Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [30]
Yet not unpleasant! Macmaster was a Whig by conviction, by nature, by temperament. He thought that public servants should abstain from political activity. Nevertheless, he couldn't be expected to think a Liberal Cabinet Minister ugly. On the contrary, Mr Waterhouse appeared to have a frank, humorous, kindly expression. He listened deferentially to one of his secretaries, resting his hand on the young man's shoulder, smiling a little, rather sleepily. No doubt he was overworked. And then, letting himself go in a side-shaking laugh. Putting on flesh!
What a pity! What a pity! Macmaster was reading a string of incomprehensible words in Tietjens' heavily scored writing. Not entertain...flat not house...child remain at sister...His eyes went backwards and forwards over the phrases. He could not connect the words without stops. The man with the oily hair said in a sickly voice that Gertie was hot stuff, but not the one for Budapest with all the Gitana girls you were telling me of! Why, he'd kept Gertie for five years now. More like the real thing! His friend's voice was like a result of indigestion. Tietjens, Sandbach and the General were stiff, like pokers.
What a pity! Macmaster thought.
He ought to have been sitting...It would have been pleasant and right to be sitting with the pleasant Minister. In the ordinary course he, Macmaster, would have been. The best golfer in the place was usually set to play with distinguished visitors, and there was next to no one in the south of England who ordinarily could beat him. He had begun at four, playing with a miniature cleek and a found shilling ball over the municipal links. Going to the poor school every morning and back to dinner; and back to school and back to bed! Over the cold, rushy, sandy links, beside the grey sea. Both shoes full of sand. The found shilling ball had lasted him three years...
Macmaster exclaimed: 'Good God.' He had just gathered from the telegram that Tietjens meant to go to Germany on Tuesday. As if at Macmaster's ejaculation, Tietjens said:
'Yes. It is unbearable. If you don't stop those swine, General, I shall.'
The General sibilated low, between his teeth:
'Wait a minute...Wait a minute...Perhaps that other fellow will.'
The man with the black oily hair said:
'If Budapest's the place for the girls you say it is, old pal, with the Turkish baths and all, we'll paint the old town red all right next month,' and he winked at Tietjens. His friend, with his head down, seemed to make internal rumblings, looking apprehensively beneath his blotched forehead at the General.
'Not,' the other continued argumentatively, 'that I don't love my old woman. She's all right. And then there's Gertie. 'Ot stuff, but the real thing. But I say a man wants...' He ejaculated, 'Oh!'
The General, his hands in his pockets, very tall, thin, red-cheeked, his white hair combed forward in a fringe, sauntered towards the other table. It was not two yards, but it seemed a long saunter. He stood right over them, they looking up, open-eyed, like schoolboys at a balloon. He said:
'I'm glad you're enjoying our links, gentlemen.'
The bald man said: 'We are! We are! First-class. A treat!'
'But,' the General said, 'it isn't wise to discuss one's...eh...domestic circumstances...at...at mess, you know, or in a golf house. People might hear.'
The gentleman with the oily hair half rose and exclaimed:
'0o, the...' The other man mumbled: 'Shut up, Briggs.'
The General said:
'I'm the president of the club, you know. It's my duty to see that the majority of the club and its visitors are pleased. I hope you don't mind.'
The General came back to his seat. He was trembling with vexation.
'It makes one as beastly a bounder as themselves,' he said. 'But what the devil else was one to do?' The two city men had ambled hastily into the dressing-rooms; the dire silence fell. Macmaster realised that, for these Tories at least, this was really the end of the world. The last of England! He returned, with panic in his heart, to Tietjens' telegram...Tietjens was going to Germany on