Something obviously had to be done, and George went to London to see a specialist.
“Yes?” said the specialist.
“I-I-I-I-I-I-I—” said George.
“You were saying—?”
“Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo—”
“Sing it,” said the specialist.
“S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s—?” said George, puzzled.
The specialist explained. He was a kindly man with moth-eaten whiskers and an eye like a meditative codfish.
“Many people,” he said, “who are unable to articulate clearly in ordinary speech find themselves lucid and bell-like when they burst into song.”
It seemed a good idea to George. He thought for a moment; then threw his head back, shut his eyes, and let it go in a musical baritone.
“I love a lassie, a bonny, bonny lassie,” sang George. “She’s as pure as the lily in the dell.”
“No doubt,” said the specialist, wincing a little.
“She’s as sweet as the heather, the bonny purple heather—Susan, my Worcestershire bluebell.”
“Ah!” said the specialist. “Sounds a nice girl. Is this she?” he asked, adjusting his glasses and peering at the photograph which George had extracted from the interior of the left side of his under-vest.
George nodded, and drew in breath.
“Yes, sir,” he carolled, “that’s my baby. No, sir, don’t mean maybe. Yes, sir, that’s my baby now. And, by the way, by the way, when I meet that preacher I shall say—‘Yes, sir, that’s my—’ ”
“Quite,” said the specialist, hurriedly. He had a sensitive ear. “Quite, quite.”
“If you knew Susie like I know Susie,” George was beginning, but the other stopped him.
“Quite. Exactly. I shouldn’t wonder. And now,” said the specialist, “what precisely is the trouble? No,” he added, hastily, as George inflated his lungs, “don’t sing it. Write the particulars on this piece of paper.”
George did so.
“H’m!” said the specialist, examining the screed. “You wish to woo, court, and become betrothed, engaged, affianced to this girl, but you find yourself unable, incapable, incompetent, impotent, and powerless. Every time you attempt it, your vocal cords fail, fall short, are insufficient, wanting, deficient, and go blooey.”
George nodded.
“A not unusual case. I have had to deal with this sort of thing before. The effect of love on the vocal cords of even a normally eloquent subject is frequently deleterious. As regards the habitual stammerer, tests have shown that in ninety-seven point five six nine recurring of cases the divine passion reduces him to a condition where he sounds like a soda-water siphon trying to recite Gunga Din. There is only one cure.”
“W-w-w-w-w—?” asked George.
“I will tell you. Stammering,” proceeded the specialist, putting the tips of his fingers together and eyeing George benevolently, “is mainly mental and is caused by shyness, which is caused by the inferiority complex, which in its turn is caused by suppressed desires or introverted inhibitions or something. The advice I give to all young men who come in here behaving like soda-water siphons is to go out and make a point of speaking to at least three perfect strangers every day. Engage these strangers in conversation, persevering no matter how priceless a chump you may feel, and before many weeks are out you will find that the little daily dose has had its effect. Shyness will wear off, and with it the stammer.”
And, having requested the young man—in a voice of the clearest timbre, free from all trace of impediment—to hand over a fee of five guineas, the specialist sent George out into the world.
The more George thought about the advice he had been given, the less he liked it. He shivered in the cab that took him to the station to catch the train back to East Wobsley. Like all shy young men, he had never hitherto looked upon himself as shy—preferring to attribute his distaste for the society of his fellows to some subtle rareness of soul. But now that the thing had been put squarely up to him, he was compelled to realize that in all essentials he was a perfect rabbit. The thought of accosting perfect strangers and forcing his conversation upon them sickened him.
But no Mulliner has ever shirked an unpleasant duty. As he reached the platform and strode along it to the train, his teeth were set, his eyes shone with an almost fanatical light of determination, and he intended before his journey was over to conduct three heart-to-heart chats if he had to sing every bar of them.
The compartment into which he had made his way was empty at the moment, but just before the train started a very large, fierce-looking man got in. George would have preferred somebody a little less formidable for his first subject, but he braced himself and bent forward. And, as he did so, the man spoke.
“The wur-wur-wur-wur-weather,” he said, “sus-sus-seems to be ter-ter-taking a tur-tur-turn for the ber-ber-better, der-doesn’t it?”
George sank back as if he had been hit between the eyes. The train had moved out of the dimness of the station by now, and the sun was shining brightly on the speaker, illuminating his knobbly shoulders, his craggy jaw, and, above all, the shockingly choleric look in his eyes. The reply “Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-yes” to such a man would obviously be madness.
But to abstain from speech did not seem to be much better as a policy. George’s silence appeared to arouse this man’s worst passions. His face had turned purple and he glared painfully.
“I uk-uk-asked you a sus-sus-civil quk-quk-quk,” he said, irascibly. “Are you d-d-d-d-deaf?”
All we Mulliners have been noted for our presence of mind. To open his mouth, point to his tonsils, and utter a strangled gurgle was with George the work of a moment.
The tension relaxed. The man’s annoyance abated.
“D-d-d-dumb?” he said, commiseratingly. “I beg your p-p-p-p-pup. I t-t-trust I have not caused you p-p-p-p-pup. It m-must be tut-tut-tut-tut-tut not to be able to sus-sus-speak fuf-fuf-fuf-fuf-fluently.”
He then buried himself in his paper, and George sank back in his corner, quivering in every limb.
To get to East Wobsley, as you doubtless know, you have to change at Ippleton and take the branch-line. By the time the train reached this junction, George’s composure was somewhat restored. He deposited
