Heavy Weather by P. G. Wodehouse Read Free Book Online Page B

can't see why he wanted to eat hedgehogs.'
    'He did not want to eat hedgehogs. Nothing was farther from his intentions. But on the second day of old Freddie's visit he gave his chef twenty francs to go to market and buy a chicken for dinner, and the chef, wandering along, happened to see a dead hedgehog lying in the road. It had been there some days, as a matter of fact, but this was the first time he had noticed it. So, feeling that here was where he pouched twenty francs . . .'
    'I wish you wouldn't tell me stories like this just before lunch.'
    'If it puts you off your food, so much the better. Bring the roses to your cheeks. Well, as I was saying, the chef, who was a thrifty sort of chap and knew that he could make a dainty dinner dish out of his old grandmother, if allowed to mess about with a few sauces, added the twenty francs to his savings and gave Freddie and Eustace the hedgehog next day en casserole. Mark the sequel. At two-thirty prompt, Eusta ce, the teetotaller, turned nile -green, started groaning like a lost soul, and continued to do so for the remainder of the week, when he was pronounced out of danger. Freddie, on the other hand, his system having been healthfully pickled in alcohol, throve on the dish and finished it up cold next day.'
    'I call that the most disgusting story I ever heard.'
    'The most moral story you ever heard. If I had my way, it would be carved up in letters of gold over the door of every school and college in the kingdom, as a warning to the young. Well, what have you been doing with yourself all the morning, my dear ? I expected you earlier.'
    ‘I was talking to my precious Ronnie most of the time. He went off to catch his train about half an hour ago.'
    'Ah, yes, he's going to young George Fish's wedding, isn't he? I could tell you a good story about George Fish's father, the Bishop.'
    'If it's like the one about old Freddie Potts, I don't want to hear it. Well, after that I went to look for Lord Emsworth, because I had promised Ronnie to talk pig to him. But I saw Lady Constance with him, so I kept away. And then I came to see you, and found you talking together. You seemed to be having a very earnest conversation about something.'
    The Hon. Galahad chuckled.
    'Clarence has got the wind up, poor chap. About that pig of his. He thinks Parsloe is trying to put it on the spot or kidnap it.' Sue looked round cautiously.
    'You know who stole it that first time, don't you, Gally ?' 'Baxter, wasn't it? The th ing was found in his caravan. 'I t was Ronnie.'
    'What!' This was news to the Hon. Galahad. 'That young Fish?' She gave his hair a tug.
    'You are not to call him "that young Fish".'
    'I apologize. But what on earth did he do it for?'
    'He was going to find it and bring it back. So as to make Lord Emsworth grateful, you see.'
    'You don't mean that young cloth-head had the intelligence to think up a scheme like that?' said the Hon. Galahad, amazed.
    'And I won't have you calling my darling Ronnie a cloth-head either. He's very clever. As a matter of fact, though, he says he got the idea from you.'
    'From me?'
    'He says you told him you once stole a pig.'
    'That's right,' said the Hon. Galahad. 'Puffy Benger and I stole old Wivenhoe's pig the night of the Bachelors' Ball at Hammer's Easton in the year '95. We put it in Plug Basham's bedroom. I never heard what happened when Plug met it. No doubt they found some formula. Wivenhoe, I remember, was rather annoyed about the affair. He was a good deal like Clarence in that respect. Worshipped his pig.'
    'What makes Lord Emsworth think that Sir Gregory is going to hurt the Empress?'
    'Apparently Connie has gone and engaged his nephew as Clarence's secretary, and he thinks it's a plot. So do I. But personally, as I told Clarence, I feel that Parsloe is using young Monty Bodkin purely as a cat's paw.'
    'Monty Bodkin!'
    'The nephew. I'm convinced, from what I remember of him, that he isn't at all the sort of fellow . ..' 'Oh, Gally !' cried Sue.