His Coat So Gay
by Sterling E. Lanier
There had been a big spread in the newspapers about a British duke going through bankruptcy proceedings and his third divorce simultaneously. The divorce was contested, the evidence was sordid and those giving it equally so. The nobleman in question came out of the whole thing very badly, it being proved, among other things, that he had run up huge debts to tradesmen, knowing damn well when he did it that he couldn't hope to pay them. There was lots more, though, including secret "orgies," which seem to have been dirty parties of the sort to have passed quite unnoticed in Los Angeles.
One of the members tapped his newspaper. A few of us were sitting upstairs in the library after dinner. It was a hot night in New York, but the club was air-conditioned and very pleasant.
"Good thing," said the man with the paper, "that Mason Williams isn't here to shout about this. He'd love to give General Ffellowes a hard time. Can't you hear him? `Rotten bunch of degenerates! Lousy overbearing crooks and cadgers! Long line of aristocratic bums and swindlers!' It would be the best opportunity he's had in years for trying to annoy the brigadier."
"I notice you were smart enough to say 'trying' !" said someone else. "He's never managed to annoy Ffellowes yet. I doubt if this would do it either."
"Who wants to annoy me, eh?" came the easy, clipped tones of our favorite English member. He had come up the narrow back stairs at the other end of the room and was now standing behind my own back. He always moved silently, not I feel certain out of a desire to be stealthy, but from a lifetime's training. Ffellowes' years in (apparently) every secret as well as public branch of Her Majesty's service had given him the ability to walk like a cat, and a quiet one at that.
I jumped and so did a couple of others, and then there was a moment of embarrassed silence.
Ffellowes is very quick. He saw the newspaper headline in my neighbor's lap and began to chuckle.
. . .
