Bingo and the Little Woman

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      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?”

      I don’t know that I had expected the man actually to scream with delight, though I had picked the items from my knowledge of his pet dishes, but I had expected him to say something. I looked up, and found that his attention was elsewhere. He was gazing at the waitress with the look of a dog that’s just remembered where its bone was buried.

      She was a tallish girl with sort of soft, soulful brown eyes. Nice figure and all that. Rather decent hands, too. I didn’t remember having seen her about before, and I must say she raised the standard of the place quite a bit.

      “How about it, laddie?” I said, being all for getting the order booked and going on to the serious knife-and-fork work.

      “Eh?” said young Bingo, absently.

      I recited the programme once more.

      “Oh, yes, fine,” said Bingo. “Anything, anything!” The girl pushed off, and he turned to me with protruding eyes. “I thought you said they weren’t pretty, Bertie?” he said, reproachfully.

      “Oh, my heavens!” I said. “You surely haven’t fallen in love again—and with a girl you’ve only just seen?”

      “There are times, Bertie,” said young Bingo, “when a look is enough—when, passing through a crowd, we meet somebody’s eye and something seems to whisper——”

      At this point the plovers’ eggs arrived, and he suspended his remarks in order to swoop on them with some vigour.

      “JEEVES,” I said that night when I got home, “stand by.”

      “Sir?”

      “Burnish the old brain, and be alert and vigilant. I suspect that Mr. Little will be calling round shortly for sympathy and assistance.”

      “Is Mr. Little in trouble, sir?”

      “Well, you might call it that. He’s in love. For about the fifty-third time. I ask you, Jeeves, as man to man, did you ever see such a chap?”

      “Mr. Little is certainly warm-hearted, sir.”

      “Warm-hearted! I should think he has to wear asbestos vests. Well, stand by, Jeeves.”

      “Very good, sir.”

      And, sure enough, it wasn’t ten days before in rolled the old ass, bleating for volunteers to step one pace forward and come to the aid of the party.

      “Bertie,” he said, “if you are a pal of mine, now is the time to show it.”

      “Proceed, old gargoyle,” I replied. “You have our ear.”

      “You remember giving me lunch at the Senior Liberal some days ago. We were waited on by a——”

      “I remember. Tall, lissom female.”

      He shuddered somewhat.

      “I wish you wouldn’t talk of her like that, dash it all! She’s an angel.”