The Bottom rolled her green eyes and sucked her cheeks in with a clicking sound. “'Oo, you ask?”
“Lord Belka,” said Mama.
“A great man,” said 'Arry. “I adore him con abbabdono as a lover of people. …But he is not here today. Later, maybe, over cocktails?”
“We saw him come in here.”
The Bottom sighed. “By the right eye of my father-in-law…no!”
Gramp beat his cane on a dusty chair. “We saw him, 'Arry…better talk.”
'Arry held out his hands, palms up, shrugged his shoulders, and got into his shoes at last. He picked up his jacket, and carefully folded his racing form and put it away in a pocket.
“You 'ave me with the goods…this way, I act as concierge.”
“Shall we?” asked Mama.
“Too late to turn back…Lead on, 'Arry…and no tricks.”
“Tricks?” said 'Arry.
“Tricks!” snorted The Bottom. “All my life everyone is too full of tricks!”
We followed 'Arry behind a screen and up a small flight of stairs on which kittens had grown to girlhood, then along a hall…and suddenly a door opened and we went in, and there was Lord Belka with his coat off, and I was as shocked as if he had removed his beard.
“I am sorry,” he said to Mama.
“Are you?” said Mama. “How could you!”
“I did my best,” said Lord Belka, and he stepped aside, and there on a sofa was Uncle Mike as starched as could be, sleeping the sleep of the innocent and the well-starched. Lord Belka bowed.
“As a friend of the family, what else could I do? I found him in this… this happy condition in the street… but a little too loud-spoken, and I felt that 'Arry, knowing the family, would understand.”
“It was good of you,” said Mama.
“He'll be all right,” said Gramp, testing Uncle Mike, as if he were a pie baking, with his cane. “Tomorrow he'll be hung over, but that's all.”
“I used to,” said Lord Belka, “be young myself.”
'Arry nodded. “Who wasn't…heh, Stevie?”
Mama said to me, “Poor Uncle Mike.
He must have been taken sick suddenly.”
“Yes,” I said, wondering whether I should tell Mama the truth.…
“Well, let him sleep,” said Gramp. “Lord Belka, I hope you understand how we feel about your doing this for us…most kind. Sara thinks the world of you.
“A world for peace,” said Lord Belka. “But first we must beat the damn Germans!”
“That's what I like,” said Gramp. “Let's have some drinks below and perhaps an early dinner, and you can tell us how the peace is to be won.”
So we left Uncle Mike sleeping like an innocent baby, smelling of the best brandy, and downstairs Mama and Lord Belka explained how the peace was to be won. It doesn't matter now…since nobody asked Mama and Lord Belka about the peace, anyway, when it came. …I remember better what we had for dinner. Sometimes I think it would have been a better world if I had remembered the talk and not the food. Maybe if all the world had heard the talk a lot of heartache would have been spared us. But then, 'Arry's never could seat more than twenty people.
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