The Clicking of Cuthbert

down and out. Nobody liked to be the first to speak. The members of the

Wood Hills Literary Society looked at one another timidly. Cuthbert,

for his part, gazed at Adeline; and Adeline gazed into space. It was

plain that the girl was deeply stirred. Her eyes were opened wide, a

faint flush crimsoned her cheeks, and her breath was coming quickly.

Adeline's mind was in a whirl. She felt as if she had been walking

gaily along a pleasant path and had stopped suddenly on the very brink

of a precipice. It would be idle to deny that Raymond Parsloe Devine

had attracted her extraordinarily. She had taken him at his own

valuation as an extremely hot potato, and her hero-worship had

gradually been turning into love. And now her hero had been shown to

have feet of clay. It was hard, I consider, on Raymond Parsloe Devine,

but that is how it goes in this world. You get a following as a

celebrity, and then you run up against another bigger celebrity and

your admirers desert you. One could moralize on this at considerable

length, but better not, perhaps. Enough to say that the glamour of

Raymond Devine ceased abruptly in that moment for Adeline, and her most

coherent thought at this juncture was the resolve, as soon as she got

up to her room, to burn the three signed photographs he had sent her

and to give the autographed presentation set of his books to the

grocer's boy.

Mrs. Smethurst, meanwhile, having rallied somewhat, was endeavouring to

set the feast of reason and flow of soul going again.

"And how do you like England, Mr. Brusiloff?" she asked.

The celebrity paused in the act of lowering another segment of cake.

"Dam good," he replied, cordially.

"I suppose you have travelled all over the country by this time?"

"You said it," agreed the Thinker.

"Have you met many of our great public men?"

"Yais--Yais--Quite a few of the nibs--Lloyid Gorge, I meet him. But----"

Beneath the matting a discontented expression came into his face, and

his voice took on a peevish note. "But I not meet your real great

men--your Arbmishel, your Arreevadon--I not meet them. That's what

gives me the pipovitch. Have you ever met Arbmishel and

Arreevadon?"

A strained, anguished look came into Mrs. Smethurst's face and was

reflected in the faces of the other members of the circle. The eminent

Russian had sprung two entirely new ones on them, and they felt that

their ignorance was about to be exposed. What would Vladimir Brusiloff

think of the Wood Hills Literary Society? The reputation of the Wood

Hills Literary Society was at stake, trembling in the balance, and

coming up for the third time. In dumb agony Mrs. Smethurst rolled her

eyes about the room searching for someone capable of coming to the

rescue. She drew blank.

And then, from a distant corner, there sounded a deprecating, cough,

and those nearest Cuthbert Banks saw that he had stopped twisting his

right foot round his left ankle and his left foot round his right ankle

and was sitting up with a light of almost human intelligence in his

eyes.

"Er----" said Cuthbert, blushing as every eye in the room seemed to fix

itself on him, "I think he means Abe Mitchell and Harry Vardon."

"Abe Mitchell and Harry Vardon?" repeated Mrs. Smethurst, blankly. "I

never heard of----"

"Yais! Yais! Most! Very!" shouted Vladimir Brusiloff, enthusiastically.

"Arbmishel and Arreevadon. You know them, yes, what, no, perhaps?"

"I've played with Abe Mitchell often, and I was partnered with Harry

Vardon in last year's Open."

The great Russian uttered a cry that shook the chandelier.

"You play in ze Open? Why," he demanded reproachfully of Mrs.

Smethurst, "was I not been introducted to this young man who play in

opens?"

"Well, really," faltered Mrs. Smethurst. "Well, the fact is, Mr.

Brusiloff----"

She broke off. She was unequal to the task of explaining, without

hurting anyone's feelings, that she had always regarded Cuthbert as a

piece of cheese and a blot on the landscape.

"Introduct me!" thundered the Celebrity.

"Why, certainly, certainly, of course. This is Mr.----."

She looked appealingly at Cuthbert.

"Banks," prompted Cuthbert.

"Banks!" cried Vladimir Brusiloff. "Not Cootaboot Banks?"

"Is your name Cootaboot?" asked Mrs. Smethurst, faintly.

"Well, it's Cuthbert."

"Yais! Yais! Cootaboot!" There was a rush and swirl, as the

effervescent Muscovite burst his way through the throng and rushed to

where Cuthbert sat. He stood for a moment eyeing him excitedly, then,

stooping swiftly, kissed him on both cheeks before Cuthbert could get

his guard up. "My dear young man, I saw you win ze French Open. Great!

Great! Grand! Superb! Hot stuff, and you can say I said so! Will you

permit one who is but eighteen at Nijni-Novgorod to salute you once

more?"

And he kissed Cuthbert again. Then, brushing aside one or two

intellectuals who were in the way, he dragged up a chair and sat down.

"You are a great man!" he said.

"Oh, no," said Cuthbert modestly.

"Yais! Great. Most! Very! The way you lay your approach-putts dead from

anywhere!"

"Oh, I don't know."

Mr. Brusiloff drew his chair closer.