Part 1 (1/2)
Ruggles of Red Gap.
by Harry Leon Wilson.
CHAPTER ONE
At 6:30 in our Paris apartment I had finished the Honourable George, performing those final touches that make the difference between a man well turned out and a man merely dressed. In the main I was not dissatisfied. His dress waistcoats, it is true, no longer permit the inhalation of anything like a full breath, and his collars clasp too closely. (I have always held that a collar may provide quite ample room for the throat without sacrifice of smartness if the depth be at least two and one quarter inches.) And it is no secret to either the Honourable George or our intimates that I have never approved his fas.h.i.+on of beard, a reddish, enveloping, brushlike affair never nicely enough trimmed. I prefer, indeed, no beard at all, but he stubbornly refuses to shave, possessing a difficult chin. Still, I repeat, he was not nearly impossible as he now left my hands.
”Dining with the Americans,” he remarked, as I conveyed the hat, gloves, and stick to him in their proper order.
”Yes, sir,” I replied. ”And might I suggest, sir, that your choice be a grilled undercut or something simple, bearing in mind the undoubted effects of sh.e.l.l-fish upon one's complexion?” The hard truth is that after even a very little lobster the Honourable George has a way of coming out in spots. A single oyster patty, too, will often spot him quite all over.
”What cheek! Decide that for myself,” he retorted with a lame effort at dignity which he was unable to sustain. His eyes fell from mine.
”Besides, I'm almost quite certain that the last time it was the melon. Wretched things, melons!”
Then, as if to divert me, he rather fussily refused the correct evening stick I had chosen for him and seized a k.n.o.bby bit of thornwood suitable only for moor and upland work, and brazenly quite discarded the gloves.
”Feel a silly fool wearing gloves when there's no reason!” he exclaimed pettishly.
”Quite so, sir,” I replied, freezing instantly.
”Now, don't play the juggins,” he retorted. ”Let me be comfortable.
And I don't mind telling you I stand to win a hundred quid this very evening.”
”I dare say,” I replied. The sum was more than needed, but I had cause to be thus cynical.
”From the American Johnny with the eyebrows,” he went on with a quite pathetic enthusiasm. ”We're to play their American game of poker--drawing poker as they call it. I've watched them play for near a fortnight. It's beastly simple. One has only to know when to bluff.”
”A hundred pounds, yes, sir. And if one loses----”
He flashed me a look so deucedly queer that it fair chilled me.
”I fancy you'll be even more interested than I if I lose,” he remarked in tones of a curious evenness that were somehow rather deadly. The words seemed pregnant with meaning, but before I could weigh them I heard him noisily descending the stairs. It was only then I recalled having noticed that he had not changed to his varnished boots, having still on his feet the doggish and battered pair he most favoured. It was a trick of his to evade me with them. I did for them each day all that human boot-cream could do, but they were things no sensitive gentleman would endure with evening dress. I was glad to reflect that doubtless only Americans would observe them.
So began the final hours of a 14th of July in Paris that must ever be memorable. My own birthday, it is also chosen by the French as one on which to celebrate with carnival some one of those regrettable events in their own distressing past.
To begin with, the day was marked first of all by the breezing in of his lords.h.i.+p the Earl of Brinstead, brother of the Honourable George, on his way to England from the Engadine. More peppery than usual had his lords.h.i.+p been, his grayish side-whiskers in angry upheaval and his inflamed words exploding quite all over the place, so that the Honourable George and I had both perceived it to be no time for admitting our recent financial reverse at the gaming tables of Ostend.
On the contrary, we had gamely affirmed the last quarter's allowance to be practically untouched--a desperate stand, indeed! But there was that in his lords.h.i.+p's manner to urge us to it, though even so he appeared to be not more than half deceived.
”No good greening me!” he exploded to both of us. ”Tell in a flash--gambling, or a woman--typing-girl, milliner, dancing person, what, what! Guilty faces, both of you. Know you too well. My word, what, what!”
Again we stoutly protested while his lords.h.i.+p on the hearthrug rocked in his boots and glared. The Honourable George gamely rattled some loose coin of the baser sort in his pockets and tried in return for a glare of innocence foully aspersed. I dare say he fell short of it.
His histrionic gifts are but meagre.
”Fools, quite fools, both of you!” exploded his lords.h.i.+p anew. ”And, make it worse, no longer young fools. Young and a fool, people make excuses. Say, 'Fool? Yes, but so young!' But old and a fool--not a word to say, what, what! Silly rot at forty.” He clutched his side-whiskers with frenzied hands. He seemed to comb them to a more bristling rage.
”Dare say you'll both come croppers. Not surprise me. Silly old George, course, course! Hoped better of Ruggles, though. Ruggles different from old George. Got a brain. But can't use it. Have old George wed to a charwoman presently. Hope she'll be a worker. Need to be--support you both, what, what!”
I mean to say, he was coming it pretty thick, since he could not have forgotten that each time I had warned him so he could hasten to save his brother from distressing mesalliances. I refer to the affair with the typing-girl and to the later entanglement with a Brixton milliner encountered informally under the portico of a theatre in Charing Cross Road. But he was in no mood to concede that I had thus far shown a scrupulous care in these emergencies. Peppery he was, indeed. He gathered hat and stick, glaring indignantly at each of them and then at us.
”Greened me fair, haven't you, about money? Quite so, quite so! Not hear from you then till next quarter. No telegraphing--no begging letters. Shouldn't a bit know what to make of them. Plenty you got to last. Say so yourselves.” He laughed villainously here. ”Morning,”