“But Stevie is going to draw us the great seal for the club. A dead fox lying on a field of purple heather crosse by a government issue rifle against the hills of Injah and …”
“No club 'ere … now you two club chaps git awiy from this 'ere table and get down among yer fellow sports-lovers and bird murderers … Murderers, that is what you all are. Killin' of them larks!”
“Not larks, dear, grouse.”
“Bird murderers … all of ya, shootin' and killin' an never bringin' 'ome even a feather for me 'at!”
The Colonel knew a lost cause when he was it and so he took our 'ats, I mean hats, and went down to the Injah Club to meet the chaps.
The Injah Club was not very top-drawer. It was made up of moth-eaten big game hunters, neo-Aristotelians, spurious clergymen, and a lot of high-sounding talk that never lasted past the hors d'oeuvres. It was shabby, comfortable, and contained the best bridge players in England.
An Englishman, known as Lord Bean among us, a member of Rifle Nature, lived by playing bridge and the suave implication that he would one day own half of Scotland. He was a lean Harrovian Englishman, a radical of aristocratic lineage, with the introspective, wide-set eyes of a mystic. He was just sitting down to lunch and we joine him.
The dish that day was sheep brains Bombay. I ate it often enough to know its secrets. Chop a pint of onions and fry in butter in a pan … No, I'm sorry, that is the Bombay curry. Let's start over. Clean and skin two sheep brains. Cook and simmer with a little water and mash them fine. Take four ounces of grated cheese, half a pint of cream, an egg well beaten, two chopped capers, and a little salt and pepper, mix well and add to mashed sheep brains. Simmer on a good fire, stirring all the while until the mixture will retain its shape when poured. Pour over rounds of toasted English muffins and top with slice olives, thin apple slices, and one boiled sultana raisin.
If the waiter wears a head towel and calls you sabib … that helps too. The Injah Club served a mulled claret, and then Lord Bean set up the usual double Scotch.
“Decent chaps in this club,” said the Colonel.
“No tiresome clique of intellectuals, anyway.”
“We should make Rifle Nature like this.”
“Ah, that is a point we shall take up after lunch.”
Outside the day cooked slowly in the hot streets, an the green of a park was broken by the silver chaos of birch trees.
After lunch Lord Bean lit a stogie, handed around a cheroot case, and we set fire to something that had once been tobacco and made plans.
Lord Bean blew smoke rings. “Nothing to it but get in the papers; that would attract attention and we could get some members that have tin … money to spare for a project as important to the welfare of the nation as Rifle Nature.”
“But how?” asked the Colonel, splashing a drop of soda into a double tumbler of Scotch.
Lord Bean polished his eyeglass, replaced it over one eye, and snapped his lean fingers. “I have it. A walking contest between America and England. The Empire lion against the Union buzzard.”
“Eagle,” I corrected him.
“Eagle,” nodded Lord Bean.
“But how?” asked the Colonel.
“You, Colonel, will be England, an Stevie here will be Ameriker.”
“America,” I said. “But I don't walk much.”
“Neither do I!” said the Colonel.
Lord Bean got and asked for a phone and called the Times and smiled at us and asked for a Mr. fliot (he asked for the small f) as he spelled it out. “Hello,ffiot, old man, how is the wife … Nice? That's good. ffiot old man, as a member of the Rifle Nature Club—charter member, I seem to remember—and feature editor on your bloody paper, you are about to get an American sort of thing, scoop, or shovel, they call it. A walking race between Colonel Bagsby Bags for England, and Stevie Longstreet, grandson of the great Confederate general, for America.”
I said, “Not a grandson, Gramp was on Grant's staff.”
Lord Bean waved me off … “Starts tomorrow morning, Waterloo Station, and walks to the Scot border.”
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