Laughing Gas by P. G. Wodehouse Page A

choir and for the privilege of kicking whose trouser seat the better element will fight like wolves?'
    'Well, say, listen,' he rejoined hotly, 'do you think I
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    like the prospect of going about for the rest of my life with a face like this?' 'We will not discuss my face.'
    'No. Better hush it up, I guess. Golly, what a map!' 'Please!'
    *Well, you started it.'
    There was a rather stiff silence. We were both piqued. He looked at the watch again.
    'I got to be going,' he said. 'I've a call to make down at Malibu. Got to see my press agent.'
    'What for?'
    'Oh, just to say hello.'
    'You can't say hello to press agents looking like that.'
    'Oh, yes, that's all right. He'll understand. Say, there's another thing I just thought of. Where do I go nights?'
    'I beg your pardon?'
    'Well, I've got to sleep somewhere, haven't I? Where were you living?'
    'I told you. I have a bungalow at the Garden of the Hesperides.'
    'That's all right, then. Well, anything you want to know?'
    I thought for a moment. There were, of course, a hundred questions I wanted to ask, but I couldn't think of them. Then something occurred to me.
    'What's all this about unveiling a statue?'
    'Oh, that's just a statue of old Brinkmeyer.'
    'I see.'
    So they were shoving up a statue to the old boy, were they? Well, I had no objection. No doubt a thoroughly well-deserved honour. Whether a man who looked like a captive balloon was wise to allow statues of himself to be exhibited was, of course, a question to be decided by himself alone.
    'Do I unveil it?'
    'Of course you don't. Anything else?'
    'They were saying something about some Michigan Mothers.'
    'That's a deputation that's come over from Detroit. You receive them.' 'Admirers, are they?'
    'That's right. The Michigan branch of the Joey Cooley Faithful Fan Club.*
    'They come to pay their respects, as it were?'
    'That's the idea. And you receive them.'
    'Oh, well, I don't suppose I shall mind that.'
    He seized the opening. It was plainly his desire to cheer and encourage.
    'Sure you won't. You aren't going to mind anything. You mustn't believe all that stuff I was telling you in the waiting-room. I was feeling kind of down, on account that tooth of mine was giving me the devil. You'll find this a pretty soft racket you've dropped into. You've got about the biggest following of anyone in pictures. Wait till you see the fan mail. And it's sort of fun acting up in front of the camera. Yessir, I think you're going to like it. Well, I must be scramming. Pleased to have met you.'
    He moved to the window and shoved a leg over the sill.
    'Oh, say, look,' he said, pausing. 'About Ma Brinkmeyer I almost forgot to tell you. If you ever want another horned toad, you get it from the gardener with the squint and the wart on his nose. He's always around the place. Just tell him it's for putting in Miss Brinkmeyer's bed, and he won't charge you anything.'
    He disappeared, to pop up again a moment later.
    'Oh, say, look,' he said, 'there's something I ought to warn you about. I'll give you a ring to-morrow.'
    I sat up, a-quiver.'
    'Warn me about?'
    'Yay. I haven't time to tell you now, but there's something you've got to watch out for. I'll phone you in the morning.'
    He disappeared once more, and I lay back, still a-quiver.
    I hadn't liked those last words. A sinister ring they had seemed to me to have.
    However, I wasn't able to brood on them long. Nature took its toll of the tired frame. Before I knew where I was, my eyes were closing, and I was asleep.
    My first day as Joey Cooley had ended.
    Chapter 12
    I suppose everybody's had the experience at one time or another of waking up after a nightmare in which they were chased by leopards or chewed by cannibals or some such thing and drawing a deep breath and saying to t hemselves : 'Phew! Good egg 1 It was only a dream, after all.' A dashed agreeable sensation it is, too.
    That's how it was with me next morning when, opening my eyes to another day, I reviewed the recent events. It