As you will have guessed long ago, I was about to enter the commercial world. I was going to sell my Potency Pills to a clientele that would soon be screaming for more and still more. I would sell them individually, one only in each box, and I would charge an exorbitant price.
And the clientele? Where would they come from? How would a seventeen-year-old boy in a foreign city set about finding customers for this wonder-pill of his? Well, I had no qualms about that. I had only to find one single person of the right type and let him try one single pill and the ecstatic recipient would immediately come galloping back for a second helping. He would also whisper the news to his friends and the glad tidings would spread like a forest fire.
I already knew who my first victim was going to be.
I have not yet told you that my father, William Cornelius, was in the Diplomatic Service. He had no money of his own, but he was a skilful diplomat and he managed to live very comfortably on his pay. His last post had been Ambassador to Denmark, and he was presently marking time with some job in the Foreign Office in London before getting a new and more senior appointment. The current British Ambassador to France was someone by the name of Sir Charles Makepiece. He was an old friend of my father's and before I left England my father had written a letter to Sir Charles asking him to keep an eye on me.
I knew what I had to do now, and I set about doing it straight away. I put on my best suit of clothes and made my way to the British Embassy. I did not, of course, go in by the Chancery Entrance. I knocked on the door of the Ambassador's Private Residence, which was in the same imposing building as the Chancery, but at the rear. The time was four in the afternoon. A flunkey in white knee-breeches and a scarlet coat with gold buttons opened the door and glared at me. I had no visiting card, but I managed to convey the news that my father and mother were close friends of Sir Charles and Lady Makepiece and would he kindly inform her Ladyship that Oswald Cornelius Esquire had come to pay his respects.
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I was put into a sort of vestibule where I sat down and waited. Five minutes later, Lady Makepiece swept into the room in a flurry of silk and chiffon. 'Well, well!' she cried, taking both my hands in hers. 'So you are William's son! He always had good taste, the old rascal! We got his letter and we've been waiting for you to call.'
She was an imposing wench. Not young, of course, but not exactly fossilized either. I put her around forty. She had one of those dazzling ageless faces that seemed to be carved out of marble, and lower down there was a torso that tapered to a waist I could have circled with my two hands. She sized me up with one swift penetrating glance, and she seemed to be satisfied with what she saw because the next thing she said was, 'Come in, William's son, and we shall have a dish of tea together and a chat.'
She led me by the hand through a number of vast and superbly appointed rooms until we arrived at a smallish, rather cosy place furnished with a sofa and armchairs. There was a Boucher pastel on one wall and a Fragonard watercolour on another. 'This,' she said, 'is my own private little study. From here I organize the social life of the Embassy.' I smiled and blinked and sat down on the sofa. One of those fancy-dress flunkeys brought tea and sandwiches on a silver tray. The tiny triangular sandwiches were filled with Gentleman's Relish. Lady Makepiece sat beside me and poured the tea. 'Now tell me all about yourself,' she said.
There followed a whole lot of questions and answers about my family and about me. It was all pretty banal but I knew I must stick it out for the sake of my great plan. So we went on talking for maybe forty minutes, with her Ladyship frequently patting my thigh with a jewelled hand to emphasize a point. In the end, the hand remained resting on my thigh and I felt a slight finger-pressure. Ho-ho, I thought. What's the old bird up to now? Then suddenly she sprang to her feet and began pacing nervously up and down the room. I sat watching her. Back and forth she paced, hands clasped together across her front, head twitching, bosom heaving. She was like a tightly coiled spring. I didn't know what to make of it. 'I'd better be going,' I said, standing up.
'No, no! Don't go!'
I sat down again.
'Have you met my husband?' she blurted out. 'Obviously you haven't. You've just arrived. He's a lovely man. A brilliant person. But he's getting on in years, poor lamb, and he can't take as much exercise as he used to.'
'Bad luck,' I said. 'No more polo and tennis.'
'Not even ping-pong,' she said.
'Everyone gets old,' I said.
'I'm afraid so. But the point is this.' She stopped and waited.
I waited, too.
We both waited. There was a very long silence.
I didn't know what to do with the silence. It made me fidget. 'The point is what, madame?' I said.
'Can't you see I'm trying to ask you something?' she said at last.
I couldn't think of an answer to that one, so I helped myself to another of those little sandwiches and chewed it slowly.
'I want to ask you a favour, mon petit garcon,' she said. 'I imagine you are quite good at games?'
'I am rather,' I said, resigning myself to a game of tennis with her, or ping-pong.
'And you wouldn't mind?'
'Not at all. It would be a pleasure.' It was necessary to humour her. All I wanted was to meet the Ambassador. The Ambassador was my target. He was the chosen one who would receive the first pill and thus start the whole ball rolling. But I could only reach him through her.
'It's not much I'm asking,' she said.
'I am at your service, madame.'
'You really mean it.'
'Of course.'
'You did say you were good at games?'