suit, with his shoes brightly polished, his hair neat, a white handkerchief smartly in his pocket, and a plain peaked cap in his hand.
'What on earth are you doing?' Grimsdyke asked. 'Playing bus conductors?'
Benskin beamed at him.
'Not a bit, old boy. I've got a job for a couple of weeks. A damn smart move on my part it was.'
'A job? What sort of a job? More dishwashing, I suppose?'
'Private chauffeur,' Benskin told him proudly. 'In a Rolls, too. I'll tell you what happened. I was up at outpatients' this morning when a fellow came in with the most horrible gastric ulcer I've seen. He had to leave off work at once, of course, and when he told me his job was chauffeur to an old bird with bags of oof who makes jam or something I saw ways of relieving the old exchequer. Do you follow me? I nipped smartly round to the old boy's house in Hampstead and told him the bad news in person-very impressively, too. I then explained the situation in a few words, and offered humble self to fill, the gap in his household.
'It so happened that the old chum and his missus are due to start a fortnight's holiday touring Scotland tomorrow, which would have been squashed by the chauffeur's ulcers if I hadn't presented myself as a worthy alternative. I got all this from the patient of course, but I didn't let on and gave the impression that I could tear myself away from my valuable studies just so the old folk wouldn't miss their nice restful holiday. He seemed a decent old cove and was very upset about his old chauffeur, but he has no more idea of driving a car himself than working a railway engine. So my offer was gratefully accepted.'
'Have you got a licence?' I asked him.
'Of course,' he replied in a hurt tone. 'For almost a month now.'
Benskin disappeared the following morning. After four days he reappeared in the hospital. He had lost his cap, his best suit was torn and covered with oil, one of his shoes was ripped, and he was still broke.
'Well?' I said.
'One meets snags,' Benskin replied in a subdued voice. 'All was well to begin with. The old jam merchant was a great believer in the quiet life, and we trundled gently out of Town to Doncaster. They put me up in the servants' quarters of the local hostelry, where I met a hell of a nice little piece among the chambermaids-however, that will do for later. The next day I drove in an exemplary fashion to Newcastle, by which time I could see that the old couple had invested plenty of confidence in Benskin, whom they looked upon as a clean and careful driver.'
'What happened after Newcastle?' Grimsdyke asked resignedly.
'That's where the rot set in. I'd driven all that bloody way without a drink, as I left London flat broke. At Newcastle I touched the old boy for a quid, and when we stopped for lunch at some old-world boozer on the road I sneaked, round the back and downed a few scoops. This would have been all right, but the old chum decided he wanted a stroll to look at the local countryside and left me among the lackeys in the servants' hall, or whatever it is. I met a most amusing type there-an Irish porter who had started off life studying divinity at Trinity. We had a lot to talk about-bobbing back scoops all the time, of course. I set off with my customers about four o'clock, but regret to say I only made about a hundred yards. After that I piled the crate up in a ditch. I didn't hurt myself, luckily, but now the old couple are languishing in the local cottage hospital with a fractured femur apiece.'
He added that he did not see much chance of the engagement being renewed.
To retrieve my microscope I washed dishes with Tony Benskin in a West End hotel for a couple of nights and sold some of my text-books. I was then content to return to academic life, but Benskin was aflame to increase his savings by trying his hand at another trade.
'Do you see that notice?' he asked eagerly as we left the staff entrance of the hotel in the early morning. 'Extra waiters wanted. Apply Head Waiter.' That's an idea, isn't it?'
'No,' I said. 'I'm going to spend a few nights in bed. Besides, I don't know anything about waiting. And neither do you.'
Benskin lightly brushed these objections aside.
'There's nothing to it, old man. Anyone can dish up a bit of fish. It's money for nothing, if you ask me. And the tips! Think of the tips. At a swep-up joint like this the customers don't slip threepenny bits under the plate when they swig down the remains of their brandy and wipe the caviar off their lips. I've been waited on quite long enough to grasp the technique-if you want a fat tip it's only a matter of handing out the soup with a look of haughty distaste on your face.'
'You think you could look haughty, do you?'
'One is a gentleman,' Benskin replied stiffly. 'I'm going to stay behind and have a word with this head waiter chap.'
'I'm going home to bed. We've got to appear at a lecture in five hours' time.'
'All right. See you later.'
I was dropping off to sleep when Benskin got back to Bayswater. He was jubilant.
'A push-over, old boy!' he said. 'I saw the head waiter-nasty piece of work he was, too. However, he took one look at me and said to himself 'Benskin's the man! He'll raise the tone in the dining-room all right.''
'So you got the job?'
'Starting to-night. I'll just have time to nip away from the hospital, get my evening clothes out, and appear as the Jeeves of the chafing dish.'
'I suppose they know at the hotel that you have had no experience of waiting at all?'
'Well, no, not exactly. I saw no reason for putting obstacles in my own way, so I gave the impression I had dished it out at some of the larger doss-houses around Town, with summer sessions on the coast. They seem pretty hard-up for fish-flingers at the moment, as they took me at my word.'
'Well,' I said, turning over. 'Don't forget to wear a black tie.'
When I reached the flat after work that evening Benskin was in a high state of excitement.
'Must get the old soup and fish out,' he said, hauling his battered tin trunk from the top of the wardrobe.
'I pinched a bottle of ether from the theatre this afternoon to get the stains out.'
Benskin's tail suit had been bought for him by his father when he was sixteen. Since then he hard greatly increased in size in all directions. We all worked hard to straighten out the creases with John Bottle's travelling iron, while Benskin rubbed hard at the lapels to remove the grease.
'I must have been a dirty little devil at table,' he reflected.
'Some moths have been having a go at it down here,' I said, pointing to the trousers.
'That doesn't matter,' Benskin replied testily. 'I'm only the bloody waiter, anyway.'
He put the clothes on. By lowering the braces as far as he dared the trousers could be made to cover the upper part of his ankles; the braces themselves, which were red and, yellow, only remained invisible behind the lapels of the coat when he remembered not to breathe too deeply. The sleeves came as far as the mid-forearm, and the top buttons of the trousers had to be reinforced with safety-pins. But it was the shirt that presented an apparently insoluble difficulty. It was tight, and the buttonholes were worn: even the shallowest of respiration caused the studs to pop out and expose a broad strip of hairy, pink, sweaty chest.
'Quite enough to put the people off their meal,' John Bottle remarked.
We tried using bigger studs and brass paper-fasteners, but, if Benskin wished to continue to breathe, the shirt was unwearable. Even strips of sticking-plaster inside the stiff front were not strong enough to withstand the pressure of his inhalations. For half an hour we worked hard at the infuriating gap while the shirt-front became limp under our fingers.
'For God's sake!' Benskin exclaimed angrily. 'Isn't there anything we can do about it? Look at the time! If I'm not there in twenty minutes I've, had it. Surely one of you fellows has got a stiff shirt to lend me?'
'What! Your size?' Bottle asked.
'Why the devil didn't I think of buying a dickey!'
I had an idea.
'Let us apply the first principles of surgery,' I said.
'What the hell are you getting at now?'
'Supposing you have tension on a surgical, incision. What do you do? Why, make a counter-incision, of course, in a site where it doesn't matter. Take your jacket off, Tony.'
