Part 16 (1/2)

”Yes, but--”

”It's selling like hot cakes.”

”And what is it?” I pressed.

”Well,” said my uncle, and then leant forward and spoke softly under cover of his hand, ”It's nothing more or less than...”

(But here an unfortunate scruple intervenes. After all, Tono-Bungay is still a marketable commodity and in the hands of purchasers, who bought it from--among other vendors--me. No! I am afraid I cannot give it away--)

”You see,” said my uncle in a slow confidential whisper, with eyes very wide and a creased forehead, ”it's nice because of the” (here he mentioned a flavouring matter and an aromatic spirit), ”it's stimulating because of” (here he mentioned two very vivid tonics, one with a marked action on the kidney.) ”And the” (here he mentioned two other ingredients) ”makes it pretty intoxicating. c.o.c.ks their tails. Then there's” (but I touch on the essential secret.) ”And there you are. I got it out of an old book of recipes--all except the” (here he mentioned the more virulent substance, the one that a.s.sails the kidneys), ”which is my idea! Modern touch! There you are!”

He reverted to the direction of our lunch.

Presently he was leading the way to the lounge--sumptuous piece in red morocco and yellow glazed crockery, with incredible vistas of settees and sofas and things, and there I found myself grouped with him in two excessively upholstered chairs with an earthenware Moorish table between us bearing coffee and Benedictine, and I was tasting the delights of a tenpenny cigar. My uncle smoked a similar cigar in an habituated manner, and he looked energetic and knowing and luxurious and most unexpectedly a little bounder, round the end of it. It was just a trivial flaw upon our swagger, perhaps that we both were clear our cigars had to be ”mild.” He got obliquely across the s.p.a.ces of his great armchair so as to incline confidentially to my ear, he curled up his little legs, and I, in my longer way, adopted a corresponding receptive obliquity. I felt that we should strike an unbiased observer as a couple of very deep and wily and developing and repulsive persons.

”I want to let you into this”--puff--”George,” said my uncle round the end of his cigar. ”For many reasons.”

His voice grew lower and more cunning. He made explanations that to my inexperience did not completely explain. I retain an impression of a long credit and a share with a firm of wholesale chemists, of a credit and a prospective share with some pirate printers, of a third share for a leading magazine and newspaper proprietor.

”I played 'em off one against the other,” said my uncle. I took his point in an instant. He had gone to each of them in turn and said the others had come in.

”I put up four hundred pounds,” said my uncle, ”myself and my all. And you know--”

He a.s.sumed a brisk confidence. ”I hadn't five hundred pence. At least--”

For a moment he really was just a little embarra.s.sed. ”I DID” he said, ”produce capital. You see, there was that trust affair of yours--I ought, I suppose--in strict legality--to have put that straight first.

Zzzz....

”It was a bold thing to do,” said my uncle, s.h.i.+fting the venue from the region of honour to the region of courage. And then with a characteristic outburst of piety, ”Thank G.o.d it's all come right!

”And now, I suppose, you ask where do YOU come in? Well, fact is I've always believed in you, George. You've got--it's a sort of dismal grit.

Bark your s.h.i.+ns, rouse you, and you'll go! You'd rush any position you had a mind to rush. I know a bit about character, George--trust me.

You've got--” He clenched his hands and thrust them out suddenly, and at the same time said, with explosive violence, ”Wooos.h.!.+ Yes. You have! The way you put away that Latin at Wimblehurst; I've never forgotten it.

”Wo-oo-oo-os.h.!.+ Your science and all that! Wo-oo-oo-os.h.!.+ I know my limitations. There's things I can do, and” (he spoke in a whisper, as though this was the first hint of his life's secret) ”there's things I can't. Well, I can create this business, but I can't make it go. I'm too voluminous--I'm a boiler-over, not a simmering stick-at-it. You keep on HOTTING UP AND HOTTING UP. Papin's digester. That's you, steady and long and piling up,--then, wo-oo-oo-oo-osh. Come in and stiffen these n.i.g.g.e.rs. Teach them that wo-oo-oo-oo-osh. There you are! That's what I'm after. You! n.o.body else believes you're more than a boy. Come right in with me and be a man. Eh, George? Think of the fun of it--a thing on the go--a Real Live Thing! Woos.h.i.+ng it up! Making it buzz and spin!

Whoo-oo-oo.”--He made alluring expanding circles in the air with his hand. ”Eh?”

His proposal, sinking to confidential undertones again, took more definite shape. I was to give all my time and energy to developing and organising. ”You shan't write a single advertis.e.m.e.nt, or give a single a.s.surance” he declared. ”I can do all that.” And the telegram was no flourish; I was to have three hundred a year. Three hundred a year.

(”That's nothing,” said my uncle, ”the thing to freeze on to, when the time comes, is your tenth of the vendor's share.”)

Three hundred a year certain, anyhow! It was an enormous income to me.

For a moment I was altogether staggered. Could there be that much money in the whole concern? I looked about me at the sumptuous furniture of Schafer's Hotel. No doubt there were many such incomes.

My head was spinning with unwonted Benedictine and Burgundy.

”Let me go back and look at the game again,” I said. ”Let me see upstairs and round about.”

I did.