UKRIDGE ROUNDS A NASTY CORNER
The late Sir Rupert Lakenheath, K.C.M.G., C.B., M.V.O., was one of those men at their point with pride. Until his retirement on a pension in the year 1906, he had been Governor of of the British Empire around the equator, and as such had respect and from all. A of my for me the job of the of this great to prepare his for publication; and on a I had just myself for my call on her at her in Thurloe Square, South Kensington, when there was a at the door, and Bowles, my landlord, entered, gifts.
These of a bottle with a label and a large hat-box. I at them blankly, for they no message for me.
Bowles, in his manner, to explain.
“Mr. Ukridge,” he said, with the ring of in his voice which always into it when speaking of that to civilisation, “called a moment ago, sir, and me to hand you these.”
Having now approached the table on which he had the objects, I was to solve the of the bottle. It was one of those, fat, bottles, and it across its in red the single word “PEPPO.” Beneath this, in black letters, ran the legend, “It Bucks You Up.” I had not Ukridge for more than two weeks, but at our last meeting, I remembered, he had spoken of some medicine of which he had somehow the agency. This, apparently, was it.
“But what’s in the hat-box?” I asked.
“I not say, sir,” Bowles.
At this point the hat-box, which had not spoken, a crisp, oath, and it up by the opening of “Annie Laurie.” It then into its silence.
A of Peppo would, no doubt, have me to this with and phlegm. Not having taken that specific, the thing had a upon my centres. I and a chair, while Bowles, his aside, the ceiling. It was the time I had him off the mask, and in that trying moment I not help being by the spectacle. It gave me one of those that come once in a lifetime.
“For Gord’s sake!” Bowles.
“Have a nut,” the hat-box, hospitably. “Have a nut.”
Bowles’s panic subsided.
“It’s a bird, sir. A parrot!”
“What the Ukridge mean,” I cried, the householder, “by up my rooms with his parrots? I’d like that man to know——”
The mention of Ukridge’s name to act on Bowles like a draught. He his poise.
“I have no doubt, sir,” he said, a touch of in his voice that my outburst, “that Mr. Ukridge has good for the bird in our custody. I he must wish you to take of it for him.”
“He may wish it——” I was beginning, when my on the clock. If I did not want to my by her waiting, I must be on my way immediately.
“Put that hat-box in the other room, Bowles,” I said. “And I you had give the bird something to eat.”
“Very good, sir. You may the in my hands with complete confidence.”
The drawing-room into which I was on at Thurloe Square was with many of the late Sir Rupert’s career. In the room a small and girl in a dress, who upon me pleasantly.
“My aunt will be in a moment,” she said, and for a moments we commonplaces. Then the door opened and Lady Lakenheath appeared.
The of the Administrator was tall, angular, and thin, with a sun-tanned of a so as to make it a that in the years previous to 1906 she had done at least her of the administrating. Her whole was that of a woman designed by Nature to law and order into the of kings. She me with an glance, and then, as if to the that, though I might be, I was as good as anything else that be got for the money, me into the by pressing the and ordering tea.
Tea had arrived, and I was trying to with the difficult of my cup on the smallest I had seen, when my hostess, to out of window into the below, something a and a of the tongue.
“Oh, dear! That man again!”
The girl in the dress, who had tea and was in a corner, a little closer over her work.
“Millie!” said the administratress, plaintively, as if in her trouble.
“Yes, Aunt Elizabeth?”
“That man is calling again!”
There was a but pause. A pink appeared in the girl’s cheeks.
“Yes, Aunt Elizabeth?” she said.
“Mr. Ukridge,” the at the door.
It to me that if this of thing was to continue, if was to a series of and surprises, Peppo would have to be as an in my life. I at Ukridge as he in with the air of sunny which a man on familiar ground. Even if I had not had Lady Lakenheath’s as evidence, his manner would have been to tell me that he was a visitor in her drawing-room; and how he had come to be on calling terms with a lady so pre-eminently it was me to imagine. I from my to that we were being introduced, and that Ukridge, for some clear, no doubt, to his own mind but to me, was me as a complete stranger. He but distantly, and I, in with his wishes, back. Plainly relieved, he to Lady Lakenheath and into the talk of intimacy.
“I’ve got good news for you,” he said. “News about Leonard.”
The in our hostess’s manner at these was remarkable. Her manner in an to a fluttering. Gone was the which had her but a moment to to him as “that man.” She pressed tea upon him, and scones.
“Oh, Mr. Ukridge!” she cried.
“I don’t want to false and all that of thing, laddie—I mean, Lady Lakenheath, but, upon my Sam, I I am on the track. I have been making the most enquiries.”
“How very of you!”
“No, no,” said Ukridge, modestly.
“I have been so worried,” said Lady Lakenheath, “that I have been able to rest.”
“Too bad!”
“Last night I had a return of my malaria.”
At these words, as if he had been a cue, Ukridge under his chair and produced from his hat, like some conjurer, a bottle that was own to the one he had left in my rooms. Even from where I sat I read those magic of on its label.
“Then I’ve got the very for you,” he boomed. “This is what you want. Glowing reports on all sides. Two doses, and away their and join the Beauty Chorus.”
“I am a cripple, Mr. Ukridge,” said Lady Lakenheath, with a return of her bleakness.
“No, no! Good heavens, no! But you can’t go by taking Peppo.”
“Peppo?” said Lady Lakenheath, doubtfully.
“It you up.”
“You think it might do me good?” asked the sufferer, wavering. There was a in her that the hypochondriac, the woman who will try anything once.
“Can’t fail.”
“Well, it is most and of you to have it. What with over Leonard——”
“I know, I know,” Ukridge, in a positively manner.
“It so strange,” said Lady Lakenheath, “that, after I had in all the papers, someone did not him.”
“Perhaps someone did him!” said Ukridge, darkly.
“You think he must have been stolen?”
“I am of it. A like Leonard, able to talk in six languages——”
“And sing,” Lady Lakenheath.
“——and sing,” added Ukridge, “is a of money. But don’t you worry, old—er—don’t you worry. If the which I am now are successful, you will have Leonard safe and to-morrow.”
“To-morrow?”
“Absolutely to-morrow. Now tell me all about your malaria.”
I that the time had come for me to leave. It was not that the had taken a purely medical turn and that I was from it; what was me away was the of out in the open and thinking. My brain was whirling. The world to have full of and parrots. I my and rose. My was able to take only an absent-minded in my departure. The last thing I saw as the door closed was Ukridge’s look of big-hearted as he so as not to miss a of his companion’s revelations. He was not actually Lady Lakenheath’s hand and telling her to be a little woman, but of that he appeared to be doing a man do to her that, though his might be, his was in the right place and for her troubles.
I walked to my rooms. I walked slowly and pensively, into lamp-posts and pedestrians. It was a relief, when I Ebury Street, to Ukridge on my sofa. I was that he left he should what this was all about, if I had to the truth from him.
“Hallo, laddie!” he said. “Upon my Sam, Corky, old horse, did you in your of anything so as our meeting like that? Hope you didn’t mind my not to know you. The is my position in that house——What the were you doing there, by the way?”
“I’m helping Lady Lakenheath prepare her husband’s memoirs.”
“Of course, yes. I her say she was going to rope in someone. But what a thing it should be you! However, where was I? Oh, yes. My position in the house, Corky, is so that I didn’t entering into any alliances. What I to say is, if we had into each other’s arms, and you had been in the old lady’s as a friend of mine, and then one of these days you had to make a of some kind—as you well might, laddie—and got into the on your left ear—well, you see where I would be. I should be in your downfall. And I you, laddie, that my whole is on in with that female. I must her consent!”
“Her what?”
“Her consent. To the marriage.”
“The marriage?”
Ukridge a cloud of smoke, and through it at the ceiling.
“Isn’t she a perfect angel?” he breathed, softly.
“Do you Lady Lakenheath?” I asked, bewildered.
“Fool! No, Millie.”
“Millie? The girl in blue?”
Ukridge dreamily.
“She was that dress when I met her, Corky. And a with thingummies. It was on the Underground. I gave her my seat, and, as I over her, by a strap, I in love in a flash. I give you my word, laddie, I in love with her for all Sloane Square and South Kensington stations. She got out at South Kensington. So did I. I her to the house, the bell, got the to me in, and, once I was in, put up a yarn about being and to the address and all that of thing. I think they I was or trying to sell life or something, but I didn’t mind that. A days later I called, and after that I about, an on their movements, met ’em they went, and and passed a word and my presence felt, and—well, to cut a long short, old horse, we’re engaged. I to out that Millie was in the of taking the dog for a in Kensington Gardens every at eleven, and after that to move. It took a of doing, of course, up so early, but I was on the spot every day and we talked and for the dog, and—well, as I say, we’re engaged. She is the most amazing, girl, laddie, that you in your life.”
I had to this dumbly. The thing was too for my mind. It me.
“But——” I began.
“But,” said Ukridge, “the news has yet to be to the old lady, and I am with every nerve in my body, with every of my brain, old horse, to in right with her. That is why I her that Peppo. Not much, you may say, but every little helps. Shows zeal. Nothing like zeal. But, of course, what I’m on is the parrot. That’s my of trumps.”
I passed a hand over my forehead.
“The parrot!” I said, feebly. “Explain about the parrot.” Ukridge me with astonishment.
“Do you to tell me you haven’t got on to that? A man of your intelligence! Corky, you me. Why, I it, of course. Or, rather, Millie and I it together. Millie—a girl in a million, laddie!—put the bird in a string-bag one night when her aunt was out and it to me out of the drawing-room window. And I’ve been it in the till the moment was for the return. Wouldn’t have done to take it at once. Bad strategy. Wiser to it in for a days and and work up the interest. Millie and I are on the old lady’s being so at having the bird to her that there will be nothing she won’t be to do for me.”
“But what do you want to the thing in my rooms for?” I demanded, of my grievance. “I got such a as when that hat-box to back-chat at me.”
“I’m sorry, old man, but it had to be. I tell that the old lady might not take it into her to come to my rooms about something. I’d out—mistakenly, I now—an occasional about tea there some afternoon. So I had to park the bird with you. I’ll take it away to-morrow.”
“You’ll take it away to-night!”
“Not to-night, old man,” Ukridge. “First thing to-morrow. You won’t it any trouble. Just it a word or two every now and then and give it a of in tea or something, and you won’t have to worry about it at all. And I’ll be by at the latest to take it away. May Heaven you, laddie, for the way you have by me this day!”
For a man like myself, who at least eight hours of sleep if that is to be preserved, it was that Leonard the should have proved to be a bird of high-strung temperament, easily upset. The which he had since home had, I was to discover, his system. He was the hours bedtime, and had started his beauty-sleep I myself in; but at two in the something in the nature of a must have him, for I was from by the of a in what I took to be some native dialect. This without a till two-fifteen, when he a noise like a steam-riveter for some moments; after which, soothed, he asleep again. I off at about three, and at three-thirty was by the of a deep-sea chanty. From then on our of sleep to coincide. It was a night, and I out after I left with Bowles for Ukridge, on arrival, to be that, if anything with his plans for my guest that day, the among would take an up-curve. Returning to my rooms in the evening, I was pleased to see that this had been taken to heart. The hat-box was gone, and about six o’clock Ukridge appeared, so and that I what had he spoke. “Corky, my boy,” he said, vehemently, “this is the maddest, day of all the New Year, and you can me as saying so!”
“Lady Lakenheath has her consent?”
“Not it, but it blithely, jubilantly.”
“It me,” I said.
“What you?” Ukridge, to the note.
“Well, I don’t want to any aspersions, but I should have the thing she would have done would be to make about your financial position.”
“My financial position? What’s with my financial position? I’ve got over fifty in the bank, and I’m on the of making an out of this Peppo stuff.”
“And that satisfied Lady Lakenheath?” I said, incredulously.
Ukridge for a moment.
“Well, to be frank, laddie,” he admitted, “I have an idea that she that in the of the my aunt will and keep going till I am on my feet.”
“Your aunt! But your aunt has and definitely you.”
“Yes. To be perfectly accurate, she has. But the old lady doesn’t know that. In fact, I a point of it from her. You see, I it necessary, as out, to play my aunt as my of trumps.”
“You told me the was your of trumps.”
“I know I did. But these up at the last moment. She with about the bird, but when I the opportunity to ask her for her I was to see that she put her ears and jibbed. Got that look in her and to talk about and being from her. It was an occasion for the thinking, laddie. I got an inspiration. I played up my aunt. It like magic. It the old lady has long been an of her novels, and has always wanted to meet her. She and out for the full count the moment I my aunt into the conversation, and I have had no trouble with her since.”
“Have you what is going to when they do meet? I can’t see your aunt a to your merits.”
“That’s all right. The of the is, luck has by me in the most way all through. It that my aunt is out of town. She’s at her in Sussex a novel, and on Saturday she for America on a tour.”
“How did you that out?”
“Another of luck. I ran into her new secretary, a named Wassick, at the Savage last Saturday. There’s no of their meeting. When my aunt’s a novel, she won’t read or telegrams, so it’s no good the old lady trying to a through to her. It’s Wednesday now, she on Saturday, she will be away six months—why, damme, by the time she of the thing I shall be an old married man.”
It had been my and myself the that I should give up my afternoons to the and that the most plan would be for me to present myself at Thurloe Square daily at three o’clock. I had just settled myself on the day in the ground-floor study when the girl Millie came in, papers.
“My aunt asked me to give you these,” she said. “They are Uncle Rupert’s home for the year 1889.”
I looked at her with and something on awe. This was the girl who had actually herself to the of going through life as Mrs. Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge—and, what is more, to like the prospect. Of such are made.
“Thank you,” I said, the papers on the desk. “By the way, may I—I you will——What I is, Ukridge told me all about it. I you will be very happy.”
Her fit up. She was the most girl to look at I had met. I not Ukridge for in love with her.
“Thank you very much,” she said. She sat in the arm-chair, looking very small. “Stanley has been telling me what friends you and he are. He is to you.”
“Great chap!” I said, heartily. I would have said anything which I would her. She a spell, this girl. “We were at together.”
“I know. He is always talking about it.” She looked at me with like a Persian kitten’s. “I you will be his best man?” She with happy laughter. “At one time I was there wouldn’t be any need for a best man. Do you think it was very of us to Aunt Elizabeth’s parrot?”
“Wrong?” I said, stoutly. “Not a of it. What an idea!”
“She was worried,” the girl.
“Best thing in the world,” I her. “Too much peace of mind leads to old age.”
“All the same, I have so and of myself. And I know Stanley just like that, too.”
“I he did!” I agreed, effusively. Such was the magic of this Dresden child that her that Ukridge a not shake me.
“He’s so and and considerate.”
“The very I should have used myself!”
“Why, to you what a nature he has, he’s gone out now with my aunt to help her do her shopping.”
“You don’t say so!”
“Just to try to make it up to her, you see, for the we her.”
“It’s noble! That’s what it is. Absolutely noble!”
“And if there’s one thing in the world he it is parcels.”
“The man,” I exclaimed, with enthusiasm, “is a perfect Sir Galahad!”
“Isn’t he? Why, only the other day——”
She was interrupted. Outside, the door slammed. There came a of large in the passage. The door of the study open, and Sir Galahad himself in, his arms full of parcels.
“Corky!” he began. Then, his wife, who had from the chair in alarm, he at her with a wild in his eyes, as one who has news to spring. “Millie, old girl,” he said, feverishly, “we’re in the soup!”
The girl the table.
“Oh, Stanley, darling!”
“There is just one hope. It to me as I was——”
“You don’t that Aunt Elizabeth has her mind?”
“She hasn’t yet. But,” said Ukridge, grimly, “she’s soon going to, unless we move with the despatch.”
“But what has happened?”
Ukridge the parcels. The action to make him calmer.
“We had just come out of Harrod’s,” he said, “and I was about to leg it home with these parcels, when she it on me! Right out of a sky!”
“What, Stanley, dear? Sprang what?”
“This thing. This news that she to the dinner of the Pen and Ink Club on Friday night. I saw her talking to a pug-nosed female we met in the fruit, vegetable, birds, and dogs department, but I what they were talking about. She was the old lady to that dinner!”
“But, Stanley, why shouldn’t Aunt Elizabeth go to the Pen and Ink Club dinner?”
“Because my aunt is up to town on Friday to speak at that dinner, and your aunt is going to make a point of herself and having a long about me.”
We at one another silently. There was no the of the news. Like the together of two chemicals, this meeting of aunt with aunt must produce an explosion. And in that would the and of two hearts.
“Oh, Stanley! What can we do?”
If the question had been at me, I should have been hard put to it to answer; but Ukridge, that man of resource, though he might be down, was out.
“There is just one scheme. It to me as I was along the Brompton Road. Laddie,” he proceeded, a hand on my shoulder, “it your co-operation.”
“Oh, how splendid!” Millie.
It was not the I would have myself. She to explain.
“Mr. Corcoran is so clever. I’m sure, if it’s anything that can be done, he will do it.”
This me out as a resister. Ukridge I might have been able to withstand, but so had this girl’s spell upon me that in her hands I was as wax.
Ukridge sat on the desk, and spoke with a the occasion.
“It’s in this life, laddie,” he in vein, “how the times a goes through may often do him a of good in the end. I don’t I have any period of my less than those months I at my aunt’s house in Wimbledon. But mark the sequel, old horse! It was while going through that that I a knowledge of her which is going to save us now. You Dora Mason?”
“Who is Dora Mason?” Millie, quickly.
“A plain, of female who used to be my aunt’s secretary,” Ukridge, with equal promptness.
Personally, I Miss Mason as a and girl, but I that it would be to say so. I myself with making a note to the that Ukridge, his as a husband, had at any that which is so helpful in the home.
“Miss Mason,” he proceeded, speaking, I thought, in a manner a more and measured, “used to talk to me about her job from time to time. I was sorry for the old thing, you understand, hers was a life, and I a point of trying to her up now and then.”
“How like you, dear!”
It was not I who spoke—it was Millie. She her with and eyes, and I see that she was that my of him as a modern Galahad was too tame.
“And one of the she told me,” Ukridge, “was that my aunt, though she’s always speaking at these dinners, can’t say a word unless she has her speech for her and it. Miss Mason to me that she had every word my aunt had spoken in public in the last two years. You to on to the scheme, laddie? The long and the of it is that we must of that speech she’s going to deliver at the Pen and Ink Club binge. We must it, old horse, it can her. We shall thus her guns. Collar that speech, Corky, old man, she can her on it, and you can take it from me that she’ll she has a on Friday night and can’t appear.”
There over me that that comes to those in that I was for it.
“But it may be too late,” I faltered, with a last at self-preservation. “She may have the speech already.”
“Not a chance. I know what she’s like when she’s one of these books. No of any are permitted. Wassick, the bloke, will have had to send the thing to her by registered post to arrive Friday morning, so that she can study it in the train. Now, carefully, laddie, for I have this thing out to the last detail. My aunt is at her at Market Deeping, in Sussex. I don’t know how the go, but there’s sure to be one that’ll me to Market Deeping to-night. Directly I arrive I shall send a wire to Wassick—signed ‘Ukridge,’” said the schemer. “I have a perfect right to ‘Ukridge,’” he added, virtuously, “in which I tell him to hand the speech over to a who will call for it, as have been for him to take it to the cottage. All you have to do is to call at my aunt’s house, see Wassick—a fellow, and just the of who won’t a thing—get the manuscript, and off. Once the corner, you it in the nearest garbage-box, and all is well.”
“Isn’t he wonderful, Mr. Corcoran?” Millie.
“I can on you, Corky? You will not let me over your end of the business?”
“You will do this for us, Mr. Corcoran, won’t you?” Millie.
I gave one look at her. Her Persian into mine—gaily, trustfully, confidently. I gulped.
“All right,” I said, huskily.
A of me next as I got into the which was to take me to Heath House, Wimbledon Common. I to this panic, by telling myself that it was to my of what I had at my previous visit to the place, but it to me. A black of sat on my all the way, and as I the front-door it to me that this a more than any that had gone before. And as I waited there I understood.
No wonder the had chuckled! Like a I where the in this enterprise lay. It was just like Ukridge, impetuous, woollen-headed ass, not to have it; but that I myself should have it was indeed. The which had our joint attention was this—that, as I had visited the house before, the would me. I might succeed in the speech, but it would be reported to the Woman Up Top that the visitor who had called for the was none other than the Mr. Corcoran of memory—and what would then? Prosecution? Jail? Social ruin?
I was on the very point of the steps when the door was open, and there over me the most I have known.
It was a new who me.
“Well?”
He did not actually speak the word, but he had a pair of those expressive, eyebrows, and they said it for him. A most man, as and as his predecessor.
“I wish to see Mr. Wassick,” I said, firmly.
The butler’s manner no cordiality, but he saw that I was not to be with. He the way that familiar hall, and presently I was in the drawing-room, being once more by the six Pekingese, who, as on that other occasion, left their baskets, me, registered disappointment, and for their again.
“What name shall I say, sir?”
I was not to be had like that.
“Mr. Wassick is me,” I replied, coldly.
“Very good, sir.”
I about the room, this object and that. I lightly. I spoke to the Pekes.
“Hallo, you Pekes!” I said.
I over to the mantelpiece, over which was a mirror. I was at myself and that it was not such a of face—not handsome, perhaps, but with a of something about it—when of a the something else.
That something was the of that popular and well-known after-dinner speaker, Miss Julia Ukridge. “Good-morning,” she said.
It is how often the gods who make sport of us their own ends by the thing. Any less than this, less awful, would have left me as as a of paper, and stammering, in condition to be sport of. But as it was I myself cool. I had a that there would be a later, and that the next time I looked in a I should my whitened, but for the moment I was composed, and my brain like a circular-saw in an ice-box.
“How do you do?” I myself say. My voice to come from a long distance, but it was and in timbre.
“You to see me, Mr. Corcoran?”
“Yes.”
“Then why,” Miss Ukridge, softly, “did you ask for my secretary?”
There was that same sub-tinkle in her voice which had been there at our previous in the same ring. But that odd by me well.
“I that you were out of town,” I said.
“Who told you that?”
“They were saying so at the Savage Club the other night.” This to her.
“Why did you wish to see me?” she asked, by my intelligence.
“I to a your lecture in America.”
“How did you know that I was about to lecture in America?” I my eyebrows. This was childish.
“They were saying so at the Savage Club,” I replied. Baffled again.
“I had an idea, Mr. Corcoran,” she said, with a in her eyes, “that you might be the person to in my nephew Stanley’s telegram.”
“Telegram?”
“Yes. I my plans and returned to London last night of waiting till this evening, and I had when a came, Ukridge, from the village where I had been staying. It my to hand over to a who would call this the of the speech which I am to deliver at the dinner of the Pen and Ink Club. I assume the thing to have been some practical joke on the part of my nephew, Stanley. And I also assumed, Mr. Corcoran, that you must be the to.”
I this of all day.
“What an odd idea!” I said.
“You think it odd? Then why did you tell my that my was you?”
It was the one yet, but I it.
“The man must have me. He seemed,” I added, loftily, “an of fellow.”
Our met in for a instant, but all was well. Julia Ukridge was a woman, and this her in the contest. For people may say what they like about the of modern and its up to scorn, but there is no that it has one merit. Whatever its defects, a gently-bred lady of high in the world from calling a man a and him on the nose, she may be that he it. Miss Ukridge’s hands twitched, her tightened, and her bluely—but she herself. She her shoulders.
“What do you wish to know about my lecture tour?” she said.
It was the white flag.
Ukridge and I had to together at the Regent Grill Room that night and the happy of his troubles. I was at the tryst, and my for my friend as I noted the care-free way in which he up the to our table. I the news as as I could, and the man like a fish. It was not a meal. I myself as host, him with rich foods and wines, but he would not be comforted. The only he to the conversation, of monosyllables, as the waiter retired with the cigar-box.
“What’s the time, Corky, old man?”
I looked at my watch.
“Just on half-past nine.”
“About now,” said Ukridge, dully, “my aunt is starting to give the old lady an earful!”
Lady Lakenheath was never, at the best of times, what I should call a woman, but it to me, as I sat with her at tea on the afternoon, that her manner was more than usual. She had all the of a woman who has had news. She looked, in fact, like a woman who has been told by the aunt of the man who is to into her family the true of that individual.
It was not easy in the to keep the on the of the ’Mgomo-’Mgomos, but I was bravely, when the last thing which I should have predicted.
“Mr. Ukridge,” the maid.
That Ukridge should be here at all was astounding; but that he should in, as he did, with that same air of being the which had marked his at our meeting in this drawing-room, into the very of the inexplicable. So was I by the of this man, I had left on the previous night a hulk, with the of an of the family, that I did what I had been on the of doing every time I had of Lady Lakenheath’s hospitality—upset my tea.
“I wonder,” said Ukridge, into speech with the same old abruptness, “if this would be any good, Aunt Elizabeth.”
I had got my cup again as he started speaking, but at the of this address over it again. Only a of long have Lady Lakenheath’s cups and under the of such as I was experiencing.
“What is it, Stanley?” asked Lady Lakenheath, with a of interest.
They were their over a bottle which Ukridge had out of his pocket.
“It’s some new stuff, Aunt Elizabeth. Just put on the market. Said to be excellent for parrots. Might be trying.”
“It is of you, Stanley, to have it,” said Lady Lakenheath, warmly. “And I shall try the of a if Leonard has another seizure. Fortunately, he almost himself again this afternoon.”
“Splendid!”
“My parrot,” said Lady Lakenheath, me in the conversation, “had a most attack last night. I cannot account for it. His health has always been so particularly good. I was for dinner at the time, and so was not present at the of the seizure, but my niece, who was an eye-witness of what occurred, tells me he in a most way. Quite suddenly, it appears, he started to sing very excitedly; then, after awhile, he stopped in the middle of a and appeared to be suffering. My niece, who is a most warm-hearted girl, was naturally alarmed. She ran to me, and when I came Leonard was against the of his in an of complete exhaustion, and all he would say was, ‘Have a nut!’ He this times in a low voice, and then closed his and off his perch. I was up the night with him, but now he to have the corner. This he is almost his old self again, and has been talking in Swahili, always a that he is cheerful.”
I my and congratulations.
“It was particularly unfortunate,” Ukridge, sympathetically, “that the thing should have last night, it Aunt Elizabeth going to the Pen and Ink Club dinner.”
“What!” Fortunately I had set my cup by this time.
“Yes,” said Lady Lakenheath, regretfully. “And I had been so looking to meeting Stanley’s aunt there. Miss Julia Ukridge, the novelist. I have been an of hers for many years. But, with Leonard in this terrible state, naturally I not from the house. His were paramount. I shall have to wait till Miss Ukridge returns from America.”
“Next April,” Ukridge, softly.
“I think, if you will me now, Mr. Corcoran, I will just up and see how Leonard is.”
The door closed.
“Laddie,” said Ukridge, solemnly, “doesn’t this just show——”
I at him accusingly.
“Did you that parrot?”
“Me? Poison the parrot? Of I didn’t the parrot. The whole thing was to an act of out in a of the purest altruism. And, as I was saying, doesn’t it just that no little act of kindness, trivial, is in the great of things? One might have that when I the old lady that bottle of Peppo the thing would have and ended there with a of thanks. But mark, laddie, how all work together for good. Millie, who, ourselves, is a girl in a million, to think the bird was looking a off colour last night, and with a to do him a of good, gave him a slice of in Peppo. Thought it might him up. Now, what they put in that stuff, old man, I don’t know, but the that the bird almost perfectly pie-eyed. You have the old lady’s account of the affair, but, me, she doesn’t know one of it. Millie me that Leonard’s had to be to be believed. When the old lady came he was in a stupor, and all to-day he has been from a head. If he’s up and taking notice again, it means that he has off one of the of the age. Let this be a lesson to you, laddie, to let a day go by without its act of kindness. What’s the time, old horse?”
“Getting on for five.”
Ukridge to for a moment, and a happy his face.
“About now,” he said, complacently, “my aunt is out in the Channel somewhere. And I see by the paper that there is a up from the southeast!”
