‘I don’t want you to.’
‘Then what do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to pinch the thing and return it to Plank, who will then sell it to Mr. Travers at a proper price. The idea of Uncle Watkyn only giving him a fiver for it! We can’t have him getting away with raw work like that. He needs a sharp lesson.’
I smiled another tolerant smile. The young boll weevil amused me. I was thinking how right I had been in predicting that any job assigned by her to anyone would be unfit for human consumption.
‘Well, really, Stiffy!’
The quiet rebuke in my voice ought to have bathed her in shame and remorse, but it didn’t. She came back at me strongly.
‘I don’t know what you’re Well-really-ing about. You’re always pinching things, aren’t you? Policemen’s helmets and things like that.’
I inclined the bean. It was true that I had once lived in Arcady.
‘There is,’ I was obliged to concede, ‘a certain substance in what you say. I admit that in my time I may have removed a lid or two from the upper stories of members of the constabulary -‘
‘Well, then.’
‘- but only on Boat Race Night and when the heart was younger than it is as of even date. It was an episode of the sort that first brought me and your Uncle Watkyn together. But you can take it from me that the hot blood has cooled and I’m a reformed character. My answer to your suggestion is No.’
‘No?’
‘N-ruddy-o,’ I said, making it clear to the meanest intelligence. ‘Why don’t you pinch the thing yourself?’
‘It wouldn’t be any good. I couldn’t take it to Plank. I’m confined to barracks. Bartholomew bit the butler, and the sins of the Scottie are visited upon its owner. I do think you might reconsider, Bertie.’
‘Not a hope.’
‘You’re a blighter!’
‘But a blighter who knows his own mind and is not to be shaken by argument or plea, however specious.’
She was silent for a space. Then she gave a little sigh.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘And I did hope I wouldn’t have to tell Madeline about Gussie.’
I gave another of those visible starts of mine. I’ve seldom heard words I liked the sound of less. Fraught with sinister significance they seemed to me.
‘Do you know what happened tonight, Bertie? I was roused from sleep about an hour ago, and what do you think roused me? Stealthy footsteps, no less. I crept out of my room, and I saw Gussie sneaking down the stairs. All was darkness, of course, but he had a little torch and it shone on his spectacles. I followed him. He went to the kitchen. I peered in, and there was the cook shovelling cold steak and kidney pie into him like a stevedore loading a grain ship. And the thought flashed into my mind that if Madeline heard of this, she would give him the bum’s rush before he knew what had hit him.’
‘But a girl doesn’t give a fellow the bum’s rush just because she’s told him to stick to the sprouts and spinach and she hears that he’s been wading into the steak and kidney pie,’ I said, trying to reassure myself but not getting within several yards of it.
‘I bet Madeline would.’
And so, thinking it over, did I. You can’t judge goofs like Madeline Bassett by ordinary standards. What the normal popsy would do and what she would do in any given circumstances were two distinct and separate things. I had not forgotten the time when she had severed relations with Gussie purely because through no fault of his own he got stinko when about to present the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School.
‘You know how high her ideals are. Yes, sir, if someone were to drop an incautious word to her about tonight’s orgy, those wedding bells would not ring out. Gussie would be at liberty, and she would start looking about her for somebody else to fill the vacant spot. I really think you’ll have to reconsider that decision of yours, Bertie, and do just this one more bit of pinching.’