The Square Peg or The Gun Fella полностью

Frampton was not a subscriber to this London paper; he did not see it that morning; as it happened, he was at his Works, trebly busy with routine and a matter that was not routine. His first knowledge of the article came when a Press man telephoned to him on behalf of some syndicate of papers, to ask if he had anything to say about it. He replied that he had not seen the article and had nothing to say about it. The pressman asked if it were true that Snipton had rejected the statues. He replied:

“What else would you expect Snipton to do with works of genius?”

“Oh, so you consider them works of genius, do you?” the pressman asked.

“Good morning,” Frampton said, and hung up the receiver.

He had much to do that morning, but at lunch-time saw the paper and at once recognised that the moving spirit had been the angry ham.

“Well, I did make her squirm,” he said. “I thought I would. The silly old hen has got busy.”

However, he had much to do, and gave no more thought to the matter, except that he registered the fact that she had some sort of access to the Press. An occasional feud or quarrel was nothing to him; he had lots of such things at all times; but a quarrel bulked big in Laetitia’s life; she made the most of each one while it lasted. He did not suspect the depth of the rage he had kindled in her. While he brooded on his daily task of making it easy for his countrymen to kill their foes, she in Weston Mullples prepared her second attack. Armed with copies of the newspaper containing “Save Us From Our Friends,” she set forth to Stubbington. She called on Old Fist and gave him his copy. He already had one. She then gave a copy to each member of the Council. After this, she contrived that Ponk should say something in the Tatchester Times; then she descended on the Stubbington Gazette. Harold had gone now; he was in his new office, enjoying himself. She found in his stead a young man who was very happy to be in charge just at the moment when fate had made Stubbington a part of the London news.

“Believe me,” he said, “we’re giving the question full publicity.”

“We” were. The next morning the Gazette had a full page about it, with scare-heads and photographs. Three letters, all written in the office, from Pro Bono Publico, War Widow and Indignant Art Lover, protested against this attempt to foist the rejections of Snipton on to a beautiful place like Stubbington. They took different lines, but Frampton, when he read them, noticed that they all made one point, that he had never told the Town Council that the bronzes had been rejected by Snipton. From this, he concluded at once, that the letters had been the work of one hand.

The Gazette, following upon the article and correspondence in the London paper, roused up a pretty stir in Stubbington. In the windows of the Gazette offices were photographs of the bridge, of the bronzes, a faked photograph, showing the bronzes in position, and a copy of the cartoon in the London paper. These things drew large numbers of people. The copy of the Gazette in the public reading-room had to be renewed four times during the first day from its frequent thumbing and turning.

Letters began to pour in upon the Editor and upon all the members of the Town Council. Old Fist had a meeting that afternoon and said that this matter of these statues, or bronzes, or bronze statues of Mr. Mansold’s had come to a point at which something ought to be done. He didn’t know anything about art nor genius, and didn’t know that he wanted to; but he had an uneasy feeling that Mr. Mansold, though a very kind and clever gentleman, hadn’t done quite clean potato by them, not telling them that these things had been turned out by Snipton. Now the fat was in the fire; here were all these letters, lots of them, and the photographs in the London paper, and the telephone ringing all day long, and at midnight, too; why, there were three calls from the London Press after he’d gone to bed last night. It didn’t do a man or a council much good to be called a fool in this way.

The members of the Council had all suffered from these attacks; they had felt them acutely; each man of them blamed Frampton for his suffering.

“He kept it dark,” they growled. “Any honest man would have told us. How could we know the things had been turned down?”

One or two of them, who wanted a motive, now suggested motive.

“For all we know, he may be in with this sculptor. He may be his relative. The chap would get a good deal of notice in the papers from having his statues on the bridge. It’d wipe out any unpleasantness from having them turned down at Snipton.”