“But you’ve got a bedroom, old fellow. You’ve got a nice bedroom, haven’t you? It is more convenient to sleep in your cozy little bedroom.”
“There’s a spider in my bedroom.”
“A spider, eh? Pink?”
“Pinkish.”
“With long legs?”
“Very long legs.”
“And hairy?”
“Very hairy.”
Chuffy grinned in a most unpleasant manner and, rising, drew Sergeant Voules aside and addressed a remark to him,
“It’s all right, Sergeant. Nothing to worry about. He’s simply drunk.”
“Is that so?” said Sergeant Voules. And his voice was the voice of a sergeant to whom all things have been made clear.
“That’s all that’s the trouble. Completely drunk. You notice the glassy look in the eyes[69]?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’ve seen him like this before. Once, after a party at Oxford, he insisted that he was a mermaid and wanted to dive into the college fountain and play the harp there.”
“Young gents will be young gents,” said Sergeant Voules in a tolerant and broad-minded manner[70].
“We must put him to bed.”
I jumped up. Horror-stricken. Trembling like a leaf.
“I don’t want to go to bed!”
Chuffy stroked my arm soothingly.
“It’s all right, Bertie. Quite all right. We understand. No wonder you were frightened. Beastly great spider. Enough to frighten anyone. But it’s all right now. Voules and I will come up to your room with you and kill it. You aren’t scared of spiders, Voules?”
“No.”
“You hear that, Bertie? Voules will stand by you. Voules can tackle any spider[71]. How many spiders did you kill India, Voules?”
“Ninety-six.”
“Big ones, if I remember rightly?”
“Enormous.”
“There, Bertie. You see there’s nothing to be afraid of. You take this arm, Sergeant. I’ll take the other. Just relax, Bertie. We’ll hold you up.”
Looking back, I am not certain whether I didn’t do the wrong thing. I punched the sergeant in the tummy and ran away.
Well, you can’t go far fast in a dark littered shed. I fell with a dull, sickening thud, and in a minute I found I was being carried through the summer night in the direction of the house. Chuffy had got me under the arms, and Sergeant Voules was attached to my feet. And, thus linked, we passed through the front door and up the stairs.
We had reached the bedroom door now, and what I was asking myself was, What will be when Chuffy opens the door?
“Chuffy,” I said, and I spoke earnestly, “don’t go into that room!”
“I know, I know,” he said. “Never mind. Soon be in bed.”
I considered his manner offensive, and would have said so, but at this moment speech was wiped from my lips. With a quick heave, my bearers had suddenly dumped me on the bed, and there were only a blanket and pillow on it. No girl in pyjamas.
I lay there, wondering. Chuffy had found the candle and lighted it, and I was now in a position to look about me. Pauline Stoker had absolutely disappeared.
“Thanks, Sergeant. I can manage now,” said Chuffy
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, it’s quite all right. He will sleep.”
“Then I’ll be going. It’s a bit late for me.”
“Yes. Good night.”
“Good night.”
The sergeant clumped down the stairs, and Chuffy took off my boots.
“That’s my little man,” he said. “Now you lie quite quiet, Bertie, and take things easy.”
Suddenly the door of the hanging cupboard outside the room opened and Pauline Stoker came in. In fact, she seemed entertained.
“Oh! What a night, what a night!” she said amusedly. “Bertie, who were those men I heard going out?”
And then she suddenly saw Chuffy, and the love light came into her eyes as if somebody had pressed a switch.
“Marmaduke!” she cried, and stood there, staring.
Chuffy’s eyebrows had shot up, the jaw had fallen, and the eyes were protruding from the parent sockets[72].
“So!” he said, finding speech—if you can call that speech.
“What do you mean? Why are you looking like that?”
I had risen from the bed on Pauline’s entry and had been going towards the door. But I had no boots on, I had decided to remain.
“What you need, Chuffy, old man,” I said, “is simple faith. The poet Tennyson[73] tells us—”
“Shut up,” said Chuffy. “I don’t want to hear anything from you.”
Pauline was looking a bit fogged.
“Oh!” she said.
Naturally, she’s a bit upset.
“Oh!” she said, for the third time, and her teeth gave a little click, most unpleasant. “So that’s what you think?”
Chuffy shook his head.
“Of course I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t think anything of the kind,” said Chuffy. “I know that Bertie has been sleeping in a shed,” continued Chuffy. “But that’s not the point. The fact remains that in spite of being engaged to me, you are still so much in love with Bertie that you can’t keep away from him. You think I don’t know all about your being engaged to him in New York, but I do. Oh, I’m not complaining, you have a perfect right to love who you like—”
“Whom, old man,” I corrected him.
“Will you keep quiet!”
“Of course, of course.”
“Shut up!”
“Sorry, sorry. Shan’t occur again[74].”
“Well, then, perhaps you’ll listen to what I’m going to say. I suppose you have no objection to my putting in a word?” said Pauline.
“None,” said Chuffy.
“None, none,” I said.
Pauline was very angry. I could see her toes wiggling.
“In the first place, you make me sick!”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, indeed. In the second place, I hope I shall never see you again in this world or the next.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I hate you. I wish I’d never met you. I think you’re a worse pig than any you’ve got up at that beastly house of yours.”
This interested me.
“I