Read Online Stiff Upper Lip by Lawrence Durrell - Free Book Online Page A

lower impulses. Just the sight of that blasted Toby Imhof, just the sight of him … and I sloughed the upbringing of a lifetime. But I was right. You will agree, I am sure.”
    â€œImhof,” I cried. “Not my favourite Press Officer?”
    Antrobus snarled and beat the air. Between clenched teeth he said: “The very same. Tobias Imhof Esquire, late of H.M. Foreign Service, now Supreme Director of Inspirational Advertising. If you had seen him as I did, stepping out of his mother-of-pearl inlaid Rolls Royce with red satin upholstery.… Dressed, old man, in a Magdalen blazer and a straw boater with the Roedean colours and a Rifle Brigade scarf.… By heavens, you would have done as I did. The car had fake Imhof arms on it, too, with a sort of device: a loofah with ringworm gules with reversed nylons. I shook with rage as I saw him lounge into the Ritz and remembered all that I had suffered from him.”
    â€œYou are rather hard on Toby,” I said. “After all, he lent some colour to the service if nothing else. Maybe he wasn’t quite suited for the higher diplomacy.…”
    â€œNothing became him like his leaving of it,” said Antrobus tartly. “But that is not the point. The savage blow I struck this afternoon had nothing to do with that. I did it on behalf of decent folk everywhere. Toby with his infernal advertising has been within an ace of smirching The Times these last months. The Times, old cat’s paw, The Times! I tell you that top people everywhere have been teetering, practically titubating. You yourself have doubtless been among them, a silent witness, wondering whether a switch to the Telegraph wasn’t all that was left.”
    â€œI’ve been abroad.”
    â€œAh! That is why. Then I owe you some explanation of my conduct. It had nothing to do with the fake arms either: a lot of people grew fake armorial bearings in Vulgaria I remember. The De Mandeville escutcheon, if I am not mistaken, bore a couple of plants reclining gules on a sable background with the legend Experimentia Docet. His chauffeur who was private school maintained that this meant ‘Asparagus Conquers All’. But no. The case of Toby was darker. He had become a National Danger. Listen, I don’t have to tell you what The Times means to us all, and most particularly to us poor chaps up in the Office, grinding along day by day, Broken on the Wheel? Of course I don’t. When you get off the bus on a winter morning feeling the nip in the air and hurry towards the office you know it will be there, waiting for you. You get your keys. You ascend. There it lies, neatly folded on your desk. You settle yourself, having taken off your goloshes, and unfold it, warming your toes the while at the gas-fire. At once you feel the ordered familiarity of things seeping into you. That vital quarter of an hour before you address your papers is worth a rest cure in itself, just you and The Times, alone there. Softly tiptoeing through the Personals as you tone up the cortex: reassuring yourself that the solar system is still right side up, so to speak! I trust I don’t exaggerate.”
    â€œOf Course Not.”
    â€œThere they all are, old and tried companions, remaining unchanged in a changing world. Little Gem Mouflet, for instance, dancing away every day in private, ready to give one confidence. Dear little Gem, how does she do it? I have often meant to drop in and ask her to teach me the Conga, but somehow never found the time. Then those Americans advertising madly for rhinoceros horns and renovated harmoniums (authentic). Then those neat exchanges of Bible quotations and code messages. ‘Meet you under the clock at Victoria, Pip. Bring it with you.’ Bring what? One wonders. Often I have had a mind to turn up at Victoria out of curiosity just to see what Pip would bring, but somehow one is too rushed. Then further down one comes upon the religious zealots