Murder Must Advertise

Chapter X. Distressing Developments of an Office Row

“All very well for you to talk, Bill Jones,” said Ginger Joe, “but bet you sixpence if you was called as a witness in a case, you’d get into a ’owling mess. Why, they might ask you what you was doin’ a month ago and what’d you know about that?”

“Bet you I’d know all right.”

“Bet you you wouldn’t.”

“All right, bet you anything I would.”

“Bet you if I was a ’tec-”

“Cor lumme, you’d be a good ’tec, you would.”

“Bet you I would, anyhow.”

“’Oo ever ’eard of a carroty-’eaded ’tec?”

This objection appeared to Ginger to be irrelevant. He replied, however, automatically:

“Bet you I’d be a better ’tec ’or you.”

“Bet you you wouldn’t.”

“Bet you if I was a ’tec and arst you w’ere you was when Mr. Dean fell downstairs, you wouldn’t ’ave no alleybi.”

“That’s silly, that is,” said Bill Jones. “I wouldn’t want no alleybi for Mr. Dean falling downstairs, ’cause it was accidental death.”

“All right, Suet-face. I was only sayin’, supposin’ I was a ’tec an’ I was investigatin’ Mr. Dean’s fallin’ downstairs, and I arst you wot you was a-doin’ of, you wouldn’t be able to tell me.”

“Bet you I would, then. I was on the lift, that’s where I was, and ’Arry could prove it. So just you stick that in your silly face and shut up.”

“Oh, you was on the lift, was you? ’Ow d’you know that was when it was?”

“When wot was?”

“When Mr. Dean fell downstairs?”

“’Cos the first thing I ’ears when I comes off of the lift is Mr. Tompkin a-telling Sam there all about it. Didn’t I, Sam?”

Sam Tabbitt glanced up from a copy of Radio for Amateurs and nodded briefly.

“That don’t prove nothing,” persisted Ginger. “Not without you know ’ow long it took Mr. Tompkin to shoot ’is mouth off.”

“Not long it didn’t,” said Sam. “I’d just come out of the Big Conference room-takin’ tea to Mr. Pym and two clients, I was-Muggleton’s, if you want ter know-and I hears an awful screeching and I says to Mr. Tompkin, ‘Coo, lumme!’ I says, ‘wot’s up?’ An’ he says as Mr. Dean’s fallen down and broke ’is neck an’ they’ve jest rung up for a doctor.”

“That’s right,” added Cyril, who was the boy in attendance on the Executive and the Switchboard. “Mr. Stanley comes running along full pelt into our place and says, ‘Oh, Miss Fearney, Mr. Dean’s fell downstairs and we’re afraid he’s killed himself and you’re to telephone for a doctor.’ So Miss Fearney tells Miss Beit to put the call through and I hops out quick through the other door so as Miss Fearney can’t see me-that’s the door behind Mr. Tompkin’s desk-and I says, ‘Mr. Dean’s tumbled down and killed hisself,’ and he says, ‘Run and see what’s happened, Cyril.’ So I runs and I see Sam jest a-comin’ out from the Big Conference room. Didn’t I, Sam?”

Sam agreed.

“And that’s when I heard the screeching,” he added.

“Who was a-screeching?”

“Mrs. Crump was a-screeching in the Executive. Said she’d just seen Mr. Dean fall down and kill hisself and they was a-bringin’ ’im along. So I looked into the passage and there they was, a-carryin’ of him. He did look awful.”

“And that was when I come up,” said Bill, sticking to the point at issue. “I hears Mr. Tompkin telling Sam about it, and I runs after Sam and I calls to Mr. Tompkin as they’re a-bringing him through, and he comes and looks on too. So they takes him into the Board-room, and Miss Fearney says, ‘What about telling Mr. Pym?’ and Mr. Tompkin says, ‘He’s still in the conference,’ and she says, ‘I know he is. We don’t want the clients to hear about it.’ So Mr. Tompkin says, ‘Better telephone through to him.’ So she does and then she gets hold of me and says, ‘Bill, get a sheet of brown paper and run along to the Board-room and tell them to put it over the glass door,’ and just as I was a-going, Mr. Atkins comes along and says, ‘Is there any dust-sheets?’ he says. ‘He’s gone,’ he says, ‘and we got to have somethink to put over him.’ And Miss Fearney says, sharp-like, ‘Dust-sheets is nothing to do with this department,’ she says, ‘what are you thinking about? Go up and ask Mrs. Johnson.’ Coo! that was a set-out, that was.” Bill grinned, as one who looks back to a grand gala-day, a brilliant green oasis in a desert of drudgery. Then he remembered once more what the dispute had been about.

“So where’s your blinkin’ alleybi?” he demanded, sternly. “Where’s yours, Ginger, if it comes to that?”

By such methods, serpentine but effective, Ginger Joe pursued his inquiries. The eyes of the office-boy are everywhere, and his memory is retentive. Five days of inquiry brought the whole inside staff of Pym’s under review-all that was necessary, since the day of Dean’s death had not been the day that brought the Outside Publicity men into the office.

Out of the ninety-odd inside members of the staff, only ten remained unaccounted or partially unaccounted for. These were: in the Copy Department:

Mr. Willis. He had arrived from the outside staircase about five minutes after the accident, had gone straight through the hall, up the stair to the Dispatching and so into his own room, speaking to nobody. About a quarter of an hour later, he had gone to Mr. Dean’s room and, not finding him, had gone back to the typists’ room. Here, on asking for Mr. Dean, he had been greeted with the news, which appeared to startle and horrify him. (Witness: the boy George Pyke, who had heard Miss Rossiter telling Mrs. Johnson all about it.)

Mr. Hankin. He had been absent from the office since half-past two, on private business, and did not return till half-past four. Harry had informed him of the catastrophe as soon as he came in, and, as soon as he stepped out of the lift, Mr. Tompkin had requested him to go and see Mr. Pym. (Witnesses: Harry and Cyril.)

Mr. Copley. Presumably in his room all the time, but this could not be substantiated, since he never took tea and was accustomed to work at his “slope,” which was set against the inner wall and not visible to any one casually passing his door. He was an assiduous worker, and was not likely to emerge from his room, however much noise or running about there might be in the passages. At a quarter to five, he had walked in the most ordinary way into the typists’ room to ask why his copy had not been typed. Miss Parton had told him, rather tartly, that she didn’t see how he could expect anything to be ready under the circumstances. He had then asked what circumstances and, on being told about Mr. Dean’s fatal accident, had expressed astonishment and regret, but added that he could see no reason why the work of the department should not be carried on. (Witnesses: four boys who, on separate occasions, had heard this shocking exhibition of callousness discussed with and by Mrs. Johnson.)

In the Vouchers:

Mr. Binns. An elegant youth who had gone out at 3 o’clock to inquire for last September’s number of the Connoisseur for Mr. Armstrong, and had unaccountably taken an hour and a half over the transaction. (Witness: Sam, whose elder sister was a typist in the Vouchers, and had given it as her opinion that young Binns had had a date for tea with his best girl.) (Note: Mr. Binns was already known to Mr. Bredon as the darts expert who had often lunched with Victor Dean.)

In the various group-managers’ offices:

Mr. Haagedorn (Sopo and allied products). Leave of absence all day to attend aunt’s funeral. But said to have been seen during the afternoon attending a matinee at the Adelphi. (Witnesses: Jack Dennis, the boy who thought he had seen him, and Mr. Tompkin’s attendance-register consulted by Cyril.)

Mr. Tallboy. Exact location at the moment of the action not quite certain. At 3.30 or thereabouts, Mr. Wedderburn had come down to the Vouchers to ask for certain back numbers of the Fishmonger’s Gazette, saying that Mr. Tallboy wanted them in a hurry. On returning ten minutes later, after having the required numbers sorted out for him, Mr. Wedderburn had run into all the excitement about Mr. Dean and had forgotten the Fishmonger’s Gazette. He had, in fact, been talking to Miss Fearney in the Executive, when Mr. Tallboy had come in and rather abruptly asked whether he was expected to wait all night for them. Mr. Wedderburn had explained that the alarm about Mr. Dean had put the matter out of his head, and Mr. Tallboy had replied that the work had got to be done, notwithstanding. (Witnesses: Horace, the messenger-boy in the Vouchers, and Cyril.)

Mr. McAllister. Group-secretary to Dairyfields, Ltd., under Mr. Smayle. Absent all afternoon on visit to dentist. (Witness: Mr. Tompkin’s register.)

In the Studio:

Mr. Barrow. At British Museum, studying Greek vases with view to advertising display for Klassika Corsets. (Witness: Mr. Barrow’s time-sheet.)

Mr. Vibart. Supposed to be at Westminster, making a sketch of the Terrace of the House of Commons for Parley’s Footwear. (“The feet that tread this historic pavement are, more often than not, clad in Parley Fashion Footwear.”) Absent 2.30-4.30. (Witnesses: Mr. Vibart’s time-sheet and the sketch itself.)

Wilfred Cotterill. At 3 o’clock complained of nose-bleeding and sent to lie down by himself in the Boys’ Room, the other boys being told to leave him alone. Completely forgotten by everybody till 5 o’clock, when he was discovered, asleep, by the boys going in to change their tunics. Alleged that he had slept through the whole of the excitement. (Witnesses: All the other boys.) Wilfred Cotterill was a small, pale, excitable child of fourteen, but looking much younger. When told what he had missed he merely remarked “Oo-er!”

A very creditable piece of work on Ginger Joe’s part, thought Mr. Bredon, if we may continue so to call him during office-hours, but leaving much room for further inquiry. His own investigations were not going too well. In his search for Darling Special Pencils he had been brought face to face with the practical communism of office life. The Copy Department preferred 5B or even 6B drawing-pencils for writing its roughs, and was not much interested in Darling’s product, except, of course, Mr. Garrett, who had been drawing up a little panel for display in Darling’s advertisements, calling attention to the generous offer of the pencil. He had two specimens, and four, in various stages of decay, were found in the typists’ room. There was one on Mr. Armstrong’s desk. Mr. Hankin had none. Mr. Ingleby admitted to having thrown his out of the window in a fit of temper, and Miss Meteyard said she thought she had one somewhere if Mr. Bredon really wanted it, but he had better ask Miss Parton. The other departments were even worse. The pencils had been taken home, lost, or thrown away. Mr. McAllister, mysteriously but characteristically, said he had no less than six. Mr. Wedderburn had lost his, but produced one which he had bagged from Mr. Tallboy. Mr. Prout said he couldn’t be bothered; the pencil was a silly, gimcrack thing anyway; if Bredon really wanted a propelling pencil he ought to get an Eversharp. He (Mr. Prout) had never seen the thing since he’d had it to photograph; he added that for a first-class photographer to spend his life photographing tin pencils and jelly cartons was enough to drive any sensitive person to suicide. It was heart-breaking work.

In the matter of his own address, Bredon did get one piece of information. Mr. Willis had asked for it one day. Discreet questioning fixed the date to within a day or so, one way or another, of Chief-Inspector Parker’s unfortunate encounter on the stairs. Nearer than this, Miss Beit (the telephonist, who also presided over the office address-book) could not go. It was all rather unnerving as well as exasperating. Mr. Bredon hoped that the assailant would have been sufficiently alarmed by the failure of his first attempt to forswear blunt instruments and violence for the future; nevertheless, he developed a habit of keeping a careful lookout for following footsteps whenever he left the office. He went home by circuitous routes, and when engaged on his daily duties, found himself avoiding the iron staircase.

Meanwhile, the great Nutrax row raged on with undiminished vigour, developing as it went an extraordinary number of offshoots and ramifications, of which the most important and alarming was a violent breach between Mr. Smayle and Mr. Tallboy.

It began, rather absurdly, at the bottom of the lift, where Mr. Tallboy and Miss Meteyard were standing, waiting for Harry to return and waft them to their sphere of toil above. To them, enter Mr. Smayle, fresh and smiling, his teeth gleaming as though cleaned with Toothshine, a pink rosebud in his buttonhole, his umbrella neatly rolled.

“Morning, Miss Meteyard, morning, morning,” said Mr. Smayle, raising his bowler, and replacing it at a jaunty angle. “Fine day again.”

Miss Meteyard agreed that it was a fine day. “If only,” she added, “they wouldn’t spoil it with income-tax demands.”

“Don’t talk about income-tax,” replied Mr. Smayle with a smile and a shudder. “I said to the wife this morning, ‘My dear, we shall have to take our holiday in the back garden, I can see.’ And I’m sure it’s a fact. Where the money for our usual little trip to Eastbourne is to come from, I don’t know.”

“The whole thing’s iniquitous,” said Mr. Tallboy. “As for this last budget-”

“Ah! you must be paying super-tax, old man,” said Mr. Smayle, giving Mr. Tallboy a prod in the ribs with his umbrella.

“Don’t do that,” said Mr. Tallboy.

“Tallboy needn’t worry,” said Mr. Smayle, with a rallying air. “He’s got more money than he knows what to do with. We all know that, don’t we, Miss Meteyard?”

“He’s luckier than most, then,” said Miss Meteyard.

“He can afford to chuck his quids over the office, fifty at a time,” pursued Mr. Smayle. “Wish I knew where he gets it from. Daresay the income-tax authorities would like to know too. I’ll tell you what, Miss Meteyard, this man’s a dark horse. I believe he runs a dope-den or a bucket-shop on the sly, eh? You’re a one, you are,” said Mr. Smayle, extending a roguish forefinger and jabbing it into Mr. Tallboy’s second waistcoat button. At this moment the lift descended and Miss Meteyard stepped into it. Mr. Tallboy, rudely thrusting Mr. Smayle aside, stepped in after her.

“Here!” said Mr. Smayle, “manners, manners! The trouble with you, old man,” he went on, “is that you can’t take a joke. No offence meant, I’m sure-and none taken, I hope.”

He clapped Mr. Tallboy on the shoulder.

“Do you mind keeping your hands off me, Smayle,” said Mr. Tallboy.

“Oh, all right, all right, your Highness. Got out of bed the wrong side, hasn’t he?” He appealed to Miss Meteyard, being troubled by an obscure feeling that men should not quarrel before ladies, and that it was somehow up to him to preserve the decencies by turning the whole thing into a joke.

“Money’s a sore point with us all, I’m afraid, Mr. Smayle,” replied Miss Meteyard. “Let’s talk about something jollier. That’s a nice rose you’ve got there.”

“Out of my own garden,” replied Mr. Smayle, with pride. “Mrs. Smayle’s a wonder with the roses. I leave it all to her, bar the digging and mulching, of course.”

They emerged from the lift and signed their names at the desk. Miss Meteyard and Mr. Smayle passed on through the anteroom and turned by common consent to the left up the stair by the Dispatching. Mr. Tallboy shouldered past them and took a lone and frosty course down the main corridor to ascend by the iron staircase.

“I’m reelly very sorry,” said Mr. Smayle, “that Tallboy and I should have indulged in anything approaching to words in your presence, Miss Meteyard.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. He seems a little irritable. I don’t think he likes that little upset of his with Mr. Copley to be talked about.”

“No, but reelly,” said Mr. Smayle, lingering at the door of Miss Meteyard’s room, “if a man can’t take a harmless joke, it’s a great pity, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said Miss Meteyard. “Hullo! What are all you people doing here?”

Mr. Ingleby and Mr. Bredon, seated on Miss Meteyard’s radiator with a volume of the New Century Dictionary between them, looked up unabashed.

“We’re finishing a Torquemada cross-word,” said Ingleby, “and naturally the volume we wanted was in your room. Everything always is.”

“I forgive you,” said Miss Meteyard.

“But I do wish you wouldn’t bring Smayle in here with you,” said Mr. Bredon. “The mere sight of him makes me think of Green Pastures Margarine. You haven’t come to dun me for that copy, have you? Because don’t, there’s a good fellow. I haven’t done it and I can’t do it. My brain has dried up. How you can live all day with Margarine and always look so fresh and cheerful passes my understanding.”

“I assure you it’s an effort,” said Mr. Smayle, displaying his teeth. “But it reelly is a great refreshment to see you copy-writers all so cheerful and pleasant together. Not like some people I could name.”

“Mr. Tallboy has been unkind to Mr. Smayle,” said Miss Meteyard.

“I like to be agreeable with everybody,” said Mr. Smayle, “but reelly, when it comes to shoving your way past a person into the lift as if one wasn’t there and then telling you to keep your hands off as if a person was dirt, a man may be excused for taking offence. I suppose Tallboy thinks I’m not worth speaking to, just because he’s been to a public school and I haven’t.”

“Public school,” said Mr. Bredon, “first I’ve heard of it. What public school?”

“He was at Dumbleton,” said Mr. Smayle, “but what I say is, I went to a Council School and I’m not ashamed of it.”

“Where’s Dumbleton?” demanded Ingleby. “I shouldn’t worry, Smayle. Dumbleton isn’t a public school, within the meaning of the act.”

“Isn’t it?” said Mr. Smayle, hopefully. “Well, you and Mr. Bredon have had college educations, so you know all about it. What schools do you call public schools?”

“Eton,” said Mr. Bredon, promptly, “-and Harrow,” he added, magnanimously, for he was an Eton man.

“ Rugby,” suggested Mr. Ingleby.

“No, no,” protested Bredon, “that’s a railway junction.”

Ingleby delivered a brisk left-hander to Bredon’s jaw, which the latter parried neatly.

“And I’ve heard, “Bredon went on, “that there’s a decentish sort of place at Winchester, if you’re not too particular.”

“I once met a man who’d been to Marlborough,” suggested Ingleby.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Bredon. “They get a terrible set of hearty roughs down there. You can’t be too careful of your associates, Ingleby.”

“Well,” said Mr. Smayle, “Tallboy always says that Dumbleton is a public school.”

“I daresay it is-in the sense that it has a Board of Governors,” said Ingleby, “but it’s nothing to be snobbish about.”

“What is, if you come to that?” said Bredon. “Look here, Smayle, if only you people could get it out of your heads that these things matter a damn, you’d be a darn sight happier. You probably got a fifty times better education than I ever did.”

Mr. Smayle shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said, “I’m not deceiving myself about that, and I’d give anything to have had the same opportunities as you. There’s a difference, and I know there’s a difference, and I don’t mind admitting it. But what I mean is, some people make you feel it and others don’t. I don’t feel it when I’m talking to either of you, or to Mr. Armstrong or Mr. Hankin, though you’ve been to Oxford and Cambridge and all that. Perhaps it’s just because you’ve been to Oxford and Cambridge.”

He struggled with the problem, embarrassing the other two men by his wistful eyes.

“Look here,” said Miss Meteyard, “I know what you mean. But it’s just that these two here never think twice about it. They don’t have to. And you don’t have to, either. But the minute anybody begins to worry about whether he’s as good as the next man, then he starts a sort of uneasy snobbish feeling and makes himself offensive.”

“I see,” said Mr. Smayle. “Well, of course, Mr. Hankin doesn’t have to try and prove that he’s better than me, because he is and we both know it.”

“Better isn’t the right word, Smayle.”

“Well, better educated. You know what I mean.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Ingleby. “If I were half as good at my job as you are at yours, I should feel superior to everybody in this tom-fool office.”

Mr. Smayle shook his head, but appeared comforted.

“I do wish they wouldn’t start that kind of thing,” said Ingleby when he had gone. “I don’t know what to say to them.”

“I thought you were a Socialist, Ingleby,” said Bredon. “It oughtn’t to embarrass you.”

“So I am a Socialist,” said Ingleby, “but I can’t stand this stuff about Old Dumbletonians. If everybody had the same State education, these things wouldn’t happen.”

“If everybody had the same face,” said Bredon, “there’d be no pretty women.”

Miss Meteyard made a grimace.

“If you go on like that, I shall be getting an inferiority complex too.”

Bredon looked at her gravely.

“I don’t think you’d care to be called pretty,” he said, “but if I were a painter I should like to make a portrait of you. You have very interesting bones.”

“Good God!” said Miss Meteyard. “I’m going. Let me know when you’ve finished with my room.”

There was a mirror in the typists’ room, and in this Miss Meteyard curiously studied her face.

“What’s the matter, Miss Meteyard?” asked Miss Rossiter. “Got a spot coming?”

“Something of the sort,” said Miss Meteyard, absently. “Interesting bones indeed!”

“Pardon?” said Miss Rossiter.

“Smayle is getting unbearable,” grumbled Mr. Tallboy to Mr. Wedderburn. “Vulgar little tick. I hate a fellow who digs you in the ribs.”

“He means no harm,” rejoined Mr. Wedderburn. “He’s quite a decent sort, really.”

“Can’t stand those teeth,” grumbled Mr. Tallboy. “And why must he put that stinking stuff on his hair?”

“Oh, well,” said Mr. Wedderburn.

“I’m not going to have him playing in the cricket match, anyhow,” pursued Mr. Tallboy, viciously. “Last year he wore white suede shoes with crocodile vamps, and an incredible blazer with Old Borstalian colours.”

Mr. Wedderburn looked up, rather startled.

“Oh, but you’re not going to leave him out? He’s quite a good bat and very nippy on the ball in the field.”

“We can do without him,” said Mr. Tallboy, firmly. Mr. Wedderburn said no more.

There was no regular cricket eleven at Pym’s, but every summer a scratch team was got together to play a couple of matches, the selection being entrusted to Mr. Tallboy, who was energetic and had once carried his bat out for 52 against Sopo. He was supposed to submit a list of cricketers for Mr. Hankin’s final decision, but Mr. Hankin seldom questioned his selection, for the sufficient reason that there were seldom more than eleven candidates available to choose from. The important point was that Mr. Hankin should bat third, and field at mid-on. If these points were taken note of, he raised no further objections.

Mr. Tallboy pulled out a list.

“Ingleby,” he said, “and Garrett. Barrow. Adcock. Pinchley. Hankin. Myself. Gregory can’t play; he’s going away for the week-end, so we’d better have McAllister. And we can’t very well leave out Miller. I wish we could, but he’s a Director. Yourself.”

“Leave me out,” said Mr. Wedderburn. “I haven’t touched a bat since last year and I didn’t put up much of a show then.”

“We’ve nobody else who can bowl slow spinners,” said Mr. Tallboy. “I’ll put you down No. 11.”

“All right,” said Mr. Wedderburn, gratified by the recognition accorded to his bowling, but irrationally provoked by being put down No. 11. He had expected his companion to say, “Oh, but that was just a fluke,” and send him in higher up the list. “How about a wicket-keeper? Grayson says he won’t do it again, not after getting his front tooth knocked out last year. He seems to have got the wind up properly.”

“We’ll make Haagedorn do it. He’s got hands like a pair of hams. Who else? Oh, that chap in the printing-Beeseley-he’s not much good with a bat, but we can rely on him for a few straight balls.”

“What about that new fellow in the Copy Department? Bredon? He’s a public school man. Is he any good?”

“Might be. He’s a bit ancient, though. We’ve got two aged stiffs already in Hankin and Miller.”

“Aged stiff be blowed. That chap can move, I’ve seen him do it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could show us a bit of style.”

“Well, I’ll find out. If he’s any good, we’ll stick him in instead of Pinchley.”

“Pinchley can swipe ’em up,” said Mr. Wedderburn.

“He never does anything but swipe. He’s jam for the fielders. He gave them about ten chances last year and was caught both innings.”

Mr. Wedderburn agreed that this was so.

“But he’ll be awfully hurt if he’s left out,” he said.

“I’ll ask about Bredon,” said Mr. Tallboy.

He sought out that gentleman, who was, for once, in his own room, singing soup-slogans to himself.

A meal begun with Blagg’s Tomato

Softens every husband’s heart-oh!

Hubbies hold those wives most dear

Who offer them Blagg’s Turtle Clear.

Fit for an Alderman-serve it up quick-

Rum-ti-ty, tum-ti-ty, Blagg’s Turtle Thick.

“Rum-ti-ty, tum-ti-ty,” said Mr. Bredon. “Hullo, Tallboy, what’s the matter? Don’t say Nutrax has developed any more innuendos.”

“Do you play cricket?”

“Well, I used to play for-” Mr. Bredon coughed; he had been about to say, “for Oxford,” but remembered in time that these statements could be checked. “I’ve played a good deal of country-house cricket in the old days. But I’m rapidly qualifying to be called a Veteran. Why?”

“I’ve got to scrape up an eleven for a match against Brotherhood’s. We play one every year. They always beat us, of course, because they have their own playing-fields and play together regularly, but Pym likes it to be done. He thinks it fosters fellow-feeling between client and agent and all that sort of thing.”

“Oh! when does it come off?”

“Saturday fortnight.”

“I daresay I might keep my end up for a bit, if you can’t get anybody better.

“You anything of a bowler?”

“Nothing.”

“Better with the willow than the leather, eh?”

Mr. Bredon, wincing a little at this picturesqueness, admitted that, if he was anything, he was a batsman.

“Right. You wouldn’t care to open the ball with Ingleby, I suppose?”

“I’d rather not. Put me down somewhere near the tail.”

Tallboy nodded.

“Just as you like.”

“Who captains this Eleven?”

“Well, I do, as a rule. At least, we always ask Hankin or Miller, just out of compliment, but they generally decline with thanks. Well, righty-ho; I’ll just buzz round and see that the others are O.K.”

The selected team went up on the office notice-board at lunch-time. At ten minutes past two, the trouble began with Mr. McAllister.

“I observe,” said he, making a dour appearance in Mr. Tallboy’s room, “that ye’re no askin’ Smayle to play for ye, and I’m thinkin’ it’ll be a wee bit awkward for me if I play and he does not. Workin’ in his room all day and under his orders, it will make my poseetion not just so very comfortable.”

“Position in the office has nothing to do with playing cricket,” said Mr. Tallboy.

“Ay, imph’m, that’s so. But I just do not care for it. So ye’ll oblige me by leavin’ my name oot.”

“Just as you like,” said Tallboy, annoyed. He struck Mr. McAllister’s name off the list, and substituted that of Mr. Pinchley. The next defection was that of Mr. Adcock, a stolid youth from the Voucher Department. He inconsiderately fell off a step-ladder in his own home, while assisting his mother to hang a picture, and broke the small bone of his leg.

In this extremity, Mr. Tallboy found himself compelled to go and eat humble pie to Mr. Smayle, and request him to play after all. But Mr. Smayle had been hurt in his feelings by being omitted from the first list, and showed no eagerness to oblige.

Mr. Tallboy, who was, indeed, a little ashamed of himself, endeavoured to gloss the matter over by making it appear that his real object in leaving out Mr. Smayle had been to make room for Mr. Bredon, who had been to Oxford and was sure to play well. But Mr. Smayle was not deceived by this specious reasoning.

“If you had come to me in the first instance,” he complained, “and put the matter to me in a friendly way, I should say nothing about it. I like Mr. Bredon, and I appreciate that he has had advantages that I haven’t had. He’s a very gentlemanly fellow, and I should be happy to make way for him. But I do not care for having things done behind my back in a hole-and-corner fashion.”

If Mr. Tallboy had said at this point, “Look here, Smayle, I’m sorry; I was rather out of temper at the time over that little dust-up we had, and I apologize”-then Mr. Smayle, who was really an amiable creature enough, would have given way and done anything that was required of him. But Mr. Tallboy chose to take a lofty tone. He said:

“Come, come, Smayle. You’re not Jack Hobbs, you know.”

Even this might have passed over with Mr. Smayle’s ready admission that he was not England ’s premier batsman, had not Mr. Tallboy been unhappily inspired to say:

“Of course, I don’t know about you, but I have always been accustomed to have these things settled by whoever was appointed to select the team, and to play or not, according as I was put down.”

“Oh, yes,” retorted Mr. Smayle, caught on his sensitive point, “you would say that. I am quite aware, Tallboy, that I never was at a public school, but that is no reason why I shouldn’t be treated with ordinary, common courtesy. And from those who have been to real public schools, I get it, what’s more. You may think a lot of Dumbleton, but it isn’t what I call a public school.”

“And what do you call a public school?” inquired Mr. Tallboy.

“Eton,” retorted Mr. Smayle, repeating his lesson with fatal facility, “and Harrow, and-er-Rugby, and Winchester and places like those. Places where they send gentlemen’s sons to.”

“Oh, do they?” said Mr. Tallboy. “I suppose you are sending your family to Eton, then.”

At this, Mr. Smayle’s narrow face became as white as a sheet of paper.

“You cad!” he said, choking. “You unspeakable swine. Get out of here or I’ll kill you.”

“What the devil’s the matter with you, Smayle?” cried Mr. Tallboy, in considerable surprise.

“Get out!” said Mr. Smayle.

“Now, I’d just like a word wi’ ye, Tallboy,” interposed Mr. McAllister. He laid a large, hairy hand on Mr. Tallboy’s arm and propelled him gently from the room.

“What on airth possessed ye to say such a thing to him?” he asked, when they were safely in the passage. “Did ye not know that Smayle has but the one boy and him feeble-minded, the poor child?”

Mr. Tallboy was really aghast. He was stricken with shame, and, like many shame-stricken people, took refuge in an outburst of rage against the nearest person handy.

“No, I didn’t know. How should I be expected to know anything about Smayle’s family? Good God! I’m damned sorry and all that, but why must the fellow be such an ass? He’s got a mania about public schools. Eton, indeed! I don’t wonder the boy’s feeble-minded if he takes after his father.”

Mr. McAllister was deeply shocked. His Scottish sense of decency was outraged.

“Ye ought to be damn well ashamed o’ yersel’,” he said, severely, and releasing Tallboy’s arm, stepped back into the room he shared with Mr. Smayle and slammed the door.

Now, it is not very clear at the first glance what this disagreement between Mr. Tallboy and Mr. Smayle about a cricket match had to do with the original disagreement between the former and Mr. Copley. True, one may trace a remote connection at the beginning of things, since the Tallboy-Smayle row may be said to have started with Mr. Smayle’s indiscreet jest about Mr. Tallboy’s fifty pounds. But this fact has no very great importance. What is really important is that as soon as Mr. McAllister made known all the circumstances of the Tallboy-Smayle affair (which he did as soon as he could find a listener), public opinion, which, in the Tallboy-Copley dispute had been largely on Mr. Tallboy’s side, veered round. It was felt that since Mr. Tallboy could behave with so much unkindness to Mr. Smayle, he was probably not guiltless towards Mr. Copley. The office staff was divided like the Red Sea and rose up in walls on either hand. Only Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Ingleby, and Mr. Bredon, sardonic Gallios, held themselves apart, caring little, but fomenting the trouble for their own amusement. Even Miss Meteyard, who abominated Mr. Copley, experienced an unwonted uprush of feminine pity for him, and pronounced Mr. Tallboy’s behaviour intolerable. Old Copley, she said, might be an interfering old nuisance, but he wasn’t a cad. Mr. Ingleby said he really didn’t think Tallboy could have meant what he said to Smayle. Miss Meteyard said: “Tell that to the marines,” and, having said so, noted that the phrase would make a good headline for something-or-other. But Mr. Ingelby said, “No, that had been done.”

Miss Parton, of course, was an anti-Copleyite whom nothing could move, and therefore smiled on Mr. Tallboy when he happened into the typists’ room to borrow a stamp. But Miss Rossiter, though superficially more peppery, prided herself on possessing a well-balanced mind. After all, she insisted, Mr. Copley had probably meant well over the matter of the fifty pounds and, when you came to think of it, he had got Tallboy and all the rest of the Nutrax contingent out of a very tiresome sort of mess. She thought that Mr. Tallboy thought rather a lot of himself, and he had certainly had no business to speak as he had done to poor Mr. Smayle.

“And,” said Miss Rossiter, “I don’t like his lady friends.”

“Lady friends?” said Miss Parton.

“Well, I’m not one to talk, as you know,” replied Miss Rossiter, “but when you see a married man coming out of a restaurant at past midnight with somebody who is obviously not his wife-”

“No!” exclaimed Miss Parton.

“My dear! and got up regardless… one of those little hats with an eye-veil… three-inch diamante heels… such bad taste with a semi-toilette… fish-net stockings and all…”

“Perhaps it was his sister.”

“My dear!… And his wife’s having a baby, too… He didn’t see me… Of course, I wouldn’t say a word, but I do think…”

Thus the typewriters clacked.

Mr. Hankin, though officially impartial, was a Tallboyite. Himself a precise and efficient man, he was nevertheless perennially irritated by the precision and efficiency of Mr. Copley. He suspected, what was quite true, that Mr. Copley criticized the conduct of the department and would have liked to be given a measure of authority. Mr. Copley had a way of coming to him with suggestions: “Would it not be better, Mr. Hankin, if…”

“If you will excuse my making a suggestion, Mr. Hankin, could not a stricter control be kept…?”

“Of course, I know I am in an entirely subordinate position here, Mr. Hankin, but I have had over thirty years’ experience of advertising, and in my humble opinion…”-excellent suggestions, always, and having only the one drawback that they threatened either to annoy Mr. Armstrong, or to involve a quantity of tedious and time-wasting supervision, or to embroil the whole temperamental Copy Department and put it off its stroke. Mr. Hankin grew weary of saying: “Quite so, Mr. Copley, but Mr. Armstrong and I find it works better, on the whole, to have as few restrictions as possible.” Mr. Copley had a way of saying that he quite understood, which always left Mr. Hankin with the impression that Mr. Copley thought him weak and ineffectual, and this impression had been confirmed by the Nutrax incident. When a point had arisen about which Mr. Hankin might, and ought to, have been consulted, Mr. Copley had passed him over-conclusive proof to Mr. Hankin that all Mr. Copley’s valuable suggestions about departmental management were so much window-dressing, put forward to show how brilliant Mr. Copley was, and not in the least with the desire of aiding Mr. Hankin or the department. In this, Mr. Hankin’s shrewdness saw much more clearly into Mr. Copley’s motives than did Mr. Copley himself. He was quite right. Consequently, he was not inclined to bother himself about Mr. Copley, and was determined to give any necessary support to Mr. Tallboy. The Smayle incident was, naturally, not reported to him; he therefore made no comment upon the Cricket Eleven except to ask, mildly, why Mr. Smayle and Mr. McAllister were excluded. Mr. Tallboy replied briefly that they were unable to play, and that was the end of the matter.

Mr. Tallboy had a further ally in Mr. Barrow, who disliked the whole Copy Department on principle, because, as he complained, they were a conceited lot who were always trying to interfere with his artists and dictate to him about his displays. He admitted that, as a general proposition, the sketch was supposed to illustrate the copy, but he maintained (and with truth) that the displays suggested by the copy-writers were often quite impracticable and that the copy-writers took unnecessary offence over the very necessary modifications which he had to make in their “roughs.” Further, he had been deeply insulted by Mr. Armstrong's remarks about himself, too faithfully reported by Mr. Ingleby, whom he detested. In fact, he was within an ace of refusing altogether to play in the same match as Mr. Ingleby.

“Oh, but, look here!” protested Mr. Tallboy, “you simply can’t let me down like that! You’re the best bat we’ve got.”

“Can’t you leave Ingleby out?”

This was more than awkward, for in fact Mr. Barrow, though a good and reliable bat, was by no means so good a bat as Mr. Ingleby. Mr. Tallboy hesitated:

“I don’t quite see how I can do that. He made 63 last year. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll put him in fourth and leave you to open with somebody else-say Pinchley. Will you start with Pinchley?”

“You can’t put Pinchley in first. He’s nothing but a slogger.”

“Who else is there?”

Mr. Barrow scanned the list mournfully.

“It’s a weak bunch, Tallboy. Is that really the best you can do?”

“Afraid so.”

“Pity you’ve managed to get across Smayle and McAllister.”

“Yes-but that can’t be helped now. You’ll have to play, Mr. Barrow, or we’ll have to scratch-one or the other!”

“I know what you’d better do. Put yourself in first with me.”

“They won’t like that. They’ll think it’s swank.”

“Then put Garrett in.”

“Very well. You’ll play, then?”

“I suppose I must.”

“That’s very sporting of you, Mr. Barrow.”

Mr. Tallboy ran down, sighing, to pin the revised list on the board:

MATCH AGAINST BROTHERHOOD’S

1. Mr. Barrow

2. Mr. Garrett

3. Mr. Hankin

4. Mr. Ingleby

5. Mr. Tallboy (Captain)

6. Mr. Pinchley

7. Mr. Miller

8. Mr. Beeseley

9. Mr. Bredon

10. Mr. Haagedorn

11. Mr. Wedderburn

He stood for a moment looking at it rather hopelessly. Then he went back to his room and took up a large sheet of foolscap, with the intention of marking off the figures for a client’s appropriation over the next three months. But his mind was not on the figures. Presently he pushed the sheet aside, and sat staring blankly out of the window across the grey London roofs.

“What’s up, Tallboy?” inquired Mr. Wedderburn.

“Life’s the devil,” said Mr. Tallboy. Then, in a sudden outburst:

“My God! how I hate this blasted place. It gets on my nerves.”

“Time you had your holiday,” said Mr. Wedderburn, placidly. “How’s the wife?”

“All right,” rejoined Mr. Tallboy, “but we shan’t be able to get away till September.”

“That’s the worst of being a family man,” replied Mr. Wedderburn. “And that reminds me. Have you done anything about that series for The Nursing Times about ‘Nutrax for Nursing Mothers’?”

Mr. Tallboy thoughtlessly cursed the nursing mothers, dialled Mr. Hankin’s room on the inter-office ’phone and in a mournful tone put in a requisition for six 4-inch doubles on that inspiring subject.