It was some time before Adam could get attended to.
“I’ve nothing but some very old clothes and some books,” he said.
But here he showed himself deficient in tact, for the man’s casual air disappeared in a flash.
“Books, eh?” he said. “And what sort of books, may I ask?”
“Look for yourself.”
“Thank you, that’s what I mean to do. Books, indeed.”
Adam wearily unstrapped and unlocked his suitcase.
“Yes,” said the Customs officer menacingly, as though his worst suspicions had been confirmed, “I should just about say you had got some books.”
One by one he took the books out and piled them on the counter. A copy of Dante excited his especial disgust.
“French, eh?” he said. “I guessed as much, and pretty dirty, too, I shouldn’t wonder. Now just you wait while I look up these here books”—how he said it!—“in my list. Particularly against books the Home Secretary is. If we can’t stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside. That’s what he said the other day in Parliament, and I says ‘Hear, hear. …’ Hullo, hullo, what’s this, may I ask?”
Gingerly, as though it might at any moment explode, he produced and laid on the counter a large pile of typescript.
“That’s a book too,” said Adam. “One I’ve just written. It is my memoirs.”
“Ho, it is, is it? Well, I’ll take that along, too, to the chief. You better come to.”
“But I’ve got to catch the train.”
“You come along. There’s worse things than missing trains,” he hinted darkly.
They went together into an inner office, the walls of which were lined with contraband pornography and strange instruments, whose purpose Adam could not guess. From the next room came the shrieks and yells of poor Miss Runcible, who had been mistaken for a well-known jewel smuggler, and was being stripped to the skin by two terrific wardresses.
“Now then, what’s this about books?” said the chief.
With the help of a printed list (which began “Aristotle, Works of (Illustrated)”) they went through Adam’s books, laboriously, one at a time, spelling out the titles.
Miss Runcible came through the office, working hard with lipstick and compact.
“Adam, darling, I never saw you on the boat,” she said. “My dear, I can’t tell you the things that have been happening to me in there. The way they looked … too, too shaming. Positively surgical, my dear, and such wicked old women, just like Dowagers, my dear. As soon as I get to London I shall ring up every Cabinet Minister and all the newspapers and give them all the most shy-making details.”
The chief was at this time engrossed in Adam’s memoirs, giving vent at intervals to a sinister chuckling sound that was partly triumphant and partly derisive, but in the main genuinely appreciative.
“Coo, Bert,” he said. “Look at this; that’s rich, ain’t it?”
Presently he collected the sheets, tied them together and put them on one side.
“Well, see here,” he said. “You can take these books on architecture and the dictionary, and I don’t mind stretching a point for once and letting you have the history books, too. But this book on Economics comes under Subversive Propaganda. That you leaves behind. And this here Purgatorio doesn’t look right to me, so that stays behind, pending inquiries. But as for this autobiography, that’s just downright dirt, and we burns that straight away, see.”
“But, good heavens, there isn’t a word in the book—you must be misinterpreting it.”
“Not so much of it. I knows dirt when I sees it or I shouldn’t be where I am today.”
“But do you realize that my whole livelihood depends on this book?”
“And my livelihood depends on stopping works like this coming into the country. Now ’ook it quick if you don’t want a police-court case.”
“Adam, angel, don’t fuss or we shall miss the train.”
Miss Runcible took his arm and led him back to the station and told him all about a lovely party that was going to happen that night.
“Queer, who felt queer?”
“You did, Arthur.”
“No I never … just tired.”
“It certainly was stuffy in there just for a bit.”
“Wonderful how that old girl cheered things up. Got a meeting next week in the Albert Hall.”
“Shouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t go. What do you say, Mr. Henderson?”
“She got a troupe of angels, so she said. All dressed up in white with wings, lovely. Not a bad-looker herself, if it comes to that.”
“What did you put in the plate, Arthur?”
“Half-crown.”
“So did I. Funny thing, I ain’t never give a half-crown like that before. She kind of draws it out of you, damned if she doesn’t.”
“You won’t get away from the Albert Hall not without putting your hand in your pocket.”
“No, but I’d like to see those angels dressed up, eh, Mr. Henderson?”
“Fanny, surely that is Agatha Runcible, poor Viola Chasm’s daughter?”
“I wonder Viola allows her to go about like that. If she were my daughter. …”
“Your daughter, Fanny. …”
“Kitty, that was not kind.”
“My dear, I only meant … have you, by the way, heard of her lately?”
“The last we heard was worse than anything, Kitty. She has left Buenos Aires. I am afraid she has severed her connection with Lady Metroland altogether. They think that she is in some kind of touring company.”
“Darling, I’m sorry. I should never have mentioned it, but whenever I see Agatha Runcible I can’t help thinking … girls seem to know so much nowadays. We had to learn everything for ourselves, didn’t we, Fanny, and it took so long. If I’d had Agatha Runcible’s chances. … Who is the young man with her?”
“I don’t know, and, frankly, I don’t think, do you? … He has that self-contained look.”
“He has very nice eyes. And he moves well.”
“I dare say when it came to the point … Still, as I say, if I had had Agatha Runcible’s advantages …”
“What are you looking for, darling?”
“Why, darling, such an extraordinary thing. Here is
