BILL AMONG UPLIFTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 258, 31 October 1929, Page 30

BILL AMONG UPLIFTERS.

(By WILLIAM FREEMAN.)

(SHORT STORX.)

Bill Ponder had been standing on the edge of the pavement for less than ten minutes when the conscientious young policeman hustled him off into the road : and in the gutter less than five minutes ■When the girl in grey spoke to him. '•'Have you any fusees?" she asked. She was young and definitely charming; her eyes were a dazzling blue, and anything more than the merest suggestion of powder would have been an insult to her complexion. "Sorry," said Bill, pulling himself together, "but we're out of fusees a-t present. In fact, I doivt know where you'll get them. But we've some absolutely lop-hole Czecho-Slovakian safety matches in stock. Also collar studs, pencils, together with boot and shoe laces, masculine and feminine." "I do want some shoe laces," admitted the girl. She glanced at the selection spread out on the tray that was suspended by straps round his shoulders. " Guaranteed mohair," Bill assured her. "I'm not quite sure what a mo is, but it's supplied hair for shoe laces for years and years." The blue eyes twinkled. "Aren't you talking rather —nonsense?" "Perhaps," said Bill, humbly. "It's' excitement. You're my first customer, you know." " This morning, or since you started selling things in the street?" "Both." " I cau't help feeling, and you mustn't mind my saying so, that you ought to be doing something better than this." Bill nodded a cheerful agreement. " There are lots of things 1 can do better. But no one seems really keen on my doing them." "Why not join the Uplift League?" she suggested. " The what, miss ? " " The Uplift League, Kerli-Merchants' Branch. All the members are people who arfe pledged to rise from their dead selves " " It's frightfully kind of you to suggest it," said Bill, hastily, " but I shouldn't be any good at rising. Honestly I shouldn't. Too heavy in hand. Why, a-balloon with me in it would just stay in the middle of the Seld. ' Pig-Iron Bill'—that's what I'm known as." •" I'm known as Jenny West, and if you could call at the League's meeting place " she wrote an address on a page torn from a little note-book she took from her bag—"at about four o'clock this evening you'll probably hear of something to your advantage." ' Bill murmured a vague assent. He'd no real intention of going, but the blue eyes were so blue, the smUe so charming She went on her way. Bill resumed his job. Opposite him was the door of the Patentees' Agency. People streamed in and streamed out —inventors, cranks, agents, men who wanted to sell patents, men who wanted to buy patents. But none of them showed any disposition to buy collar-scuds or matches. And the wind was in the east. The morning dragged on. By twelve ! o'clock he • had taken sevenpence, not including a French ten-centime piece which had been deftly passed on to him. He began to uaderstand why there "wasn't any competition from other match-venders at this particular corner. At; half-past twelve he packed up and ■went into an eatinghouse near for'a meal. The waitress treated him as, no doubt, a waitress has ,a right to treat a match-seller. But her eyes were blue, and reminded him of Jenny West and the Uplift League. When he went back to his pitch it was drizzling. It continued to drizzle. By three o'clock, despite a mackintosh, he was so damp and wretched that he was beyond caring what the weather did. By half-past he., had definitely decided to. visit the Uplift League. At a quarter to four he set out. The address on the paper—l7b, Walberswick Crescent —was comparatively near. His own rooms were a couple of miles distant. The Crescent consisted of • Early-Vic-torian houses which, after having sunk slowly into klumdom, were now beginning to sit up and take notice as expensive flats. Seventeen-B was on the first floor. A. white-capped' maid opened the door, said "Yes, it's quite right," and took his mackintosh, cap, and tray. In the biggish room to which he was afterwards conveyed he saw Miss West.

While he was' still hesitating she beckoned him. ! - . . "I'm frightfully glad you've come,' 1 she said. " We're so anxious to get new members. Let me introduce you to Miss Perkins." A fair-haired, plain girl said, " Pleased to meet you, Mr. ", " Ponder," said Bill. " I ought to have mentioned it sooner." Miss Perkins, it seemed, did not consider any apologies needed. She told him that a year ago she had been selling flypapers at the Caledonian Market, and passed him on to a fat little man who immediately, asked Bill if he knew Woolwich. "Finest place to work off cheap lines in brilliantine and tooth-paste, bar none! " said the fat man, enthusiastically. '"'I made pretty near a 'undred quid there last Christmas, so I ought ter know." Bill agreed. Other Uplifters arrived and were introduced. \ There was some singing by a lady who had enthralled the trippers of Binglebeach-on-Sea throughout the. previous summer, a neat little conjuring display, by a whiteLaired gentleman who had lately charmed pennies from theatre queues, a recitation of "The , Green Eye of the Little Yellow God" by the youngest Uplifter, whose age couldn't have been more than eighteen. There was also an early but excellent supper. Bill enjoyed himself exceedingly. " Must you go ?" asked Miss West, when at eight o'clock he came to say good-bye. (f-I ought to," said Bill. He hesitated. " But there are several questions I'd like to.ask first." "I'll come down with you into the entrance hall," she suggested. "You can ask them there." The hall was cool, silent, deserted, i Jenny West moved to an old-fashioned mahogany chair and sat down. He could see her face only dimly in the half-light; the blue eyes might have been black. •''J don't really want to talk about Uplift," began Bill brusquely, " but about myself." " Of course." "Why 'of course'?" he demanded. She smiled, and shook her head, and left the question unanswered. "But I oughtn't to havo interrupted. Go on." , VI wanted to tell you he spoke still more jerkily—" that I'm not what vail imagine I am." • _ " "Don't be too sure about that, said Miss West. "You thought I was down on my luck " I " I still think it." 1

,""My dear. Miss West, I'm junior, part-! ner in Randall and Co., one of the biggest marine engineers in Victoria Street. The sole reason that I stood in the mud with that preposterous tray projecting from my chest was because I'd bet old i Randall a tenner that I'd find out who'd

• stolen the plans for the new pump that we've just paid twenty thousand pounds for." He paused. " What's the joke ? " " There isn't any. At least, not a very big one. Go on." ; "We were fairly certain—at least, I was—that the plans had found their way to the Patentees' Agency. I was also certain, for reasons that I needn't go into that whoever had .pinched them would call to-day either to fetch them away or get a cneque for them. And lastly, I'd have taken a twenty-to-one bet that a girl in our office who's engaged to a youth connected with the Agency was at the bottom of the whole business." "So you disguised yourself in old clothes and things and hung about outside ?" "Yes, We didn't want any scandal, and didn't care to trust the thing to professional detectives." " Doesn't it strike you that you may have lost your bet?" "I may have, but it isn't likely. Old Randall is really the deciding factor. From half-past three till about five to four he dictates letters. The girl would have to be in the office until then. The Agency closes at four sharp. Sven if she took a taxi she wouldn't be able to get to the place until a quarter past." "On the other hand, suppose she .'phoned from your office the moment Mr. Randall had left, and asked her fellowconspirator to wait at the Agency for her, as the matter was urgent? You weren't on duty then." "No, but " " Listen to me, Mr. Ponder. Brenda Dalziel went to school with me, and we've been chums ever since. A week ago she told me of a ghastly blunder that had happened. A packet of plans that another clerk ought to have put in the safe had been posted by him to the Patentees' Agency. The poor wretch, knowing Brenda was engaged to Dick McPherson, who was employed there, asked her to try to get them back by to-day. She promised. And then disr covered that you were suspecting her. How? Feminine intuition and masculine clumsiness, I expect. Anyhow, she did discover it. When she heard you weren't to be at the office to-day, ehe guessed you were going to play Sherlock Holmes. Some casual remark of yours to Mr. Randall made her certain." " You seem to know a good deal about me." " Brenda told me the whole story when it first happened. I promised to do my best to get you out of the way in time." " Suppose I hadn't come ? " "I knew you would come." "How?" "I just did. Of course, I invented all that nonsense about Uplift, and told the people I'd already inviled for the evening to play up accordingly. And' the dears did." " This is simply your own flat?" " Yes."

" And—and the plans ? " "You'll find them on your breakfast table to-morrow morning. No one but Brenda and Dick Mcl'herson have seen them. Dick knew at once that there'd been a mistake of some sort, but just waited to do what he was told." " He'll make an admirable husband." " Quite. Are you going to forgive me? " Bill laughed, not without bitterness. "Why trouble to ask? It doesn't matter one way or the other. I've made a complete and ignominious a?s of myself. We're not likely to meet again." " We might, if you'd come to Brenda's wedding. It's to be next month. They've been engaged for a year, and knew one another for two years , before that." "Good heavens! You're not gping to tell me that they waited twenty-four months before they were sure they wanted one another? Why, the first ten minutes ought to have settled the matter." "It doesn't, always." " Speaking from personal expenience " I must be going upstair? again." "Must you? There are so many other things I want to talk about." "What things.' " " Uplift," said Bill, on the sp\rr of the moment. "I shall be ax home on Tuesday afternoon," said Jenny West, her eyes shining like stars in the duslc. So Bill went to tea on Tuesday. But Uplift, as a subject of conversation, occupied a back place. And in spite of many other opportunities, it still does. Love at first sight, engagement rings, honeymoon arrangements, and the furnishing of a self-con-tained flat are far more interesting topics.