Uncle Dynamite by P.G. Wodehouse

Author:P.G. Wodehouse [Wodehouse, P.G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Uncle Fred
Published: 2011-10-05T13:31:49+00:00

Whatever the nature of the exchanges in which he had been taking part, they had done nothing to impair Lord Ickenham’s calm. His demeanour, as he entered, was the easy, unembarrassed demeanour of an English peer who has just remembered that there is a decanter of whisky in a drawing-room. As always at moments when lesser men would have been plucking at their ties and shaking in every limb, this excellent old man preserved the suave imperturbability of a fish on a cake of ice. It seemed to Pongo, though it was difficult for him to hear distinctly, for his heart, in addition to giving its impersonation of Nijinsky, was now making a noise like a motor-cycle, that the head of the family was humming light-heartedly.

‘Ah, Pongo,’ he said, making purposefully for the decanter and seeming in no way surprised to see his nephew. ‘Up and about? One generally finds you not far from the whisky.’ He filled his glass, and sank gracefully into a chair. ‘I always think,’ he said, having refreshed himself with a couple of swallows and a sip, ‘that this is the best hour of the day. The soothing hush, the grateful stimulant, the pleasant conversation on whatever topic may happen to come up. Well, my boy, what’s new? You seem upset about something. Nothing wrong, I hope?’

Pongo uttered a curious hissing sound like the death-rattle of a soda-water syphon. He found the question ironical.

‘I don’t know what you call wrong. I’ve just been told that I’m extremely apt to have my insides ripped out.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Bill Oakshott.’

‘Was he merely reading your future in the tea leaves, or do you mean that he proposed to do the ripping?’

‘He proposed to do the ripping with his bare hands.’

‘You amaze me. Bill Oakshott? That quiet, lovable young man.’

‘Lovable be blowed. He’s worse than a Faceless Fiend. He could walk straight into the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s, and no questions asked. He also said he would pull my head off at the roots, and strangle me like a foul snake.’

‘Difficult to do that, if he had pulled your head off. Assuming, as I think we are entitled to assume, that the neck would come away with the head. But what had you been doing to Bill Oakshott to stir his passions thus?’

‘He didn’t like my being in here with Elsie Bean.’

‘I don’t think I remember who Elsie Bean is. One meets so many people.’

‘The housemaid.’

‘Ah, yes. The one you kiss.’

Pongo raised a tortured face heavenwards, as if he were calling for justice from above.

‘I don’t kiss her! At least, I may have done once — like a brother — in recognition of a signal service which she had rendered me. The way you and Bill Oakshott talk, you’d think this Bean and I spent twenty-four hours a day playing postman’s knock.’

‘My dear boy, don’t get heated. My attitude is wholly sympathetic. I recollect now that Bill told me he had been a little disturbed by the spectacle of the embrace.

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