Man from the South ee-3 Read online

  Rummins glanced up from examining the screw. 'You didn't tell us what you were going to offer,' he said.

  'Ah,' Mr Boggis said. 'That's quite right. I didn't, did I? Well, to tell you the truth, I think it's a bit too much trouble. I think I'll leave it.'

  How much would you give?'

  'Shall we say ... ten pounds. I think that would be fair.'

  'Ten pounds!' Rummins cried. 'Don't be ridiculous, Reverend, please!'

  'It's worth more than that for firewood!' Claud said.

  'All right, my friend - I'll go up as high as fifteen pounds. How's that?'

  'Make it fifty,' Rummins said.

  A delicious thrill ran all the way down the back of Mr Boggis's legs and then under the bottom of his feet. He had it now. It was his. No question about that. But the habit of buying cheap, as cheaply as possible, was too strong in him now to permit him to give in so easily.

  'My dear man,' he whispered softly, 'I only want the legs. Possibly I could find some use for the drawers later on, but the rest it, as your friend rightly said, is firewood, that's all.'

  'Make it thirty-five,' Rummins said.

  'I couldn't sir, I couldn't! It's not worth it. And I simply mustn't allow myself to argue like this about a price. It's all wrong. I'll make you one final offer and then I must go. Twenty pounds.'

  'I'll take it,' Rummins answered. 'It's yours.'

  'Oh dear,' Mr Boggis said. 'I speak before I think. I should never have started this.'

  'You can't change your mind now, Vicar. A deal's a deal.'

  'Yes, yes, I know.'

  'How are you going to take it?'

  'Well, let me see. Perhaps if I drove my car up into the yard, you gentlemen would be kind enough to help me load it?'

  'In a car? This thing will never go in a car! You'll need a truck for this!'

  'I don't think so. Anyway we'll see. My car's on the road. I'll be back in a few minutes. We'll manage it somehow, I'm sure.'

  Mr Boggis walked out into the yard and through the gate and then down the long track that led across the field towards the road. He found himself laughing uncontrollably, and there was a feeling inside him as if hundreds of tiny bubbles were rising up from his stomach and bursting in the top of his head. He was finding it difficult to stop himself from running. But vicars never run; they walk slowly. Walk slowly, Boggis. Keep calm, Boggis. There's no hurry now. The commode is yours! Yours for twenty pounds, and it's worth fifteen or twenty thousand! The Boggis Commode! In ten minutes it'll be loaded into your car - it'll go in easily - and you'll be driving back to London and singing all the way!

  Back in the farmhouse, Rummins was saying, 'Imagine old fool giving twenty pounds for a load of old rubbish like this.'

  'You did very nicely, Mr Rummins,' Claud told him. 'Do you think he'll pay you?'

  'We won't put it in the car till he does.'

  'And what will happen if it won't go in the car?' Claud asked.

  'You know what I think, Mr Rummins? I think the thing's too big to go in the car. Then he's going to drive off without it and you'll never see him again. Nor the money. He didn't seem very keep on having it, you know.'

  Rummins paused to consider this new idea.

  Claud went on, 'A vicar never has a big car anyway. Have you ever seen a vicar with a big car, Mr Rummins?'

  'I can't say I have.'

  'Exactly! And now listen to me. I've got an idea. He told us that it was only the legs he wanted. Right? So if we cut them off quickly right here before he comes back, it will certainly go in the car. All we're doing is saving him the trouble of cutting them off himself when he gets home. How about it, Mr Rummins?'

  'It's not such a bad idea,' Rummins said, looking at the commode. 'Come on then, we'll have to hurry. You and Bert carry it out into the yard. Take the drawers out first.'

  Within a couple of minutes, Claud and Bert had carried the commode outside and had laid it upside down in the middle of the yard. In the distance, halfway across the field, they could see a small black figure walking along the path towards the road. They paused to watch. There was something rather funny about the way the figure was behaving. Every few seconds it would start to run, then it did a little jump, and once it seemed as if the sound of a cheerful song could be heard from across the field.

  'I think he's mad,' Claud said, smiling to himself.

  Rummins came over, carrying the tools. Claud took them from him and started work.

  'Cut them carefully,' Rummins said. 'Don't forget he's going to use them on another table.'

  The wood was hard and very dry, and as Claud worked, a fine red dust fell softly to the ground. One by one, the legs came off, and Bert bent down and arranged them neatly in a row.

  Claud stepped back to examine the results of his labour. There was a pause.

  'Just let me ask you one question, Mr Rummins,' he said slowly. 'Even now, could you put that enormous thing into the back of a car?'

  'Not unless it was a van.'

  'Correct!' Claud cried. 'And vicars don't have vans, you know. All they've got usually is small cars.'

  'The legs are all he wants,' Rummins said. 'If the rest of it won't go in, then he can leave it. He can't complain. He's got the legs.'

  'You know very well he's going to start reducing the price if he doesn't get every bit of this into the car. A vicar's just as smart with money as everyone. Especially this old man. So why don't we give him his firewood now and finish it? Where do you keep the axe?'

  'That's fair,' Rummins said. 'Bert, go and fetch it.'

  Bert went and fetched the axe and gave it to Claud who then, with a long-armed high-swinging action, began fiercely attacking the legless commode. It was hard work, and it took several minutes before he had the whole thing more or less broken in pieces.

  'I'll tell you one thing; he said. 'That was a good carpenter who put this commode together and I don't care what the vicar says.'

  'We're just in time!' Rummins called out. 'Here he comes!'

  Pig

  Once upon a time, in the city of New York, a beautiful baby boy was born, and his joyful parents named him Lexington.

  The mother had just returned from hospital carrying Lexington in her arms when she said to her husband, 'Darling, now you must take me out to a most wonderful restaurant for dinner.'

  Her husband kissed her and told her that any woman who could have such a beautiful baby as Lexington deserved to go anywhere she wanted. So that evening they both dressed themselves in their best clothes and, leaving little Lexington in the care of a trained nurse who was costing them twenty dollars a day, they went out to the finest and most expensive restaurant in town.

  After a wonderful evening, they arrived back at their house at around two o'clock in the morning. The husband paid the taxi driver and then began feeling in his pockets for the key to the front door. After a while, he announced that he must have left it in the pocket of his other suit, and he suggested they ring the bell and get the nurse to come down and let them in. A nurse who was costing them twenty dollars a day must expect to have to get out of bed occasionally in the night, the husband said.

  So he rang the bell. They waited. Nothing happened. He rang it again, long and loud. They waited another minute. Then they both stepped back on to the street and shouted the nurse's name up at the nursery window on the third floor, but there was still no answer. The house was dark and silent. The wife began to become frightened. If the nurse couldn't hear the front doorbell, then how did she expect to hear the baby crying?

  'You mustn't worry. I'll let you in.' He was feeling rather brave after all he had drunk. He bent down and took off a shoe. Then, holding the shoe by the toe, he threw it hard and straight through the dining-room window on the ground floor.

  'There you are,' he said, laughing. He stepped forward and very carefully put a hand through the hole in the glass and undid the lock. Then he raised the window.

  'I'll lift you in first, little mother,' he said, and he to