Butin this world, Corky, you never know. That is the thing I always try to impress on every young fellow starting out in life—that you never know. It was about two days later that the butler came to me in the garden and said a gentleman wished to speak to me on the phone.
I shall always remember that moment. It was a lovely, still evening, and I was sitting in the garden under a leafy tree, thinking beautiful thoughts. The sun was setting in a blaze of gold and crimson; the little birds were chirping their heads off; and I was halfway through the whisky-and-soda of a lifetime. I recollect that, an instant before Baxter came out to fetch me, I had just been thinking how peaceful and wonderful and perfect the world was.
I went to the phone.
“Hullo!” said a voice.
It was Joe the Lawyer. And Baxter had said it was a gentleman.
“Are you there?” said this bloke Joe.
“Yes.”
“Listen.”
“What?”
“Listen. You know that dog I said was going to win the Waterloo Cup?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he isn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s dead.”
I don’t mind telling you, Corky, that I reeled. Yes, your old friend reeled.
“Dead!”
“Dead.”
“You don’t mean dead?”
“Yes.”
“Then what about my fifty pounds?”
“I keep that.”
“What!”
“Of course I keep it. Once a sale’s gone through, it’s gone through. I know my law. That’s why the boys call me Joe the Lawyer. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You send me a letter, releasing all rights in that dog, and I’ll give you a fiver. I’ll be robbing myself, but I’m like that. Bighearted old Joe, I am, and that’s all there is about it.”
“What did the dog die of?”
“Pewmonia.”
“I don’t believe he’s dead at all.”
“You don’t believe my word?”
“No.”
“Well, you come round to my stable and see for yourself.”
So I went round and viewed the remains. There was no doubt about it, the dog had handed in his dinner-pail. So I wrote the letter, got my fiver, and came back to Wimbledon to try and rebuild my shattered life. Because you can readily see, Corky, that I was up against it in no uncertain manner. Aunt Julia would be back before long, and would want to see her brooch; and though I’m her own flesh and blood, and I shouldn’t be surprised if she had dandled me on her knee when I was a child, I couldn’t picture her bearing with anything like Christian fortitude the news that I had pawned it in order to buy a half-share in a dead dog.
And the very next morning in blew Miss Angelica Vining, the poetess.
She was a gaunt sort of toothy female who had come to lunch once or twice while I had been staying in my aunt’s house. A great pal of my aunt’s.
“Good morning,” said this disease, beaming. “What a heavenly day! One could almost fancy oneself out in the country, couldn’t one? Even at so short a distance from the heart of the City one seems to sense in the air a freshness which one cannot get in London, can one? I’ve come for your aunt’s brooch.”
I braced myself up with a hand on the piano.
“You’ve what?” I said.
“Tonight is the dance of the Pen and Ink Club, and I wired to your aunt to ask if I might borrow her brooch, and she has written to say that I may. It’s in her bureau.”
“Which is, most unfortunately, locked.”
“Your aunt sent me the key. I have it in my bag.”
She opened her bag, Corky, and at this moment my guardian angel, who had been lying down on his job pretty considerably for the last week or so, showed a sudden flash of speed. The door was open, and through it at this juncture there trickled one of my aunt’s Pekes. You will recollect my aunt’s Pekes. I pinched them once, to start a Dog College.
This animal gazed at the female, and the female went off like a soda-water bottle.
“Oh, the sweet thing!” she bubbled.
She put the bag down and swooped on the dog. He tried to sidestep, but she had him.
“Oh, the tweetums!” she cried.
And, her back being turned, Corky, I nipped to the bag, found the key, trousered it, and back to position one.
Presently she came to the surface again.
“Now I really must hurry away,” she said. “I will just get the brooch and scurry.” She fumbled in her bag. “Oh, dear! I’ve lost the key.”
“Too bad,” I said. “Still,” I went on, thinking it might be all for the best, “what does a girl need jewellery for? The greatest jewel a girl can possess is her youth, her beauty.”
It went well, but not quite well enough.
“No,” she said, “I must have the brooch. I’ve set my heart on it. We must break the lock.”
“I couldn’t dream of such a thing,” I said firmly. “I am in a position of trust. I cannot break up my aunt’s furniture.”
“Oh, but—”
“No.”
Well, laddie, there ensued a pretty painful scene. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and not many like a woman who wants a brooch and isn’t allowed to get it. The atmosphere, when we parted, was full of strain.
“I shall write to Miss Ukridge and tell her exactly what has happened,” said the poetess, pausing at the front door.
She then shoved off, leaving me limp and agitated. These things take it out of a fellow.
Something, I perceived, had got to be done, and done swiftly. From some source I had to raise fifty quid. But where could I turn? My credit, Corky—and I tell you this frankly, as an old friend—is not good. No, it is not good. In all the world there seemed to be but one man who might be induced to let me have fifty quid at a
