Indiscretions of Archie by P. G. Wodehouse (reading list txt) đ
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- Author: P. G. Wodehouse
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The waiter shrugged his shoulders, as if indicating an unwillingness to inflict his grievances on one of the tipping classes.
âCome on!â persisted Archie encouragingly. âAll pals here. Barge along, old thing, and letâs have it.â
Salvatore, thus admonished, proceeded in a hurried undertoneâwith one eye on the headwaiterâto lay bare his soul. What he said was not very coherent, but Archie could make out enough of it to gather that it was a sad story of excessive hours and insufficient pay. He mused awhile. The waiterâs hard case touched him.
âIâll tell you what,â he said at last. âWhen jolly old Brewster comes back to townâheâs away just nowâIâll take you along to him and weâll beard the old boy in his den. Iâll introduce you, and you get that extract from Italian opera off your chest which youâve just been singing to me, and youâll find itâll be all right. He isnât what you might call one of my greatest admirers, but everybody says heâs a square sort of cove and heâll see you arenât snootered. And now, laddie, touching the matter of that steak.â
The waiter disappeared, greatly cheered, and Archie, turning, perceived that his friend Reggie van Tuyl was entering the room. He waved to him to join his table. He liked Reggie, and it also occurred to him that a man of the world like the heir of the van Tuyls, who had been popping about New York for years, might be able to give him some much-needed information on the procedure at an auction sale, a matter on which he himself was profoundly ignorant.
DOING FATHER A BIT OF GOOD
Reggie Van Tuyl approached the table languidly, and sank down into a chair. He was a long youth with a rather subdued and deflated look, as though the burden of the van Tuyl millions was more than his frail strength could support. Most things tired him.
âI say, Reggie, old top,â said Archie, âyouâre just the lad I wanted to see. I require the assistance of a blighter of ripe intellect. Tell me, laddie, do you know anything about sales?â
Reggie eyed him sleepily.
âSales?â
âAuction sales.â
Reggie considered.
âWell, theyâre sales, you know.â He checked a yawn. âAuction sales, you understand.â
âYes,â said Archie encouragingly. âSomethingâthe name or somethingâseemed to tell me that.â
âFellows put things up for sale you know, and other fellowsâother fellows go in andâand buy âem, if you follow me.â
âYes, but whatâs the procedure? I mean, what do I do? Thatâs what Iâm after. Iâve got to buy something at Bealeâs this afternoon. How do I set about it?â
âWell,â said Reggie, drowsily, âthere are several ways of bidding, you know. You can shout, or you can nod, or you can twiddle your fingersââ The effort of concentration was too much for him. He leaned back limply in his chair. âIâll tell you what. Iâve nothing to do this afternoon. Iâll come with you and show you.â
When he entered the Art Galleries a few minutes later, Archie was glad of the moral support of even such a wobbly reed as Reggie van Tuyl. There is something about an auction room which weighs heavily upon the novice. The hushed interior was bathed in a dim, religious light; and the congregation, seated on small wooden chairs, gazed in reverent silence at the pulpit, where a gentleman of commanding presence and sparkling pince-nez was delivering a species of chant. Behind a gold curtain at the end of the room mysterious forms flitted to and fro. Archie, who had been expecting something on the lines of the New York Stock Exchange, which he had once been privileged to visit when it was in a more than usually feverish mood, found the atmosphere oppressively ecclesiastical. He sat down and looked about him. The presiding priest went on with his chant.
âSixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteenâworth three hundredâsixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteen-sixteenâought to bring five hundredâsixteen-sixteen-seventeen-seventeen-eighteen-eighteen nineteen-nineteen-nineteen.â
He stopped and eyed the worshippers with a glittering and reproachful eye. They had, it seemed, disappointed him. His lips curled, and he waved a hand towards a grimly uncomfortable-looking chair with insecure legs and a good deal of gold paint about it. âGentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen! You are not here to waste my time; I am not here to waste yours. Am I seriously offered nineteen dollars for this eighteenth-century chair, acknowledged to be the finest piece sold in New York for months and months? Am Iâtwenty? I thank you. Twenty-twenty-twenty-twenty. Your opportunity! Priceless. Very few extant. Twenty-five-five-five-five-thirty-thirty. Just what you are looking for. The only one in the City of New York. Thirty-five-five-five-five. Forty-forty-forty-forty-forty. Look at those legs! Back it into the light, Willie. Let the light fall on those legs!â
Willie, a sort of acolyte, manĆuvred the chair as directed. Reggie van Tuyl, who had been yawning in a hopeless sort of way, showed his first flicker of interest.
âWillie,â he observed, eyeing that youth more with pity than reproach, âhas a face like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy, donât you think so?â
Archie nodded briefly. Precisely the same criticism had occurred to him.
âForty-five-five-five-five-five,â chanted the high-priest. âOnce forty-five. Twice forty-five. Third and last call, forty-five. Sold at forty-five. Gentleman in the fifth row.â
Archie looked up and down the row with a keen eye. He was anxious to see who had been chump enough to give forty-five dollars for such a frightful object. He became aware of the dog-faced Willie leaning towards him.
âName, please?â said the canine one.
âEh, what?â said Archie. âOh, my nameâs Moffam, donât you know.â The eyes of the multitude made him feel a little nervous âErâglad to meet you and all that sort of rot.â
âTen dollars deposit, please,â said Willie.
âI donât absolutely follow you, old bean. What is the big thought at the back of all this?â
âTen dollars deposit on the chair.â
âWhat chair?â
âYou bid forty-five dollars for the chair.â
âMe?â
âYou nodded,â said Willie, accusingly. âIf,â he went on, reasoning closely, âyou didnât want to bid, why did you nod?â
Archie was embarrassed. He could, of course, have pointed out that he had merely nodded in adhesion to the statement that the other had a face like Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy; but something seemed to tell him that a purist might consider the excuse deficient in tact. He hesitated a moment, then handed over a ten-dollar bill, the price of Willieâs feelings. Willie withdrew like a tiger slinking from the body of its victim.
âI say, old thing,â said Archie to Reggie, âthis is a bit thick, you know. No purse will stand this drain.â
Reggie considered the matter. His face seemed drawn under the mental strain.
âDonât nod again,â he advised. âIf you arenât careful, you get into the habit of it. When you want to bid, just twiddle your fingers. Yes, thatâs the thing. Twiddle!â
He sighed drowsily. The atmosphere of the auction room was close; you werenât allowed to smoke; and altogether he was beginning to regret that he had come. The service continued. Objects of varying unattractiveness came and went, eulogised by the officiating priest, but coldly received by the congregation. Relations between the former and the latter were growing more and more distant. The congregation seemed to suspect the priest of having an ulterior motive in his eulogies, and the priest seemed to suspect the congregation of a frivolous desire to waste his time. He had begun to speculate openly as to why they were there at all. Once, when a particularly repellent statuette of a nude female with an unwholesome green skin had been offered at two dollars and had found no biddersâthe congregation appearing silently grateful for his statement that it was the only specimen of its kind on the continentâhe had specifically accused them of having come into the auction room merely with the purpose of sitting down and taking the weight off their feet.
âIf your thingâyour whatever-it-is, doesnât come up soon, Archie,â said Reggie, fighting off with an effort the mists of sleep, âI rather think I shall be toddling along. What was it you came to get?â
âItâs rather difficult to describe. Itâs a rummy-looking sort of what-not, made of china or something. I call it Pongo. At least, this one isnât Pongo, donât you knowâitâs his little brother, but presumably equally foul in every respect. Itâs all rather complicated, I know, butâhallo!â He pointed excitedly. âBy Jove! Weâre off! There it is! Look! Willieâs unleashing it now!â
Willie, who had disappeared through the gold curtain, had now returned, and was placing on a pedestal a small china figure of delicate workmanship. It was the figure of a warrior in a suit of armour advancing with raised spear upon an adversary. A thrill permeated Archieâs frame. Parker had not been mistaken. This was undoubtedly the companion-figure to the redoubtable Pongo. The two were identical. Even from where he sat Archie could detect on the features of the figure on the pedestal the same expression of insufferable complacency which had alienated his sympathies from the original Pongo.
The high-priest, undaunted by previous rebuffs, regarded the figure with a gloating enthusiasm wholly unshared by the congregation, who were plainly looking upon Pongoâs little brother as just another of those things.
âThis,â he said, with a shake in his voice, âis something very special. China figure, said to date back to the Ming Dynasty. Unique. Nothing like it on either side of the Atlantic. If I were selling this at Christieâs in London, where people,â he said, nastily, âhave an educated appreciation of the beautiful, the rare, and the exquisite, I should start the bidding at a thousand dollars. This afternoonâs experience has taught me that that might possibly be too high.â His pince-nez sparkled militantly, as he gazed upon the stolid throng. âWill anyone offer me a dollar for this unique figure?â
âLeap at it, old top,â said Reggie van Tuyl. âTwiddle, dear boy, twiddle! A dollarâs reasonable.â
Archie twiddled.
âOne dollar I am offered,â said the high-priest, bitterly. âOne gentleman here is not afraid to take a chance. One gentleman here knows a good thing when he sees one.â He abandoned the gently sarcastic manner for one of crisp and direct reproach. âCome, come, gentlemen, we are not here to waste time. Will anyone offer me one hundred dollars for this superb piece ofââ He broke off, and seemed for a moment almost unnerved. He stared at someone in one of the seats in front of Archie. âThank you,â he said, with a sort of gulp. âOne hundred dollars I am offered! One hundredâone hundredâone hundredââ
Archie was startled. This sudden, tremendous jump, this wholly unforeseen boom in Pongos, if one might so describe it, was more than a little disturbing. He could not see who his rival was, but it was evident that at least one among those present did not intend to allow Pongoâs brother to slip by without a fight. He looked helplessly at Reggie for counsel, but Reggie had now definitely given up the struggle. Exhausted nature had done its utmost, and now he was leaning back with closed eyes, breathing softly through his nose. Thrown on his own resources, Archie could think of no better course than to twiddle his fingers again. He did so, and the high-priestâs chant took on a note of positive exuberance.
âTwo hundred I am offered. Much better! Turn the pedestal round, Willie, and let them look at it. Slowly! Slowly! You arenât spinning a roulette-wheel. Two hundred. Two-two-two-two-two.â He became suddenly lyrical. âTwo-two-twoâThere was a young lady named Lou, who was catching a train at two-two. Said the porter, âDonât worry or hurry or scurry. Itâs a minute or two to two-two!â Two-two-two-two-two!â
Archieâs concern increased. He seemed to be twiddling at this voluble man across seas of misunderstanding. Nothing is harder to interpret to a nicety than a twiddle, and Archieâs idea of the language of twiddles and the high-priestâs idea did not coincide by a mile. The high-priest appeared to consider that, when Archie twiddled, it was his intention to bid in hundreds, whereas in fact Archie had meant to signify that he raised the previous bid by just one dollar. Archie felt that, if given time, he could make this clear to the high-priest, but the latter gave him no time. He had got his audience, so to speak, on the run, and he proposed to hustle them before they could rally.
âTwo hundredâtwo hundredâtwoâthreeâthank you, sirâthree-three-three-four-four-five-five-six-six-seven-seven-sevenââ
Archie sat limply in his wooden chair. He was conscious of a feeling which he had only experienced twice in his lifeâonce when he had taken his first lesson in driving a motor and had trodden on the accelerator instead of the brake; the second time more recently, when he had made his first down-trip on an express lift. He had now precisely the same sensation of being run away with by an uncontrollable machine, and of having left most of his internal organs at some little distance from the rest of his body. Emerging from this welter of emotion, stood out the one clear
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