Books: A Man of Means
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P. G. Wodehouse >> A Man of Means
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Altho Geoffrey Windlebird described himself as a Napoleon of Finance, a
Cinquevalli or Chung Ling Soo of Finance would have been a more
accurate title. As a juggler with other people's money he was at the
head of his class. And yet, when one came to examine it, his method was
delightfully simple. Say, for instance, that the Home-grown Tobacco
Trust, founded by Geoffrey in a moment of ennui, failed to yield those
profits which the glowing prospectus had led the public to expect.
Geoffrey would appease the excited shareholders by giving them
Preference Shares (interest guaranteed) in the Sea-gold Extraction
Company, hastily floated to meet the emergency. When the interest
became due, it would, as likely as not, be paid out of the capital just
subscribed for the King Solomon's Mines Exploitation Association, the
little deficiency in the latter being replaced in its turn, when
absolutely necessary and not a moment before, by the transfer of some
portion of the capital just raised for yet another company. And so on,
ad infinitum. There were moments when it seemed to Mr. Windlebird that
he had solved the problem of Perpetual Promotion.
The only thing that can stop a triumphal progress like Mr. Windlebird's
is when some coarse person refuses to play to the rules, and demands
ready money instead of shares in the next venture. This had happened
now, and it had flattened Mr. Windlebird like an avalanche.
He was a philosopher, but he could not help feeling a little galled
that the demand which had destroyed him had been so trivial. He had
handled millions--on paper, it was true, but still millions--and here
he was knocked out of time by a paltry twenty thousand pounds.
"Are you absolutely sure that nothing can be done?" persisted Mrs.
Windlebird. "Have you tried every one?"
"Every one, dear moon-of-my-delight--the probables, the possibles, the
highly unlikelies, and the impossibles. Never an echo to the minstrel's
wooing song. No, my dear, we have got to take to the boats this time.
Unless, of course, some one possessed at one and the same time of
twenty thousand pounds and a very confiding nature happens to drop from
the clouds."
As he spoke, an aeroplane came sailing over the tops of the trees
beyond the tennis-lawn. Gracefully as a bird it settled on the smooth
turf, not twenty yards from where he was seated.
* * * * *
Roland Bleke stepped stiffly out onto the tennis-lawn. His progress
rather resembled that of a landsman getting out of an open boat in
which he has spent a long and perilous night at sea. He was feeling
more wretched than he had ever felt in his life. He had a severe cold.
He had a splitting headache. His hands and feet were frozen. His eyes
smarted. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He hated cheerful M. Feriaud,
who had hopped out and was now busy tinkering the engine, a gay
Provencal air upon his lips, as he had rarely hated any one, even
Muriel Coppin's brother Frank.
So absorbed was he in his troubles that he was not aware of Mr.
Windlebird's approach until that pleasant, portly man's shadow fell on
the turf before him.
"Not had an accident, I hope, Mr. Bleke?"
Roland was too far gone in misery to speculate as to how this genial
stranger came to know his name. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Windlebird,
keen student of the illustrated press, had recognized Roland by his
photograph in the Daily Mirror. In the course of the twenty yards' walk
from house to tennis-lawn she had put her husband into possession of
the more salient points in Roland's history. It was when Mr. Windlebird
heard that Roland had forty thousand pounds in the bank that he sat up
and took notice.
"Lead me to him," he said simply.
Roland sneezed.
"Doe accident, thag you," he replied miserably. "Somethig's gone wrong
with the worgs, but it's nothing serious, worse luck."
M. Feriaud, having by this time adjusted the defect in his engine, rose
to his feet, and bowed.
"Excuse if we come down on your lawn. But not long do we trespass. See,
_mon ami_," he said radiantly to Roland, "all now O. K. We go on."
"No," said Roland decidedly.
"No? What you mean--no?"
A shade of alarm fell on M. Feriaud's weather-beaten features. The
eminent bird-man did not wish to part from Roland. Toward Roland he
felt like a brother, for Roland had notions about payment for little
aeroplane rides which bordered upon the princely.
"But you say--take me to France with you----"
"I know. But it's all off. I'm not feeling well."
"But it's all wrong." M. Feriaud gesticulated to drive home his point.
"You give me one hundred pounds to take you away from Lexingham. Good.
It is here." He slapped his breast pocket. "But the other two hundred
pounds which also you promise me to pay me when I place you safe in
France, where is that, my friend?"
"I will give you two hundred and fifty," said Roland earnestly, "to
leave me here, and go right away, and never let me see your beastly
machine again."
A smile of brotherly forgiveness lit up M. Feriaud's face. The generous
Gallic nature asserted itself. He held out his arms affectionately to
Roland.
"Ah, now you talk. Now you say something," he cried in his impetuous
way. "Embrace me. You are all right."
Roland heaved a sigh of relief when, five minutes later, the aeroplane
disappeared over the brow of the hill. Then he began to sneeze again.
"You're not well, you know," said Mr. Windlebird.
"I've caught cold. We've been flying about all night--that French ass
lost his bearings--and my suit is thin. Can you direct me to a hotel?"
"Hotel? Nonsense." Mr. Windlebird spoke in the bluff, breezy voice
which at many a stricken board-meeting had calmed frantic shareholders
as if by magic. "You're coming right into my house and up to bed this
instant."
It was not till he was between the sheets with a hot-water bottle at
his toes and a huge breakfast inside him that Roland learned the name
of his good Samaritan. When he did, his first impulse was to struggle
out of bed and make his escape. Geoffrey Windlebird's was a name which
he had learned, in the course of his mercantile career, to hold in
something approaching reverence as that of one of the mightiest
business brains of the age.
To have to meet so eminent a man in the capacity of invalid, a nuisance
about the house, was almost too much for Roland's shrinking nature. The
kindness of the Windlebirds--and there seemed to be nothing that they
were not ready to do for him--distressed him beyond measure. To have a
really great man like Geoffrey Windlebird sprawling genially over his
bed, chatting away as if he were an ordinary friend, was almost
horrible. Such condescension was too much.
Gradually, as he became convalescent, Roland found this feeling
replaced by something more comfortable. They were such a genuine,
simple, kindly couple, these Windlebirds, that he lost awe and retained
only gratitude. He loved them both. He opened his heart to them. It was
not long before he had told them the history of his career, skipping
the earlier years and beginning with the entry of wealth into his life.
"It makes you feel funny," he confided to Mr. Windlebird's sympathetic
ear, "suddenly coming into a pot of money like that. You don't seem
hardly able to realize it. I don't know what to do with it."
Mr. Windlebird smiled paternally.
"The advice of an older man who has had, if I may say so, some little
experience of finance, might be useful to you there. Perhaps if you
would allow me to recommend some sound investment----"
Roland glowed with gratitude.
"There's just one thing I'd like to do before I start putting my money
into anything. It's like this."
He briefly related the story of his unfortunate affair with Muriel
Coppin. Within an hour of his departure in the aeroplane, his
conscience had begun to trouble him on this point. He felt that he had
not acted well toward Muriel. True, he was practically certain that she
didn't care a bit about him and was in love with Albert, the silent
mechanic, but there was just the chance that she was mourning over his
loss; and, anyhow, his conscience was sore.
"I'd like to give her something," he said. "How much do you think?"
Mr. Windlebird perpended.
"I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send my own lawyer to her with--say,
a thousand pounds--not a check, you understand, but one thousand golden
sovereigns that he can show her--roll about on the table in front of her
eyes. That'll console her. It's wonderful, the effect money in the raw
has on people."
"I'd rather make it two thousand," said Roland. He had never really
loved Muriel, and the idea of marrying her had been a nightmare to him;
but he wanted to retreat with honor.
"Very well, make it two thousand, if you like. Tho I don't quite know
how old Harrison is going to carry all that money."
As a matter of fact, old Harrison never had to try. On thinking it
over, after he had cashed Roland's check, Mr. Windlebird came to the
conclusion that seven hundred pounds would be quite as much money as it
would be good for Miss Coppin to have all at once.
Mr. Windlebird's knowledge of human nature was not at fault. Muriel
jumped at the money, and a letter in her handwriting informed Roland
next morning that his slate was clean. His gratitude to Mr. Windlebird
redoubled.
"And now," said Mr. Windlebird genially, "we can talk about that money
of yours, and the best way of investing it. What you want is something
which, without being in any way what is called speculative,
nevertheless returns a fair and reasonable amount of interest. What you
want is something sound, something solid, yet something with a bit of a
kick to it, something which can't go down and may go soaring like a
rocket."
Roland quietly announced that was just what he did want, and lit
another cigar.
"Now, look here, Bleke, my boy, as a general rule I don't give tips--But
I've taken a great fancy to you, Bleke, and I'm going to break my rule.
Put your money--" he sank his voice to a compelling whisper, "put every
penny you can afford into Wildcat Reefs."
He leaned back with the benign air of the Alchemist who has just
imparted to a favorite disciple the recently discovered secret of the
philosopher's stone.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Windlebird," said Roland gratefully. "I
will."
The Napoleonic features were lightened by that rare, indulgent smile.
"Not so fast, young man," laughed Mr. Windlebird. "Getting into Wildcat
Reefs isn't quite so easy as you seem to think. Shall we say that you
propose to invest thirty thousand pounds? Yes? Very well, then. Thirty
thousand pounds! Why, if it got about that you were going to buy
Wildcat Reefs on that scale the market would be convulsed."
Which was perfectly true. If it had got about that any one was going to
invest thirty thousand pounds--or pence--in Wildcat Reefs, the market
would certainly have been convulsed. The House would have rocked with
laughter. Wildcat Reefs were a standing joke--except to the unfortunate
few who still held any of the shares.
"The thing will have to be done very cautiously. No one must know. But
I think--I say I think--I can manage it for you."
"You're awfully kind, Mr. Windlebird."
"Not at all, my dear boy, not at all. As a matter of fact, I shall be
doing a very good turn to another pal of mine at the same time." He
filled his glass. "This--" he paused to sip--"this pal of mine has a
large holding of Wildcats. He wants to realize in order to put the
money into something else, in which he is more personally interested."
Mr. Windlebird paused. His mind dwelt for a moment on his overdrawn
current account at the bank. "In which he is more personally
interested," he repeated dreamily. "But of course you couldn't unload
thirty pounds' worth of Wildcats in the public market."
"I quite see that," assented Roland.
"It might, however, be done by private negotiation," he said. "I must
act very cautiously. Give me your check for the thirty thousand to-night,
and I will run up to town to-morrow morning, and see what I can do."
* * * * *
He did it. What hidden strings he pulled, what levers he used, Roland
did not know. All Roland knew was that somehow, by some subtle means,
Mr. Windlebird brought it off. Two days later his host handed him
twenty thousand one-pound shares in the Wildcat Reef Gold-mine.
"There, my boy," he said.
"It's awfully kind of you, Mr. Windlebird."
"My dear boy, don't mention it. If you're satisfied, I'm sure I am."
Mr. Windlebird always spoke the truth when he could. He spoke it now.
It seemed to Roland, as the days went by, that nothing could mar the
pleasant, easy course of life at the Windlebirds. The fine weather, the
beautiful garden, the pleasant company--all these things combined to
make this sojourn an epoch in his life.
He discovered his mistake one lovely afternoon as he sat smoking idly
on the terrace. Mrs. Windlebird came to him, and a glance was enough to
show Roland that something was seriously wrong. Her face was drawn and
tired.
A moment before, Roland had been thinking life perfect. The only
crumpled rose-leaf had been the absence of an evening paper. Mr.
Windlebird would bring one back with him when he returned from the
city, but Roland wanted one now. He was a great follower of county
cricket, and he wanted to know how Surrey was faring against Yorkshire.
But even this crumpled rose-leaf had been smoothed out, for Johnson,
the groom, who happened to be riding into the nearest town on an
errand, had promised to bring one back with him. He might appear at any
moment now.
The sight of his hostess drove all thoughts of sport out of his mind.
She was looking terribly troubled.
It flashed across Roland that both his host and hostess had been
unusually silent at dinner the night before; and later, passing Mr.
Windlebird's room on his way to bed, he had heard their voices, low and
agitated. Could they have had some bad news?
"Mr. Bleke, I want to speak to you."
Roland moved like a sympathetic cow, and waited to hear more.
"You were not up when my husband left for the city this morning, or he
would have told you himself. Mr. Bleke, I hardly know how to break it
to you."
"Break it to me!"
"My husband advised you to put a very large sum of money in a mine
called Wildcat Reefs."
"Yes. Thirty thousand pounds."
"As much as that! Oh, Mr. Bleke!"
She began to cry softly. She pressed his hand. Roland gaped at her.
"Mr. Bleke, there has been a terrible slump in Wildcat Reefs. To-day,
they may be absolutely worthless."
Roland felt as if a cold hand had been laid on his spine.
"Wor-worthless!" he stammered.
Mrs. Windlebird looked at him with moist eyes.
"You can imagine how my husband feels about this. It was on his advice
that you invested your money. He holds himself directly responsible. He
is in a terrible state of mind. He is frantic. He has grown so fond of
you, Mr. Bleke, that he can hardly face the thought that he has been
the innocent instrument of your trouble."
* * * * *
Roland felt that it was an admirable comparison. His sensations were
precisely those of a leading actor in an earthquake. The solid earth
seemed to melt under him.
"We talked it over last night after you had gone to bed, and we came to
the conclusion that there was only one honorable step to take. We must
make good your losses. We must buy back those shares."
A ray of hope began to steal over Roland's horizon.
"But----" he began.
"There are no buts, really, Mr. Bleke. We should neither of us know a
minute's peace if we didn't do it. Now, you paid thirty thousand pounds
for the shares, you said? Well"--she held out a pink slip of paper to
him--"this will make everything all right."
Roland looked at the check.
"But--but this is signed by you," he said.
"Yes. You see, if Geoffrey had to sign a check for that amount, it
would mean selling out some of his stock, and in his position, with
every movement watched by enemies, he can not afford to do it. It might
ruin the plans of years. But I have some money of my own. My selling
out stock doesn't matter, you see. I have post-dated the check a week,
to give me time to realize on the securities in which my money is
invested."
Roland's whole nature rose in revolt at this sacrifice. If it had been his
host who had made this offer, he would have accepted it. But chivalry
forbade his taking this money from a woman. A glow of self-sacrifice
warmed him. After all, what was this money of his? He had never had any
fun out of it. He had had so little acquaintance with it that for all
practical purposes it might never have been his.
With a gesture which had once impressed him very favorably when
exhibited on the stage by the hero of the number two company of "The
Price of Honor," which had paid a six days' visit to Bury St. Edwards a
few months before, he tore the check into little pieces.
"I couldn't accept it, Mrs. Windlebird," he said. "I can't tell you how
deeply I appreciate your wonderful kindness, but I really couldn't. I
bought the shares with my eyes open. The whole thing is nobody's fault,
and I can't let you suffer for it. After the way you have treated me
here, it would be impossible. I can't take your money. It's noble and
generous of you in the extreme, but I can't accept it. I've still got a
little money left, and I've always been used to working for my living,
anyway, so--so it's all right."
"Mr. Bleke, I implore you."
Roland was hideously embarrassed. He looked right and left for a way of
escape. He could hardly take to his heels, and yet there seemed no
other way of ending the interview. Then, with a start of relief, he
perceived Johnson the groom coming toward him with the evening paper.
"Johnson said he was going into the town," said Roland apologetically,
"so I asked him to get me an evening paper. I wanted to see the lunch
scores."
If he had been looking at his hostess then, an action which he was
strenuously avoiding, he might have seen a curious spasm pass over her
face. Mrs. Windlebird turned very pale and sat down suddenly in the
chair which Roland had vacated at the beginning of their conversation.
She lay back in it with her eyes closed. She looked tired and defeated.
Roland took the paper mechanically. He wanted it as a diversion to the
conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and
Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference in
competition with Mrs. Windlebird's news.
Equally mechanically he unfolded it and glanced at front page; and, as
he did do, a flaring explosion of headlines smote his eye.
Out of the explosion emerged the word "WILD-CATS".
"Why!" he exclaimed. "There's columns about Wild-cats on the front page
here!"
"Yes?" Mrs. Windlebird's voice sounded strangely dull and toneless. Her
eyes were still closed.
Roland took in the headlines with starting eyes.
THE WILD-CAT REEF GOLD-MINE
ANOTHER KLONDIKE
FRENZIED SCENES ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE
BROKERS FIGHT FOR SHARES
RECORD BOOM
UNPRECEDENTED RISE IN PRICES
Shorn of all superfluous adjectives and general journalistic
exuberance, what the paper had to announce to its readers was this:
The "special commissioner" sent out by The _Financial Argus_ to
make an exhaustive examination of the Wild-cat Reef Mine--with
the amiable view, no doubt, of exploding Mr. Geoffrey Windlebird
once and for all with the confiding British public--has found,
to his unbounded astonishment, that there are vast quantities of
gold in the mine.
The discovery of the new reef, the largest and richest, it is
stated, since the famous Mount Morgan, occurred with dramatic
appropriateness on the very day of his arrival. We need scarcely
remind our readers that, until that moment, Wild-cat Reef shares
had reached a very low figure, and only a few optimists retained
their faith in the mine. As the largest holder, Mr. Windlebird
is to be heartily congratulated on this new addition to his
fortune.
The publication of the expert's report in The _Financial Argus_ has
resulted in a boom in Wild-cats, the like of which can seldom have
been seen on the Stock Exchange. From something like one shilling
and sixpence per bundle the one pound shares have gone up to nearly
ten pounds a share, and even at this latter figure people were
literally fighting to secure them.
The world swam about Roland. He was stupefied and even terrified. The
very atmosphere seemed foggy. So far as his reeling brain was capable
of thought, he figured that he was now worth about two hundred thousand
pounds.
"Oh, Mrs. Windlebird," he cried, "It's all right after all."
Mrs. Windlebird sat back in her chair without answering.
"It's all right for every one," screamed Roland joyfully. "Why, if I've
made a couple of hundred thousand, what must Mr. Windlebird have
netted. It says here that he is the largest holder. He must have pulled
off the biggest thing of his life."
He thought for a moment.
"The chap I'm sorry for," he said meditatively, "is Mr. Windlebird's
pal. You know. The fellow whom Mr. Windlebird persuaded to sell all his
shares to me."
A faint moan escaped from his hostess's pale lips. Roland did not hear
it. He was reading the cricket news.
THE EPISODE OF THE THEATRICAL VENTURE
Third of a Series of Six Stories
[First published in _Pictorial Review_, July 1916]
It was one of those hard, nubbly rolls. The best restaurants charge you
sixpence for having the good sense not to eat them. It hit Roland Bleke
with considerable vehemence on the bridge of the nose. For the moment
Roland fancied that the roof of the Regent Grill-room must have fallen
in; and, as this would automatically put an end to the party, he was
not altogether sorry. He had never been to a theatrical supper-party
before, and within five minutes of his arrival at the present one he
had become afflicted with an intense desire never to go to a theatrical
supper-party again. To be a success at these gay gatherings one must
possess dash; and Roland, whatever his other sterling qualities, was a
little short of dash.
The young man on the other side of the table was quite nice about it.
While not actually apologizing, he went so far as to explain that it
was "old Gerry" whom he had had in his mind when he started the roll on
its course. After a glance at old Gerry--a chinless child of about
nineteen--Roland felt that it would be churlish to be angry with a
young man whose intentions had been so wholly admirable. Old Gerry had
one of those faces in which any alteration, even the comparatively
limited one which a roll would be capable of producing, was bound to be
for the better. He smiled a sickly smile and said that it didn't
matter.
The charming creature who sat on his assailant's left, however, took a
more serious view of the situation.
"Sidney, you make me tired," she said severely. "If I had thought you
didn't know how to act like a gentleman I wouldn't have come here with
you. Go away somewhere and throw bread at yourself, and ask Mr. Bleke
to come and sit by me. I want to talk to him."
That was Roland's first introduction to Miss Billy Verepoint.
"I've been wanting to have a chat with you all the evening, Mr. Bleke,"
she said, as Roland blushingly sank into the empty chair. "I've heard
such a lot about you."
What Miss Verepoint had heard about Roland was that he had two hundred
thousand pounds and apparently did not know what to do with it.
"In fact, if I hadn't been told that you would be here, I shouldn't
have come to this party. Can't stand these gatherings of nuts in May as
a general rule. They bore me stiff."
Roland hastily revised his first estimate of the theatrical profession.
Shallow, empty-headed creatures some of them might be, no doubt, but
there were exceptions. Here was a girl of real discernment--a
thoughtful student of character--a girl who understood that a man might
sit at a supper-party without uttering a word and might still be a man
of parts.
"I'm afraid you'll think me very outspoken--but that's me all over. All
my friends say, 'Billy Verepoint's a funny girl: if she likes any one
she just tells them so straight out; and if she doesn't like any one
she tells them straight out, too.'"
"And a very admirable trait," said Roland, enthusiastically.
Miss Verepoint sighed. "P'raps it is," she said pensively, "but I'm
afraid it's what has kept me back in my profession. Managers don't like
it: they think girls should be seen and not heard."
Roland's blood boiled. Managers were plainly a dastardly crew.
"But what's the good of worrying," went on Miss Verepoint, with a brave
but hollow laugh. "Of course, it's wearing, having to wait when one has
got as much ambition as I have; but they all tell me that my chance is
bound to come some day."
The intense mournfulness of Miss Verepoint's expression seemed to
indicate that she anticipated the arrival of the desired day not less
than sixty years hence. Roland was profoundly moved. His chivalrous
nature was up in arms. He fell to wondering if he could do anything to
help this victim of managerial unfairness. "You don't mind my going on
about my troubles, do you?" asked Miss Verepoint, solicitously. "One
so seldom meets anybody really sympathetic."
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