Young Men in Spats by Wodehouse P G

Author:Wodehouse, P G [P.G. Wodehouse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2009-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

7 NOBLESSE OBLIGE

ON THE USUALLY unruffled brow of the Bean who had just entered the smoking-room of the Drones Club there was a furrow of perplexity. He crossed pensively to the settee in the corner and addressed the group of Eggs and Crumpets assembled there.

‘I say,’ he said, ‘in re Freddie Widgeon, do any of you chaps happen to know if he’s gone off his rocker?’

An Egg asked what made him think so.

‘Well, he’s out in the bar, drinking Lizard’s Breaths . . .’

‘Nothing unbalanced about that.’

‘No, but his manner is strange. It so happens that at the seminary where he and I were educated they are getting up a fund for some new racquets courts, and when I tackled Freddie just now and said that he ought to chip in and rally round the dear old school, he replied that he was fed to the tonsils with dear old schools and never wished to hear anyone talk about dear old schools again.’

‘Rummy,’ agreed the Egg.

‘He then gave a hideous laugh and added that, if anybody was interested in his plans, he was going to join the Foreign Legion, that Cohort of the Damned in which broken men may toil and die and, dying, forget.’

‘Beau Widgeon?’ said the Egg, impressed. ‘What ho!’

A Crumpet shook his head.

‘You won’t catch Freddie joining any Foreign Legion, once he gets on to the fact that it means missing his morning cup of tea. All the same, I can understand his feeling a bit upset at the moment, poor old blighter. Tragedy has come into his life. He’s just lost the only girl in the world.’

‘Well, he ought to be used to that by this time.’

‘Yes. But he also got touched for his only tenner in the world, and on top of that his uncle, old Blicester, has cut his allowance in half.’

‘Ah,’ said the Egg understandingly.

‘It was at Cannes that it all happened,’ proceeded the Crumpet. ‘Old Blicester had been ordered there by his doctor, and he offered to take Freddie along, paying all expenses. A glittering prospect, of course, for there are few juicier spots than the South of France during the summer season: nevertheless, I warned the poor fish not to go. I told him no good could come of it, pointing out the unexampled opportunities he would have of making some sort of a bloomer and alienating the old boy, if cooped up with him at a foreign resort for a matter of six weeks. But he merely blushed prettily and said that, while nobody was more alive to that possibility than himself, he was jolly well going to go, because this girl was at Cannes.’

‘Who was this girl?’

‘I forget her name. Drusilla something. Never met her myself. He described her to me, and I received the impression of a sort of blend of Tallulah Bankhead and a policewoman. Fascinating exterior, I mean to say, but full of ideas at variance with the spirit of modern progress. Apparently she sprang from

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