A Few Quick Ones (18 page)

And waggling gaily he sent a snorter screaming down the fairway, to come to rest within comfortable distance of the green.

"Ha!" he said with satisfaction. "I don't want that one back and, for your information, there are lots more where that came from."

I could see that Walter was shaken. He had not budgeted for this sensationally abrupt switch in the orderly run of things. To him, I should imagine, it was as though George Porter had risen from the tomb. His lower jaw, as he teed up his ball, was drooping quite perceptibly. He drove weakly, and his ball fell into the rough.

"My dear fellow, oh my dear fellow!" said Cosmo Botts. "Let me tell you where you went wrong there. You made the mistake so many high handicap men make, of neglecting to pivot properly. Your hips were locked, and as a result the entire body was tense and awkward. When a full back swing is taken under such conditions, the head will necessarily be pulled away from the fixed position in which it should remain throughout the swing."

I heard Walter draw a deep breath.

"Or do you think Elves In The Sunshine would be a better title?" said Mrs. Botts.

An ominous quiver ran through Walter's frame, and I hastened to administer first aid.

"Socks, Walter!"

He stood for an instant rigid. Then he relaxed. "Socks it is," he whispered.

'The position as I see it," said George Porter some minutes later, "is that I am two down ..."

"Now one down," he added, a few minutes after that.

"And now," he said, another interval having elapsed, "all square. Tough luck on you, foozling that chip shot."

The chip shot to which he referred had been a simple one of about twenty feet from a good lie, and Walter would undoubtedly have made it successfully, had not a sudden strangled sound proceeding from his caddy caused him to jump convulsively and top. He now turned to the child, swelling like a balloon, and once more I sprang into the breach.

"Socks, Walter!"

There was fine stuff in Walter Judson. With an effort painful to watch he controlled himself.

"My dear little fellow," he said gently, "you will not be offended if I ask you to try not to make those funny noises while I am playing a shot? They disturb concentration."

The lad explained that he had got the hiccups, and Walter nodded understandingly.

"Too bad," he said. "I think, if I were you, I would trot off and consult my medical adviser. These things are serious, if neglected. I can carry my bag for the rest of the way."

As the stripling withdrew, I observed Ponsford Botts shaking like a jelly, his invariable habit when a story was coming to the surface.

"Talking of hiccups," he said, "have you heard the one about the two Scotsmen ?"

Cosmo pursed his lips.

"Are you going to do Scottish dialect ?"

"Certainly."

"I wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Apt to make the nose bleed."

"Nonsense," said Ponsford Botts, and began. But Cosmo was right. No man can tell with impunity a story involving both Scottish dialect and hiccups. The end is inevitable. Scarcely had he reached the second "Och, mon" when he was obliged to hurry off to the clubhouse, accompanied by what Walter would have called his loved ones, a handkerchief to his face. As Cosmo's "I told you so" died away in the distance, I saw a strange new light come into Walter's eyes. It needed no words to tell me what was in his mind. Now, he was saying to himself, he would be able to glue his attention to the game with no distractions in the way of pixies, elves, Scotsmen, hiccups and criticism of his method of playing his shots. All square, with six holes to go and only a vegetarian teetotaller to beat...I could see that he was regarding victory as within his grasp.

And such was the fury of his whirlwind onslaught that he won the thirteenth and fourteenth with ease. But then he struck one of those bad patches which come to all golfers, taking an eight on the fifteenth and on the sixteenth a nine. And as George Porter, with his steady game, took sevens, they came to the seventeenth all square once more. Here, recovering, Walter contrived to halve, and everything rested now on what fate held in store for the final spasm.

The eighteenth was a short hole, and even the sort of golfers who played for the President's Cup seldom found any difficulty in reaching the green with their second. Both men were on with nice twos, but whereas George was a dozen feet away, some Act of God had deposited Walter's ball a mere matter of inches from the cup.

"And now," said Walter, when George Porter, valiant to the last, had laid a steady approach putt dead, "the mere formality of stuffing it in."

There are several putting methods in vogue among the lower classes of golf - to name but three, the Sitting Hen, the Paralytic Crouch and the Lumbago Stoop.

Walter favoured the sitting hen. And he had lowered himself into position and was addressing his ball, when Cosmo Botts, who with Mrs. Botts and Angela had returned from ministering to Ponsford Botts, said "One moment, my dear fellow."

Walter straightened himself, and gave him a hard look.

"Yes?"

"No, never mind," said Cosmo. "I was forgetting that spectators must not give advice to players. Criticism after the shot, yes, advice before it, no. I was only going to tell you that you were doing it all wrong. Carry on, my dear fellow, carry on."

Walter gave him another hard look, and lowered himself again. And just as he brought the clubhead down, Mrs. Botts uttered a piercing shriek.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, as the ball, struck with a violence which would have been more suitable to the tee than to the putting green, disappeared into a distant bunker. "I didn't want to disturb you, but there was a dear little beetle just in front of your ball, and I was so afraid you would give it a nasty bang."

Rising from the Sitting Hen position is as a rule a slow process, reminiscent of a contortionist unscrambling himself after a difficult trick, but Walter seemed to accomplish it in a flash. One moment, he was tied in an apparently inextricable knot, the next, drawn to his full height, his face crimson, his eyes rolling, the sound of his breathing like that of two Scotsmen having hiccups in a Ponsford Botts story. One glance was sufficient to tell me that now was the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

"Socks, Walter!" I cried hastily.

"Socks be blowed!" he retorted, and brushing me aside began to speak.

His voice was clear and audible, and I heard Angela give a sharp gasp. And unquestionably what he was saying was a nature to make any girl gasp sharply.

It was a sort of general critique, expressed with fearless frankness, of Mrs. Lavender Botts's manners, morals, intelligence and appearance, together with those of her son Cosmo Botts. And saddened though I was that at the eleventh hour this disaster should have occurred, I could not but admire his choice of words. Long before he had reached his peroration, Mrs. Botts, Cosmo at her side, was racing for the clubhouse with ashen face.

Deprived of their society, Walter filled in with a little soliloquizing. And then suddenly it was as if he had awakened from a trance. His shoulders sagged. The putter slipped from his grasp.

He had seen Angela.

"Oh, hullo," he said dully. "You back?"

"I have been here some time," said Angela.

He nodded sombrely. "Were you listening, by any chance?"

"I was."

"Then you realize now the sort of man I am. A…what's the expression ?"

"Fiend in human shape?"

"That's right. Fiend in human shape."

"Just the kind of fend I like," said Angela. He stared incredulously.

"You mean you don't recoil from me in horror?"

"Not by a jugful," said the girl, and even from where I stood I could see the lovelight in her eyes. "I admire you intensely. It was about time some outspoken he-man came along and told Aunt Lavender and my cousin Cosmo where they got off. My only regret is that Uncle Ponsford was not present, so that you could have informed him what you think of his dialect stories. Oh, Walter, do you know that I was seriously considering taking my little hammer and breaking the engagement because you seemed such a poor fish? The way you kept telling Aunt Lavender how much you admired her books and asking her if she worked regular hours or waited for an inspiration. And that hearty laughter of yours every time Uncle Ponsford told the story of the two costermongers who went to Heaven. And your habit of thanking Cosmo for his advice, when the sort of man I wanted to marry would have hit him with a blunt instrument. Can you wonder that I was revolted?"

I felt it only right to put in a word.

"He did it for your sake. He thought you would prefer him not to disembowel your close relatives."

"Yes, I see that now. My eyes are opened."

Walter, who had been gulping like a bull-pup trying to swallow a bone too large for its thoracic cavity, contrived to speak.

"Let's get this straight," he said. "It is agreed, I think, that I am a fiend in human shape?"

"And by no means the worst of them."

"But…and this is where I want you to follow me very closely…you have no objection to fiends in human shape ?"

"Not the slightest."

"Odd," said George Porter, who had holed out and joined our little group, "most girls dislike them. It was because she considered I was one when I criticised her way of cooking parsnips that there was this rift within the lute between Mabel and myself. Rift within lute all mended now, I am glad to say. She has admitted that she is weak on parsnips. All of which goes to show…"

"You keep out of this, George Porter," said Walter. He turned to Angela again. "Then you wouldn't object if we set the joy bells ringing - say a week from next Wednesday?"

"I should enjoy it above all things,"

Walter clasped her to his bosom, using the inter-locking grip, and for some little time they carried on along those lines. Then, gently disengaging herself, she took his arm and led him away. And George Porter and I went off to the clubhouse and split an orange juice.

9

A Tithe for Charity

THE rumour, flying to and fro over the London grapevine, that Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, that chronically impecunious man of wrath, was going about the metropolis with money on his person found me, when I heard it on my return from a holiday in the country, frankly incredulous. I scoffed at the wild story, even though somebody I met claimed to have met someone else who had actually seen him with the stuff. It was only when I ran into our mutual friend George Tupper in Piccadilly that I began to feel that there might be something in it.

"Ukridge?" said George Tupper. "Yes, I believe he must have managed to get a little money somehow. I'll tell you why I think so. He called on me this morning when I was in my bath, and when I came out, he had gone. He left, in other words, without trying to extract so much as half-a-crown from me, a thing which has never happened before in the memory of man. But I can't stop now," said George, who, I noticed, was looking distrait and worried. "I’m on my way to the police station. I've had a burglary at my place."

"You don't say?"

"Yes. They rang me up at the club just now. Apparently a suit, a hat, a couple of shirts, some socks, a maroon tie, and a pair of shoes have disappeared."

"Mysterious."

"Most. Well, goodbye."

"Goodbye," I said, and went off to see Ukridge.

I found him in his bed-sitting room, his feet on the mantelpiece, his pince-nez askew as always, his right hand grasping a refreshing mug of beer.

"Ah, Corky," he said, waving a welcoming foot. "Home from your holiday, eh? Brought the roses back to your cheeks, I perceive. I, too, am feeling pretty bobbish. I have just had a great spiritual experience, old horse, which has left me in exalted mood."

"Never mind your spiritual experiences and your exalted moods. Was it you who pinched George Tupper's hat, suit, socks, shirts, shoes and maroon cravat?"

I make no claim to any particular perspicacity in asking the question. It was pure routine. Whenever suits, shirts, socks, ties and what not are found to be missing, the Big Four at Scotland Yard always begin their investigations by spreading a dragnet for S. F. Ukridge.

He looked pained, as if my choice of verbs had wounded him.

"Pinched, laddie? I don't like that word 'pinched'. I borrowed the objects you mention, yes, for I knew a true friend like old Tuppy would not grudge them to me in my hour of need. I had to have them in order to dazzle this fellow I'm lunching with tomorrow and ensure my securing a job carrying with it a princely salary. He's a pal of my aunt's, this bloke," - he was alluding to Miss Julia Ukridge, the wealthy novelist” - and my aunt, learning that he wanted somebody to tutor his son, suggested me. Now that Tuppy has given of his plenty, the thing's in the bag. The tie alone should be enough to put me over."

Well, I'm glad you're going to get a job at last, but how the devil can you tutor sons? You don't know enough."

I know enough to be able to cope with a piefaced kid of twelve. He'll probably reverence me as one of the world's great minds. Besides, my task, my aunt informs me, will be more to look after the stripling, take, him to the British Museum, the Old Vic and so forth, which I can do on my head. Did Tuppy seem at all steamed up about his bereavement?"

"A little, I thought."

"Too bad. But let me tell you about this great spiritual experience. Do you believe in guardian angels?"

I said I was not sure.

"Then you had better ruddy well be sure," said Ukridge severely, "because they exist in droves. Mine is a pippin. He was on the job this afternoon in no uncertain manner, steering me with a loving band from the soup into which I was on the very verge of plunging. Misled by my advisers, I had supposed the animal couldn't fail to cop."

"What animal?"

"Dogsbody at Kempton Park."

"It lost. I saw it in the evening paper."

"Exactly. That's the point of my story. Let me get the facts in their proper order. Knowing that it was imperative that I be spruce and natty when bursting on this tutor-for-his-son bloke, I hastened to Tuppy's and laid in the necessary supplies. I then went to Wimbledon to see my aunt, she having told me to be on the mat at noon, as she wished to confer with me. And you'll scarcely believe this, old horse, but the first thing she did was to hand me fifteen quid to buy shirts, ties and the rest of it, she having reached the same conclusion as I had about the importance of the outer crust. So there I was, in pocket to the colossal extent of fifteen of the best. And I was just leaving, when Barter sidled up."