“I don’t like stories like that,” he said. “They aren’t true to life.”
“Pardon me, sir,” said a voice. And we were aware of Mr. Mulliner in our midst.
“Excuse me interrupting what may be a private discussion,” said Mr. Mulliner, “but I chanced to overhear the recent remarks, and you, sir, have opened up a subject on which I happen to hold strong views—to wit, the question of what is and what is not true to life. How can we, with our limited experience, answer that question? For all we know, at this very moment hundreds of young women all over the country may be in the process of being turned into lobsters. Forgive my warmth, but I have suffered a good deal from this sceptical attitude of mind which is so prevalent nowadays. I have even met people who refused to believe my story about my brother Wilfred, purely because it was a little out of the ordinary run of the average man’s experience.”
Considerably moved, Mr. Mulliner ordered a hot Scotch with a slice of lemon.
“What happened to your brother Wilfred? Was he turned into a lobster?”
“No,” said Mr. Mulliner, fixing his honest blue eyes on the speaker, “he was not. It would be perfectly easy for me to pretend that he was turned into a lobster; but I have always made it a practice—and I always shall make it a practice—to speak nothing but the bare truth. My brother Wilfred simply had rather a curious adventure.”
My brother Wilfred (said Mr. Mulliner) is the clever one of the family. Even as a boy he was always messing about with chemicals, and at the University he devoted his time entirely to research. The result was that while still quite a young man he had won an established reputation as the inventor of what are known to the trade as Mulliner’s Magic Marvels—a general term embracing the Raven Gipsy Face-Cream, the Snow of the Mountains Lotion, and many other preparations, some designed exclusively for the toilet, others of a curative nature, intended to alleviate the many ills to which the flesh is heir.
Naturally, he was a very busy man: and it is to this absorption in his work that I attribute the fact that, though—like all the Mulliners—a man of striking personal charm, he had reached his thirty-first year without ever having been involved in an affair of the heart. I remember him telling me once that he simply had no time for girls.
But we all fall sooner or later, and these strong concentrated men harder than any. While taking a brief holiday one year at Cannes, he met a Miss Angela Purdue, who was staying at his hotel, and she bowled him over completely.
She was one of these jolly, outdoor girls; and Wilfred had told me that what attracted him first about her was her wholesome sunburned complexion. In fact, he told Miss Purdue the same thing when, shortly after he had proposed and been accepted, she asked him in her girlish way what it was that had first made him begin to love her.
“It’s such a pity,” said Miss Purdue, “that the sunburn fades so soon. I do wish I knew some way of keeping it.”
Even in his moments of holiest emotion Wilfred never forgot that he was a business man.
“You should try Mulliner’s Raven Gipsy Face-Cream,” he said. “It comes in two sizes—the small (or half-crown) jar and the large jar at seven shillings and sixpence. The large jar contains three and a half times as much as the small jar. It is applied nightly with a small sponge before retiring to rest. Testimonials have been received from numerous members of the aristocracy and may be examined at the office by any bonafide inquirer.”
“Is it really good?”
“I invented it,” said Wilfred, simply.
She looked at him adoringly.
“How clever you are! Any girl ought to be proud to marry you.”
“Oh, well,” said Wilfred, with a modest wave of his hand.
“All the same, my guardian is going to be terribly angry when I tell him we’re engaged.”
“Why?”
“I inherited the Purdue millions when my uncle died, you see, and my guardian has always wanted me to marry his son, Percy.”
Wilfred kissed her fondly, and laughed a defiant laugh.
“Jer mong feesh der selar,” he said lightly.
But, some days after his return to London, whither the girl had preceded him, he had occasion to recall her words. As he sat in his study, musing on a preparation to cure the pip in canaries, a card was brought to him.
“Sir Jasper ffinch-ffarrowmere, Bart.,” he read. The name was strange to him.
“Show the gentleman in,” he said. And presently there entered a very stout man with a broad, pink face. It was a face whose natural expression should, Wilfred felt, have been jovial, but at the moment it was grave.
“Sir Jasper Finch-Farrowmere?” said Wilfred.
“ffinch-ffarrowmere,” corrected the visitor, his sensitive ear detecting the capital letters.
“Ah yes. You spell it with two small f’s.”
“Four small f’s.”
“And to what do I owe the honour—”
“I am Angela Purdue’s guardian.”
“How do you do? A whisky-and-soda?”
“I thank you, no. I am a total abstainer. I found that alcohol had a tendency to increase my weight, so I gave it up. I have also given up butter, potatoes, soups of all kinds and—However,” he broke off, the fanatic gleam which comes into the eyes of all fat men who are describing their system of diet fading away, “this is not a social call, and I must not take up your time with idle talk. I have a message for you, Mr. Mulliner. From Angela.”
“Bless her!” said Wilfred. “Sir Jasper, I love that girl with a fervour which increases daily.”
“Is that so?” said the baronet. “Well, what I came to say was, it’s all off.”
“What?”
“All off. She sent me to say that she had thought it over and wanted to break the engagement.”
Wilfred’s eyes narrowed. He had not
