A Knight on Wheels Part 26

Dumps agreed, sunning herself luxuriously.

"Does your mare eat cherries?" she asked.

"No, but I do," said Derek with great boldness.

Dumps threw him down a couple, and continued:

"I am waiting for Dad. He is correcting proofs--very cross. When he has finished we are going out in Boanerges."

"Have you still got Boanerges?" asked Derek incredulously.

"Yes, but he is on his very last legs. We have a new car coming."

"What sort?"

"A Britannia. It has been specially selected for us," said Dumps with pride, "by--by an official of the company. The front seat is being put a little forward, so that I can drive."

A few years ago Master Derek Rayner would have greeted this announcement with some exceedingly witty and caustic comments. Now he merely murmured reverentially:--

"I expect you will make a ripping little chauffeur."

"I shouldn't wonder," agreed Dumps complacently. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, just for a ride," said Derek. "Are your people quite well?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Tell Mrs. Mablethorpe I was asking for her, will you?"

"I will make a point of it," said the impervious Dumps. Then, relenting slightly, she enquired: "Are you going to tennis at Oatlands on Thursday?"

"Yes," said Derek eagerly. "Would you mind being my partner in the mixed doubles?"

"Is that a sudden inspiration?" asked Dumps.

"No, really. I have been meaning to ask you for weeks. That's why I rode over here this afternoon," blurted out Derek.

"I thought you said you were just out for a ride," remarked Miss Mablethorpe. (It is quite a mistake to suppose that it is only small boys who are cruel to the humbler members of creation.)

Derek floundered helplessly, and was dumb. From afar came the melodious toot of a well-modulated Gabriel horn. Dumps sat up, and looked sharply up the road.

"Well, anyway, will you be my partner?" asked Derek, lifting his eyes once more. He was surprised and not a little gratified to observe that Miss Sylvia had turned excessively pink.

"Yes--perhaps. No. All right," replied the girl shortly. "I must go now.

Good-bye. See you on Thursday."

By way of intimating that the audience was terminated, Miss Mablethorpe swung her ankles--they had grown quite slim these days--over the wall and disappeared with a thud. Mr. Rayner, on the whole much puffed up, galloped away.

Two minutes later an automobile, consisting chiefly of a cha.s.sis, with a single wooden seat lashed to the frame, slid to a standstill outside the gates of Red Gables. On the back of the seat, in bold letters, was painted the legend, "Britannia Motor Company, Coventry." In the seat sat Philip.

The car had hardly stopped when the gates were swung open and Dumps appeared, smiling welcome.

"Hallo, Philip!" she said. "Is this our new car?"

"Not quite," said Philip, surveying his dingy but workmanlike equipage.

"This is my service-car. They are sending yours on Monday."

By this time the girl had clambered on to the back of the cha.s.sis and ensconced herself on the petrol-tank. Philip, turning the car in through the gates, drove up the short straight avenue to the front door. The purring of the big engine ceased, and the pair, having alighted, pa.s.sed arm-in-arm, like brother and sister, into the presence of Mr.

Mablethorpe.

That excellent but volcanic author was discovered tearing his hair with one hand, and digging holes in a long galley proof (employing a fountain-pen as a stiletto) with the other.

"Hallo, Philip!" he began at once. "Will you have a bet with me?"

"Certainly," said Philip. "What about?"

"I bet you one million pounds," said Mr. Mablethorpe with great precision, "that the condemned printing-firm employed by my unmentionable publishers has taken into its adjectival employment an asterisked staff of obelised female compositors. Consequently I shall have to retire to an asylum. It is a nuisance, because I have just bought a new automobile."

"How are you so certain about the female compositors?" asked Philip.

The author pathetically flapped the long printed slip in his face.

"I don't mind correcting misprints," he said. "I am used to it. Male compositors cannot spell, of course; in fact, very few of them can read.

But they do understand stops; at least, they put in the stops that an author gives them. The female of the species, on the other hand, only recognises the existence of two--the comma and the note of exclamation.

These she drops into the script as she would drop cloves into an apple-tart--a handful or two when she has finished setting up the type.

At least, I suppose so. She also sets her face against the senseless custom of using capital letters to begin a sentence. Otherwise she is admirably suited to her calling. Look at this!"

He exhibited a corrected proof--a ma.s.s of red ink and marginal profanity.

"I am feeling better now," he said. "I have written both to the publisher and printer. The letter to the printer was particularly good.

Have a cigarette? What have you come to see us for--business or pleasure?"

"Business," said Philip.

"Public or private?"

Philip considered.

"Private."

Mr. Mablethorpe turned to his daughter.

"Inquisitive female," he thundered, "avaunt!"

"Oh, it's not private to Dumps," said Philip. "I have been offered a new billet, that's all."

"Then let us all sit down and argue about it," proposed Mr. Mablethorpe with zest. He threw his proofs on the floor. "My wife is upstairs, reading the mendacious prospectus of a new Continental spa, and I don't suppose she will develop the symptoms it professes to cure much before six o'clock. Go ahead, Philip."

"The directors want me to take charge of the London offices," said Philip.