The Square Peg or The Gun Fella полностью

Ponk was the owner of a group of newspapers in those parts; Pink was Mr. Methodde; all the friends of these people went by nicknames, most of them beginning with the letter P.

“I shouldn’t think many people near here will call on this gunman,” Lady Bynd said. “My dear, his manners are too odious. I feel in need of ammonia.”

She spread the news, and her views, of the gunman by letter, in person and on the telephone. On the Friday, Frampton drove to Tatchester Station to meet his father, who was coming from London for the week-end. The London Express, which reached Tatchester at 4 p.m., was always full of people from that countryside; the station approach was always thronged with cars sent to fetch them, and the platform populous with those who came to meet and to greet them. When Frampton came to the crowded platform, to meet the train, he saw at once that he was recognised, and with dislike. Press photographs and caricatures had made his face familiar to some millions of his countrymen. These people, who read little but illustrated newspapers, all recognised him. He realised that he was amidst the sporting set, and those hard mouths and angry eyes were set in rage at the bounder who had closed Spirr. There was no doubt, he was being stared at, with bitter comment. He knew the kind of comment, that this was the gunman who had done up Mullples and was going to shoot any fox or hound that ever entered Spirr; this was he who insulted Lady Bynd and meant to build red brick villas all over Mullples Hill; who had atheists to paint nudes all over his walls and took his housemaids to Brighton for the week-end.

“Yes, I’m the chap,” he muttered. “Take a good look, my hard-eyed duds.”

Among them he noticed a tall young man whose eyes and hat were somehow tilted at different angles; he was with a very fair, tall girl, who was smoking a cigarette in a holder. They looked a fairly tough couple, he thought; he judged that they either were, or were dressed to resemble, a bad film star and her lizard. They were Pob and his girl friend, known as Brass-Eyed Sarah. He was close to them. Brass-Eyed Sarah, in a very brazen voice, said:

“That’s the bounder who’s going to close Spirr.”

She was one of the brightest of the Bright Young Things. The train came in at that moment. While waiting to pilot his old father through the doors of the station, he heard himself pointed out and commented on by several others. Some of the remarks by the women were meant for him to hear; he heard them. He hardened his heart exceedingly.

In the next week or two, it became clear to him that he was not to find many friends in that countryside. He was away for the greater part of each week, devising his new gun. In his absence, between Monday and Friday night, a few men, knowing that he would be away, left cards upon him. He returned these calls, but found that by some coincidence the people were never at home when he returned the calls; the acquaintance was not made. He did not much wish to make the acquaintance, but marvelled a little at the people troubling to leave cards, if they meant the acquaintance not to be made.

“But,” he thought, “it is a thing they do, and feel bound to do. They will say: ‘Of course, I left cards on the bounder, when he came to these parts; one has to do that, of course; but I took good care not to be in when he came here; a fearful feller like that.’”

After two weeks, he was surprised to find that his chance remarks about the villas at Coombe House had been taken seriously. There were two letters in the Tatshire Times under the heading “Beauty Spot Threatened.” One letter, written in the office, so Frampton judged, said that they had heard with alarm that a new-comer to the district had plans of building red brick villas on the matchless slope of Mullples Hill; the second, by some female hand, presumably Lady Bynd, who had no doubt had Ponk to lunch, called on all loyal lovers of Britain to defend their birthright.

“Her birthright,” Frampton muttered. “The view from her Strawberry Hill Gothic windows. She’s related to the chap who owns this screed. I heard someone say. Well, I’ll lead her a dance over it.”