Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (18 page)

This, then, was the position in which my distant cousin Montrose
found himself at eight minutes past five on this misty evening. A position
calculated to test the fortitude of the sternest.

Now, it has been well said that with nervous, highly-strung
men like Montrose Mulliner, a sudden call upon their manhood
is often enough to revolutionize their whole character. Psychologists
have frequently commented on this. We are too ready, they
say, to dismiss as cowards those who merely require the stimulus
of the desperate emergency to bring out all their latent heroism.
The crisis comes, and the craven turns magically into the paladin.

With Montrose, however, this was not the case. Ninety-nine
out of a hundred of those who knew him would have scoffed at
the idea of him interfering with an escaped gorilla to save the life
of a child, and they would have been right. To tiptoe backwards,
holding his breath, was with Montrose Mulliner the work of a
moment. And it was the fact that he did it so quickly that
wrecked his plans. Stubbing a heel on a loose board in his
haste, he fell backwards with a crash. And when the stars had
ceased to obscure his vision, he found himself gazing up into the
hideous face of the gorilla.

On the last occasion when the two had met, there had been
iron bars between them: and even with this safeguard Montrose,
as I have said, had shrunk from the creature's evil stare. Now,
meeting the brute as it were socially, he experienced a thrill of
horror such as had never come to him even in nightmares.
Closing his eyes, he began to speculate as to which limb, when
it started to tear him limb from limb, the animal would start with.

The one thing of which he was sure was that it would begin
operations by uttering a fearful snarl: and when the next sound
that came to his ears was a deprecating cough he was so astonished
that he could keep his eyes closed no longer. Opening
them, he found the gorilla looking at him with an odd, apologetic
expression on its face.

'Excuse me, sir,' said the gorilla, 'but are you by any chance a
family man?'

For an instant, on hearing the question, Montrose's astonishment
deepened. Then he realized what must have happened.
He must have been torn limb from limb without knowing it, and
now he was in heaven. Though even this did not altogether
satisfy him as an explanation, for he had never expected to find
gorillas in heaven.

The animal now gave a sudden start.

'Why, it's you! I didn't recognize you at first. Before going any
further, I should like to thank you for those bananas. They were
delicious. A little something round about the middle of the
afternoon picks one up quite a bit, doesn't it.'

Montrose blinked. He could still hear the noise of the crowd
below. His bewilderment increased.

'You speak very good English for a gorilla,' was all he could
find to say. And, indeed, the animal's diction had been remarkable
for its purity.

The gorilla waved the compliment aside modestly.

'Oh, well, Balliol, you know. Dear old Balliol. One never
quite forgets the lessons one learned at Alma Mater, don't you
think? You are not an Oxford man, by any chance?'

'No.'

'I came down in '26. Since then I have been knocking around a
good deal, and a friend of mine in the circus business suggested
to me that the gorilla field was not overcrowded. Plenty of room
at the top, was his expression. And I must say,' said the gorilla,
'I've done pretty well at it. The initial expenditure comes high, of
course ... you don't get a skin like this for nothing ... but there's
virtually no overhead. Of course, to become a co-star in a big
feature film, as I have done, you need a good agent. Mine, I am
glad to say, is a capital man of business. Stands no nonsense from
these motion-picture magnates.'

Montrose was not a quick thinker, but he was gradually
adjusting his mind to the facts.

'Then you're not a real gorilla?'

'No, no. Synthetic, merely.'

'You wouldn't tear anyone limb from limb?'

'My dear chap! My idea of a nice time is to curl up with a good
book. I am happiest among my books.'

Montrose's last doubts were resolved. He extended his hand
cordially.

'Pleased to meet you, Mr ...'

'Waddesley-Davenport. Cyril Waddesley-Davenport. And
I am extremely happy to meet you, Mr ...'

'Mulliner. Montrose Mulliner.'

They shook hands warmly. From down below came the
hoarse uproar of the crowd. The gorilla started.

'The reason I asked you if you were a family man,' it said, 'was
that I hoped you might be able to tell me what is the best method
of procedure to adopt with a crying baby. I don't seem able to
stop the child. And all my own silly fault, too. I see now I should
never have snatched it from its perambulator. If you want
to know what is the matter with me, I am too much the artist.
I simply had to snatch that baby. It was how I saw the scene. I
felt
it ... felt it
here,'
said the gorilla, thumping the left side of its
chest. And now what?'

Montrose reflected.

'Why don't you take it back?'

'To its mother?'

'Certainly.'

'But ...' The gorilla pulled doubtfully at its lower lip. 'You
have seen that crowd. Did you happen to observe a woman
standing in the front row waving an umbrella?'

'The mother?'

'Precisely. Well, you know as well as I do, Mulliner, what an
angry woman can do with an umbrella.'

Montrose thought again.

'It's all right,' he said. 'I have it. Why don't you sneak down
the back steps? Nobody will see you. The crowd's in front, and
it's almost dark.'

The gorilla's eyes lit up. It slapped Montrose gratefully on the
shoulder.

'My dear chap! The very thing. But as regards the baby...'

'I will restore it.'

'Capital! I don't know how to thank you, dear fellow,' said
the gorilla. 'By Jove, this is going to be a lesson to me in future not to
give way to the artist in me. You don't know how I've been feeling about that
umbrella. Well, then, in case we don't meet again, always remember that the
Lotos Club finds me when I am in New York. Drop in any time you happen to
be in that neighbourhood and we'll have a bite to eat and a good talk.'

And what of Rosalie, meanwhile? Rosalie was standing
between the bereaved mother, using all her powers of cajolery
to try to persuade Captain Jack Fosdyke to go to the rescue: and
the Captain was pleading technical difficulties that stood in the
way.

'Dash my buttons,' he said, 'if only I had my elephant gun and
my trusty native bearer, 'Mlongi, here, I'd pretty soon know what
to do about it. As it is, I'm handicapped.'

'But you told me yesterday that you had often strangled
gorillas with your bare hands.'

'Not
gor
-illas, dear lady –
por-illas.
A species of South American
wombat, and very good eating they make, too.'

'You're afraid!'

Afraid? Jack Fosdyke afraid? How they would laugh on the
Lower Zambesi if they could hear you say that.'

'You are! You, who advised me to have nothing to do with the
man I love because he was of a mild and diffident nature.'

Captain Jack Fosdyke twirled his moustache.

'Well, I don't notice,' he sneered, 'that he ...' He broke off,
and his jaw slowly fell. Round the corner of the building was
walking Montrose Mulliner. His bearing was erect, even jaunty,
and he carried the baby in his arms. Pausing for an instant to
allow the busily-clicking cameras to focus him, he advanced
towards the stupefied mother and thrust the child into her arms.

'That's that,' he said carelessly, dusting his fingers. 'No, no,
please,' he went on. 'A mere nothing.'

For the mother was kneeling before him, endeavouring to
kiss his hand. It was not only maternal love that prompted the
action. That morning she had signed up her child at seventy-five
dollars a week for the forthcoming picture, 'Tiny Fingers,' and
all through these long, anxious minutes it had seemed as though
the contract must be a total loss.

Rosalie was in Montrose's arms, sobbing.

'Oh, Monty!'

'There, there!'

'How I misjudged you!'

'We all make mistakes.'

'I made a bad one when I listened to that man there,' said
Rosalie, darting a scornful look at Captain Jack Fosdyke. 'Do
you realize that, for all his boasting, he would not move a step to
save that poor child?'

'Not a step?'

'Not a single step.'

'Bad, Fosdyke,' said Montrose. 'Rather bad. Not quite the
straight bat, eh?'

'Tchah!' said the baffled man, and he turned on his heel and
strode away. He was still twirling his moustache, but a lot that
got him.

Rosalie was clinging to Montrose.

'You aren't hurt? Was it a fearful struggle?'

'Struggle?' Montrose laughed. 'Oh, dear no. There was no
struggle. I very soon showed the animal that I was going to stand
no nonsense. I generally find with gorillas that all one needs is
the power of the human eye. By the way, I've been thinking it
over and I realize that I may have been a little unreasonable
about that idea of yours. I still would prefer to get married in
some nice, quiet church, but if you feel you want the ceremony to
take place in that animal's cage, I shall be delighted.'

She shivered.

'I couldn't do it. I'd be scared.'

Montrose smiled understandingly.

'Ah, well,' he said, 'it is perhaps not unnatural that a delicately
nurtured woman should be of less tough stuff than the more
rugged male. Shall we be strolling along? I want to look in on
Mr Schnellenhamer, and arrange about that raise of mine. You
won't mind waiting while I pop in at his office?'

'My hero!' whispered Rosalie.

T
HE
presentation of the super film, 'Baby Boy,' at the Bijou
Dream in the High Street, had led to an animated discussion in
the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest. Several of our prominent
first-nighters had dropped in there for a much-needed restorative
after the performance, and the conversation had turned to
the subject of child stars in the motion-pictures.

'I understand they're all midgets, really,' said a Rum and Milk.

'That's what I heard, too,' said a Whisky and Splash. 'Somebody
told me that at every studio in Hollywood they have a
special man who does nothing but go round the country, combing
the circuses, and when he finds a good midget he signs
him up.'

Almost automatically we looked at Mr Mulliner, as if seeking
from that unfailing fount of wisdom an authoritative pronouncement
on this difficult point. The Sage of the bar-parlour
sipped his hot Scotch and lemon for a moment in thoughtful
silence.

'The question you have raised,' he said at length, 'is one that
has occupied the minds of thinking men ever since these little
excrescences first became popular on the screen. Some argue that
mere children could scarcely be so loathsome. Others maintain
that a right-minded midget would hardly stoop to some of the
things these child stars do. But, then, arising from that, we have
to ask ourselves: Are midgets right-minded? The whole thing is
very moot.'

'Well, this kid we saw to-night,' said the Rum and Milk. 'This
Johnny Bingley. Nobody's going to tell me he's only eight
years old.'

'In the case of Johnny Bingley,' assented Mr Mulliner, 'your
intuition has not led you astray. I believe he is in the early forties.
I happen to know all about him because it was he who played
so important a part in the affairs of my distant connection,
Wilmot.'

'Was your distant connection Wilmot a midget?'

'No. He was a Nodder.'

'A what?'

Mr Mulliner smiled.

'It is not easy to explain to the lay mind the extremely intricate
ramifications of the personnel of a Hollywood motion-picture
organization. Putting it as briefly as possible, a Nodder is something
like a Yes-Man, only lower in the social scale. A Yes-Man's
duty is to attend conferences and say 'Yes." A Nodder's, as the
name implies, is to nod. The chief executive throws out some
statement of opinion, and looks about him expectantly. This is
the cue for the senior Yes-Man to say yes. He is followed, in
order of precedence, by the second Yes-Man – or Vice-Yesser, as
he is sometimes called – and the junior Yes-Man. Only when all
the Yes-Men have yessed, do the Nodders begin to function.
They nod.'

A Pint of Half-and-Half said it didn't sound much of a job.

'Not very exalted,' agreed Mr Mulliner. 'It is a position which
you might say, roughly, lies socially somewhere in between that
of the man who works the wind-machine and that of a writer of
additional dialogue. There is also a class of Untouchables who
are know as Nodders' assistants, but this is a technicality with
which I need not trouble you. At the time when my story begins,
my distant connection Wilmot was a full Nodder. Yet, even so,
there is no doubt that he was aiming a little high when he
ventured to aspire to the hand of Mabel Potter, the private
secretary of Mr Schnellenhamer, the head of the Perfecto-Zizz-baum
Corporation.

Indeed, between a girl so placed and a man in my distant
connection's position there could, in ordinary circumstances,
scarcely have been anything in the nature of friendly intercourse.
Wilmot owed his entry to her good graces to a combination of
two facts – the first, that in his youth he had been brought up on
a farm and so was familiar with the customs and habits of birds;
the second, that before coming to Hollywood, Miss Potter had
been a bird-imitator in vaudeville.

Too little has been written of vaudeville bird-imitators and
their passionate devotion to their art: but everybody knows the
saying, Once a Bird-Imitator, Always a Bird-Imitator. The
Mabel Potter of to-day might be a mere lovely machine for
taking notes and tapping out her employer's correspondence,
but within her there still burned the steady flame of those high
ideals which always animate a girl who has once been accustomed
to render to packed houses the liquid notes of the cuckoo,
the whip-poor-will, and other songsters who are familiar to
you all.

That this was so was revealed to Wilmot one morning when,
wandering past an outlying set, he heard raised voices within
and, recognizing the silver tones of his adored one, paused to
listen. Mabel Potter seemed to be having some kind of an
argument with a director.

'Considering,' she was saying, 'that I only did it to oblige and
that it is in no sense a part of my regular duties for which I draw
my salary, I must say...'

'All right, all right,' said the director.

'... that you have a nerve calling me down on the subject of
cuckoos. Let me tell you, Mr Murgatroyd, that I have made a
lifelong study of cuckoos and know them from soup to nuts.
I have imitated cuckoos in every theatre on every circuit in the
land. Not to mention urgent offers from England, Australia
and ...'

'I know, I know,' said the director.

'... South Africa, which I was compelled to turn down
because my dear mother, then living, disliked ocean travel. My
cuckoo is world-famous. Give me time to go home and fetch it
and I'll show you the clipping from the
St Louis Post-Democrat
where it says ...'

'I know, I know, I know,' said the director, 'but, all the same,
I think I'll have somebody do it who'll do it my way.'

The next moment Mabel Potter had swept out, and Wilmot
addressed her with respectful tenderness.

'Is something the matter, Miss Potter? Is there anything
I can do?'

Mabel Potter was shaking with dry sobs. Her self-esteem had
been rudely bruised.

'Well, look,' she said. 'They ask me as a special favour to come
and imitate the call of the cuckoo for this new picture, and when
I do it Mr Murgatroyd says I've done it wrong.'

'The hound,' breathed Wilmot.

'He says a cuckoo goes Cuckoo, Cuckoo, when everybody
who has studied the question knows that what it really goes is
Wuckoo, Wuckoo.'

'Of course. Not a doubt about it. A distinct "W" sound.'

'As if it had got something wrong with the roof of its
mouth.'

'Or had omitted to have its adenoids treated.'

'Wuckoo, Wuckoo ... Like that.'

'Exactly like that,' said Wilmot.

The girl gazed at him with a new friendliness.

'I'll bet you've heard rafts of cuckoos.'

'Millions. I was brought up on a farm.'

'These know-it-all directors make me tired.'

'Me, too,' said Wilmot. Then, putting his fate to the touch, to
win or lose it all, 'I wonder, Miss Potter, if you would care to step
round to the commissary and join me in a small coffee?'

She accepted gratefully, and from that moment their intimacy
may be said to have begun. Day after day, in the weeks that
followed, at such times as their duties would permit, you would
see them sitting together either in the commissary or on the
steps of some Oriental palace on the outskirts of the lot; he
gazing silently up into her face; she, an artist's enthusiasm in
her beautiful eyes, filling the air with the liquid note of the
Baltimore oriole or possibly the more strident cry of the African
buzzard. While ever and anon, by special request, she would
hitch up the muscles of the larynx and go 'Wuckoo, Wuckoo.'

But when at length Wilmot, emboldened, asked her to be his
wife, she shook her head.

'No,' she said, 'I like you, Wilmot. Sometimes I even think
that I love you. But I can never marry a mere serf.'

A what was that?'

A serf. A peon. A man who earns his living by nodding his
head at Mr Schnellenhamer. A Yesman would be bad enough,
but a Nodder!'

She paused, and Wilmot, from sheer force of habit, nodded.

'I am ambitious,' proceeded Mabel. 'The man I marry must be
a king among men ... well, what I mean, at least a supervisor.
Rather than wed a Nodder, I would starve in the gutter.'

The objection to this as a practical policy was, of course, that,
owing to the weather being so uniformly fine all the year round,
there are no gutters in Hollywood. But Wilmot was too distressed
to point this out. He uttered a heart-stricken cry not
unlike the mating-call of the Alaskan wild duck and began to
plead with her. But she was not to be moved.

'We will always be friends,' she said, 'but marry a Nodder, no.'

And with a brief 'Wuckoo' she turned away.

There is not much scope or variety of action open to a man
whose heart has been shattered and whose romance has proved
an empty dream. Practically speaking, only two courses lie
before him. He can go out West and begin a new life, or he
can drown his sorrow in drink. In Wilmot's case, the former of
these alternatives was rendered impossible by the fact that he
was out West already. Little wonder, then, that as he sat in his
lonely lodging that night his thoughts turned ever more and
more insistently to the second.

Like all the Mulliners, my distant connection Wilmot had
always been a scrupulously temperate man. Had his love-life but
run smoothly, he would have been amply contented with a nut
sundae or a malted milk after the day's work. But now, with
desolation staring him in the face, he felt a fierce urge toward
something with a bit more kick in it.

About half-way down Hollywood Boulevard, he knew, there
was a place where, if you knocked twice and whistled 'My
Country, 'tis of thee,' a grille opened and a whiskered face
appeared. The Face said 'Well?' and you said 'Service and Cooperation,
' and then the door was unbarred and you saw before
you the primrose path that led to perdition. And as this was
precisely what, in his present mood, Wilmot most desired to
locate, you will readily understand how it came about that, some
hour and a half later, he was seated at a table in this establishment,
feeling a good deal better.

How long it was before he realized that his table had another
occupant he could not have said. But came a moment when,
raising his glass, he found himself looking into the eyes of a
small child in a Lord Fauntleroy costume, in whom he recognized
none other than Little Johnny Bingley, the Idol of American
Motherhood – the star of this picture, 'Baby Boy,' which
you, gentlemen, have just been witnessing at the Bijou Dream in
the High Street.

To say that Wilmot was astonished at seeing this infant in
such surroundings would be to overstate the case. After half an
hour at this home-from-home the customer is seldom in a
condition to be astonished at anything – not even a gamboge
elephant in golfing costume. He was, however, sufficiently interested
to say 'Hullo.'

'Hullo,' replied the child. 'Listen,' he went on, placing a cube
of ice in his tumbler, 'don't tell old Schnellenhamer you saw me
here. There's a morality clause in my contract.'

'Tell who?' said Wilmot.

'Schnellenhamer.'

'How do you spell it?'

'I don't know.'

'Nor do I,' said Wilmot. 'Nevertheless, be that as it may,' he
continued, holding out his hand impulsively, 'he shall never
learn from me.'

'Who won't?' said the child.

'He won't,' said Wilmot.

'Won't what?' asked the child.

'Learn from me,' said Wilmot.

'Learn what?' inquired the child.

'I've forgotten,' said Wilmot.

They sat for a space in silence, each busy with his own
thoughts.

'You're Johnny Bingley, aren't you?' said Wilmot.

'Who is?' said the child.

'You are.'

'I'm what?'

'Listen,' said Wilmot. 'My name's Mulliner. That's what it is.
Mulliner. And let them make the most of it.'

'Who?'

'I don't know,' said Wilmot.

He gazed at his companion affectionately. It was a little
difficult to focus him, because he kept flickering, but Wilmot
could take the big, broad view about that. If the heart is in
the right place, he reasoned, what does it matter if the body
flickers?

'You're a good chap, Bingley.'

'So are you, Mulliner.'

'Both good chaps?'

'Both good chaps.'

'Making two in all?' asked Wilmot, anxious to get this
straight.

'That's how I work it out.'

'Yes, two,' agreed Wilmot, ceasing to twiddle his fingers. 'In
fact, you might say both gentlemen.'

'Both gentlemen is correct.'

'Then let us see what we have got. Yes,' said Wilmot, as he
laid down the pencil with which he had been writing figures on
the table-cloth. 'Here are the final returns, as I get them. Two
good chaps, two gentlemen. And yet,' he said, frowning in a
puzzled way, 'that seems to make four, and there are only two of
us. However,' he went on, 'let that go. Immaterial. Not germane
to the issue. The fact we have to face, Bingley, is that my heart is
heavy.'

'You don't say!'

'I do say. Heavy, Hearty. My bing is heavy.'

'What's the trouble?'

Wilmot decided to confide in this singularly sympathetic
infant. He felt he had never met a child he liked better.

'Well, it's like this.'

'What is?'

'This is.'

'Like what?'

'I'm telling you. The girl I love won't marry me.'

'She won't?'

'So she says.'

'Well, well,' said the child star commiseratingly. 'That's too
bad. Spurned your love, did she?'

'You're dern tooting she spurned my love,' said Wilmot.
'Spurned it good and hard. Some spurning!'

'Well, that's how it goes,' said the child star. 'What a world!'

'You're right, what a world.'

'I shouldn't wonder if it didn't make your heart heavy.'