“Well, artists eat, just the same as other people,” he went on, “and personally I like mine often and well cooked. Besides which, my sojourn in Paris gave me a rather nice taste in light wines. The consequence was that I came to the conclusion, after I had been back a few months, that something had to be done. Reggie, do you by any remote chance read a paper called
“Every week.”
He gazed at me with a kind of wistful admiration.
“I envy you, Reggie. Fancy being able to make a statement like that openly and without fear. Then I take it you know the Doughnut family?”
“I should say I did.”
His voice sank almost to a whisper, and he looked over his shoulder nervously.
“Reggie, I do them.”
“You what?”
“I do them—draw them—paint them. I am the creator of the Doughnut family.”
I stared at him, absolutely astounded. I was simply dumb. It was the biggest surprise of my life. Why, dash it, the Doughnut family was the best thing in its line in London. There is Pa Doughnut, Ma Doughnut, Aunt Bella, Cousin Joe, and Mabel, the daughter, and they have all sorts of slapstick adventures. Pa, Ma and Aunt Bella are pure gargoyles; Cousin Joe is a little more nearly semi-human, and Mabel is a perfect darling. I had often wondered who did them, for they were unsigned, and I had often thought what a deuced brainy fellow the chap must be. And all the time it was old Archie. I stammered as I tried to congratulate him.
He winced.
“Don’t gargle, Reggie, there’s a good fellow,” he said. “My nerves are all on edge. Well, as I say, I do the Doughnuts. It was that or starvation. I got the idea one night when I had a toothache, and next day I took some specimens round to an editor. He rolled in his chair, and told me to start in and go on till further notice. Since then I have done them without a break. Well, there’s the position. I must go on drawing these infernal things, or I shall be penniless. The question is, am I to tell her?”
“Tell her? Of course you must tell her.”
“Ah, but you don’t know her, Reggie. Have you ever heard of Eunice Nugent?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“As she doesn’t sprint up and down the joyway at the Hippodrome, I didn’t suppose you would.”
I thought this rather uncalled-for, seeing that, as a matter of fact, I scarcely know a dozen of the Hippodrome chorus, but I made allowances for his state of mind.
“She’s a poetess,” he went on, “and her work has appeared in lots of good magazines. My idea is that she would be utterly horrified if she knew, and could never be quite the same to me again. But I want you to meet her and judge for yourself. It’s just possible that I am taking too morbid a view of the matter, and I want an unprejudiced outside opinion. Come and lunch with us at the Piccadilly tomorrow, will you?”
He was absolutely right. One glance at Miss Nugent told me that the poor old boy had got the correct idea. I hardly know how to describe the impression she made on me. On the way to the Pic, Archie had told me that what first attracted him to her was the fact that she was so utterly unlike Mabel Doughnut; but that had not prepared me for what she really was. She was kind of intense, if you know what I mean—kind of spiritual. She was perfectly pleasant, and drew me out about golf and all that sort of thing; but all the time I felt that she considered me an earthy worm whose loftier soul- essence had been carelessly left out of his composition at birth. She made me wish that I had never seen a musical comedy or danced on a supper table on New Year’s Eve. And if that was the impression she made on me, you can understand why poor old Archie jibbed at the idea of bringing her
“Old top,” I said, “you must keep it dark.”
I’m afraid so. But I hate the thought of deceiving her.”
“You must get used to that now you’re going to be a married man,” I said.
“The trouble is, how am I going to account for the fact that I can do myself pretty well?”
“Why, tell her you have private means, of course. What’s your money invested in?”
“Practically all of it in B. and O. P. Rails. It is a devilish good thing. A pal of mine put me onto it.”
“Tell her that you have a pile of money in B. and O. P., then. She’ll take it for granted it’s a legacy. A spiritual girl like Miss Nugent isn’t likely to inquire further.”
“Reggie, I believe you’re right. It cuts both ways, that spiritual gag. I’ll do it.”
They were married quietly. I held the towel for Archie, and a spectacled girl with a mouth like a rat-trap, who was something to do with the Woman’s Movement, saw fair play for Eunice. And then they went off to Scotland for their honeymoon. I wondered how the Doughnuts were going to get on in old Archie’s absence, but it seemed that he had buckled down to it and turned out three months’ supply in advance. He told me that long practice had enabled him to Doughnut almost without conscious effort. When he came back to London he would give an hour a week to them and do them on his head. Pretty soft! It seemed to me that the marriage was going to be a success.
One gets out of touch with people when they marry. I am not much on the social-call game, and for nearly six months I don’t suppose I saw Archie more than twice or three times. When I did, he appeared sound in wind and limb, and reported that married life was all to the velvet, and that he regarded bachelors like myself as so many excrescences on the social system. He compared me, if I remember rightly, to a wart, and advocated drastic
