And, as if his gift of champagne had not been enough, from the bottom of his breeches-pocket he drew forth a gold wrist-watch, ordered Aunt Jerry to hold out her hand, and snapped the chain about her wrist.
It was, too, a “coming to the horses” in a sense quite other than the figurative one in which Mr. Wellcome used the expression. They were real horses to which he came. What else (Mr. Wellcome wanted to know) could be expected of him when Toreador had come in at twelve to one yesterday, and all the money on the favourite, and the bookies’ pockets simply spilling gold and notes?... Nay, Mr. Wellcome described the scene. He set himself in an attitude, and his voice dropped to a hush. “I don’t know how ever Sammy did it!” he confided to them. “He seemed to pick her together, then ... hoooosh!—Short head, and a hundred-and-twenty o’ the best for W.W.!... ‘Who give you the office?’ Dick Marks says to me when I goes to touch; ‘if it hadn’t been for you, Old Knowall, it’ld ha’ been grand slam; you know a bit, you do’ ... So now, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Wellcome concluded, raising his glass, “in asking you all to drink the health of Mr. and Mrs. George Massey, I’ll do so in the words of the poet:
What is there in the vale of Life
Half so delightful as a wife,
When friendship, love and peace combine
To stamp the marriage-bond divine?...
I ask you to join me, ladies and gentlemen....”
Then was begun the writing of a page unparalleled for brightness in the annals of Glenerne. Health after health was drunk, and it was Mr. Rainbow who proposed that of the youngest bachelor present—the infant Wellcome. Yesterday, he said, had been a fine day for Toreador’s race, but no finer than to-day was for another race—the Human Race!... Such a roar as went up! Nobody had supposed Rainbow had it in him. Aunt Jerry blushed; Mrs. Deschamps, who was sipping champagne at the time, had to have her back slapped by M. Criqui, and did not recover for several minutes; Cosimo’s laugh rivalled that of Mr. Wellcome himself. And then Mr. Rainbow rounded on Cosimo likewise.... For nothing succeeds like success, and Mr. Rainbow, having scored once, immediately scored again. If little birds were to be believed, he said, giving the discreetest of glances at Cosimo and Amory, they might be having another jollification before long. He mentioned no names. He would merely say that one of them was not unknown to fame, fame of what he might call an artistic sort; and all he would say, in the words of a song that used to be sung when he was a good many years younger, was, “That’s the time to do it—while you’re young!”
Then Mr. Rainbow made his best hit of all—he sat down in the perfect moment of his triumph.
“The cake, the cake!” everybody shouted; and one of Bunters’ waiters handed Aunt Jerry a knife.
Then there were fresh shrieks of merriment, for when Aunt Jerry tried to cut that formidable cake it was discovered to be of solid plaster-of-Paris—a white grindstone tricked out with silver-paper cupids and spurious sugar-work.
“Beats Mrs. Deschamps and the Kissing Bee hollow!” roared the authors of the imposture.
And so the real cake had to be brought and cut.