“Where are you going to be married?”
“In London. Alice sneaked off there last night. It was easy, as it happened, because by a bit of luck old Marshmoreton had gone to town yesterday morning–nobody knows why: he doesn’t go up to London more than a couple of times a year. She’s going to meet me at the Savoy, and then the scheme was to toddle round to the nearest registrar and request the lad to unleash the marriage service. I’m whizzing up in the car, and I’m hoping to be able to persuade you to come with me. Say the word, laddie!”
George reflected. He liked Reggie, and there was no particular reason in the world why he should not give him aid and comfort in this crisis. True, in his present frame of mind, it would be torture to witness a wedding ceremony; but he ought not to let that stand in the way of helping a friend.
“All right,” he said.
“Stout fellow! I don’t know how to thank you. It isn’t putting you out or upsetting your plans, I hope, or anything on those lines?”
“Not at all. I had to go up to London today, anyway.”
“Well, you can’t get there quicker than in my car. She’s a hummer. By the way, I forgot to ask. How is your little affair coming along? Everything going all right?”
“In a way,” said George. He was not equal to confiding his troubles to Reggie.
“Of course, your trouble isn’t like mine was. What I mean is, Maud loves you, and all that, and all you’ve got to think out is a scheme for laying the jolly old family a stymie. It’s a pity–almost–that yours isn’t a case of having to win the girl, like me; because by Jove, laddie,” said Reggie with solemn emphasis, “I could help you there. I’ve got the thing down fine. I’ve got the infallible dope.”
George smiled bleakly.
“You have? You’re a useful fellow to have around. I wish you would tell me what it is.”
“But you don’t need it.”
“No, of course not. I was forgetting.”
Reggie looked at his watch.
“We ought to be shifting in a quarter of an hour or so. I don’t want to be late. It appears that there’s a catch of some sort in this business of getting married. As far as I can make out, if you roll in after a certain hour, the Johnnie in charge of the proceedings gives you the miss-in-baulk, and you have to turn up again next day. However, we shall be all right unless we have a breakdown, and there’s not much chance of that. I’ve been tuning up the old car since seven this morning, and she’s sound in wind and limb, absolutely. Oil–petrol–water–air–nuts–bolts–sprockets– carburetter–all present and correct. I’ve been looking after them like a lot of baby sisters. Well, as I was saying, I’ve got the dope. A week ago I was just one of the mugs–didn’t know a thing about it–but now! Gaze on me, laddie! You see before you old Colonel Romeo, the Man who Knows! It all started on the night of the ball. There was the dickens of a big ball, you know, to celebrate old Boots’ coming-of-age–to which, poor devil, he contributed nothing but the sunshine of his smile, never having learned to dance. On that occasion a most rummy and extraordinary thing happened. I got pickled to the eyebrows!” He laughed happily. “I don’t mean that that was a unique occurrence and so forth, because, when I was a bachelor, it was rather a habit of mine to get a trifle submerged every now and again on occasions of decent mirth and festivity. But the rummy thing that night was that I showed it. Up till then, I’ve been told by experts, I was a chappie in whom it was absolutely impossible to detect the symptoms. You might get a bit suspicious if you found I couldn’t move, but you could never be certain. On the night of the ball, however, I suppose I had been filling the radiator a trifle too enthusiastically. You see, I had deliberately tried to shove myself more or less below the surface in order to get enough nerve to propose to Alice. I don’t know what your experience has been, but mine is that proposing’s a thing that simply isn’t within the scope of a man who isn’t moderately woozled. I’ve often wondered how marriages ever occur in the dry States of America. Well, as I was saying, on the night of the ball a most rummy thing happened. I thought one of the waiters was you!”