UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
The Pied Piper
By JUDITH JARVIS (Newnham College, Cambridge.)
66S this your first visit to Europe?" asked Anthony Eden. i We had privately nicknamed him Anthony Eden as he stood on the platform at Southampton, tall, grey-haired and distinguished in his statesman's overcoat and Homburg, lighting a pipe. And now here he was in our compartment, being- efficient with porters, and casting quizzical eyes at the New York labels on our baggage. " That's right," said Helen, with a touch of complacency; and we leaned back, wondering whether, despite all we'd been told, it wasn't perhaps perfectly usual after all to talk with strangers on British trains.
" Really ? Are you staying in London ? " he asked, with a slight smile. Helen ignored my warning flash and answered, in a carefully casual voice, that we were going to Cambridge in October, but that in the meanwhile a friend was loaning us her apartment in Chelsea. " Chelsea ? " said Anthony Eden in an appreciative kind of voice. " I suppose you're looking for some genuine old-world London atmosphere, eh ? " That, as a matter of fact, was just what we were looking for, but we laughed lightly; no, we simply wanted somewhere that was cheap and fairly near town, nothing arty.
" I'm afraid that you won't find very much that's—er-----arty about Chelsea nowadays," he said sadly. " I live not far from there myself, in South Kensington, and I must say there's not very much of the old atmosphere left. It's all very normal now, you know; very slow, very respectable—you'll probably find it dull."
" Oh, do you really think so ? " said Helen. " That's rather a pity. But then perhaps it's just as well, at that." And with these motherly sentiments to console us, we sat hoping that Anthony Eden would start telling us something about the old days in Chelsea—some wild stories, perhaps, of his life as a gay young ,blade in the 'twenties, or even some romantic legends from the 'nineties about Whistler, Du Maurier and Oscar Wilde. But no, it seemed that his life must have been a pretty staid one, or else he was a man of discretion; for from that point until the train pulled into London he did nothing but assure us how dreary and slow life was in England. When we left him at Waterloo, with the usual exchange of addresses and 'phone-numbers and the usual promises to call each other up, Helen and I were more depressed than we'd been since we left New York.
A few days later, ensconced up two flights of uncarpeted stairs in our friend's minute, charming apartment, overlooking, the river from what we later found was the unfashionable end of Cheyne Walk, we both felt considerably happier. So far there had been no signs of the famous London fogs and summer rainstorms; we had hot and cold water without the traditional " geyser "; and our only neighbour was a dark, beaded woman who wrote oriental mystery stories as a hobby and was hardly ever in. Gaily we explored London on the big red omnibuses; and it wasn't until the second week, when it started to rain, that we remembered what Anthony Eden had said.
We remembered it particularly after breakfast one grey morning, when the rain looked as if it had set in for the day. Helen was crouched on the hearth-rug, trying to light the patent stove, and I was turning the pages of our guide-book, trying to find some place to visit that was likely to be warm and dry. And then, in the words of The Wind in the Willows, the pattering began. It seemed to come from the closet by the fireplace—a busy, scuffling noise, like someone drumming his fingers inside a half-empty bag of potato-crisps. It was quite loud. " Listen ! " said Helen. " What do you think it can be ? " I said. " It sounds like rats," she said. We listened. Then the spell broke. " Rats ! " shrieked Helen, and jumped back from the hearth-rug. I dropped the guide-book with a clatter. At that there was a tremendous flurry of scuffling in the closet, and then silence.. Helen and I glanced at each other. " I suppose we'd better have a look," she said shakily. We tiptoed to the door of the closet, and very slowly opened it. On the floor inside was a mess of crumpled paper, and the end of a brown loaf, half gnawed away. We slammed the door shut, and trier! to fit the catch; but it wouldn't fasten, so I jammed it with a stack of books. Then we both sat down.
" Hadn't we better 'phone an exterminator to deal with those rats ? " she asked. " Let's do that," I said: and we collected the 'phone-books from the desk. After making two vain searches under Exterminator and Rat, we found the number of a rodent destructionist. He promised, in a cheerful Cockney accent, to come as soon as he could. Until then there was nothing we could do, he said, but wait.
The rodent destructionist., or his employee, was a stout, red- faced man wearing big horn-rimmed spectacles and carrying a small suitcase. We pointed out the closet to him, and he instructed us to move back the furniture from that side of the room. On the hearth-rug he unpacked the contents of his suitcase—a series of rods and small brushes, a length of rubber tubing, an atomiser, several break-back snares, some sheets of tinplate, a hammer and a bag of nails, a gimlet, a keyhole saw, a magnifying glass, a large canvas bag. a coil of copper wire and a varied assortment of flat round tins and bottles marked poison. Then he opened the door of the closet and set to work, probing and scraping and tapping and peering, sawing and boring holes, and now and then pausing to make notes in a small black book. At last, he stood up.
" What you've got, young ladies, is a family of rats. If it was one or two, I'd say set a couple of traps. If the cupboard wasn't so open, I'd say put down some poisoned food; and if you hadn't got wood floors and skirtings, now, I'd say batten them down and let them starve to death." He chuckled. " No, I'll have to use the powder, I'm afraid, and that's a two-month job." Before we could say anything he was, back at the closet, working away again. He was there for about twenty minutes, busy with one after another of the curious implements of his trade. Finally, he shut the door, replaced the stack.of books, and started to pack up his tools.
" I'll be back next week, young ladies, to see how things are going. But perhaps you'd like to have my bill while I'm here." With the aid of the small black notebook, he made out the account, folded it and handed it to me. I was just about to examine it when the telephone rang. " I'll take it," I said, as Helen prepared to show the rodent destructionist down the stairs. I picked up the receiver. A voice said " Would you mind replacing your receivers—all your receivers ? " " But we've only got one receiver," I said. " All your receivers, that's right," said the voice. " Aw, nuts," I said, and hung up. I had just looked at the rodent destruc- tionist'S bill. It was for seven guineas.
" Well, at least we shall get rid of the rats," said Helen when I told her the news. " And after all, if it's a two-month job . . . " She broke off. Someone was ringing the front-door bell. " If that's the Pied Piper," I said, " I'm going to give him a piece of my mind."
But it wasn't the rodent destructionist: it was our old friehd Anthony Eden. As he followed me up the stairs I began tell- ing him our woeful tale. He blinked a little, and crossed to the closet. He opened the door, and, stooping down, picked up something from the darkness inside. " Rats ? " he said. " Did he tell you they were-rats ? " We nodded. " Well," he said, " of course I can't say for certain, but this looks to the lay eye very like a common-or-garden mouse." And he showed us the thing he had picked up from the floor.
" I shouldn't bother about paying that bill," he went on. "As a matter of fact we've had a lot of cases of this sort of thing recently, and I wondered about it as soon as you told me. And now let's come out for some lunch. We can buy some mouse-traps on our way. That is if you don't object to having lunch with an old buffer like myself. I don't know why it is, but some people always seem to imagine there's something glamorous about working for the police. Still, lunch may help to relieve the monotony."
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