“I’ll do it, dad, if it kills me. Slip me the info!”
“Your stepmother’s friend Lady Corstorphine’s nephew…”
“It’s not the sort of story to ask a man with a headache to follow. I hope it gets simpler as it goes along.”
“Your stepmother wants you to be a good fellow and make friends with this boy. You see, his father is in right with the Premier and has the biggest kind of a pull when it comes to handing out titles.”
“Is that all you want? Leave it to me. Inside of a week I’ll be playing kiss-in-the-ring with him. The whole force of my sunny personality shall be directed towards making him love me. What’s his name?”
“Lord Percy Whipple.”
Jimmy’s pipe fell with a clatter.
“Dad, pull yourself together! Reflect! You know you don’t seriously mean Lord Percy Whipple.”
“Eh?”
Jimmy laid a soothing hand on his father’s shoulder.
“Dad, prepare yourself for the big laugh. This is where you throw your head back and roar with honest mirth. I met Lord Percy Whipple last night at the Six Hundred Club. Words ensued. I fell upon Percy and beat his block off! How it started, except that we both wanted the same table, I couldn’t say. ‘Why, that I cannot tell,’ said he, ‘but ’twas a famous victory!’ If I had known, dad, nothing would have induced me to lay a hand upon Perce, save in the way of kindness, but, not even knowing who he was, it would appear from contemporary accounts of the affair that I just naturally sailed in and expunged the poor, dear boy!”
The stunning nature of this information had much the same effect on Mr. Crocker as the announcement of his ruin has upon the Good Old Man in melodrama. He sat clutching the arms of his chair and staring into space, saying nothing. Dismay was written upon his anguished countenance.
His collapse sobered Jimmy. For the first time he perceived that the situation had another side than the humorous one which had appealed to him. He had anticipated that Mr. Crocker, who as a general thing shared his notions of what was funny and could be relied on to laugh in the right place, would have been struck, like himself, by the odd and pleasing coincidence of his having picked on for purposes of assault and battery the one young man with whom his stepmother wished him to form a firm and lasting friendship. He perceived now that his father was seriously upset. Neither Jimmy nor Mr. Crocker possessed a demonstrative nature, but there had always existed between them the deepest affection. Jimmy loved his father as he loved nobody else in the world, and the thought of having hurt him was like a physical pain. His laughter died away and he set himself with a sinking heart to try to undo the effect of his words.
“I’m awfully sorry, dad. I had no idea you would care. I wouldn’t have done a fool thing like that for a million dollars if I’d known. Isn’t there anything I can do? Gee whiz! I’ll go right round to Percy now and apologise. I’ll lick his boots. Don’t you worry, dad. I’ll make it all right.”
The whirl of words roused Mr. Crocker from his thoughts.
“It doesn’t matter, Jimmy. Don’t worry yourself. It’s only a little unfortunate, because our stepmother says she won’t think of our going back to America till these people here have given me a title. She wants to put one over on her sister. That’s all that’s troubling me, the thought that this affair will set us back, this Lord Percy being in so strong with the guys who give the titles. I guess it will mean my staying on here for a while longer, and I’d liked to have seen another ball-game. Jimmy, do you know they call baseball Rounders in this country, and children play it with a soft ball!”
Jimmy was striding up and down the little room. Remorse had him in its grip.
“What a damned fool I am!”
“Never mind, Jimmy. It’s unfortunate, but it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t know.”
“It was my fault. Nobody but a fool like me would go about beating people up. But don’t worry, dad. It’s going to be all right. I’ll fix it. I’m going right round to this fellow Percy now to make things all right. I won’t come back till I’ve squared him. Don’t you bother yourself about it any longer, dad. It’s going to be all right.”