(Observed during the recent heat wave.)
Philip, I note with unaffected awe
How, with the glass at 90 in the cool,
You still obey inflexibly the law
That governs manners of the British school;
How, in a climate where the sweltering air
Seems to be wafted from a kitchen copper,
You still refuse to lay aside your wear
Of sable (proper).
The Civil Service which you so adorn
Would lose its prestige, visibly grown slack,
And all its lofty pledges be forsworn
Were you to deviate from your boots of black;
Were you to shed that coat of sombre dye,
That ebon brain-box (imitation beaver)
Whose torrid aspect strikes the passer-by
With tertian fever.
As something far beyond me I respect
The virtue, equal to the stiffest crux,
Which thus forbids your costume to deflect
Into the primrose path of straw and ducks;
I praise that fine regard for red-hot tape
Which calmly and without an eyelid's flutter
Suffers the maddening noon to melt your nape
As it were butter.
"His clothes are not the man," I freely own,
Yet often they express the stuff they hide,
As yours, I like to fancy, take their tone
From stern, ascetic qualities inside;
Just as the soldier's heavy marching-gear
Conceals a heart of high determination,
Too big, in any temperature, to fear
Nervous prostration.
I cite the warrior's case who goes through fire;
For you, no less a patriot, face your risk
When in your country's service you perspire
In blacks that snort at Phoebus' flaming disc;
So, till a medal (justly made of jet)
Records your grit and pluck for all to know 'em,
I on your chest with safety-pins will set
This inky poem.
"Arabella," I said, examining the fuzzy part of her which projected above the dome of the coffee-pot, "I perceive that you mope. That being so, I am glad to be able to tell you that I have been presented with two tickets for The Purple Lie to-morrow evening."
"Sorry," she replied, "but it's off."
"Off!" I exclaimed indignantly, "when the box-office is being besieged all day by a howling mob, and armoured commissionaires are are constantly being put into commission to defend it. Off!"
"What I mean to say is," said Arabella, "that we're dining with the Messington-Smiths to-morrow evening."
I bowed my head above the marmalade and wept. "Arabella," I groaned, looking up at last, "what have we done that these people should continue to supply us with food? We do not love them, and they do not love us. The woman is a bromide. Her husband is even worse. He is a phenacetin. shall fall asleep in the middle of the asparagus and butter myself badly. Think, moreover, of the distance to Morpheus Avenue. Remember that I have been palpitating to see The Purple Lie for weeks."
"So have I," said Arabella. "It's sickening, but I am afraid we must pass those tickets on."
I happened that day to be lunching with my friend Charles. "The last thing in the world I want to do," I said to him, "is to oblige you in any way, but I chance to have—ahem!—purchased two stalls for The Purple Lie which I cannot make use of. I had forgotten that I am dining with some very important and—er—influential people to-morrow night. When a man moves as I do amid a constant whirl of gilt-edged engagements———"
"Ass!" said Charles, and pocketed the tickets.
On morning I perceived a large crinkly frown at the opposite end of the breakfast table, and, rightly divining that Arabella was behind it, asked her what the trouble was.
"It's the Messington-Smiths," she complained. "They can't have us to dinner after all. It seems that Mrs. Messington-Smith has a bad sore throat."
"Any throat would by sore," I replied, "that had Messington-Smith talking through it. I wonder whether Charles is using those tickets."
"You might ring up and see."
To step lightly to the telephone, ask for Charles's number, get the wrong one, ask again, find that he had gone to his office, ring him up there and get through to him, was the work of scarcely fifteen minutes. "Charles," I said, "are you using those two stalls of mine to-day?"
"Awfully sorry," he replied, but I can't go myself. I gave them away yesterday evening."
"Wurzel!" I said. "Who to?"
"To whom," he corrected gently. "To a dull man I met in the City named Messington-Smith."
"Named what?" I shrieked.
"Messington-Smith. M for Mpret, E for Eiderdown———"
"Where does he live?"
"21, Morpheus Avenue."
For a moment the room seemed to spin round me. I put down the transmitter and pressed my hand to my forehead. Then in a shaking voice I continued—"Of all the double-barrelled, unmitigated, blue-faced———"
"What number, please?" sang a sweet soprano voice. I rang off, and went to break the news to Arabella.
She was silent for a few moments, and then asked me suddenly, "Whereabouts in the stalls were those seats of ours?"
"Almost in the middle of the third row," I replied mournfully.
Arabella said no more, but with a rather disdainful smile on her face walked firmly to her little escritoire, sat down, wrote a note, and addressed it to Mrs. Messington-Smith.
"What have you said?" I asked, as she stamped her letter with a rather vicious jab on King George's left eye.
"Just that I am sorry about her old sore throat," she replied. "And then I went on, that wasn't it funny by the same post we had been given two stalls for The Purple Lie to-night in a very good place in the middle of the third row? She will get the letter by lunch-time," she added pensively, "and it will be so nice for her to know that we shall be sitting almost next to them."
"But we aren't going to The Purple Lie at all," I protested.
"No," she said, "and as a matter of fact I don't suppose the Messington-Smiths are either—now."
I left Arabella smiling triumphantly through her tears,
