Scoop-Evelyn-Waugh [26]
Nobody knew exactly at what time or through what channels word went round the Hotel Liberty that Shumble had got a story. William heard it from Corker who heard it from Pigge. Pigge had guessed it from something odd in Shumble's manner during dinner � something abstracted, something of high excitement painfully restrained. He confided in Whelper, "He's been distinctly rummy ever since he came back from the station. Have you noticed it?" "Yes," said Whelper. "It sticks out a mile. If you ask me he's got something under his hat." "Just what I thought," said Pigge gloomily. And before bedtime everyone in the hotel knew it. The French were furious. They went in a body to their Legation. "It is too much," they said. "Shumble is receiving secret information from the Government. Hitchcock of course is pro-British and now, at a moment like this, when as Chairman of the Foreign Press Association he should forward our protest officially to the proper quarter, he has disappeared." "Gentlemen," said the Minister. "Gentlemen. It is Saturday night. No Ishmaelite official will be available until noon on Monday." "The Press Bureau is Draconic, arbitrary and venal; it is in the hands of a clique; we appeal for justice." "Certainly, without fail, on Monday afternoon ..." "We'll stay awake in shifts," said Whelper, "and listen. He may talk in his sleep." "I suppose you've searched his papers?" "Useless. He never takes a note..."
Paleologue threw up his hands hopelessly. "Have his boy bring you his message on the way to the wireless station." "Mr. Shumble always take it himself." "Well go find out what it is. I'm busy ..."
Shumble sat in the lounge radiating importance. Throughout the evening everyone in turn sat by his side, offered him whisky and casually reminded him of past acts of generosity. He held his own counsel. Even the Swede got wind of what was going on and left home to visit the hotel. "Schombol," he said, "I think you have some good news, no?" "Me?" said Shumble. "Wish I had." "But forgive me please, everyone says you have some good news. Now I have to telegraph to my newspapers in Scandinavia. Will you please tell me what your news is." "I don't know anything, Erik." "What a pity. It is so long since I sent my paper any good news." And he mounted his motorcycle and drove sadly away into the rain.
At a banquet given in his honour Sir Jocelyn Hitchcock once modestly attributed his great success in life to the habit of "getting up earlier than the other fellow." But this was partly metaphorical, partly false and in any case wholly relative, for journalists are as a rule late risers. It was seldom that in England, in those night-refuges they called their homes, Shumble, Whelper, Pigge or Corker reached the bathroom before ten o'clock. Nor did they in Jacksonburg, for there was no bath in the Hotel Liberty; but they and their fellows had all been awake since dawn. This was due to many causes � the racing heart, nausea, dry mouth and smarting eyes, the false hangover produced by the vacuous mountain air; to the same symptoms coming from genuine hangover, for, with different emotions, three of them had been drinking deeply the evening before in the anxiety over Shumble's scoop; but more especially to the structural defects of the building. The rain came on sharp at sunrise and every bedroom had a leak somewhere in its iron ceiling. And with the rain and the drips came the rattle of Wenlock Jakes's typewriter, as he hammered away at another chapter of Under the Ermine. Soon the bleak passages resounded with cries of "Boy!" "Water!" "Coffee!" As early arrivals Shumble, Whelper and Pigge might, like the Frenchmen, have had separate rooms, but they preferred to live at close quarters and watch one another's movements. The cinema men had had little choice. There were two rooms left; the Contacts and Relations Pioneer Co-ordinating Director occupied one; the rest of the outfit had the other. "Boy!" cried Corker, standing barefoot in a dry spot at the top of the stairs. "Boy!" "Boy!" cried Whelper. "Boy!" cried the Frenchmen. "It is formidable. The types attend to no one except the Americans and the English." "They have been bribed. I saw Shumble giving money to one of the boys yesterday." "We must protest." "I have protested." "We must protest again. We must demonstrate." "Boy! Boy! Boy!" shouted everyone in that hotel, but nobody came. In the annex, Sir Jocelyn Hitchcock slipped a raincoat over his pyjamas and crept like a cat into the bushes.