The Little Nugget, P. G. Wodehouse [interesting novels in english .txt] 📗

you talk like that!' said Mrs Ford. 'Oggie is a sweet boy in every respect.'

'You're perfectly right, Nesta,' said Mr Ford. 'He may want intelligent handling, but he's a mighty fine boy. I shall make inquiries, and if this man has been ill-treating Ogden, I shall complain to Mr Abney. Where the devil is this man Fisher?' he broke off abruptly.

'On the spot,' said an affable voice. The bushes behind me parted, and Smooth Sam stepped out on to the gravel.

I had recognized him by his voice. I certainly should not have done so by his appearance. He had taken the precaution of 'making up' for this important meeting. A white wig of indescribable respectability peeped out beneath his black hat. His eyes twinkled from under two penthouses of white eyebrows. A white moustache covered his mouth. He was venerable to a degree.

He nodded to me, and bared his white head gallantly to Mrs Ford.

'No worse for our little outing, Mr Burns, I am glad to see. Mrs Ford, I must apologize for my apparent unpunctuality, but I was not really behind time. I have been waiting in the bushes. I thought it just possible that you might have brought unwelcome members of the police force with you, and I have been scouting, as it were, before making my advance. I see, however, that all is well, and we can come at once to business. May I say, before we begin, that I overheard your recent conversation, and that I entirely disagree with Mr Burns. Master Ford is a charming boy. Already I feel like an elder brother to him. I am loath to part with him.'

'How much?' snapped Mr Ford. 'You've got me. How much do you want?'

'I'll give you double what he offers,' cried Mrs Ford.

Sam held up his hand, his old pontifical manner intensified by the white wig.

'May I speak? Thank you. This is a little embarrassing. When I asked you both to meet me here, it was not for the purpose of holding an auction. I had a straight-forward business proposition to make to you. It will necessitate a certain amount of plain and somewhat personal speaking. May I proceed? Thank you. I will be as brief as possible.'

His eloquence appeared to have had a soothing effect on the two
Fords. They remained silent.

'You must understand,' said Sam, 'that I am speaking as an expert. I have been in the kidnapping business many years, and I know what I am talking about. And I tell you that the moment you two got your divorce, you said good-bye to all peace and quiet. Bless you'—Sam's manner became fatherly—'I've seen it a hundred times. Couple get divorced, and, if there's a child, what happens? They start in playing battledore-and-shuttlecock with him. Wife sneaks him from husband. Husband sneaks him back from wife. After a while along comes a gentleman in my line of business, a professional at the game, and he puts one across on both the amateurs. He takes advantage of the confusion, slips in, and gets away with the kid. That's what has happened here, and I'm going to show you the way to stop it another time. Now I'll make you a proposition. What you want to do'—I have never heard anything so soothing, so suggestive of the old family friend healing an unfortunate breach, as Sam's voice at this juncture—'what you want to do is to get together again right quick. Never mind the past. Let bygones be bygones. Kiss and be friends.'

A snort from Mr Ford checked him for a moment, but he resumed.

'I guess there were faults on both sides. Get together and talk it over. And when you've agreed to call the fight off and start fair again, that's where I come in. Mr Burns here will tell you, if you ask him, that I'm anxious to quit this business and marry and settle down. Well, see here. What you want to do is to give me a salary—we can talk figures later on—to stay by you and watch over the kid. Don't snort—I'm talking plain sense. You'd a sight better have me with you than against you. Set a thief to catch a thief. What I don't know about the fine points of the game isn't worth knowing. I'll guarantee, if you put me in charge, to see that nobody comes within a hundred miles of the kid unless he has an order-to-view. You'll find I earn every penny of that salary … Mr Burns and I will now take a turn up the drive while you think it over.'

He linked his arm in mine and drew me away. As we turned the corner of the drive I caught a glimpse over my shoulder of the Little Nugget's parents. They were standing where we had left them, as if Sam's eloquence had rooted them to the spot.

'Well, well, well, young man,' said Sam, eyeing me affectionately, 'it's pleasant to meet you again, under happier conditions than last time. You certainly have all the luck, sonny, or you would have been badly hurt that night. I was getting scared how the thing would end. Buck's a plain roughneck, and his gang are as bad as he is, and they had got mighty sore at you, mighty sore. If they had grabbed you, there's no knowing what might not have happened. However, all's well that ends well, and this little game has surely had the happy ending. I shall get that job, sonny. Old man Ford isn't a fool, and it won't take him long, when he gets to thinking it over, to see that I'm right. He'll hire me.'

'Aren't you rather reckoning without your partner?' I said. 'Where does Buck MacGinnis come in on the deal?'

Sam patted my shoulder paternally.

'He doesn't, sonny, he doesn't. It was a shame to do it—it was like taking candy from a kid—but business is business, and I was reluctantly compelled to double-cross poor old Buck. I sneaked the Nugget away from him next day. It's not worth talking about; it was too easy. Buck's all right in a rough-and-tumble, but when it comes to brains he gets left, and so he'll go on through life, poor fellow. I hate to think of it.'

He sighed. Buck's misfortunes seemed to move him deeply.

'I shouldn't be surprised if he gave up the profession after this. He has had enough to discourage him. I told you about what happened to him that night, didn't I? No? I thought I did. Why, Buck was the guy who did the Steve Brodie through the roof; and, when we picked him up, we found he'd broken his leg again! Isn't that enough to jar a man? I guess he'll retire from the business after that. He isn't intended for it.'

We were approaching the two automobiles now, and, looking back, I saw Mr and Mrs Ford walking up the drive. Sam followed my gaze, and I heard him chuckle.

'It's all right,' he said. 'They've fixed it up. Something in the way they're walking tells me they've fixed it up.'

Mrs Drassilis was still sitting in the red automobile, looking piqued but resigned. Mrs Ford addressed her.

'I shall have to leave you, Mrs Drassilis,' she said. 'Tell Jarvis to drive you wherever you want to go. I am going with my husband to see my boy Oggie.'

She stretched out a hand towards the millionaire. He caught it in
his, and they stood there, smiling foolishly at each other, while
Sam, almost purring, brooded over them like a stout fairy queen.
The two chauffeurs looked on woodenly.

Mr Ford released his wife's hand and turned to Sam.

'Fisher.'

'Sir?'

'I've been considering your proposition. There's a string tied to it.'

'Oh no, sir, I assure you!'

'There is. What guarantee have I that you won't double-cross me?'

Sam smiled, relieved.

'You forget that I told you I was about to be married, sir. My wife won't let me!'

Mr Ford waved his hand towards the automobile.

'Jump in,' he said briefly, 'and tell him where to drive to.
You're engaged!'

Chapter 18

'No manners!' said Mrs Drassilis. 'None whatever. I always said so.'

She spoke bitterly. She was following the automobile with an offended eye as it moved down the drive.

The car rounded the corner. Sam turned and waved a farewell. Mr and Mrs Ford, seated close together in the tonneau, did not even look round.

Mrs Drassilis sniffed disgustedly.

'She's a friend of Cynthia's. Cynthia asked me to come down here with her to see you. I came, to oblige her. And now, without a word of apology, she leaves me stranded. She has no manners whatever.'

I offered no defence of the absent one. The verdict more or less squared with my own opinion.

'Is Cynthia back in England?' I asked, to change the subject.

'The yacht got back yesterday. Peter, I have something of the utmost importance to speak to you about.' She glanced at Jarvis the chauffeur, leaning back in his seat with the air, peculiar to chauffeurs in repose, of being stuffed. 'Walk down the drive with me.'

I helped her out of the car, and we set off in silence. There was a suppressed excitement in my companion's manner which interested me, and something furtive which brought back all my old dislike of her. I could not imagine what she could have to say to me that had brought her all these miles.

'How do you come to be down here?' she said. 'When Cynthia told me you were here, I could hardly believe her. Why are you a master at this school? I cannot understand it!'

'What did you want to see me about?' I asked.

She hesitated. It was always an effort for her to be direct. Now, apparently, the effort was too great. The next moment she had rambled off on some tortuous bypath of her own, which, though it presumably led in the end to her destination, was evidently a long way round.

'I have known you for so many years now, Peter, and I don't know of anybody whose character I admire more. You are so generous—quixotic in fact. You are one of the few really unselfish men I have ever met. You are always thinking of other people. Whatever it cost you, I know you would not hesitate to give up anything if you felt that it was for someone else's happiness. I do admire you so for it. One meets so few young men nowadays who consider anybody except themselves.'

She paused, either for breath or for fresh ideas, and I took advantage of the lull in the rain of bouquets to repeat my question.

'What did you want to see me about?' I asked patiently.

'About Cynthia. She asked me to see you.'

'Oh!'

'You got a letter from her.'

'Yes.'

'Last night, when she came home, she told me about it, and showed me your answer. It was a beautiful letter, Peter. I'm sure I cried when I read it. And Cynthia did, I feel certain. Of course, to a girl of her character that letter was final. She is so loyal, dear child.'

'I don't understand.'

As Sam would have said, she seemed to be speaking; words appeared to be fluttering from her; but her meaning was beyond me.

'Once she has given her promise, I am sure nothing would induce her to break it, whatever her private feelings. She is so loyal. She has such character.'

'Would you mind being a little clearer?' I said sharply. 'I really don't understand what it is you are trying to tell me. What do you mean about loyalty and character? I don't understand.'

She was not to be hustled from her bypath. She had chosen her route, and she meant to travel by it, ignoring short-cuts.

'To Cynthia, as I say, it was final. She simply could not see that the matter was not irrevocably settled. I thought it so fine of her. But I am her mother, and it was my duty not to give in and accept the situation as inevitable while there was anything I could do for her happiness. I knew your chivalrous, unselfish nature, Peter. I could speak to you as Cynthia could not. I could appeal to your generosity in a way impossible, of course, for her. I could put the whole facts of the case clearly before you.'

I snatched at the words.

'I wish you would. What are they?'

She rambled off again.

'She has such a rigid sense of duty. There is no arguing with her. I told her