Nothing Serious by P G Wodehouse

Author:P G Wodehouse [Wodehouse, P G]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, Adult, Humour
ISBN: 9781590201060
Google: OdLhMQAACAAJ
Amazon: 159020106X
Barnesnoble: 159020106X
Goodreads: 525858
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1950-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VI

Rodney has a Relapse

THE Oldest Member, who had been in a reverie, came out of it abruptly and began to speak with the practised ease of a raconteur who does not require a cue to start him off on a story. When William Bates came to me that afternoon with his tragic story (said the Oldest Member, as smoothly as if we had been discussing William Bates, whoever he might be, for hours), I felt no surprise that he should have selected me as a confident. I have been sitting on the terrace of this golf club long enough to know that that is what I am there for. Everybody with a bit of bad news always brings it to me.

“I say,” said William Bates.

This William was a substantial young man constructed rather on the lines of a lorry, and as a rule he shared that vehicle’s placid and unruffled outlook on life. He lived mainly on chops and beer, and few things were able to disturb him. Yet, as he stood before me now, I could see that he was all of a twitter, as far as a fourteen-stone-six man full of beer and chops can be all of a twitter.

“I say,” said William. “You know Rodney?”

“Your brother-in-law, Rodney Spelvin?”

“Yes. I believe he’s gone cuckoo.”

“What gives you that impression?”

“Well, look. Listen to this. We were playing our usual foursome this morning, Rodney and Anastatia and me and Jane, a bob a corner, nip and tuck all the way around, and at the eighteenth Jane and I were lying dead in four and Rodney had a simple chip to reach the green in three. You get the set-up?”

I said I got the set-up.

“Well, knowing my sister Anastatia’s uncanny ability to hole out from anywhere within fifteen yards of the pin, I naturally thought the thing was in the bag for them. I said as much to Jane. ‘Jane,’ I said, ‘be ready with the stiff upper lip. They’ve dished us.’ And I had already started to feel in my pocket for my bob, when I suddenly saw that Rodney was picking up his ball.”

“Picking up his ball?”

“And what do you think his explanation was? His explanation was that in order to make his shot he would have had to crush a daisy. ‘I couldn’t crush a daisy,’ he said. ‘The pixies would never forgive me.’ What do you make of it?”

I knew what I made of it, but I had not the heart to tell him. I passed it off by saying that Rodney was one of those genial clowns who will do anything for a laugh and, William being a simple soul, my efforts to soothe him were successful. But his story had left me uneasy and apprehensive. It seemed to me only too certain that Rodney Spelvin was in for another attack of poetry.

I have generally found, as I have gone through the world, that people are tolerant and ready to forgive, and in our little community

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