A Few Quick Ones (19 page)

"Barter?"

"My aunt's butler. He sidled up and asked me out of the side of his mouth if I wanted to clean up big. Well, I had already cleaned up big, but every little bit added to what you've got makes just a little bit more, so I bade the honest fellow speak on, and he said, Tut your shirt on Dogsbody at Kempton this afternoon and fear nothing'.

"It moved me strangely, Corky. Already someone else - a man I met in a pub - had advised this investment, and Barter, I was aware, knew a bit. He follows form assiduously. Such a tip, coming from such a source, seemed to me sent from heaven and I decided to go a buster and wager my entire assets. My only fear, as I took the next train back to town, was that I might arrive at the offices of my selected bookie too late to put the money on. For the negotiations could not, of course, be conducted over the telephone. I am revealing no secret, Corky, when I say that my credit is not good, and I knew that Jim Simms, the Safe Man, on whom I proposed to bestow my custom, would want cash down in advance.

"The time was about twenty to one when I alighted from the train, and as it was the one o'clock race in which Dogsbody was competing, I had to look slippy. But all seemed well, I reached my destination with five minutes to spare, and I was just about to charge in, clutching the fifteen in my hot hand, when the door opened and out came - of all people - a fellow to whom for the past few years I have owed two pounds, three shillings and sixpence for goods supplied. He recognized me immediately, and I don't think I have ever heard anyone bay more like a bloodhound on the trail of aniseed.

'Hey!'" he cried. 'I've been looking for you for years. I would like to take up that matter of my little account, Mr. Ukridge.'

"Well, there was only one thing to do."

"Pay him?"

Of course not. Pay him, indeed! A business man can't fritter away his capital like that, Corky. Strategic retreat seemed to be indicated, and the next moment I was off like a flash, with him after me. And to cut a long story short, when I eventually shook off his challenge, the clocks were pointing to fifteen minutes past one."

"So you weren't able to back Dogsbody?"

"No. And that is what I meant when I paid that marked tribute to my guardian angel, who obviously arranged the whole thing. I was as sick as mud, of course, at the time, but later, when I saw the evening paper, I realized that this quick-thinking angel had had the situation well in hand, I was extremely grateful to him, and do you know what I'm going to do, Corky? I'm going to give a tithe of that fifteen quid to charity."

"What!"

"As a sort of thank-offering. I shall go forth into the highways and byways and seek out three deserving cases and slip them each a shilling."

"Three bob isn't a tithe of fifteen quid."

"It's as near a tithe as makes no matter."

"A tithe is a tenth. You ought to give them ten shillings each."

"Talk sense, old horse," said Ukridge.

I was late getting home that night for one reason and another, and was shocked when I woke next morning to find what the time was. I should have to move swiftly, I saw. I was supposed to be at the Senior Conservative Club at twelve to interview Horace Wanklyn, the eminent novelist, for the Sunday paper which gave me occasional jobs of that sort, and I knew that eminent novelists purse their lips and tap the floor disapprovingly if the dregs of society like myself keep them waiting.

I had just finished a hurried breakfast and was looking about for the umbrella which I kept for occasions like this—nothing makes a better impression than a tightly rolled umbrella—when Bowles, my ex-butler landlord, accosted me in his majestic way.

"Good morning, sir. Mr. Ukridge called shortly after you had left last night."

He spoke with the tender note in his voice which invariably came into it when he mentioned Ukridge's name. For some reason which I had never been able to understand, he had always had a doglike devotion for that foe of the human species.

"Oh, yes?"

"I gave him the umbrella."

"Eh?"

"Your umbrella, sir. Mr. Ukridge informed me that he wished to borrow it. He desired me to give you his cordial good wishes and to tell you that he expected it - I quote his words - just to turn the scale."

It was with a hard, set face that I rang Ukridge's front door bell some twenty minutes later. Making the detour to his lair would render me late for Horace Wanklyn, but that could not be helped.

Informed that he was out at the moment, I was turning away, when I saw him coming along the street. He was wearing the Tupper hat, tilted at a jaunty angle, the Tupper suit, socks, shoes and shirt, and was swinging my umbrella like a clouded cane. I had rarely seen anything so dressy.

He listened to my reproaches sympathetically.

"I know just how you feel, Corky. The good man loves his umbrella. But I will take the greatest care of it, and you shall have it back a thousandfold some time this afternoon. What do you want the damn thing for, anyway? It's not raining."

I explained that I needed it to offset the bagginess of my trousers and the general seediness of my appearance.

I'm interviewing a big pot at the Senior Conservative Club,"

"You are? Why, that's where I'm lunching with my bloke. Who are you interviewing?"

"Horace Wanklyn, the novelist."

He seemed stunned.

"Well, upon my Sam, old horse, this is the most amazing coincidence I ever came across in my puff. It's none other than old Pop Wanklyn who is the bird who wants a tutor for his son. My aunt got matey with him at the last Pen and Ink Club dinner. Gosh, the thing is beginning to develop. We must suck profit from this. Here's what you want to do, laddie. Having extracted his views on whatever subject you are proposing to discuss "

"The Modern Girl."

"Having heard all he has to spill about the Modern Girl, you say 'Oh, by the way, Mr. Wanklyn - '…You don't think you'll be calling him Horace by that time ?"

"No, I don't."

"Mr. Wanklyn, then. 'Oh, by the way, Mr. Wanklyn,' you say, 'my old friend Ukridge tells me he is lunching with you today, and that you are - considering engaging him to ram a bit of education into your ruddy son's ivory skull. You could place the little blister in no better hands. I have known Stanley Ukridge these many years, and I can confidently say -  …And then a lot of guff which I know I can leave to you. Pitch it strong, Corky. Let the golden words come pouring out like honey. Really, this is an uncanny bit of luck. I had an idea all along that I should reap some reward for that kindly impulse of mine."

"What kindly… Oh, you mean the tithe to charity ?"

"That's right."

"When do you start scattering largesse?"

"I have already started. In fact, I've practically finished. Only one deserving case to go now."

"You've done the other two ?"

"Yes. And I don't mind telling you, Corky, that it has left me weak. I hope mine host will not spare the restoratives at lunch, for I need picking up. It was the second deserving case that shattered my aplomb. The first was a cinch. I saw a shabby man standing by a car evidently trying to touch the girl at the wheel. I just walked up, said 'Here, my good man', and slipped a bob into his hand, turning away quickly to escape his thanks. But the next one…!"

Ukridge shivered. He removed George Tupper's hat and mopped his forehead with what I assumed to be one of George Tupper's handkerchiefs.

"Not so good?"

"An ordeal, old horse, nothing less than an ordeal, from which I emerged, as I say, shaken. British Constitution, forsooth!"

"Eh?"

"And She sells sea shells by the sea shore."

"Are you tight?"

"No, but the cop thought I was."

"What cop?"

"It's a long story."

There flitted before my eyes a vision of Horace Wanklyn pacing the floor of the Senior Conservative smoking-room, looking at his watch and muttering "He cometh not," but I thrust it from me. However late I might be for the tryst, I had to probe this mystery of cops, British constitutions and sea shells.

"Get on with it," I said.

Ukridge straightened George Tupper's tie, flicked a speck of dust off the sleeve of George Tupper's coat, and prodded me impressively in the stomach with my umbrella.

Corky," he said earnestly, "the advice I would give to every young man starting out in life is this. If you are going to yield to impulse, be careful before you do so that there isn't a blighter eight feet high and broad in proportion standing behind you. This one, I think, was more like eight feet six."

"Which one?"

"I'm telling you. At the post office. After slipping the shabby man his shilling, I remembered that I was in need of stamps, so—being well able to afford the expenditure - I strolled to that post office at the corner of the Strand to purchase a few. I went in and found only one customer ahead of me at the stamp counter, a charmingly pretty girl of, I should say, the stenographer class. She was putting in a bid for a couple of twopence-halfpennies and, like all girls, was making quite a production of it. You or I, when we feel the urge for stamps, stride up, ask for them, disgorge the needful and stride away again, but girls like to linger and turn the thing into a social occasion. So as I stood there I had plenty of leisure to look about me and take in the various objects by the wayside. Among them was the girl's hand bag, which she had laid on the counter beside her.

"It touched me, laddie. It was one of those pathetic cheap handbags which speak eloquently of honest poverty. Her inexpensive frock also spoke eloquently of honest poverty. So did her hat."

"We can't all pinch our hats."

"My heart ached for the poor little thing. I knew exactly what a girl like that would be getting a week. Just about the three or four quid which you or I would spend on a single dinner at the Ritz."

The idea of Ukridge dining at the Ritz and paying for it took my breath away, and he was able to continue without interruption on my part.

"And I said to myself 'Here is where I do my second good deed of the day'. But this time, Corky, it was to be no matter of a mere shilling. I proposed to enrich her to the extent of a whole quid."

"Golly!"

"You may well say 'Golly!’ But that's me. That is Stanley Ukridge. Lavish, openhanded, not counting the cost where his emotions are stirred. The problem was---"

"How to give it to her ?"

"Exactly. You can't go slipping pretty girls to whom you've never been introduced quids. At least, you can, but it may quite easily give rise to misunderstandings. However, I did not have to muse long, for there was a sudden crash outside in the street and the girl legged it to see what was happening, leaving her bag on the counter. To open it and slip in a Treasury note was with me the work of a moment, and I was just stepping back, feeling that this was a far, far better thing than I had ever done, when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder and there was this eight-feet-six bird. All unknown to me he had lined up behind me in the queue, and I could see at a glance that he was one of those public-minded good citizens who cause so much trouble.

"With a curt 'Gotcher!' he led me out into the street. Resistance was hopeless. The muscles of his brawny arms were strong as iron bands.

" 'Is this your bag, madam?' he asked the girl, who was standing drinking in the wreckage of a couple of taxis. 'I caught this man pilfering its contents. Constable!' said the eight-feet-sixer, addressing the rozzer who was presiding over the scene of the accident, and the rozzer came up.

"Well, there was nothing for it now, of course, but to outline the facts. I did so, and my story was sceptically received. I could see they found it thin. Fortunately at this point the girl, who had been checking up on the bag, uttered a sharp squeal and reported that she was a quid ahead of the game, so my innocence was 'established.

"But not my sobriety. These rozzers don't understand pure altruism. When they find someone shoving quids into the handbags of perfect strangers, only one solution occurs to them. Mercifully, it being earlyish in the day and me rather saving myself up for that lunch with Horace Wanklyn, when I would be able to get it free, it happened that I had not partaken of alcoholic refreshment since the previous night, so when at his request I breathed on the constable, all he drew was the aroma of coffee and eggs and bacon, and it seemed to me that I had shaken him.

"But these cops don't give up easily. They fight to the last ditch. I was compelled to utter in a clear voice the words 'British Constitution' and 'She sells sea shells by the sea shore' and in addition to walk a chalk line obligingly drawn on the pavement by the eight-feet-sixer, who since the girl's revelation had been showing a nasty spirit like that of a tiger cheated of its prey. And it is extremely humiliating for a proud man, Corky, to have to say 'She sells sea shells by the sea shore' and walk a chalk line in front of a large crowd. When at long last I was permitted to pop off, my nervous system was in a state of hash, and the whole episode has left me with the feeling that my next good deed, the concluding one of the series, has got to be an easy one, or I give it a miss."

It proved to be quite an easy one. Even as he spoke, there came shuffling along a ragged individual badly in need of a shave. I saw his eye light up as it fell on the splendour of Ukridge's costume. He asked Ukridge if he felt inclined to save a human life, and Ukridge said yes, if it could be done for sixpence. The ragged individual assured him that sixpence would be ample, it being bread that he was in need of. He had not, he said, tasted bread for some considerable time, and sixpence-worth would set him up nicely.

The money changed hands, and I was a little surprised by the effusiveness of the recipient's gratitude. He pawed Ukridge all over like a long-lost brother. I would not have supposed myself that sixpence justified all that emotion, but if you are fond of bread, no doubt you look on these things from a different angle.

"Touching," said Ukridge, alluding to this osteopathic exhibition.

"Very touching."

"Still, that lets me out. From now on, to hell with the deserving poor! You off?"