"Hallo!"
"Do you like the name Mabel?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"You don"t think there"s a kind of music in the word, like the wind rustling gently through the tree-tops?"
"No."
He seemed disappointed for a moment; then cheered up.
"Of course, you wouldn"t. You always were a fatheaded worm without any soul, weren"t you?"
"Just as you say. Who is she? Tell me all."
For I realised now that poor old Bingo was going through it once again.
Ever since I have known him--and we were at school together--he has been perpetually falling in love with someone, generally in the spring, which seems to act on him like magic. At school he had the finest collection of actresses" photographs of anyone of his time; and at Oxford his romantic nature was a byword.
"You"d better come along and meet her at lunch," he said, looking at his watch.
"A ripe suggestion," I said. "Where are you meeting her? At the Ritz?"
"Near the Ritz."
He was geographically accurate. About fifty yards east of the Ritz there is one of those blighted tea-and-bun shops you see dotted about all over London, and into this, if you"ll believe me, young Bingo dived like a homing rabbit; and before I had time to say a word we were wedged in at a table, on the brink of a silent pool of coffee left there by an early luncher.
I"m bound to say I couldn"t quite follow the development of the scenario. Bingo, while not absolutely rolling in the stuff, has always had a fair amount of the ready. Apart from what he got from his uncle, I knew that he had finished up the jumping season well on the right side of the ledger. Why, then, was he lunching the girl at this G.o.d-forsaken eatery? It couldn"t be because he was hard up.
Just then the waitress arrived. Rather a pretty girl.
"Aren"t we going to wait----?" I started to say to Bingo, thinking it somewhat thick that, in addition to asking a girl to lunch with him in a place like this, he should fling himself on the foodstuffs before she turned up, when I caught sight of his face, and stopped.
The man was goggling. His entire map was suffused with a rich blush. He looked like the Soul"s Awakening done in pink.
"Hallo, Mabel!" he said, with a sort of gulp.
"Hallo!" said the girl.
"Mabel," said Bingo, "this is Bertie Wooster, a pal of mine."
"Pleased to meet you," she said. "Nice morning."
"Fine," I said.
"You see I"m wearing the tie," said Bingo.
"It suits you beautiful," said the girl.
Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie like that suited me, I should have risen and struck them on the mazzard, regardless of their age and s.e.x; but poor old Bingo simply got all fl.u.s.tered with gratification, and smirked in the most gruesome manner.
"Well, what"s it going to be to-day?" asked the girl, introducing the business touch into the conversation.
Bingo studied the menu devoutly.
"I"ll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruit cake, and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie?"
I gazed at the man, revolted. That he could have been a pal of mine all these years and think me capable of insulting the old turn with this sort of stuff cut me to the quick.
"Or how about a bit of hot steak-pudding, with a sparkling limado to wash it down?" said Bingo.
You know, the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate. This chappie before me, who spoke in that absolutely careless way of macaroons and limado, was the man I had seen in happier days telling the head-waiter at Claridge"s exactly how he wanted the _chef_ to prepare the _sole frite au gourmet aux champignons_, and saying he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn"t just right.
Ghastly! Ghastly!
A roll and b.u.t.ter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn"t been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose them, and Mabel hopped it.
"Well?" said Bingo rapturously.
I took it that he wanted my opinion of the female poisoner who had just left us.
"Very nice," I said.
He seemed dissatisfied.
"You don"t think she"s the most wonderful girl you ever saw?" he said wistfully.
"Oh, absolutely!" I said, to appease the blighter. "Where did you meet her?"
"At a subscription dance at Camberwell."
"What on earth were you doing at a subscription dance at Camberwell?"
"Your man Jeeves asked me if I would buy a couple of tickets. It was in aid of some charity or other."
"Jeeves? I didn"t know he went in for that sort of thing."
"Well, I suppose he has to relax a bit every now and then. Anyway, he was there, swinging a dashed efficient shoe. I hadn"t meant to go at first, but I turned up for a lark. Oh, Bertie, think what I might have missed!"
"What might you have missed?" I asked, the old lemon being slightly clouded.
"Mabel, you chump. If I hadn"t gone I shouldn"t have met Mabel."
"Oh, ah!"
At this point Bingo fell into a species of trance, and only came out of it to wrap himself round the pie and macaroon.