Something New, P. G. Wodehouse [best desktop ebook reader .TXT] 📗

And Mr. Beach told him all about his feet.

The pleasantest functions must come to an end, and the moment arrived when the final word on the subject of swollen joints was spoken. Ashe, who had resigned himself to a permanent contemplation of the subject, could hardly believe he heard correctly when, at the end of some ten minutes, his companion changed the conversation.

“You have been with Mr. Peters some time, Mr. Marson?”

“Eh? Oh! Oh, no only since last Wednesday.”

“Indeed! Might I inquire whom you assisted before that?”

For a moment Ashe did what he would not have believed himself capable of doing⁠—regretted that the topic of feet was no longer under discussion. The question placed him in an awkward position. If he lied and credited himself with a lengthy experience as a valet, he risked exposing himself. If he told the truth and confessed that this was his maiden effort in the capacity of gentleman’s gentleman, what would the butler think? There were objections to each course, but to tell the truth was the easier of the two; so he told it.

“Your first situation?” said Mr. Beach. “Indeed!”

“I was⁠—er⁠—doing something else before I met Mr. Peters,” said Ashe.

Mr. Beach was too well-bred to be inquisitive, but his eyebrows were not.

“Ah!” he said. “?” cried his eyebrows. “?⁠—?⁠—?”

Ashe ignored the eyebrows.

“Something different,” he said.

There was an awkward silence. Ashe appreciated its awkwardness. He was conscious of a grievance against Mr. Peters. Why could not Mr. Peters have brought him down here as his secretary? To be sure, he had advanced some objection to that course in their conversation at the offices of Mainprice, Mainprice & Boole; but merely a silly, farfetched objection. He wished he had had the sense to fight the point while there was time; but at the moment when they were arranging plans he had been rather tickled by the thought of becoming a valet. The notion had a pleasing musical-comedy touch about it. Why had he not foreseen the complications that must ensue? He could tell by the look on his face that this confounded butler was waiting for him to give a full explanation. What would he think if he withheld it? He would probably suppose that Ashe had been in prison.

Well, there was nothing to be done about it. If Beach was suspicious, he must remain suspicious. Fortunately the suspicions of a butler do not matter much.

Mr. Beach’s eyebrows were still mutely urging him to reveal all, but Ashe directed his gaze at that portion of the room which Mr. Beach did not fill. He would be hanged if he was going to let himself be hypnotized by a pair of eyebrows into incriminating himself! He glared stolidly at the pattern of the wallpaper, which represented a number of birds of an unknown species seated on a corresponding number of exotic shrubs.

The silence was growing oppressive. Somebody had to break it soon. And as Mr. Beach was still confining himself to the language of the eyebrow and apparently intended to fight it out on that line if it took all Summer, Ashe himself broke it.

It seemed to him as he reconstructed the scene in bed that night that Providence must have suggested the subject to Mr. Peters’ indigestion; for the mere mention of his employer’s sufferings acted like magic on the butler.

“I might have had better luck while I was looking for a place,” said Ashe. “I dare say you know how bad-tempered Mr. Peters is. He is dyspeptic.”

“So,” responded Mr. Beach, “I have been informed.” He brooded for a space. “I, too,” he proceeded, “suffer from my stomach. I have a weak stomach. The lining of my stomach is not what I could wish the lining of my stomach to be.”

“Tell me,” said Ashe gratefully, leaning forward in an attitude of attention, “all about the lining of your stomach.”

It was a quarter of an hour later when Mr. Beach was checked in his discourse by the chiming of the little clock on the mantelpiece. He turned round and gazed at it with surprise not unmixed with displeasure.

“So late?” he said. “I shall have to be going about my duties. And you, also, Mr. Marson, if I may make the suggestion. No doubt Mr. Peters will be wishing to have your assistance in preparing for dinner. If you go along the passage outside you will come to the door that separates our portion of the house from the other. I must beg you to excuse me. I have to go to the cellar.”

Following his directions Ashe came after a walk of a few yards to a green-baize door, which, swinging at his push, gave him a view of what he correctly took to be the main hall of the castle⁠—a wide, comfortable space, ringed with settees and warmed by a log fire burning in a mammoth fireplace. On the right a broad staircase led to the upper regions.

It was at this point that Ashe realized the incompleteness of Mr. Beach’s directions. Doubtless, the broad staircase would take him to the floor on which were the bedrooms; but how was he to ascertain, without the tedious process of knocking and inquiring at each door, which was the one assigned to Mr. Peters? It was too late to go back and ask the butler for further guidance; already he was on his way to the cellar in quest of the evening’s wine.

As he stood irresolute a door across the hall opened and a man of his own age came out. Through the doorway, which the young man held open for an instant while he answered a question from somebody within, Ashe had a glimpse of glass-topped cases.

Could this be the museum⁠—his goal? The next moment the door, opening a few inches more, revealed the outlying portions of an Egyptian mummy and brought certainty. It flashed across Ashe’s mind that the sooner he explored the museum and located Mr. Peters’ scarab, the better. He decided to ask Beach to take him there as soon as he had leisure.

Meantime the young man had closed the museum door and