THE LUCK OF THE BODKINS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22318, 16 January 1936, Page 17

THE LUCK OF THE BODKINS

By IP. G. WODEHOUSE

CHAPTER XXIV. In the demeanour of Mr. Llewellyn, as he camo tripping into the room, there was no trace of that mental and physical collapse which he had exhibited at tlie telephone. It had been but a passing weakness, and it was over. Presidents of largo motion picture corporations are tough and resilient. They recuperate quickly. You might make Ivor Llewellyn turn purple, but you could not quench his gallant spirit. He was a man who knew how to take it as well as clish it out. Through years of arduous training he had acquired the ability to assimilate the blows of Fate and then rise on stepping-stones of his dead self and by his genius turn disaster into victory. This was what he had come to do noTT. A hasty conference with Mabel, and his plans were formed, his schemes perfected. The fact, that they would involve a complete reversal of his policy of grinding rattlesnakes beneath his heel and that the first thing he would have to do would be to conciliate these rattlesnakes and fraternise with them, did not trouble him. No motion picture magnate is ever troubled by the voltefaoe. "Hello, there, Mr. Bodkin," he boomed benignantly, firing the first gun of his campaign. So engulfed was Monty at the moment in his personal Slough of Despond that only some very novel and surprising happening could have jerked him out of it. This change for the cheerier in Mr. Llewellyn's manner .did so. Ho stared, amazed. "Oh, hullo," he said. "Say, listen, Mr. Bodkin, I've an explanation to make to you." Mr. Llewellyn paused. His attention seemed to be momentarily diverted. "Say, that's cunning," he said, pointing. "That mouse. Yours?" "It belongs to Miss Butterwick." "I don't think I've had the pleasure of meeting Miss Butterwick." "Oh, sorry. Miss Butterwick, my fiancee, Mr. Llewellyn." "How do you do?" "How do you do?" said Gertrude. "Both the Mr. Tennysons I know, and of course Lottie. Well, well," said Mr. Llewellyn genially, "looks like we were all friends here, eh? Ha, ha." "Ha, ha," said Monty. "Ha, ha," said Gertrude. Lottie, Ambrose and Reggie did not say "Ha, ha," but Mr. Llewellyn appeared satisfied with the "Ha,ha's" he had got. He seemed to feel that he had now placed matters on a chummy basis al! round. He beamed a little more, and then allowed his smile to fade out, leaving behind it a grave, concerned look.

"Say, listen, Mr. Bodkin. I was saying I had an explanation to make to you. It's this way. After you'd left my office, my sister-in-law here blew in and I told her of our little conversation, and what she said made me look at the thing from a new angle. Listening to her, it suddenly occurred to me that you might have thought I was serious when I handed you that line of talk. And I felt mighty bad about it. Got all worked up, didn't I, Mabel?" "Yes," said Mabel Spence. Not as a rule a "yes-girl," Bhe knew that there were times when "yessing" was essential.

"I'll say I was worked up," proceeded Mr. Llewellyn. "The last thing in the world I expected was that you'd take all that stuff seriously. I thought that you'd have been on to it right away that I was just kidding. Sure! Ribbing, m call it over here. When you've been on this side a little longer, you'll get used to our American kidding. Well, Gee!" said Mr. Llewellyn, in honest surprise, "the idea that you'd really think I'd switched right around and didn't want you with the S.—L. never so much as crossed my mind till Mabel made me see it. No, sir, I don't blow hot and cold that way. You can't make money in my business if you don't know your own mind better than that. When I come to a decision, that decision stays come to." Monty was aware of a constriction at the heart. He gulped. He was not a young ms.n of swift perceptions, but there was that in the other's words which had caused him to tremble with a sudden hope. "Then you—" "Eh?" "Then you do want me to come to Hollywood?"' "Why, sure," said Llewellyn heart-

ily. "And Ambrose?" said Lottie Blossom. , . "Why sure," said Mr. Llewellyn, his heartiness undiminished. "You'll s:ign a contract? "Why, sure. Certainly I will. Any time the boys care to look in at my office. Can't do it here, of course, ' said Mr. Llewellyn, chuckling amusedly at the quaint idea of signing contracts in a hotel sitting room. Mabel Spenco corrected this view. "Yes, you can," she said reassuringly, opening her vanity bag. "I've Reggie's contract here. Reggio and I can be copying it out while you go on talking, and then you'll be able to sign it before you leave, and everything will be fine." Mr. Llewellyn ceased to chuckle. He had not intended while he was in this room to allow his cheeriness to go out of high, but at this suggestion a keen observer would have noted a distinct indication in his manner of something not unlike pain. "That's right, too," he said. He spoke not in his former ringing tone, but slowly and huskily, as if something sharp had become inbedded in his wind-pipe. At the same time, lio gave his sister-in-law one of those looks which men give a relation by marriage whom they consider to have been deficient in tact. Mabel Spence did not seem to have observed the look.

"Sure," she said brightly. "It only means alterating a line or two. You want Mr. Bodkin as a production expert and Mr. Tennyson as a writer. Watch out for that, Reggie, when you come to the jjlaces." "Quite," said Reggie. "Production expert. . . Writer. I get you." "Then the only other thing," said Mabel, "is terms. 1 mean, the penalty clauses and all that we can just copy out as they stand." "Yes," said Reggie.

"Yes," said Ambrose. "Yes," said Mr. Llewellyn. He still seemed to to be troubled by that substance in his windpipe. "I would suggest —" "Say, listen—" "Well, iio need to argue about Ambrose," Reggie pointed out. "We're all straight there, what? He gets fifteen hundred, as per previous arrangement.'' "Of course. And Mr. Bodkin —?" "How about a thousand? Nice round sum, you remember we agreed." "Say, listen," said Mr. Llewellyn, with a quaver in his voice, "a thousand's a lot of money. I only pay my

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an amusing story by a popular author

wife s cousin, Genevieve, three hundred and fifty, and she's a very valuable girl. . . And there's a depression on. . . And things don't look any too good in the picture business. . ." " Oh, make it a thousand," eaid lAeggie, impatient of hair-splitting. 1011 re willing to take a thousand, Monty?" Yes.' Monty, like Mr. Llewellyn, was not quite normal about the windpipe. " Yes, I'll take a thousand." " Right. Then evei-ything's settled. Let s get at it." The two scribes withdrew to the writing-table, and their departure from the centre of things brought about a lull in the conversation. The realisation that, owing to the officiousness of his sister-in-law, a girl whom he had never liked, lie would have to sign these contracts before getting the mouse, instead of getting the mouse and then refusing to sign any contracts whatsoever, had induced in Mr. Llewellyn a quiet, pensive mood. And as none of the others seemed to have anything to say that called for immediate utterance, silence fell—a silence broken only by a scratching of pens to which Mr. Llewellyn tried not to listen. Reggie and Mabel were both quick writers. It was not long before they were able to, rise with their task completed and place the results before the party of the first part. "Here's a pen," said Mabel. " And here's where you sign," said Reggie. " Where my thumb is." " But don't sign the thumb," said Mabel. " Ha, ha." " Ha, ha," said Reggie. They were both delightfully jolly and breezy about the whole thing, and their gaiety seemed to burn into Ivor Llewellyn't soul like vitriol. His suffering as he affixed his signature was indeed so manifest that Mabel Spence's heart was touched. She determined that sunshine should now enter his life in compensation for the rain which had been falling into it. " That certainly is a cute mouse, Miss Butterwick," she said, ancL Mr. Llewellyn shook with emotion and made a blot. " You wouldn't part with it, would you ?" "Good Lord, no!" cried Monty, shocked. " Oh, I couldn't," said Gertrude. Mabel nodded. " I was afraid not," she said. " I was hoping we could get that mouse for Josephine, Ikey." "Oh yeah?" said Mr. Llewellyn guardedly. This was the first he had heard of Josephine. " Ikey," explained Mabel, " has a little crippled niece, and she had set her heart on a Mickey Mouse." Gertrude stirred uneasily. Monty stirred uneasily. Mr. Llewellyn stirred hopefully. He did not like Mabel, but he liked her work. He gazed at her with a sudden sharp admiration. That "crippled." Exactly the touch the treatment needed to make it box-office. "Crippled?" said Monty. " Crip-pippled?" said Gertrude. " She was run over by a car last year." "A Rolls-Royce," said Mr. Llewellyn, who liked to do things well. " And she has been on her back ever since. Ah, well," said Mabel, with a sigh, " I must go and hunt round the stores. Though" I'm afraid they won't" have just the right thing. It's so difficult to get exactly the kind she wants. You know how fanciful children are when they are ill and suffering —" " She has golden hair," said Mr. Llewellyn.

" Monty," said Reggie, who knew that his employer liked Service and Co-operation, " are you going to be such a low-down hound as to withhold that mouse from this poor blighted child?"

" And blue eyes," said Llewellyn. " Monty 1" cried Gertrude appealingly- " Absolutely," said Monty. " Of course she must have it, poor little thing," said Gertrude. " 1 wouldn't dream of keeping it." " Well spoken, my young hockeyknocker," said Reggie cordially, if perhaps a little patronisingly. " You're sure?" said Mabel.

" Of course, of course," said Gertrude, who had been eyeing lleggie in a rather unpleasant manner. " Here it is, Mr. Llewellyn." It was plainly something of a wrench for her to part with the precious object, and a really niceminded man might have accepted it with a certain show of reluctance and hesitation. Mr. Llewellyn snatched at it like a monkey jumping for a coconut. The next moment, he was backing toward the door, as if fearful of second thoughts. At the door he seemed to realise that he had fallen a little short in polish and courtesy.

" Well, say. . ." he began. It is probable that he was meditating a stately speech of thanks. But the words would not come. He stood for an instant, beaming uncertainly. Then he was gone. And as the door closed behind him, the telephone rang.

Reggie went to answer it. " Hullo? . . . Hight. Send him up. Albert Peasemareh below," he said, demanding audience.". Monty smote his brow. "Good Lord! I never tipped him! And 1 was in his state-room half the voyage." In the interval which elapsed between the announcing of Albert Peasemareh and the appearance of Albert Peasemareh in the flesh, an informal debate took place in the sitting-room concerning the ethics of the thing. Lottie Blossom was anti-Peasemarch. Sho maintained that if this lino of behaviour was to be allowed to continue and develop—if, that was to say, stewards of ocean liners were to be permitted to pursue forgetfjil clients to New York hotels, it would not be long before they started hunting them all over America with dogs. Reggie, more charitable, said that justice was justice and Monty ought to have slipped the fellow something. Monty was busy trying to secure two fives for a ten.

On Albert Peasemarch's face, when ho finally entered, there was the old, familiar look of respectful reproach. He gazed at Monty as at an erring son. "Sir," he said. "I know, I know." "It was not a right thing for you to have gone and done, sir " All idea of trying to get two fives for his ten had now left Monty. Looking into those reproachful eyes, hearing that reproachful voice, he burned with shame and remorse. It was with the ten in his hand that he now bounded upon Albert Peasemareh. "I know, I know," he said. "You're quite right. It beats me how I came to forget. I had a lot on my mind. Here you are." At the sight of the bill, Albert Peasemarch's austerity seemed momentarily to melt. "Thank you, sir." "Not at all." "Very generous of you, sir." "Not a bit." "I am much obliged for the gift and the kind thought behind it," said Albert Peasemareh. He folded the bill and slipped it into his sock. "I wasn't expecting this, and it's made it difficult for me to speak as I ought to speak. Nevertheless, sir, 1 feel constrained to do so. As \ was saying, sir, it was not a right thing for you to have gone and done. A thing's either right or its not right, and if it's not right it a man's duty, especially if he feels as kindly disposed towards the bloke in question as I, if I may say so, do towards you, wishing you well and hoping to see you prosperous and successful " (To be concluded)