Stiff Upper Lip Read Online Free PDF Page B

babe in arms, old boy, a babe in arms.
    The main thing I think was that he was subject to Sudden Urges. He was over-imaginative, he was highly-strung. One week for example it would be Sailors’ Knots. It was all right so long as he only sat at his desk playing with string but this was not all. He grew reckless, ambitious, carried away by all this new knowledge. He took to demonstrating his powers at children’s parties, charity bazaars, cocktails—everywhere. And the awful thing was that his tricks never worked. He trussed the German Ambassador’s eldest son up so tightly that the child nearly suffocated; we just released him in time with the help of the garden shears. Drage had to pour a pail of sweet iced Cup all over the little swollen Teuton face to revive the brat. Then Polk-Mowbray tied himself to the Embassy door-knob and could not disengage. Quite a crowd gathered. It was humiliating. Once more we had to resort to the shears. I took to keeping a pair of them handy in my office. As Head of Chancery you can imagine how my responsibilities weighed upon me.…
    â€œAntrobus,” he used to say to me as he sat abstractedly making love-knots in a length of high quality manila. “Antrobus I am in the wrong profession. Only just realized it. I should have been sent to sea as a youth. Round the Cape in a sou’wester, what? That should have been my life, Antrobus.” Who was I, as his junior, to contradict?
    Two days later I came in to find his typist spliced to the Chancery radiator by one swollen wrist. She was in tears. Polk-Mowbray could not release her and nor could I. “Tut tut,” he kept saying. “And such a simple little running bowline too. It is most vexing. I was just trying to show Angela a wrinkle or two.” In the end, Morgan the Chancery guard was forced to pull the radiator out of the wall to free her. Water poured out into De Mandeville’s office and ruined a Persian carpet he prized. Obviously things had gone far enough. We had a secret meeting and delegated to Butch Benbow, the Naval Attaché, the task of crushing this little hobby before the whole Corps was infected by it. We knew that in his present mood Polk-Mowbray reverenced all seafaring men—even if they were martyrs to sea-sickness as Butch Benbow was.… I must say, though, he was clever, was Butch. But then you can always count on the Navy. He asked Polk-Mowbray outright whether he wasn’t afraid to go on playing with string at such a rate—and on such a scale?
    â€œAfraid?” said the Chief Of Mission mildly. “Why afraid?”
    â€œThe last Ambassador to suffer from stringomania”, said Butch earnestly, “hung himself.” He went krik krik with his mouth and drew a string round his neck with his finger. Then, to complete the pantomime he rolled his eyes up into his skull until only the whites showed and stuck out a large—and I must say somewhat discoloured and contused tongue. “He’s quite right, sir,” I said. Polk-Mowbray looked from one to the other, quite startled. “But sailors do it all the time,” he said.
    â€œSailors can untie themselves when they wish,” said Butch somewhat stiffly. “Besides they don’t walk in their sleep like you do, sir. The Ambassador I spoke of was also a sleep-walker.” This really made Polk-Mowbray jump. It was one of those lucky hits. Actually he had only once walked in his sleep—though the result was disastrous. I’ll tell you about it sometime. It was after a prawn curry devised by De Mandeville. He sat staring at us for a long time with popping eye. Then he sighed regretfully and we knew that for him the days of sail were numbered.
    â€œThank you for your solicitude,” he said.
    Well, that was only an example: I really wanted to tell you about the infernal bees. One day I walked into his office and found him clad for the most part in a beekeeper’s veil and