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

a look of gravity. Here was a man, one perceived, who had something on his mind.

“I came here, Mr. Ukridge,” he said, “on a pup-pup-pup-pup-pup⁠—”

“Parish matter?” I hazarded, to help him out.

He shook his head.

“No, a pup-pup-pup⁠—”

“Pleasure-trip?” suggested Ukridge.

He shook his head again.

“No, a pup-pup-pup uncongenial errand. I understand that Miss Ukridge is absent and that you, as her nephew, are, therefore, the presiding genius, if I may use the expression, of these pup-pup-pup festivities.”

“Eh?” said Ukridge, fogged.

“I mean that it is to you that complaints should be made.”

“Complaints?”

“Of what is going on in Miss Ukridge’s garden⁠—one might say under her imprimatur.”

Ukridge’s classical education had been cut short by the fact that at an early age he had unfortunately been expelled from the school of which in boyhood’s days we had been fellow-members, and Latin small-talk was not his forte. This one passed well over his head. He looked at me plaintively, and I translated.

“He means,” I said, “that your aunt lent her grounds for this binge and so has a right to early information about any rough stuff that is being pulled on the premises.”

“Exactly,” said the curate.

“But, dash it, laddie,” protested Ukridge, now abreast of the situation, “it’s no good complaining of anything that happens at a charity bazaar. You know as well as I do that, when the members of a Temperance League get together and start selling things at stalls, anything goes except gouging and biting. The only thing to do is to be light on your feet and keep away.”

The curate shook his head sadly.

“I have no complaint to make concerning the manner in which the stalls are being conducted, Mr. pup-pup-pup. It is only to be expected that at a bazaar in aid of a deserving cause the prices of the various articles on sale will be in excess of those charged in the ordinary marts of trade. But deliberate and calculated swindling is another matter.”

“Swindling?”

“There is a young woman in the grounds extorting money from the public on the plea that it is Buttercup Day. And here is the point, Mr. Ukridge. Buttercup Day is the flag-day of the National Orthopaedic Institute, and is not to take place for some weeks. This young person is deliberately cheating the public.”

Ukridge licked his lips, with a hunted expression.

“Probably a local institution of the same name,” I suggested.

“That’s it,” said Ukridge gratefully. “Just what I was going to say myself. Probably a local institution. Fresh Air Fund for the poor of the neighbourhood, I shouldn’t wonder. I believe I’ve heard them talk about it, now I come to think.”

The curate refused to consider the theory.

“No,” he said. “If that had been so the young woman would have informed me. In answer to my questions, her manner was evasive and I could elicit no satisfactory reply. She merely smiled and repeated the words ‘Buttercup Day.’ I feel that the police should be called in.”

“The police!” gurgled Ukridge, pallidly.

“It is our pup-pup duty,” said the curate, looking like a man who writes letters to the press signed “Pro Bono Publico.”

Ukridge shot out of his chair with a convulsive bound. He grasped my arm and led me to the door.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Corky,” he whispered tensely, dragging me out into the passage, “go and tell her to leg it⁠—quick!”

“Right!” I said.

“You will no doubt find a constable in the road,” roared Ukridge.

“I bet I will,” I replied in a clear carrying voice.

“We can’t have this sort of thing going on here,” bellowed Ukridge.

“Certainly not,” I shouted with enthusiasm.

He returned to the study, and I went forth upon my errand of mercy. I had reached the front door and was about to open it, when it suddenly opened itself, and the next moment I was gazing into the clear blue eyes of Ukridge’s aunt Julia.

“Oh⁠—ah⁠—er!” I said.

There are certain people in this world in whose presence certain other people can never feel completely at their ease. Notable among the people beneath whose gaze I myself experience a sensation of extreme discomfort and guilt is Miss Julia Ukridge, author of so many widely-read novels and popular after-dinner speaker at the better class of literary reunion. This was the fourth time we had met, and on each of the previous occasions I had felt the same curious illusion of having just committed some particularly unsavoury crime and⁠—what is more⁠—of having done it with swollen hands, enlarged feet, and trousers bagging at the knee on a morning when I had omitted to shave.

I stood and gaped. Although she had no doubt made her entry by the simple process of inserting a latchkey in the front door and turning it, her abrupt appearance had on me the effect of a miracle.

“Mr. Corcoran!” she observed, without pleasure.

“Er⁠—”

“What are you doing here?”

An inhospitable remark; but justified, perhaps, by the circumstances of our previous relations⁠—which had not been of the most agreeable.

“I came to see⁠—er⁠—Stanley.”

“Oh?”

“He wanted me with him this afternoon.”

“Indeed?” she said; and her manner suggested surprise at what she evidently considered a strange and even morbid taste on her nephew’s part.

“I thought⁠—we thought⁠—we both thought you were lecturing up north.”

“When I arrived at the club for luncheon I found a telegram postponing my visit,” she condescended to explain. “Where is Stanley?”

“In your study.”

“I will go there. I wish to see him.”

I began to feel like Horatius at the Bridge. It seemed to me that, foe of the human race though Ukridge was in so many respects, it was my duty as a lifelong friend to prevent this woman winning through to him until that curate was well out of the way. I have a great belief in woman’s intuition, and I was convinced that, should Miss Julia Ukridge learn that there was a girl in her grounds selling paper buttercups for a nonexistent charity, her keen intelligence would leap without the slightest hesitation to the fact of her nephew’s complicity in the disgraceful affair. She had had previous experience of Ukridge’s financial methods.

In this crisis I