No. II.
The Kiss Problem
Mr Pusely-Smythe’s air of saturnine melancholy was pronounced as he took the chair at the forty-fourth monthly meeting of the Problem Club.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ he began, ‘the waiters are supposed to have left the room, but in view of the nature of the problem before us to-night you would probably wish to be quite sure on the point. Will somebody kindly examine the screen by the waiters’ entrance?’
Mr Quillian, K.C., reported that no waiter was concealed, and further that the door was locked.
‘Thank you, my learned friend. Leonard—admirable as a head-waiter, ingenious and generally innocuous as the inventor of our problems—has on this occasion undergone a moral lapse. I will give you the words of this lamentable problem: “It is required within the space of one hour to kiss upon the cheek ten females of the age of courtship and not cousins or any nearer relative of the kisser, without giving offence to any one of them.”
‘Major Byles protested against this problem on the ground that it gave an unfair advantage to the young and unattached. The Rev. Septimus Cunliffe seconded the protest on the ground that, broad-minded though he was, after all there was a limit. A vote being taken, it was found—to the eternal shame of the club, if I may say so—that there was a considerable majority in favour of the problem being retained.’
Every member being well aware that the chairman himself had voted with the majority, there was some hilarious interruption.
‘Gentlemen,’ said the chairman severely, ‘this is not the spirit in which to approach stories of wrecked homes and blasted reputations, and these stories we must now hear. I observe that Mr Quillian has had his face scratched recently, doubtless the work of outraged modesty, but before I——’
‘I really must protest,’ said Mr Quillian. ‘The slight marks on my left cheek are not scratches, but were caused—as they say at the inquests—by some blunt instrument, to wit, a safety razor.’
‘Well,’ the chairman continued, ‘you will have an opportunity later to explain how the girl got hold of the razor. I will begin with some of our younger Lotharios. What have you to tell us, Mr Feldane?’
The Hon. James Feldane put down his cigarette, and spoke wearily: ‘It’s like this, you know. I claim to have won unless my score’s beaten. Ten in an hour is an impossible demand on the part of our friend Leonard, and I doubt if bogey would be more than four. May I take it that I win, if I am nearest to Leonard’s figure?’
‘That is so. Continue your loathsome confessions.’
‘It’s strictly masonic and all that, ain’t it?’
‘Mr Feldane may be assured that his hideous secret will die with us,’ said the chairman. ‘The club rule of secrecy has never yet been broken.’
‘That being so, I’ll get on. I’d planned it all for a dance I was going to, and I’d put in a deal of conscientious preliminary work, getting certain girls up to a certain mark, if you understand what I mean. On the appointed night a perfectly dear old thing with two daughters some years older than myself called to take me on to that dance. They’ve known me all my life. They knew me when I’d got golden curls and played with a wool rabbit. They’re no sort of relation, and so they count for the purpose of this competition. Well, I’ve always kissed them when we met, and I kissed them that time as soon as I boarded the car. So when we got to the house where the dance was I was three up and still had fifty-three minutes to go.’
Here Feldane was interrupted by an appeal to the chairman. It was made by his friend Hesseltine, a tall and dark young man, as good-looking as Feldane himself, though of a very different type.
‘Mr Chairman,’ said Hesseltine, ‘before Jimmy goes any further I should like to ask for your ruling. The mother of those two girls is to my certain knowledge sixty-two years of age. I claim that Jimmy cannot score her, as she is above the age of courtship.’
‘Sorry, Mr Hesseltine, but your claim is disallowed. It has been well observed that a man is as old as he feels, but that a woman is rather younger than she doesn’t look. There is no historical instance of any woman being over the age of courtship.’
‘Then I’m pipped,’ said Hesseltine gloomily. ‘Go on, Jimmy.’
‘I kissed four more in the time left me, but one of them told me that she would never speak to me again, and so I can’t count her, though it’s what she always says. I was done by the time limit. You can’t in decency kiss a girl and then do an immediate bunk. You must keep on telling her how maddeningly beautiful she is for a few minutes. Besides, at a dance you can’t always find the girl you want at the moment you want her. Still, I claim a score of six.’
‘The claim is allowed. And what was your sad experience, Mr Hesseltine?’
‘Much the same as Jimmy’s. I went to the same dance. I also played the friends-of-my-childhood, but I could only raise five of them. So Jimmy’s one ahead. If you had disallowed his old lady we should have tied. I might add that, being rather carried away, I got engaged to two different girls in the course of the hour, and though it’s all right now, I don’t monkey with a buzzsaw again. The next kiss problem will find little Bobby seated with the spectators.’
‘Possibly,’ said the chairman, ‘the finesse and experience of riper years will have accomplished more than the attractions of untutored youth. May I interrupt your secretarial duties, Sir Charles?’
Sir Charles laid down his pencil, smiled, and shook his head. ‘This time you must place me also with the spectators,’ he said, and quoted an apt line of Horace.
‘It is seldom that you miss. I wish Mr Harding Pope, that I could say the same of you. What have you done this time to redeem yourself?’
‘What could I do?’ said Mr Pope, with an oratorical gesture. ‘I represent a Nonconformist constituency which is not tolerant of the least laxity in the private life of its member. The mere suspicion that I had taken part in a competition of this kind might end my political career.’
‘Possibly. Failure to take part in the next competition will actually end your career as a member of this club, as you will see if you refer to rule eleven. The club does not regard onlookers as sportsmen. I suppose, Major Byles, since you protested against the problem, that for the first time in your membership you have failed to compete.’
‘That is so, but my protest had very little to do with it. Matter of fact, I had a superstitious idea that it might change my luck if I gave a miss this time.’
‘Then I will turn to Dr Alden. What was your adventure, doctor?’
‘Mine was more a tragedy than an adventure,’ said the doctor. ‘On the evening of Sunday the twelfth, acting on information received, I presented myself at the residence of my married sister. She said that I must have forgotten that she was entertaining the girls of her Tennyson Club that night, and that she had never wanted me less, but that, as I was there, I could stop. I stopped, that being what I had come for. Her suggestion that her husband and myself, the only two males present, should go off to the billiard-room after supper, was negatived by both of us. In accordance with plan I then directed the conversation to the subject of face-powder, condemning it on scientific grounds and maintaining that it deceived nobody. My sister said that it was not intended to deceive, but that as a matter of fact no man would ever detect it unless it had been put on with a shovel. I said that, on the contrary, given a certain condition, any man with a scientific training could detect it with his eyes shut.
‘Several of the girls asked me how. This was not unexpected.
‘I replied that he would only have to touch with his lips a cheek on which there was face-powder and he would know it instantly and infallibly.
‘My sister said she did not believe a word of it.
‘My answer was that I could easily prove it. Let them blindfold me. Then twelve times in succession let a cheek touch my lips. In each case I would state whether or not face-powder had been used, and would employ no other means of detection. I was so certain of it that I would gladly contribute a guinea to the charitable fund of the Tennyson Club for every mistake that I made.
‘My sister said that it was very easy to make an impossible offer that could not be accepted. Somewhat to my surprise the prettiest girl there said that she did not think it an impossible offer at all. It was a scientific experiment and might benefit a very good cause. I would never know the identity of the twelve who took part in the experiment. Its very publicity made it innocuous. But I should have to give them a little time to settle which were the twelve to be sacrificed and the order in which they were to present themselves. To this I at once agreed.
‘I was put in a chair and blindfolded—really blindfolded. I need hardly tell the members of this club that my claim to be able to detect the presence of face-powder in the way indicated was a piece of monumental spoof. This did not alarm me. I could not lose more than twelve guineas, and I was out to win our prize of one hundred and ten pounds. I could assign my mistakes to the fact that I had just smoked a cigarette, thus spoiling the delicacy of my perception.
‘I heard a sound of whispering and suppressed laughter as the girls held their consultation, and then the experiment began in silence, broken only by the rustle of feminine garments. Twelve times in succession I felt a gentle touch upon my lips, and never once did I fail to take advantage of it. I gave six decisions for face-powder and six against, and was just thinking how I would spend the hundred and ten pounds when I heard a roar of laughter. I tore off the bandage and asked what was the matter.
‘As soon as they could speak they told me. The only person that I had kissed on all twelve occasions was my own sister. Sometimes she had touched my lips with her cheek, on which there was face-powder, and sometimes with the back of her hand, on which there was none. And nine times I had been mistaken in my diagnosis. The treasurer of the charitable fund—she was the pretty girl of whom I have spoken—collected the money. Then they all resumed their merriment, and no excuse for my mistakes was ever heard.
‘All things considered, I think I have a fair claim for a consolation prize.’
‘The club does not give prizes of that description,’ said the chairman. ‘But I can offer you our sympathy, which is more valuable than mere money. I will now call upon Mr Quillian.’
Mr Quillian adjusted his pince-nez. ‘I will ask the chairman’s permission to argue that the whole of this competition is null and void, and that the prize should be added to that for the next competition.’
‘I will hear you, Mr Quillian, but you must be brief and to the point. You are not in court now, you know.’
‘If you please, I submit that a kiss has a psychical as well as a physical side, and that kisses for competition purposes are so deficient on the psychical or emotional side that they cannot be considered as kisses in the ordinary sense of the word.’
‘I do not admit that. Possibly the competition kiss does not come up to the standard demanded by a voluptuary like my learned friend, but it is still a kiss. If he kissed this match-box, it would be a kiss and could not be described otherwise, although presumably the emotional side would be absent. Enough of these legal quibbles. I will now ask Mr Matthews if he has been as successful in the part of Lothario as he invariably is in that of Lucullus.’
Mr Matthews, the club epicure, said that a decent upbringing had caused him to fail in a shameful enterprise, and gave his account of it.
He advertised in the name of Mrs Elsmere Twiss, giving an accommodation address, for a companion to an elderly lady. The salary offered was magnificent, and it was intimated that accomplishments would be less valued than youthful charm and an affectionate nature. Applicants were to enclose photographs.
Ten of the applicants—and it is to be feared that they were the ten whose photographs were the most attractive—were given an appointment with Mrs Elsmere Twiss at a West End hotel on a certain day. On the morning of that day Mr Matthews placed himself in the hands of a famous costumier, who had guaranteed to convert him into such an excellent imitation of an old lady that even at close quarters the disguise would not be detected. The costumier spent two hours on effecting a most artistic transformation and then, after submitting himself to the photographer in attendance, Mr Matthew drove off to the hotel. A passer-by who had happened to glance into the cab might have observed a sweet-looking old lady smoking a large cigar.
He now proceeded to interview the selected ten, it being his abominable intention to kiss each applicant as he said good-bye to her.
The first applicant to be brought in from the waiting-room was Miss Grace Porter. Everything went well until the moment came for the affectionate good-bye. But then it chanced that Miss Porter dropped her handkerchief.
Now Mr Matthews had from the nursery upwards been taught habits of politeness, and his decent upbringing now proved his undoing. Forgetting that he was supposed to be an elderly lady and the girl’s prospective employer, he flew to pick up that handkerchief. And as he stooped his hat and wig fell off. For a few awful moments he remained stooping, waiting for Miss Porter’s scream. But no scream came. She had realised that Mrs Elsmere Twiss wore a wig, but not that she was a man. And the tactful Miss Porter had retired from the room.
Mr Matthews was safe, but his nerve was gone. He replaced the hat and wig, and sent a waiter with a message to the remaining applicants.
When Mr Matthews had finished his story two other members narrated how they had conspired together to get the game of kiss-in-the-ring played at a rectory garden party and had failed miserably.
‘Now the only member left,’ said the chairman, ‘is Mr Cunliffe, and as he protested against the problem, and will not have competed——’
‘Pardon me,’ said the sonorous and ecclesiastical voice of the Rev. Septimus Cunliffe. ‘I have not only competed, but I claim to be the winner.’
‘One moment. This is a shock, and some restorative seems indicated.’ The chairman fetched himself a brandy-and-soda from the side-table and resumed. ‘Now, if the reverend gentleman will continue the account of his exploits——’
‘It has pained me to hear to-night aspersions on the character of our admirable Leonard. I admit that when I first heard the problem I was myself inclined to misjudge him. But on examining it more closely I saw that never had he risen to a higher pitch of austere, though cynical, morality. I saw that he intended that this prize should be won by the most high-minded member of the club—by the man whose mind was the least obsessed by thoughts of frivolity or flirtation.’
‘Might I suggest,’ said the chairman, ‘that you should stop throwing bouquets to yourself, and tell us about these ten women that you’ve kissed?’
‘That is precisely my point. Leonard does not say women. He does not say girls. He says females. My aunt is interested in smoke-gray Persian cats. She breeds them and deals in them on behalf of a charity, and you will generally find thirty or forty of them at her house. It is unhygienic to kiss cats, but I kissed ten of them, and my aunt was greatly pleased at this unusual demonstration of affection for her pets. Some of them seemed slightly bored, but not one was offended. When a cat is offended it tells you so. They were of an age for courtship—by males of their own species. Briefly, the cats and I conformed in all respects with the requirements of the problem.’
‘Gentlemen,’ said the chairman, ‘the subtlety of our theologian has overcome you. Our cheque for one hundred and ten pounds will be drawn to the order of Mr Septimus Cunliffe.
‘I will now read out the problem which will next engage your attention. It is entitled “The Free Meal Problem.” It is required within the space of twenty-four consecutive hours to be the guest of one person at breakfast, of another at luncheon, and of a third at dinner, the host being in each case a person whom the competitor has not to his knowledge seen, and with whom he has held no communication previous to the sunrise preceding the meal. No direct request for a meal may be made and no remuneration may be given in return for any meal.
‘The adjudicator will be my learned friend Mr Quillian.’