The Universal Friend

Observer, Volume XXXIV, Issue 23, 14 February 1914, Page 14

The Universal Friend

AS the girl drew nearer Charles's to a stare. To stare disadmiring glance steadied incr'eetly is an art, and Charles did not possess it. As she passed, Charles turned round and began a series of collisions in her wake. His eyes protruded like champagne corks, but, unhappily, they were focussed about six yards ahead of his feet. Anything within eighteen feet of him tbat did not happen to be looking where he was coming, he bumped into. The girl, turning to gaze at the rapidly gathering crowd, suddenly observed its hub punching the dent out of its bowler. With a gasp she incontinently fled down a side turning and took refuge in a confectioner's. Charles, replacing his hat, followed in pursuit. When he reached the turning down which the girl had disappeared, he paused and looked about him dubiously. It was a " cul de sac," and possessed about a dozen shops, any of whk-.h might be sheltering his quarry. Sticking out his jaw till he looked like a pugilist having his photo taken, he strode into the first shop. It was a large establishment. When eventually he got out alive he had seven small parcels dangling from his fingers. The girl, six shops away, was just beginning to recover from her alarm, when Charles, with an exhausted air, staggered in. Piling his collection of small parcels upon a vacant table, he seated himself at one from which they were not visible. For thirty-five minutes Charles sat in that shop. He wondered if the girl he had followed hadn't a home. While he waited, Charles consumed two cups of meat extract, one cup of tea, two chocolate eclairs, a slice of jam roll, and bought a box of preserved ginger to take home. When she judged, from the increasingly apologetic air with which he ordered a glass of ginger beer, that she had him thoroughly cowed, she rose and left the shop. Charles stepped on her shadow as she went out of the door. Crushing Charles was like treading on a rubber ball. Serenely unconscious that Charles was walking bandy-legged to avoid treading on her heels, it was with a feeling of consternation that, pausing to gaze into a window, she noticed him glaring with fascinated eyes at an assortment of baby linen a few yards off. For about two minutes she stood staring at the window, and then suddenly observing that it was a milliner's, she went in. She spent an hour and 10 minutes looking for a hat that would extinguish Charles; and when she came out, Charles, the Human Limpet, was standing on the curb as fresh as if he had just been washed up by the tide. Sticking her chin in the air, so that several small boys got a crick in the neck under the impression there was an air race on, she sped down the street. Charles jerked forward. By the time they had left the town the girl's high colour had vanished. In a quiet country road she came to an abrupt stop, and turned on him like a ferocious butterfly. Charles did a backward jump of about four feet, and then stood on one leg and looked at the trees. The girl stamped her foot as an invitation for him to approach, but Charles was not to be coaxed. Then she walked a few steps in his direction,

For a moment she stood still, biting her lips, and then she made up her mind to address Charles. Three times she opened her mouth to speak, and three times Charles cocked his ear towards the trees to listen for the cuckoo. "Oh, how dare you !" she got out at last. The girl having spoken first, Charles felt that they had now been introduced, so he took off his hat with the air of a Parliamentary candidate about to answer a group of hecklers. " Er—ah- " Before, lie could get really lucid, the meeting broke up. "No —gentleman woo-would do it," she said, as she turned on her heel. That settled Charles for good as a poor working lad, for he continued his impersonation of the perfect bloodhound until she turned up the carriage-drive of the first house she came to. it was a largo house, and Charles judged from the look of it, that it contained more big burly menservants than he would know what to do with. He turned and retraced his steps. As he walked slowly along with the depressed air and bent head of a man who had lost his last sixpence, he pondered over schemes for inirratiatii)"- himself with the girl. Walking, it is alleged, assists thought. When he got back to his hotel, the first person he ran into was Percy — Percy, the Universal Friend. "' H'lo," said Percy. " H'lo," said Charles. After that, conversation languished for some minutes, until Percy thought of the smoking-room. Seated in an armchair, with .something to hold in their hands, they both became inquisitive. "Wn you doin' here?" asked Percy, waggling his glass. " Sick aunt," explained Charles, putting his glass down, and wiping the froth off tlie tip of his nose. " Yon?" " Accident," said Percy, thus accounting for the strip of stick-ing-plaster on his forehead and the odour of petrol that pervaded his garments. "Milestone," he explained, indicating his wounded forehead. " Broke the mile-stone," lie added. Taking advantage of his open mouth. he pensively tilted his glass in that direction. " Percy, old thing," said Charles, bending forward and tapping one of his protruding knees, "Im in love." "G'luck!" said Percy. Bounding from his chair he stamped madly with both feet in a fight for breath. " G'lor," he gurgled, dabbing at his eyes with his handkerchief, and then wiping his waistcoat, "fancy saying a, thing like that when a fellow's drinking!" Eyeing his friend rebukingly, he thumped at his chest till he grew quite roundshouldered. " How'd it happen, son?" he inquired. " I went out for a walk this morning, and I saw her," explained Charles, simply. " This morning," echoed his friend. "G'lor! I know what it is, old son, you went walking on an empty stomach. It's lunch, not love,'that's the matter with you." " It's not hunger. She's the only girl .1 shall ever love." "S—sh," said Percy, raising his hand, "you'll be getting prosecuted by the police if you go looking into the future like this. It's more than enough if she's the only girl you ' do' love. What's the trouble? Does she give you the cold hand?"

"No," said Charles, sadly, "the only time I saAv her hand was when she was looking for a chunk of rock to heavy at me. I admit that" my behaviour was not that of a gentleman." " Admit nothing," said Percy. "Who is more the perfect gentleman than an oyster, and what does he get for it except brown bread and" lemon juice? No man's a bounder to the girl he loves. The most offensive type of man, to a woman, is the inoffensive one. Trust your Uncle Percy, old thing. If the girl snubbed you. it was hecause she knew she had to behave like a little lady, but all the time she was admiring your taste. She'll be so keen by this time on telling her fortune from the tea leaves in her cup, that she'll run a, strong risk of getting tannin acid poisoning. I bet she's had seventeen cups already this afternoon, and is only waiting for breath before starting on the second best teapot." "Huh," said Charles. "The next time you meet," continued Percy, "she'll be asking you if she is tlie only girl you've ever loved, and you'll be trying to admire her for believing you."^ "The next time we meet," said Charles. " the only thing she is likely to ask is for my name and address to put on the summons. " If you'd had the advantage of an education in your youth," said Percy, severely, "you'd have learnt that'an Englishman never knows when he is beaten. That's what the public schools of England exist for, to teach us little things like that to cheer us up." For the space of some minutes Percy remained buried so deep in thought that Charles began to fear that he would never get to the surface again. At length he raised his head and held up his finger for Charles to breath more quietly. "Charles," he said, "get ready your Chestnut Tree smile, the spreading one. You must write to her " " I don't know her name," said Charles, pale to the lips. Percy fell back limply in his chair, with his legs stretched out for anybody who chose to trip over them. "X.1.P." he said, faintly, with his last breath. Charles licked his lips, and made one last bid for his friend's respect. " I know where she lives," he pleaded, desperately. Percy changed his mind, and respiration was restored. " I am Hawkshaw, the detective," he announced, rising to his feet. " Charles, while your intellect retains its present vigour, write the address down." "Now, my dear Watson," he said, "go and lie down and see what a good rest will do for you. If I am not by your side when you awake, hope on. I shall probably be down here, nourishing myself." # # # When, an hour or so later, he reentered the smoking room, he found Charles retaining his tenancy of the armchair. " I suppose," he said at length, " that it never occurred to you that the young lady might be married?" Charles put his cigar down, and reached for the A.B.C. " It's all right," his friend reassured him, "" " she's not. Very

well, then. From the landlady at 'The Chequers,' a small hostel in the vicinity, I learnt that the owner of 'Hill View' is a bachelor girl."\, . " Her name?" demanded Charles. "Nothing to pain a fond lover; Pciriry Maijiwaring." " Peggy." breathed Charles, ardent! v, " Peg " " My scheme is pigeon-holed for the present," said the Universal Friend, regretfully. Real life romance, with a heart throb in every line, are the goods we're handlingjust now." " Ui?" said Charles, open-mouth-ed. Percy took a notebook from his pocket and consulted some illustrations of forked lightning. "Well, I can't read it," he said, after giving the entry careful consideration; " however, it's all there, if I could. Are you about five years older than Peggy?" "Im possibly five or six years Miss Mainwaring's senior," he asserted. " And you haven't a strawberry mark on "your left shoulder?" "N—no," Charles confessed, "I can't say I hay without looking. But I've a wart on my " "S—sh," said Percy. "Never volunteer evidence; that way perjury lies." " Grats, Lionel, old thing; heartiest gratters on your discovery." "Err" said Charles. "You are Lionel Mainwaring, who ran away from home at the age of fifteen—about 1903. Make a note of the date." " Oom," said Charles, volubly. "Exactly," said Percy. "As you say, you are your sister Peggy's long-lost brother." " But 1 don't want to be her longlost brother," wailed Charles. "That's because you haven't a long-distance eye," was the reply. " I got all this information from the landlady of 'The Chequers.' Until you have time to rehearse the role of Newly Found Husband, you be content to fill that of Long Lost Brother." Charles regarded him blankly. " It's all right," his friend soothed him, "this is the opportunity you've been looking for. You call at the house; you press a brotherly salute on her damask cheek as soon as you see her, and —and " "And?" queried Charles; "this isn't a serial story —what comes after 'and'?" "Haven't you imagination enough to think out the next instalment for yourself?" demanded Percy, pettishly. "H'm" said Charles. * # * Tlie following afternoon Percy waited for three hours in the smoking-room. When Charles put in an appearance,, his face was wreathed in smiles. "She's going to meet me to-mor-row," he cried, "and if things go on as they are doing, I shall take her to see my aunt on Sunday." ".Was 1 right, Charles, old thing?" cried Percy, triumphantly, "was I right?" "Yes," said Charles, pensively. " Except that Peggy Mainwaring is an old lady of seventy-five, and the girl is her companion, you were right in everything you said." —By F. Harris Deans, in "London Opinion."