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Page 57
"I am not English. I was born near Boston."
"Oh, you were, were you? You blanked bone-headed, bean-eating
boob!" cried Mr. Peters, frothing over quite unexpectedly and
waving his arms in a sudden burst of fury. "Then if you are an
American why don't you show a little more enterprise? Why don't
you put something over? Why do you loaf about the place as though
you were supposed to be an ornament? I want results--and I want
them quick!
"I'll tell you how you can recognize my scarab when you get into
the museum. That shameless old green-goods man who sneaked it
from me has had the gall, the nerve, to put it all by itself,
with a notice as big as a circus poster alongside of it saying
that it is a Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty, presented"--Mr. Peters
choked--"presented by J. Preston Peters, Esquire! That's how
you're going to recognize it."
Ashe did not laugh, but he nearly dislocated a rib in his effort
to abstain from doing so. It seemed to him that this act on Lord
Emsworth's part effectually disposed of the theory that Britons
have no sense of humor. To rob a man of his choicest possession
and then thank him publicly for letting you have it appealed to
Ashe as excellent comedy.
"The thing isn't even in a glass case," continued Mr. Peters.
"It's lying on an open tray on top of a cabinet of Roman coins.
Anybody who was left alone for two minutes in the place could
take it! It's criminal carelessness to leave a valuable scarab
about like that. If Lord Jesse James was going to steal my Cheops
he might at least have had the decency to treat it as though it
was worth something."
"But it makes it easier for me to get it," said Ashe consolingly.
"It's got to be made easy if you are to get it!" snapped Mr.
Peters. "Here's another thing: You say you are going to try for
it late at night. Well, what are you going to do if anyone
catches you prowling round at that time? Have you considered
that?"
"No."
"You would have to say something, wouldn't you? You wouldn't chat
about the weather, would you? You wouldn't discuss the latest
play? You would have to think up some mighty good reason for
being out of bed at that time, wouldn't you?"
"I suppose so."
"Oh, you do admit that, do you? Well, what you would say is this:
You would explain that I had rung for you to come and read me to
sleep. Do you understand?"
"You think that would be a satisfactory explanation of my being
in the museum?"
"Idiot! I don't mean that you're to say it if you're caught
actually in the museum. If you're caught in the museum the best
thing you can do is to say nothing, and hope that the judge will
let you off light because it's your first offense. You're to say
it if you're found wandering about on your way there."
"It sounds thin to me."
"Does it? Well, let me tell you that it isn't so thin as you
suppose, for it's what you will actually have to do most nights.
Two nights out of three I have to be read to sleep. My
indigestion gives me insomnia." As though to push this fact home,
Mr. Peters suddenly bent double. "Oof!" he said. "Wow!" He
removed the cigar from his mouth and inserted a digestive
tabloid. "The lining of my stomach is all wrong," he added.
It is curious how trivial are the immediate causes that produce
revolutions. If Mr. Peters had worded his complaint differently
Ashe would in all probability have borne it without active
protest. He had been growing more and more annoyed with this
little person who buzzed and barked and bit at him, yet the idea
of definite revolt had not occurred to him. But his sufferings at
the hands of Beach, the butler, had reduced him to a state where
he could endure no further mention of stomachic linings. There
comes a time when our capacity for listening to detailed data
about the linings of other people's stomachs is exhausted.
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