Stylish Stout

"Oh, Mr. Little," said H. C. Purkiss, proprietor of Wee Tots, that powerful organ that has done so much to mold thought in the nurseries of England.

"Sir?" said Richard ("Bingo") Little, its up-and-coming young editor.

"You are no doubt familiar with the work of an American author named Kirk Rockaway. He wrote Kootchy the Kitten, Peter the Pup and Hilda the Hen. He is superb, just the circulation builder Wee Tots needs. He is visiting London and would like you to dine with him at Barribault's Hotel tonight to discuss things."

"Yes, Mr. Purkiss."

"By the way, he is a strict teetotaler, so if he offers you alcoholic refreshment it might be judicious to decline it."

"Oh?" said Bingo.

He spoke gloomily, but his gloom was not entirely due to the bleak prospect of a snortless meal with a man who wrote books about hens and kittens. At the moment when Mr. Purkiss had entered his office he had been thinking of the Fat Uncles Contest at the Drones Club, and whenever he did that, the iron entered into his soul.

The Fat Uncles Contest had come into being some years previously when an intelligent Drone, himself the possessor of an extremely fat uncle, had noticed how many of his fellow members had fat uncles, too. From there to inaugurating a yearly tourney had been but a step. The mechanics of the thing were simple. You entered your uncle, others entered theirs, the names were shaken up in a hat and the punter drawing the name of the fattest uncle secured the jackpot. The judging was done by McGarry, the club bartender, who had the uncanny gift of being able to estimate to an ounce the (continued on page 152) Stylish Stout (continued from page 77) weight of anything, from a Pekingese to a Covent Garden soprano, just by looking at it.

This year an alteration had been made in the procedure. The sweepstake was to function as usual, but from now on £50 would be taken from the kitty and handed to the winning uncle's owner as prize money. And the reason why the iron entered into Bingo's soul when he mused on this was that he was convinced that if his Aunt Myrtle, widow of the late J. G. Beenstock, had only been an uncle, she would have won the event in a canter, for she was as well-nourished a woman as ever paled at the sight of a diet chart; and had she been eligible for competition he could have sold a piece of her to Oofy Prosser, the club millionaire, thus enabling him to pay the ten pounds which he owed a bookmaker who was rather fussy about being owed money. But the rules were rigid. Aunts could not compete. Only uncles.

At 7:30 that night he was in the lobby of Barribault's Hotel awaiting the coming of Kirk Rockaway, and eventually Kirk Rockaway appeared. And through Bingo's mind, as he saw him, there flitted those poignant lines of the poet Whittier--"... Of all sad words of tongue or pen/The saddest are these: 'It might have been!' " For here was the fattest man he had ever set eyes on, a man for a mere third of whom Oofy Prosser would gladly have paid as much as £20, and whoever's uncle he may have been, he was not Bingo's. In short, all that superb poundage was just going to waste. However, he crushed down his vain regrets and they went off to the dining room.

It was quite a walk through the lobby, and by the time they had seated themselves Bingo's host was showing signs of strain. Beads of perspiration had begun to form on his forehead, and after about the fifth spoonful of soup he reached in his left breast pocket for his handkerchief. He pulled it out and with it came a cabinet-size photograph which shot through the air and fell in Bingo's plate. And as Bingo fished it out and started to dry it with his napkin, something familiar about it arrested his attention. It portrayed a woman of ample dimensions, and with amazement he recognized her as Mrs. J. G. Beenstock, the last person he would have expected to find in his soup.

"Hullo!" he said. "What on earth are you doing with my Aunt Myrtle's photograph next your heart?"

Kirk Rockaway stared at him, astounded.

"Is that divine woman your aunt?"

"Has been for years."

"I love her!" said Kirk Rockaway.

It was Bingo's turn to stare, astounded.

"You mean you and Aunt Myrtle are engaged?"

"Alas, no, not yet. I love her. I loved her the first time we met. But I can't seem to get up the nerve to propose to her."

A blinding light flashed upon Bingo. Mr. Purkiss' words rang in his ears. "He is a strict teetotaler," Mr. Purkiss had said, and the whole thing became clear to him.

"Have you tried having a drink?"

"I've drunk a good deal of sarsaparilla, but it seems to have no effect."

"Sarsaparilla! What you need is stout and champagne."

"But that's alcohol, and I promised my late mother I would never drink alcohol."

"Well, I think if you would get in touch with her on the ouija board and explain the situation, she would skip the red tape and tell you to go to it. But that would take time. It might be hours before you got a connection. What you want is the stuff now. Then, when you feel nicely primed, we will drop in on my aunt. She has been away on one of those Mediterranean cruises, but she ought to be back by now. Waiter, bring us a bottle of Bollinger and all the stout you can carry."

It was some half hour later that Kirk Rockaway looked across the table with a new light in his eyes. They had become reddish and bulged a good deal. His diction, when he spoke, was a little slurred.

"You were right," he said. "I feel great. I feel strong and masterful. Bring on that aunt of yours!"

"She lives in Kensington."

"Then away we go there. And do you know what I shall do when I see her? I shall dominate her. The slightest disposition on her part to reject my addresses, and I shall haul off and punch her in the eye. Do you know what I used to be before I became an author? A cow-puncher, that's what I used to be. I've punched hundreds of cows. I had a beautiful punch in those days, straight and true and never traveling more than eight inches. No doubt the old skill still lingers."

It was a longish journey to Kensington, but Kirk Rockaway enlivened it with college yells remembered from happier days. He was halfway through a particularly loud one while Bingo was ringing his aunt's bell.

The door opened. Fotheringay, Mrs. Beenstock's butler, appeared. Kirk Rockaway tapped him authoritatively on the chest.

"Take me to your leader!"

"Sir?"

"I want the divine Beenstock."

"Mrs. Beenstock is not at home."

"You lie!" thundered Kirk Rockaway, continuing to tap the butler like a woodpecker. "There is a plot to keep her from me, and I may mention that I happen to know the ringleaders. If you do not instantly--"

He broke off, not because he had said his say but because at this point he overbalanced and fell down the steps. Bingo, who had entered the hall, thought he saw him bounce twice, but he was in a state of great mental perturbation and may have been mistaken. Fotheringay closed the front door, and Bingo wiped his forehead. His own forehead, not Fotheringay's.

"Isn't my aunt at home?" he asked.

"No, sir. She returns tomorrow."

"Why didn't you tell the gentleman that?"

"I was averse to holding any communication with one so manifestly plastered. Hark at him now."

He was alluding to the fact that Kirk Rockaway was banging on the door with the knocker, at the same time shouting in a stentorian voice. Then abruptly the noise ceased, and Bingo, peering through the little window at the side of the front door, saw that his late host was being led away by a member of the constabulary.

The magistrate at Bosher Street Police Court next morning took a serious view of the case.

"Fourteen days," he said, and Bingo, who had attended the proceedings, tottered from the court, a broken man. He had been hoping that Kirk Rockaway, if dismissed with a caution, would have been in such a melting mood that it would have been the work of an instant to tap him for the ten he owed that bookie, from whom a letter had arrived that morning couched in threatening terms.

Only one ray of hope lightened his darkness. Fotheringay had said that his aunt would be back from her Mediterranean cruise today, and he had sometimes found her responsive to the touch, if tactfully approached. He hastened to her house and pressed the front doorbell.

"Good morning, Fotheringay. Is my aunt in?"

"No, sir. They have gone out to do some shopping."

"They?" said Bingo, surprised that the butler should have spoken of his employer, stout though she was, in the plural.

"Madam and Mr. Weatherbee, sir."

"Who on earth is Mr. Weatherbee?"

"Madam's husband, sir."

"What!"

"Yes, sir. It appears that they were shipmates on the cruise from which Madam has just returned. I understand that the wedding was solemnized by the vessel's captain."

"Well, I'll be blowed. You never know what's going to happen next in these chaotic times, do you?"

"No, sir."

"What sort of a bimbo is he?"

"Very stout, sir."

Bingo was electrified.

"How stout?"

"There is a photograph of Mr. Weatherbee in Madam's boudoir, if you would care to see it."

"Let's go," said Bingo. He was conscious of a strange thrill, but at the same time he was telling himself that he must not raise his hopes too high. Probably, by Drones Club standards, this new uncle of his would prove to be nothing special.

A minute later he reeled and might have fallen had he not clutched at a passing armchair. He was looking, spellbound, at the photograph of a man so vast, so like a captive balloon, that Kirk Rockaway seemed merely pleasantly plump in comparison.

A long sigh of ecstasy escaped him.

"I'm going to borrow this photograph, Fotheringay."

"Madam may be annoyed on discovering its absence, sir."

"Tell her she'll have it back this afternoon. I only want to show it to a man at the Drones," said Bingo.

He was thinking of his coming interview with Oofy Prosser. He did not need to be told that with this colossal uncle under his belt he was in a seller's market. If Oofy was prepared to meet his terms, he would let him have--say--25 percent of this certain winner, but he meant to drive a hard bargain.