bull-dog spirit, of course, but it worries Aunt Clara.

‘You know Egremont’s record?’

I had to think a bit.

‘Well, one Boat Race night I saw him put away sixteen double whiskies and soda, but whether he has beaten that since or not –’

‘For years he has been causing Lady Clara the gravest concern. And now –’

I raised a hand.

‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess. He’s been bonneting policemen?’

‘No. He –’

‘Throwing soft-boiled eggs at the electric fan in the better class of restaurant?’

‘No. He –’

‘Not murder, surely?’

‘No. He has escaped to Hollywood.’

‘Escaped to Hollywood?’

‘Es-caped to Hollywood,’ said old Plimsoll.

I didn’t get his drift, and said so. He continued snowing.

‘Some little while ago, Lady Clara became alarmed at the state of Egremont’s health. His hands were shaky, and he complained of spiders on the back of his neck. So, acting on the advice of a Harley Street specialist, she decided to send him on one of these cruises round the world, in the hope that the fresh air and change of scene –’

I spotted the obvious flaw.

‘But these boats have bars.’

‘The bar-attendants had strict orders not to serve Egremont.’

‘He wouldn’t like that.’

‘He did not like it. His letters home – his almost daily wireless messages also – were full of complaints. Their tone was uniformly querulous. And when, on the homeward journey, the boat touched at Los Angeles, he abandoned it and went to Hollywood, where he now is.’

‘Golly! Drinking like the stag at eve, I suppose?’

‘Direct evidence on the point is lacking, but I think that one may assume such to be the case. But that is not the worst. That is not what has occasioned Lady Clara this excessive perturbation.’

‘No?’

‘No. We have reason to believe – from certain passages in his latest communication – that he is contemplating matrimony.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. His words leave no room for doubt. He is either betrothed or on the verge of becoming betrothed to some young woman out there. And you know the sort of young women that abound in Hollywood.’

‘Pippins, I have always been given to understand.’

‘Physically, no doubt, they are as you describe. But they are by no means suitable mates for your cousin Egremont.’

I couldn’t see this. I should have thought, personally, that a bird like Eggy was dashed lucky to get any girl to take him on. However, I didn’t say so. Old Plimsoll has a sort of gruesome reverence for the family, and the remark would have hurt him. Instead, I asked what the idea was. Where did I come in? What, I asked, did he imagine that I could do about it?

He looked like a high priest sicking the young chief of the tribe on to noble deeds.

‘Why, go to Hollywood, Reginald, and reason with this misguided young man. Put a stop to all this nonsense. Exert your authority as head of the family.’

‘What, me?’

‘Yes.’

‘H’m.’

‘Don’t say “h’m”.’

‘Ha!’

‘And don’t say “ha”. Your duty is plain. You cannot shirk it.’

‘But Hollywood’s such miles away.’

‘Nevertheless, I insist that it is incumbent upon you, as head of the family, to go there, and without an instant’s delay.’

I chewed the lower lip a bit. I must say I couldn’t see why I should go butting in, trying to put a stopper on Eggy’s – as far as I could make out – quite praiseworthy amours. Live and let live is my motto. If Eggy wanted to get spliced, let him, was the way I looked at it. Marriage might improve him. It was difficult to think of anything that wouldn’t.

‘H’m,’ I said again.

Old Plimsoll was fiddling with pencil and paper – working out routes and so on, apparently.

‘The journey is, as you say, a long one, but perfectly simple. On arriving in New York, you would, I understand, take the train known as the Twentieth Century Limited to Chicago. A very brief wait there –’

I sat up.

‘Chicago? You don’t go through Chicago, do you?’

‘Yes. You change trains at Chicago. And from there to Los Angeles is a mere –’

‘But wait a second,’ I said. ‘This is beginning to look more like a practical proposition. Your mention of Chicago opens up a new line of thought. The fight for the heavyweight championship of the world is coming off in Chicago in a week or so.’

I examined the matter in the light of these new facts. All my life I had wanted to see one of these world’s championships, and I had never been able to afford the trip. It now dawned upon me that, having come into the title and trimmings, I could do it on my head. The amazing thing was that I hadn’t thought of it before. It always takes you some little time to get used to the idea that you are on Easy Street.

‘How far is it from Chicago to Hollywood?’

‘Little more than a two days’ journey, I believe.’

‘Then say no more,’ I said. ‘It’s a go. I don’t suppose for a moment that I’ll be able to do a thing about old Eggy, but I’ll go and see him.’

‘Excellent.’

There was a pause. I could see that something else was coming.

‘And – er – Reginald.’

‘Hullo?’

‘You will be careful?’

‘Careful?’

He coughed, and fiddled with an application for soccage in fief.

‘Where you yourself are concerned, I mean. These Hollywood women are, as you were saying a moment ago, of considerable personal attractions . . .’

I laughed heartily.

‘Good Lord!’ I said. ‘No girl’s going to look at me.’

This seemed to jar his reverence for the family. He frowned in a rebuking sort of way.

‘You are the Earl of Havershot.’

‘I know. But even so –’

‘And, if I am not mistaken, girls have looked at you in the past.’

I knew what he meant. A couple of years before, while at Cannes, I had got engaged to a girl named Ann Bannister, an American newspaper girl who was spending her holiday there, and as I was the heir apparent at the time this had caused some stir in the elder branches of the family. There was a considerable sense of relief, I believe, when the thing had been broken off.

‘All the Havershots have been highly susceptible and impulsive. Your hearts rule your heads. So –’

‘Oh, right ho. I’ll be careful.’

‘Then I will say no more. Verbum – ah – sapienti satis. And you will start for Hollywood as soon as possible?’

‘Immediately,’ I said.

There was a boat leaving on the Wednesday. Hastily throwing together a collar and a toothbrush, I caught it. A brief stay in New York, a couple of days in Chicago, and I was on the train to Los Angeles, bowling along through what I believe is called Illinois.

And it was as I sat outside the observation car on the second morning of the journey, smoking a pipe and thinking of this and that, that April June came into my life.

The general effect was rather as if I had swallowed sixpen-north of dynamite and somebody had touched it off inside me.

CHAPTER 2

THESE OBSERVATION CARS, in case you don’t know, are where the guard’s van is on an English train. You go through a door at the end on to a platform with a couple of chairs on it, and there you sit and observe the countryside. Of which, of course, there is no stint, for, as you are probably aware, there’s a lot of America, especially out in the Western districts, and once you get aboard a train for Los Angeles you just go on and on.

Well, as I say, on the second morning of the journey I was sitting on the observation platform, observing, when I was stunned by the door opening.

That’s not quite right, of course, and when I fix and revise I must remember to polish up that sentence. Because I don’t mean the thing got me on the head or anything like that. What stunned me was not the door opening, but what came through it. Viz., the loveliest girl I had ever seen in my life.

The thing about her that hit the spectator like a bullet first crack out of the box was her sort of sweet, tender, wistful gentleness. Some species of negroid train-attendant had accompanied her through the door, carrying a cushion which he put down in the opposite chair, and she thanked him in a kind of cooing, crooning way that made my toes curl up inside my shoes. And when I tell you that with this wistful gentleness went a pair of large blue eyes, a perfectly modelled chassis, and a soft smile which brought out a dimple on the right cheek, you will readily understand why it was that two seconds after she had slid into the picture I was clutching my pipe till my knuckles stood out white under the strain and breathing through my nose in short, quick pants. With my disengaged hand I straightened my tie, and if my moustache had been long enough to twirl there is little question that I would have twirled it.

The coloured brother popped off, no doubt to resume the duties for which he drew his weekly envelope, and she sat down, rather like a tired flower drooping. I dare say you’ve seen tired flowers droop. And there for a few moments the matter rested. She sniffed the air. I sniffed the air. She watched the countryside winding away. So did I. But for all practical purposes we might have been on different continents.

And the sadness of this was just beginning to come over me like a fog, when I suddenly heard her utter a sharp yowl and saw that she was rubbing her eye. It was plain to the meanest intelligence that she had gone and got a cinder into it, of which there were several floating about.

It solved the whole difficult problem of how I was ever going to break down the barriers, if you know what I mean, and get acquainted. It so happens that if there is one thing I am good at, it is taking things out of eyes – cinders, flies, gnats on picnics, or whatever it may be. To whip out my handkerchief was with me the work of a moment, and I don’t suppose it was more than a couple of ticks later before she was thanking me brokenly and I was not-at-all-ing and shoving the handkerchief up my sleeve again. Yes, less than a minute after I had been practically despairing of ever starting anything in the nature of a beautiful friendship, there I was, fixed up solid.

The odd thing was, I couldn’t see any cinder, but it must have been there, because she said she was all right now and, as I say, started to thank me brokenly. She was all over me. If I had saved her from Manchurian bandits, she couldn’t have been more grateful.

‘Thank you ever, ever so much,’ she said.

‘Not at all,’ said I.

‘It’s so awful when you get a cinder in your eye.’

‘Yes. Or a fly.’

‘Yes. Or a gnat.’

‘Yes. Or a piece of dust.’

‘Yes. And I couldn’t help rubbing it.’

‘I noticed you were rubbing it.’

‘And they say you ought not to rub it.’

‘No, I believe you ought not to rub it.’

‘And I always feel I’ve got to rub it.’

‘Well, that’s how it goes.’

‘Is my eye red?’

‘No. Blue.’

‘It feels red.’

‘It looks blue,’ I assured her, and might have gone on to add that it was the sort of blue you see in summer skies or languorous lagoons, had she not cut in.

‘You’re Lord Havershot, aren’t you?’ she said.

I was surprised. The old map is distinctive and individual, but not, I should have said, famous. And any supposition that we had met before and I had forgotten her was absurd.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But how –?’

‘I saw a photograph of you in one of the New York papers.’

‘Oh, ah, yes, of course.’ I recalled that there had been blokes fooling about with cameras when the boat arrived at New York. ‘You know,’ I said, giving her a searching glance, ‘your face seems extraordinarily familiar, too.’

‘You’ve probably seen it in pix.’

‘No, I’ve never been there.’

‘In the pictures.’

‘In the . . . Good Lord!’ I said. ‘You’re not April June, are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve seen dozens of your pictures.’

‘Did you like them?’

‘I loved them. I say, did you say you’d been in New York?’

‘Yes. I was making a personal appearance.’

‘I wish I’d known.’

‘Well, it wasn’t a secret. Why do you wish you had known?’

‘Because . . . Well, I mean to say . . . Well, what I mean is, I rather hurried through New York, and if I’d known that you were there I – er – I wouldn’t have hurried.’

‘I see.’ She paused to tuck away a tendril of hair which had got separated from the main body and was blowing about. ‘It’s rather draughty out here, isn’t it?’

‘It is a bit.’

‘Suppose we go back to my drawing-room and I’ll mix you a cocktail. It’s nearly lunch-time.’

‘Fine.’

‘Come along, then.’

I mused to some extent as we toddled along the train. I was thinking of old Plimsoll. It was all very well, I felt, for old Plimsoll to tell me to be careful, but he couldn’t possibly have anticipated anything like this.

We reached the drawing-room and she rang the bell. A negroid bloke appeared – not the same negroid bloke who had carried the cushion – another – and she asked for ice in a gentle voice. He buzzed off, and she turned to me again.

‘I don’t understand English titles,’ she said.

‘No?’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing I enjoy more than curling up with a good English book, but the titles always puzzle me. That New York paper called you the Earl of Havershot. Is an Earl the same as a Duke?’

‘Not quite. Dukes are a bit higher up.’

‘Is it the same as a Viscount?’

‘No. Viscounts are a bit lower down. We Earls rather sneer at Viscounts. One is pretty haughty with them, poor devils.’

‘What is your wife? A Countess?’

‘I haven’t got a wife. If I had, she would be a Countess.’

A sort of faraway look came into her eyes.

‘The Countess of Havershot,’ she murmured.

‘That’s right. The Countess of Havershot.’

‘What is Havershot? The place where you live?’

‘No. I don’t quite know where the Havershot comes in. The family doss-house is at Biddleford, in Norfolk.’

‘Is it a very lovely place?’

‘Quite a goodish sort of shack.’

‘Battlements?’

‘Lots of battlements.’

‘And deer?’

‘Several deer.’

‘I love deer.’

‘Me too. I’ve met some very decent deer.’

At this point, the ice-bearer entered bearing ice. She dropped the live-stock theme, and started to busy herself with the fixings. Presently she was in a position to provide me with a snort.

‘I hope it’s all right. I’m not very good at making cocktails, I’m afraid.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Full of personality. Aren’t you having one?’

She shook her head, and smiled that soft smile of hers.

‘I’m rather old-fashioned. I don’t drink or smoke.’

‘Good Lord! Don’t you?’

‘No. I’m afraid I’m very quiet and domestic and dull.’

‘No, I say, dash it. Not dull.’

‘Oh, but I am. It may seem odd to you, considering that I’m in pix, but I’m really at heart just a simple little home body. I am never happier than among my books and flowers. And I love cooking.’

‘No, really?’

‘Yes, really. It’s quite a joke among my friends. They come to take me out to some party, and they find me in my kitchen in a gingham wrapper, fixing a Welsh rarebit. I am never happier than in my kitchen.’

I sipped my snootful reverently. Every word that she uttered made me more convinced that I was in the presence of an angel in human shape.

‘So you live all alone at – what was the name of the place you said?’

‘Biddleford? Well, not exactly. I mean, I haven’t really checked in yet. I only took over a short while ago. But I suppose I shall in due season settle down there. Old Plimsoll would have a fit if I didn’t. He’s our family lawyer, you know, and has views on these things. The head of the family has always hung out at the castle.’

‘Castle? Is it a castle?’

‘Oh, rather.’

‘A real castle?’

‘Oh, quite.’

‘Is it very old?’

‘Definitely moth-eaten. One of the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit, don’t you know.’

That faraway look came into her eyes again. She sighed.

‘How wonderful it must be, having a lovely old home like that. Hollywood is so new and . . . garish. One gets so tired of its garishness. It’s all so –’

‘Garish?’

‘Yes, garish.’

‘And you don’t like it? I mean, you find it too garish?’

‘No, I don’t like it. It jars upon me terribly. But what can I do? My work lies there. One has to sacrifice everything to one’s work.’

She sighed again, and I felt that I had had a glimpse of some great human tragedy.

Then she smiled bravely.

‘But let’s not talk about me,’ she said. ‘Tell me about yourself. Is this your first visit to America?’

‘Yes.’

‘And why are you going to Hollywood? You are going to Hollywood, I suppose? Not getting off somewhere before Los Angeles?’

‘Oh, no, I’m bound for Hollywood all right. On business, as you might say, more or less. You see, a splash of family trouble has arisen. There’s a cousin of mine making rather an ass of himself in those parts. You haven’t run into him, by any chance, have you? Tall, butter-coloured-haired chap named Egremont Mannering?’

‘No.’

‘Well, he’s in Hollywood and, from all accounts, planning to get married. And what we feel, knowing Eggy, is that the bride-to-be is probably some frightful red-hot mamma. In which event, it is imperative that a spanner be bunged into the works. And I was told off to come along and do it.’

She nodded.

‘I see. Yes. I don’t wonder you are anxious. Most of the girls in Hollywood are terrible. That is one of the things that make the place so uncongenial to me. That is why I have so few real friends. I know people think me prudish, but what is one to do?’

‘I see what you mean. Bit of a problem.’

‘Rather than mix with uncongenial people who think about nothing but wild parties, I prefer to be lonely. Though, after all, can one ever be lonely if one has one’s books?’

‘True.’

‘And flowers.’

‘Quite.’

‘And one’s kitchen, of course.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘But here we are, talking about me again! Go on telling me about yourself. Was it just to find your cousin that you came to America?’

‘Not exactly. I rather saw my way to killing two birds with one stone, as it were. There was this heavyweight championship fight on in Chicago, and I particularly wanted to see it.’

‘You really enjoy watching fights?’

‘I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘Nine times out of ten they’re absolute washouts, of course. But this one was a corker. It was worth coming four thousand miles just to see that fifth round.’ The recollection of it stirred me deeply, and I had to rise in order to illustrate. ‘It had been pretty good even before that, but in the fifth everything just boiled over. The champion managed to work his man into a neutral corner and copped him squarely on the nose. The challenger came back with a beauty to the eye. They clinched. The referee broke them. Champion to chin, challenger to lower ribs. Another clinch. Break. Infighting all over the ring. Challenger landed lightly, champ to nose again, then right on the smush. Blood flowing in quarts, and the air thick with teeth and ears and things. And then, just before the bell went, the champ brought one up from the floor . . .’

I broke off here, because she had fainted. I had thought at first, when she closed her eyes, that she had done so merely in order to listen better, but this was apparently not the case. She slid sideways along the seat and quietly passed out.

I was gravely concerned. In the enthusiasm of the moment I had forgotten the effect my narrative might have on this sensitive plant, and I was not quite certain what was the next move. The best way, of course, of bringing round a swooned subject is to bite the ear, but I couldn’t very well bite this divine girl’s ear. Apart from anything else, I felt I didn’t know her well enough.

Fortunately, before I was called upon to take any steps, her eyelids fluttered and she gave a little sigh. Her eyes opened.

‘Where am I?’ she murmured.

I looked out of the window.

‘Well, I’m a stranger in these parts myself,’ I said, ‘but I think somewhere in New Mexico.’

She sat up.

‘Oh, I feel so mortified!’

‘Eh?’

‘You must think me so silly, fainting like that.’

‘My fault entirely. I oughtn’t to have dished the dreadful details.’

‘It wasn’t your fault. Most girls would have enjoyed it. Though I think there is something terribly unfeminine . . . Go on, Lord Havershot, what happened after that?’

‘No, no. I wouldn’t dream of telling you.’

‘Do. Please.’

‘Oh, well, putting the thing in a nutshell, he soaked him on the button, don’t you know, and his day’s work was done.’

‘Could you get me a glass of water?’

I leaped to the bottle. She sipped in a fluttering sort of way.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I feel better now. I’m sorry I was so silly.’

‘You weren’t silly.’

‘Oh, but I was. Terribly silly.’

‘You weren’t silly at all. The whole episode reflects great credit on your womanly nature.’

And I was about to add that I had never in my puff beheld anything that had stirred me more deeply than the way she had turned her toes up, when the negroid bloke poked his nose in at the door and announced that lunch was served.

‘You go along,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you must be starving.’

‘Aren’t you coming?’

‘I think I’ll just lie here and rest. I still feel . . . No, you go along.’

‘I should like to kick myself.’

‘Why?’

‘For being such a chump. Sullying your ears like that.’

‘Please! Do go and get your lunch.’

‘But will you be all right?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Oh, yes, really. I shall just lie here and think of flowers. I often do that – just lie around and think of flowers. Roses, chiefly. It seems to make everything beautiful and fragrant again.’

So I pushed off. And as I sat eating my steak and fried, I put in some pretty intensive thinking between the mouthfuls.

Of course I saw what had happened. These volcanic symptoms were unmistakable. A chap’s heart does not go pit-a-pat, as mine was doing, for nothing. This was the real thing, and what I had taken for a strong man’s passion when I had got engaged to Ann Bannister two years ago had been merely Class B stuff. Yes, there was no getting away from it. At long last Love had wound its silken fetters about Reginald Havershot.

I had suspected this from the first. The very moment I had set eyes on this girl, I had received the distinct impression that she was my soul-mate, and everything that had passed between us had made me more certain on the point. It was that sweet, tender, gentle wistfulness of hers that had got in amongst me to such a marked extent. I suppose this is always the way with beefy birds like me. Something draws us instinctively to the fragile flowerets.

It was in a sober, thoughtful spirit that I polished off the steak and put in a bid for deep-dish apple pie with a bit of cheese on the side.

CHAPTER 3

AND I’LL TELL you why I was sober and thoughtful. It was because I recognized that this, as they say in the stories, was not an end but a beginning. I mean to say, it was all very well to have fallen in love at first sight, but that didn’t take me very far. Where, I was asking myself, did I go from there? What of the future? In other words, what steps was I to take in order to bring about the happy finish? The fact had to be faced that if banns were ever to be put up and clergymen were ever to say ‘Wilt thou, Reginald?’ some pretty heavy work lay ahead of me. In no sense could the thing be looked upon as a walkover.

You see, I have kept it from you till now, but there are certain defects in my personal appearance which prevent me being everybody’s money where the opposite sex is concerned. I am no flier in the way of looks. Externally, I take after the pater, and if you had ever seen the pater you would realize what that means. He was a gallant soldier and played a hot game of polo, but he had a face like a gorilla – much more so, indeed, than most gorillas have – and was, so I am informed, affectionately known to his little circle of cronies as Consul, the Almost Human. And I am his living image.

These things weigh with girls. They shrink from linking their lot with a fellow whose appearance gives the impression that at any moment he may shin up trees and start throwing coconuts.

However, it was too late to do anything about that now. I could only hope that April June would prove to be one of those rare spirits who can pierce the outer husk, as it were, and penetrate to the soul beneath. Because I haven’t got such a bad soul, as souls go. I don’t say it’s the sort of soul you would write to the papers about, but it’s well up to the average.

And I’m bound to say that, as the days went along, I found myself perking up a bit. I seemed to be making progress. No one could have been matier than April during my first week in Hollywood. We motored together, bathed together, and had long talks together in the scented dusk. She told me all about her ideals, and I told her all about the old homestead at Biddleford and how Countesses were presented at Court and had the run of the Royal Enclosure at Ascot and a lot of other things she seemed interested in. And there was absolutely nothing in her manner to suggest that she was in any way repelled by the fact that I looked as if I belonged in Whipsnade.

In fact, to cut a long story short, her chummy attitude so encouraged me that by the end of the first week I had decided to chance my arm and have at it.

The occasion I selected for pressing the button and setting the machinery in motion was a party she was giving at her house on Linden Drive. She explained that she didn’t like parties, as they seemed to her hollow, but that a girl in her position was expected to give one every now and then, particularly if she had been away for a while.

It was to be one of those jolly Beverly Hills outdoor dinner parties, where you help yourself at the buffet, squash in anywhere, and top off the meal by diving into the swimming-pool. The proceedings were to begin somewhere after nine and before ten, so I rolled up at about nine forty-five.

This, as it turned out, was on the early side. A few scattered couples had arrived and were strolling about under the coloured lanterns, but April was still dressing and the orchestra hadn’t started to play and altogether it was apparent that there was going to be a bit of a lull before the revelry got into high.

In these circs, it seemed to me that the best way of passing the time would be to trickle over to the table where the drinks were and brace myself with one or two. In view of what lay before me, I wanted to feel at the top of my form – which I wasn’t at the moment, owing to having been kept awake a good deal during the night with a touch of toothache.

As I approached the table, I noticed that my idea of going and doing a bit of stoking up, though good, was not original. It had occurred also to a tall, slender bloke with butter-coloured hair. He was standing there in a rooted sort of way, as if he meant to take a lot of shifting, and he seemed to be putting a good deal of custom in the way of the bar-tenders. And there was something about him, something in his technique as he raised and lowered his glass, which somehow struck me as oddly familiar. Also, I felt I had seen that hair before. And the next moment I had identified him.

‘Eggy!’ I cried.

He had just emptied his glass as I spoke, which was fortunate, for at the sound of my view-halloo he leaped about six inches in the air. Returning to earth, he leaned towards the chap behind the bar, his bosom heaving a bit.

‘I say,’ he asked in a low, trembling tone, ‘you didn’t hear a voice then, by any chance, did you?’

The chap said that he thought he had heard someone say something about eggs.

‘Oh, you did hear it?’

‘Eggy, you old ass,’ I said.

This time he turned, and stood staring at me. His face was drawn and anxious.

‘Reggie?’ he said, in a doubting sort of way.

He blinked a couple of times, then put a hand out and prodded my chest cautiously. As his finger touched solid shirt-front, a look of relief spread over his features.

‘Phew!’ he said.

He asked the chap behind the bar for another Scotch, and it was not until he had received and taken a liberal swig of this that he spoke again. When he did, his voice was grave and reproachful.

‘If you know me a million years, Reggie, old man,’ he said, wiping a bead of persp. from his brow, ‘never do a thing like that again. I thought you were thousands of miles away, and when I heard your voice, all ghastly and hollow . . . calling my name . . . like a ruddy banshee . . . It’s the one thing I’m scared of, hearing voices,’ he said. ‘I’m told that till you do that you’re all right, but once the voices start coming it’s the beginning of the end.’

He shuddered and finished the rest of his drink at a gulp. This appeared to complete the cure, for he became easier in his manner.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said, ‘so you’re here, are you, Reggie? Ages since I saw you last. Six months come Sheffield Wednesday, or thereabouts. What on earth are you doing in Hollywood?’

‘I came to see you.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes.’

‘Pretty cousinly. Have a spot. I can recommend the Scotch. Bar-bloke, would you be so good as to mix a Scotch and soda for my relative here and the same for me.’

I attempted to dissuade.

‘I wouldn’t have any more.’

‘You haven’t had any yet.’

‘If I were you, I mean. You’re sozzled already.’

‘Half sozzled,’ he corrected, for he is rather exact in these matters.

‘Well, half sozzled, then. And it’s only ten o’clock.’

‘If a man isn’t half sozzled by ten o’clock, he isn’t trying. Don’t you worry about me, Reggie, old man. You don’t understand the wonders of the Californian climate yet. So superbly bracing is it that day by day in every way you can put away all you want to, and not a squawk from the old liver. That’s what they mean when they speak of California as an earthly Paradise, and that’s why trainloads of people are pouring in all the time from the Middle West with their tongues hanging out. I expect that’s why you came here, isn’t it?’

‘I came to see you.’

‘Oh, yes. You told me that, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did I say it was cousinly?’

‘Yes.’

‘And so it is. Most cousinly. Where are you staying?’

‘I’ve got a bungalow at a place called the Garden of the Hesperides.’

‘I know it well. Have you a cellar?’

‘I’ve got a bottle of whisky, if that’s what you mean.’