Aunts Aren't Gentlemen Read Free

life with a name like Orlo, and peddling insurance
when he had hoped to electrify the House of Commons with
his molten eloquence. I took no umbrage, accordingly, if
umbrage is the thing you take when people start ordering you
about, making allowances for his state of mind. I drove on, and
he said 'Phew' and removed a bead of persp. from the brow.
    I hardly knew what to do for the best. He was still panting
like a hart, and some fellows when panting like harts enjoy
telling you all about it, while others prefer a tactful silence. I
decided to take a chance.
    'Spot of trouble?' I said.
    'Yes.'
    'Often the way during these protest marches. What
happened?'
    'I socked a cop.'
    I could see why he was a bit emotional. Socking cops is a
thing that should be done sparingly, if at all. I resumed the
quiz.
    'Any particular reason? Or did it just seem a good idea at the
time?'
    He gnashed a tooth or two. He was a red-headed chap, and
my experience of the red-headed is that you can always expect
high blood pressure from them in times of stress. The first
Queen Elizabeth had red hair, and look what she did to Mary
Queen of Scots.
    'He was arresting the woman I love.'
    I could understand how this might well have annoyed him.
I have loved a fair number of women in my time, though it
always seems to wear off after a while, and I should probably
have drained the bitter cup a bit if I had seen any of them
pinched by the police.
    'What had she done?'
    'She was heading the procession with me and shouting a
good deal as always happens on these occasions when the
emotions of a generous girl are stirred. He told her to stop
shouting. She said this was a free country and she was entitled
to shout as much as she pleased. He said not if she was
shouting the sort of things she was shouting, and she called
him a Cossack and socked him. Then he arrested her, and I
socked him.'
    A pang of pity for the stricken officer passed through me.
Orlo, as I have said, was well nourished, and Vanessa was one
of those large girls who pack a hefty punch. A cop socked by
both of them would have entertained no doubt as to his having
been in a fight.
    But this was not what was occupying my thoughts. At the
words 'she was heading the procession with me' I had started
visibly. It seemed to me that, coupled with that 'woman I love'
stuff, they could mean only one thing.
    'Good Lord,' I said. 'Is Vanessa Cook the woman you
love?'
    'She is.'
    'Nice girl,' I said, for there is never any harm in giving the
old salve. 'And, of course, radiant-beauty-wise in the top ten.'
    A moment later I was regretting that I had pitched it so
strong, for the effect on Orlo was most unpleasant. His eyes
bulged, at the same time flashing, as if he were on the verge of
making a fiery far-to-the-left speech.
    'You know her?' he said, and his voice was low and guttural,
like that of a bulldog which has attempted to swallow a chump
chop and only got it down half-way.
    I saw that I would do well to watch my step, for it was
evident that what I have heard Jeeves call the green-eyed
monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on was beginning to
feel the rush of life beneath its keel. You never know what may
happen when the g.-e. m. takes over.
    'Slightly,' I said. 'Very slightly. We just met for a moment at
some cocktail party or other.'
    'That was all?'
    'That was all.'
    'You were not – how shall I put it? – in any sense intimate?'
    'No, no. Simply on Good-morning-good-morning-lovely-morning-
is-it-not terms if I happened to run into her in the
street.'
    'Nothing more?'
    'Nothing more.'
    I had said the right thing. He went off the boil, and when
he next spoke, it was without bulldog and chump chop effects.
    'You call her a nice girl. That puts in a nutshell my own
opinion of her.'
    'And she, I imagine, thinks highly of you?'
    'Correct.'
    'You're engaged, possibly?'
    'Yes.'
    'Many happy returns.'
    'But we can't get married because of her father.'
    'He objects?'
    'Strongly.'
    'But surely you don't have