The Longer Bodies Read Free

bought on the sports ground. She laid it beside her plate, and said not a word throughout the meal except to squeal venomously at Timkins the butler for offering her wine.
    When the meal was drawing to its conclusion, she put down the apple she had begun to peel, and looked meaningly round the table.
    â€˜What did you tell me they call that plate thing they throw about the field, Grandnephew?’ she demanded, looking at Hilary.
    â€˜The discus, Aunt,’ he returned, with a promptness which did credit to his intelligence. ‘But England didn’t—’
    â€˜I know they didn’t. Do you know how to throw it, Grandnephew?’
    â€˜Well,’ replied Hilary cautiously, ‘I’ve seen it done, of course, and I know the theory of throwing it, but I’ve never actually had the thing in my hands.’
    â€˜You could learn to do it.’ Mrs Puddequet nodded her grey head decidedly, and disregarded her youngest nephew’s dissenting voice.
    â€˜And what about you, Grandnephew?’ she continued, turning her yellowish eyes upon Malpas Yeomond.
    â€˜High jump,’ said Priscilla, from the other side of the table. ‘Used to win it at his private school. He’s ever so good at it.’
    â€˜Oh, rot, Priscilla,’ said Malpas, grinning. ‘You’re thinking of a chap called—er—called Smuggins.’
    â€˜She is thinking of a chap called Yeomond, Grandnephew,’ screamed old Mrs Puddequet furiously.
    â€˜Answering to the name of Malpas,’ said Francis solemnly. ‘He’s a liar, Aunt. Take no notice of him. I saw him win it in about the year 1920. Did three-ten and a half at Tenby House School, with the matron and old Squarebags at the stands to see fair play. I always swear the matron shoved her end down two inches for him, but that’s neither here nor there. He won. You know you did,’ he concluded, kicking his elder brother vigorously.
    â€˜And he did three feet—nearly four feet,’ said Great-aunt Puddequet thoughtfully. Her eyes brightened. ‘Very promising. And at the White City next year he will do nearly eight feet—or perhaps a little more.’
    â€˜Eh?’ said Godfrey Yeomond, startled. ‘But, my dear Aunt, the world’s record figures for the high jump are—’
    â€˜Six-eight and a half, pater,’ interpolated Hilary promptly. ‘H.M. Osborne of the United States holds the record, and it was clocked at Urbana in May 1924. Excuse me, Aunt. It’s printed here, I believe.’
    He turned to the end of his great-aunt’s programme.
    â€˜Here we are.’
    â€˜Well,’ screamed the old lady indomitably, ‘it’s a very poor record, in my opinion!’
    Her nephew and his sons gasped.
    â€˜Blasphemy,’ said Francis, under his breath, kicking Malpas with great joy.
    â€˜Do you mean to tell me,’ Great-aunt Puddequet went on in her raucous, cracked, high-pitched old voice, ‘that grown men cannot jump twice as high as a little boy of ten at a private school? Rubbish, Grandnephews! I don’t know what the world’s coming to nowadays!’
    Malpas took up the cudgels.
    â€˜It isn’t quite a case of jumping twice as high, Aunt. You see—’
    â€˜Take the force of gravity, for example,’ broke in Francis, trying, in spite of his amusement, to do his bit towards clearing the great names of the world’s champions from an undeserved slight.
    â€˜And the law of what-do-you-call-it,’ said Hilary helpfully.
    â€˜And, of course, the binomial theorem of radio-electricity,’ interpolated Priscilla, keeping both eyes fixed demurely on the tablecloth.
    â€˜You may all be silent,’ said Great-aunt Puddequet, with sudden decisiveness, ‘and listen to me. I am going home at the end of this week. Immediately I arrive I shall summon Queslake to draw up my will.’ She glanced around the table in order to