“What in front of a whole lot of people?”
“Well, at least you could nod.”
“Oh yes, I could nod.”
“Then that’s settled. Kiss me.”
Their lips met long and lingeringly. Conky came out of the clinch with sparkling eyes and a heightened colour. He raised a hand to heaven.
“How’s that, umpire?” he cried.
“Jolly good show, sir,” said Clarissa.
CHAPTER X
Success Story
TO a man like myself, accustomed to making his mid-day meal of bread and cheese and a pint of bitter, it was very pleasant to be sitting in the grill-room of the best restaurant in London, surrounded by exiled Grand Dukes, chorus girls and the better type of millionaire, and realizing that it wasn’t going to cost me a penny. I beamed at Ukridge, my host, and across the table with its snowy napery and shining silver he beamed back at me. He reminded me of a genial old eighteenth-century Squire in the coloured supplement of a Christmas number presiding over a dinner to the tenantry.
“Don’t spare the caviare, Corky,” he urged cordially.
I said I would’t.
“Eat your fill of the whitebait.”
I said I would.
“And when the porterhouse steak comes along, wade into it with your head down and your elbows out at right angles.”
I had already been planning to do this. A man in the dreamlike position of sharing lunch at an expensive restaurant with a Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge who has announced his intention of paying the score does not stint himself. His impulse is to get his while the conditions prevail. Only when the cigars arrived and the founder of the feast, ignoring the lesser breeds, selected a couple that looked like young torpedoes did I feel impelled to speak a word of warning.
“I suppose you know those cost about ten bob apiece?”
“A bagatelle, laddie. If I find them a cool, fragrant and refreshing smoke, I shall probably order a few boxes.”
I drew at my torpedo in a daze. During the past week or two rumours had been reaching me that S. F. Ukridge, that battered football of Fate, was mysteriously in funds. Men spoke of having met him and having had the half-crowns which they automatically produced waved away with a careless gesture and an amused laugh. But I had not foreseen opulence like this.
“Have you got a job?” I asked. I knew that his aunt, the well-known novelist Miss Julia Ukridge, was always trying to induce him to accept employment, and it seemed to me that she must have secured for him some post which carried with it access to the till.
Ukridge shook his head. “Better than that, old horse. I have at last succeeded in amassing a bit of working capital, and I am on the eve of making a stupendous fortune. What at, you ask? That, laddie it is too early to say. I shall look about me. But I’ll tell you one thing. I shall not become master of ceremonies at an East End boxing joint, which was the walk in life which I was contemplating until quite recently. When did I see you last?”
“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”
“W
hy 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.
I clutched his sleeve. “This house? What was it called?”
“One of those fatheaded names they have out in those parts. The Beeches, or The Weeping Willows, or something.”
“The Cedars?”
“That’s right. You know it, do you? Well, I’ve practically decided to give that nest of crooks a sharp lesson. I’m going—”
I left him. I wanted to be alone, to think; to ponder, Corky; to turn this ghastly thing over in my mind and examine it in pitiless detail … And the more I turned it over and examined it, the more did I recoil in horror from the dark pit int
o which I was peering. If there is one thing that gives your clean-living, clean-thinking man the pip, it is being compelled to realize to what depths human nature can sink, if it spits on its hands and really gets down to it.
For it was only too revoltingly obvious what had happened. That fiend in butler’s shape had done the dirty on me. He stood definitely revealed as a twister of the first order. From the very moment I had started outlining my proposition, he must have resolved to swipe the fruits of my vision and broad outlook. No doubt he had begun putting matters in train directly I left him.
To go and confront him was with me the work of an instant. Well, not exactly an instant, because it’s a long way to Wimbledon and a cab was not within my means. This time he was in my aunt’s bedroom, having apparently decided to move in there for the duration. I found him reclining in an armchair, smoking a cigar and totting up figures on a sheet of paper, and it was not long before I saw that the fourpence which the journey had cost me was going to be money chucked away.
The idea I had had was that on beholding me the man would quail. But he didn’t. I suppose a man like that doesn’t quail. Quailing, after all, is the result of conscience doing its stuff, and no doubt his conscience had packed up and handed in its portfolio during his early boyhood. When I towered over him with folded arms and said “Serpent!” he merely said “Sir?” and took another suck at the cigar. It made it rather difficult to know what to say next.
However, I got down to it, accusing him roundly of having sneaked my big idea and chiselled me out of my legitimate earnings, and he admitted the charge with a complacent smirk. He even—though with your pure mind, Corky, you will find this hard to believe—thanked me for putting him on to a good thing. Finally, with incredible effrontery, he offered me a flyer in full settlement of all claims, saying that one of these days softheartedness would be his ruin.
First, of course, I took a pop at coercing him into a partnership by threatening to inform my aunt, but he waved this away airily by saying that he knew a few things about me too. And that clinched that, because there was a pretty good chance that he did. Then, laddie, I began to speak my mind.