He paused impressively to allow this startling statement to sink in.
“And was he?” said George.
“Absolutely not! That was the rummy part of it. He looked as like you as your twin brother.”
“I haven’t a twin brother.”
“No, I know what you mean, but what I mean to say is he looked just like your twin brother would have looked if you had had a twin brother. Well, I had a word or two with this chappie, and after a brief conversation it was borne in upon me that I was up to the gills. Alice was with me at the time, and noticed it too. Now you’d have thought that that would have put a girl off a fellow, and all that. But no. Nobody could have been more sympathetic. And she has confided to me since that it was seeing me in my oiled condition that really turned the scale. What I mean is, she made up her mind to save me from myself. You know how some girls are. Angels absolutely! Always on the look out to pluck brands from the burning, and what not. You may take it from me that the good seed was definitely sown that night.”
“Is that your recipe, then? You would advise the would-be bridegroom to buy a case of champagne and a wedding licence and get to work? After that it would be all over except sending out the invitations?”
Reggie shook his head.
“Not at all. You need a lot more than that. That’s only the start. You’ve got to follow up the good work, you see. That’s where a number of chappies would slip up, and I’m pretty certain I should have slipped up myself, but for another singularly rummy occurrence. Have you ever had a what-do-you-call it? What’s the word I want? One of those things fellows get sometimes.”
“Headaches?” hazarded George.
“No, no. Nothing like that. I don’t mean anything you get—I mean something you get, if you know what I mean.”
“Measles?”
“Anonymous letter. That’s what I was trying to say. It’s a most extraordinary thing, and I can’t understand even now where the deuce they came from, but just about then I started to get a whole bunch of anonymous letters from some chappie unknown who didn’t sign his name.”
“What you mean is that the letters were anonymous,” said George.
“Absolutely. I used to get two or three a day sometimes. Whenever I went up to my room, I’d find another waiting for me on the dressing-table.”
“Offensive?”
“Eh?”
“Were the letters offensive? Anonymous letters usually are.”
“These weren’t. Not at all, and quite the reverse. They contained a series of perfectly topping tips on how a fellow should proceed who wants to get hold of a girl.”
“It sounds as though somebody had been teaching you ju-jitsu by post.”
“They were great! Real red-hot stuff straight from the stable. Priceless tips like ‘Make yourself indispensable to her in little ways’, ‘Study her tastes’, and so on and so forth. I tell you, laddie, I pretty soon stopped worrying about who was sending them to me, and concentrated the old bean on acting on them. They worked like magic. The last one came yesterday morning, and it was a topper! It was all about how a chappie who was nervous should proceed. Technical stuff, you know, about holding her hand and telling her you’re lonely and being sincere and straightforward and letting your heart dictate the rest. Have you ever asked for one card when you wanted to fill a royal flush and happened to pick out the necessary ace? I did once, when I was up at Oxford, and, by Jove, this letter gave me just the same thrill. I didn’t hesitate. I just sailed in. I was cold sober, but I didn’t worry about that. Something told me I couldn’t lose. It was like having to hole out a three-inch putt. And—well, there you are, don’t you know.” Reggie became thoughtful. “Dash it all! I’d like to know who the fellow was who sent me those letters. I’d like to send him a wedding-present or a bit of the cake or something. Though I suppose there won’t be any cake, seeing the thing’s taking place at a registrar’s.”
“You could buy a bun,” suggested George.
“Well, I shall never know, I suppose. And now how about trickling forth? I say, laddie, you don’t object if I sing slightly from time to time during the journey? I’m so dashed happy, you know.”
“Not at all, if it’s not against the traffic regulations.”
Reggie wandered aimlessly about the room in an ecstasy.
“It’s a rummy thing,” he said meditatively, “I’ve just remembered that, when I was at school, I used to sing a thing called the what’s-it’s-name’s wedding song. At house-suppers, don’t you know, and what not. Jolly little thing. I daresay you know it. It starts ‘Ding dong! Ding dong!’ or words to that effect, ‘Hurry along! For it is my wedding-morning!’ I remember you had to stretch out the ‘mor’ a bit. Deuced awkward, if you hadn’t laid in enough breath. ‘The Yeoman’s Wedding-Song.’ That was it. I knew it was some chappie or other’s. And it went on ‘And the bride in something or other is doing something I can’t recollect.’ Well, what I mean is, now it’s my wedding-morning! Rummy, when you come to think of it, what? Well, as it’s getting tolerable late, what about it? Shift ho?”
“I’m ready. Would you like me to bring some rice?”
“Thank you, laddie, no. Dashed dangerous stuff, rice! Worse than shrapnel. Got your hat? All set?”
“I’m waiting.”
“Then let the revels commence,” said Reggie. “Ding dong! Ding Dong! Hurry along! For it is my wedding-morning! And the bride– Dash it, I wish I could remember what the bride was doing!”
“Probably writing you a note to say that she’s changed her mind, and it’s all off.”
“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Reggie. “Come on!”
Chapter 21
Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Byng, seated at a table in the corner of the Regent Grill-Room, gazed fondly into each other’s eyes. George, seated at the same table, but feeling many miles away, watched them moodily, fighting to hold off a depression which, cured for a while by the exhilaration of the ride in Reggie’s racing-car (it had beaten its previous record for the trip to London by nearly twenty minutes), now threatened to return. The gay scene, the ecstasy of Reggie, the more restrained but equally manifest happiness of his bride—these things induced melancholy in George. He had not wished to attend the wedding-lunch, but the happy pair seemed to be revolted at the idea that he should stroll off and get a bite to eat somewhere else.
“Stick by us, laddie,” Reggie had said pleadingly, “for there is much to discuss, and we need the counsel of a man of the world. We are married all right—”
“Though it didn’t seem legal in that little registrar’s office,” put in Alice.
“—But that, as the blighters say in books, is but a beginning, not an end. We have now to think out the most tactful way of letting the news seep through, as it were, to the mater.”
“And Lord Marshmoreton,” said Alice. “Don’t forget he has lost his secretary.”
“And Lord Marshmoreton,” amended Reggie. “And about a million other people who’ll be most frightfully peeved at my doing the Wedding Glide without consulting them. Stick by us, old top. Join our simple meal. And over the old coronas we will discuss many things.”
The arrival of a waiter with dishes broke up the silent communion between husband and wife, and lowered Reggie to a more earthly plane. He refilled the glasses from the stout bottle that nestled in the ice-bucket—(“ Only this one, dear!” murmured the bride in a warning undertone, and “All right darling!” replied the dutiful groom)—and raised his own to his lips.