“Like what?”
“We’re on to a big thing now, laddie, the dickens of a big thing.”
“I hope you’ve made sure the other man’s a bachelor. Who is he?”
“Tod Bingham.”
“Tod Bingham?” I groped in my memory. “You don’t mean the middleweight champion?”
“That’s the fellow.”
“You don’t expect me to believe that you’ve got a match on with a champion already?”
“It isn’t exactly a match. It’s like this. Tod Bingham is going round the East-end halls offering two hundred quid to anyone who’ll stay four rounds with him. Advertisement stuff. Good old Billson is going to unleash himself at the Shoreditch Empire next Saturday.”
“Do you think he’ll be able to stay four rounds?”
“Stay four rounds!” cried Ukridge. “Why, he could stay four rounds with a fellow armed with a Gatling-gun and a couple of pickaxes. That money’s as good as in our pockets, laddie. And once we’re through with this job, there isn’t a boxing-place in England that won’t jump at us. I don’t mind telling you in confidence, old horse, that in a year from now I expect to be pulling in hundreds a week. Clean up a bit here first, you know, and then pop over to America and make an enormous fortune. Damme, I shan’t know how to spend the money!”
“Why not buy some socks? I’m running a bit short of them.”
“Now, laddie, laddie,” said Ukridge, reprovingly, “need we strike a jarring note? Is this the moment to fling your beastly socks in an old friend’s face? A broader-minded spirit is what I would like to see.”
I was ten minutes late in arriving at the Regent Grill on the Wednesday of George Tupper’s invitation, and the spectacle of George in person standing bareheaded at the Piccadilly entrance filled me with guilty remorse. George was the best fellow in the world, but the atmosphere of the Foreign Office had increased the tendency he had always had from boyhood to a sort of precise fussiness, and it upset him if his affairs did not run exactly on schedule. The thought that my unpunctuality should have marred this great evening sent me hurrying towards him full of apologies.
“Oh, there you are,” said George Tupper. “I say, it’s too bad—”
“I’m awfully sorry. My watch—”
“Ukridge!” cried George Tupper, and I perceived that it was not I who had caused his concern.
“Isn’t he coming?” I asked, amazed. The idea of Ukridge evading a free meal was one of those that seem to make the solid foundations of the world rock.
“He’s come. And he’s brought a girl with him!”
“A girl!”
“In pink, with yellow hair,” wailed George Tupper. “What am I to do?”
I pondered the point.
“It’s a weird thing for even Ukridge to have done,” I said, “but I suppose you’ll have to give her dinner.”
“But the place is full of people I know, and this girl’s so—so spectacular.”
I felt for him deeply, but I could see no way out of it.
“You don’t think I could say I had been taken ill?”
“It would hurt Ukridge’s feelings.”
“I should enjoy hurting Ukridge’s feelings, curse him!” said George Tupper, fervently.
“And it would be an awful slam for the girl, whoever she is.”
George Tupper sighed. His was a chivalrous nature. He drew himself up as if bracing himself for a dreadful ordeal.
“Oh, well, I suppose there’s nothing to do,” he said. “Come along. I left them drinking cocktails in the lounge.”
George had not erred in describing Ukridge’s addition to the festivities as spectacular. Flamboyant would have been a suitable word. As she preceded us down the long dining-room, her arm linked in George Tupper’s—she seemed to have taken a liking to George—I had ample opportunity for studying her, from her patent-leather shoes to the mass of golden hair beneath her picture-hat. She had a loud, clear voice, and she was telling George Tupper the rather intimate details of an internal complaint which had recently troubled an aunt of hers. If George had been the family physician, she could not have been franker; and I could see a dull glow spreading over his shapely ears.
Perhaps Ukridge saw it, too, for he seemed to experience a slight twinge of conscience.
“I have an idea, laddie,” he whispered, “that old Tuppy is a trifle peeved at my bringing Flossie along. If you get a chance, you might just murmur to him that it was military necessity.”
“Who is she?” I asked.
“I told you about her. Flossie, the barmaid at the Crown in Kennington. Billson’s fiancée.”
I looked at him in amazement.
“Do you mean to tell me that you’re courting death by flirting with Battling Billson’s girl?”
“My dear old man, nothing like that,” said Ukridge, shocked. “The whole thing is, I’ve got a particular favour to ask of her—rather a rummy request—and it was no good springing it on her in cold blood. There had to be a certain amount of champagne in advance, and my funds won’t run to champagne. I’m taking her on to the Alhambra after dinner. I’ll look you up tonight and tell you all about it.”
We then proceeded to dine. It was not one of the pleasantest meals of my experience. The future Mrs. Billson prattled agreeably throughout, and Ukridge assisted her in keeping the conversation alive; but the shattered demeanour of George Tupper would have taken the sparkle out of any banquet. From time to time he pulled himself together and endeavoured to play the host, but for the most part he maintained a pale and brooding silence; and it was a relief when Ukridge and his companion rose to leave.
“Well!—” began George Tupper in a strangled voice, as they moved away down the aisle.
I lit a cigar and sat back dutifully to listen.
Ukridge arrived in my rooms at midnight, his eyes gleaming through their pince-nez with a strange light. His manner was exuberant.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Did you explain to Tuppy?”
“I didn’t get a
