He was driven by a dirty-faced youth in a blue overall, who presented the appearance of one who acts as general factotum in a country establishment which supports two or three motors and generates its own electric light. By his side sat a patriarchal old gentleman with a white beard, in tweeds, hobnail boots, and a deerstalker cap—obviously a head ghillie of high and ancient lineage.
The spider-seat at the back was occupied, in the fullest sense of the word, by a dead stag about the size of a horse, lashed to this, its temporary catafalque, with innumerable ropes.
The old gentleman was politeness itself, and on hearing of our plight placed himself and Bill Bailey unreservedly at our disposal. His master, The M‘Shin of Inversneishan, would be proud to house us for the night, and the game-car should convey us to the hospitable walls of Inversneishan forthwith. Tactfully worded doubts upon our part as to Bill’s carrying capacity—we did not complicate matters by explaining upon what good authority we spoke—were waved aside with a Highlander’s indifference to mere detail. The car was a grand car, and the Castle was no distance at all. Mr. Richards alone need be jettisoned. He could remain with The Greyhound all night, and on the morrow succour should be sent him.
Mr. Richards, utterly demoralised by his recent fall from the summit of autocracy, meekly assented, and presently Bill Bailey, packed like the last ’bus on a Saturday night, staggered off upon his homeward way. My wife and I shared the front seat with the oleaginous youth in the overall, while the patriarchal ghillie hung on precariously behind, locked in the embrace of the dead stag. How or where The Gruffin travelled I do not know. She may have perched herself upon some outlying portion of the stag, or she may have attached herself to Bill Bailey’s back-axle by her hair and sash, and been towed home. Anyhow, when, two hours later, Bill Bailey, swaying beneath his burden and roaring like a Bull of Bashan, drew up with all standing at the portals of Inversneishan Castle, it was The Gruffin who, unkempt, scarlet, but triumphant, rang the bell and bearded the butler while my wife and I uncoiled ourselves from intimate association with the chauffeur, the ghillie, and the stag.
Next morning, in returning thanks for the princely manner in which our involuntary host had entertained us, I retailed to him the full story of our previous acquaintance with Bill Bailey. I further added, with my daughter’s hot hand squeezing mine in passionate approval, an intimation that if ever Bill should again come into the market I thought I could find a purchaser for him.
He duly came back to us, at a cost of five pounds and his sea-passage, a few months later, and we have had him ever since.
Such is the tale of Bill Bailey. To-day he stands in a corner of my coach-house, an occupier of valuable space, a stumbling-block to all and sundry, and a lasting memorial to the omnipotence of human—especially feminine—sentiment.
Life-Like
By Martin Swayne
Royal Army Medical Corps
Colonel Wedge was a quiet, genial bachelor. If there was anything that seemed to distinguish him from the familiar type of retired officer, it was his great breadth of shoulder. He was well over fifty, but still vigorous and active. On the day after his arrival in Paris, whither he had come on a week’s visit, he breakfasted at nine and spent the morning in visiting some public places of interest. He lunched at a restaurant near the Porte St. Martin, where he found himself in a typically Parisian atmosphere, and after smoking a cigar began to stroll idly along the streets. Chance directed his steps in a northerly direction, and about three in the afternoon he found himself in the Montmartre district.
He walked along in a casual manner, his hands clasped behind his back, watching everything with infinite relish. While passing up a side street his eye fell on a flamboyant advertisement outside a cinematograph show. The Colonel was not averse to cinematograph shows, and it struck him that here, perhaps, he might see something out of the ordinary. The poster was certainly lurid. It represented a man being attacked by snakes, and Wedge understood enough French to read the statement underneath that the representation was absolutely life-like, and that the death-agony was a masterpiece of acting.