Goodbye to All Cats by P.G. Wodehouse

Author:P.G. Wodehouse [P. G. Wodehouse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

UKRIDGE’S ACCIDENT SYNDICATE

‘HALF A MINUTE, laddie,’ said Ukridge. And, gripping my arm, he brought me to a halt on the outskirts of the little crowd which had collected about the church door.

It was a crowd such as may be seen any morning during the London mating-season outside any of the churches which nestle in the quiet squares between Hyde Park and the King’s Road, Chelsea.

It consisted of five women of cooklike aspect, four nursemaids, half a dozen men of the non-producing class who had torn themselves away for the moment from their normal task of propping up the wall of the Bunch of Grapes public-house on the corner, a costermonger with a barrow of vegetables, divers small boys, eleven dogs, and two or three purposeful-looking young fellows with cameras slung over their shoulders. It was plain that a wedding was in progress – and, arguing from the presence of the camera-men and the line of smart motor-cars along the kerb, a fairly fashionable wedding. What was not plain – to me – was why Ukridge, sternest of bachelors, had desired to add himself to the spectators.

‘What,’ I inquired, ‘is the thought behind this? Why are we interrupting our walk to attend the obsequies of some perfect stranger?’

Ukridge did not reply for a moment. He seemed plunged in thought. Then he uttered a hollow, mirthless laugh – a dreadful sound like the last gargle of a dying moose.

‘Perfect stranger, my number eleven foot!’ he responded, in his coarse way. ‘Do you know who it is who’s getting hitched up in there?’

‘Who?’

‘Teddy Weeks.’

‘Teddy Weeks? Teddy Weeks? Good Lord!’ I exclaimed. ‘Not really?’

And five years rolled away.

It was at Barolini’s Italian restaurant in Beak Street that Ukridge evolved his great scheme. Barolini’s was a favourite resort of our little group of earnest strugglers in the days when the philanthropic restaurateurs of Soho used to supply four courses and coffee for a shilling and sixpence; and there were present that night, besides Ukridge and myself, the following men-about-town: Teddy Weeks, the actor, fresh from a six-weeks’ tour with the Number Three ‘Only a Shop-Girl’ Company; Victor Beamish, the artist, the man who drew that picture of the O-So-Eesi Piano-Player in the advertisement pages of the Piccadilly Magazine; Bertram Fox, author of Ashes of Remorse, and other unproduced motion-picture scenarios; and Robert Dunhill, who, being employed at a salary of eighty pounds per annum by the New Asiatic Bank, represented the sober, hard-headed commercial element. As usual, Teddy Weeks had collared the conversation, and was telling us once again how good he was and how hardly treated by a malignant fate.

There is no need to describe Teddy Weeks. Under another and a more euphonious name he has long since made his personal appearance dreadfully familiar to all who read the illustrated weekly papers. He was then, as now, a sickeningly handsome young man, possessing precisely the same melting eyes, mobile mouth, and corrugated hair so esteemed by the theatre-going public today. And yet, at this

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