Part 18 (1/2)

'You! I'm not thinking of you! We've got to conciliate _him_. He's in filthy rags and a filthy temper, and he won't feel decent till he's dressed. You're the sacrifice. Be quick! And clean socks, remember!'

Once more I trotted up to my room, changed into unseasonable unbrushed grey tweeds, put studs into a clean s.h.i.+rt, dug out fresh socks, handed the whole garniture over to Ipps, and returned to the hall just in time to hear Stalky say, 'I'm a stockbroker, but I have the honour to hold His Majesty's commission in a Territorial battalion.' Then I felt as though I might be beginning to be repaid.

'I have a very high opinion of the Territorials myself,' said Mr.

Wontner above a gla.s.s of sherry. (Infant never lets us put bitters into anything above twenty years old.) 'But if you had any experience of the Service, you would find that the Average Army Man--'

Here The Infant suggested changing, and Ipps, before whom no human pa.s.sion can a.s.sert itself, led Mr. Wontner away.

'Why the devil did you tell him I was on the Bench?' said Infant wrathfully to me. 'You know I ain't now. Why didn't he stay in his father's office? He's a raging blight!'

'Not a bit of it,' said Stalky cheerfully. 'He's a little shaken and excited. Probably Beetle annoyed him in the garage, but we must overlook that. We've contained him so far, and I'm going to nibble round his outposts at dinner. All you've got to do, Infant, is to remember you're a gentleman in your own house. Don't hop! You'll find it pretty difficult before dinner's over. I don't want to hear anything at all from you, Beetle.'

'But I'm just beginning to like him,' I said. 'Do let me play!'

'Not till I ask you. You'll overdo it. Poor old Dhurrah-bags! A scandal 'ud break him up!'

'But as long as a regiment has no say as to who joins it, it's bound to rag,' Infant began. 'Why--why, they varnished me when I joined!' He squirmed at the thought of it.

'Don't be owls! We ain't discussing principles! We've got to save the court of inquiry if we can,' said Stalky.

Five minutes later--at 7.45 to be precise--we four sat down to such a dinner as, I hold, only The Infant's cook can produce, with wines worthy of pontifical banquets. A man in the extremity of rage and injured dignity is precisely like a typhoid patient. He asks no questions, accepts what is put before him, and babbles in one key--very often of trifles. But food and drink are the very best of drugs. I think it was Heidsieck Dry Monopole '92--Stalky as usual stuck to Burgundy--that began to unlock Mr. Wontner's heart behind my s.h.i.+rt-front. Me he snubbed throughout, after the Oxford manner, because I had seen him in the sack, and he did not intend me to presume; but to Stalky and The Infant, while I admired the set of my dinner-jacket across his shoulders, he made his plans of revenge very clear indeed. He had even sketched out some of the paragraphs that were to appear in the papers, and if Stalky had allowed me to speak, I would have told him that they were rather neatly phrased.

'You ought to be able to get whackin' damages out of 'em, into the bargain,' said Stalky, after Mr. Wontner had outlined his position legally.

'My de-ah sir,' Mr. Wontner applied himself to his gla.s.s, 'it isn't a matter that gentlemen usually discuss, but, I a.s.sure you, we Wontners'--he waved a well-kept hand--'do not stand in any need of filthy lucre.' In the next three minutes, we learned exactly what his father was worth, which, as he pointed out, was a trifle no man of the world dwelt on. Stalky envied aloud, and I delivered my first kick at The Infant's ankle. Thence we drifted to education, and the Average Army Man, and the desolating vacuity--I remember these words--of Army Society, notably among its womenkind. It appeared there was some sort of narrow convention in the Army against mentioning a woman's name at Mess.

We were much surprised at this--Stalky would not let me express my surprise--but we took it from Mr. Wontner, who said we might, that it was so. Next he touched on Colonels of the old school, and their cognisance of tactics. Not that he himself pretended to any skill in tactics, but after three years at the 'Varsity--none of us had had a 'Varsity education--a man insensibly contracted the habit of clear thinking. At least, he could automatically co-ordinate his ideas, and the jealousy of these muddle-headed Colonels was inconceivable. We would understand that it was his duty to force on the retirement of his Colonel, who had been in the conspiracy against him; to make his Adjutant resign or exchange; and to give the half-dozen childish subalterns who had vexed his dignity a chance to retrieve themselves in other corps--West African ones, he hoped. For himself, after the case was decided, he proposed to go on living in the regiment, just to prove--for he bore no malice--that times had changed, _nosque mutamur in illis_--if we knew what that meant. Infant had curled his legs out of reach, so I was quite free to return thanks yet once more to Allah for the diversity of His creatures in His adorable world.

And so, by way of an eighty-year-old liqueur brandy, to tactics and the great General Clausewitz, unknown to the Average Army Man. Here The Infant, at a whisper from Ipps--whose face had darkened like a mulberry while he waited--excused himself and went away, but Stalky, Colonel of Territorials, wanted some tips on tactics. He got them unbrokenly for ten minutes--Wontner and Clausewitz mixed, but Wontner in a film of priceless cognac distinctly on top. When The Infant came back, he renewed his clear-spoken demand that Infant should take his depositions.

I supposed this to be a family trait of the Wontners, whom I had been visualising for some time past even to the third generation.

'But, hang it all, they're both asleep!' said Infant, scowling at me.

'Ipps let 'em have the '81 port.'

'Asleep!' said Stalky, rising at once. 'I don't see that makes any difference. As a matter of form, you'd better identify them. I'll show you the way.'

We followed up the white stone side-staircase that leads to the bachelors' wing. Mr. Wontner seemed surprised that the boys were not in the coal-cellar.

'Oh, a chap's a.s.sumed to be innocent until he's proved guilty,' said Stalky, mounting step by step. 'How did they get you into the sack, Mr. Wontner?'

'Jumped on me from behind--two to one,' said Mr. Wontner briefly. 'I think I handed each of them something first, but they roped my arms and legs.'

'And did they photograph you in the sack?'

'Good Heavens, no!' Mr. Wontner shuddered.

'That's lucky. Awful thing to live down--a photograph, isn't it?' said Stalky to me as we reached the landing. 'I'm thinking of the newspapers, of course.'

'Oh, but you can easily have sketches in the ill.u.s.trated papers from accounts supplied by eye-witnesses,' I said.

Mr. Wontner turned him round. It was the first time he had honoured me by his notice since our talk in the garage.