I had been telling stories in that inimitable way that
one has after two cocktails. In reality, I only know four
stories, and a fifth that I don't quite remember, but in
moments of expansiveness they feel like a fund or flow.
It was under such circumstances that I sat with
Beverly-Jones. And it was in shaking hands at leaving
that he said: "I _do_ wish, old chap, that you could run
up to our summer place and give us the whole of August!"
and I answered, as I shook him warmly by the hand: "My
_dear_ fellow, I'd simply _love_ to!" "By gad, then it's
a go!" he said. "You must come up for August, and wake
us all up!"
Wake them up! Ye gods! Me wake them up!
One hour later I was repenting of my folly, and wishing,
when I thought of the two cocktails, that the prohibition
wave could be hurried up so as to leave us all high and
dry--bone-dry, silent and unsociable.
Then I clung to the hope that Beverly-Jones would forget.
But no. In due time his wife wrote to me. They were
looking forward so much, she said, to my visit; they
felt--she repeated her husband's ominous phrase--that I
should wake them all up!
What sort of alarm-clock did they take me for, anyway!
Ah, well! They know better now.
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