Nothing Serious (26 page)

A
slight shadow of disappointment seemed to pass over the girl’s face. It was as
if she had been expecting the talk to develop along different lines.

“Oh, I
came for a purpose.”

“Eh?
What purpose?”

She
directed his attention to the rows of living corpses in the pavilion. Lord
Plumpton and his friend, having settled the Wodger question were, leaning back
with their hats over their eyes. It was difficult to realize that life still
animated those rigid limbs.

“When I
was here yesterday, I was greatly struck by the spectacle of those stiffs over
there. I wondered if it was possible to stir them up into some sort of
activity.”

“I
doubt it.”

“I’m a
little dubious myself. They’re like fish on a slab or a Wednesday matinee
audience. Still, I thought I would try. Yesterday, of course I hadn’t elastic
and ammo with me.”

“Elastic?
Ammo?”

Conky
stared. From the recesses of her costume she had produced a piece of stout
elastic and a wad of tin foil. She placed the tin foil on the elastic and then
between her teeth. Then, turning, she took careful aim at Lord Plumpton.

For a
sighting shot it was an admirable effort. Conky, following the projectile with
a rapt gaze, saw his uncle start and put a hand to his ear. There seemed little
reason to doubt that he had caught it amidships.

“Good
Lord!” he cried. “Here, after you with that elastic. I used to do that at
school, and many was the fine head I secured. I wonder if the old skill still
lingers.”

It was
some minutes later that Lord Plumpton turned to the friend beside him.

“Wasps
very plentiful this year,” he said.

The
friend blinked drowsily.

“Watts?”

“Wasps.”

“There
was A. R. K. Watts who used to play for Sussex. Ark we used to call him.”

“Not
Watts. Wasps.”

“Wasps?”

“Wasps.”

“What
about them?”

“They
seem very plentiful. One stung me in the ear just now. And now one of them has
knocked off my hat. Most extraordinary.”

A man
in a walrus moustache who had played for Surrey in 1911 came along, and Lord
Plumpton greeted him cordially.

“Hullo,
Freddie.”

“Hullo.”

“Good
game.”

“Very.
Exciting.”

“Wasps
are a nuisance, though.”

“Wasps?”

“Wasps.”

“What
Wasps?”

“I don’t
know their names. The wasps around here.”

“No
wasps around here.”

“Yes.”

“Not in
the pavilion at Lord’s. You can’t get in unless you’re a member.”

“Well,
one has just knocked off my hat. And look, there goes Jimmy’s hat.”

The
walrus shook his head. He stooped and picked up a piece of tin foil.

“Someone’s
shooting this stuff at you. Used to do it myself a long time ago. Ah yes,” he
said, peering about him, “I see where the stuff’s coming from. That girl over
there in the three shilling seats with your nephew. If you look closely, you’ll
see she’s drawing a bead on you now.”

Lord
Plumpton looked, started and stiffened.

“That
girl again! Is one to be beset by her through all eternity?

Send
for the attendants! Rouse the attendants and give them their divisional orders.
Instruct the attendants to arrest her immediately and bring her to the
committee room.”

And so
it came about that just as Conky was adjusting the elastic to his lips a short
while later and preparing to loose off, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and
there was a stern-faced man in the uniform of a Marylebone Cricket Club
attendant. And simultaneously another heavy hand fell on the girl’s shoulder,
and there was another stern-faced man in the uniform of another Marylebone
Cricket Club attendant.

It was
a fair cop.

The
committee room of the Marylebone Cricket Club is a sombre and impressive
apartment. Photographs of bygone cricketers, many of them with long beards,
gaze down from the walls—accusingly, or so it seems to the man whose conscience
is not as clear as it might be. Only a man with an exceptionally clear
conscience can enter this holy of holies without feeling that he is about to be
stripped of his M.C.C. tie and formally ticketed as a social leper.

This is
particularly so when, as in the present instance the President himself is
seated at his desk. It was at Lord Plumpton’s request that he was there now. It
had seemed to Lord Plumpton that a case of this magnitude could be dealt with
adequately only at the very highest levels.

He
mentioned this in his opening speech for the prosecution. “I demand,” said Lord
Plumpton, “the most exemplary punishment for an outrage unparalleled in the
annals of the Marylebone Cricket Club, the dear old club we all love so well,
if you know what I mean.” Here he paused as if intending to bare his head, but
realizing that he had not got his hat on continued, “I mean to say, taking
pot-shots at members with a series of slabs of tin foil, dash it! If that isn’t
a nice bit of box fruit, what is? Bad enough, if you see what I’m driving at,
to take pot-shots at even the
cannaille,
as they call them in France,
who squash in in the free seats, but when it comes to pot-shotting members in
the pavilion, I mean where are we? Personally I would advocate skinning the
girl, but if you consider that too extreme I am prepared to settle for twenty
years in solitary confinement. A menace to the community, that’s what this girl
is. Busting about in her car and knocking people endways with one hand and flicking
their hats off with the other, if you follow my drift. She reminds me of …
who was that woman in the Bible whose work was always so raw? … Delilah? …
No … It’s on the tip of my tongue … Ah yes, Jezebel. She’s a modern
streamlined Jezebel, dash her insides.”

“Uncle
Everard,” said Conky, “you are speaking of the woman I love.”

The
girl gave a little gasp.

“No,
really?” she said.

“Absolutely,”
said Conky. “I had intended to mention it earlier. I don’t know your name …

“Clarissa.
Clarissa Binstead.”

“How
many s’s?”

“Three,
if you count the Binstead.”

“Clarissa,
I love you. Will you be my wife?”

“Sure,”
said the girl. “I was hoping you’d suggest it. And what all the fuss is about
is more than I can understand. Why when we go to a ball game in America, we
throw pop bottles.”

There
was a silence.

“Are
you an American, madam?” said the President.

“One
hundred per cent. Oh, say, can you see … No, I never can remember how it goes
after that. I could whistle it for you.”

The
President had drawn Lord Plumpton aside. His face was grave and anxious.

“My
dear Everard,” he said in an urgent undertone, “we must proceed carefully here,
very carefully. I had no notion this girl was American. Somebody should have
informed me. The last thing we want is an international incident, particularly
at a moment when we are hoping, if all goes well, to get into America’s ribs
for a bit of the stuff. I can fully appreciate your wounded feelings …”

“And
how about my wounded topper?”

“The
club will buy you a new hat, and then, my dear fellow, I would strongly urge
that we consider the matter closed.”

“You
mean not skin her?”

“No.”

“Not
slap her into the cooler for twenty years?”

“No. There
might be very unfortunate repercussions.”

“Oh,
all right,” said Lord Plumpton sullenly. “Oh, very well. But,” he proceeded on
a brighter note, “there is one thing I can do, and that is disinherit this
frightful object here. Hoy!” he said to Conky.

“Hullo?”
said Conky.

“You
are no longer a nephew of mine.”

“Well,
that’s a bit of goose,” said Conky.

As he
came out of the committee room, he was informed by an attendant that a
gentleman wished to speak to him on the telephone. Excusing himself to Clarissa
and bidding her wait for him downstairs Conky went to the instrument, listened
for a few moments, then reeled away, his eyes bulging and his jaw a-droop. He
found Clarissa at the spot agreed upon.

“Hullo,
there,” said Conky. “I say, you remember me asking you to be my wife?”

“Yes.”

“You
said you would.”

“Yes.”

“Well,
the words that spring to the lips are
‘Will
you’? Because I’m afraid the
whole thing’s
off.
That was MacSporran on the ‘phone. He said he’d made
a miscalculation, and my tenner won’t be enough to start that sea water scheme
going. He said he would need another thirty thousand pounds and could I raise
it? I said No, and he said ‘Too bad, too bad’. And I said: ‘Do I get my tenner
back?’ and he said: ‘No, you don’t get your tenner back.’ So there you are. I
can’t marry you.”

Clarissa
wrinkled her forehead.

“I don’t
see it. Father’s got it in gobs. He will provide.”

“Not
for me, he won’t. I always swore I’d never marry a girl for her money.”

“You
aren’t marrying me for my money. You’re marrying me because we’re soulmates.”

“That’s
true. Still, you appear to have a most ghastly lot of the stuff, and I haven’t
a bean.”

“Suppose
you had a job?”

“Oh, if
I had a job.”

“That’s
all right, then. Father runs a gigantic business and he can always find room for
another Vice-President.”

“Vice-President?”

“Yes.”

“But I
don’t know enough to be a Vice-President.”

“It’s
practically impossible not to know enough to be a Vice-President. All you would
have to do would be to attend conferences and say ‘Yes’ when Father made a
suggestion.”

“What
in front of a whole lot of people?”

“Well,
at least you could nod.”

“Oh
yes, I could nod.”

“Then
that’s settled. Kiss me.”

Their
lips met long and lingeringly. Conky came out of the clinch with sparkling eyes
and a heightened colour. He raised a hand to heaven.

“How’s
that, umpire?” he cried.

“Jolly
good show, sir,” said Clarissa.

CHAPTER
X

Success Story

TO a man like myself,
accustomed to making his mid-day meal of bread and cheese and a pint of bitter,
it was very pleasant to be sitting in the grill-room of the best restaurant in
London, surrounded by exiled Grand Dukes, chorus girls and the better type of
millionaire, and realizing that it wasn’t going to cost me a penny. I beamed at
Ukridge, my host, and across the table with its snowy napery and shining silver
he beamed back at me. He reminded me of a genial old eighteenth-century Squire
in the coloured supplement of a Christmas number presiding over a dinner to the
tenantry.

“Don’t
spare the caviare, Corky,” he urged cordially.

I said
I would’t.

“Eat
your fill of the whitebait.”

I said
I would.

“And
when the porterhouse steak comes along, wade into it with your head down and
your elbows out at right angles.”

I had
already been planning to do this. A man in the dreamlike position of sharing
lunch at an expensive restaurant with a Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge who
has announced his intention of paying the score does not stint himself. His
impulse is to get his while the conditions prevail. Only when the cigars
arrived and the founder of the feast, ignoring the lesser breeds, selected a
couple that looked like young torpedoes did I feel impelled to speak a word of
warning.

“I
suppose you know those cost about ten bob apiece?”

“A
bagatelle, laddie. If I find them a cool, fragrant and refreshing smoke, I
shall probably order a few boxes.”

I drew
at my torpedo in a daze. During the past week or two rumours had been reaching
me that S. F. Ukridge, that battered football of Fate, was mysteriously in
funds. Men spoke of having met him and having had the half-crowns which they
automatically produced waved away with a careless gesture and an amused laugh.
But I had not foreseen opulence like this.

“Have
you got a job?” I asked. I knew that his aunt, the well-known novelist Miss Julia
Ukridge, was always trying to induce him to accept employment, and it seemed to
me that she must have secured for him some post which carried with it access to
the till.

Ukridge
shook his head. “Better than that, old horse. I have at last succeeded in amassing
a bit of working capital, and I am on the eve of making a stupendous fortune.
What at, you ask? That, laddie it is too early to say. I shall look about me.
But I’ll tell you one thing. I shall not become master of ceremonies at an East
End boxing joint, which was the walk in life which I was contemplating until
quite recently. When did I see you last?”