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Page 15
"Don't, old man! Dickie, old top--please! I know all about it. I
read the reports. They made poor old Percy look like an absolute
ass."
"Well, Nature had done that already; but I'm bound to say they
improved on Nature's work. I should think your Cousin Percy must
have felt like a plucked chicken."
A spasm of pain passed over the Honorable Freddie's vacant face.
He wriggled in his chair.
"Dickie, old man, I wish you wouldn't talk like that. It makes me
feel ill."
"Why, is he such a pal of yours as all that?"
"It's not that. It's--the fact is, Dickie, old top, I'm in
exactly the same bally hole as poor old Percy was, myself!"
"What! You have been sued for breach of promise?"
"Not absolutely that--yet. Look here; I'll tell you the whole
thing. Do you remember a show at the Piccadilly about a year ago
called "The Baby Doll"? There was a girl in the chorus."
"Several--I remember noticing."
"No; I mean one particular girl--a girl called Joan Valentine.
The rotten part is that I never met her."
"Pull yourself together, Freddie. What exactly is the trouble?"
"Well--don't you see?--I used to go to the show every other
night, and I fell frightfully in love with this girl--"
"Without having met her?"
"Yes. You see, I was rather an ass in those days."
"No, no!" said R. Jones handsomely.
"I must have been or I shouldn't have been such an ass, don't you
know! Well, as I was saying, I used to write this girl letters,
saying how much I was in love with her; and--and--"
"Specifically proposing marriage?"
"I can't remember. I expect I did. I was awfully in love."
"How was that if you never met her?"
"She wouldn't meet me. She wouldn't even come out to luncheon.
She didn't even answer my letters--just sent word down by the
Johnny at the stage door. And then----"
Freddie's voice died away. He thrust the knob of his cane into
his mouth in a sort of frenzy.
"What then?" inquired R. Jones.
A scarlet blush manifested itself on Freddie's young face. His
eyes wandered sidewise. After a long pause a single word escaped
him, almost inaudible:
"Poetry!"
R. Jones trembled as though an electric current had been passed
through his plump frame. His little eyes sparkled with merriment.
"You wrote her poetry!"
"Yards of it, old boy--yards of it!" groaned Freddie. Panic
filled him with speech. "You see the frightful hole I'm in? This
girl is bound to have kept the letters. I don't remember whether
I actually proposed to her or not; but anyway she's got enough
material to make it worth while to have a dash at an
action--especially after poor old Percy has just got soaked for
such a pile of money and made breach-of-promise cases the
fashion, so to speak.
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