Ukridge Stories, P. G. Wodehouse [books suggested by bill gates txt] 📗

I said. “Author of Grey Myrtles. Mr. Prout,” I went on, as this seemed to make little or no sensation, “is the secretary of the Pen and Ink Club.”

“I’m the secretary of the Warner’s Stores Social and Outing Club,” said Mr. Biggs.

The two secretaries eyed each other warily, like two dogs.

“But what are you doing here?” moaned Mr. Prout, in a voice like the wind in the treetops. “This is a private dance.”

“Nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Biggs, resolutely. “I personally bought tickets for all my members.”

“But there were no tickets for sale. The dance was for the exclusive⁠—”

“It’s perfectly evident that you have come to the wrong hall or chosen the wrong evening,” snapped Miss Ukridge, abruptly superseding Mr. Prout in the supreme command. I did not blame her for feeling a little impatient. The secretary was handling the campaign very feebly.

The man behind the Warner’s Stores Social and Outing Club cocked a polite but belligerent eye at this new enemy. I liked his looks more than ever. This was a man who would fight it out on these lines if it took all the summer.

“I have not the honour of this lady’s acquaintance,” he said, smoothly, but with a gradually reddening eye. The Biggses, that eye seemed to say, were loath to war upon women, but if the women asked for it they could be men of iron, ruthless. “Might I ask who this lady is?”

“This is our president.”

“Happy to meet you, ma’am.”

“Miss Ukridge,” added Mr. Prout, completing the introduction.

The name appeared to strike a chord in Mr. Biggs. He bent forward and a gleam of triumph came into his eyes.

“Ukridge, did you say?”

“Miss Julia Ukridge.”

“Then it’s all right,” said Mr. Biggs, briskly. “There’s been no mistake. I bought our tickets from a gentleman named Ukridge. I got seven hundred at five bob apiece, reduction for taking a quantity and ten percent discount for cash. If Mr. Ukridge acted contrary to instructions, it’s too late to remedy the matter now. You should have made it clear to him what you wanted him to do before he went and did it.”

And with this extremely sound sentiment the honorary secretary of the Warner’s Stores Social and Outing Club turned on the heel of his shining dancing-pump and was gone. And I, too, sauntered away. There seemed nothing to keep me. As I went, I looked over my shoulder. The author of Grey Myrtles appeared to be entering upon the opening stages of what promised to be a painful tête-à-tête. My heart bled for him. If ever a man was blameless Mr. Prout was, but the president of the Pen and Ink Club was not the woman to allow a trifle like that to stand in her way.

“Oh, it just came to me, laddie,” said Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge modestly, interviewed later by our representative. “You know me. One moment mind a blank, then⁠—bing!⁠—some dashed colossal idea. It was your showing me that ticket for the dance that set me thinking. And I happened to meet a bloke in a pub who worked in Warner’s Stores. Nice fellow, with a fair amount of pimples. Told me their Social and Outing Club was working up for its semiannual beano. One thing led to another, I got him to introduce me to the hon. sec., and we came to terms. I liked the man, laddie. Great treat to meet a bloke with a good, level business head. We settled the details in no time. Well, I don’t mind telling you, Corky my boy, that at last for the first time in many years I begin to see my way clear. I’ve got a bit of capital now. After sending poor little Dora her hundred, I shall have at least fifty quid left over. Fifty quid! My dear old son, you may take it from me that there’s no limit⁠—absolutely no limit⁠—to what I can accomplish with fifty o’goblins in my kick. From now on I see my way clear. My feet are on solid ground. The world, laddie, is my oyster. Nothing can stop me from making a colossal fortune. I’m not exaggerating, old horse⁠—a colossal fortune. Why, by a year from now I calculate, at a conservative estimate⁠—”

Our representative then withdrew.

No Wedding Bells for Him

To Ukridge, as might be expected from one of his sunny optimism, the whole affair has long since come to present itself in the light of yet another proof of the way in which all things in this world of ours work together for good. In it, from start to finish, he sees the finger of Providence; and, when marshalling evidence to support his theory that a means of escape from the most formidable perils will always be vouchsafed to the righteous and deserving, this is the episode which he advances as Exhibit A.

The thing may be said to have had its beginning in the Haymarket one afternoon towards the middle of the summer. We had been lunching at my expense at the Pall Mall Restaurant, and as we came out a large and shiny car drew up beside the kerb, and the chauffeur, alighting, opened the bonnet and began to fiddle about in its interior with a pair of pliers. Had I been alone, a casual glance in passing would have contented me, but for Ukridge the spectacle of somebody else working always had an irresistible fascination, and, gripping my arm, he steered me up to assist him in giving the toiler moral support. About two minutes after he had started to breathe earnestly on the man’s neck, the latter, seeming to become aware that what was tickling his back hair was not some wandering June zephyr, looked up with a certain petulance.

“ ’Ere!” he said, protestingly. Then his annoyance gave place to something which⁠—for a chauffeur⁠—approached cordiality. “ ’Ullo!” he observed.

“Why, hallo, Frederick,” said Ukridge. “Didn’t recognise you. Is this the new car?”

“Ah,” nodded the chauffeur.

“Pal of mine,” explained Ukridge to me in a brief aside. “Met him in a pub.”