“Three
weeks ago. You touched me for a half a crown.”
“Rest
assured that you will be repaid a thousandfold. I feed such sums to the birds.
Three weeks ago, eh? My story begins about then. It was shortly after that that
I met the man in the pub who offered me the position of announcer and master of
ceremonies at the Mammoth Palace of Pugilism in Bottleton East.”
“What
made him do that?”
“He
seemed impressed by my voice. I had just been having a political argument with
a deaf Communist at the other end of the bar, and he said he had been looking
for a man with a good, carrying voice. He told me that there was an unexpected
vacancy, owing to the late incumbent having passed out with cirrhosis of the
liver, and said the job was mine, if I cared to take it. Of course, I jumped at
it. I had been looking out for something with a future.”
“There
was a future in it, you felt?”
“A very
bright future. Think it out for yourself. Although the patrons of an
institution like that are mostly costermongers and jellied-eel sellers, mingled
with these there is a solid body of the intelligentsia of the racing
world—trainers, jockeys, stable lads, touts and what not. They all fawn on the
master of ceremonies, and it would, I anticipated, be but a question of time
before some inside tip was whispered in my ear, enabling me to clean up on an
impressive scale. And so I thanked the man profusely and stood him drinks, and
it was only after he had about six that he revealed where the catch lay. Quite
casually, in the middle of the love feast, he said how much he was looking
forward to seeing me standing in the ring in my soup-and-fish.”
Ukridge
paused dramatically, gazing at me through the pince-nez which he had fastened
to his ears, as always, with ginger-beer wire.
“Soup-and-fish,
Corky?”
“That
upset you?”
“The
words were like a slosh on the third waistcoat button.”
“You
mean you hadn’t got dress clothes?”
“Exactly.
Some months previously, when I was living with my aunt, she had bought me a
suit, but I had long since sold it to defray living expenses. And the man went
on to make it sickeningly clear that a master of ceremonies at the Bottleton
East Mammoth Palace of Pugilism simply could not get by without what the French
call the
grande tenue.
One can see, of course, why this is so. An M.C.
must impress. He must diffuse a glamour. Costermongers and jellied-eel
merchants like to look on him as a being from another and more rarefied world,
and faultless evening dress, preferably with a diamond solitaire in the shirt
front, is indispensable.
“So
that was that. A stunning blow, you will agree. Many fellows would have fallen
crushed beneath it. But not me, Corky. Who was it said: ‘You can’t keep a good
man down’?”
“Jonah,
taunting the whale.”
“Well,
that was what I said to myself. Quickly pulling myself together, I thought the
whole thing out, and I saw that all was not lost. A tie, a celluloid collar, a
celluloid dickey and a diamond solitaire—you can get them for threepence, if
you know where to go—were within my means. The only problem now was securing
the actual suit.” He paused, puffing at his cigar.
II
Next day (Ukridge went on)
I called upon George Tupper at the Foreign Office, full of the will to win. For
the purchase of a second-hand suit of dress clothes it seemed to me that a five
should be ample, and if you catch old Tuppy in a good mood, on a morning when
mysterious veiled women haven’t been pinching his draft treaties, you can often
work him for a flyer.
But the
happy ending was not to be. Tuppy was away on holiday. In my opinion, Corky,
these pampered bureaucrats take too many holidays and I don’t like it. As one
of the people of England, I pay George Tupper his salary, and I expect service.
Still,
there it was. I came away and went round to your rooms, only to find that you
had locked up all your effects. I would’t let this cold, suspicious frame of
mind grow upon me, Corky. It’s bad for the character.
Well,
after that, there was nothing left for me to do but go to The Cedars, Wimbledon
Common and, endeavour to get into my aunt’s ribs. It was not a task to which I
looked forward with a great deal of relish, for we were on distant terms at the
time. In fact, when kicking me out of the house, she had firmly stated that she
never wished to see my ugly face again.
I did
not expect to be effusively welcomed, nor was I. I found her on the point of
departure for the Riviera. The car was actually at the door when I arrived, and
Oakshott, the butler, was assisting her to enter. On seeing me, she sniffed
with a sound like someone tearing a sheet of calico. But she did not actually
bat me over the head with her umbrella, so I got in, too, and we drove off.
My
first move, of course, was to give her the old oil.
“Well,
Aunt Julia,” I began, “you’re looking fine.”
She
said I was looking terrible, and asked what I wanted. “Merely to see you, Aunt
Julia. Simply to assure myself that you continue in good health. A nephew’s
natural anxiety. Still, if you do happen to have a suit of dress clothes on you”
“Why do
you want dress clothes? What has become of the suit I bought you?”
“It is
a long and sad story.”
“I
suppose you sold it.”
“Certainly
not. If you think that of me—”
“I do.”
“In
that case, I have nothing more to say.”
“Then
you had better get out. Tell Wilson to stop the car.” I had no intention of
telling Wilson to stop the car until I had reasoned and pleaded. I did so all
the way to the station, but without avail.
“Ah,
well,” I said, at length abandoning the fruitless discussion. We were standing
on the platform by that time. “Then shall we compound for a five, just to keep
the books straight?”
Her
metallic snort told me that the suggestion had not gone well.
“I
would not dream of giving you money. I know you, Stanley. The first thing you
would do would be to go and gamble with it.”
And so
saying, she got into the train, not even pausing to bestow a farewell kiss, and
I stood there shaking in every limb. A boy with a wheeled vehicle tried to
interest me in buns, sandwiches and nut chocolate, but I scarcely heard him.
Absorbed and distrait, I was examining from every angle the colossal idea which
had just leaped into my mind. It was that word “gamble” that had done it. It is
often that way with me. The merest hint is enough.
One of
the most interesting phenomena of this modern life of ours, Corky, is the
tendency of owners of large houses to convert them for the night, or for as
many nights as they can manage without being raided, into gambling joints. They
buy half a dozen shemmy shoes, some cards and a few roulette wheels and send
out word to the sporting element that the doings are on, and the latter come
surging round in shoals. With the customary rake-off for the house the profits
are enormous.
Why,
then, I was asking myself, should I not, during my aunt’s absence, throw The
Cedars, Wimbledon Common, open to the pleasure-seeking and scoop in a vast
fortune?
I could
detect no flaws in the scheme. Always cautious and prudent, I tried hard to
find some, but without success.
Once or
twice in most lifetimes projects present themselves which the dullest and most
naked eye can spot at sight as pure goose, and this was one of them. It was
that almost unheard-of rarity, a good thing with no strings attached to it.
Of
course, before the venture could become a going concern, there were certain
preliminaries that had to be seen to. It would, for instance, be necessary to
square Oakshott, who had been left in charge of the premises, and even to cut
him in as a partner. For it was he who would have to supply from his savings
the capital required for the initial outlay.
Shemmy
shoes cost money. So do cards. And you cannot obtain a roulette wheel by mere
charm of manner. Obviously, someone would have to do a bit of digging down,
and—I, being, as I have shown, a trifle strapped at the moment—everything
seemed to point to this butler. But I felt confident that I should be able to
make him see that here was his big chance. I had run into him at race meetings
once or twice on his afternoon off and knew him to be well equipped with
sporting blood. A butler, but one of the boys.
I found
Oakshott in his pantry. Dismissing with a gesture the housemaid who was sitting
on his knee, I unfolded my proposition. And a few moments later, Corky, you
could have knocked me down with a feather! That blighted butler would have none
of it. Instead of dancing round in circles on the tips of his toes, strewing
roses from his bowler hat and crying “My benefactor!” he pursed his ruddy lips
and dished out an unequivocal refusal to cooperate.
I
stared at the man, aghast. Then, thinking that he must have failed to grasp the
true inwardness of the thing, with all its infinite promise of money for
pickles, I went over it all again, speaking slowly and distinctly. But once
more all that sprang to his lips was the raspberry.
“Certainly
not, sir,” he said with cold rebuke, staring at me like an archdeacon who has
found a choir boy sucking acid drops during divine service. “Would you have me
betray a position of trust?”
I said
that that was the idea in a nutshell, and he said I had surprised and shocked
him. He then put on his coat, which he had removed in order to cuddle the
housemaid, and showed me to the door.
Well,
Corky, old horse, you have often seen me totter beneath the buffets of Fate,
only to come up smiling again after a brief interval for rest and recuperation.
If you were asked to describe me in a word, the adjective you would probably
employ is “resilient,” and you would be right. I am resilient.
But on
this occasion I am not ashamed to confess that I felt like throwing in the
towel and turning my face to the wall, so terrific had been the blow. I wonder
if you have ever been slapped in the eye with a wet fish? I was once, during a
religious argument with a fishmonger down Bethnal Green way, and the sensation
was almost identical.
I had
been so confident that I had wealth within my grasp. That was what stunned the
soul and numbed the faculties. It had never so much as occurred to me to
associate Oakshott with scruples. It was as if I had had in my possession the
winning ticket in the Irish Sweep and the promoters had refused to brass up on
the ground that they disapproved of lotteries.
III
I left that butler’s
presence a broken man, and for some days went about in a sort of dream. Then I
rallied sufficiently to be able to turn my thoughts, if only languidly, to the
practical issues of life. I started to try to make arrangements for floating a
loan in connection with the purchase of that suit of dress clothes.
But I
was not my old self. Twice, from sheer inertia, I allowed good prospects to
duck down side streets and escape untouched. And when one morning I ran across
Looney Coote in Piccadilly, and said: “Hullo, Looney, old man, you’re looking
fine, can you lend me five?” and he affected to believe that I meant five bob
and paid off accordingly. I just trousered the money listlessly. How little it
all seemed to matter!
You
remember Looney Coote, who was at school with us? As crazy a bimbo as ever went
through life one jump ahead of the Lunacy Commissioners, but rich beyond dreams
of avarice. If he has lingered in your memory at all, it is probably as the
bloke with the loudest laugh and the widest grin of your acquaintance. He
should have been certified ten years ago, but nobody can say he isn’t sunny.
This
morning, however, a cloud was on his brow. He appeared to be brooding on
something.
“I’ll
swear it wasn’t straight,” I heard him utter. “Do you think it could have been
straight?”
“What,
Looney, old man?” I asked. Five bob isn’t much, but one has to be civil.
“This
game I’ve been telling you about.”
He had’t
been telling me about any game, I said and he seemed surprised.
“Haven’t
I? I thought I had. I’ve been telling everybody. I went to one of those
gambling places last night and got skinned, and, on thinking it over, I’m
convinced the game was not on the level.”
The
thought of someone as rich as Looney going to gambling places in which I was
not financially interested caused the old wound, as you may well imagine, to
start throbbing afresh. He asked me what I was snorting about, and I said I
wasn’t snorting, I was groaning hollowly.
“Where
was this?” I asked.
“Down
Wimbledon way. One of those big houses on the Common.”
Corky,
there are times when I have a feeling that I must be clairvoyant. As he spoke
these words, I did not merely suspect that he was alluding to the Auntery. I
knew.