And, sure enough, I noticed next morning, when we started out, that he kept the satchel wedged in between him and the side of the car, entirely out of my reach. He was that sort of man.
How strange it is, Corky, that in this world we seem fated never to be able to enjoy life to the full! No doubt it is all for a purpose, and is intended to make us more spiritual and fit us for the life to come; but it is a nuisance. Take my case. I am particularly fond of motoring; and circumstances have so ordered themselves that it is only occasionally that I am able to get a ride. And here I was, bowling along the high road on an ideal motoring day, totally unable to enjoy the experience.
For there are certain conditions, laddie, under which the heart cannot rejoice. How could I revel in the present when the past was an agony to contemplate and the future as black as ink? Every time I tried not to let my mind dwell on the way this man beside me had done me down, it skidded off into the future and dwelt on the interview which must so soon take place between me and my aunt. So the fact that it was a lovely day and that I was getting a ride for nothing practically escaped me.
We buzzed on through the pleasant countryside. The sun shone in the sky: birds tootled in the hedgerows: the engine of the two-seater hummed smoothly.
And then, fairly suddenly, I became aware that the engine was not humming so smoothly. It had begun to knock. And then there was a sizzling noise, and steam began to creep out of the top of the radiator-cap.
Joe made one or two remarks concerning the man at the hotel who had forgotten to put water in the radiator.
“You can get some at that cottage,” I said.
There was a cottage down the road, standing by itself in a lot of trees. Joe pulled up the car and got down.
“I’ll stay here and look after your satchel,” I said. There was no sense in not being civil and obliging.
“No, you won’t. I’ll take it with me.”
“It will hamper you if you’re going to carry a pail of water.”
“I’d look silly leaving my satchel with you, wouldn’t I?”
I don’t know which distressed me the more, his sickening want of ordinary trust or his absurd respect for appearances. The man seemed to go through the world in a restless fear lest some action of his might make him look silly.
And he couldn’t possibly have looked sillier than he did about two minutes later.
This cottage, Corky, was separated from the road by iron railings with a gate in them. The bloke Joe shoved this gate open and went into the front garden. And he was just starting to move round in the direction of the back door when round the corner of the house there suddenly came trotting a dog.
Joe stopped, and the dog stopped. They stood there for a moment, drinking each other in.
“Ger-r-r!” said Joe.
Now, mind you, there was absolutely nothing about this dog to inspire alarm. Certainly it was on the large side and had rather a rolling eye; but I could see at a glance that it was just one of those friendly mongrels which your man of the world greets with a cheerful chirrup and prods in the ribs without a second thought. But Joe seemed ill at ease.
The dog came a step closer. I think he wanted to smell Joe, though I could have told him, as a friend, that there was neither profit nor pleasure to be derived from such a course.
“Gerroutofit!” said Joe.
The dog edged forward. Then, in a tentative sort of way, he barked. And Joe seemed to lose his head completely. Instead of trying to conciliate the animal, he picked up a stone and threw it.
Well, you simply can’t do that sort of thing to a dog you don’t know in his own garden.
It was the satchel that saved Joe. It shows the lengths to which fear will drive a man, Corky; and if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it. But it’s the truth that, as that dog came leaping up in a businesslike way that it did me good to watch, Joe the Lawyer, having given one look over his shoulder at the gate and decided that he couldn’t make it, uttered a piercing cry and flung considerably over two hundred quid in banknotes at the animal. The satchel took him low down on the chest, got entangled in his legs, and held him up. And while he was trying to unscramble himself, Joe nipped to the gate and slammed it behind him.
It was only then that he seemed to realize what a perfect chump he had made of himself.
“Gawblimey!” said Joe.
The dog left the satchel and came to the gate. He shoved his nose as far through the bars as he could manage, and made a noise like a saxophone.
“Now you’ve done it,” I said.
And so he had, and I was glad, Corky. It pleased me sincerely to find a man who prided himself on his acumen capable of such perfectly cloth-headed behaviour. Here was this blighter, admired by all—provided they didn’t have business dealings with him—for his wideness, breaking down lamentably in the first crisis where he was called upon to show a little ordinary intelligence. He had allowed himself to be out-generalled by a humble unit of the animal kingdom, and I had
