Ukridge Stories - P. G. Wodehouse (e book free reading TXT) 📗

the afternoon of Saturday, September the tenth, two days after my twenty-seventh birthday. For there was that about my first sight of him which has caused the event to remain photographically lined on the tablets of my mind when a yesterday has faded from its page. Not only was our meeting dramatic and even startling, but it had in it something of the quality of the last straw, the final sling or arrow of outrageous Fortune. It seemed to put the lid on the sadness of life.

Everything had been going steadily wrong with me for more than a week. I had been away, paying a duty visit to uncongenial relatives in the country, and it had rained and rained and rained. There had been family prayers before breakfast and bezique after dinner. On the journey back to London my carriage had been full of babies, the train had stopped everywhere, and I had had nothing to eat but a bag of buns. And when finally I let myself into my lodgings in Ebury Street and sought the soothing haven of my sitting room, the first thing I saw on opening the door was this enormous redheaded man lying on the sofa.

He made no move as I came in, for he was asleep; and I can best convey the instantaneous impression I got of his formidable physique by saying that I had no desire to wake him. The sofa was a small one, and he overflowed it in every direction. He had a broken nose, and his jaw was the jaw of a Wild West motion-picture star registering Determination. One hand was under his head; the other, hanging down to the floor, looked like a strayed ham congealed into stone. What he was doing in my sitting room I did not know; but, passionately as I wished to know, I preferred not to seek firsthand information. There was something about him that seemed to suggest that he might be one of those men who are rather cross when they first wake up. I crept out and stole softly downstairs to make enquiries of Bowles, my landlord.

“Sir?” said Bowles, in his fruity ex-butler way, popping up from the depths accompanied by a rich smell of finnan haddie.

“There’s someone in my room,” I whispered.

“That would be Mr. Ukridge, sir.”

“It wouldn’t be anything of the kind,” I replied, with asperity. I seldom had the courage to contradict Bowles, but this statement was so wildly inaccurate that I could not let it pass. “It’s a huge redheaded man.”

“Mr. Ukridge’s friend, sir. He joined Mr. Ukridge here yesterday.”

“How do you mean, joined Mr. Ukridge here yesterday?”

“Mr. Ukridge came to occupy your rooms in your absence, sir, on the night after your departure. I assumed that he had your approval. He said, if I remember correctly, that ‘it would be all right.’ ”

For some reason or other which I had never been able to explain, Bowles’s attitude towards Ukridge from their first meeting had been that of an indulgent father towards a favourite son. He gave the impression now of congratulating me on having such a friend to rally round and sneak into my rooms when I went away.

“Would there be anything further, sir?” enquired Bowles, with a wistful half-glance over his shoulder. He seemed reluctant to tear himself away for long from the finnan haddie.

“No,” I said. “Er⁠—no. When do you expect Mr. Ukridge back?”

“Mr. Ukridge informed me that he would return for dinner, sir. Unless he has altered his plans, he is now at a matinée performance at the Gaiety Theatre.”

The audience was just beginning to leave when I reached the Gaiety. I waited in the Strand, and presently was rewarded by the sight of a yellow mackintosh working its way through the crowd.

“Hallo, laddie!” said Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, genially. “When did you get back? I say, I want you to remember this tune, so that you can remind me of it tomorrow, when I’ll be sure to have forgotten it. This is how it goes.” He poised himself flat-footedly in the surging tide of pedestrians and, shutting his eyes and raising his chin, began to yodel in a loud and dismal tenor. “Tumty-tumty-tumty-tum, tum tum tum,” he concluded. “And now, old horse, you may lead me across the street to the Coal Hole for a short snifter. What sort of a time have you had?”

“Never mind what sort of a time I’ve had. Who’s the fellow you’ve dumped down in my rooms?”

“Red-haired man?”

“Good Lord! Surely even you wouldn’t inflict more than one on me?”

Ukridge looked at me a little pained.

“I don’t like this tone,” he said, leading me down the steps of the Coal Hole. “Upon my Sam, your manner wounds me, old horse. I little thought that you would object to your best friend laying his head on your pillow.”

“I don’t mind your head. At least I do, but I suppose I’ve got to put up with it. But when it comes to your taking in lodgers⁠—”

“Order two tawny ports, laddie,” said Ukridge, “and I’ll explain all about that. I had an idea all along that you would want to know. It’s like this,” he proceeded, when the tawny ports had arrived. “That bloke’s going to make my everlasting fortune.”

“Well, can’t he do it somewhere else except in my sitting room?”

“You know me, old horse,” said Ukridge, sipping luxuriously. “Keen, alert, farsighted. Brain never still. Always getting ideas⁠—bing⁠—like a flash. The other day I was in a pub down Chelsea way having a bit of bread and cheese, and a fellow came in smothered with jewels. Smothered, I give you my word. Rings on his fingers and a tiepin you could have lit your cigar at. I made enquiries and found that he was Tod Bingham’s manager.”

“Who’s Tod Bingham?”

“My dear old son, you must have heard of Tod Bingham. The new middleweight champion. Beat Alf Palmer for the belt a couple of weeks ago. And this bloke, as opulent-looking a bloke as ever I saw, was his manager. I suppose he