Once a Week Part 37

"There!" she said. "Now his mother would love him again." Very confidently she propelled his trunk against his chin and added, "Come in."

"You can hear it quite plainly," I said quickly.

"It doesn't re--rever--reverberate--is that the word?" said Celia, "but it's quite a distinctive noise. I'm sure you'd hear it."

"I'm sure I should. Let's try."

"Not now. I'll try later on, when you aren't expecting it. Besides, you must begin your work. Good-bye. Work hard." She pushed me in and shut the door.

I began to work.

I work best on the sofa; I think most clearly in what appears to the hasty observer to be an att.i.tude of rest. But I am not sure that Celia really understands this yet. Accordingly, when a knock comes at the door I jump to my feet, ruffle my hair, and stride up and down the room with one hand on my brow. "Come in," I call impatiently, and Celia finds me absolutely in the throes. If there should chance to be a second knock later on, I make a sprint for the writing-desk, seize pen and paper, upset the ink or not as it happens, and present to any one coming in at the door the most thoroughly engrossed back in London.

But that was in the good old days of knuckle-knocking. On this particular morning I had hardly written more than a couple of thousand words--I mean I had hardly got the cus.h.i.+ons at the back of my head comfortably settled when Celia came in.

"Well?" she said eagerly.

I struggled out of the sofa.

"What is it?" I asked sternly.

"Did you hear it all right?"

"I didn't hear anything."

"Oh!" she said in great disappointment. "But perhaps you were asleep,"

she went on hopefully.

"Certainly not. I was working."

"Did I interrupt you?"

"You did rather; but it doesn't matter."

"Oh, well, I won't do it again--unless I really have to. Good-bye, and good luck."

She went out and I returned to my sofa. After an hour or so my mind began to get to work, and I got up and walked slowly up and down the room. The gentle exercise seemed to stimulate me. Seeing my new putter in the corner of the room, I took it up (my brain full of other things) and, dropping a golf ball on the carpet, began to practise. After five or ten minutes, my ideas being now quite clear, I was just about to subst.i.tute the pen for the putter when Celia came in.

"Oh!" she said. "Are--are you busy?"

I turned round from a difficult putt with the club in my hand.

"Very," I said. "What is it?"

"I don't want to disturb you if you're working----"

"I am."

"But I just wondered if you--if you liked artichokes."

I looked at her coldly.

"I will fill in your confession book another time," I said stiffly, and I sat down with dignity at my desk and dipped the putter in the ink.

"It's for dinner to-night," said Celia persuasively. "Do say. Because I don't want to eat them all by myself."

I saw that I should have to humour her.

"If it's a Jerusalem artichoke you mean, yes," I said; "the other sort, no. J. Arthur Choke I love."

"Right-o. Sorry for interrupting." And then as she went to the door, "You _did_ hear Jumbo this time, didn't you?"

"I believe that's the only reason you came in for."

"Well, one of them."

"Are you coming in again?"

"Don't know," she smiled. "Depends if I can think of an excuse."

"Right," I said. "In that case----"

There was nothing else for it; I took up my pen and began to work.

But I have a suggestion to make to Celia. At present, although Jumbo is really mine, _she_ is having all the fun with him. And as long as Jumbo is on the outside of the door there can never rise an occasion when I should want to use him. My idea is that I should unscrew Jumbo and put him on the _inside_ of the door, so that I can knock when I come out.

And then when Celia wants to come in she will warn me in the old-fas.h.i.+oned way with her knuckles ... and I shall have time to do something about it.

OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES

THE PARTING GUEST

When nice people ask me to their houses for the week-end, I reply that I shall be delighted to come, but that pressure of work will prevent my staying beyond Tuesday. Sometimes, in spite of this, they try to kick me out on the Monday; and if I find that they are serious about it I may possibly consent to go by an evening train. In any case, it always seems to me a pity to have to leave a house just as you are beginning to know your way to the bathroom.

"Is the 9.25 too early for you?" said Charles on Sunday night _a propos_ of nothing that I had said.

"Not if it's in the evening," I answered.

"It's in the morning."

"Then it's much too early. I never travel before breakfast. But why do you ask?"