CHAPTER IX
THE WRITER PLANS WICKED PLANS
Now it so happened that the Writer chanced to be quite as fond of jokes as the Pleasant-Faced Lion, and the Writer contended, taking all the circumstances into consideration, that an action for libel with the Pleasant-Faced Lion involved in it would be an excellent great big joke, to say nothing of a graceful retaliation upon the Pleasant-Faced Lion himself for a few of the jokes which that Pleasant Animal had played upon the Writer. Not to mention the fact that such a case promised to supply the Writer with a little light recreation almost in the nature of a holiday, after the labours of producing his last book.
Consequently, as soon as Sir Simon had left, the Writer selected his favourite pipe, filled it with his choicest tobacco, and having lit it, stretched himself at ease upon the most comfortable divan in his rooms, and thought out subtle schemes.
There he lay laughing and chuckling for all the world like a wicked Puck, bent upon mischief, joyfully and solely devised for a confusion of his enemies, particularly Mr. Learnéd Bore.
Cheered and emboldened by such happy reflections, the Writer hit upon a scheme haphazard which for sheer unscrupulous impudence would baffle all description; gradually embroidering his machinations with that whimsicality that had always served him so well as an author, until his plans appeared to be complete.
"Very fortunate," murmured the Writer as he knocked out his pipe, "that those kids told me all about the Pleasant-Faced Lion's party. Great heavens, what a chance! and it will be worth a fifty-pound note to have Lal brought into Court and to hear the Griffin's song sang in Court, and sung it shall be, only I must alter the words to fit the occasion." Here the Writer sat upon the edge of the table and rocked with delighted laughter.
"Ha! ha! ha!" gurgled the Writer, "only one man in London who can set it, and, by Jove, I'll ring him up on the 'phone at once; a few judicious rehearsals—before Vellum and Crackles, the solicitors, are communicated with—to say nothing of Gentle Gammon, and—ha! ha! ha!—what a glorious joke. What's Billy Cracker's number in the book?"
A quarter of an hour afterwards, in answer to a most urgent summons by telephone, Mr. William Cracker made his appearance in the Writer's rooms.
Mr. William Cracker, called Billy by his friends, was rapidly rising to fame as a writer of musical comedy—a tall, sleek personage, with straw-coloured hair brilliantined very flat over his head, and carefully parted in the centre, wearing a monocle in one eye, which appeared to grow there, and was always lavishly adorned as an exact and living replica of the latest fashion plate.
Billy greeted the Writer and stared at him through his eyeglass quizzically.
"Whenever I hear you give that Mephistophelean chuckle at the end of the 'phone," commented Billy, "I always know you have got some particularly impish scheme on. Well, what is it?"
"Oh, Billy, Billy," chuckled the Writer, "I have indeed got a scheme, and it is funnier, Billy, than any of your musical comedies."
"In that case," announced Billy, as he leisurely helped himself to a smoke which the Writer offered, "I shall steal the plot."
"Listen, Billy. Could you write a tune, a refrain, an air, whatever you call it, so catchy that people would hum it and sing it on the spot? I want a perfectly irresistible tune, Billy."
"All my tunes are irresistible," confessed Billy modestly.
"Yes, but I want an absolute dead cert. The sort of thing you used to write at Oxford before you took up music as a profession; you know, one of those catchy things we all used to stand round and sing the instant you played it."
"Of course," returned Billy equably, "it's my profession. I turn out any amount of such things."
"Oh, yes; but, Billy, this has got to be a Comic Classic."
Billy considered for a space.
"Is it to be sung in a Comic Opera?" he asked.
"No, it's going to be sung in Court."
Billy stared through his eyeglass.
"You're joking!" he said.
"Of course I'm joking," retorted the Writer, "you only have to read the words to gather that fact."
"Have you got the words?"
"Yes, here they are; but wait a minute, old chap, that isn't all, you have got to coach a youngster I know to sing them."
"Oh, that's a very different matter," demurred Billy; "I don't teach, and anyway it would be awful waste of time."
"I will pay you your own fee," grinned the Writer, as he fingered a cheque-book, artlessly placed upon the top of a desk. "Nice fat cheque, Billy, always useful."
Mr. Billy Cracker appeared instantly to succumb to this suggestion and to take very kindly to it.
"Here are the words," said the Writer modestly, handing two half-sheets of notepaper to his friend, "there is the grand piano, Billy, opened already, a medium of expression only waiting for your musical genius."
"Let's see the words," said Billy.
Mr. Cracker perused the lines offered for his inspection with amazement.
"I say," he observed, "they seem awful rot."
The Writer laughed.
"Ah, Billy, that's only because you don't know the situation yet."
"True," assented Billy; "I've had worse given me to set in musical comedies. Now let me see," murmured Mr. Cracker as he seated himself at the pianoforte, "scansion is the great thing—scansion and rhythm."
Thereupon followed a curious procession of tum tiddle, tum tiddle, tum tiddle, tiddle tums, varied by little tinkling outbursts upon the pianoforte, which there could be no doubt that Mr. Billy Cracker played astonishingly well.
"Easy or difficult to set?" inquired the Writer.
"Oh, child's play!"
"That's just what I want it for," remarked the Writer encouragingly, "child's play, and the sort of tune a child would sing whilst he played."
"Half a mo," murmured Billy, "I'm getting it fine—lum, lum, lum, lum, lum, lum, lum, lum, lum. Ha! What do you think of this?"
Out rippled a delicious melody, harmonised with rich full chords this time.
"That's it!" shouted the Writer excitedly. "Oh! lovely!! Billy, you're a treasure. Oh! play it again!"
Mr. Billy Cracker obligingly consented.
The Writer was dancing round the room and singing at one and the same time.
"Ripping! Billy, Ripping! Write it down at once!"
"Suppose you haven't got any music-paper in the place? No, I thought not; never mind, I can soon manufacture some from this manuscript-paper."
"No, not that," exclaimed the Writer hastily, "that's my new poem."
"Humph! Hope it's better than the one you have given me to set."
"Billy," exclaimed the Writer enthusiastically, "I am going to stand you a tip-top lunch, and then I'm going to take you to Balham."
"Balham, good gracious! what on earth for?"
"You've got to give a music lesson in Balham after lunch, Billy, one lesson will be enough with that tune. Why, it's in my head now, I can't forget the thing."
"Isn't that exactly what you required?" asked Billy languidly, as he wrote down notes.
* * * * *
Messrs. Vellum and Crackles, most concise and conservative of solicitors, found themselves suffering for the first time in the history of the firm from a fit of astonishment, not to mention dismay, regarding the strange nature and unusual features of a case concerning which their firm had recently received instructions.
The case was considered so unusual that a sort of hastily contrived board meeting was deemed expedient, and was accordingly held in Mr. Vellum's private room.
At the end of the meeting, Mr. Vellum gave instructions for the writing of a letter to the Board of Works, for special permission to have one of the Lions, which would be, hereinafter, especially pointed out and specified, removed from Trafalgar Square to the Law Courts, as its presence in Court was deemed indispensable in a case of a peculiar and special nature.
"It is a very singular application," remarked Mr. Crackles thoughtfully.
"I hope the request will not bring ridicule upon the firm," rejoined
Mr. Vellum.