I Like It Here

sitting. His face had an expression of elaborately assumed severity. When everyone had seen him he snapped to attention. “Come on now,” he shouted, “smarten it up a bit. Out all cigarettes, pipes and Woodbines. Look lively, there. Wipe that grin off your face, Marchant. Company … shun. Stand-at … ease. Stand … easy. But beware, beware, because”-—he broke into exaggerated bel canto—’ ‘the Sergeant-Major’s on parade. Yes, the Sergeant-Major’s on parade.” Rounding this section off with a brief tap-dance, he approached and peered frowningly first into Barbara’s face, then into Bowen’s. Next, he backed away and struck a considering posture, head cocked, hand splayed over chin, elbow on palm. “Now don’t tell me, let me guess,” he said. “Let’s see … Now this”—he jabbed a finger at Bowen—”must be … Mrs. Bowen … and this”—jabbing at Barbara—”by a process of elimination … must be Mr. Bowen. What? What’s that you say? All right, you needn’t shout, I’m not deaf, just a wee bit hard of hearing, like. Well, speak up, you needn’t darn well whisper. What? I’ve made a mistake? I have? Impossible. Well-nigh unthinkable. The last of the Bannions in error? Never let it be said … But if so be that the sense of the meeting hath run against a Bannion, then it behoveth and befitteth the said Bannion that he ack-knowl-edg-eth his aforementioned error, and God save the king. A million pardons to you then, madarm, and to you likewise, monsewer. Lo, I have spoke. Oogh! Hot, isn’t it? Ah, well done, thou good and faithful servant.” This was to Alec Marchant, who as best he might had been mixing him a drink.

“I should think you could do with one after that turn, Harry,” Marchant said.

“Well now, me boy, and to be sure it’s meself who wouldn’t be argying with ye there, bedad, and that’s the truth of it now, so help me. Here’s mud in your eye, all.”

“Ah, Harry dear, you must give time for Mr. and Mrs. Bowen to get used to you, you know,” Isabella Bannion said indulgently. “He’s always acting these parts of his to make people laugh,” she explained to them.

“Well, when you stop smiling you start dying, that’s the way I look at it,” her husband said, winking at both Bowens in turn. “Now tell me, what do you think of Portugal? It’s your first visit, isn’t it? I’d be very interested to hear how the old place strikes you.”

They talked vaguely of this—at least Bowen was a bit vague—till it was time to eat. By then he was beginning to feel drunk. He had discovered that the Bannions, although moderate themselves, liked you to drink up and also liked refilling your glass before you had laid it down after drinking up. Marchant was later to put forward the claim that he himself had been drunk twice a day ever since meeting the Bannions.

Their entry into the dining-room caused a notable stir among the twenty-odd persons eating there. Some smiled and nudged one another; some displayed nervous expectancy; all were affected in some way. Bannion addressed them all from the doorway:

“Senhoras, senhoritas, senhores, members of the First Gilwell Troop, I salute you, one and all. To each of those here present I award the Silver Wolf, and to all your heirs and assigns of appropriate age goes a Bush-man’s Thong. Be of good cheer, lift up your hearts, for the hour of deliverance is at hand. Naught shall make us rue, if England to herself do rest but true. This programme comes to you by courtesy of the makers of Bannion’s Brobdingnagian Brandy Balls, Inc.” While the rest of the party were taking their seats, Bannion went over to two middle-aged ladies who were sitting nearby. “Bon soir, mesdames,” Bowen heard him say. “La plume de ma tante est dans la poche du jardinier, ah oui oui oui, zut alors, bon voyage, n’est ce pas?” After some more in the same strain, which was received with bewildered amiability, Bannion approached a handsome dark man who was by himself eating lobster. “Buenas noches, amigo,” he said, taking a claw from the man’s plate and cracking it. “How’s the old battlecock and shuttledore? Bless my soul, but this is uncommonly good provender, what?”

“Who’s that chap ?” Bowen asked Marchant.

“Who, that chap? Oh, he’s the ex-tennis coach to the king of Portugal. Spanish chap.”

“But there isn’t a king of Portugal, is there?”

“Isn’t there? Well, perhaps he’s tennis coach to the ex-king of Portugal, then. I know ex came into it somewhere. I could have sworn.”

“But wouldn’t the ex-king of Portugal be a bit past tennis by this time? I seem to remember he was chucked out in about 1908.”

“In that case it must be the son of the ex-king of Portugal. Either that or this chap’s the son of the ex-tennis coach. What about some wine? Will you have the branco or the tinto? I can recommend the tinto. I think they make it from blackberries instead of grapes.”

“Sounds delicious.”

While Marchant poured him half a pint or so of dark red wine from a huge wicker-covered jar, Bowen watched Bannion seemingly imitating a frog to the dynastic tennis coach. The latter’s head was thrown back in rich, urbane laughter. There was a lot to be said for Bannion’s method of dealing with the abroad-problem. Flaunting national differences dissolved inhibition far more efficiently than trying to ignore them. And only an unusually nasty man could have resented Bannion’s approaches.

After the meal Bowen walked carefully with the others into the lounge, which exuded a sparse but clean Victorianism. Here Bannion greeted presumable Americans and Scots with cries of “Howdy” and “Hoots” before seeing about coffee, liqueurs and cigars. Without being aware of it having started, Bowen found French being talked to him by a middle-aged lady who might have been one of the ones Bannion had told about his aunt’s pen, but who might not. The French went on for a time he could not