“Yes,” said the Sage. “You appear to have the facts correctly. The tale which I am about to relate is a sequel to that story, and runs as follows:”
You say (began the Oldest Member) that all ended happily. That was Bradbury Fisher’s opinion, too. It seemed to Bradbury in the days that followed Vosper’s taking of office as though Providence, recognizing his sterling merits, had gone out of its way to smooth the path of life for him. The weather was fine; his handicap, after remaining stationary for many years, had begun to decrease; and his old friend Rupert Worple had just come out of Sing-Sing, where he had been taking a postgraduate course, and was paying him a pleasant visit at his house in Goldenville, Long Island.
The only thing, in fact, that militated against Bradbury’s complete tranquillity was the information he had just received from his wife that her mother, Mrs. Lora Smith Maplebury, was about to infest the home for an indeterminate stay.
Bradbury had never liked his wives’ mothers. His first wife, he recalled, had had a particularly objectionable mother. So had his second, third, and fourth. And the present holder of the title appeared to him to be scratch. She had a habit of sniffing in a significant way whenever she looked at him, and this can never make for a spirit of easy comradeship between man and woman. Given a free hand, he would have tied a brick to her neck and dropped her in the water-hazard at the second; but, realizing that this was but a Utopian dream, he sensibly decided to make the best of things and to content himself with jumping out of window whenever she came into a room in which he happened to be sitting.
His mood, therefore, as he sat in his Louis Quinze library on the evening on which this story opens, was perfectly contented. And when there was a knock at the door and Vosper entered, no foreboding came to warn him that the quiet peace of his life was about to be shattered.
“Might I have a word, sir?” said the butler.
“Certainly, Vosper. What is it?”
Bradbury Fisher beamed upon the man. For the hundredth time, as he eyed him, he reflected how immeasurably superior he was to the departed Blizzard. Blizzard had been ten years with an earl, and no one disputes that earls are all very well in their way. But they are not dukes. About a butler who has served in a ducal household there is a something which cannot be duplicated by one who has passed the formative years of his butlerhood in humbler surroundings.
“It has to do with Mr. Worple, sir.”
“What about him?”
“Mr. Worple,” said the butler, gravely, “must go. I do not like his laugh, sir.”
“Eh?”
“It is too hearty, sir. It would not have done for the Duke.”
Bradbury Fisher was an easygoing man, but he belonged to a free race. For freedom his fathers had fought and, if he had heard the story correctly, bled. His eyes flashed.
“Oh!” he cried. “Oh, indeed!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is zat so?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, let me tell you something, Bill—”
“My name is Hildebrand, sir.”
“Well, let me tell you, whatever your scarlet name is, that no butler is going to boss me in my own home. You can darned well go yourself.”
“Very good, sir.”
Vosper withdrew like an ambassador who has received his papers; and presently there was a noise without like hens going through a hedge, and Mrs. Fisher plunged in.
“Bradbury,” she cried, “are you mad? Of course Mr. Worple must go if Vosper says so. Don’t you realize that Vosper will leave us if we don’t humour him?”
“I should worry about him leaving!”
A strange, set look came into Mrs. Fisher’s face.
“Bradbury,” she said, “if Vosper leaves us, I shall die. And, what is more, just before dying I shall get a divorce. Yes, I will.”
“But, darling,” he gasped. “Rupert Worple! Old Rupie Worple! We’ve been friends all our lives.”
“I don’t care.”
“We were freshers at Sing-Sing together.”
“I don’t care.”
“We were initiated into the same Frat, the dear old Cracka-Bitta-Rock, on the same day.”
“I don’t care. Heaven has sent me the perfect butler, and I’m not going to lose him.”
There was a tense silence.
“Ah, well!” said Bradbury Fisher with a deep sigh.
That night he broke the news to Rupert Worple.
“I never thought,” said Rupert Worple sadly, “when we sang together on the glee-club at the old Alma Mater, that it would ever come to this.”
“Nor I,” said Bradbury Fisher. “But so it must be. You wouldn’t have done for the Duke, Rupie, you wouldn’t have done for the Duke.”
“Goodbye, Number 8,097,564,” said Rupert Worple in a low voice.
“Goodbye, Number 8,097,565,” whispered Bradbury Fisher.
And with a silent handclasp the two friends parted.
With the going of Rupert Worple a grey cloud seemed to settle upon the glowing radiance of Bradbury Fisher’s life. Mrs. Lora Smith Maplebury duly arrived; and, having given a series of penetrating sniffs as he greeted her in the entrance-hall, dug herself in and settled down to what looked like the visit of a lifetime. And then, just as Bradbury’s cup seemed to be full to overflowing, Mrs. Fisher drew him aside one evening.
“Bradbury,” said Mrs. Fisher, “I have some good news for you.”
“Is your mother leaving?” asked Bradbury eagerly.
“Of course not. I said good news. I am taking up golf again.”
Bradbury Fisher clutched at the arms of his chair, and an ashen pallor spread itself over his clean-cut face.
“What did you say?” he muttered.
“I’m taking up golf again. Won’t it be nice? We’ll be able to play together every day.”
Bradbury Fisher shuddered strongly. It was many
