The Pothunters - P. G. Wodehouse (free ebook novel .txt) 📗

his energies were mainly devoted to the compilation of a monthly magazine (strictly unofficial) entitled The Glow Worm. This he edited, and for the most part wrote himself. It was a clever periodical, and rarely failed to bring him in at least ten shillings per number, after deducting the expenses which the College bookseller, who acted as sole agent, did his best to make as big as possible. Only a very few of the elect knew the identity of the editor, and they were bound to strict secrecy. On the day before the publication of each number, a notice was placed in the desk of the captain of each form, notifying him of what the morrow would bring forth, and asking him to pass it round the form. That was all. The School did the rest. The Glow Worm always sold well, principally because of the personal nature of its contents. If the average mortal is told that there is something about him in a paper, he will buy that paper at your own price.

Today he was giving his monthly tea in honour of the new number. Only contributors were invited, and the menu was always of the best. It was a Punch dinner, only more so, for these teas were celebrated with musical honours, and Charteris on the banjo was worth hearing. His rendering of extracts from the works of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan was an intellectual treat.

“When I take the chair at our harmonic club!” he chanted, fixing the unconscious Welch with a fiery glance. “Welch!”

“Yes.”

“If this is your idea of a harmonic club, it isn’t mine. Put down that book, and try and be sociable.”

“One second,” said Welch, burrowing still deeper.

“That’s what you always say,” said Charteris. “Look here⁠—Come in.”

There had been a knock at the door as he was speaking. Tony entered, accompanied by Jim. They were regular attendants at these banquets, for between them they wrote most of what was left of the magazine when Charteris had done with it. There was only one other contributor, Jackson, of Dawson’s House, and he came in a few minutes later. Welch was the athletics expert of the paper, and did most of the match reports.

“Now we’re complete,” said Charteris, as Jackson presented himself. “Gentlemen⁠—your seats. There are only four chairs, and we, as Wordsworth might have said, but didn’t, are five. All right, I’ll sit on the table. Welch, you worm, away with melancholy. Take away his book, somebody. That’s right. Who says what? Tea already made. Coffee published shortly. If anybody wants cocoa, I’ve got some, only you’ll have to boil more water. I regret the absence of menu cards, but as the entire feast is visible to the naked eye, our loss is immaterial. The offertory will be for the Church expenses fund. Biscuits, please.”

“I wish you’d given this tea after next Saturday, Alderman,” said Jim. Charteris was called the Alderman on account of his figure, which was inclined to stoutness, and his general capacity for consuming food.

“Never put off till tomorrow⁠—Why?”

“I simply must keep fit for the mile. How’s Welch to run, too, if he eats this sort of thing?” He pointed to the well-spread board.

“Yes, there’s something in that,” said Tony. “Thank goodness, my little entertainment’s over. I think I will try one of those chocolate things. Thanks.”

“Welch is all right,” said Jackson. “He could win the hundred and the quarter on sausage rolls. But think of the times.”

“And there,” observed Charteris, “there, my young friend, you have touched upon a sore subject. Before you came in I was administering a few wholesome words of censure to that miserable object on your right. What is a fifth of a second more or less that it should make a man insult his digestion as Welch does? You’ll hardly credit it, but for the last three weeks or more I have been forced to look on a fellow being refusing pastry and drinking beastly extracts of meat, all for the sake of winning a couple of races. It quite put me off my feed. Cake, please. Good robust slice. Thanks.”

“It’s rather funny when you come to think of it,” said Tony. “Welch lives on Bovril for, a month, and then, just as he thinks he’s going to score, a burglar with a sense of humour strolls into the Pav., carefully selects the only two cups he had a chance of winning, and so to bed.”

“Leaving Master J. G. Welch an awful example of what comes of training,” said Jim. “Welch, you’re a rotter.”

“It isn’t my fault,” observed Welch, plaintively. “You chaps seem to think I’ve committed some sort of crime, just because a man I didn’t know from Adam has bagged a cup or two.”

“It looks to me,” said Charteris, “as if Welch, thinking his chances of the quarter rather rocky, hired one of his low acquaintances to steal the cup for him.”

“Shouldn’t wonder. Welch knows some jolly low characters in Stapleton.”

“Welch is a jolly low character himself,” said Tony, judicially. “I wonder you associate with him, Alderman.”

“Stand in loco parentis. Aunt of his asked me to keep an eye on him. ‘Dear George is so wild,’ she said.”

Before Welch could find words to refute this hideous slander, Tony cut in once more.

“The only reason he doesn’t drink gin and play billiards at the Blue Lion is that gin makes him ill and his best break at pills is six, including two flukes.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Welch, changing the conversation with a jerk, “I don’t much care if the cups are stolen. One doesn’t only run for the sake of the pot.”

Charteris groaned. “Oh, well,” said he, “if you’re going to take the high moral standpoint, and descend to brazen platitudes like that, I give you up.”

“It’s a rum thing about those pots,” said Welch, meditatively.

“Seems to me,” Jim rejoined, “the rum thing is that a man who considers the Pav. a safe place to keep a