My Uncle Oswald(39)

While all this was going on, I took the opportunity of making a few notes with pad and pencil for future ref erence.

Note one: Endeavour always to arrange for Yasmin to confront the subject in a room where there is a couch or an armchair or at the very least a carpet on the floor. She is undoubtedly a strong and resilient girl, but having to work on a hard wooden surface in exceptionally severe circumstances as she is doing now is asking rather a lot. The way things are going, she could easily suffer severe damage to her lumbar region or even a pelvic fracture. And where would our clever little scheme be then, tra-la-la?

Note two: Never again prescribe a double dose for any man. Too much powder causes excessive irritation in the vital regions and gives the victim a sort of St. Vitus’s dance. This makes it almost impossible for Yasmin to roll on the sperm collector without resorting to foul play. An overdose also makes the victim bellow, which could be embarrassing if the wife of the victim, the Queen of Denmark, for example, or Mrs. Bernard Shaw, happened to be sitting quietly in the next room doing needlepoint.

Note three: Try to think of a way of helping Yasmin to get out from under and to do a bunk with the precious sperm as soon as possible after the stuff is in the bag. The devilish powder, even when sparingly administered, might easily keep a ninety-year-old genius bashing away for a couple of hours or more. And quite apart from any discomfort Yasmin might be suffering, it is vital to get the little squigglers into the freezer quickly, while they are still fresh. Look, for example, at old Woresley right now and how he’s still grinding away although he’s obviously delivered the goods at least six times in succession. Perhaps a sharp jab in the buttocks with a hatpin would do the trick in the future.

Out there on the floor of the lab Yasmin had no hatpin to help her, and to this day I do not know precisely what it was she did to A. R. Woresley that caused him to let out yet another of those horrendous howls and to freeze so suddenly in his tracks. Nor do I wish to know, because it’s none of my business. But whatever it was, I was quite certain a nice girl like her would never have done it to a nice man like him if it had not been absolutely necessary. The next thing I knew, Yasmin was up and away and dashing for the door with the spoils of victory in her hand. I nearly stood up and clapped for her as she left the stage. What a performance! What a splendid exit! The door slammed shut and she was gone.

All at once, the laboratory became silent. I saw A. R. Woresley picking himself up slowly off the floor. He stood there dazed and wobbly. He looked like a man who had been struck on the head with a cricket bat. He staggered over to the sink and began splashing water onto his face, and while he was doing this, I myself crept from my hiding place and tiptoed out of the room, closing the door softly behind me.

There was no sign of Yasmin in the corridor. I had told her I would be sitting in my rooms at Trinity throughout the operation, so she was probably making her way there now. I hurried outside and jumped into my motor car and drove from the Science Building to the College by a roundabout route so as not to pass her on the way. I parked the car and went up to my rooms and waited.

A few minutes later, in she came.

“Give me a drink,” she said, crossing to an armchair. I noticed she was walking sort of bow-legged and treating herself tenderly.

“You look as though you’ve just brought the good news from Ghent to Aix riding bareback,” I said.

She didn’t answer me. I poured her two inches of gin and added a cubic centimetre of lime juice. She took a good gulp of the splendid stuff and said, “Ah-h-h, that’s better.”

“How did it go?”

“We gave him a little bit too much.”

“I thought we might have done,” I said.

She opened her purse and took out the repulsive rubbery thing which she had very sensibly knotted at the open end. Also the sheet of notepaper with A. R. Woresley’s signature on it.

“Tremendous!” I cried. “You did it! It all worked! Did you enjoy it?”

Her answer astonished me. “As a matter of fact I rather did,” she said.

“You did? You mean he wasn’t too rough?”

“He made every other man I’ve ever met look like a eunuch,” she said.

I laughed at that.

“Including you,” she said.

I stopped laughing.

“That,” she said softly, taking another gulp of gin, “is exactly how I want my men to be from now on.”

“But you said we gave him too much.”

“Just a teensy bit,” she said. “I couldn’t stop him. He was absolutely tireless.”

“How did you stop him?”

“Never you mind.”