Books: The Little Nugget
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P.G. Wodehouse >> The Little Nugget
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'If Youth but knew!' he sighed. 'Young man, I am nearly twice your
age, and I have, at a modest estimate, about ten times as much
sense. Yet, in your overweening self-confidence, with your
ungovernable gall, you fancy you can hand me a lemon. _Me!_ I
should smile!'
'Do,' I said. 'Do, while you can.'
He shook his head reprovingly.
'You will not be so fresh, sonny, in a few hours. You will be
biting pieces out of yourself, I fear. And later on, when my
automobile splashes you with mud in Piccadilly, you will taste the
full bitterness of remorse. Well, Youth must buy its experience, I
suppose!'
I looked across at him as he sat, plump and rosy and complacent,
puffing at his cigarette, and my heart warmed to the old ruffian.
It was impossible to maintain an attitude of righteous iciness
with him. I might loathe his mode of life, and hate him as a
representative--and a leading representative--of one of the most
contemptible trades on earth, but there was a sunny charm about
the man himself which made it hard to feel hostile to him as an
individual.
I closed my book with a bang and burst out laughing.
'You're a wonder!' I said.
He beamed at what he took to be evidence that I was coming round
to the friendly and sensible view of the matter.
'Then you think, on consideration--' he said. 'Excellent! Now, my
dear young man, all joking aside, you will take me with you to
that address, will you not? You observe that I do not ask you to
give it to me. Let there be not so much as the faintest odour of
the double-cross about this business. All I ask is that you allow
me to accompany you to where the Nugget is hidden, and then rely
on my wider experience of this sort of game to get him safely away
and open negotiations with the dad.'
'I suppose your experience has been wide?' I said.
'Quite tolerably--quite tolerably.'
'Doesn't it ever worry you the anxiety and misery you cause?'
'Purely temporary, both. And then, look at it in another way.
Think of the joy and relief of the bereaved parents when sonny
comes toddling home again! Surely it is worth some temporary
distress to taste that supreme happiness? In a sense, you might
call me a human benefactor. I teach parents to appreciate their
children. You know what parents are. Father gets caught short in
steel rails one morning. When he reaches home, what does he do? He
eases his mind by snapping at little Willie. Mrs Van First-Family
forgets to invite mother to her freak-dinner. What happens? Mother
takes it out of William. They love him, maybe, but they are too
used to him. They do not realize all he is to them. And then, one
afternoon, he disappears. The agony! The remorse! "How could I
ever have told our lost angel to stop his darned noise!" moans
father. "I struck him!" sobs mother. "With this jewelled hand I
spanked our vanished darling!" "We were not worthy to have him,"
they wail together. "But oh, if we could but get him back!" Well
they do. They get him back as soon as ever they care to come
across in unmarked hundred-dollar bills. And after that they think
twice before working off their grouches on the poor kid. So I
bring universal happiness into the home. I don't say father
doesn't get a twinge every now and then when he catches sight of
the hole in his bank balance, but, darn it, what's money for if
it's not to spend?'
He snorted with altruistic fervour.
'What makes you so set on kidnapping Ogden Ford?' I asked. 'I know
he is valuable, but you must have made your pile by this time. I
gather that you have been practising your particular brand of
philanthropy for a good many years. Why don't you retire?'
He sighed.
'It is the dream of my life to retire, young man. You may not
believe me, but my instincts are thoroughly domestic. When I have
the leisure to weave day-dreams, they centre around a cosy little
home with a nice porch and stationary washtubs.'
He regarded me closely, as if to decide whether I was worthy of
these confidences. There was something wistful in his brown eyes.
I suppose the inspection must have been favourable, or he was in a
mood when a man must unbosom himself to someone, for he proceeded
to open his heart to me. A man in his particular line of business,
I imagine, finds few confidants, and the strain probably becomes
intolerable at times.
'Have you ever experienced the love of a good woman, sonny? It's a
wonderful thing.' He brooded sentimentally for a moment, then
continued, and--to my mind--somewhat spoiled the impressiveness of
his opening words. 'The love of a good woman,' he said, 'is about
the darnedest wonderful lay-out that ever came down the pike. I
know. I've had some.'
A spark from his cigarette fell on his hand. He swore a startled
oath.
'We came from the same old town,' he resumed, having recovered
from this interlude. 'Used to be kids at the same school ...
Walked to school together ... me carrying her luncheon-basket and
helping her over the fences ... Ah! ... Just the same when we grew
up. Still pals. And that was twenty years ago ... The arrangement
was that I should go out and make the money to buy the home, and
then come back and marry her.'
'Then why the devil haven't you done it?' I said severely.
He shook his head.
'If you know anything about crooks, young man,' he said, 'you'll
know that outside of their own line they are the easiest marks that
ever happened. They fall for anything. At least, it's always been
that way with me. No sooner did I get together a sort of pile and
start out for the old town, when some smooth stranger would come
along and steer me up against some skin-game, and back I'd have to
go to work. That happened a few times, and when I did manage at
last to get home with the dough I found she had married another
guy. It's hard on women, you see,' he explained chivalrously. 'They
get lonesome and Roving Rupert doesn't show up, so they have to
marry Stay-at-Home Henry just to keep from getting the horrors.'
'So she's Mrs Stay-at-Home Henry now?' I said sympathetically.
'She was till a year ago. She's a widow now. Deceased had a
misunderstanding with a hydrophobia skunk, so I'm informed. I
believe he was a good man. Outside of licking him at school I
didn't know him well. I saw her just before I left to come here.
She's as fond of me as ever. It's all settled, if only I can
connect with the mazuma. And she don't want much, either. Just
enough to keep the home together.'
'I wish you happiness,' I said.
'You can do better than that. You can take me with you to that
address.'
I avoided the subject.
'What does she say to your way of making money?' I asked.
'She doesn't know, and she ain't going to know. I don't see why a
man has got to tell his wife every little thing in his past. She
thinks I'm a drummer, travelling in England for a dry-goods firm.
She wouldn't stand for the other thing, not for a minute. She's
very particular. Always was. That's why I'm going to quit after
I've won out over this thing of the Little Nugget.' He looked at
me hopefully. 'So you _will_ take me along, sonny, won't you?'
I shook my head.
'You won't?'
'I'm sorry to spoil a romance, but I can't. You must look around
for some other home into which to bring happiness. The Fords' is
barred.'
'You are very obstinate, young man,' he said, sadly, but without
any apparent ill-feeling. 'I can't persuade you?'
'No.'
'Ah, well! So we are to be rivals, not allies. You will regret
this, sonny. I may say you will regret it very bitterly. When you
see me in my automo--'
'You mentioned your automobile before.'
'Ah! So I did.'
The train had stopped, as trains always do on English railways
before entering a terminus. Presently it began to move forward
hesitatingly, as if saying to itself, 'Now, am I really wanted
here? Shall I be welcome?' Eventually, after a second halt, it
glided slowly alongside the platform.
I sprang out and ran to the cab-rank. I was aboard a taxi, bowling
out of the station before the train had stopped.
Peeping out of the window at the back, I was unable to see Sam. My
adroit move, I took it, had baffled him. I had left him standing.
It was a quarter of an hour's drive to my rooms, but to me, in my
anxiety, it seemed more. This was going to be a close thing, and
success or failure a matter of minutes. If he followed my
instructions Smith would be starting for the Continental boat-train
tonight with his companion; and, working out the distances,
I saw that, by the time I could arrive, he might already have left
my rooms. Sam's supervision at Sanstead Station had made it
impossible for me to send a telegram. I had had to trust to
chance. Fortunately my train, by a miracle, had been up to time,
and at my present rate of progress I ought to catch Smith a few
minutes before he left the building.
The cab pulled up. I ran up the stairs and opened the door of my
apartment.
'Smith!' I called.
A chair scraped along the floor and a door opened at the end of
the passage. Smith came out.
'Thank goodness you have not started. I thought I should miss you.
Where is the boy?'
'The boy, sir?'
'The boy I wrote to you about.'
'He has not arrived, sir.'
'Not arrived?'
'No, sir.'
I stared at him blankly.
'How long have you been here?'
'All day, sir.'
'You have not been out?'
'Not since the hour of two, sir.'
'I can't understand it,' I said.
'Perhaps the young gentleman changed his mind and never started,
sir?'
'I know he started.'
Smith had no further suggestion to offer.
'Pending the young gentleman's arrival, sir, I remain in London?'
A fruity voice spoke at the door behind me.
'What! Hasn't he arrived?'
I turned. There, beaming and benevolent, stood Mr Fisher.
'It occurred to me to look your name out in the telephone
directory,' he explained. 'I might have thought of that before.'
'Come in here,' I said, opening the door of the sitting-room. I
did not want to discuss the thing with him before Smith.
He looked about the room admiringly.
'So these are your quarters,' he said. 'You do yourself pretty
well, young man. So I understand that the Nugget has gone wrong in
transit. He has altered his plans on the way?'
'I can't understand it.'
'I can! You gave him a certain amount of money?'
'Yes. Enough to get him to--where he was going.'
'Then, knowing the boy, I should say that he has found other uses
for it. He's whooping it up in London, and, I should fancy, having
the time of his young life.'
He got up.
'This of course,' he said, 'alters considerably any understanding
we may have come to, sonny. All idea of a partnership is now out
of the question. I wish you well, but I have no further use for
you. Somewhere in this great city the Little Nugget is hiding, and
I mean to find him--entirely on my own account. This is where our
paths divide, Mr Burns. Good night.'
Chapter 10
When Sam had left, which he did rather in the manner of a heavy
father in melodrama, shaking the dust of an erring son's threshold
off his feet, I mixed myself a high-ball, and sat down to consider
the position of affairs. It did not take me long to see that the
infernal boy had double-crossed me with a smooth effectiveness
which Mr Fisher himself might have envied. Somewhere in this great
city, as Sam had observed, he was hiding. But where? London is a
vague address.
I wondered what steps Sam was taking. Was there some underground
secret service bureau to which persons of his profession had
access? I doubted it. I imagined that he, as I proposed to do, was
drawing the city at a venture in the hope of flushing the quarry
by accident. Yet such was the impression he had made upon me as a
man of resource and sagacity, that I did not relish the idea of
his getting a start on me, even in a venture so uncertain as this.
My imagination began to picture him miraculously inspired in the
search, and such was the vividness of the vision that I jumped up
from my chair, resolved to get on the trail at once. It was
hopelessly late, however, and I did not anticipate that I should
meet with any success.
Nor did I. For two hours and a half I tramped the streets, my
spirits sinking more and more under the influence of failure and a
blend of snow and sleet which had begun to fall; and then, tired
out, I went back to my rooms, and climbed sorrowfully into bed.
It was odd to wake up and realize that I was in London. Years
seemed to have passed since I had left it. Time is a thing of
emotions, not of hours and minutes, and I had certainly packed a
considerable number of emotional moments into my stay at Sanstead
House. I lay in bed, reviewing the past, while Smith, with a
cheerful clatter of crockery, prepared my breakfast in the next
room.
A curious lethargy had succeeded the feverish energy of the
previous night. More than ever the impossibility of finding the
needle in this human bundle of hay oppressed me. No one is
optimistic before breakfast, and I regarded the future with dull
resignation, turning my thoughts from it after a while to the
past. But the past meant Audrey, and to think of Audrey hurt.
It seemed curious to me that in a life of thirty years I should
have been able to find, among the hundreds of women I had met,
only one capable of creating in me that disquieting welter of
emotions which is called love, and hard that that one should
reciprocate my feeling only to the extent of the mild liking which
Audrey entertained for me.
I tried to analyse her qualifications for the place she held in my
heart. I had known women who had attracted me more physically, and
women who had attracted me more mentally. I had known wiser women,
handsomer women, more amiable women, but none of them had affected
me like Audrey. The problem was inexplicable. Any idea that we
might be affinities, soul-mates destined for each other from the
beginning of time, was disposed of by the fact that my attraction
for her was apparently in inverse ratio to hers for me. For
possibly the millionth time in the past five years I tried to
picture in my mind the man Sheridan, that shadowy wooer to whom
she had yielded so readily. What quality had he possessed that I
did not? Wherein lay the magnetism that had brought about his
triumph?
These were unprofitable speculations. I laid them aside until the
next occasion when I should feel disposed for self-torture, and
got out of bed. A bath and breakfast braced me up, and I left the
house in a reasonably cheerful frame of mind.
To search at random for an individual unit among London's millions
lends an undeniable attraction to a day in town. In a desultory
way I pursued my investigations through the morning and afternoon,
but neither of Ogden nor of his young friend Lord Beckford was I
vouchsafed a glimpse. My consolation was that Smooth Sam was
probably being equally unsuccessful.
Towards the evening there arose the question of return to
Sanstead. I had not gathered whether Mr Abney had intended to set
any time-limit on my wanderings, or whether I was not supposed to
come back except with the deserters. I decided that I had better
remain in London, at any rate for another night, and went to the
nearest post office to send Mr Abney a telegram to that effect.
As I was writing it, the problem which had baffled me for twenty-four
hours, solved itself in under a minute. Whether my powers of
inductive reasoning had been under a cloud since I left Sanstead,
or whether they were normally beneath contempt, I do not know. But
the fact remains, that I had completely overlooked the obvious
solution of my difficulty. I think I must have been thinking so
exclusively of the Little Nugget that I had entirely forgotten the
existence of Augustus Beckford. It occurred to me now that, by
making inquiries at the latter's house, I should learn something
to my advantage. A boy of the Augustus type does not run away from
school without a reason. Probably some party was taking place
tonight at the ancestral home, at which, tempted by the lawless
Nugget, he had decided that his presence was necessary.
I knew the house well. There had been a time, when Lord Mountry
and I were at Oxford, when I had spent frequent week-ends there.
Since then, owing to being abroad, I had seen little of the
family. Now was the moment to reintroduce myself. I hailed a cab.
Inductive reasoning had not played me false. There was a red
carpet outside the house, and from within came the sounds of
music.
Lady Wroxham, the mother of Mountry and the vanishing Augustus,
was one of those women who take things as they come. She did not
seem surprised at seeing me.
'How nice of you to come and see us,' she said. 'Somebody told me
you were abroad. Ted is in the south of France in the yacht.
Augustus is here. Mr Abney, his schoolmaster, let him come up for
the night.'
I perceived that Augustus had been playing a bold game. I saw the
coaching of Ogden behind these dashing falsehoods.
'You will hardly remember Sybil. She was quite a baby when you
were here last. She is having her birthday-party this evening.'
'May I go in and help?' I said.
'I wish you would. They would love it.'
I doubted it, but went in. A dance had just finished. Strolling
towards me in his tightest Eton suit, his face shining with honest
joy, was the errant Augustus, and close behind him, wearing the
blase' air of one for whom custom has staled the pleasures of life,
was the Little Nugget.
I think they both saw me at the same moment. The effect of my
appearance on them was illustrative of their respective characters.
Augustus turned a deep shade of purple and fixed me with a
horrified stare. The Nugget winked. Augustus halted and shuffled
his feet. The Nugget strolled up and accosted me like an old
friend.
'Hello!' he said. 'How did you get here? Say, I was going to try
and get you on the phone some old time and explain things. I've
been pretty much on the jump since I hit London.'
'You little brute!'
My gleaming eye, travelling past him, met that of the Hon.
Augustus Beckford, causing that youth to jump guiltily. The Nugget
looked over his shoulder.
'I guess we don't want him around if we're to talk business,' he
said. 'I'll go and tell him to beat it.'
'You'll do nothing of the kind. I don't propose to lose sight of
either of you.'
'Oh, he's all right. You don't have to worry about him. He was
going back to the school anyway tomorrow. He only ran away to go
to this party. Why not let him enjoy himself while he's here? I'll
go and make a date for you to meet at the end of the show.'
He approached his friend, and a short colloquy ensued, which ended
in the latter shuffling off in the direction of the other
revellers. Such is the buoyancy of youth that a moment later he
was dancing a two-step with every appearance of careless enjoyment.
The future, with its storms, seemed to have slipped from his mind.
'That's all right,' said the Nugget, returning to me. 'He's
promised he won't duck away. You'll find him somewhere around
whenever you care to look for him. Now we can talk.'
'I hardly like to trespass on your valuable time,' I said. The
airy way in which this demon boy handled what should have been--to
him--an embarrassing situation irritated me. For all the authority
I seemed to have over him I might have been the potted palm
against which he was leaning.
'That's all right.' Everything appeared to be all right with him.
'This sort of thing does not appeal to me. Don't be afraid of
spoiling my evening. I only came because Becky was so set on it.
Dancing bores me pallid, so let's get somewhere where we can sit
down and talk.'
I was beginning to feel that a children's party was the right
place for me. Sam Fisher had treated me as a child, and so did the
Little Nugget. That I was a responsible person, well on in my
thirty-first year, with a narrow escape from death and a hopeless
love-affair on my record, seemed to strike neither of them. I
followed my companion to a secluded recess with the utmost
meekness.
He leaned back and crossed his legs.
'Got a cigarette?'
'I have not got a cigarette, and, if I had, I wouldn't give it to
you.'
He regarded me tolerantly.
'Got a grouch tonight, haven't you? You seem all flittered up
about something. What's the trouble? Sore about my not showing up
at your apartment? I'll explain that all right.'
'I shall be glad to listen.'
'It's like this. It suddenly occurred to me that a day or two one
way or the other wasn't going to affect our deal and that, while I
was about it, I might just as well see a bit of London before I
left. I suggested it to Becky, and the idea made the biggest kind
of a hit with him. I found he had only been in an automobile once
in his life. Can you beat it? I've had one of my own ever since
I was a kid. Well, naturally, it was up to me to blow him to a
joy-ride, and that's where the money went.'
'Where the money went?'
'Sure. I've got two dollars left, and that's all. It wasn't
altogether the automobiling. It was the meals that got away with
my roll. Say, that kid Beckford is one swell feeder. He's wrapping
himself around the eats all the time. I guess it's not smoking
that does it. I haven't the appetite I used to have. Well, that's
how it was, you see. But I'm through now. Cough up the fare and
I'll make the trip tomorrow. Mother'll be tickled to death to see
me.'
'She won't see you. We're going back to the school tomorrow.'
He looked at me incredulously.
'What's that? Going back to school?'
'I've altered my plans.'
'I'm not going back to any old school. You daren't take me.
Where'll you be if I tell the hot-air merchant about our deal and
you slipping me the money and all that?'
'Tell him what you like. He won't believe it.'
He thought this over, and its truth came home to him. The
complacent expression left his face.
'What's the matter with you? Are you dippy, or what? You get me
away up to London, and the first thing that happens when I'm here
is that you want to take me back. You make me tired.'
It was borne in upon me that there was something in his point of
view. My sudden change of mind must have seemed inexplicable to
him. And, having by a miracle succeeded in finding him, I was in a
mood to be generous. I unbent.
'Ogden, old sport,' I said cordially, T think we've both had all
we want of this children's party. You're bored and if I stop on
another half hour I may be called on to entertain these infants
with comic songs. We men of the world are above this sort of
thing. Get your hat and coat and I'll take you to a show. We can
discuss business later over a bit of supper.'
The gloom of his countenance melted into a pleased smile.
'You said something that time!' he observed joyfully; and we slunk
away to get our hats, the best of friends. A note for Augustus
Beckford, requesting his presence at Waterloo Station at ten
minutes past twelve on the following morning, I left with the
butler. There was a certain informality about my methods which I
doubt if Mr Abney would have approved, but I felt that I could
rely on Augustus.
Much may be done by kindness. By the time the curtain fell on the
musical comedy which we had attended all was peace between the
Nugget and myself. Supper cemented our friendship, and we drove
back to my rooms on excellent terms with one another. Half an hour
later he was snoring in the spare room, while I smoked contentedly
before the fire in the sitting-room.
I had not been there five minutes when the bell rang. Smith was in
bed, so I went to the door myself and found Mr Fisher on the mat.
My feeling of benevolence towards all created things, the result
of my successful handling of the Little Nugget, embraced Sam. I
invited him in.
'Well,' I said, when I had given him a cigar and filled his glass,
'and how have you been getting on, Mr Fisher? Any luck?'
He shook his head at me reproachfully.
'Young man, you're deep. I've got to hand it to you. I
underestimated you. You're very deep.'
'Approbation from Smooth Sam Fisher is praise indeed. But why
these stately compliments?'
'You took me in, young man. I don't mind owning it. When you told
me the Nugget had gone astray, I lapped it up like a babe. And all
the time you were putting one over on me. Well, well!'
'But he had gone astray, Mr Fisher.'
He knocked the ash off his cigar. He wore a pained look.
'You needn't keep it up, sonny. I happened to be standing within
three yards of you when you got into a cab with him in Shaftesbury
Avenue.'
I laughed.
'Well, if that's the case, let there be no secrets between us.
He's asleep in the next room.'
Sam leaned forward earnestly and tapped me on the knee.
'Young man, this is a critical moment. This is where, if you
aren't careful, you may undo all the good work you have done by
getting chesty and thinking that, because you've won out so far,
you're the whole show. Believe me, the difficult part is to come,
and it's right here that you need an experienced man to work in
with you. Let me in on this and leave the negotiations with old
man Ford to me. You would only make a mess of them. I've handled
this kind of thing a dozen times, and I know just how to act. You
won't regret taking me on as a partner. You won't lose a cent by
it. I can work him for just double what you would get, even
supposing you didn't make a mess of the deal and get nothing.'
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