Evening Star Newspaper, June 9, 1929, Page 96

The Story of a Gift Horse and a Love Affair—By P. G. é ORKY, old horse,” said Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge in a o8 stunned voice, “this is the most amazing thing I have heard in the whole course of my existence. "You could knock me down with a feather.” “I wish I had one.” “This suit—this shabby, worn-out suit—you ‘den't really mean to stand there and tell me that you actually wanted this suit? Why, upon my honest Sam, when I came on it while rum- maging through your belongings yesterday, I thought it was just something you had discard- ‘ed and forgotten to give to the deserving poor.” ' 1 spoke my mind. Spring, coming to London In a burst of golden sunshine, was calling im- periously to all young men to rejoice in their youth, to put on their new herringbone pattern Jounge suits and go out and give the populace an eyeful; and that I had been prevented from doing by the fact that my new suit had dis- appeared. After a separation of 24 hours, T had just met it in Piccadilly with Ukridge inside it. I continued to speak, and was beginning to @chieve a certain eloquence when, from a taxi- ‘cab beside us, there alighted a small, dapper old gentleman who might have been a duke or one of that sort. He wore a pointed white beard, a silk hat, lavender spats, an Ascot tie and a gardenia; argl, if any one had told me that such a man could have even a nodding’ acquaintance with S. F. Ukridge, I should have laughed hol- Jowly. Furthermore, if I had been informed that Ukridge, warmly greeted by such & man, ‘would have ignored him and passed coldly on, I should have declined to believe it. Nevertheless, both these miracles happened. “Stanley!” cried the old gentleman. “Bless Iny seul, I haven't seen- you for years. Come and have some lunch, my dear boy.” “Corky,” said Ukridge, speaking in a low, ‘strained voice, “let us be getting along.” “But did you hear him?” I gasped. “He asked you to lunch.” “I heard him. Corky, old boy,” said Ukridge gravely. “I'll tell you. That bloke is best ‘mvoided.” T TYnhe) is /he?” “An uncle of mine.” “But he seemed respectable.” “That is to say, a step-uncle. Or would you ‘call him step-step? He married my late step- mother’s step-sister. I'm not half sure,” said Ukridge, pondering, “that step - step - step wouldn't be the correct description.” These were deep waters, into which I was ot prepared to plunge. “But what did you want to cut him for?” “It's a long story. I'll tell you at lunch.” “If you think that, after pinching my Spring ‘suit, you're going to get so much as a erust of bread——" “Calm yourself, laddie. You're lunching with me. Largely on the strength of this suit, I man- aged to touch old George Tupper for a fiver. ‘Joy will be unconfined ” “CORKY," said Ukridge some 10 minutes 1 later, “do you ever brood on what might -have bzen?” “I'm doing it now. I might have been wear- Ang that suit.” “There is no need to go into that again,” said Ukridge with dignity. “What I mean is, do you ‘ever brood on the inscrutable workings of Fate, ‘and reflect how, but for this or that, you might ‘have been—well, that or this? For instance, ‘but for the old Stepper I would be the main- ‘stay of a vast business and, in all probability. . ‘happily married to a charming girl and the “father of half a dozen prattling children.” “Ah, yes.” . Fate (said Ukridge) is odd. Just when things appear to be going smoothest, bang! comes the spanner into the machinery, and there you are. ‘Take this business I'm going to tell you about. ‘Just before it happened I had begun to look upon myself as fortune’s favorite child. Every- thing was breaking right in the most astounding ‘fashion. My Aunt Julia, having sailed for America (n one of her lecturing tours, had lent me her cottage at Market Deeping in Sussex till her return, with instructions to the local tradesmen to let me have the necessaries of life and chalk them up to her. From some source I kad ‘snaffled two pairs of white flannel trousers and a tennis racket. And I had contrived to get a couple of quid out of old Tuppy. My position was solid. I ought to have known that luck like that couldn’t last. Now, in a parting conversation Aunt Julia had revealed the fact that her motive in stick- ing me down at her cottage had not hecen simply to insure that I have a pleasant Sum- mer. It seemed that at Deeping Hall, the big house of the locality, there resided a certain Sir Edward Bayliss, O. B. E,, & bird in the jute industry. To this day I have never quite got it clear what jute really is; but this Sir Edward -was the sort of O. B. E. to keep in with, for his business had endless openings for the bright ‘young man. Well, I took the next train down to Market Deeping. And the first thing for you to do, Corky, is to visualize the general layout of the place. My aunt’s cottage (“Journey’s Ende”) was here where this bit of bread is. Here, next to it, where I've put the potato, was a smallish house (“Pondicherry”) belonging to Col. Bay- liss, the jute fancier’s brother. The gardens adjoined, but anything in the way of neigh- borly fraternizing was prevented for the mo- ment by the act that the colonel was away—at Harrogate, trying to teach his liver to take a joke. All this expanse here—I'll mark it with a splash of Worcester sauce—was the park of Deeping Hall, beyond which was the Hall itself. Well, as’ you can see from the diagram, the park of the Hall abutted—if that's the word I want—on the back garden of my cottage. And judge of my emotions when, on the first morn- Ukridge and the O.d Stepper Wodehouse. It is aliways a nervous business for a fellow to entertain the gril he loves and her father. JUNE 9 T929-PART 7. It doesn’t help when a couple of the proletariat start carrying out the chairs. ing after my arrival, I saw the most extraordi- narily pretty girl walking there--nither and thither. She came so close once that I could have hit her with an apple. Not that I did, of course. I gathered that this must be the O. B. E.'s daughter, or something on those lines, and I found my whole attitude toward the jute busi- ness, which up till then had been what you might call lukewarm, changing in a flash. It didn’t take me more than a second to realize that a job involving this girl was practically the ideal one. I called at the Hall that after- noon, mentioning my name, and, from the very start, everything went like a breeze. 'I‘HE days flew by. The O. B. E. was chum- my. The girl—her name was Myrtle, and I think she had found life at Market Deeping a bit on the slow side till I arrived—always seemed glad to see me. I was the petted neighbor: And then one afternoon in walked the Step- per. . There have been occasions in my life, Corky, when, if I had seen a strange man with a white beard walking up the path to the front door of the house where I was living, I would have ducked through the back premises and re- mained concealed till he had withdrawn. But it so happened my financial affairs were on a sound basis and I hadn't a single creditor in the world. So I went down and opened the door and found him beaming on the mat. “Stanley Ukrige?” he said. “Yes,” I said. “I called at your aunt’s house at Wimbledon the other day, and they told me you were here. I'm your Uncle Percy from Australia, my boy. I married your late stepmother's stepsister, Alice.” I don't suppose anybody with a pointed white beard has ever received a heartier welcome. I don't know if you have any pet day-dream, Corky, but mine had always been the sudden appearance of the rich uncle from Australia. And here he was, looking as I had always ex- pected him to look. “You can put me up for a week or two, Stanley?” “Delighted.” “Nice little place you have here.” “Glad you like it.” “Wants a bit of smartening up, though,” said the Stepper, looking round at the appoint- ments and not seeming to think a lot of them. Aunt Julia had furnished the cottage fairly sparsely. “Perhaps you're right.” “Some comfortable chairs, eh?” “Fine.” “And a sofa.” “Splendid.” “And perhaps a nice little Summer house for the garden.” I've always maintained, and I always will maintain, that there’s nothing in this world to beat a real bachelor establishment. Men have a knack of making themselves comfort- able that few women can ever achieve. Aunt Julia's idea of a chair, for instance, was some antique made to the order of the Spanish Inquisition. The Stepper had the right conception. Men arrived in vans and unloaded things with slant- ing backs and cushioned seats, and, whenever I wasn't over at the Hall, I wallowed in these. The Stepper wallowed in them all the time. Occasionally he put in an hour or so in the Summer house—for he had caused a Summer house to appear at the bottom of the garden— but mostly you would find him indoors, with all the windows shut and something to drink at his elbow. He said he had had so much fresh air in Australia that what he wanted now was something he could scoop out with a spoon. Once or twice I tried to get him over to the Hall, but he would have none of it. He said, from what he knew of O. B. E.’s, he wouldn't be allowed to take his boots off, and ran, more- over, a grave risk of being offered barley water. Apparently he had once met a teetotal O. B. E. in Sydney and was prejudiced. However, he was most sympathetic when I told him about Myrtle. He said that he was broad minded enough to realize that there might quite possibly be women in the world unlike his late wife. Concerning whom he added that the rabbit was not, as had been gen- erally stated, Australia’s worst pest. “Tell me of this girl, my boy,” he said. “Do you give her presents?” “Well, as a matter of fact, Uncle Percy,” I said, “I was rather planning something of the kind, if only I could see my way to managing it. It's her birthday next week, Uncle Percy, and it crossed my mind that if I could stumble on somebody who could slip me a few quid, something might possibly be done about it, Uncle Percy.” G JOW, let me see,” mused the old Stepper, wriggling his feet a couple of inches farther onto the table and knitting the brow a bit. “What shall it be? Jewelry? No. Girls like their little bit of jewelry, but perhaps it would scarcely do. I have it. A sundial!” “A what?” I said. “A sundial,” said the old Stepper. “What could be a more pretty and tasteful gift? No doubt she has a little garden of her own, some sequestered nook, where she wanders in maiden meditation on Summer evenings. If so, she needs a sundial.” 2 “But, Uncle Percy,” I said doubtfully, “do you really think—— My idea was rather that if you could possibly let me have a fiver—or say a tenner to make up the round sum—" “She draws a sundial’ sald the old Stepper firmly, “and likes it.” . “But you can't get a sundial,” I urged. “I can get a sundial,” said the old Stepper, with a good deal of asperity. “I can get any- thing. Sundials, elephants, if you want them. I'm noted for it. Show me the man who says that Charles Percy Cuthbertson can’t get a sun- dial, and I'll give him the lie in his teeth, That's where I'll give it him. In his teeth!” And, as he seemed to be warming up a bit, we left it at that. I never dreamed that he would make good, of course. You'll admit, I think, Corky, that I'm a pretty gifted fellow; but, if any one called upon me at practically a moment’s notice to produce a sundial, I should be nonplussed. Nevertheless, on the morning of Myrtle’s birthday, I heard a yodel under my window, and there he was, standing beside a wheelbarrow containing one of the nicest sundials I had ever seen. It all seemed to me more like magic than anything, and I began to feel like Aladdin. Apparently my job from now on was simply to rub the lamp and the Stepper would do the rest. “There you are, my boy,” he said, dusting the thing off with a handkerchief and regard- ing it in a fatherly sort of way. “You give _ the little lady that and she'll let you cuddle her behind the front door.” “She ought to like it,” I agreed. “Of course, she'll like it. She'd better like it. Show me a wholesome, sweet-minded Eng- lish girl who doesn't like a sundial and I'll paste her on the nose,” said the Stepper warme ly. “Why, it’s got a motto and everything.” And so it had. In Old English letters. Some rol about ye sunn¢ and ye shoures. A really classy sundial. “I'll tell you what I was thinking of doing, Uncle Percy,” I said. “How would it be to take this thing over to the Hall this morning and ask Myrtle and her father to tea here? One ought to repay hospitality.” “Certainly,” said the Stepper. “And I'll make the house & bower of roses.” “Can you get the roses?” “Can I get the roses! Don't keep asking me if I can get things. Of course, I can get roses. And eggs, too.” “We shan't want eggs.” “We shall want eggs,” said the Stepper, be- ginning to hot up again. “If eggs are good enough for me, they're good enough for the pop-eyed daughter of a blighted O. B. E. Or don’'t you think so?” “Oh, quite, Uncle Percy, quite,” I said. I would have liked to inform him that Myrtle wasn't pop-eyed, but he didn't seem in the mood. ANY doubts I may have had as to the ac- ceptability of my pres'nt vanished as soon as I had wheeled it across the park in its barrow. The Stepper had had the right idea. Myrtle was all over the sundial. I sprang the tea invitation, and for a mo-