Love Among the Chickens, P. G. Wodehouse [top non fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

energy to pack and get off to the country somewhere. I hate London in July.

The letter was a long one, but it was the postscript which interested me most.

“… By the way, at Yeovil I ran into an old friend of ours, Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, of all people. As large as life⁠—quite six foot two, and tremendously filled out. I thought he was abroad. The last I heard of him was that he had started for Buenos Aires in a cattle ship, with a borrowed pipe by way of luggage. It seems he has been in England for some time. I met him in the refreshment-room at Yeovil Station. I was waiting for a down train; he had changed on his way to town. As I opened the door, I heard a huge voice entreating the lady behind the bar to ‘put it in a pewter’; and there was S. F. U. in a villainous old suit of grey flannels (I’ll swear it was the one he had on last time I saw him), with pince-nez tacked on to his ears with ginger-beer wire as usual, and a couple of inches of bare neck showing between the bottom of his collar and the top of his coat⁠—you remember how he could never get a stud to do its work. He also wore a mackintosh, though it was a blazing day.

“He greeted me with effusive shouts. Wouldn’t hear of my standing the racket. Insisted on being host. When we had finished, he fumbled in his pockets, looked pained and surprised, and drew me aside. ‘Look here, Licky, old horse,’ he said, ‘you know I never borrow money. It’s against my principles. But I must have a couple of bob. Can you, my dear good fellow, oblige me with a couple of bob till next Tuesday? I’ll tell you what I’ll do. (In a voice full of emotion). I’ll let you have this (producing a beastly little threepenny bit with a hole in it which he had probably picked up in the street) until I can pay you back. This is of more value to me than I can well express, Licky my boy. A very, very dear friend gave it to me when we parted, years ago⁠ ⁠… It’s a wrench⁠ ⁠… Still⁠—no, no⁠ ⁠… You must take it, you must take it. Licky, old man, shake hands, old horse. Shake hands, my boy.’ He then tottered to the bar, deeply moved, and paid up out of the five shillings which he had made it as an afterthought. He asked after you, and said you were one of the noblest men on earth. I gave him your address, not being able to get out of it, but if I were you I should fly while there is yet time.”

It seemed to me that the advice was good and should be followed. I needed a change of air. London may have suited Doctor Johnson, but in the summer time it is not for the ordinary man. What I wanted, to enable me to give the public of my best (as the reviewer of a weekly paper, dealing with my last work, had expressed a polite hope that I would continue to do) was a little haven in the country somewhere.

I rang the bell.

“Sir?” said Mrs. Medley.

“I’m going away for a bit,” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t know where. I’ll send you the address, so that you can forward letters.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, if Mr. Ukridge calls again⁠ ⁠…”

At this point a thunderous knocking on the front door interrupted me. Something seemed to tell me who was at the end of that knocker. I heard Mrs. Medley’s footsteps pass along the hall. There was the click of the latch. A volume of sound rushed up the stairs.

“Is Mr. Garnet in? Where is he? Show me the old horse. Where is the man of wrath? Exhibit the son of Belial.”

There followed a violent crashing on the stairs, shaking the house.

“Garnet! Where are you, laddie? Garnet!! Garnet!!!!!”

Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge was in my midst.

II Mr. and Mrs. S. F. Ukridge

I have often thought that Who’s Who, though a bulky and well-meaning volume, omits too many of England’s greatest men. It is not comprehensive enough. I am in it, nestling among the G’s:⁠—

“Garnet, Jeremy, o.s. of late Henry Garnet, vicar of Much Middlefold, Salop; author. Publications: The Outsider, The Manœuvres of Arthur. Hobbies: Cricket, football, swimming, golf. Clubs: Arts.”

But if you search among the U’s for Ukridge, Stanley Featherstonehaugh, details of whose tempestuous career would make really interesting reading, you find no mention of him. It seems unfair, though I imagine Ukridge bears it with fortitude. That much-enduring man has had a lifetime’s training in bearing things with fortitude.

He seemed in his customary jovial spirits now, as he dashed into the room, clinging on to the pince-nez which even ginger-beer wire rarely kept stable for two minutes together.

“My dear old man,” he shouted, springing at me and seizing my hand in the grip like the bite of a horse. “How are you, old buck? This is good. By Jove, this is fine, what?”

He dashed to the door and looked out.

“Come on Millie! Pick up the waukeesis. Here’s old Garnet, looking just the same as ever. Devilish handsome fellow! You’ll be glad you came when you see him. Beats the Zoo hollow!”

There appeared round the corner of Ukridge a young woman. She paused in the doorway and smiled pleasantly.

“Garny, old horse,” said Ukridge with some pride, “this is her! The pride of the home. Companion of joys and sorrows and all the rest of it. In fact,” in a burst of confidence, “my wife.”

I bowed awkwardly. The idea of Ukridge married was something too overpowering to be readily assimilated.

“Buck up, old horse,” said Ukridge encouragingly. He had a painful habit of addressing all and sundry by that title. In his schoolmaster days⁠—at one period of his vivid career he and I had been colleagues on the staff of a private