“How is the poor fellow?” I asked at length.
“He’s all right,” said Ukridge, listlessly. “I left him eating fish and chips at a coffee-stall.”
“Bad luck his getting pipped on the post like that.”
“Bad luck!” boomed Ukridge, throwing off his lethargy with a vigour that spoke of mental anguish. “What do you mean, bad luck? It was just dam’ bone-headedness. Upon my Sam, it’s a little hard. I invest vast sums in this man, I support him in luxury for two weeks, asking nothing of him in return except to sail in and knock somebody’s head off, which he could have done in two minutes if he had liked, and he lets me down purely and simply because the other fellow told him that he had been up all night looking after his wife who had burned her hand at the jam factory. Inferanal sentimentalism!”
“Does him credit,” I argued.
“Bah!”
“Kind hearts,” I urged, “are more than coronets.”
“Who the devil wants a pugilist to have a kind heart? What’s the use of this man Billson being able to knock out an elephant if he’s afflicted with this damned maudlin mushiness? Who ever heard of a mushy pugilist? It’s the wrong spirit. It doesn’t make for success.”
“It’s a handicap, of course,” I admitted.
“What guarantee have I,” demanded Ukridge, “that if I go to enormous trouble and expense getting him another match, he won’t turn aside and brush away a silent tear in the first round because he’s heard that the blighter’s wife has got an ingrowing toenail?”
“You could match him only against bachelors.”
“Yes, and the first bachelor he met would draw him into a corner and tell him his aunt was down with whooping-cough, and the chump would heave a sigh and stick his chin out to be walloped. A fellow’s got no business to have red hair if he isn’t going to live up to it. And yet,” said Ukridge, wistfully, “I’ve seen that man—it was in a dance-hall at Naples—I’ve seen him take on at least eleven Italians simultaneously. But then, one of them had stuck a knife about three inches into his leg. He seems to need something like that to give him ambition.”
“I don’t see how you are going to arrange to have him knifed just before each fight.”
“No,” said Ukridge, mournfully.
“What are you going to do about his future? Have you any plans?”
“Nothing definite. My aunt was looking for a companion to attend to her correspondence and take care of the canary last time I saw her. I might try to get the job for him.”
And with a horrid, mirthless laugh. Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge borrowed five shillings and passed out into the night.
I did not see Ukridge for the next few days, but I had news of him from our mutual friend George Tupper, whom I met prancing in uplifted mood down Whitehall.
“I say,” said George Tupper without preamble, and with a sort of dazed fervour, “they’ve given me an undersecretaryship.”
I pressed his hand. I would have slapped him on the back, but one does not slap the backs of eminent Foreign Office officials in Whitehall in broad daylight, even if one has been at school with them.
“Congratulations,” I said. “There is no one whom I would more gladly see undersecretarying. I heard rumours of this from Ukridge.”
“Oh, yes, I remember I told him it might be coming off. Good old Ukridge! I met him just now and told him the news, and he was delighted.”
“How much did he touch you for?”
“Eh? Oh, only five pounds. Till Saturday. He expects to have a lot of money by then.”
“Did you ever know the time when Ukridge didn’t expect to have a lot of money?”
“I want you and Ukridge to come and have a bit of dinner with me to celebrate. How would Wednesday suit you?”
“Splendidly.”
“Seven-thirty at the Regent Grill, then. Will you tell Ukridge?”
“I don’t know where he’s got to. I haven’t seen him for nearly a week. Did he tell you where he was?”
“Out at some place at Barnes. What was the name of it?”
“The White Hart?”
“That’s it.”
“Tell me,” I said, “how did he seem? Cheerful?”
“Very. Why?”
“The last time I saw him he was thinking of giving up the struggle. He had had reverses.”
I proceeded to the White Hart immediately after lunch. The fact that Ukridge was still at that hostelry and had regained his usual sunny outlook on life seemed to point to the fact that the clouds enveloping the future of Mr. Billson had cleared away, and that the latter’s hat was still in the ring. That this was so was made clear to me directly I arrived. Enquiring for my old friend, I was directed to an upper room, from which, as I approached, there came a peculiar thudding noise. It was caused, as I perceived on opening the door, by Mr. Billson. Clad in flannel trousers and a sweater, he was earnestly pounding a large leather object suspended from a wooden platform. His manager, seated on a soapbox in a corner, regarded him the while with affectionate proprietorship.
“Hallo, old horse!” said Ukridge, rising as I entered. “Glad to see you.”
The din of Mr. Billson’s bag-punching, from which my arrival had not caused him to desist, was such as to render conversation difficult. We moved to the quieter retreat of the bar downstairs, where I informed Ukridge of the undersecretary’s invitation.
“I’ll be there,” said Ukridge. “There’s one thing about good old Billson, you can trust him not to break training if you take your eye off him. And, of course, he realises that this is a big thing. It’ll be the making of him.”
“Your aunt is considering engaging him, then?”
“My aunt? What on earth are you talking about? Collect yourself, laddie.”
“When you left me you were going to try to get him the job of looking after your aunt’s canary.”
“Oh, I was feeling rather sore then. That’s all over. I had
