FullReads

“But doesn’t it strike you that he may think it pretty bad gall-impertinence, don’t you know, for a comparative stranger like me to be tackling a delicate family affair like this?”

“You will explain that you are acting for me.”

“It wouldn’t be better if old Duggie went along instead?”

“I wish you to go, Reginald.”

Well, of course, it was all right, don’t you know, but I was losing several pounds a day over the business. I was getting so light that I felt that, when the old man kicked me, I should just soar up to the ceiling like an air balloon.

The club was one of those large clubs that look like prisons. I used to go there to lunch with my uncle, the one who left me his money, and I always hated the place. It was one of those clubs that are all red leather and hushed whispers.

I’m bound to say, though, there wasn’t much hushed whispering when I started my interview with old man Craye. His voice was one of my childhood’s recollections.

He was most extraordinarily like Florence. He had just the same eyes. I felt boneless from the start.

“Good morning,” I said.

“What?” he said. “Speak up. Don’t mumble.”

I hadn’t known he was deaf. The last time we’d had any conversation–on the subject of razors–he had done all the talking. This seemed to me to put the lid on it.

“I only said ‘Good morning,'” I shouted.

“Good what? Speak up. I believe you’re sucking candy. Oh, good morning? I remember you now. You’re the boy who spoiled my razor.”

I didn’t half like this reopening of old wounds. I hurried on.

“I came about Edwin,” I said.

“Who?”

“Edwin. Your son.”

“What about him?”

“Florence told me to see you.”

“Who?”

“Florence. Your daughter.”

“What about her?”

All this vaudeville team business, mind you, as if we were bellowing at each other across the street. All round the room you could see old gentlemen shooting out of their chairs like rockets and dashing off at a gallop to write to the governing board about it. Thousands of waiters had appeared from nowhere, and were hanging about, dusting table legs. If ever a business wanted to be discussed privately, this seemed to me to be it. And it was just about as private as a conversation through megaphones in Longacre Square.

“Didn’t she write to you?”

“I got a letter from her. I tore it up. I didn’t read it.”

Pleasant, was it not? It was not. I began to understand what a shipwrecked sailor must feel when he finds there’s something gone wrong with the life belt.

I thought I might as well get to the point and get it over.

“Edwin’s going to marry a palmist,” I said.

“Who the devil’s Harry?”

“Not Harry. Marry. He’s going to marry a palmist.”

About four hundred waiters noticed a speck of dust on an ash tray at the table next to ours, and swooped down on it.

“Edwin is going to marry a palmist?”

“Yes.”

“She must be mad. Hasn’t she seen Edwin?”

And just then who should stroll in but Edwin himself. I sighted him and gave him a hail.

He curveted up to us. It was amazing the way the fellow had altered. He looked like a two-year-old. Flower in his button-hole and a six-inch grin, and all that. The old man seemed surprised, too. I didn’t wonder. The Edwin he remembered was a pretty different kind of a fellow.

“Hullo, dad,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here. Have a cigarette?”

He shoved out his case. Old man Craye helped himself in a sort of dazed way.

“You are Edwin?” he said slowly.

I began to sidle out. They didn’t notice me. They had moved to a settee, and Edwin seemed to be telling his father a funny story.

At least, he was talking and grinning, and the old man was making a noise like distant thunder, which I supposed was his way of chuckling. I slid out and left them.

Some days later Duggie called on me. The old boy was looking scared.