Meet Mr Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse Page B

bishop tolerantly, “boys
will be boys.”
    “It’s a most mysterious business.”
    “No doubt, no doubt. But, after all, Mulliner,
is not all Life a mystery?”
    “And what makes it still more mysterious
is that they found your shovel-hat on the statue’s head.”
    The bishop started up.
    “What!”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Mulliner,” said the bishop, “leave me. I
have one or two matters on which I wish to meditate.”
    He dressed hastily, his numbed fingers
fumbling with his gaiters. It all came back to him now. Yes, he could remember
putting the hat on the statue’s head. It had seemed a good thing to do at the
time, and he had done it. How little we guess at the moment how far-reaching
our most trivial actions may be!
    The headmaster was over at the school,
instructing the Sixth Form in Greek Composition: and he was obliged to wait,
chafing, until twelve-thirty, when the bell rang for the half-way halt in the
day’s work. He stood at the study window, watching with ill-controlled
impatience, and presently the headmaster appeared, walking heavily like one on
whose mind there is a weight.
    “Well?” cried the bishop, as he entered
the study.
    The headmaster doffed his cap and gown,
and sank limply into a chair.
    “I cannot conceive,” he groaned, “what
madness had me in its grip last night.”
    The bishop was shaken, but he could not
countenance such an attitude as this.
    “I do not understand you, Headmaster,” he
said stiffly. “It was our simple duty, as a protest against the undue
exaltation of one whom we both know to have been a most unpleasant schoolmate,
to paint that statue.”
    “And I suppose it was your duty to leave
your hat on its head?”
    “Now there,” said the bishop, “I may
possibly have gone a little too far.” He coughed. “Has that perhaps somewhat
ill-considered action led to the harbouring of suspicions by those in authority?”
    “They don’t know what to think.”
    “What is the view of the Board of Governors?
    “They insist on my finding the culprit.
Should I fail to do so, they hint at the gravest consequences.”
    “You mean they will deprive you of your
headmastership?”
    “That is what they imply. I shall be asked
to hand in my resignation. And, if that happens, bim goes my chance of ever
being a bishop.”
    “Well, it’s not all jam being a bishop.
You wouldn’t enjoy it, Catsmeat.”
    “All very well for you to talk, Boko. You
got me into this, you silly ass.”
    “I like that! You were just as keen on it
as I was.”
    “You suggested it.”
    “Well, you jumped at the suggestion.”
    The two men had faced each other heatedly,
and for a moment it seemed as if there was to be a serious falling-out. Then
the bishop recovered himself.
    “Catsmeat,” he said, with that wonderful
smile of his, taking the other’s hand, “this is unworthy of us. We must not
quarrel. We must put our heads together and see if there is not some avenue of
escape from the unfortunate position in which, however creditable our motives,
we appear to have placed ourselves. How would it be?”
    “I thought of that,” said the headmaster.
“It wouldn’t do a bit of good. Of course, we might—”
    “No, that’s no use, either,” said the
bishop.
    They sat for awhile in meditative silence.
And, as they sat, the door opened.
    “General Bloodenough,” announced the
butler.
    “Oh, that I had wings like a dove. Psalm
xlv. 6,” muttered the bishop.
    His desire to be wafted from that spot
with all available speed could hardly be considered unreasonable. General Sir
Hector Bloodenough, V.C.,
K.C.LE., M.V.O ., on retiring from the army, had been
for many years, until his final return to England, in charge of the Secret
Service in Western Africa, where his unerring acumen had won for him from the
natives the soubriquet of Wah-nah-B’gosh-B’jingo,—which, freely translated,
means Big Chief Who Can See Through The Hole In A Doughnut.
    A man impossible to deceive. The last man
the