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

he said, “that the time would come when I would feel a gush of kindly feeling towards Ernie Finch; but, upon my Sam, laddie, if he were here now, I would embrace the fellow. Clasp him to my bosom, dash it!” He fell once more into a reverie. “Amazing, old horse,” he proceeded, “how things work out. Many a time I’ve been on the very point of paying that blighter Grindlay his money, merely to be rid of the annoyance of having him always popping up, but every time something seemed to stop me. I can’t tell you what it was⁠—a sort of feeling. Almost as if one had a guardian angel at one’s elbow guiding one. My gosh, just think where I would have been if I had yielded to the impulse. It was Grindlay blowing in that turned the scale. By gad, Corky my boy, this is the happiest-moment of my life.”

“It might be the happiest of mine,” I said, churlishly, “if I thought I should ever see that one pound two and threepence again.”

“Now, laddie, laddie,” protested Ukridge, “these are not the words of a friend. Don’t mar a moment of unalloyed gladness. Don’t you worry, you’ll get your money back. A thousandfold!”

“When?”

“One of these days,” said Ukridge, buoyantly. “One of these days.”

The Long Arm of Looney Coote

Given private means sufficiently large to pad them against the moulding buffets of Life, it is extraordinary how little men change in after years from the boys they once were. There was a youth in my house at school named Coote. J. G. Coote. And he was popularly known as Looney on account of the vain and foolish superstitions which seemed to rule his every action. Boys are hardheaded, practical persons, and they have small tolerance for the viewpoint of one who declines to join in a quiet smoke behind the gymnasium not through any moral scruples⁠—which, to do him justice, he would have scorned⁠—but purely on the ground that he had seen a magpie that morning. This was what J. G. Coote did, and it was the first occasion on which I remember him being addressed as Looney.

But, once given, the nickname stuck; and this in spite of the fact⁠—seeing that we were caught halfway through the first cigarette and forcefully dealt with by a muscular headmaster⁠—that that magpie of his would appear to have known a thing or two. For five happy years, till we parted to go to our respective universities, I never called Coote anything but Looney; and it was as Looney that I greeted him when we happened upon each other one afternoon at Sandown, shortly after the conclusion of the three o’clock race.

“Did you do anything on that one?” I asked, after we had exchanged salutations.

“I went down,” replied Looney, in the subdued but not heartbroken manner of the plutocrat who can afford to do these things. “I had a tenner on My Valet.”

“On My Valet!” I cried, aghast at this inexplicable patronage of an animal which, even in the preliminary saunter round the paddock, had shown symptoms of lethargy and fatigue, not to mention a disposition to trip over his feet. “Whatever made you do that?”

“Yes, I suppose he never had a chance,” agreed Coote, “but a week ago my man Spencer broke his leg, and I thought it might be an omen.”

And then I knew that, for all his moustache and added weight, he was still the old Looney of my boyhood.

“Is that the principle on which you always bet?” I enquired.

“Well, you’d be surprised how often it works. The day my aunt was shut up in the private asylum I collected five hundred quid by backing Crazy Jane for the Jubilee Cup. Have a cigarette?”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, my Lord!”

“Now what?”

“My pocket has been picked,” faltered Looney Coote, withdrawing a trembling hand. “I had a notecase with nearly a hundred quid, and it’s gone!”

The next moment I was astounded to observe a faint, resigned smile on the man’s face.

“Well, that makes two,” he murmured, as if to himself.

“Two what?”

“Two misfortunes. These things always go in threes, you know. Whenever anything rotten happens, I simply brace myself up for the other two things. Well, there’s only one more to come this time, thank goodness.”

“What was the first one?”

“I told you my man Spencer broke his leg.”

“I should have thought that would have ranked as one of Spencer’s three misfortunes. How do you come in?”

“Why, my dear fellow, I’ve been having the devil of a time since he dropped out. The ass they sent me from the agency as a substitute is no good at all. Look at that!” He extended a shapely leg. “Do you call that a crease?”

From the humble standpoint of my own bagginess, I should have called it an excellent crease, but he seemed thoroughly dissatisfied with it, so there was nothing to do but tell him to set his teeth and bear it like a man, and presently, the bell having rung for the three-thirty race, we parted.

“Oh, by the way,” said Looney, as he left me, “are you going to be at the old Wrykinian dinner next week?”

“Yes, I’m coming. So is Ukridge.”

“Ukridge? Good Lord, I haven’t seen old Ukridge for years.”

“Well, he will be there. And I expect he’ll touch you for a temporary loan. That will make your third misfortune.”

Ukridge’s decision to attend the annual dinner of the Old Boys of the school at which he and I had been⁠—in a manner of speaking⁠—educated had come as a surprise to me; for, though the meal was likely to be well-cooked and sustaining, the tickets cost half a sovereign apiece, and it was required of the celebrants that they wear evening-dress. And, while Ukridge sometimes possessed ten shillings which he had acquired by pawning a dress suit, or a dress suit which he had hired for ten shillings, it was unusual for him to have the two things together. Still, he was