The Tale of Lal Part 29

Having safely gained his own abode, the Writer gazed apprehensively out of the window.

The sailor could still be seen supporting himself against the pedestal of the Lion's statue, the policeman appeared to be engaged upon a new crusade of note-taking. The small crowd was melting away, but the sinister face of the sarcastic man could be seen wreathed in a cynical smile of triumph.

The Writer whistled, and drawing the curtains close, turned up the electric light and antic.i.p.ated the worst.

The Lord Mayor sank into the most comfortable chair he could select, and helped himself to a drink; he felt he needed one badly at that moment.

"What a dreadful and degrading scene," lamented Sir Simon. "Good gracious, if anybody had seen me who recognised me, I should never have heard the last of it."

The Writer lit a cigar thoughtfully, and pa.s.sed the box to Sir Simon.

"I am afraid, Dad, we never shall hear the last of it," prophesied the Writer gloomily.

"What do you mean?" inquired Sir Simon.

"Did you notice that man who spoke to me at the edge of the crowd, who had presumably seen the whole thing?"

"Of course not," replied Sir Simon; "how on earth could I notice anybody under such distressing circ.u.mstances? Who was he? what about him?"

"That was the famous Mr. Learned Bore."

"What, the man who is always advertising himself?"

"Yes," agreed the Writer, "and unfortunately he has the power to do so through the medium of the newspapers; his letters to London are one of the features of the Press," added the Writer significantly.

"Don't tell me," entreated the Lord Mayor, with an imploring look in his eyes, "that he will make me, the Lord Mayor of London, a subject for his heartless gibes."

"He's certain to write two columns about it in one of to-morrow or the next day's papers," declared the Writer hopelessly. "Do you suppose such a man would waste such material and copy as that for one of his satirical eruptions?"

The Lord Mayor groaned aloud at the very thought of this new terror, which threatened to descend like the sword of Damocles and crush all the joy of his new civic dignity. With trembling hands he folded his bright robe and glittering chain of office; the Lord Mayor felt that he could no longer bear the sight of them.

"What on earth I can say to Mum for being out as late as this I don't know," lamented the Mayor dolefully; "she will, of course, believe I have been to another Pantomime; she always taxes me with having gone to a Pantomime whenever I stay out late. However," sighed the Mayor, "I shall show her the d.i.c.k Whittington which has really been the cause of all the trouble."

It may have been that Sir Simon was still unusually agitated from the scene he had recently pa.s.sed through, to say nothing of the vague foreboding caused by the knowledge that Mr. Learned Bore might conceivably do anything within the next few days. There is a possibility that his hand trembled; whatever may have been the cause, as Sir Simon lifted the little d.i.c.k Whittington from the table, he let it fall. As it crashed upon the hard polished floor it broke into a dozen pieces, and the merry little figure of d.i.c.k Whittington was hopelessly shattered. Sir Simon looked blankly at the Writer.

The Writer looked blankly back at Sir Simon.

As poor Sir Simon ruefully picked up the pieces, he looked disconsolate enough to be upon the verge of tears. The Writer, although keenly affected by the loss, tried, although unsuccessfully, to comfort him.

"Never mind, Dad, it can't be helped, and I suppose d.i.c.k Whittington has served his day."

"To think I have broken the most perfect specimen in the world," moaned Sir Simon; "that you must have denied yourself greatly to give me, and to think I shall never be able to convince Mum now, or even mention it, for she wouldn't believe one word of the story. Besides," wound up Sir Simon, "it is so dreadfully unlucky to break china. Call me a cab, my dear boy," implored the old gentleman, "a four-wheeler, if possible; I really dare not go home in a taxi, I feel some other dreadful accident would happen to me if I did."

Upon his way home Sir Simon ruminated upon the events of the evening.

He found himself unable to make up his mind which portion of the adventure had been the most discomforting to him. Finally, upon approaching the Mansion House, he caught himself indulging in speculation and uttering his thoughts aloud.

"I wonder what possible story he could have told the policeman, to get me out of that dreadful situation so quickly; and I wonder," mused Sir Simon, "why the policeman tapped his head in that curious manner; he must have told him something that appealed to him at once. I dare say even policemen have their feelings, and looking back upon matters calmly, I suppose my conduct must perhaps have appeared a little out of the ordinary. However, if I ever come across that constable again, I must try and make him a little present."

Sir Simon little realised that he was to meet the constable again very soon, and certainly never realised where, otherwise it is safe to a.s.sume that the good Sir Simon would never have slept the tranquil sleep he did that night, full of peaceful dreams, over which the Pleasant-Faced Lion presided like the protecting guardian watch-dog that the good Lord Mayor always believed him to be.

CHAPTER VIII

AN UPSETTING ARTICLE IN THE MORNING PAPER

Some few mornings after the events just recorded the Lady Mayoress sat down to breakfast in one of the most cosy of the morning-rooms in their private suite in the Mansion House. A very smart manservant of quite aristocratic appearance solemnly poured out some most fragrant coffee, and removed many covers from a most delicately appetising breakfast-table, as a preliminary to removing his aristocratic presence from the room altogether. There could be no doubt that the Lady Mayoress was a singularly pretty and attractive lady, and despite her well-dressed head of iron-grey hair, looked fully fifteen years younger than her age, which is invariably a pleasing reflection for a woman who has pa.s.sed the age of forty-five.

The Lady Mayoress sipped her morning coffee, and in the absence of her husband the Lord Mayor, who was late for breakfast on this occasion, unfolded the morning newspapers and started leisurely to peruse their contents.

The Lady Mayoress, being exceedingly popular, and having taken a prominent part in a number of social functions, like most women, was never averse to reading any paragraphs which might chance to mention her sayings, doings, and, more particularly, her dress. The Lady Mayoress read on; there appeared to be very little in the particular paper she was perusing that interested her, so refolding it carefully the Lady Mayoress selected another morning paper, and opening it, smiled as she read in big print, "Audacious attack by Mr. Learned Bore."

"Ah!" commented the Lady Mayoress, "he certainly is a particularly audacious, as well as being a very naughty man, who makes fun of everything and everybody, but at least his articles and letters are always amusing." Thereupon the smiling lady gently stirred her coffee, folded the newspaper to the required place, and proceeded to enjoy Mr.

Learned Bore's contribution to the morning journalism.

Suddenly the little silver coffee spoon dropped from the Lady Mayoress's hand, and she sat bolt upright in her chair as if she had received a galvanic shock. At this inauspicious moment the Lord Mayor made his appearance, very jovial and full of happy morning greetings, mingled with pleasant apologies for being late.

Something in the expression of his wife's face, however, gave the worthy Lord Mayor an uncomfortable, apprehensive sort of feeling, the cheerful flow of his morning remarks died away in little sentences, as if the promise of their young life had been cut short.

The Lord Mayor chipped an egg nervously, and made a brave show of gulping his coffee.

"Well, Mum, you seem very interested in the morning paper," observed Sir Simon, with an a.s.sumption of hearty cheerfulness he was far from feeling.

Something in the expression of Mum's face seemed to baffle all a.n.a.lysis, as she continued to read without vouchsafing any answer.

After a terrible pause the Lady Mayoress refolded the paper, and laying it upon the table, regarded her husband steadfastly with flushed face and sparkling eyes.

Sir Simon's heart seemed to sink into his boots.

"I thought you distinctly told me, Simon, when you returned, at what I can only describe as a most eccentric hour in the early morning, that you had been visiting an old friend."

"Quite right, my dear, I a.s.sure you I had. I'm right upon that point at any rate."

"You told me you had not been to a Pantomime," continued his wife, heedless of the interruption.

"No, my dear,--no Pantomime, I a.s.sure you; I never entered a theatre or a building of any such description."

"Apparently not," came the icy reply; "the Pantomime in this case appears to have taken place in the open air. Read that paper,"

commanded the Lady Mayoress, "and offer any suggestion you can find as to how I can keep up my position, or your position, whilst such a statement as this" (tapping the opened paper) "remains uncontradicted."

Then the Lady Mayoress swept from the room.

Sir Simon groaned and closed his eyes before venturing to look at the offending article. He instinctively felt he was about to receive a shock without the necessary strength to bear it. Sir Simon gingerly unclosed one eye and read, "Audacious attack by Mr. Learned Bore." Sir Simon shivered and hastily closed the one eye he had opened. Then he valiantly tried both eyes and read by way of a second and happy headline, "The Lord Mayor revives Paganism in London." Sir Simon never knew how he finished that article. It was a most scurrilous attack.

All the biting satire and vitriolic irony that Mr. Learned Bore had so well at his command was here employed to compliment the Lord Mayor upon being acclaimed a great Christian in the afternoon after opening his New House for Children; whilst he was found at night like any Pagan of old worshipping one of the lions in Trafalgar Square, around whose mane he had hung a votive wreath of water-lilies, across whose unresponsive neck the Lord Mayor had wound his arms in supplication, imploring it that it might speak, and give a sign like the Oracle in Delphi.

Was the Lord Mayor of London the last of the great Pagans? asked the writer, or had he merely gone back a few thousand years in imagination, owing to the insidious suggestions of another Heathen Deity who had doubtless presided over the Wine-press with an unstinted hand earlier in the day during the banquet at the Guildhall? The writer dared to express a hope that it was merely a form of Civic debauchery emanating from the oft-replenished toasts of the Devil's cup, rather than a cla.s.sical intoxication which if persisted in might plunge the whole of London once more into the perverted darkness of Pagan ages.

The Lord Mayor seized his hat and called for his carriage, and arrived at the Writer's chambers overlooking Trafalgar Square, purple in the face.