Who was that lad they used to try to make me read at Oxford? Ship—Shop—Schopenhauer. That’s the name. A grouch of the most pronounced description. Well, Uncle Thomas, when his gastric juices have been giving him the elbow, can make Schopenhauer look like Pollyanna. And the worst of it is, from Aunt Dahlia’s point of view, that on these occasions he always seems to think he’s on the brink of ruin and wants to start to economize.
“Pretty tough,” I said. “Well, anyway, he’ll get one good dinner tomorrow night at the Littles’.”
“Can you guarantee that, Bertie?” asked Aunt Dahlia, earnestly. “I simply daren’t risk unleashing him on anything at all wonky.”
“They’ve got a marvellous cook. I haven’t been round there for some time, but unless he’s lost his form of two months ago Uncle Thomas is going to have the treat of a lifetime.”
“It’ll only make it all the worse for him, coming back to our steak-incinerator,” said Aunt Dahlia, a bit on the Schopenhauer side herself.
The little nest where Bingo and his bride had settled themselves was up in St. John’s Wood; one of those rather jolly houses with a bit of garden. When I got there on the following night, I found that I was the last to weigh in. Aunt Dahlia was chatting with Rosie in a corner, while Uncle Thomas, standing by the mantelpiece with Bingo, sucked down a cocktail in a frowning, suspicious sort of manner, rather like a chappie having a short snort before dining with the Borgias; as if he were saying to himself that, even if this particular cocktail wasn’t poisoned, he was bound to cop it later on.
Well, I hadn’t expected anything in the nature of beaming joie de vivre from Uncle Thomas, so I didn’t pay much attention to him. What did surprise me was the extraordinary gloom of young Bingo. You may say