The cost of wings, and other stories

by Richard Dehan

FATHER TO THE MAN

Being a Confidential Letter from the Right Hon. Viscount Tynstone, at the Rev. O. Gotobed’s, Eton College, to the Lady Mary Cliffe-Bradlay, ooo Wessex Street, Park Lane, W.

Good Old Poll,—

It is awfully nice of you to be so fritefully sick about it—i. e., my Getting Swished this Half, but fellows get Hardened to these things at School. Hemming major says there is something in a rotten poetry-book about a Divinity that shapes our Ends. I expect the beggar who wrote it was trying to get round the Head for his own Reesons. Your simpathy about the Ladies’ Plate is cumforting, but the Eton Eight must give other Crews a chance sumtimse. So everyboddy says, and as far as stile went our Fellowse boddies were better under controle, and the whole Appearanse of the Rowing was up to the best traddishunse of Eton. No. 7, Biggly-Wade, presenting a beautiful example of rithm and elastissity; and Henson No. 4, simply being a Tower of strength. N. B., he is Captain of my Tutor’s and Has licked me awfully several timse, so I am in a pusition to Judge.

While the Thames Cup was being slogged for I made up my mind to Sacrifise myself for the good of my Fammaly, and drop into Lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Le Moser, those Millionaire Friends of Mother’s, who she said were such Howling Cads, and so anxhus to know me. They Had an A.1. Motor-Launch, sedar-built, with plated fittingse and with salloons 4 and aft, and Green Awnings second on the Bucks side 2 Private Lawns billow the Kingston Rowing Club. There were Moundse of Flowers, and though lots of other awfully smart launches filled up the First Section of the Bank before the Houseboats Began, where you, and Mother, and the Girls were on Uncle Todmore’s Roulette, the Le Moser craft collared the bikker for sumshuous splender. Regger minor of my house, who is quite an awfully Brilliant umorist, made an eppigram about the general Swellness of boats and launches billonging to people like the Le Moser’s. He said: “On the Berks side there are piles only, and no Booms. On the Bucks side there are both Boomse and Piles.�

Regger was so awfully Pleased with himself for saying such a clever Remark that I Had to Kick him to Tone Him down. He is Fritefully litterary and Artistic, because his Father Has just Bought a Weakly Illustrated Journal, and He is to Eddit it when He leaves Oxford; and the Things he said about the akwatic Fairy Palaces bineath the Pine treese and the Green-clad Hilly Vista, kombining to make up a Picture uneek in its English beauty, and without Paralel in the sivilised World were like hearing bitts read out of some Rotten Newspaper the day after the Rigatta.

I had Not Had much Brekker, bicause our Boys’ Maid is quite awfully spoons on Henson No. 4 of the Eight, and forgetse where she has Hidden the Knives and Forkse to kepe Other Fellows from getting at Them. I Found them in my Cricket Pads after I had Eaten eggs and Sausages with my Fingers like one of those Prehistorick Beggers with Stone Hatchets. So the Hospitallity of the Le Mosers was ixtremely Welcome. Mrs. Le Moser was Frightfully Civil. She Had Diamond buttons on a White Reefer Jacket, and Rows and Rows of pearls as big as Sparrows’ eggse. A White Gangway, railed with gilt chains on posts with gilt Knobs, led to a Markay on Shore, which was Decorated as a Medievil Banqueting Hall, and there was a Footman in the Le Moser livery behind everybody’s chair. The Dalmatian Band and the Castillian Minstrels Played, and it was an awfully ripping lunchon, with everything you could think of to Eat and Drink and lots more bissides. There were 4,000 Pot plants on Board, and when it Got Dark the Fairy Litse looked awfully fine.

Mr. Le Moser was a ripping good Host, though his waistcoat and necktie were frightfully loud, and he wares his Nails as long as the front ends of a Pair of Swedish Skates. N. B., Perhaps it is to Rake in the Money with? He told me that my Distinguished Father’s Name was Down as One of the Directors of His New Company, and that He Hoped to have Mine in a Few Years. He said the Risponsibilities of Rank were fritefully tremendous, and never seemed to Notice how I kept Slogging into the Champagne. He told me to keep the Cigarretts biside me, and offered me a Partagga in a glass case, price 8s. 6d., which I expect comes to a frightfully big price for a box of 100. I acsepted the luxurious Weed, but Did Not Smoak it. (N. B., I have got it now, and Regger, who has been swotting Pericles this half for English Classics, calls it “a glorious casket stored with ill.� I can’t think what makes him.)

After everybody was stodged we went on Board the launch, and Miss Le Moser—Mother is quite rite about her being a pretty girl, though her Pater and Mater are such awful form, and her Pater doesn’t know how to stop talking about the money he has Bagged on the Stock Ixchange, and in other Places, the Diamond Mines in South Africa particularly. A chap in the Guards who was on the launch said it was a well-developed case of I. D. B., but Forgot to tell me what the Letters ment. He said, “Josie would carry the pile� (Josie is Miss Le Moser), and that if I was a sensible young beggar, and not a rotten Ass, I would see where my own advantidge lay even before I left School for Sandhurst. He went on about an infusion of Radical blood being a good thing to mingel with the ancient Tory blue, and rather Valuable than otherwise to one’s descendents, and said that to win a young and distinctly decently-looking wife with a hundred and eighty thousand jimmies in her wedding nightcap would be getting the Grand Slam in mattrimony. I checked him a bit and asked him if he had Praktised what he jolly well preached, and he twisted his mustash and said: “Unfortunately, no, young ’un; as like a Good many other fellows, I Came under the Married Women’s propperty Act before I was eighteen.�

Then he pointed out a weedy, long-legged Beggar with the ghost of a red mustash and fritefully swagger clothes, who was making himself tremendously nice to Josie Le Moser, and said he was the Son of Mr. Joyd Lorge’s privite Secretary and an enfant gâtà y of the Liberal Government, with a seat in the Lower House being kept warm for him until he should come of age, and a lot more, ending up by asking me if I was driving an Automobile and saw a Dog trying to Bite through one of my Tyres, what I should do to the dog? I said I should Drive over it, of course, which seemed to pleese him frightfully, for he tipped me a sov, and then winked towards the Fellow who was showing his teeth at Miss Le Moser and said, “Then, there’s the Dog, don’t you know!� and went off to talk to a frightfully swell woman who called him to come over to her. I should rather like to be like that Guardsman when I go into the Army. His name is Gerald, for I heard the lady call him by it; he is Lord Dennismore, and he was so jolly Respectful and attentive to the lady, who wore quite a lot of vales and had heaps of golden hair, though she was quite old, and a tremendously red and white Complection, and a front figure that rinkled and bulged when she stooped or sat down, that I thought she must be his Mother, until Mrs. Le Moser told me she was the Duchess of Rinkhorn and his great friend. What I said about the Duchess being his mother seemed to amuse Mrs. Le Moser like mad, for I Heard her tell quite a lot of people, and they All yelled, as if I had been trying to be funny, which I was Not.

She told me lots more About Lord Dennismore, which made me feel beastly proud of his having talked to me, and given me Advice. He was out with his battalion in the South African War, and did splendid thingse at the Front, and got speshally mentioned in Despatches, after Jaegersfontein and for Rescewing twenty wounded Tommies who had fallen in the Grass which the liddite from the shells had set on fire—I think it was liddite. And he got potted in the Shoulder, and was getting quite fit again, and would have done a lot more fiting if the Duchess hadn’t come out in a Speshul Hospital ship and carried him back “to England, Home and Duty,� as a lady who was listening to Mrs. Le Moser put in. I think it was jolly mean of the Duchess, don’t you? As if a chap could be properly grateful for being muffed like that! I forgot to say that Lord Denismore, when a little chap, was Father’s fag at school, and used to field for him when stump cricket in the passage in wet weather first came in. And he, Lord Denismore, was picked to Play in the School Eleven when he was still only a Lower Boy, and was Captain for a half before he left. And I feel awfuly Glad I met him, but I wonder why he said that about coming under the Married Women’s Property Act before he was eighteen? There is a Duke of Rinkhorn, who goes about in a Bath Chair with a Nurse in a white cap and apron to feed him and blow his nose when it wants it, so Perhaps the Duchess is the married woman he meant after all.

I must say Josie Le Moser seemed to like me talking to her and explaining things more than she seemed to when the weedy chap with the ghost of a red mustash was trying to. After the phinal of the Diamonds, when the Crowds began to thin, and later when the Twilite came down and the Nats came out, and the Le Moser’s launch and their markay were elluminated up with about twice as many Fairy Lites as anybody else had, and the Castillian Minstrils played splendidly on their mandalins, I began to think her an awfully pretty girl. I don’t believe it was the crême de Menth her Pater had made me have with my coffy after Lunch and the Champagne, or the Russian rum they sent round in little dekanters, with the five o’clock tea, because the fellows say my Head is frightfully strong. But I got her hand and squeezed it a lot of times, and whenever the sucking M. P. edged a word in, and he tried to keep in Josie’s pocket the Most of the time, I wanted to fit him, and I think He guessed it from my Manner. He let Out He had been Edducated by Private Tutors at Home because his constitushion was dellicate as a Boy, and I said “Oh!� and I think Josie began to feel him rather in the way after that. His name is Wenham-Biggs, and I xpect his Constitushion is giving him a lot more trouble by now.

The thing happened like this. I had only leeve till 7.30, but Mr. Le Moser asked me to stop and Dine, and I thought I could work the squash at the Station, and being three tranes late for an extra 2 hours so consentid with thanx, as it is a Poor Heart that Never rejoices, as Regger says. Josie and Me were up in the Bows where there is just Room for 2, and Wenham-Biggs was sitting on the Steersman’s Box rubbing his chin against the Wheel, to make his Beard grow I suppose, and Getting more Sickeningly Sweet and Centimental in the things He was saying to Josie every Minute. I call it Nerve to go on like that with another fellow nearly as old as yourself listening to every Word. At last he Said he was ready to Die for the Woman he Loved—I like that, don’t you?—Whenever she asked the sacrafice, and I said it would be the Leest he could Do, if she had an objection to a red mustash. It must be being so much with Regger makes me bat off these Things I xpect. Wenham-Biggs was perfeckly wild, and Josie giggled so mutch that she Forgot she was Close to the Edge and the Rubber mat slipped or something, the Launch being polished like a Looking Glass, and she went plump into the River, and it is pretty Deep on the Bucks side, and there is a good deal of Streem.

I was Glad of all the Swimmers I had gone in for at Cuckoo Weir. I was Beestly sorry about my Swagger Flannelse and my new colors I had sported for the 1st time; but of corse I had to go in after Josie and thogh I don’t suppose I showed much skill, People made an awful Row, crowding to the Bullarks, and throwing life-boys and cork fenders at us like ennything. Mr. Le Moser kept offering rewards in lbs. and making it ginnies, and Mrs. Le Moser had histerrics in Lord Dennismore’s arms, which shows she was not quite unconshus because He was the best-bread and best-looking man of the Launch-party.

What price your Little Brother when Me and Josie were Hauled up into the Launch all over pslime and Duckweed. Everybody Shook Hands with Me and said things that Made me Tingal all Over, and all the Women kept kissing Josie who they took away and put to Bed. Mr. Le Moser lent me a Change of his Thingse. O crumbs! if you Had seen me in them ispeshally the Wastecoat and the etsetras with stripes down the Legs. And he rote me a letter to Take back to my Tutor, and left it ungummed. And the things He said about my Pluck and Daring and his Eternal obbligation made me feel quite Shy when I read them going back in the last trane. There were two other Lower Boys in the carriage, and besidse them, a Fellow of my house who is One of the Swells of the Sixth Form, who was awfully annoyed at being obbliged to travel with us.

The Butler was sitting up for us at my tutor’s, and everyone Else in Bed, as it was past 12, when we Got Back, but beyond a Slite Cold in my Head the Risults of the Outing were Not Paneful, my Letter putting Things in an awfully good light, which made the Other Fellows rather envious thogh they were let off with midling paenas.

I Forgot to say Mr. Le Moser tipped me £100, which will come in very usefull. Also I am to try and get leave to go and Spend the Day at their Place at Staines next week, and they will send me Home in one of their motor-carse. Xcuse Spelling and mistakes as my Cold is making me Sneaze pretty Frequently, and with love to Mother, and all at home.

Bilieve me,
Your loving Brother,
Toby.

P.S.—You Never saw a Fellow with plenty of conceat and Nerve about Him look as small as Wenham-Biggs when Lord Dennismore asked Him why He did not Dive in after Josie too, and he Had to own up He Could not swim a Stroak. What price private Tutors and being Edducated at Home?

P.P.S.—I saw Josie before I came away, and Mrs. Le Moser kissed me, which was horrid, and so did the Duchess and Several Other Ladies, and then they told Josie to and she did and gave me a little Diamond Duck to wear on my watch chane. N.B.—I think I see myself doing it and getting fitted by my fagmaster for side.

T.

P.P.S.S.—Lord Dennismore neerly rung my hand off when I said Good-bye, and said, “You’ve tumbled in for a good thing, you lucky little beggar, and I’m ½ inclined to billeve....� And then he left off without saying What. But he tipped me 3 soverins more, and asked me to come and lunch with Him when Next he is on Duty, and you bet I said delighted thanks....

T.

P.P.P.S.S.S.—As my Fagmaster seemed inclined to be Nasty about my not getting Up in Time to Fill his Bath and make his tost and cofy in the morning I gave Him Mr. Le Moser’s 8s. 6d. Partagga in the glass case. First he bitt the end of the case off and it neerly choaked Him, and then He had a lot of trouble in getting it to Lite, and before it was ½ through he had a lot more trubble of a different kind. (N.B.—Ask mother if it would Not be a good Thing for me i. e. marrying Josie Le Moser when I am of Age? I shall be fritefully poor and she will be awfully Rich, so her Father and Mother would not matter much. Also it would be Better than coming under the Married Women’s Propperty Act at 18, like poor Dennismore!)

Tynstone.