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

In the interval during which I had been ministering to my stricken friend a certain decorum seemed to have been restored to the proceedings. The conflict had lost its first riotous abandon. Upholders of the decencies of debate had induced Mr. Thomas to resume his gloves, and a pair had also been thrust upon the Battler. Moreover, it was apparent that the etiquette of the tourney now governed the conflict, for rounds had been introduced, and one had just finished as I came in view of the ring. Mr. Billson was leaning back in a chair in one corner undergoing treatment by his seconds, and in the opposite corner loomed Mr. Thomas; and one sight of the two men was enough to tell me what had caused that sudden tremendous outburst of enthusiasm among the patriots of Llunindnno. In the last stages of the round which had just concluded the native son must have forged ahead in no uncertain manner. Perhaps some chance blow had found its way through the Battler’s guard, laying him open and defenceless to the final attack. For his attitude, as he sagged in his corner, was that of one whose moments are numbered. His eyes were closed, his mouth hung open, and exhaustion was writ large upon him. Mr. Thomas, on the contrary, leaned forward with hands on knees, wearing an impatient look, as if this formality of a rest between rounds irked his imperious spirit.

The gong sounded and he sprang from his seat.

“Laddie!” breathed an anguished voice, and a hand clutched my arm.

I was dimly aware of Ukridge standing beside me. I shook him off. This was no moment for conversation. My whole attention was concentrated on what was happening in the ring.

“I say, laddie!”

Matters in there had reached that tense stage when audiences lose their self-control⁠—when strong men stand on seats and weak men cry “Siddown!” The air was full of that electrical thrill that precedes the knockout.

And the next moment it came. But it was not Lloyd Thomas who delivered it. From some mysterious reservoir of vitality Wilberforce Billson, the pride of Bermondsey, who an instant before had been reeling under his antagonist’s blows like a stricken hulk before a hurricane, produced that one last punch that wins battles. Up it came, whizzing straight to its mark, a stupendous, miraculous uppercut which caught Mr. Thomas on the angle of the jaw just as he lurched forward to complete his task. It was the last word. Anything milder Llunindnno’s favourite son might have borne with fortitude, for his was a teak-like frame impervious to most things short of dynamite; but this was final. It left no avenue for argument or evasion. Lloyd Thomas spun round once in a complete circle, dropped his hands, and sank slowly to the ground.

There was one wild shout from the audience, and then a solemn hush fell. And in this hush Ukridge’s voice spoke once more in my ear.

“I say, laddie, that blighter Previn has bolted with every penny of the receipts!”

The little sitting room of Number Seven Caerleon Street was very quiet and gave the impression of being dark. This was because there is so much of Ukridge and he takes Fate’s blows so hardly that when anything goes wrong his gloom seems to fill a room like a fog. For some minutes after our return from the Oddfellows’ Hall a gruesome silence had prevailed. Ukridge had exhausted his vocabulary on the subject of Mr. Previn; and as for me, the disaster seemed so tremendous as to render words of sympathy a mere mockery.

“And there’s another thing I’ve just remembered,” said Ukridge, hollowly, stirring on his sofa.

“What’s that?” I enquired, in a bedside voice.

“The bloke Thomas. He was to have got another twenty pounds.”

“He’ll hardly claim it, surely?”

“He’ll claim it all right,” said Ukridge, moodily. “Except, by Jove,” he went on, a sudden note of optimism in his voice, “that he doesn’t know where I am. I was forgetting that. Lucky we legged it away from the hall before he could grab me.”

“You don’t think that Previn, when he was making the arrangements with Thomas’s manager, may have mentioned where you were staying?”

“Not likely. Why should he? What reason would he have?”

“Gentleman to see you, sir,” crooned the aged female at the door.

The gentleman walked in. It was the man who had come to the dressing room to announce that Thomas was in the ring; and though on that occasion we had not been formally introduced I did not need Ukridge’s faint groan to tell me who he was.

“Mr. Previn?” he said. He was a brisk man, direct in manner and speech.

“He’s not here,” said Ukridge.

“You’ll do. You’re his partner. I’ve come for that twenty pounds.”

There was a painful silence.

“It’s gone,” said Ukridge.

“What’s gone?”

“The money, dash it. And Previn, too. He’s bolted.” A hard look came into the other’s eyes. Dim as the light was, it was strong enough to show his expression, and that expression was not an agreeable one.

“That won’t do,” he said, in a metallic voice.

“Now, my dear old horse⁠—”

“It’s no good trying anything like that on me. I want my money, or I’m going to call a policeman. Now, then!”

“But, laddie, be reasonable.”

“Made a mistake in not getting it in advance. But now’ll do. Out with it!”

“But I keep telling you Previn’s bolted!”

“He’s certainly bolted,” I put in, trying to be helpful.

“That’s right, mister,” said a voice at the door. “I met ’im sneakin’ away.”

It was Wilberforce Billson. He stood in the doorway diffidently, as one not sure of his welcome. His whole bearing was apologetic. He had a nasty bruise on his left cheek and one of his eyes was closed, but he bore no other signs of his recent conflict.

Ukridge was gazing upon him with bulging eyes.

“You met him!” he moaned. “You actually met him?”

“R,” said Mr. Billson. “When I was cornin’ to the ’all. I seen ’im puttin’ all that money into a liddle bag, and then ’e ’urried off.”

“Good lord!” I cried.