10

The Lift Attendant’s Lucky Day

The part which old George had written for the chump Cyril took up about two pages; but that poor pinhead decided it might have been Hamlet. I suppose, I heard him read his lines a dozen times in the first couple of days. I became more or less the shadow. And all the time Jeeves remained still pretty cold and distant about the purple socks.

Soon Aunt Agatha’s letter arrived. It took her about six pages to describe Cyril’s father’s feelings in regard to his going on the stage and about six more to give me a sketch of what she would say, think, and do if I didn’t keep him clear of injurious influences while he was in America. The letter came by the afternoon mail, and I whizzed for the kitchen, bleating for Jeeves, and saw a tea-party. Seated at the table were a depressed-looking cove who might have been a valet or something, and a boy. The valet-fellow was drinking a whisky and soda, and the boy was eating some jam and cake.

“Oh, I say, Jeeves!” I said. “Sorry to interrupt the feast, but—”

At this point the small boy’s eye hit me like a bullet and stopped me. He was a stout infant with a lot of freckles and a good deal of jam on his face.

“Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!” I said. “What?”

The boy may have loved me at first sight, but the impression he gave me was that he didn’t think a lot of me. I had a kind of feeling that I was about as popular with him as a cold rarebit.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“My name? Oh, Wooster, don’t you know.”

“My dad is richer than you!”

I turned to Jeeves:

“I say, Jeeves, can you spare a moment? I want to show you something.”

“Very good, sir.”

We toddled into the sitting-room.

“Who is your little friend, Jeeves?”

“The young gentleman, sir? I happened to meet the young gentleman taking a walk with his father’s valet, sir, whom I used to know in London, and I ventured to invite them both to join me here.”

“Well, never mind about him, Jeeves. Read this letter.”

He read it.

“Very disturbing, sir!” was all he could say.

“What are we going to do about it?”

“Time may provide a solution, sir.”

There was a ring at the door. Jeeves disappeared, and Cyril blew in.

“I say, Wooster, old man,” he said, “I want your advice. You know this part of mine. How ought I to dress it? What I mean is, the first act scene is laid in a hotel, at about three in the afternoon. What ought I to wear, how do you think?’

“You’d better consult Jeeves,” I said.

“An excellent idea! Where is he?”

“Gone back to the kitchen, I suppose.”

Jeeves came silently in.

“Oh, I say, Jeeves,” began Cyril, “I just wanted to have a word or two with you. It’s this way—Hallo, who’s this?”

I then perceived that the stout boy had trickled into the room after Jeeves. He was standing near the door looking at Cyril as if his worst fears had been realized. There was a bit of a silence. The child remained there, drinking Cyril in for about half a minute; then he gave his verdict:

“Fish-face!”

“Eh? What?” said Cyril.

The child, who had evidently been taught at his mother’s knee to speak the truth, said:

“You’ve a face like a fish!”

You know, I liked his conversation.

It seemed to take Cyril a moment or two really to grasp the thing.

“Dash it!” he said. “Dash it!”

“I wouldn’t have a face like that,” proceeded the child, “not if you gave me a million dollars.” He thought for a moment, then corrected himself. “Two million dollars!” he added.

Just what occurred then I couldn’t exactly say, but the next few minutes were exciting. Did Cyril jump to the infant? Anyway, the air seemed congested with arms and legs. I can’t say when I found that Jeeves and the child had retired and Cyril was standing in the middle of the room.

“Who’s that frightful little brute, Wooster?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him before today.”

“I gave him a good lesson. I say, Wooster, that kid said an odd thing. He yelled out something about Jeeves promising him a dollar if he called me—er—what he said.”

It sounded pretty unlikely to me.

“What would Jeeves do that for?”

“It struck me as strange, too.”

“Where would be the sense of it?”

“That’s what I can’t see.”

“I mean to say, Jeeves doesn’t care about your face!”

“No!” said Cyril. He spoke a little coldly. I don’t know why. “Well, good-bye!”

“Bye!”

In a week after this strange little episode George Caffyn called me up and asked me if I would come and see a run-through of his show Ask Dad. This dress-rehearsal, old George explained, was the same as a regular dress-rehearsal, but more exciting because all the blighters could rise and tell what they though about it.

The show started at eight o’clock. When I came the dress-parade was still going on. George was on the stage, talking to a cove and an absolutely round practically hairless fellow with big spectacles. I had seen George with the latter guy once or twice at the club, and I knew that he was Blumenfield, the manager. I waved to George, and slid into a seat at the back, so as to be out of the way when the fighting started. Presently George came and joined me, and fairly soon after that the curtain went down. The fellow at the piano began to play, and the curtain went up again.

I can’t quite recall what the plot of Ask Dad was about, but I know that it seemed clear tome even without Cyril. I was rather puzzled at first. What I mean is, I sat there for nearly half an hour, waiting for him, until I suddenly discovered he had been on from the start. He was, in fact, the strange-looking ugly lad who was leaning against a palm, trying to appear intelligent while the heroine sang a song about Love. After the second refrain he began to dance in company with a dozen other ugly lads. A painful spectacle for one who could see a vision of Aunt Agatha and old Bassington-Bassington. Absolutely!

The dance had just finished, and Cyril and his pals had disappeared when a voice spoke from the darkness on my right.

“Dad!”

Old Blumenfield clapped his hands, and the hero became silent. I peered into the shadows. Who should it be but Jeeves’s little playmate with the freckles! He was now there with his hands in his pockets as if the place belonged to him.

“Dad,” said the boy, “that number’s no good.”

Old Blumenfield beamed over his shoulder.

“Don’t you like it, darling?”

“It gives me a pain.”

“You’re dead right.”

“You need something better there!”

“Quite right my boy. All right. Go on!”

I turned to George, who was muttering to himself.

“I say, George, old man, who is that kid?”

Old George groaned.

“I didn’t know he had crawled in! It’s Blumenfield’s son. Now we’re going to have problems!”

“Is he always like this?”

“Always!”

“But why does old Blumenfield listen to him?”

“Nobody knows. It may be pure fatherly love. My own idea is that he thinks the kid has exactly the amount of intelligence of the average member of the audience, and that what makes a hit with him will please the general public. While, conversely, what he doesn’t like will be bad for anyone. The kid is a pest, a wart, and a pot of poison!”

The rehearsal went on. The moment arrived for Cyril’s big scene. Cyril was an English lord who had come over to America. So far he had only had two lines to say. One was “Oh, I say!” and the other was “Yes, of course!” I sat back in my chair and waited.

The heroine had been saying something—I forget what—and all the chorus, with Cyril at their head, had begun to dance round her.

Cyril’s first line was, “Oh, I say, you know, you mustn’t say that, really!” But our little friend with the freckles had risen to lodge a protest.

“Dad!”

“Yes, darling?”

“That one is no good.”

“Which one, darling?”

“The one with a face like a fish.”

“But they all have faces like fish, darling.”

The child became more definite.

“The ugly one.”

“Which ugly one? That one?” said old Blumenfield, pointing to Cyril.

“Yes! He’s ugly!”

“I thought so myself.”

“He’s an idiot!”

“You’re right, my boy. I’ve noticed it for some time.”

Cyril’s remarks were in progress. He has prepared to fight. Even from where I was sitting, I could see that these harsh words had hit the old Bassington-Bassington family pride. He started to get pink in the ears, and then in the nose, and then in the cheeks, till in about a quarter of a minute he looked like a tomato.

“What the hell do you mean?”

“What the hell do you mean?” shouted old Blumenfield. “Don’t yell at me!”

“I want to kill that little brute!”

“What!”

“A real brute! A rascal!”

Old Blumenfield got rounder than ever:

“See here, mister—I don’t know your name—!”

“My name’s Bassington-Bassington, and the old Bassington-Bassingtons—I mean the Bassington-Bassingtons aren’t accustomed—”

Old Blumenfield told him in a few brief words pretty much what he thought of the Bassington-Bassingtons and what they weren’t accustomed to. The whole company gathered to enjoy his remarks.

“You must work well for my dad!” said the stout child to Cyril.

“I don’t want any stupid command from you!” said Cyril.

“What’s that?” barked old Blumenfield. “Don’t you understand that this boy is my son?”

“Yes, I do,” said Cyril. “And you both have my sympathy!”

“You’re fired!” cried old Blumenfield. “Get out of my theatre!”

About half past ten next morning Jeeves came into my bedroom, and said that Cyril was waiting to see me in the sitting-room.

“How does he look, Jeeves?”

“Sir?”

“What does Mr Bassington-Bassington look like?”

“I can’t criticize the facial peculiarities of your friends.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean, does he look angry, sad and so on?”

“Not noticeably, sir. His manner is tranquil.”

“That’s strange!”

“Sir?”

“Nothing. Let him in, will you?”

It was really strange, but Cyril seemed pretty ordinary and quite fairly cheerful.

“Hallo, Wooster, old man!”

“Hallo!”

“I just looked in to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?”

“Yes. I’m off to Washington in an hour.” He sat down on the bed. “You know, Wooster, old man,” he went on, “I’ve been thinking it all over, and really it doesn’t seem quite fair to my father, my going on the stage and so forth. What do you think?”

“I see what you mean.”

“I mean to say, he sent me over here to broaden my mind, you know. It will be bad if I go on the stage instead. I don’t know if you understand me, but what I mean to say is, it’s a sort of question of conscience.”

“Can you leave the show?”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’ve explained everything to old Blumenfield. Of course, he’s sorry to lose me—said he didn’t see how he could fill my place and all that sort of thing—but, after all, I am right, don’t you think?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“I thought you’d agree with me. I’m glad to meet you, and all that sort of rot. Bye-bye!”

“Bye!”

He went away, having told all those lies with the clear, blue gaze of a young child. I rang for Jeeves.

“Jeeves!”

“Sir?”

“Did you force that infant make Mr Bassington-Bassington angry?”

“Sir?”

“Oh, you know what I mean. Did you tell him to fire Mr Bassington-Bassington from the Ask Dad company?”

“I would not take such a liberty, sir.” He started to put out my clothes. “It is possible that young Master Blumenfield may have gathered from casual remarks of mine that I did not consider the stage altogether a suitable sphere for Mr Bassington-Bassington.”

“I say, Jeeves, you know, you’re real treasure.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And I’m obliged, if you know what I mean. Aunt Agatha would have killed me.”

“I think there might have been some unpleasantness, sir. I am laying out the blue suit, sir. I fancy the effect will be pleasing.”

I had finished breakfast and gone out and got to the lift. I remembered that I want to reward Jeeves for his really sporting behaviour in this matter of the chump Cyril. I had decided to let those purple socks pass out of my life. After all, there are times when a cove must make sacrifices. The lift came up. The fellow in charge of the lift looked at me with devotion.

“I wish to thank you, sir,” he said, “for your kindness.”

“Eh? What?”

“Mister Jeeves gave me purple socks, as you told him. Thank you very much, sir!”

I looked down. The blighter had my purple socks on.

“Oh, ah! Not at all! Glad you like them!” I said.