The Best of Roald Dahl Read online

  'Albert,' she said after a while.

  'Yes, dear?'

  'What was it you were going to tell me last night when you came rushing up to the bedroom? You said you had an idea for the baby.'

  Albert Taylor lowered the magazine on to his lap and gave her a long sly look.

  'Did I?' he said.

  'Yes.' She waited for him to go on, but he didn't.

  'What's the big joke?' she asked. 'Why are you grinning like that?'

  'It's a joke all right,' he said.

  'Tell it to me, dear.'

  'I'm not sure I ought to,' he said. 'You might call me a liar.'

  She had seldom seen him looking so pleased with himself as he was now, and she smiled back at him, egging him on.

  'I'd just like to see your face when you hear it, Mabel, that's all.'

  'Albert, what is all this?'

  He paused, refusing to be hurried.

  'You do think the baby's better, don't you?' he asked.

  'Of course I do.'

  'You agree with me that all of a sudden she's feeding marvellously and looking one hundred per cent different?'

  'I do, Albert, yes.'

  'That's good,' he said, the grin widening. 'You see, it's me that did it.'

  'Did what?'

  'I cured the baby.'

  'Yes, dear, I'm sure you did.' Mrs Taylor went right on with her knitting.

  'You don't believe me, do you?'

  'Of course I believe you, Albert. I give you all the credit, every bit of it.'

  'Then how did I do it?'

  'Well,' she said, pausing a moment to think. 'I suppose it's simply that you're a brilliant feed-mixer. Ever since you started mixing the feeds she's got better and better.'

  'You mean there's some sort of an art in mixing the feeds?'

  'Apparently there is.' She was knitting away and smiling quietly to herself, thinking how funny men were.

  'I'll tell you a secret,' he said. 'You're absolutely right. Although, mind you, it isn't so much how you mix it that counts. It's what you put in. You realize that, don't you, Mabel?'

  Mrs Taylor stopped knitting and looked up sharply at her husband. 'Albert,' she said, 'don't tell me you've been putting things into that child's milk?'

  He sat there grinning.

  'Well, have you or haven't you?'

  'It's possible,' he said.

  'I don't believe it.'

  He had a strange fierce way of grinning that showed his teeth.

  'Albert,' she said. 'Stop playing with me like this.'

  'Yes, dear, all right.'

  'You haven't really put anything into her milk, have you? Answer me properly, Albert. This could be serious with such a tiny baby.'

  'The answer is yes, Mabel.'

  'Albert Taylor! How could you?'

  'Now don't get excited,' he said. 'I'll tell you all about it if you really want me to, but for heaven's sake keep your hair on.'

  'It was beer!' she cried. 'I just know it was beer!'

  'Don't be so daft, Mabel, please.'

  'Then what was it?'

  Albert laid his pipe down carefully on the table beside him and leaned back in his chair. 'Tell me,' he said, 'did you ever by any chance happen to hear me mentioning something called royal jelly?'

  'I did not.'

  'It's magic,' he said. 'Pure magic. And last night I suddenly got the idea that if I was to put some of this into the baby's milk ...'

  'How dare you!'

  'Now, Mabel, you don't even know what it is yet.'

  'I don't care what it Is,' she said. 'You can't go putting foreign bodies like that into a tiny baby's milk. You must be mad.'

  'It's perfectly harmless, Mabel, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. It comes from bees.'

  'I might have guessed that.'

  'And it's so precious that practically no one can afford to take it. When they do, it's only one little drop at a time.'

  'And how much did you give to our baby, might I ask?'

  'Ah,' he said, 'that's the whole point. That's where the difference lies. I reckon that our baby, just in the last four feeds, has already swallowed about fifty times as much royal jelly as anyone else in the world has ever swallowed before. How about that?'

  'Albert, stop pulling my leg.'

  'I swear it,' he said proudly.

  She sat there staring at him, her brow wrinkled, her mouth slightly open.

  'You know what this stuff actually costs, Mabel, if you want to buy it? There's a place in America advertising it for sale this very moment for something like five hundred dollars a pound jar! Five hundred dollars! That's more than gold, you know!'

  She hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about.

  'I'll prove it,' he said, and he jumped up and went across to the large bookcase where he kept all his literature about bees. On the top shelf, the back numbers of the American Bee Journal were neatly stacked alongside those of the British Bee Journal, Beecraft, and other magazines. He took down the last issue of the American Bee Journal and turned to a page of small classified advertisements at the back.

  'Here you are,' he said. 'Exactly as I told you. "We sell royal jelly - $480 per lb jar wholesale." '

  He handed her the magazine so she could read it herself.

  'Now do you believe me? This is an actual shop in New York, Mabel. It says so.'

  'It doesn't say you can go stirring it into the milk of a practically newborn baby,' she said. 'I don't know what's come over you, Albert, I really don't.'

  'It's curing her, isn't it?'

  'I'm not so sure about that, now.'

  'Don't be so damn silly, Mabel. You know it is.'

  'Then why haven't other people done it with their babies?'

  'I keep telling you,' he said. 'It's too expensive. Practically nobody in the world can afford to buy royal jelly just for eating except maybe one or two multimillionaires. The people who buy it are the big companies that make women's face creams and things like that. They're using it as a stunt. They mix a tiny pinch of it into a big jar of face cream and it's selling like hot cakes for absolutely enormous prices. They claim it takes out the wrinkles.'

  'And does it?'

  'Now how on earth would I know that, Mabel? Anyway,' he said, returning to his chair, 'that's not the point. The point is this. It's done so much good to our little baby just in the last few hours that I think we ought to go right on giving it to her. Now don't interrupt, Mabel. Let me finish. I've got two hundred and forty hives out there and if I turn over maybe a hundred of them to making royal jelly, we ought to be able to supply her with all she wants.'

  'Albert Taylor,' the woman said, stretching her eyes wide and staring at him. 'Have you gone out of your mind?'

  'Just hear me through, will you please?'

  'I forbid it,' she said, 'absolutely. You're not to give my baby another drop of that horrid jelly, you understand?'

  'Now, Mabel ...'

  'And quite apart from that, we had a shocking honey crop last year, and if you go fooling around with those hives now, there's no telling what might not happen.'

  'There's nothing wrong with my hives, Mabel.'

  'You know very well we had only half the normal crop last year.'

  'Do me a favour, will you?' he said. 'Let me explain some of the marvellous things this stuff does.'

  'You haven't even told me what it is yet.'

  'All right, Mabel. I'll do that too. Will you listen? Will you give me a chance to explain it?'

  She sighed and picked up her knitting once more. 'I suppose you might as well get it off your chest, Albert. Go on and tell me.'

  He paused, a bit uncertain now how to begin. It wasn't going to be easy to explain something like this to a person with no detailed knowledge of apiculture at all.

  'You know, don't you,' he said, 'that each colony has only one queen?'

  'Yes.'

  'And that this queen lays all the eggs?'

  'Yes, dear. That much I know.'