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

its first bloom, was still of an extraordinary richness.

“Great Scott!” I cried, staring at this decoration. “How and when?”

Ukridge drew at his pipe moodily.

“It’s a long story,” he said. “Do you remember some people named Price at Clapham⁠—”

“You aren’t going to tell me your fiancée has biffed you in the eye already?”

“Have you heard?” said Ukridge, surprised. “Who told you I was engaged?”

“George Tupper. I’ve just been seeing him.”

“Oh, well, that saves a lot of explanation. Laddie,” said Ukridge, solemnly, “let this be a warning to you. Never⁠—”

I wanted facts, not moralisings.

“How did you get the eye?” I interrupted.

Ukridge blew out a cloud of smoke and his other eye glowed sombrely.

“That was Ernie Finch,” he said, in a cold voice.

“Who is Ernie Finch? I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s a sort of friend of the family, and as far as I can make out was going rather strong as regards Mabel till I came along. When we got engaged he was away, and no one apparently thought it worth while to tell him about it, and he came along one night and found me kissing her goodbye in the front garden. Observe how these things work out, Corky. The sight of him coming along suddenly gave Mabel a start, and she screamed; the fact that she screamed gave this man Finch a totally wrong angle on the situation; and this caused him, blast him, to rush up, yank off my glasses with one hand, and hit me with the other right in the eye. And before I could get at him the family were roused by Mabel’s screeches and came out and separated us and explained that I was engaged to Mabel. Of course, when he heard that, the man apologised. And I wish you could have seen the beastly smirk he gave when he was doing it. Then there was a bit of a row and old Price forbade him the house. A fat lot of good that was? I’ve had to stay indoors ever since waiting for the colour-scheme to dim a bit.”

“Of course,” I urged, “one can’t help being sorry for the chap in a way.”

“I can,” said Ukridge, emphatically. “I’ve reached the conclusion that there is not room in this world for Ernie Finch and myself, and I’m living in the hope of meeting him one of these nights down in a dark alley.”

“You sneaked his girl,” I pointed out.

“I don’t want his beastly girl,” said Ukridge, with ungallant heat.

“Then you really do want to get out of this thing?”

“Of course I want to get out of it.”

“But, if you feel like that, how on earth did you ever let it happen?”

“I simply couldn’t tell you, old horse,” said Ukridge, frankly. “It’s all a horrid blur. The whole affair was the most ghastly shock to me. It came absolutely out of a blue sky. I had never so much as suspected the possibility of such a thing. All I know is that we found ourselves alone in the drawing-room after Sunday supper, and all of a sudden the room became full of Prices of every description babbling blessings. And there I was!”

“But you must have given them something to go on.”

“I was holding her hand. I admit that.”

“Ah!”

“Well, my gosh, I don’t see why there should have been such a fuss about that. What does a bit of hand-holding amount to? The whole thing, Corky, my boy, boils down to the question, Is any man safe? It’s got so nowadays,” said Ukridge, with a strong sense of injury, “that you’ve only to throw a girl a kindly word, and the next thing you know you’re in the Lord Warden Hotel at Dover, picking the rice out of your hair.”

“Well, you must own that you were asking for it. You rolled up in a new Daimler and put on enough dog for half a dozen millionaires. And you took the family for rides, didn’t you?”

“Perhaps a couple of times.”

“And talked about your aunt, I expect, and how rich she was?”

“I may have touched on my aunt occasionally.”

“Well, naturally these people thought you were sent from heaven. The wealthy son-in-law.” Ukridge projected himself from the depths sufficiently to muster up the beginnings of a faint smile of gratification at the description. Then his troubles swept him back again. “All you’ve got to do, if you want to get out of it, is to confess to them that you haven’t a bob.”

“But, laddie, that’s the difficulty. It’s a most unfortunate thing, but, as it happens, I am on the eve of making an immense fortune, and I’m afraid I hinted as much to them from time to time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Since I saw you last I’ve put all my money in a bookmaker’s business.”

“How do you mean⁠—all your money? Where did you get any money?”

“You haven’t forgotten the fifty quid I made selling tickets for my aunt’s dance? And then I collected a bit more here and there out of some judicious bets. So there it is. The firm is in a small way at present, but with the world full of mugs shoving and jostling one another to back losers, the thing is a potential goldmine, and I’m a sleeping partner. It’s no good my trying to make these people believe I’m hard up. They would simply laugh in my face and rush off and start breach-of-promise actions. Upon my Sam, it’s a little hard! Just when I have my foot firmly planted on the ladder of success, this has to happen.” He brooded in silence for awhile. “There’s just one scheme that occurred to me,” he said at length. “Would you have any objection to writing an anonymous letter?”

“What’s the idea?”

“I was just thinking that, if you were to write them an anonymous letter, accusing me of all sorts of things⁠—Might say I was married already.”

“Not a bit of good.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Ukridge, gloomily, and after a few minutes more of thoughtful silence I left him. I