Poor Relations Part 24

George sighed.

"Well, if you insist, I suppose you have the right to insist; but in my opinion it's a waste of time. And if the kids are in a police station, I think it would teach them a dashed good lesson to keep them there for awhile. You don't want to encourage them to lose themselves every day. I wish _you_ had half a dozen kids."

John, however, was inflexible; the sight of his brother sitting in that aqueous room and pondering the might-have-beens of the race course had kindled in his breast the fire of a reformer; George must be taught that he could not bring children into the world without being prepared to look after them. He must and should be taught.

"Why, you'd take more trouble," he declared, "if you'd lost a fox terrier."

"Of course I should," George agreed. "I should have to."

John reddened with indignation.

"Don't be angry, old chap. I didn't mean that I should think more of a fox terrier. But, don't you see, a dog is dependent upon its collar, whereas Bertram and Viola can explain where they come from. Is it very cold out?"

"You'd better wear your heavy coat."

"That means I shall have to go all the way upstairs," groaned George.

The two brothers walked along the hall, and John longed to prod George with a heavy, spiked pole.

"Going out, Touchwood?" inquired an elderly man of military appearance, who was practicing golf putts from one cabbage rose to another on the Brussels carpet.

"Yes, I'm going out, Major. You know my brother, don't you? You remember Major Downman, John?"

George left his brother with the major and toiled listlessly upstairs.

"I think I once saw a play of yours, Mr. Touchwood."

John smiled as mechanically as the major might have returned a salute.

"_The Fall of Nineveh_, wasn't it?"

The author bowed an affirmative: it was hardly worth while differentiating between Nineveh and Babylon when he was just going out.

"Yes," the major persisted. "Wasn't there a good deal of talk about the scantness of some of the ladies' dresses?"

"There may have been," John said. "We had to save on the dresses what we spent on the hanging gardens."

"Quite," agreed the major, wisely. "But I'm not a puritan myself."

John bowed again to show his appreciation of the admission.

"Oh, no. Rather the reverse, in fact. I play golf every Sunday, and if it's wet I play bridge."

John wished that George would be quick with his coat.

"But I don't go in much for the theater nowadays."

"Don't you?"

"No, though I used to when I was a subaltern. By gad, yes! But it was better, I think, in my young days. No offense to you, Mr. Touchwood."

"Distance does lend enchantment," John a.s.sented.

"Quite, quite. I suppose you don't remember a piece at the old Prince of Wales? What was it called? Upon my soul, I've forgotten. It was a capital piece, though. I remember there was a scene in which the uncle--or it may not have been the uncle--no, I'm wrong. It was at the Strand. Or was it? G.o.d bless my soul, I don't know which it was. You don't remember the piece? It was either at the Prince of Wales or the Strand, or, by Jove, was it Toole's?"

Was George never coming? Every moment would bring Major Downman nearer to the heart of his reminiscence, and unless he escaped soon he might have to submit to a narrative of the whole plot.

"Do you know what I'm doing?" the Major began again. "I'm confusing two pieces. That's what I'm doing. But I know an uncle arrived suddenly."

"Yes, uncles are often rather fidgety," John agreed. "Ah, excuse me, Major. I see my brother coming downstairs. Good-by, Major, good-by. I should like to have a chat with you one of these days about the mid-Victorian theater."

"Delighted," the Major said, fervently. "I shall think of that play before to-night. Don't you be afraid. Yes, it's on the tip of my tongue.

On the very tip. But I'm confusing two theaters. I see where I've gone wrong."

At that moment there was the sound of a taxi's arrival at Halma House; the bell rang; when George opened the door for John and himself to pa.s.s out, they were met by Mrs. Worfolk holding Viola and Bertram tightly, one in each hand.

"I told you they'd turn up," George said, and immediately took off his overcoat with a sigh of relief. "Well, you've given us a nice hunt," he went on with an indignant scowl at the children. "Come along to my room and explain where you've been. Good evening, Mrs. Worfolk."

In their father's sitting-room Bertram and Viola stood up to take their trial.

"Yes," opened Mrs. Worfolk, on whom lay the burden of narrating the malefactors' behavior. "Yes, I've brought back the infant prodigals, and a nice job I've had to persuade them to come quiet. In fact, I never had such a job since I took my poor sister's Herbert hollering to the hospital with a penny as he'd nearly choked himself with, all through him sucking it to get at some sweet stuff which was stuck to the edge.

He _didn't_ choke, though, because I patted him all down the street the same as if I'd been bowling a hoop, and several people looked at me in a very inquisitive way. Not that I ever pay attention to how people looks, except in church. To begin with, the nerve they've got. Well, I mean to say, when any one packs up some luggage and sends it off in a taxi, whoever expects to see it come back again almost at once? It came bouncing back, I do declare, as if it had been India rubber. 'Well,' as I said to Maud, 'It just shows how deep they are, and Mr. Touchwood'll have trouble with them before the day's done. You mark my words.' And, sure enough, just as I'd made up my mind that you wouldn't be in to tea, rat-a-tat-tat on the front door, and up drives my lord and my lady as grand as you like in a taxi. Of course, it give me a bit of a turn, not seeing you, sir, and I was just going to ask if you'd had an accident or something, when my lord starts in to argue with the driver that he'd only got to pay half fare for himself and his sister, the same as his father does when they travel by train. Oh, yes; he was going to pay the man himself. Any one would of thought it was the Juke of Wellington, to hear him arguing with that driver. Well, anyway, in the end, of course I had to pay the difference out of my housekeeping money, which you'll find entered in the book. And then, without so much as a blink, my lord starts in to tell how they'd gone into the Small Rat's House--"

"Cats," interrupted Viola, solemnly.

"Well, rats or cats, what does it matter, you naughty girl? It wasn't of rats or cats you were thinking, but running away from your poor uncle, as you perf.e.c.kly well know. Yes, indeed, sir, they went into this small house and dodged you like two pickpockets and then went careering out of the Zoo in the opposite direction. The first taxi that came along they caught hold of and drove back to Church Row. 'But your uncle intended for you to go back to your father, Mr. George, in Earl's Court,' I remarked very severely. 'We know,' they says to me, laughing like two hyenas. 'But we don't want to go back to Earl's Court,' putting in a great deal of rudeness about Earl's Court, which, not wanting to get them into worse trouble than what they will get into as it is, I won't repeat. 'And we won't go back to Earl's Court,' they said, what's more.

'We _won't_ go back.' Well, sir, when I've had my orders given me, I know where I am, and the policeman at the corner being a friend of Elsa's, he helped; for, believe me or not, they struggled like two convicks with Maud and I. Well, to cut a long story short, here they are, and just about fit to be put to bed on the instant."

John could not fancy that Eleanor had contrived such an elaborate display of preference for his company, and with every wish to support Mrs. Worfolk by an exhibition of avuncular sternness he could only smile at his nephew and niece. Indeed, it cost him a great effort not to take them back with him at once to Hampstead. He hardened himself, however, and tried to look shocked.

"We wanted to stay with you," said Bertram.

"We wanted to stay with you," echoed Viola.

"We didn't _want_ to dodge you in the Small Cats' House. But we had to,"

said Bertram.

"Yes, we had to," echoed Viola.

"Their luggage _'as_ come back with them," interrupted Mrs. Worfolk, grimly.

"Oh, of course, they must stay here," John agreed. "Oh, unquestionably!

I wasn't thinking of anything else."

He beckoned to Bertram and Viola to follow him out of the room.

"Look here," he whispered to them in the pa.s.sage, "be good children and stay quietly at home. We shall meet at Christmas." He pressed a sovereign into each hand.

"Good lummy," Bertram gasped. "I wish I'd had this on the fifth of November. I'd have made old Major Downman much more waxy than he was when I tied a squib to his coat."