14

The Metropolitan Tricks

Young Bingo Little is in many respects a good guy. In one way and another he has made life pretty interesting for me at intervals ever since we were at school. As a companion for a good time I think I would choose him before anybody. On the other hand, I’m bound to say that there are things about him that could be improved. His habit of falling in love with every second girl he sees is one of them; and another is his way of letting the world in on the secrets of his heart.

I mean to say—well, here’s the telegram I got from him one evening in November, about a month after I’d got back to town from my visit to Twing Hall:

I say Bertie old man I am in love at last. She is the most wonderful girl Bertie old man. This is the real thing at last Bertie. Come here at once and bring Jeeves. Oh I say you know that tobacco shop in Bond Street on the left side as you go up. Will you get me a hundred of their special cigarettes and send them to me here. I know when you see her you will think she is the most wonderful girl. Don’t forget the cigarettes.

BINGO

Jeeves had brought the telegram in with the evening drink, and I read it to him.

“Of course,” I said. “Young Bingo hasn’t been in love for at least a couple of months. I wonder who it is this time?”

“Miss Mary Burgess, sir,” said Jeeves, “the niece of the Reverend Mr Heppenstall. She is staying at Twing Vicarage.”

“Great Lord!” I knew that Jeeves knew practically everything in the world, but this sounded like secondsight. “How do you know that?”

“When we were visiting Twing Hall in the summer, sir, I formed close friendship with Mr Heppenstall’s butler. He told me local news from time to time. From his account, sir, the young lady appears to be a very estimable young lady. Of a somewhat serious nature, I understand. Brookfield, my correspondent, writes that last week he observed Mr Little in the moonlight gazing up at his window.”

“Whose window? Brookfield’s?”

“Yes, sir. I think, he was under the impression that it was the young lady’s window.”

“But what is he doing at Twing?”

“Mr Little resumed his old position as tutor to Lord Wickhammersley’s son at Twing Hall, sir.”

“Good Lord, Jeeves! Is there anything you don’t know?”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

I picked up the telegram.

“I suppose he wants us to help him. Well, what shall we do? Go?”

“I would advocate it, sir. If I may say so, I think that Mr Little should be encouraged.”

“You think he’s picked a winner this time?”

“I hear nothing but excellent reports of the young lady, sir. I think it is beyond question that she would be an admirable influence for Mr Little, should the affair come to a happy conclusion. Such a union would also, I think, restore Mr Little to the good graces of his uncle. The young lady is from a good family and possess private means. In short, sir, I think that if there is anything that we can do we should do it.”

Bingo met us at Twing station next day, and insisted on my sending Jeeves on in the car with the bags while he and I walked. He began:

“She is very wonderful, Bertie. She is not one of these flippant, shallow-minded modern girls. She is sweetly grave and beautifully earnest. She reminds me of Saint Cecilia. She makes me yearn to be a better, nobler, deeper, broader man.”

“What puzzles me,” I said, “is what principle you pick them on. The girls you fall in love with, I mean. I mean to say, what’s your system? As far as I can see, no two of them are alike. First it was Mabel the waitress, then Honoria Glossop, then that fearful Charlotte Corday Rowbotham—”

Bingo shuddered. Thinking of Charlotte always made me shudder, too.

“You don’t seriously mean, Bertie, that you are intending to compare the feeling I have for Mary Burgess, the holy devotion, the spiritual—”

“Oh, all right, let it go,” I said. “I say, old lad, aren’t we going rather a long way round?”

The Hall is about two miles from the station by the main road, and we had gone across country for a bit, climbed a stile or two, and were now working our way across a field that ended in another lane.

“She sometimes takes her little brother for a walk round this way,” explained Bingo. “I thought we would meet her, and you could see her, you know, and then we would walk on.”

“Of course,” I said, “that’s exciting for anyone, but why didn’t we do anything else? Why didn’t we just knock at her door and talk to her?”

“Good Lord!” said Bingo, honestly amazed. “You don’t suppose I’ve got nerve enough for that, do you? I just look at her from afar off and all that sort of thing. Quick! Here she comes! No, I’m wrong!”

Suddenly round the corner there came a fox-terrier, and Bingo quivered like an aspen. Then there appeared a small boy, and he shook like a jelly. Finally, a girl appeared. Bingo’s face got very red.

He was just raising his fingers to his cap when he suddenly saw that the girl wasn’t alone. A fellow in clerical costume was also present. His face got redder and his nose bluer.

The girl bowed, the curate said, “Ah, Little. Bad weather,” the dog barked, and then they walked on and the entertainment was over.

The curate was a new factor in the situation to me. I told about him to Jeeves. Of course, Jeeves knew all about it already.

“That is the Reverend Mr Wingham, Mr Heppenstall’s new curate, sir. I learned from Brookfield that he is Mr Little’s rival, and at the moment the young lady appears to favour him. Mr Wingham has the advantage: he and the young lady play duets after dinner.”

“He’s lost his courage. Why, when we met her just now, he hadn’t even the common manly courage to say ‘Good evening’! Well, how shall we help a man when he’s such a rabbit as that? Have you anything to suggest? I shall be seeing him after dinner, and he’s sure to ask first thing what you advise.”

“In my opinion, sir, the most judicious course for Mr Little to pursue would be to concentrate on the young gentleman.”

“The small brother? What do you mean?”

“Make a friend of him, sir—take him for walks and so forth.”

“It doesn’t sound one of your brightest ideas. I must say I expected something more interesting than that.”

“It would be a beginning, sir, and might lead to better things.”

“Well, I’ll tell him. I liked the look of her, Jeeves.”

“A thoroughly estimable young lady, sir.”

I told Bingo these words that night, and was glad to observe that it seemed to cheer him up.

“Jeeves is always right,” he said. “I’ll start in tomorrow.”

The brother was forming a bond that was stronger than the curate’s duets. She and Bingo used to take him for walks together. I asked Bingo what they talked about on these occasions, and he said—Wilfred’s future. The girl hoped that Wilfred would one day become a curate, but Bingo said no, there was something about curates he didn’t quite like.

The day we left, Bingo came to see us off with Wilfred. The last I saw of them, Bingo was buying him chocolates. A scene of peace and goodwill. Not bad, I thought.

But about a fortnight later his telegram arrived. As follows:

Bertie old man

I say Bertie could you possibly come down here at once.

Everything gone wrong.

Dash it Bertie you simply must come.

I am in a state of absolute despair and heartbroken.

Would you mind sending another hundred of those cigarettes.

Bring Jeeves when you come Bertie.

You simply must come Bertie.

I rely on you.

Don’t forget to bring Jeeves.

BINGO.

“How about it, Jeeves?” I said. “I’m getting a bit tired. I can’t go every second week to Twing to see young Bingo.”

“If you are not against it, sir, I should be glad to run down and investigate.”

“Oh, dash it! Well, I suppose there’s nothing else to be done. After all, you’re the fellow he wants. All right, carry on.”

Jeeves got back late the next day.

“Well?” I said.

“I have done what I could, sir,” said Jeeves, “but I fear Mr Little’s chances do not appear bright. Since our last visit, sir, there has been a sinister development.”

“Oh, what’s that?’

“You may remember Mr Steggles, sir—the young gentleman who was studying for an examination with Mr Heppenstall at the Vicarage?”

“What’s Steggles got to do with it?” I asked.

“I learned from Brookfield, sir, who overheard a conversation, that Mr Steggles is interesting himself in the affair.”

“Good Lord!”

“Sir, he is against Mr Little, whose chances he does not value much.”

“I don’t like that, Jeeves.”

“No, sir. It is sinister.”

“From what I know of Steggles there will be dirty work.”

“It has already occurred, sir.”

“Already?”

“Yes, sir. Once Mr Little escorted Master Burgess to the church bazaar, and there met Mr Steggles, who was in the company of young Master Heppenstall, the Reverend Mr Heppenstal’s second son. The encounter took place in the room, where Mr Steggles was at that moment entertaining Master Heppenstall. To cut a long story short, sir, the two gentlemen became extremely interested in the manner in which the lads were fortifying themselves; and Mr Steggles offered to organize an eating contest against Master Burgess for a pound a side. Mr Little’s sporting blood was too much for him and he agreed to the contest. Both lads exhibited the utmost willingness and enthusiasm, and eventually Master Burgess won. Next day both contestants were in considerable pain; inquiries were made, and Mr Little—I learn from Brookfield, who happened to be near the door of the drawing-room at the moment—had an extremely unpleasant interview with the young lady, which ended in her desiring him never to speak to her again.”

“Jeeves,” I said. “Steggles worked the whole thing on purpose. It’s his old game.”

“There would seem to be no doubt about that, sir.”

“Well, he seems to have dished poor old Bingo all right. I don’t see what there is to do. If Bingo is such a chump—”

“I recommended him to busy himself with good works, sir.”

“Good works?’

“About the village, sir. Reading to the bedridden—chatting with the sick—that sort of thing, sir. And good results will ensue.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” I said doubtfully. “But, by gosh, if I was a sick man I’d hate to have a loony like young Bingo coming and gibbering at my bedside.”

I didn’t hear a word from Bingo for a couple of weeks. And then, one night not long before Christmas, I came back to the flat pretty late, having been out dancing at the Embassy. I was tired, I tottered to my room and switching on the light, I observed the foul features of young Bingo all over the pillow. In my bed! The blighter had appeared from nowhere and was in my bed, sleeping like an infant with a sort of happy, dreamy smile.

I hove a shoe, and Bingo sat up, gurgling.

“What’s matter?” said young Bingo.

“What the hell are you doing in my bed?” I said.

“Oh, hallo, Bertie! So there you are!”

“Yes, here I am. What are you doing in my bed?”

“I came up to town for the night on business.”

“Yes, but what are you doing in my bed?”

“Dash it all, Bertie,” said young Bingo, “don’t keep talking about your beastly bed. There’s another bed in the spare room. I saw Jeeves make it with my own eyes. I think he meant it for me, but I knew what a perfect host you were, so I just turned in here. I say, Bertie, old man,” said Bingo, apparently tired after the discussion about beds, “I see daylight.”

“Well, it’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“I was speaking figuratively, you ass. I meant the hope about Mary Burgess, you know. Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“I won’t. I’m going to sleep.”

“To begin with,” said young Bingo, settling himself comfortably against the pillows and helping himself to a cigarette from my private box, “I must once again pay a tribute to good old Jeeves. A modern Solomon. About a couple of days ago she smiledwhen I ran into her outside the Vicarage. And yesterdayI say, you remember that curate chap, Wingham? Fellow with a long nose.”

“Of course I remember him. Your rival.”

“Rival?” Bingo raised his eyebrows. “Oh, well, I suppose you could have called him that at one time. Though it sounds a little wrong.”

“Does it?” I said. “I’d always thought that Wingham—”

“Oh, I’m not worried about him,” said Bingo. “I was just going to tell you. Wingham won’t be out and about for weeks. And it’s not all. You see, he was producing the Village School Christmas Entertainment, and now I’ve taken over the job. I went to old Heppenstall last night and signed the contract. Well, you see what that means. It means that I shall be absolutely the centre of the village life and thought for three weeks. My job will have a powerful effect on Mary’s mind. It will show her that I am capable of serious effort; that there is a solid foundation of worth in me; that, mere butterfly as she may once have thought me, I am in reality—”

“Oh, all right, go on!”

“It’s a big event, you know, this Christmas Entertainment. A big chance for me, Bertie, my boy, and I mean to make the most of it. But the uninspired curate wanted to give the public some boring play out of a book for children published about fifty years ago. It’s too late to alter the play entirely, but at least I can add some jokes. I’m going to write them to make the play funnier.”

“You can’t write.”

“Well, when I say write, I mean borrow. That’s why I’ve come to London. I saw that revue, Cuddle Up! at the Palladium, tonight. Full of good jokes. Of course, it’s rather hard to create anything in the Twing Village Hall, with no scenery to speak of and a chorus of practically imbecile kids of ages ranging from nine to fourteen, but I’ll try. Have you seen Cuddle Up?”

“Yes. Twice.”

“Well, there’s some good stuff in the first act, and I can borrow practically all the numbers. I can see the matinée of that tomorrow before I leave. Leave it to me, friend, leave it to me. And now, my dear old chap,” said young Bingo, “leave me alone. I can’t talk to you all night. It’s all right for you fellows who have nothing to do, but I’m a busy man. Good night, old man. Close the door quietly after you and switch out the light. Breakfast, about ten tomorrow, I suppose. Good night.”

For the next three weeks I didn’t see Bingo. But I heard his voice. He was constantly ringing me up and consulting me on various points. I told him then that this nuisance must now cease, and after that he practically passed out of my life, till one afternoon when I got back to the flat to dress for dinner and found Jeeves inspecting a big poster which he had draped over the back of an armchair.

“Good Lord, Jeeves!” I said. I was feeling rather weak that day, and the thing shook me. “What’s that?”

“Mr Little sent it to me, sir, and desired me to bring it to your notice.”

“Well, you’ve certainly done it!”

I took another look at the object. There was no doubt about it, he caught the eye. It was about seven feet long, and most of the lettering in bright red ink:

Twing Village Hall,

Friday, December 23rd,

Richard Little

presents A New and Original Revue

Entitled What Ho, Twing!!

Book by Richard Little

Lyrics by Richard Little

Music by Richard Little

With the Full Twing Juvenile

Company and Chorus.

Scenic Effects by

Richard Little

Produced by

Richard Little

“What do you think of it, Jeeves?” I said.

“I am a little puzzled, sir. I think Mr Little would have done better to follow my advice and confine himself to good works about the village.”

“You think the play will be bad?”

“Sir, my experience has been that what pleases the London public is not always so acceptable to the rural mind. The metropolitan tricks are sometimes too exotic for the provinces.”

“I suppose I ought to go and see the play?”

“I think Mr Little would be wounded were you not present, sir.”

The Village Hall at Twing is a small building, smelling of apples. It was full when I came in. I secured a nice strategic position near the door at the back of the hall.

From there I had a good view of the audience. As always on these occasions, the first few rows were occupied by the important persons. The Squire, a fairly mauve old sportsman with white whiskers, his family, local parsons. Then came what you might call the lower middle classes. And at the back, where I was, village people gathered. The girl, Mary Burgess, was at the piano playing a waltz. Beside her stood the curate, Wingham, apparently recovered. The temperature, I should think, was about a hundred and twenty-seven.

Somebody jabbed me in the lower ribs, and I perceived Steggles.

“Hallo!” he said. “I didn’t know you were coming down.”

I didn’t like the chap, but we Woosters can wear the mask.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Bingo wanted me to arrive and see his show.”

“I hear he’s giving us something pretty ambitious,” said Steggles. “Big effects and all that sort of thing.”

“I believe so.”

“Of course, it means a lot to him, doesn’t it? He’s told you about the girl, of course?”

“Yes. And I hear you’re laying seven to one against him,” I said.

He didn’t even quiver.

“Just because of the monotony of country life,” he said. “But you’ve got wrong facts. How about a tenner at a hundred to eight?”

“Good Lord! Are you joking?”

“No.” said Steggles meditatively, “I have a sort of feeling, a kind of premonition that something’s going to go wrong tonight. You know what Little is. A bungler. Something tells me that this show of his is going to be a catastrophe. And if it is, of course, I should think it would prejudice the girl against him pretty badly.”

“Are you going to try and smash up the show?” I said sternly.

“Me!’ said Steggles. “Why, what could I do? Half a minute, I want to go and speak to a man.”

He buzzed off, leaving me disturbed. I could see from the fellow’s eye that he was meditating some of his mean tricks, and I thought Bingo ought to be warned. But there wasn’t time and I couldn’t get at him. Almost immediately after Steggles had left me the curtain went up.

The play was merely one of those dull dramas which you dig out of books published around Christmas time. The kids were acting, the voice of Bingo was ringing out from time to time behind the scenes when the fatheads forgot their lines; and the audience was nearly sleeping, when the first of Bingo’s ideas appeared. It was that song which a girl sings in that revue at the Palace. It is always popular at the Palace, and it went well now, even the village people liked it. But at this point all the lights went out. The hall was in complete darkness.

People started to shout and, of course, young Bingo made an ass of himself. His voice suddenly shot at us out of the darkness.

“Ladies and gentlemen, something has gone wrong with the lights—”

Then, after about five minutes, the lights went up again, and the show was resumed.

It took ten minutes after that to get the audience back into its state of coma, when a small boy with a face like a turbot started to sing that song out of Cuddle Up! You know the one I mean. “Always Listen to Mother, Girls!” it’s called, and the singer gets the audience to join in and sing the refrain. Quite a nice ballad, and one which I myself have frequently sung in my bathroom; but not for the children’s Christmas entertainment in the old village hall. Right from the start of the first refrain the important audience had begun to stiffen in their seats and fan themselves, and the Burgess girl at the piano was accompanying in a mechanical sort of way, while the curate at her side averted his gaze in a pained manner. The village people, however, were very glad.

At the end of the second refrain the kid stopped and began to leave the stage. Upon which the following brief dialogue took place:

YOUNG BINGO (Voice heard): “Go on!”

THE KID (coyly): “I don’t like to.”

YOUNG BINGO (still louder): “Go on, you little blighter, or I’ll slay you!”

I suppose the kid realized that Bingo was sincere, came back. Having shut his eyes and giggled hysterically, he said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I will now call upon Squire Tressidder to sing the refrain!”

Sometimes I began to think that young Bingo ought to be in an asylym. I suppose, poor fish, he had pictured this as the big punch of the evening. He had imagined, I suppose, that the Squire would spring jovially to his feet, sing the song, and all would be gaiety and mirth. Well, what happened was simply that old Tressidder—and, mark you, I’m not blaming him—just sat where he was, swelling and turning purple every second. The lower middle classes remained in frozen silence, waiting for the roof to fall. But the village people yelled with enthusiasm.

And then the lights went out again.

When they went up, some minutes later, the Squire was marching out at the head of his family; the Burgess girl was at the piano with a pale look; and the curate was gazing at her with something in his expression that seemed to suggest that all this was deplorable.

The show went on once more. There were some dialogues, and then the girl at the piano struck up the prelude to that Orange-Girl number that’s the big hit of the Palace revue. The entire company was on the stage. It looked like the finale. But I realized that it was something more. It was the finish.

Do you remember that Orange number at the Palace? It goes:

Oh, won’t you something something oranges,

My something oranges,

My something oranges;

Oh, won’t you something something something I forget,

Something something something tumty tumty yet: Oh—

or words to that effect. It’s a clever lyric, and the music is good, too; but the most interesting thing that made the number was the point where the girls take oranges out of their baskets, you know, and toss them lightly to the audience.

But at the Palace, of course, the oranges are made of yellow wool, and the girls drop them limply into the first and second rows. But here everything was different. A great orange flew past my ear and burst on the wall behind me. Another landed on the neck of one of the important persons in the third row. And then a third one took me right on the tip of my nose.

The air was thick with shrieks and fruit. The kids on the stage, were having the time of their lives. I suppose they realized that this couldn’t go on forever, and were making the most of their chances. The village people had begun to pick up all the oranges that hadn’t burst and were shooting them back. In fact, there was a certain amount of confusion; and out went the lights again.

I slid for the door. The spectators were cursing poor old Bingo; they were going to drown him in the village.

So I decided to warn young Bingo to use some side exit. I went behind, and found him sitting on a box. His hair was standing up and his ears were hanging down.

“Bertie,” he said hollowly, as he saw me, “it was that blighter Steggles! I caught one of the kids before he could get away and he told me everything. Steggles substituted real oranges for the balls of wool which I had specially prepared.”

“Good heavens, man,” I said, “You’ve got to get out. And quick!”

“Bertie,” said Bingo in a dull voice, “she was here just now. She said it was all my fault and that she would never speak to me again. She said she had always suspected me of being a heartless practical joker, and now she knew.”

“That’s the least of your troubles,”’ I said. “Do you realize that about two hundred people are waiting for you outside to throw you into the pond?”

“No!”

“Absolutely!”

“It’s all right,” he said. “I can sneak out through the cellar and climb over the wall at the back. They can’t catch me.”

A week later Jeeves he had brought me my tea and directed my attention to an announcement in the engagements and marriages column.

It was a brief statement that a marriage had been arranged and would shortly take place between the Hon. and Rev. Hubert Wingham, and Mary, only daughter of the late Matthew Burgess, of Weatherly Court, Hants.

“Of course,” I said, “I expected this, Jeeves.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She would never forgive him what happened that night.”

“No, sir.”

“Well,” I said, “I don’t suppose it will take old Bingo long to get over it. It’s about the hundred and eleventh time this sort of thing has happened to him.”

“Yes, sir. Your breakfast will be ready almost immediately, sir. Kidneys on toast and mushrooms. I will bring it when you ring.”