White Eagles Over Serbia Read Free Page A

any more,” said Dombrey plaintively. “They always go and see Boris.”
    â€œHe should be on your staff really.”
    â€œIf there were any justice in the world he should have my job,” said Dombey. “But he prefers to make wigs.”
    â€œHe’s a good deal more rational than either of us.”
    â€œYes,” said Dombey sadly. “Yes.”
    â€œI’m getting old,” said Methuen suddenly, standing up. “I can’t think why having once retired I shouldn’t end my days in the south of France or somewhere nice. Why keep on like this?”
    â€œYou would die of boredom.”
    â€œI suppose so.”
    â€œAnd by the way, if you don’t like this job you have only to turn it down and I’ll assign someone else.”
    â€œWho else?” said Methuen not without some pardonable contempt. “Is there anyone who knows that part of Serbia as well as I do?”
    â€œLet us not become boastful,” said Dombey, and he took from his pocket a roll of galley proofs covered in erasures and blotches, and spread them before him gloatingly. “At least if I retired I should have a consuming interest to keep me sane.” (He was the proud author of a monograph entitled “Aberrations of the Chalk-Hill Blue Lysandra Coridon ”.)
    â€œButterflies,” said Methuen contemptuously. “I’ll bring you back some butterflies to knock your eye out. You should see them in those mountains, settling in clouds along the rivers.”
    â€œRemember,” said Dombey sternly. “No mountains. No rivers. You are not to go wandering off or I shall get hell from the Foreign Office.
    â€œThe Foreign Office!”
    To his surprise Methuen found himself feeling all of a sudden extremely youthful and spry. He recognized the familiar feeling of heightened life which succeeded every fresh call to adventure.
    â€œDamme if I don’t walk over and see Boris now,” he said, and he was already walking briskly across towards Covent Garden before he realized how skilfully Dombey had baited the hook for him; he was probably sitting up there in his office now, smiling, clasping and unclasping his great hands. Methuen felt the idea of Yugoslavia skidding upon the surface of his mind like a trout-fly, tracing its embroidery of ripples. He had risen right out of the water. “I shall certainly take my trout-rod,” he muttered as he marched along. “Whatever Dombey says.”

CHAPTER TWO
    Boris the Wig-maker

    B oris Pasquin’s little shop was locked when Methuen reached it, but there was a light at the back of the building so he rattled the letter-box loudly and shouted “Boris” through it. The little theatrical wig-maker very seldom left the premises and there was a good chance that he was in the great rambling workshop at the back busily engaged in polishing a stone or playing patience.
    In the gloom the crammed shelves of the showroom guarded their mysterious treasures—enough to delight the heart of a magpie or a child, for Boris combined his wig-making business with that of a general dealer in everything from precious stones to playing-cards. He himself was fond of saying that there were two hubs of the Empire, one official and one unofficial. The official hub was of course Piccadilly; the unofficial was Boris Pasquin’s little shop in Covent Garden. This was something more than a flight of fancy for the range of Boris’s interests did extend to practically every country in the Commonwealth.
    While he had the kind of talent which goes to make millionaires he preferred to deal in small ranges of rare objects which delighted his imagination more than they profited his pocket. Shelves of china; Japanese fans; Byzantine metalwork from the marts of Salonika and Athens; statuettes smuggled from the “digs” of Egypt; hand-painted playing-cards from Smyrna; pages of illuminated manuscripts from the monasteries of