A Few Quick Ones, Page 2

  Freddie examined the snapshot, and such was his emotion that the ham sandwich flew from his grasp.

  "Crumbs!"

  "You may well say Crumbs!"

  "Golly!"

  "And also Golly!”

  “I said the same thing myself. It is pretty obvious, I think you will agree with me, that Blicester hasn't a chance. A good selling-plater, I admit, but this time he has come up against a classic yearling."

  "You told me your uncle had been perspiring for years in the hot sun of the Argentine."

  "No doubt the sun was not as hot as I have always supposed, or possibly his pores do not work freely. I also said, I recall, that he did a lot of riding over pampas. I was wrong. On the evidence of this photograph he can't have ridden over a pampa in his life. Well, fortunately I discovered this in time. There is only one thing to do, Freddie. We must change tickets again."

  Freddie gaped.

  "You really…Oh, thanks," he said, as a passing Bean picked up the ham sandwich and returned it to him. "You really mean that?"

  "I certainly do."

  "I call it pretty noble of you."

  "Oh, well, you know how it is. Once a Boy Scout, always a Boy Scout," said Oofy, and a few moments later he was informing the Crumpet that the list in his notebook must once more be revised.

  It was Oofy's practice, whenever life in London seemed to him to be losing its savour and the conversation of his fellow members of the Drones to be devoid of its customary sparkle, to pop over to Paris and get a nice change, and shortly after his chat with Freddie he made another of his trips to the French capital. And as he sat sipping an aperitif one morning at a Cafe on the Champs Elysees, his thoughts turned to his Uncle Horace, and not for the first time he found himself marvelling that the love of a woman could have made that dedicated man mortify the flesh as he was doing. Himself, Oofy would not have forgone the simplest pat of butter to win the hand of Helen of Troy, and had marriage with Cleopatra involved the daily drinking of potassium broth and seaweed soup, there would have been no question of proceeding with the ceremony. "I am sorry," he would have said to Egypt's queen, "but if those are your ideas, I have no option but to cancel the order for the wedding cake and see that work is stopped on the bridesmaids' dresses."

  He looked at his watch. About now his uncle, in Hollrock Manor's picturesque little bar, would be ordering his glass of parsnip juice preparatory to tackling whatever garbage the bill of fare was offering that day, perfectly contented because love conquered all and so forth. Ah, well, he felt, it takes all sorts to make a world.

  At this point in his reverie his meditations were interrupted by a splintering crash in his rear and, turning, he perceived that a chair at a near-by table had disintegrated beneath the weight of a very stout man in a tweed suit. And he was just chuckling heartily at the amusing incident, when the laughter died on his lips. The well-nourished body extricating itself from the debris was that of his Uncle Horace - that selfsame Uncle Horace whom he had just been picturing among the parsnip juices and seaweed soups of Hollrock Manor, Herts. "Uncle!" he cried, hastening to the spot. "Oh, hullo, my boy," said Mr. Prosser, starting to dust himself off. "You here? They seem to make these chairs very flimsy nowadays." he muttered with a touch of peevishness. Or it may be," he went on in more charitable vein, "that I have put on a little weight these last few weeks. This French cooking. Difficult always to resist those sauces. What are you doing in La Ville Lumiere ?"

  "What are you doing in La Ville Lumiere ?" demanded Oofy. "Why aren't you at that frightful place in Hertfordshire?"

  "I left there ages ago."

  "But how about the woman you love?"

  "What woman I love?"

  "The one who called you a hippopotamus."

  "Oh, Loretta Delancy. That's all over. It turned out to be just one of those fleeting shipboard romances. You know how they all look good to you at sea and fade out with a pop when you get ashore. She came to Hollrock Manor one afternoon, and the scales fell from my eyes. Couldn't imagine what I had ever seen in the woman. The idea of going through all that dieting and massage for her sake seemed so damn silly that next day I wrote her a civil note telling her to take a running jump into the nearest lake and packed up and left. Well, it's nice to run into you like this, my dear boy. We must have some big dinners together. Are you staying long in Paris?"

  "I'm leaving today," said Oofy. "I have to see a man named Widgeon on business."

  But he did not see Freddie. Though he haunted the club day and night, yearning for a sight of that familiar face, not a glimpse of it did he get. He saw Bingo Little, he saw Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, he saw Barmy Phipps, Percy Wimbush, Nelson Cork, Archibald Mulliner and all the other pillars of the Drones who lunched there daily, but always there was this extraordinary shortage of Widgeons. It was as though the young man had vanished from human ken like the captain and crew of the Marie Celeste.

  It was only when he happened to be having a quick one with an Egg who was Freddie's closest friend that the mystery of his disappearance was explained. At the mention of the absent one's name, the Egg sighed a little.

  "Oh, Freddie," he said. "Yes, I can tell you about him. At the moment he is rather unfortunately situated. He owes a bookie fifty quid, and is temporarily unable to settle."

  "Silly ass."

  "Silly, unquestionably, ass, but there it is. What happened was that he drew an uncle in this sweep whom nobody had ever heard of, and blow me tight if he hadn't unexpectedly hit the jackpot. He showed me a snapshot of the man, and I was amazed. I could see at a glance that here was the winner, so far ahead of the field that there could be no competition. Blicester would be an honourable runner-up, but nothing more. Extraordinary how often in these big events you find a dark horse popping up and upsetting all calculations. Well, with the sweepstake money as good as in his pocket, as you might say, poor old Freddie lost his head and put his shirt on a horse at Kempton Park which finished fourth, with the result, as I have indicated, that he owes this bookie fifty quid, and no means of paying him till he collects on the sweep. And the bookie, when informed that he wasn't going to collect, advised him in a fatherly way to be very careful of himself from now on, for though he knew that it was silly to be superstitious, he - the bookie - couldn't help remembering that every time people did him down for money some unpleasant accident always happened to them. Time after time he had noticed it, and it could not be mere coincidence. More like some sort of fate, the bookie said. So Freddie is lying low, disguised in a beard by Clarkson."

  "Where?"

  "In East Dulwich."

  "Whereabouts in East Dulwich?"

  "Ah," said the Egg, "that's what the bookie would like to know."

  The trouble about East Dulwich, from the point of view of a cleanshaven man trying to find a bearded man there, is that it is rather densely populated, rendering his chances of success slim. Right up to the day before the Eton and Harrow match Oofy prowled to and fro in its streets, hoping for the best, but East Dulwich held its secret well. The opening day of the match found him on the steps of the Drones Club, scanning the horizon like Sister Anne in the Bluebeard story. Surely, he felt, Freddie could not stay away from the premises on this morning of mornings.

  Member after member entered the building as he stood there, accompanied by uncles of varying stoutness, but not one of those members was Freddie Widgeon, and Oofy's blood pressure had just reached a new high and looked like going to par, when a cab drew up and something bearded, shooting from its interior, shot past him, shot through the entrance hall and disappeared down the steps leading to the washroom. The eleventh hour had produced the man.

  Freddie, when Oofy burst into the washroom some moments later with a "Tally-ho" on his lips, was staring at himself in the mirror, a thing not many would have cared to do when looking as he did. A weaker man than Oofy would have recoiled at the frightful sight that met his eyes. Freddie, when making his purchase at Clarkson's, had evidently preferred quantity to qu
ality. The salesman, no doubt, had recommended something in neat Vandykes as worn by the better class of ambassadors, but Freddie was a hunted stag, and when hunted stags buy beards, they want something big and bushy as worn by Victorian novelists. The man whom Oofy had been seeking so long could at this moment of their meeting have stepped into the Garrick Club of the Sixties, and Wilkie Collins and the rest of the boys would have welcomed him as a brother, supposing him to be Walt Whitman.

  "Freddie!" cried Oofy.

  "Oh, hullo, Oofy," said Freddie. He was pulling at the beard in a gingerly manner, as if the process hurt him. "You are doubtless surprised…”

  "No, I'm not. I was warned of this. Why don't you take that damned thing off?"

  "I can't."

  "Give it a tug."

  "I have given it a tug, and the agony was excruciating. It's stuck on with spirit gum or something."

  "Well, never mind your beard. We have no time to talk of beards. Freddie, thank heaven I have found you. Another quarter of an hour, and it would have been too late."

  "What would have been too late?"

  "It. We've got to change those tickets."

  "What, again?"

  "Immediately. You remember me saying that my Uncle Horace was staying at a place called Hollrock Manor in Hertfordshire? Well, naturally I supposed that it was one of those luxury country hotels where he would be having twice of everything and filling up with beer, champagne, liqueurs and what not. But was it?"

  "Wasn't it? What was it if it wasn't?"

  "It was what they call a clinic, run by some foul doctor, where the superfatted go to reduce. He had gone there to please a woman who had told him he looked like a hippopotamus.”

  "He does look rather like a hippopotamus."

  "He does in that snapshot, I grant you, but that was taken weeks and weeks ago, and during those weeks he has been living on apple juice, tomato juice, orange juice, pineapple juice, parsnip juice, grated carrots, potassium broth and seaweed soup. He has also been having daily massage, the term massage embracing effleurage, stroking, kneading, petrissage tapotement and vibration."

  "Lord love a duck!"

  "Lord love a duck is right. I needn't tell you what happens when that sort of thing is going on. Something has to give. By now he must have lost at least a couple of stone and be utterly incapable of giving old Blicester a race. So slip me the Uncle Horace ticket, and I will slip you the Blicester, and the situation will be stabilized once more. Gosh, Freddie, old man, when I think how near I came to letting you down, thinking I was acting in your best interests, I shudder."

  Freddie stroked his beard. To Oofy's dismay, he seemed hesitant, dubious.

  "Well, I'm not so sure about this," he said. "You say your Uncle Horace has lost a couple of stone. I am strongly of the opinion that he could lose three and still be fatter than my Uncle Rodney, and I'm wondering if I ought to take a chance. You see, a great deal hangs on my winning this tourney. I owe fifty quid to a clairvoyant bookie, who, looking in his crystal ball, has predicted that if I don't brass up, some nasty accident will happen to me, and from what he tells me that crystal ball of his is to be relied on. I should feel an awful ass if I gave up the Uncle Horace ticket and took the Uncle Rodney ticket and Uncle Horace won and I found myself in a hospital with surgeons doing crochet work all over me."

  "I only want to help."

  "I know you do, but the question is, are you helping?"

  Oofy was unable to stroke his beard, for he had not got one, but he fingered his chin. He was thinking with the rapidity with which he always thought when there was money floating around to be picked up. It did not take him long to reach a decision. Agony though it was to part with fifty pounds, winning the sweep would leave him with a nice profit. There was nothing for it but to make the great sacrifice. If you do not speculate, you cannot accumulate.

  "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said, producing his wallet and extracting the bank notes with which it always bulged. "I'll give you fifty quid. That will take care of the bookie, and you'll be all right, whatever happens."

  As much as was visible of Freddie's face between the crevices of the beard fit up. He looked like someone staring incredulously at someone through a haystack.

  "Golly, Oofy! Will you really do that?"

  "It's not much to do for an old friend."

  "But what is there in it for you?"

  "Just that glow, old man, just that glow," said Oofy.

  Going upstairs, he found the Crumpet in the hall, studying the fist in his notebook, and broke the news that a little further pencil-work would be required of him. It brought a frown to the other's face.

  "I disapprove of all this chopping and changing," he said, though agreeing that there was nothing in the rules against it. "Let's get this straight. Freddie Widgeon now has the Blicester ticket and you have the Horace Prosser ticket. Right?"

  "Yes, that's right."

  "Not vice versa ?"

  "No, not vice versa."

  "Good, I'm glad that's settled. I've worn out one piece of indiarubber already."

  It was at this moment that the hall porter, who for some little time had been trying to attract Oofy's attention, spoke.

  "There's a gentleman asking for you, Mr. Prosser. Name of Prosser, same as yours."

  "Ah, yes, my uncle. Where is he?"

  "He stepped into the bar."

  "He would. Will you go and give him a cocktail," said Oofy to the Crumpet. "I'll be with you in a minute, after I've booked a table in the dining-room."

  It was with the feeling that all was for the best in this best of all possible worlds that he entered the dining-room. Like the Battle of Waterloo, it had been a devilish close-run thing, but he had won through, and his morale was high. He did not actually say "Tra-la" as he ordered his table, but the ejaculation was implicit in the sunniness of his smile and the sparkle in his eyes. Coming out again into the hall with a gay air on his lips, he was surprised to find the Crumpet there.

  "Hullo," he said. "Didn't you go to the bar?"

  "I went."

  "Didn't you find the old boy?"

  "I found him." The Crumpet's manner seemed strange to Oofy. He was looking grave and reproachful, like a Crumpet who considers that he has been played fast and loose with. "Oofy," he said, "Fun's fun, and no one's fonder of a joke than I am, but there are limits. I can see no excuse for a fellow pulling a gag in connection with a race meeting as important as this one. You knew the rules governing the sweep perfectly well. Only genuine uncles were eligible. I suppose you thought it would be humorous to ring in a non-uncle."

  "Do what?"

  "It's as bad as entering a greyhound for the Grand National."

  Oofy could make nothing of this. The thought flitted through his mind that the other had been lunching.

  "What on earth are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about that bloke in there with the billowy curves. You said he was your uncle."

  "He is my uncle."

  "He is nothing of the bally sort."

  "His name's Prosser."

  "No doubt."

  "He signed his letter 'Uncle Horace'."

  "Very possibly. But that doesn't alter the stark fact that he's a sort of distant cousin. He was telling me about it while we quaffed. It appears that as a child you used to call him Uncle Horace but, stripped of his mask, he is, as I say, merely a distant cousin. If you didn't know this and were not just trying to be funny when you entered him, I apologise for my recent remarks. You are more to be pitied than censured, it would seem, for the blighter is of course disqualified and the stakes go to Frederick Fortescue Widgeon, holder of the Blicester ticket."

  To think simultaneously of what might have been and what is going to be is not an easy task, but Oofy, as he heard these words of doom, found himself doing it. For even as his mind dwelled on the thought that he had paid Freddie Widgeon fifty pounds to deprive himself of the sweepstake money, he was also vividly aware that in a brace of shakes h
e would be standing his distant cousin Horace a lunch which, Horace being the man he was, could scarcely put him in the hole for less than a fiver. His whole soul seethed like a cistern struck by a thunderbolt, and everything seemed to go black.

  The Crumpet was regarding him with concern. "Don't gulp like that, Oofy," he said. "You can't be sick here."

  Oofy was not so sure. He was feeling as if he could be sick anywhere.

  2

  Scratch Man

  A DEVOUT expression had come into the face of the young man in plus fours who sat with the Oldest Member on the terrace overlooking the ninth green. With something of the abruptness of a conjurer taking a rabbit out of a hat he drew a photograph from his left breast pocket and handed it to his companion. The Sage inspected it thoughtfully.

  "This is the girl you were speaking of?"

  "Yes."

  "You love her?"

  "Madly."

  "And how do you find it affects your game?"

  "I've started shanking a bit."

  The Oldest Member nodded.

  "I am sorry," he said, "but not surprised. Either that or missing short putts is what generally happens on these occasions. I doubt if golfers ought to fall in love. I have known it to cost men ten shots in a medal round. They think of the girl and forget to keep their eyes on the ball. On the other hand, there was the case of Harold Pickering."

  "I don't think I've met him."

  "He was before your time. He took a cottage here a few years ago. His handicap was fourteen. Yet within a month of his arrival love had brought him down to scratch."

  "Quick service."

  "Very. He went back eventually to. a shaky ten, but the fact remains. But for his great love he would not have become even temporarily a scratch man."

  I HAD seen Harold Pickering in and about the clubhouse (said the Oldest Member) for some time before I made his acquaintance, and there was something in his manner which suggested that sooner or later he would be seeking me out and telling me the story of his life. For some reason, possibly because I have white whiskers, I seem to act on men with stories of their lives to tell like catnip on cats. And sure enough, I was sitting on this terrace one evening, enjoying a quiet gin-and-ginger, when he sidled up, coughed once or twice like a sheep with bronchitis and gave me the works.