FIRST AID FOR DORA
Never in the of a long and having been any to the contrary, I had always looked on Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, my chum, as a man to the of the opposite sex. I had that, like so many financial giants, he had no time for with women—other and matters, I supposed, that great brain occupied. It was a surprise, therefore, when, Shaftesbury Avenue one Wednesday in June at the hour when matinée were the theatres, I came upon him a girl in a white dress to an omnibus.
As as this be impressive, Ukridge it so. His manner was a of and devotion; and if his had been a less yellow and his a less disreputable, he would have looked just like Sir Walter Ralegh.
The bus moved on, Ukridge waved, and I to make enquiries. I that I was an party. There had been a “object-matrimony” look about the of his neck, it to me; and the of having to support a Mrs. Ukridge and keep a of little Ukridges in and me.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Oh, hallo, laddie!” said Ukridge, turning. “Where did you from? If you had come a moment earlier, I’d have you to Dora.” The bus was out of into Piccadilly Circus, and the white on top and gave a final wave. “That was Dora Mason,” said Ukridge, having a large hand in reply. “She’s my aunt’s secretary-companion. I used to see a of her from time to time when I was at Wimbledon. Old Tuppy gave me a of seats for that at the Apollo, so I it would be a act to ask her along. I’m sorry for that girl. Sorry for her, old horse.”
“What’s the with her?”
“Hers is a life. She has pleasures. It’s an act of to give her a little now and then. Think of it! Nothing to do all day but the Pekingese and type out my aunt’s novels.”
“Does your aunt novels?”
“The world’s worst, laddie, the world’s worst. She’s been to the in since I can remember. They’ve just her president of the Pen and Ink Club. As a of fact, it was her that did me in when I with her. She used to send me to with the and ask me questions about them at breakfast. Absolutely without exaggeration, laddie, at breakfast. It was a dog’s life, and I’m it’s over. Flesh and blood couldn’t the strain. Well, my aunt, I don’t mind telling you that my for little Dora. I know what a time she has, and I a better, man for having her this of sunshine. I wish I have done more for her.”
“Well, you might have her tea after the theatre.”
“Not the of practical politics, laddie. Unless you can out without paying, which is difficult to do with these the door like weasels, tea at an A B C shop the pocket-book hard, and at the moment I’m to the scrapings. But I’ll tell you what, I don’t mind joining you in a cup, if you were of it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Come, come! A little more of the good old of hospitality, old horse.”
“Why do you wear that in mid-summer?”
“Don’t the point, laddie. I can see at a that you need tea. You’re looking and fagged.”
“Doctors say that tea is for the nerves.”
“Yes, possibly there’s something in that. Then I’ll tell you what,” said Ukridge, too proud to a point, “we’ll make it a whisky-and-soda instead. Come along over to the Criterion.”
It was a days after this that the Derby was run, and a of the name of Gunga Din third. This did not the great of the to any marked extent, the animal having started at a hundred to three, but it meant much to me, for I had his name in the at my club. After a series of to the year of my membership, this to me the event of the century, and I my by an dinner to a friends. It was some small to me later to that I had wanted to Ukridge in the party, but failed to of him. Dark hours were to follow, but at least Ukridge did not go through them with my meat.
There is no of so as that which comes from a third prize in a sweepstake. So was the that, when eleven o’clock arrived, it to talking in a and still to go to bed. I that we should all go off and dress and the at my an hour later at Mario’s, where, it being an night, there would be music and dancing till three. We in to our homes.
How in this life do we any of disaster. I a air as I entered the house in Ebury Street where I lodged, and not the of Bowles, my landlord, in the as I came in my bonhomie. Generally a meeting with Bowles had the on me which the of a has on the devout, but to-night I was to this weakness.
“Ah, Bowles,” I cried, chummily, only just stopping myself from adding “Honest fellow!” “Hallo, Bowles! I say, Bowles, I Gunga Din in the sweep.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Yes. He came in third, you know.”
“So I see by the paper, sir. I you.”
“Thank you, Bowles, thank you.”
“Mr. Ukridge called in the evening, sir,” said Bowles.
“Did he? Sorry I was out. I was trying to of him. Did he want anything in particular?”
“Your dress-clothes, sir.”
“My dress-clothes, eh?” I laughed genially. “Extraordinary fellow! You know——” A me like a blow. A cold wind to through the hall. “He didn’t them, did he?” I quavered.
“Why, yes, sir.”
“Got my dress-clothes?” I thickly, for support at the hat-stand.
“He said it would be all right, sir,” said Bowles, with that which he always for all that Ukridge said or did. One of the leading of my life was my landlord’s this hell-hound. He on the man. A like myself had to go about in a of Bowles, while a like Ukridge at him over the without the rebuke. It was one of those which make one laugh when people talk about the of man.
“He got my dress-clothes?” I mumbled.
“Mr. Ukridge said that he you would be to let him have them, as you would not be them to-night.”
“But I do them, it!” I shouted, to all proper feeling. Never had I let an in Bowles’s presence. “I’m a dozen men supper at Mario’s in a of an hour.”
Bowles his sympathetically.
“What am I going to do?”
“Perhaps if you would allow me to you mine, sir?”
“Yours?”
“I have a very suit. It was to me by his the late Earl of Oxted, in I was for many years. I it would do very well on you, sir. His was about your height, though a little slenderer. Shall I it, sir? I have it in a downstairs.”
The of are sacred. In fifteen minutes’ time six men would be at Mario’s, and what would they do, a host? I feebly.
“It’s very of you,” I managed to say.
“Not at all, sir. It is a pleasure.”
If he was speaking the truth, I was of it. It is to think that the to someone.
That the late Earl of Oxted had been a man than myself to me from the on of the trousers. Hitherto I had always the slim, small-boned type of aristocrat, but it was not long I was that Bowles had been in the of someone who had gone in a little more for foods. And I regretted, moreover, that the fashion of a on an coat, if it had to come in at all, had not a years longer. Dim as the light in my was, it was to make me as I looked in the mirror.
And I was aware of a odour.
“Isn’t this room a stuffy, Bowles?”
“No, sir. I think not.”
“Don’t you notice an odd smell?”
“No, sir. But I have a cold. If you are ready, sir, I will call a cab.”
Moth-balls! That was the I had detected. It upon me like a in the cab. It me like a all the way to Mario’s, and out in its full when I entered the place and my overcoat. The cloak-room waiter in a way as he gave me my check, one or two people near to remove themselves from my neighbourhood, and my friends, when I joined them, themselves with friend-like candour. With a solid they told me that it was only the that I was paying for the supper that them to my presence.
The leper-like by this me after the of the to to the to in solitude. My guests were dancing merrily, but such were not for me. Besides, my had already comment, and I am a man. Crouched in a of the balcony, by the who were not allowed on the they were not dressed, I a cigar and the with a eye. The space for dancing was and either or a passage for themselves, using their partners as battering-rams. Prominent among the was a big man who was a of a steam-plough. He and energetically, and when he the line, something had to give.
From the very something about this man had familiar; but to his manner of dancing, which he to have on the ring-style of Mr. James J. Jeffries, it was not that I was able to see his face. But presently, as the music stopped and he himself to clap his hands for an encore, his were to me.
It was Ukridge. Ukridge, him, with my dress-clothes him so perfectly and with such that he might have out of one of Ouida’s novels. Until that moment I had the meaning of the “faultless dress.” With a I from my seat, and, by a rich of camphor, for the stairs. Like Hamlet on a less occasion, I wanted to this man when he was full of bread, with all his crimes, broad-blown, as as May, at drinking, swearing, or about some act that had no of in it.
“But, laddie,” said Ukridge, into a of the from the throng, “be reasonable.”
I my of a good of that that upon the heart.
“How I that you would want the things? Look at it from my position, old horse. I you, laddie, a good true friend who would be to a his dress-clothes any time when he didn’t need them himself, and as you weren’t there when I called, I couldn’t ask you, so I naturally them. It was all just one of those little which can’t be helped. And, as it out, you had a suit, so was all right, after all.”
“You don’t think this dress is mine, do you?”
“Isn’t it?” said Ukridge, astonished.
“It to Bowles. He it to me.”
“And most well you look in it, laddie,” said Ukridge. “Upon my Sam, you look like a or something.”
“And like a second-hand clothes-store.”
“Nonsense, my dear old son, nonsense. A of some antiseptic. Nothing more. I like it. It’s invigorating. Honestly, old man, it’s what an air that you. Distinguished. That’s the word I was for. You look distinguished. All the girls are saying so. When you came in just now to speak to me, I one of them ‘Who is it?’ That you.”
“More likely ‘What is it?’”
“Ha, ha!” Ukridge, to me with mirth. “Dashed good! Deuced good! Not ‘Who is it?’ but ‘What is it?’ It me how you think of these things. Golly, if I had a brain like yours——But now, old son, if you don’t mind, I must be to little Dora. She’ll be what has of me.”
The of these had the of making me my just for a moment.
“Are you here with that girl you took to the theatre the other afternoon?”
“Yes. I to win a on the Derby, so I it would be the thing to ask her out for an evening’s pleasure. Hers is a life.”
“It must be, you so much.”
“A little personal, old horse,” said Ukridge reprovingly. “A bitter. But I know you don’t it. Yours is a of gold really. If I’ve said that once, I’ve said it a hundred times. Always saying it. Rugged but of gold. My very words. Well, good-bye for the present, laddie. I’ll look in to-morrow and return these things. I’m sorry there was any about them, but it makes up for everything, doesn’t it, to that you’ve helped life for a little thing who has pleasures.”
“Just one last word,” I said. “One final remark.”
“Yes?”
“I’m in that of the over there,” I said. “I mention the so that you can look out for yourself. If you come dancing there, I shall a plate on you. And if it kills you, so much the better. I’m a little thing, and I have pleasures.”
Owing to a respect for the conventions, for which I myself, I did not actually perform this service to humanity. With the of a roll at him—which missed him but most the of my supper-party who had with the most at my costume—I took no against Ukridge that night. But his demeanour, when he called at my rooms next day, not have been more if I had a of lead on him. He into my sitting-room with the of the man who in a with Fate has the loser’s end. I had been in my mind a number of good to say to him, but his touched me to such an that I them in. To this man would have been like dancing on a tomb.
“For Heaven’s what’s the matter?” I asked. “You look like a under the harrow.”
He sat creakingly, and one of my cigars.
“Poor little Dora!”
“What about her?”
“She’s got the push!”
“The push? From your aunt’s, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
Ukridge heavily.
“Most business, old horse, and my fault. I the whole thing was perfectly safe. You see, my aunt goes to at half-past ten every night, so it to me that if Dora out at eleven and left a window open her she all right when we got home from Mario’s. But what happened? Some ass,” said Ukridge, with wrath, “went and locked the window. I don’t know who it was. I the butler. He has a of going the place late at night and things. Upon my Sam, it’s a little hard! If only people would alone and not go about——”
“What happened?”
“Why, it was the window which we’d left open, and when we got at four o’clock this the thing was as tight as an egg. Things looked rocky, but Dora that her window was always open, so we up again for a bit. Her room’s on the second floor, but I where there was a ladder, so I and got it, and she was just up as as when somebody a great on us, and there was a policeman, wanting to know what the game was. The whole trouble with the police of London, laddie, the thing that makes them a and a byword, is that they’re to a man. Zeal, I they call it. Why they can’t to their own is more than I can understand. Dozens of going on all the time, probably, all over Wimbledon, and all this would do was and his and ask what the game was. Wouldn’t be satisfied with a plain that it was all right. Insisted on the house to have us identified.”
Ukridge paused, a look of pain on his face.
“And then?” I said.
“We were,” said Ukridge, briefly.
“What?”
“Identified. By my aunt. In a dressing-gown and a revolver. And the long and the of it is, old man, that little Dora has got the sack.”
I not it in my to his aunt for what he a high-handed and outrage. If I were a lady of regular views, I should myself of the services of any secretary-companion who returned to only a hours in of the milk. But, as Ukridge than an on the relations of and employed, I him a of tuts, which to him a little. He to the practical of the matter.
“What’s to be done?”
“I don’t see what you can do.”
“But I must do something. I’ve the little thing her job, and I must try to it back. It’s a of job, but it’s her and butter. Do you think George Tupper would and have a with my aunt, if I asked him?”
“I he would. He’s the best-hearted man in the world. But I if he’ll be able to do much.”
“Nonsense, laddie,” said Ukridge, his from the depths. “I have the in old Tuppy. A man in a million. And he’s such a of that he might have her jumping through and she what was to her. You know. Yes, I’ll try old Tuppy. I’ll go and see him now.”
“I should.”
“Just me a for a cab, old son, and I shall be able to to the Foreign Office one o’clock. I to say, if nothing comes of it, I shall be able to a out of him. And I need refreshment, laddie, need it sorely. The whole has me very much.”
It was three days after this that, by a of and coffee, I my and, to my sitting-room, that Ukridge had in to take with me, as was often his practice. He again, and was knife and like the good he was.
“Morning, old horse,” he said agreeably.
“Good morning.”
“Devilish good bacon, this. As good as I’ve bitten. Bowles is cooking you some more.”
“That’s nice. I’ll have a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind me making myself at home while I’m waiting.” I started to open the by my plate, and aware that my guest was me with a of through his pince-nez, which were all as usual. “What’s the matter?”
“Matter?”
“Why,” I said, “are you looking at me like a fish with lung-trouble?”
“Was I?” He took a of coffee with an carelessness. “Matter of fact, old son, I was interested. I see you’ve had a from my aunt.”
“What?”
I had up the last envelope. It was in a female hand, to me. I now it open. It was as Ukridge had said. Dated the previous day and “Heath House, Wimbledon Common,” the ran as follows:—
“Dear Sir,—I shall be happy to see you if you will call at this address the day after to-morrow (Friday) at four-thirty.—Yours faithfully, Julia Ukridge.”
I make nothing of this. My mail, or the reverse, a bill from a or a cheque from an editor, had had till now the quality of being plain, straightforward, and easy to understand; but this me. How Ukridge’s aunt had aware of my existence, and why a call from me should her lot, were problems my unravelling, and I over it as an Egyptologist might over some newly-discovered hieroglyphic.
“What she say?” Ukridge.
“She wants me to call at half-past four to-morrow afternoon.”
“Splendid!” Ukridge. “I she would bite.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Ukridge across the table and me on the shoulder. The movement the of a full cup of coffee, but I he meant well. He again in his chair and his pince-nez in order to a view of me. I to him with joy, and he into a eulogy, like some of old an ex-tempore of his and employer.
“Laddie,” said Ukridge, “if there’s one thing about you that I’ve always it’s your to help a pal. One of the most a can possess, and nobody has it to a than you. You’re in that way. I’ve had men come up to me and ask me about you. ‘What of a is he?’ they say. ‘One of the very best,’ I reply. ‘A you can on. A man who would die than let you down. A who would go through fire and water to do a a good turn. A bird with a of gold and a nature as true as steel.’”
“Yes, I’m a fellow,” I agreed, by this panegyric. “Get on.”
“I am on, old horse,” said Ukridge with reproach. “What I’m trying to say is that I you would be to this little job for me. It wasn’t necessary to ask you. I knew.”
A of an over me, as it had done so often in my with Ukridge.
“Will you tell me what thing you’ve let me in for now?”
Ukridge my with a of his fork. He spoke and with a persuasiveness. He cooed.
“It’s nothing, laddie. Practically nothing. Just a little act of which you will thank me for in your way. It’s like this. As I ought to have from the first, that Tuppy proved a reed. In that of Dora, you know. Got no result whatever. He to see my aunt the day yesterday, and asked her to take Dora on again, and she gave him the miss-in-balk. I’m not surprised. I had any in Tuppy. It was a mistake sending him. It’s no good trying attack in a like this. What you need is strategy. You want to think what is the enemy’s weak and then attack from that angle. Now, what is my aunt’s weak side, laddie? Her weak side, what is it? Now think. Reflect, old horse.”
“From the of her voice, the only time I got near her, I should say she hadn’t one.”
“That’s where you make your error, old son. Butter her up about her novels, and a child eat out of her hand. When Tuppy let me I just a pipe and had a good think. And then I got it. I to a of mine, a sportsman—you don’t know him. I must you some day—and he my aunt a from you, if you come and her for Woman’s Sphere. It’s a paper, which I to know she takes in regularly. Now, listen, laddie. Don’t for a moment. I want you to the of this. You go and her, and she’s all over you. Tickled to death. Of course, you’ll have to do a good of Young Disciple stuff, but you won’t mind that. After you’ve soft-soaped her till she’s like a dynamo, you up to go. ‘Well,’ you say, ‘this has been the occasion of my life, meeting one work I have so long admired.’ And she says, ‘The is mine, old horse.’ And you over each other a more. Then you say of casually, as if it had just to you, ‘Oh, by the way, I my cousin—or sister——No, make it cousin—I my cousin, Miss Dora Mason, is your secretary, isn’t she?’ ‘She isn’t any such dam’ thing,’ my aunt. ‘I her three days ago.’ That’s your cue, laddie. Your falls, you register concern, you’re cut up. You start in to ask her to let Dora come back. And you’re such by this time that she can you nothing. And there you are! My dear old son, you can take it from me that if you only keep your and do the Young Disciple properly the thing can’t fail. It’s an iron-clad scheme. There isn’t a in it.”
“There is one.”
“I think you’re wrong. I’ve gone over the thing very carefully. What is it?”
“The is that I’m not going near your aunt. So you can to your and tell him he’s a good of letter-paper.”
A pair of pince-nez into a plate. Two at me across the table. Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge was to the quick.
“You don’t to say you’re out?” he said, in a low, voice.
“I was in.”
“Laddie,” said Ukridge, weightily, an on his last slice of bacon, “I want to ask you one question. Just one question. Have you let me down? Has there been one occasion in our long when I have upon you and been deceived? Not one!”
“Everything’s got to have a beginning. I’m starting now.”
“But think of her. Dora! Poor little Dora. Think of little Dora.”
“If this teaches her to keep away from you, it will be a in the end.”
“But, laddie——”
I there is some in my character, or else the of which Bowles a quality. All I know is that, after being for a good ten minutes, I to a from which my revolted. After all, as Ukridge said, it was on the girl. Chivalry is chivalry. We must to a helping hand as we go through this world of ours, and all that of thing. Four o’clock on the me entering a and the driver the address of Heath House, Wimbledon Common.
My on entering Heath House were such as I would have had I been a with a who by some also to be a duke. From the moment when a of super-Bowles opened the door and, after me with ill-concealed dislike, started to me a long hall, I was in the of and humility. Heath House is one of the homes of Wimbledon; how they stand, as the says: and after the of Ebury Street it me. Its was an which to at my and my trouser-leg. The I over the floor, the more was it home to me that I was one of the tenth and have done with a hair-cut. I had not been aware when I left home that my was long, but now I to be by a and growth. A on my left shoe which had had a look in Ebury Street out like a on the landscape. No, I was not at my ease; and when I that in a moments I was to meet Ukridge’s aunt, that figure, to face, a of me for the of the nature of one who would go through all this to help a girl he had met. There was no about it—the spoke for themselves—I was one of the I had known. Nevertheless, there was no away from it, my did at the knee.
“Mr. Corcoran,” the butler, opening the drawing-room door. He spoke with just that of voice that to all responsibility. If I had an appointment, he intimated, it was his duty, repulsive, to me in; but, that done, he himself from the whole affair.
There were two and six Pekingese dogs in the room. The Pekes I had met before, their days at Ukridge’s dog college, but they did not appear to me. The occasion when they had at my to have passed from their minds. One by one they came up, sniffed, and then moved away as if my had them. They gave the that they saw to with the in his of the visitor. I was left to the two women.
Of these—reading from right to left—one was a tall, angular, hawk-faced female with a eye. The other, to I gave but a at the moment, was small, and so it to me, pleasant-looking. She had with grey, and mild of a blue. She me of the class of cat. I took her to be some who had looked in for a cup of tea. It was the on I my attention. She was looking at me with a and stare, and I how she the picture I had of her in my mind from Ukridge’s conversation.
“Miss Ukridge?” I said, on a her and like some manager, against his personal wishes, has him up with a match with the champion.
“I am Miss Ukridge,” said the other woman. “Miss Watterson, Mr. Corcoran.”
It was a shock, but, the moment of over, I to something for the time since I had entered this house of and butlers. Somehow I had got the from Ukridge that his aunt was a of stage aunt, all and eyebrows. This half-portion with the mild I that I tackle. It passed my why Ukridge should have her intimidating.
“I you will not mind if we have our little talk Miss Watterson,” she said with a smile. “She has come to the of the Pen and Ink Club which we are shortly. She will keep and not interrupt. You don’t mind?”
“Not at all, not at all,” I said in my way. It is not to say that at this moment I debonair. “Not at all, not at all. Oh, not at all.”
“Won’t you down?”
“Thank you, thank you.”
The moved over to the window, us to ourselves.
“Now we are cosy,” said Ukridge’s aunt.
“Yes, yes,” I agreed. Dash it, I liked this woman.
“Tell me, Mr. Corcoran,” said Ukridge’s aunt, “are you on the staff of Woman’s Sphere? It is one of my papers. I read it every week.”
“The staff.”
“What do you by the staff?”
“Well, I don’t actually work in the office, but the me occasional jobs.”
“I see. Who is the now?”
I to less debonair. She was just making conversation, of course, to put me at my ease, but I she would stop me these questions. I in my mind for a name—any name—but as on these occasions every name in the English language had passed from me.
“Of course. I now,” said Ukridge’s aunt, to my relief. “It’s Mr. Jevons, isn’t it? I met him one night at dinner.”
“Jevons,” I burbled. “That’s right. Jevons.”
“A tall man with a light moustache.”
“Well, tall,” I said, judicially.
“And he sent you here to me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, which of my do you wish me to talk about?”
I with a of relief. I on solid ground at last. And then it came to me that Ukridge in his woollen-headed way had to mention the name of a single one of this woman’s books.
“Er—oh, all of them,” I said hurriedly.
“I see. My work.”
“Exactly,” I said. My her now was one of positive affection.
She in her chair with her finger-tips together, a look of on her face.
“Do you think it would the readers of Woman’s Sphere to know which of mine is my own favourite?”
“I am sure it would.”
“Of course,” said Ukridge’s aunt, “it is not easy for an author to answer a question like that. You see, one has moods in which one book and then another to one.”
“Quite,” I replied. “Quite.”
“Which of my books do you like best, Mr. Corcoran?”
There over me the one in nightmares. From six the six Pekingese at me unwinkingly.
“Er—oh, all of them,” I a voice reply. My voice, presumably, though I did not it.
“How delightful!” said Ukridge’s aunt. “Now, I do call that delightful. One or two of the have said that my work was uneven. It is so to meet someone who doesn’t agree with them. Personally, I think my is The Heart of Adelaide.”
I my of this choice. The which had themselves on my to into place again. I it possible to breathe.
“Yes,” I said, thoughtfully, “I The Heart of Adelaide is the best thing you have written. It has such appeal,” I added, playing it safe.
“Have you read it, Mr. Corcoran?”
“Oh yes.”
“And you it?”
“Tremendously.”
“You don’t think it is a to say that it is a little in parts?”
“Most unfair.” I to see my way. I do not know why, but I had been that her must be the you in libraries. Evidently they to the other class of female novels, the which ban. “Of course,” I said, “it is honestly, fearlessly, and life as it is. But broad? No, no!”
“That in the conservatory?”
“Best thing in the book,” I said stoutly.
A pleased played about her mouth. Ukridge had been right. Praise her work, and a child eat out of her hand. I myself that I had read the thing, so that I have gone into more detail and her still happier.
“I’m so you like it,” she said. “Really, it is most encouraging.”
“Oh, no,” I modestly.
“Oh, but it is. Because I have only just started to it, you see. I chapter one this morning.”
She was still so that for a moment the full of these did not my consciousness.
“The Heart of Adelaide is my next novel. The in the conservatory, which you like so much, comes the middle of it. I was not to it till about the end of next month. How odd that you should know all about it!”
I had got it now all right, and it was like on the empty space where there should have been a chair. Somehow the that she was so about it all to my discomfiture. In the of an active life I have a fool, but such a as I then. The woman had been playing with me, leading me on, me myself like a on fly-paper. And I that I had in of her as mild. A hard had come into them. They were like a of gimlets. She looked like a cat that had a mouse, and it was to me in one age-long why Ukridge in of her. There was that about her which would have the Sheik.
“It so odd, too,” she on, “that you should have come to me for Woman’s Sphere. Because they published an with me only the week last. I it so that I up my friend Miss Watterson, who is the editress, and asked her if there had not been some mistake. And she said she had of you. Have you of Mr. Corcoran, Muriel?”
“Never,” said the hawk, me with a eye.
“How strange!” said Ukridge’s aunt. “But then the whole thing is so strange. Oh, must you go, Mr. Corcoran?”
My mind was in a condition, but on that one point it was crystal-clear. Yes, I must go. Through the door if I it—failing that, through the window. And who to stop me would do well to have a care.
“You will me to Mr. Jevons when you see him, won’t you?” said Ukridge’s aunt.
I was at the handle.
“And, Mr. Corcoran.” She was still amiably, but there had come into her voice a note like that which it had had on a occasion when Ukridge to his from the of his Sheep’s Cray Cottage. “Will you tell my nephew Stanley that I should be if he would send no more of his friends to see me. Good afternoon.”
I that at some point in the my must have a bell, for out in the passage I my old chum, the butler. With the of his he appeared aware that I was under what might be called a cloud, for his manner had taken on a warder-like grimness. His hand looked as if it was to me by the shoulder, and when we the door he the wistfully, as if what spot it would be for me to with a thud.
“Nice day,” I said, with the to which comes to men in their agony.
He to reply, and as I the I was of his me.
“A very specimen,” I him saying. “And mainly to my and that he hasn’t got away with the spoons.”
It was a warm afternoon, but to such an had the up my that I walked the whole way to Ebury Street with a which more to me with a contempt. Reaching my sitting-room in an of and fatigue, I Ukridge upon the sofa.
“Hallo, laddie!” said Ukridge, out a hand for the drink that on the him. “I was when you would up. I wanted to tell you that it won’t be necessary for you to go and see my aunt after all. It that Dora has a hundred away in a bank, and she’s been offered a partnership by a woman she who one of these places. I her to close with it. So she’s all right.”
He of the bowl and a sigh. There was a silence.
“When did you of this?” I asked at length.
“Yesterday afternoon,” said Ukridge. “I meant to and tell you, but somehow it my mind.”
