The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [177]
And after the oration came a prodigious luncheon at the University. And after the luncheon he was invested with a Doctorate of International Law. And after the investiture he was put into a bus and driven with Dr. Fe, Dr. Antonic and the Poet, back to Bellacita.
By the direct road the journey took barely five hours. It was not yet midnight when they drove down the brilliant boulevard of the capital city. Little had been said on the road. When they drew up at the Ministry, Dr. Fe said: “So our little expedition is over. I can only hope, Professor, that you have enjoyed it a particle as much as we.” He held out his hand and smiled under the arc-lamps. Dr. Antonic and the Poet collected their modest luggage. “Good-night,” they said. “Good-night. We shall walk from here. The taxis are so expensive—the double fare operates after nine o’clock.”
They walked. Dr. Fe ascended the steps of the Ministry. “Back to work,” he said. “I have had an urgent summons to report to my chief. We work late in the New Neutralia.”
There was nothing furtive about his ascent but it was swift. Scott-King caught him as he was about to enter a lift.
“But, I say, where am I to go?”
“Professor, our humble town is yours. Where would you like to go?”
“Well, I suppose I must go to an hotel. We were at the Ritz before.”
“I am sure you will be comfortable there. Tell the porter to get you a taxi and see he does not try to overcharge you. Double fare but not more.”
“But I shall see you tomorrow?”
“I hope very often.”
Dr. Fe bowed and the doors of the lift shut upon his bow and his smile.
There was in his manner something more than the reserve proper to a man of delicate feeling who had in emotion revealed too much of himself.
IV
Officially,” said Mr. Horace Smudge, “we don’t even know you’re here.”
He gazed at Scott-King through hexagonal spectacles across the Pending Tray and twiddled a new-fangled fountain pen; a multiplicity of pencils protruding from his breast pocket and his face seemed to suggest that he expected one of the telephones on his desk to ring at any moment with a message about something far more important than the matter under discussion; he was for all the world, Scott-King thought, like the clerk in the food office at Granchester.
Scott-King’s life had been lived far from chanceries, but once, very many years ago at Stockholm, he had been asked to luncheon, by mistake for someone else, at the British Embassy. Sir Samson Courtenay had been chargé d’affaires at the time and Scott-King gratefully recalled the air of nonchalant benevolence with which he had received a callow undergraduate where he had expected a Cabinet Minister. Sir Samson had not gone far in his profession but for one man at least, for Scott-King, he remained the fixed type of English diplomat.
Smudge was not as Sir Samson; he was the child of sterner circumstances and a more recent theory of public service; no uncle had put in a bland word for Smudge in high places; honest toil, a clear head in the examination room, a genuine enthusiasm for Commercial Geography, had brought him to his present position as second secretary at Bellacita. “You’ve no conception,” said Smudge, “what a time we have with Priorities. I’ve had to put the Ambassadress off the plane twice, at the last moment, to make room for I.C.I. men. As it is I have four electrical engineers, two British Council lecturers and a trades unionist all wanting passages. Officially we have not heard of Bellorius. The Neutralians brought you here. It’s their business to get you back.”
“I’ve been to them twice a day for three days. The man who organized everything, Dr. Fe, seems to have left the Ministry.”
“You could always go by train, of course. It takes a little time but it would probably be quicker in the end. I presume you have all the necessary visas?”
“No. How long would they take to get?”
“Perhaps three weeks, perhaps longer. It’s the Inter-Allied Zone Authority which holds things up.