Externally, I take after the pater, and if you had ever seen the pater you would realize what that means. He was a gallant soldier and played a got game of polo, but he had a face like a gorilla – much more so, indeed, than most gorillas have – and was, so I am informed, affectionately known to his little circle of cronies as Consul, the Almost Human.
Blood flowing in quarts, and the air thick with teeth and ears and things. And then, just before the bell went, the champ brought one up from the floor…
“Yes. His words leave no room for doubt. He is either betrothed or on the verge of becoming betrothed to some young woman out there. And you know the sort of young women that abound in Hollywood.”
What, I asked, did he imagine that I could do about it.
“Why, go to Hollywood, Reginald, and reason with this misguided young man. Put a stop to all this nonsense. Exert your authority as head of the family.”
“What, me?”
“Yes.”
“H’m.”
“Don’t say ‘h’m’.”
“Ha!”
“And don’t say ‘ha’. Your duty is plain. You cannot shirk it.”
For years everybody has been telling Eggy that it’s hopeless for him to attempt to drink up all the alcoholic liquor in England, but he keeps on trying. The good old bull-dog spirit, of course, but it worries Aunt Clara.
Well, then, harking back and buckling down to it once more, my name is Reggie Havershot. Reginald John Peter Swithin, third Earl of Havershot, if you want to be formal, but Reggie to my pals.
“Is this bilge,” he asked, “to be printed? The first rule in telling a story is to make it thoroughly clear at the outset who’s who, when, where, and why. You’d better start again from the beginning.”
He then took his bicarbonate and withdrew.
the kid was sitting in one arm-chair. I was sitting in another. His left cheek was bulging. My left cheek was bulging. He was turning the pages of the National Geographic Magazine. So was I. In short, there we both were.
“Where,” he asked, “are the rest of the boys?”
I had begun to write this story, when a literary pal of mine who had had a sticky night out with the P. E. N. Club blew in to borrow bicarbonate and soda, and I thought it would be as well to have him vet what I’d done, in case I might have foozled my tee-shot.
In order of appearance:
Aunt Beru Roxane (strip 19)
the bartender The Monk (strip 42)
the “destiny on twelve systems” The Viscount (strips 43-44)
[what's his name] the Garindan The Beaked Man (strip 48 )
General [somebody or other] De Guiche (strip 81)
