‘Of course, one can see it from Sir Watkyn’s point of view,’ said Stinker, who, if he has a fault besides bumping into furniture and upsetting it, is always far too tolerant in his attitude toward the dregs of humanity. ‘He thinks that if I’d drilled the distinction between right and wrong more vigorously into the minds of the Infants Bible Class, the thing wouldn’t have happened.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Stiffy.
Nor did I. In my opinion, no amount of Sunday afternoon instruction would have been sufficient to teach a growing boy not to throw hard-boiled eggs at Sir Watkyn Bassett.
‘But there’s nothing I can do about it, is there?’ I said.
‘You bet there is,’ said Stiffy. ‘We haven’t lost all hope of sweetening him. The great thing is to let his nervous system gradually recover its poise, and what we came to see you about, Bertie, was to tell you on no account to go near him till he’s had a chance to simmer down. Don’t seek him out. Leave him alone. The sight of you does something to him.’
‘No more than the sight of him does to me,’ I riposted warmly. I resented the suggestion that I had nothing better to do with my time than fraternize with ex-magistrates. ‘Certainly I’ll avoid his society. It’ll be a pleasure. Is that all?’
‘That’s all.’
‘Then I’ll be getting back to Gussie,’ I said, and was starting to move off, when Stiffy uttered a sharp squeak.
‘Gussie! That reminds me. There’s something I wanted to tell him, something of vital concern to him, and I can’t think how it slipped my mind. Gussie,’ she called, and Gussie, seeming to wake abruptly from a daydream, blinked and came over. ‘What are you doing hanging about here, Gussie?’
‘Who, me? I was discussing something with Bertie, and he said he’d be back, when at liberty, to go into it further.’
‘Well, let me tell you that you’ve no time for discussing things with Bertie.’
‘Eh?’
‘Or for saying “Eh?” I met Roderick just now, and he asked me if I knew where you were, because he wants to tear you limb from limb owing to his having seen you kiss the cook.’
Gussie’s jaw fell with a dull thud.
‘You never told me that,’ he said to me, and one spotted the note of reproach in his voice.
‘No, sorry, I forgot to mention it. But it’s true. You’d better start coping. Run like a hare, is my advice.’
He took it. Standing not on the order of his gomg as the fdlow said, he dashed off as if shot from a gun, and was makmg excellent time when he was brought up short by colliding with Spode, who had at that moment entered left centre.
15
It’s always disconcerting to have even as small a chap as Gussie take you squarely in the midriff, as I myself can testify, having had the same experience down in Washington Square during a visit to New York. Washington Square is bountifully supplied with sad-eyed Italian kids who whizz to and fro on roller skates, and one of them, proceeding on his way with lowered head, rammed me in the neighbourhood of the third waistcoat button at a high rate of m.p.h. It gave me a strange Where-am-I feeling, and I imagine Spode’s sensations were somewhat similar. His breath escaped him in a sharp ‘Oof!’ and he swayed like some forest tree beneath the woodman’s axe. But unfortunately Gussie had paused to sway, too, and this gave him time to steady himself on even keel and regroup his forces. Reaching out a hamlike hand, he attached it to the scruff of Gussie’s neck and said ‘Ha!’
‘Ha!’ is one of those things it’s never easy to find the right reply to – it resembles ‘You!’ in that respect – but Gussie was saved the necessity of searching for words by the fact that he was being shaken like a cocktail in a manner that precluded speech, if precluded is the word I want. His spectacles fell off and came to rest near where I was standing. I picked them up with a view to returning them to him when he had need of them, which I could see would not be immediately.