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

“About me?”

“Yes. He said everything I’ve always felt about you, only far, far better than I could ever have put it.”

Ukridge’s face clouded for a moment, but cheerfulness returned.

“Oh, well, it can’t be helped. He’ll simmer down in a day or two. It had to be done, laddie. Life and death matter. And it’s all right. Read this.”

I took the letter he handed me. It was written in a scrawly hand.

“What’s this?”

“Read it, laddie. I think it will meet the case.” I read.

“ ‘Wilberforce.’ ”

“Who on earth’s Wilberforce?”

“I told you that was Billson’s name.”

“Oh, yes.”

I returned to the letter.

“Wilberforce⁠—

“I take my pen in hand to tell you that I can never be yours. You will no doubt be surprised to hear that I love another and a better man, so that it can never be. He loves me, and he is a better man than you.

“Hoping this finds you in the pink as it leaves me at present,

“Yours faithfully,

“Florence Burns.”

“I told her to keep it snappy,” said Ukridge.

“Well, she’s certainly done it,” I replied, handing back the letter. “I’m sorry. From the little I saw of her, I thought her a nice girl⁠—for Billson. Do you happen to know the other man’s address? Because it would be a kindly act to send him a postcard advising him to leave England for a year or two.”

“The Shoreditch Empire will find him this week.”

“What!”

“The other man is Tod Bingham.”

“Tod Bingham!” The drama of the situation moved me. “Do you mean to say that Tod Bingham is in love with Battling Billson’s girl?”

“No. He’s never seen her!”

“What do you mean?”

Ukridge sat down creakingly on the sofa. He slapped my knee with sudden and uncomfortable violence.

“Laddie,” said Ukridge, “I will tell you all. Yesterday afternoon I found old Billson reading a copy of the Daily Sportsman. He isn’t much of a reader as a rule, so I was rather interested to know what had gripped him. And do you know what it was, old horse?”

“I do not.”

“It was an article about Tod Bingham. One of those damned sentimental blurbs they print about pugilists nowadays, saying what a good chap he was in private life and how he always sent a telegram to his old mother after each fight and gave her half the purse. Damme, there ought to be a censorship of the Press. These blighters don’t mind what they print. I don’t suppose Tod Bingham has got an old mother, and if he has I’ll bet he doesn’t give her a bob. There were tears in that chump Billson’s eyes as he showed me the article. Salt tears, laddie! ‘Must be a nice feller!’ he said. Well, I ask you! I mean to say, it’s a bit thick when the man you’ve been pouring out money for and watching over like a baby sister starts getting sorry for a champion three days before he’s due to fight him. A champion, mark you! It was bad enough his getting mushy about that fellow at Wonderland, but when it came to being softhearted over Tod Bingham something had to be done. Well, you know me. Brain like a buzz-saw. I saw the only way of counteracting this pernicious stuff was to get him so mad with Tod Bingham that he would forget all about his old mother, so I suddenly thought: Why not get Flossie to pretend that Bingham had cut him out with her? Well, it’s not the sort of thing you can ask a girl to do without preparing the ground a bit, so I brought her along to Tuppy’s dinner. It was a masterstroke, laddie. There’s nothing softens the delicately-nurtured like a good dinner, and there’s no denying that old Tuppy did us well. She agreed the moment I put the thing to her, and sat down and wrote that letter without a blink. I think she thinks it’s all a jolly practical joke. She’s a lighthearted girl.”

“Must be.”

“It’ll give poor old Billson a bit of a jar for the time being, I suppose, but it’ll make him spread himself on Saturday night, and he’ll be perfectly happy on Sunday morning when she tells him she didn’t mean it and he realises that he’s got a hundred quid of Tod Bingham’s in his trousers pocket.”

“I thought you said it was two hundred quid that Bingham was offering.”

“I get a hundred,” said Ukridge, dreamily.

“The only flaw is, the letter doesn’t give the other man’s name. How is Billson to know it’s Tod Bingham?”

“Why, damme, laddie, do use your intelligence. Billson isn’t going to sit and yawn when he gets that letter. He’ll buzz straight down to Kennington and ask Flossie.”

“And then she will give the whole thing away.”

“No, she won’t. I slipped her a couple of quid to promise she wouldn’t. And that reminds me, old man, it has left me a bit short, so if you could possibly manage⁠—”

“Good night,” I said.

“But, laddie⁠—”

“And God bless you,” I added, firmly.

The Shoreditch Empire is a roomy house, but it was crowded to the doors when I reached it on the Saturday night. In normal circumstances I suppose there would always have been a large audience on a Saturday, and this evening the lure of Tod Bingham’s personal appearance had drawn more than capacity. In return for my shilling I was accorded the privilege of standing against the wall at the back, a position from which I could not see a great deal of the performance.

From the occasional flashes which I got of the stage between the heads of my neighbours, however, and from the generally restless and impatient attitude of the audience I gathered that I was not missing much. The programme of the Shoreditch Empire that week was essentially a one-man affair. The patrons had the air of suffering the preliminary acts as unavoidable obstacles that stand between them and the headliner. It was Tod Bingham whom they had come to see, and they