Basil’s luncheons at the Travellers’ with Sir Joseph Mainwaring had for years formed a series of monuments in his downward path. There had been the luncheons of his four major debt settlements, the luncheon of his political candidature, the luncheons of his two respectable professions, the luncheon of the threatened divorce of Angela Lyne, the Luncheon of the Stolen Emeralds, the Luncheon of the Knuckledusters, the Luncheon of Freddy’s Last Cheque each would provide both theme and title for a work of popular fiction.
Hitherto these feasts had taken place ŕ deux in a secluded corner. The Luncheon of the Commission in the Guards was altogether a more honourable affair and its purpose was to introduce Basil to the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Bombardiers an officer whom Sir Joseph wrongly believed to have a liking for him.
The Lieutenant-Colonel did not know Sir Joseph well and was surprised and slightly, alarmed by the invitation, for his distrust was based not, as might have been expected, on any just estimate of his capabilities, but, paradoxically, on the fear of him as a politician and man of affairs. All politicians were, to the Lieutenant-Colonel, not so much boobies as bogies. He saw them all, even Sir Joseph, as figures of Renaissance subtlety and intrigue. It was by being in with them that the great professional advances were achieved; but it was by falling foul of them that one fell into ignominy. For a simple soldier and if ever anyone did, the Lieutenant-Colonel qualified for that honourable title the only safe course was to avoid men like Sir Joseph. When met with, they should be treated with bluff and uncompromising reserve. Sir Joseph thus found himself, through his loyal friendship with Cynthia Seal, in the equivocal position of introducing, with a view to his advancement, a man for whom he had a deep-seated horror to a man who had something of the same emotion towards himself. It was not a concurrence which, on the face of it, seemed hopeful of good results.
Basil, like “Lord Monmouth,” “never condescended to the artifice of the toilet,” and the Lieutenant-Colonel studied him with distaste. Together the ill-assorted trio went to their table.
Soldier and statesman spread their napkins on their knees and in the interest of ordering their luncheon allowed a silence to fall between them into which Basil cheerfully plunged.
“We ought to do something about Liberia, Colonel,” he said.
The Colonel turned on him the outraged gaze with which a good regimental soldier always regards the discussion of war in its larger aspects.
“I expect those whose business it is have the question in hand,” he said.
“Don’t you believe it,” said Basil. “I don’t expect they’ve given it a thought,” and for some twenty minutes he explained why and how Liberia should be immediately annexed.
The two older men ate in silence. At length a chance reference to Russia gave Sir Joseph the chance to interpose an opinion.
“I always distrust prophecy in any form,” he said. “But there is one thing of which I am certain. Russia will come in against us before the end of the year. That will put Italy and Japan on our side. Then it is simply a question of time before our blockade makes itself felt. All kinds of things that you and I have never heard of, like manganese and bauxite, will win the war for us.”
“And infantry.”
“And infantry.”
“Teach a man to march and shoot. Give him the right type of officer. Leave the rest to him.”
This seemed to Basil a suitable moment to introduce his own problems. “What do you think is the right type of officer?”
“The officer-type.”
“It’s an odd thing,” Basil began, “that people always expect the upper class to be good leaders of men. That was all right in the old days when most of them were brought up with tenantry to look after. But now three-quarters of your officer-type live in towns. I haven’t any tenantry.”
The Lieutenant-Colonel looked at Basil with detestation. “No, no. I suppose not.”
“Well, have you any tenantry?”
“I? No. My brother sold the old place years ago.”
“Well, there you are.”
It was crystal-clear to Sir Joseph, and faintly perceptible to Basil, that the Lieutenant-Colonel did not take this well.
“Seal was for a time Conservative candidate down in the West,” said Sir Joseph, anxious to remove one possible source of prejudice.
“Some pretty funny people have been calling themselves Conservatives in the last year or two. Cause of half the trouble if you ask me.” Then, feeling he might have been impolite, he added graciously: “No offence to you. Daresay you were all right. Don’t know anything about you.”
Basil’s political candidature was not an episode to be enlarged upon. Sir Joseph turned the conversation. “Of course the French will have to make some concessions to bring Italy in. Give up Djibouti or something like that.”
“Why the devil should they?” asked the Lieutenant-Colonel petulantly. “Who wants Italy in?”
“To counterbalance Russia.”
“How? Why? Where? I don’t see it at all.”
“Nor do I,” said Basil.
Threatened with support from so unwelcome a quarter, the Lieutenant-Colonel immediately abandoned his position. “Oh, don’t you?” he said. “Well, I’ve no doubt Mainwaring knows best. His job is to know these things.”
Warmed by these words Sir Joseph proceeded for the rest of luncheon to suggest some of the concessions which he thought France might reasonably make to Italy Tunisia, French Somaliland, the Suez Canal. “Corsica, Nice, Savoy?” asked Basil. Sir Joseph thought not.
Rather than ally himself with Basil the Lieutenant-Colonel listened to these proposals to dismember an ally in silence and fury. He had not wanted to come out to luncheon. It would be absurd to say that he was busy, but he was busier than he had ever been in his life before and he looked on the two hours or so which he allowed himself in the middle of the day as a time for general recuperation. He liked to spend them among people to whom he could relate all that he had done in the morning; to people who would appreciate the importance and rarity of such work; either that, or with a handsome woman. He left the Travellers’ as early as he decently could and returned to his mess. His mind was painfully agitated by all he had heard and particularly by the presence of that seedy-looking young radical whose name he had not caught. That at least, he thought, he might have hoped to be spared at Sir Joseph’s table.
“Well, Jo, is everything arranged?”
“Nothing is exactly arranged yet, Cynthia, but I’ve set the ball rolling.”
“I hope Basil made a good impression.”
“I hope he did, too. I’m afraid he said some rather unfortunate things.”
“Oh dear. Well, what is the next step?”
Sir Joseph would have liked to say that there was no next step in that direction; that the best Basil could hope for was oblivion; perhaps in a month or so, when the luncheon was forgotten… “It’s up to Basil now, Cynthia. I have introduced him. He must follow it up himself if he really wants to get into that regiment. But I have been wondering, since you first mentioned the matter, do you really think it is quite suitable…”
“I’m told he could not do better,” said Lady Seal proudly.
“No, that is so. In one way he could not do better.”
“Then he shall follow up the introduction,” said that unimaginative mother.
The Lieutenant-Colonel was simmering quietly in his office; an officer not a young officer but a mature reservist had just been to see him without gloves, wearing suede shoes; the consequent outburst had been a great relief; the simmering was an expression of content, a kind of mental purr; it was a mood which his subordinates recognized as a good mood. He was feeling that as long as there was someone like himself at the head of the regiment, nothing much could go wrong with it (a feeling which, oddly enough, was shared by the delinquent officer). To the Lieutenant-Colonel, in this mood, it was announced that a civilian gentleman, Mr. Seal, wanted to see him. The name was unfamiliar; so, for the moment, was Basil’s appearance, for Angela had been at pains and expense to fit him up suitably for the interview. His hair was newly cut, he wore a stiff white collar, a bowler hat, a thin gold watch-chain and other marks of respectability, and he carried a new umbrella. Angela had also schooled him in the first words of his interview. “I know you are very busy, Colonel, but I hoped you would spare me a few minutes to ask your advice…”