A Man of Means by P. G. Wodehouse (best novels for teenagers .txt) 📕

of the canny inhabitants of Lexingham to avail themselves of this chance of a breath of fresh air. M. Feriaud, a small man with a chubby and amiable face, wandered about signing picture cards and smoking a lighted cigaret, looking a little disappointed.

Albert Potter was scornful.

“Lot of rabbits,” he said. “Where's their pluck? And I suppose they call themselves Englishmen. I'd go up precious quick if I had a five-pound note. Disgrace, I call it, letting a Frenchman have the laugh of us.”

It was a long speech for Mr. Potter, and it drew a look of respectful tenderness from Muriel. “You're so brave, Mr. Potter,” she said.

Whether it was the slight emphasis which she put on the first word, or whether it was sheer generosity that impelled him, one can not say; but Roland produced the required sum even while she spoke. He offered it to his rival.

Mr. Potter started, turned a little pale, then drew himself up and waved the note aside.

“I take no favors,” he said with dignity.

There was a pause.

“Why don't you do it.” said Albert, nastily. “Five pounds is nothing to you.”

“Why should I?”

“Ah! Why should you?”

It would be useless to assert that Mr. Potter's tone was friendly. It stung Roland. It seemed to him that Muriel was looking at him in an unpleasantly contemptuous manner.

In some curious fashion, without doing anything to merit it, he had apparently become an object of scorn and derision to the party.

“All right, then, I will,” he said suddenly.

“Easy enough to talk,” said Albert.

Roland strode with a pale but determined face to the spot where M. Feriaud, beaming politely, was signing a picture post-card.

Some feeling of compunction appeared to come to Muriel at the eleventh hour.

“Don't let him,” she cried.

But Brother Frank was made of sterner stuff. This was precisely the sort of thing which, in his opinion, made for a jolly afternoon.

For years he had been waiting for something of this kind. He was experiencing that pleasant thrill which comes to a certain type of person when the victim of a murder in the morning paper is an acquaintance of theirs.

“What are you talking about?” he said. “There's no danger. At least, not much. He might easily come down all right. Besides, he wants to. What do you want to go interfering for?”

Roland returned. The negotiations with the bird-man had lasted a little longer than one would have expected. But then, of course, M. Feriaud was a foreigner, and Roland's French was not fluent.

He took Muriel's hand.

“Good-by,” he said.

He shook hands with the rest of the party, even with Albert Potter. It struck Frank that he was making too much fuss over a trifle—and, worse, delaying the start of the proceedings.

“What's it all about?” he demanded. “You go on as if we were never going to see you again.”

“You never know.”

“It's as safe as being in bed.”

“But still, in case we never meet again——”

“Oh, well,” said Brother Frank, and took the outstretched hand.

The little party stood and watched as the aeroplane moved swiftly along the ground, rose, and soared into the air. Higher and higher it rose, till the features of the two occupants were almost invisible.

“Now,” said Brother Frank. “Now watch. Now he's going to loop the loop.”

But the wheels of the aeroplane still pointed to the ground. It grew smaller and smaller. It was a mere speck.

“What the dickens?”

Far away to the West something showed up against the blue of the sky—something that might have been a bird, a toy kite, or an aeroplane traveling rapidly into the sunset.

Four pairs of eyes followed it in rapt silence.