I RAN into young Bingo Little in the smoking-room of the Senior Liberal Club. He was lying back in an arm-chair with his mouth open and a sort of goofy expression in his eyes, while a grey-bearded cove in the middle distance watched him with so much dislike that I concluded that Bingo had pinched his favourite seat. That’s the worst of being in a strange club—absolutely without intending it, you find yourself constantly trampling upon the vested interests of the Oldest Inhabitants.
“Hallo, face!” I said.
“Cheerio, ugly!” said young Bingo, and we settled down to have a small one before lunch.
Once a year the committee of the Drones decides that the old club could do with a wash and brush-up, so they shoo us out, and dump us down for a few weeks at some other institution. This time we were roosting at the Senior Liberal, and, personally, I had found the strain pretty fearful. I mean, when you’ve got used to a club where everything’s nice and cheery, and where, if you want to attract a chappie’s attention, you heave a bit of bread at him, it kind of damps you to come to a place where the youngest member is about eighty-seven, and it isn’t considered good form to talk to anyone unless you and he were through the Peninsular War together. It was a relief to come across Bingo. We started to talk in hushed voices.
“This club,” I said, “is the limit.”
“It is the eel’s eyebrows,” agreed young Bingo. “I believe that old boy over by the window has been dead three days, but I don’t like to mention it to anyone.”
“Have you lunched here yet?”
“No. Why?”
“They have waitresses instead of waiters.”
“Good Lord! I thought that went out with the Armistice.” Bingo mused a moment, straightening his tie absently. “Er—pretty girls?” he said.
“No.”
He seemed disappointed, but pulled round.
“Well, I’ve heard that the cooking’s the best in London.”
“So they say. Shall we be going in?”
“All right. I expect,” said young Bingo, “that at the end of the meal—or possibly at the beginning—the waitress will say: ‘Both together, sir?’ Reply in the affirmative. I haven’t a bean.”
“Hasn’t your uncle forgiven you yet?”
“Not yet, confound him!”
You see, young Bingo had had a bit of a dust-up with Lord Bittlesham, his uncle, some time earlier, resulting in his allowance being knocked off. I was sorry to hear the row was still on. I resolved to do the poor old thing well at the festive board, and I scanned the menu with some intentness when the girl rolled up with it.
“How would this do you, Bingo?” I said at length. “A few plovers’ eggs to weigh in with, a cup of soup, a touch of cold salmon, some cold curry, and a splash of gooseberry tart and cream, with a bite of cheese to finish?”
