Under One Flag Part 44

"Let us understand each other, Gardiner. I am not quite well to-day."

"You're not looking well."

"I'm not feeling well." There was something in his manner I resented. I desired that the tone of my reply should bring that home to him.

"Something I had at your rooms last night has disagreed with me."

"Perhaps it was the oyster sauce."

This was Finlayson.

"I am not prepared to say exactly what it was."

"It couldn't have been the wine," Gardiner declared. "I was careful to see that every bottle was of the best."

"It might have been the olives," murmured Finlayson. "You never know."

"I repeat that I am not able to precisely locate the blame, but it certainly was something. I therefore beg you to understand that I am not in a condition to argue. So that when I ask you to forget, as I have done, what seems to have been a very poor jest, and when I tear this sheet of nonsense into shreds, as I now proceed to do--"

"Short!" Gardiner caught me by the wrist. "What are you up to? I had a clean copy made of that, and it's gone to the printer's. I felt that the original ought to be preserved."

"Gone to the printer's! Gardiner, what are you saying?"

"We left it at the printer's on the way to engage the room for the dinner."

"Engage the room for the dinner! Gardiner, are you in earnest?"

"Certainly, at the Coliseum Restaurant. We've settled the preliminaries. It's to be on Friday week, the fifth Friday of the month, the unluckiest day of all, in accordance with your suggestion."

"Is it possible that you seriously suppose that I could allow myself to become a.s.sociated with such a--such a travesty as this?"

I held up the sheet of paper.

"Allow yourself! Why, when you were unanimously elected president you spoke of the delight it would give you to serve."

"And you collected the subscriptions."

"Collected the subscriptions?"

"And deposited them in my tobacco jar, where, at the present moment, they repose. You appointed the first meeting for next Friday at my rooms, and promised you would occupy the chair."

"Gardiner, I have already alluded to the ill-health from which I am suffering--"

"Possibly," interrupted Finlayson, "it was the anchovy toast. You ate a plateful."

"I ate a plateful?" I looked at the speaker to see if he was gibing. He showed no signs of it. "If I ate anything like that quant.i.ty it probably was. But I do not wish to enter into that matter now. To show how const.i.tutionally unfitted I am to become a.s.sociated with such a scheme, I have only to point out that I am myself extremely superst.i.tious in little things."

When I said that the man Finlayson broke into a gust of laughter, in which Gardiner immediately joined him. I observed their merriment with a growing sense of umbrage.

"I don't know what you see to laugh at in my plain statement of a plain fact. And to show you that it is a fact, I have only to inform you that with the fall of a great-aunt's portrait from its place against the wall I directly connect a long chain of disasters which presently followed."

On my volunteering that piece of information their screams of laughter increased to such an extent that I thought they would have done themselves an injury. It was some time before Gardiner was able to gasp out, between his guffaws, and with both hands held to his sides,--

"You're splendid! You're immense! Why, last night you suggested that each man should bring to the dinner a portrait of a relative; that the whole thirteen should be hung against the wall, and be sent, at intervals, toppling headlong to the floor."

"I suggested that--I?"

"Great Scott!" shouted Finlayson; and he actually slapped me on the back, as if he were the friend of a lifetime. "I thought last night you were the most amusing man I had ever met, but to-day, in that dressing-gown, and with that box of seidlitz powders in front of you, you'll be the death of me if you don't take care."

I never had been regarded as a humorist before. At least, so far as my recollection carries me. I do not know why, but such is the case. That these two persons should find me funny, especially as I felt in anything but a frivolous mood, was unexpected. They certainly persisted in their refusal to take me seriously. The graver I became the more they screamed with laughter. It was really disconcerting. And finally resulted in so destroying the mental equipoise on which I pride myself, not without reason, that I actually found myself indulging, without the slightest desire to do so, in those extravagances which they seemed so singularly disposed to relish.

With such completeness, indeed, was the balance of my mind destroyed, that when they went away they left me irrevocably committed to a scheme for which I felt the greatest possible natural distaste. My earnest desire was to contemn the very notion of a Thirteen Club. Instead of which I found myself in the position of president of such an a.s.sociation; regarded almost as its originator; certainly as one of its leading spirits. How it had come about I was at a loss to imagine.

Moreover, I had undertaken to a.s.sist at a so-called dinner, which was to be an orgie of a character, the very thought of which sent cold shivers down my back.

During the next few days I felt most uncomfortable. As it were, as if I were under a ban. My life had hitherto been so regular. I had been so careful to observe the conventionalities; to do exactly what other people did, in exactly the same way, that I was ashamed to think of my connection with so extravagant a coterie. Not the least annoying part of the matter was that the very fact of my having joined a society which had undertaken to disregard all the trivialities of superst.i.tion seemed to compel me to treat them with more respect than ever before.

The thing became quite an obsession. For example, someone had told me that in walking on the pavement one should be careful to place one's foot well in the centre of the flagstones, since it was unlucky to let it come in contact with one of the lines of union. This absurd remark came all at once to the forefront of my brain with such force that I more than once caught myself playing fantastic tricks in the open street in my desire to avoid the conjunction of the paving-stones. What opinion pa.s.sers-by must have formed of my condition I do not care to think. Some equally weak-minded person had mentioned, at some period of my career, that it was a sure forerunner of misfortune if one walked through a street in which there were three black dogs. I had forgotten all about the nonsensical allegation till I joined the Thirteen Club.

Then it came back to me in such a fashion that whenever I had to turn into a fresh street I would quite involuntarily pause to discover if anything could be seen in the shape of three black dogs. I am rather short-sighted, and am persuaded that in consequence I sometimes saw them when they were not there to be seen. But as a trampler on current superst.i.tions I was not taking any risks. I must have walked unnecessary miles to avoid such an encounter. Not to speak of the money I lavished on cab fares.

Once, when walking with Adeline, as we were about to enter the park I saw a man leading three black poodles along the row. I started back, but Adeline addressed me in such a tone that I thought it prudent to pursue our original intention. So soon as we entered, the man with the poodles turned right round, and pa.s.sed so close that one of his charges sniffed at me. I was conscious of a sense of vague discomfort. It is a curious commentary on the occurrence, that when I returned home I found that I had lost a five-pound note. It had been in my cigarette-case and I must have dropped it when taking out a cigarette. The accident did not tend to weaken my objection to three black dogs.

I was not rea.s.sured by the proceedings at the first meeting of the Thirteen Club which took place on the Friday in Gardiner's rooms.

Several things were said and done to which I objected. Some of them, I regret to add, were said and done by me. The whole tone of the thing was most distasteful. A code of fines was drawn up which was monstrous.

If you did not go out of your way to flout every credulous fancy you had to pay for it; sometimes a considerable sum. You were supposed to make open confession of your faults. But as I was conscious that the paving-stones and the black dogs between them might cost me a little fortune, in my case this was supposition only. For the future I would make a point of promenading up and down the thoroughfares which were ornamented by a trio of sooty-hued canine quadrupeds, and would persistently step on the seams in the pavement. But the past was past.

It was not for me to resurrect it.

As the day appointed for that travesty of a dinner approached I became more and more alive to the unsatisfactory nature of my relations with Adeline. It had been my constant habit to tell her everything. There had been moments when she had seemed to hint that I had a tendency to tell her too much. As if my desire to make of her a confidante in the little matters of my daily life suggested a tendency in the direction of the egotistical. She even went so far as to a.s.sert that I was too fond of talking about myself. Which observation I felt to be uncalled for. For if a man may not talk to his future wife about himself what ought he to talk about?

I had this most uncalled-for insinuation in my mind when I refrained from mentioning to Adeline that I had become a.s.sociated with the Thirteen Club. I own that I had a suspicion that she might not care for my having done so. But then I did not care for it myself. And in the delicate position in which I found myself placed my chief desire was to avoid unnecessary friction. Still as the fatal hour approached I did wish that I had been more open.

Especially in the light of a little conversation which took place during the usual afternoon call which I was paying her on the very day before.

"I see that some more ignorant and wicked persons have joined themselves in what they call a Thirteen Club."

She was looking at a newspaper, and I was thinking of Gardiner's obstinacy in insisting on having skeletons for menu holders. Her words, which were entirely unexpected, made me jump.

"Adeline, whoever told you that?"

"It's in the paper."

"In the paper!"

For an instant I felt as if I were in imminent danger of a paralytic stroke. Whoever could have put it in the paper? Had they dared to mention any names? Fortunately it appeared that they had not. Her next remark, however, added to my sense of discomfiture.

"It says in the paper that the whole thirteen of them are going to dine together to-morrow. To show, I suppose, how stupid people can be if they like. It will serve them right if they're all dead within the year."

"Adeline!"

Under the circ.u.mstances it was dreadful to hear her say such things.

But she went on, wholly regardless of what I might be feeling.