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

a distinctly “object-matrimony” look about the back of his neck, it seemed to me; and the prospect of having to support a Mrs. Ukridge and keep a flock of little Ukridges in socks and shirts perturbed me.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Oh, hallo, laddie!” said Ukridge, turning. “Where did you spring from? If you had come a moment earlier, I’d have introduced you to Dora.” The bus was lumbering out of sight into Piccadilly Circus, and the white figure on top turned and gave a final wave. “That was Dora Mason,” said Ukridge, having flapped a large hand in reply. “She’s my aunt’s secretary-companion. I used to see a bit of her from time to time when I was living at Wimbledon. Old Tuppy gave me a couple of seats for that show at the Apollo, so I thought it would be a kindly act to ask her along. I’m sorry for that girl. Sorry for her, old horse.”

“What’s the matter with her?”

“Hers is a grey life. She has few pleasures. It’s an act of charity to give her a little treat now and then. Think of it! Nothing to do all day but brush the Pekingese and type out my aunt’s rotten novels.”

“Does your aunt write novels?”

“The world’s worst, laddie, the world’s worst. She’s been steeped to the gills in literature ever since I can remember. They’ve just made her president of the Pen and Ink Club. As a matter of fact, it was her novels that did me in when I lived with her. She used to send me to bed with the beastly things and ask me questions about them at breakfast. Absolutely without exaggeration, laddie, at breakfast. It was a dog’s life, and I’m glad it’s over. Flesh and blood couldn’t stand the strain. Well, knowing my aunt, I don’t mind telling you that my heart bleeds for poor little Dora. I know what a foul time she has, and I feel a better, finer man for having given her this passing gleam of sunshine. I wish I could have done more for her.”

“Well, you might have stood her tea after the theatre.”

“Not within the sphere of practical politics, laddie. Unless you can sneak out without paying, which is dashed difficult to do with these cashiers watching the door like weasels, tea even at an A.B.C. shop punches the pocketbook pretty hard, and at the moment I’m down to the scrapings. But I’ll tell you what, I don’t mind joining you in a cup, if you were thinking of it.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Come, come! A little more of the good old spirit of hospitality, old horse.”

“Why do you wear that beastly mackintosh in midsummer?”

“Don’t evade the point, laddie. I can see at a glance that you need tea. You’re looking pale and fagged.”

“Doctors say that tea is bad for the nerves.”

“Yes, possibly there’s something in that. Then I’ll tell you what,” said Ukridge, never too proud to yield a point, “we’ll make it a whisky-and-soda instead. Come along over to the Criterion.”

It was a few days after this that the Derby was run, and a horse of the name of Gunga Din finished third. This did not interest the great bulk of the intelligentsia to any marked extent, the animal having started at a hundred to three, but it meant much to me, for I had drawn his name in the sweepstake at my club. After a monotonous series of blanks stretching back to the first year of my membership, this seemed to me the outstanding event of the century, and I celebrated my triumph by an informal dinner to a few friends. It was some small consolation to me later to remember that I had wanted to include Ukridge in the party, but failed to get hold of him. Dark hours were to follow, but at least Ukridge did not go through them bursting with my meat.

There is no form of spiritual exaltation so poignant as that which comes from winning even a third prize in a sweepstake. So tremendous was the moral uplift that, when eleven o’clock arrived, it seemed silly to sit talking in a club and still sillier to go to bed. I suggested spaciously that we should all go off and dress and resume the revels at my expense half an hour later at Mario’s, where, it being an extension night, there would be music and dancing till three. We scattered in cabs to our various homes.

How seldom in this life do we receive any premonition of impending disaster. I hummed a gay air as I entered the house in Ebury Street where I lodged, and not even the usually quelling sight of Bowles, my landlord, in the hall as I came in could quench my bonhomie. Generally a meeting with Bowles had the effect on me which the interior of a cathedral has on the devout, but tonight I was superior to this weakness.

“Ah, Bowles,” I cried, chummily, only just stopping myself from adding “Honest fellow!” “Hallo, Bowles! I say, Bowles, I drew Gunga Din in the club sweep.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Yes. He came in third, you know.”

“So I see by the evening paper, sir. I congratulate you.”

“Thank you, Bowles, thank you.”

“Mr. Ukridge called earlier in the evening, sir,” said Bowles.

“Did he? Sorry I was out. I was trying to get hold of him. Did he want anything in particular?”

“Your dress-clothes, sir.”

“My dress-clothes, eh?” I laughed genially. “Extraordinary fellow! You never know⁠—” A ghastly thought smote me like a blow. A cold wind seemed to blow through the hall. “He didn’t get them, did he?” I quavered.

“Why, yes, sir.”

“Got my dress-clothes?” I muttered thickly, clutching for support at the hatstand.

“He said it would be all right, sir,” said Bowles, with that sickening tolerance which he always exhibited for all that Ukridge said or did. One of the leading mysteries of my life was my landlord’s amazing attitude towards this hellhound. He fawned on the man. A splendid fellow like myself had to go about in a