A Knight on Wheels Part 42

After two hours of this sort of imbecility the troupe found itself consuming ices in Bond Street, having become possessed so far of two bath-mats and a waste-paper basket.

"Now we must be serious," announced Miss Leslie, wiping her eyes. She had learned to her cost this morning that no woman is ever too old to be immune from a fit of the giggles. "Mr. Rendle, will you kindly go home?"

Timothy's only reply was to dash out of the tea-shop and into an optician's on the other side of the street. Presently he returned, putting something in his pocket.

"Fall in and follow me!" he commanded.

"Where are we going to?" enquired Peggy, as the expedition meekly complied.

"International Furniture Company," was the brisk reply.

Timothy's dupes regarded one another more hopefully.

"That sounds like business," said Philip. "Come along!"

But Timothy's exuberance was not yet exhausted. On approaching the stately premises of the International Furniture Company he suddenly produced a pair of tinted spectacles from his pocket and put them on.

Then, a.s.suming the piping voice and humped shoulders of doddering senility, he took the scandalised Miss Leslie by the arm, and limping through the great doorway of the shop, demanded the immediate presence of the manager of the Antique Furniture Department.

On the appearance of that functionary, Tim bade him a courtly good-morning, and said:--

"I desire first of all to inspect your dining-room suites. We are setting this young couple"--indicating Philip, who flushed crimson, and Peggy, who exhibited no confusion whatever--"up in a flat."

The manager, a short-sighted young man with a nervous manner, after a startled inspection of the decrepit figure before him, turned upon his heel and led the way to the dining-room suites. Timothy hobbled after, leaning heavily upon Miss Leslie's arm and coughing asthmatically.

"Tim, you young a.s.s," urged Philip, hot with shame on Peggy's account, "dry up!"

The relentless humourist took not the slightest notice. Instead, he addressed the back of the manager.

"The young folk!" he wheezed--"the young folk! The old story! The time comes when they must leave the nest. My little bird"--here he laid a palsied hand upon the shoulder of Peggy, who choked noisily--"has flown away at last. It took her a long time to find her wings,--at one time I thought she was never going to do it,--but all's well that ends well, as Will Shakespeare puts it. My little bird has found a nest of her own--with honest John, here; and damme! her old grandad is going to furnish it for her! Are these your dining-room suites? They don't make furniture like they did in my young days, when Bob Chippendale and Nick Sheraton were alive. I remember--"

"I like this oak table very much," said Miss Leslie to Philip, in a high and trembling voice. "I wonder if there are chairs to match it."

But before any business could be transacted the irrepressible octogenarian was off again.

"Dearest Pamela," he said affectionately to Miss Leslie, "how well I remember the day that we two bought our wedding furniture together! We made a handsome couple, you and I. You wore a crinoline, with a black bombazine tippet; and I was in nankeen overalls and a fob. I was a mad wag in those days: I remember I offered to fight the shopman to decide the price of a harpsichord--or was it a spinet?--that I considered he asked too much for. But times have changed. I suppose you never fight your customers now to save chaffering, young man? If you do, all honour to you! I like to see ancient customs kept up." He surveyed the flinching vendor of dining-room suites with puckered eyes. "I am an old fellow now, and I fear I would hardly give you full measure. But if you have any inclination for a bout with the m.u.f.flers,"--a relentless hand descended upon the fermenting Philip and drew him forward,--"my son-in-law here, honest John--"

But the manager, murmuring something inarticulate about a telephone-call, turned tail and fled, his place being taken by a man of more enduring fibre.

And so on.

They got home about six, having purchased an imitation walnut wardrobe which they did not want.

"We simply _had_ to buy something after all that," said honest John.

A week later the flat was sufficiently furnished to be habitable, and the new tenants moved in.

It was about this time that Philip began to realise the portent and significance of a mysterious female figure, resembling an elderly and intensely respectable spectre, which had been d.o.g.g.i.ng his footsteps and standing meekly aside for him upon staircases ever since he entered into possession. With the arrival of the furniture the apparition materialised into a diminutive and sprightly dame in a black bonnet, who introduced herself as Mrs. Grice, and asked that she and her husband might be employed as the personal attendants of Philip and Tim. The pair resided in some subterranean retreat in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and their services, it appeared, were at the disposal of such of the tenants of the building as possessed no domestic staff of their own. Mrs. Grice could cook, darn, scrub, and dust; while Mr. Grice (whose impeccability might be gauged from the fact that he suffered slightly from gout and possessed a dress-suit) could wait at table and act as valet to the gentlemen.

Philip was alone when the a.s.sault was delivered, and capitulated at once, a natural inclination to wait until he had consulted Peggy being overridden by const.i.tutional inability to say "No" to a lady. The bargain concluded, Mrs. Grice advanced briskly to practical details.

"Now, sir," she said, "I see you 'ave your furniture comin' in. And very nice furniture, too," she added encouragingly. "But if you'll allow me, I should like to consult you about the fixtures. I always likes to be businesslike with my gentlemen. There's that curtain-pole over the window. That was given me by Sir Percy Peck, the gentleman what had the flat last. He said to me, just as he was leaving,--he was leaving to be married to Lady Ader Evings, and they sent me a pink ticket for the wedding, but I couldn't go, what with my daughter losing 'er 'usband about that time and Grice getting one of his legs, so it was wasted, not bein' transferable--well, he says to me, says Sir Percy: 'That curtain-pole is a present from me to you, Mrs. Grice.'"

The recipient of the departed Sir Percy's bounty paused to inhale a large quant.i.ty of sorely needed breath. Philip, who had written out a cheque only two days previously for all the fixtures in the flat, waited meekly.

"Now, sir," continued Mrs. Grice briskly, "what shall I do with that curtain-pole? Shall I 'ave it took down, or would it be any convenience to you to buy it from me?"

"I have an idea, Mrs. Grice," said Philip, plucking up courage, "that I took over all the fixtures from the landlord."

"Right, sir, _quite_ right!" a.s.sented Mrs. Grice promptly. "But those were landlord's fixtures. I'm talking about tenant's fixtures. I dare say," she added indulgently, "that you didn't know about them. Perhaps you haven't taken a flat before. Well, Sir Percy, he says to me: 'That curtain-pole is a present from me to you, Mrs. Grice.' Now, sir, will you have that pole took down, or will you take it off me 'ands?"

"After all," argued Philip to himself, "I daresay the old lady needs the money more than I do; and in any case she appears to think the rotten thing is hers, which will mean my getting another; so--"

"Certainly I will take it, Mrs. Grice," he said. "Er--how much do you want for it?"

At the mention of money Mrs. Grice became greatly fl.u.s.tered.

"Really, sir, I would rather leave it to you," she protested. "A gentleman knows more about such things than what I do. I am quite sure you will give me a fair price for it."

Philip, feeling perfectly certain that he would not, again pressed Mrs.

Grice to name a figure. Finally the old lady overcame her extreme delicacy of feeling sufficiently to suggest ten shillings.

"But we must be fair about it, sir," she insisted. "I don't want to overcharge you." She paused, as if struck by a sudden thought. "I'll tell you what, sir,--we'll ask a third party!"

Next moment Mrs. Grice was at the door.

"Grice!" she called shrilly.

"Commin', Emmer," replied a husky voice, and Mr. Grice sidled into the room with uncanny suddenness.

"How much, Grice," enquired his helpmeet, pointing to the curtain-pole, "would you think was a fair price for that pole? A _fair_ price, mind!"

Mr. Grice fixed his wandering and watery eyes upon the article under consideration, and ruminated. Finally:--

"Ten shillin'," he said.

Mrs. Grice turned to Philip with a smile of delighted surprise.

"Well, I declare!" she exclaimed. "I was about right, after all, sir."

Philip, quite overwhelmed by this convincing coincidence of judgment, announced humbly that he would take the curtain-pole.

"I had better pay for it now," he said.

"One moment, sir, if you please!" replied Mrs. Grice.