The Small Bachelor

of ingratiating conversation. He looked nice, and you could tell by the way he spoke that he was nice. Clever, beyond a doubt⁠—you knew that at once by his epigrams⁠—but not clever in that repellant, cold-hearted modern fashion: for, no matter how brilliantly his talk sparkled, it was plain all the while that his heart was in the right place and that, despite his wonderful gifts, there was not an atom of conceit in his composition. His eyes had an attractive twinkle: his mouth curved from time to time in an alluring smile: his hands were cool and artistic: and his shirtfront did not bulge. George, in short, as he had imagined himself in his daydreams, was practically the answer to the Maiden’s Prayer.

How different was this loathly changeling who now stood on one leg in the library of Number 16, Seventy-Ninth Street, East. In the first place, the fellow had obviously not brushed his hair for several days. Also, he had omitted to wash his hands, and something had caused them to swell up and turn scarlet. Furthermore, his trousers bagged at the knees: his tie was moving up towards his left ear: and his shirtfront protruded hideously like the chest of a pouter pigeon. A noisome sight.

Still, looks are not everything: and if this wretched creature had been able to talk one-tenth as well as the George of the daydreams, something might yet have been saved out of the wreck. But the poor blister was inarticulate as well. All he seemed able to do was clear his throat. And what nice girl’s heart has ever been won by a series of roopy coughs?

And he could not even achieve a reasonable satisfactory expression. When he tried to relax his features (such as they were) into a charming smile, he merely grinned weakly. When he forced himself not to grin, his face froze into a murderous scowl.

But it was his inability to speak that was searing George’s soul. Actually, since the departure of Mr. Waddington, the silence had lasted for perhaps six seconds: but to George Finch it seemed like a good hour. He goaded himself to utterance.

“My name,” said George, speaking in a low, husky voice, “is not Pinch.”

“Isn’t it?” said the girl. “How jolly!”

“Nor Winch.”

“Better still.”

“It is Finch. George Finch.”

“Splendid!”

She seemed genuinely pleased. She beamed upon him as if he had brought her good news from a distant land.

“Your father,” proceeded George, not having anything to add by way of development of the theme but unable to abandon it, “thought it was Pinch. Or Winch. But it is not. It is Finch.”

His eye, roaming nervously about the room, caught hers for an instant: and he was amazed to perceive that there was in it nothing of that stunned abhorrence which he felt his appearance and behaviour should rightly have aroused in any nice-minded girl. Astounding though it seemed, she appeared to be looking at him in a sort of pleased, maternal way, as if he were a child she was rather fond of. For the first time a faint far-off glimmer of light shone upon George’s darkness. It would be too much to say that he was encouraged, but out of the night that covered him, black as the pit from pole to pole, there did seem to sparkle for an instant a solitary star.

“How did you come to know father?”

George could answer that. He was all right if you asked him questions. It was the having to invent topics of conversation that baffled him.

“I met him outside the house: and when he found that I came from the West he asked me in to dinner.”

“Do you mean he rushed at you and grabbed you as you were walking by?”

“Oh, no. I wasn’t walking by. I was⁠—er⁠—sort of standing on the doorstep. At least.⁠ ⁠…”

“Standing on the doorstep? Why?”

George’s ears turned a riper red.

“Well, I was⁠—er⁠—coming as it were, to pay a call.”

“A call?”

“Yes.”

“On mother?”

“On you.”

The girl’s eyes widened.

“On me?”

“To make inquiries.”

“What about?”

“Your dog.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, I thought⁠—result of the excitement⁠—and nerve-strain⁠—I thought he might be upset.”

“Because he ran away, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“You thought he would have a nervous breakdown because he ran away?”

“Dangerous traffic,” explained George. “Might have been run over. Reaction. Nervous collapse.”

Woman’s intuition is a wonderful thing. There was probably not an alienist in the land who, having listened so far, would not have sprung at George and held him down with one hand while with the other he signed the necessary certificate of lunacy. But Molly Waddington saw deeper into the matter. She was touched. As she realised that this young man thought so highly of her that, despite his painful shyness, he was prepared to try to worm his way into her house on an excuse which even he must have recognised as pure banana-oil, her heart warmed to him. More than ever, she became convinced that George was a lamb and that she wanted to stroke his head and straighten his tie and make cooing noises to him.

“How very sweet of you,” she said.

“Fond of dogs,” mumbled George.

“You must be fond of dogs.”

“Are you fond of dogs?”

“Yes, I’m very fond of dogs.”

“So am I. Very fond of dogs.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Very fond of dogs. Some people are not fond of dogs, but I am.”

And suddenly eloquence descended upon George Finch. With gleaming eyes he broke out into a sort of Litany. He began to talk easily and fluently.

“I am fond of Airedales and wire-haired terriers and bulldogs and Pekingese and Sealyhams and Alsations and fox-terriers and greyhounds and Aberdeens and West Highlands and Cairns and Pomeranians and spaniels and schipperkes and pugs and Maltese and Yorkshires and borzois and bloodhounds and Bedlingtons and pointers and setters and mastiffs and Newfoundlands and St. Bernards and Great Danes and dachshunds and collies and chows and poodles and.⁠ ⁠…”

“I see,” said Molly. “You’re fond of dogs.”

“Yes,” said George. “Very fond of dogs.”

“So am I. There’s something about dogs.”

“Yes,” said George. “Of course, there’s something about cats, too.”

“Yes, isn’t there?”

“But,