“Summer Lightning"

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 199, 22 August 1929, Page 10

“Summer Lightning"

A Humorous Sporting Serial

By

P. G. WODEHOUSE

Specially Written for "The Wanganui CHRONICLE.”

CHAPTER Ilf.—Continued. Ronnie Fish’s aimlessly wandering feet had taken him westward. It was not long, accordingly, before there came to his nostrils a familiar and penetrating odor, and he found that he was within a short distance of the detached residence employed by Empress of Blandings as a combined bedroom and restaurant. A few steps, and he was enabled to observe that celebrated animal in person. With her head tucked well down and her tail wiggling with pure joie de vivre, the Empress was hoisting in a spot of lunch. Everybody likes to see somebody eating. Ronnie leaned over the rail, absorbed. He poised the tennis ball and with an absent-minded flick of the wrist bounced it on the silver medallist’s back. Finding the pleasant, ponging sound which resulted soothing to harassed nerves, he did it again. The Empress made excellent bouncing. She was not one of your razor-backs. She presented a wide and resistant surface. For some minutes, therefore, the pair carried on according to plan—she eating, he bouncing, until presently Ronnie was thrilled to discover that this outdoor sport of his was assisting thought. Gradually—mistily at first, then assuming shape, a plan of action was beginning to emerge from the murk of his mind. How would this be, for instance! If there was one thing calculated to appeal to his Uncle Clarence, to induce in his Uncle Clarence a really melting mood, it was the announcement that somebody desired to return to the Land. He loved to hear of people returning to the Land. How, then, would this be? Go to the old boy, state that one had seen the light and was in complete agreement with him that England’s future depended on checking the drift to the towns, and then ask for a good fat slice of capital with which to start a farm. The project of starting a farm was one which was bound to. . . Half a minute. Another idea on the way. Yes, here it came, and it was a pippin. Not merely just an ordinary farm, but a pig farm! Wouldn’t Uncle Clarence leap in the air and shower gold on anybody who wanted to live in the country and breed pigs You bet your Sunday cuffs he would. And, once the money was safely deposited to the account of- Ronald Overbury Fish in Cox’s Bank, then oh! for the registrar’s hand in hand with Sue. There was a musical plonk as Ronnie bounced the ball for the last time on the Empress’ complacent back. Then, no longer with dragging steps, but treading on air, he wandered away to sketch out the last details of the scheme before going indoors and springing it.

Too often it happens that, when you get these brain-waves, you take another look at them after a short interval and suddenly detect some fatal flaw. No such disappointment came to mar the happineses of Ronnie Fish. “I say, Uncle Clarence,” he said, prancing into the library, some halfhour later. Lord Emsworth was deep in the current issue of a weekly paper of porcine interest. It seemed to Bonnie, as he looked up, that his eye was not any too chummy. This, however, did not disturb him. That eye, he was confident, would melt anon. If, at the moment, Lord Emsworth could hardly have sat for his portrait in the role of a benevolent uncle, there would, Ronnie felt, be a swift change of demeanor in the very near future. ‘‘l say, Uncle Clarence, you know that capital of mine?” ‘‘That what?”

“My capital. My money. The money you’re trustee of. And a jolly good trustee,” said Ronnie handsomely. “Well, I’ve been thinking things oyer and I want you, if you will, to disgorge a segment of it for a sort of venture I’ve got in mind.” He had not expected the eye to melt yet, and it did not. Seen through the glass of his uncle’s pince-nez, it looked like an oyster in an aquarium. “You wish to start another nightclub?” Lord Emsworth’s voice was cold, and Ronnie hastened to disabuse him I of the idea. “No, no. Nothing like that. Nightclubs are a mug’s game. I ought never to have touched them. As a matter of fact, Uncle Clarence, London as a whole seems to me a bit of a washout these days. I’m all for the country. What I feel is that the drift to the town should be chocked. What England wants is more blokes going back to the land. That’s the way it looks to me.” Ronnie Fish began to experience the first definite twinges of uneasiness. This was the point at which he had been confident that the melting process would set in. Yet, watching the eye, he was dismayed to find it as oyster-like as ever. He felt like an actor who has been counting on a round of applause and goes off after his big speech without a hand. The idea occurred to him that his uncle might possibly have grown a little hard of hearing. “To the land,” he repeated, raising his voice. “More blokes going back to the Land. So I want a dollop of capital to start a farm.” He braced himself for the supreme revelation.

“I want to breed pigs,’ he said reverently. Something was wrong. There was no blinking the fact any longer. So far from leaping in the air and showering gold, his uncle merely stared at him in an increasingly unpleasant manner. Lord Emsworth had removed his pincenez and was wiping them; and Ronnie thought that his eye looked rather less agreeable in the nude than it had done through glass. “Pigs!” he cried, lighting against a growing alarm. “Pigs?” “Pigs.”’ 1 ‘You wish to breed pigs?” “That’s right,” bellowed Ronnie. “Pigs!” And from somewhere in his system he contrived to dig up and fasten on his face an ingratiating smile.

Lord Emsworth replaced his pincenez.

“And I suppose,” he said throatily, quivering from his bald head to his roomy shoes, “that when you’ve got ’em you’ll spend the whole day bouncing tennis balls on their backs?”

Ronnie gulped. The shock had been severe. The ingratiating smile lingered on his lips, as if fastened there with pins, but his eyes were round and horrified.

“Eh?” he said feebly. Lord Emsworth rose. So long as he insisted on wearing an old shootingjacket with holes in the elbows and letting his tie slip down and show the head of a brass stud, he could never hope to be completely satisfactory as a figure of outraged majesty; but he achieved as imposing an effect as his upholstery would permit. He drew himself- up to his full height, which was considerable, and from this eminence glared banefully down on his nephew.

“I saw you! I was on ny way to the piggery and I saw you there bouncing your infernal tennis balls on my pig’s back. Tennis balls!” Fire seemed to stream from the pinc-nez. “Are you aware that Empress of Blandings is an excessively nervous, highlystrung animal, only too ready on the slightest provocation to refuse her meals? You might have undone the work of months with your idiotic tennis ball.” “I’m sorry. . . .” “What’s the good of being sorry?”

“I never thought . . .” “You never do. That’s what’s the trouble with you. Pig farm!” said Lord Emsworth vehemently, his voice soaring into the upper register. “You couldn’t manage a pig farm. You aren’t fit to manage a pig farm. You aren’t worthy to manage a pig farm. If I had to select somebody out of the whole world to manage a pig farm, I would choose you last.” Ronnie Fish groped his way to the table and supported himself on it. He had a sensation of dizziness. On one point he was reasonably clear, viz., that his Uncle Clarence did not consider him ideally fitted to manage a pig farm, but apart from that his mind was in a whirl. He felt as if he had stepped on something and it had gone off with a bang. “Here! What is all this?” It was the Hon. Galahad who had spoken, and he had spoken peevishly. Working in the small library with the door ajar, he had found the babble of voices interfering with literary composition and, justifiably annoyed, had come to investigate.

“Can’t you do your reciting some time when I’m not writing, Clarence?” he said. “What’s all the trouble about?”

Lord Emsworth was still full of his grievance. “He bounced tennis balls on my

pig.” The Hon. Galahad was not impressed. He did not register horror. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said sternly, “that all this fuss, ruining my morning’s work, was simply about that blasted pig of yours?” “I refuse to allow you to call the Empress a blasted pig! Good heavens! ” cried Lord Emsworth passionately. “Can none of my family appreciate the fact that she is the most remarkable animal in Great Britain? No pig in the whole annals of the Shropshire Agricultural Show has ever won the silver medal two years in succession. And that, if only people will leave her alone and refrain from incessantly pelting her with tennis balls, is what the Empress is quite certain to do. It is an unheard of feat.” The Hon. Galahad frowned. He shook his head reprovingly. It was all very well, he felt, a stable being optimistic about its nominee, but he was a man who could face facts. In a long and checkered life he had seen so many good things unstuck. Besides, he had his superstitions, and one of then was that counting your chickens in advance brought bad luck.

“Don’t you be too cocksure, my boy, ’ ’ he said gravely. ‘‘ I looked in at the Emsworth Arms the other day for a glass of beer, and there was a fellow in there offering three to one on an animal called Pride of Matchingham. Offering it freely. Tall, redhaired fellow with a squint. Slightly bottled.”

Lord Emsworth forgot Ronnie, forgot tennis balls, forgot in the shock* of this announcement everything except that deeper wrong which so long had been poisoning his peace. “Pride of Matchingham belongs to Sir Gregory Parsloe,” he said, “and I have no doubt that the man offering such ridiculous odds was his pig-man, Wellbeloved. As you know, the fellow used to be in my employment, but Parsloe lured him away from me by the promise of higher wages.” Lord Emsworth’s expression had now become positively ferocious. The thought of George Cyril Wellbeloved, that per-

,lured pig-man, always made the iron enter into his soul. “It was a most abominable and unneighborly thing to do.” The Hon. Galahad whistled.

“So that’s it, is it? Parsloe’s pig man going about offering three to one —against the form-book, I take it?” “Most decidedly. Pride of Matchingham was awarded second prize last year, but it is a quite inferior animal to the Empress.”

‘ ‘ Then you look after that pig of yours, Clarence.” The Hon. Galahad spoke earnestly. “I see what this means. Parsloe’s up to his old games, and intends to queer the Empress somehow.”

“Queer her?” “Nobble her. Or, if he can’t do that, steal her.” “You don’t mean that?”

“I do mean it. The man’s as slippery as a greased eel. He would nobble his grandmother if it suited his book. Let me tell you I’ve known young Parsloe for thirty years, and I solemly state that if his grandmother was entered in a competition for fat pigs and his commitments made it desirable for him to get her out of the way, he would dope her bran-mash and acorns without a moment’s hesitation.”

“God bless my soul!” said Lord Emsworth, deeply impressed.

“Let me tell you a little story about young Parsloe. One or two of us used to meet at the Black Footman in Gossiter Street in the old days—they’ve pulled it down now—and match our dogs against rats in the room behind the bar. Well, I put my Towser, an admirable beast, up against young ParsTbe’s Banjo on one occasion for a hundred pounds aside. And when the night came and he was shown the rats, I’m dashed if he didn’t just give a long yawn and roll over and go to sleep. I whistled him . . called him . . Towser, Towser! . . No good. . . Fast asleep. And my firm belief has always been that young Parsloe took him aside just before the contest was to start and gave him about six pounds of steak and onions. Couldn’t prove anything, of course, but I sniffed the dog’s breath and it was like opening the kitchen door of a Soho chophouse on a summer night. That’s the sort of man young Parsloe is.” “Galahad! ” “Fact. You’ll find the story in my book.”

Lord Emsworth was tottering to the door.

“God bless my soul! I never realised. . . I must see Pirbright at once. I didn’t suspect. . . It never occurred. . . .”

The door closed behind him. The Hon. Galahad, preparing to return to his labours, was arrested by the voice of his nephew Ronald. “Uncle Gaily!” The young man’s pink face had flamed to a bright crimson. His eyes bleamed strangely.

“Well ” “You don’t really think Sir Gregory will try to steal the Empress?” “I certainly do. Known him for thirty years, I tell you.”

“But how could he?” “Go to her stye at night, of course, and take her away.” “And hide her somewhere?” “Yes.” “But an animal that size. Rather like looking in at the zoo and pocketing one of the elephants, what?” “Don’t talk like an idiot. She’s got a ring through her nose, hasn’t she?” “You mean, Sir Gregory could catch hold of the ring and she would breeze along quite calmly?” “Certainly. Puffy Benger and I stole old Wivenhoe’s pig the night of the Bachelors’ Ball at Hammers Easton in the year ’95. We put it in Plug Basham’s bedroom. There was no difficulty about the thing whatsoever. A little child could have led it.”

He withdrew into the small library, and Ronnie slid limply into the chair which Lord Emsworth had risen from so majestically. He felt the need of sitting. The inspiration which had just come to him had had a stunning effect. The brilliance of it almost frightened him. That idea about starting a pig farm had shown that this was one of his bright mornings, but he had never foreseen that he would be as bright as this.” “Golly!” said Ronnie. Could he? Well, why not? Suppose. . . . No, the thing was impossible. Was it? Why? Why was it impossible? Suppose he had a stab at it. Suppose, following his Uncle Galahad’s expert hints, he were to creep out tonight, abstract the Empress from her home, hide her somewhere for a day or two, and then spectacularly restore her to her bereaved owner? What would be the result? Would Uncle Clarence sob on his neck, or would he not Would he feel that no reward was too good for his benefactor or wouldn’t he? Most decidedly he would. Fish preferred would soar immediately. That little matter of the advance of capital would solve itself. Money would stream automatically from the Emsworth coffers.

But could it be done? Ronnie forced himself to examine the scheme dispassionately, with a mind alert for snags.

He could detect none. A suitable hiding place occurred to him immediately—that disused gamekeeper’s cottage in the west wood. Nobody ever went there. It would be as good as a Safe Deposit. Risk of detection? Why should there be any risk of detection? Who would think of connecting Ronald Fish with the affair?

Feeding the animal? Ronnie’s face clouded. Yes, here at last was the snUg. This did present difficulties. He was vague as to what pigs ate, but he knew that they needed a lot of whatever it was. It would be no use restoring to Lord Emsworth a skeleton Empress. The cuisine must be maintained at its existing level, or the thing might just as well be left undone.

For the first time he began to doubt the quality of his recent inspiration. Scanning the desk with knitted brows, he took from the book-rest the volume entitled “Pigs, and How to Make them Pay.” A glance at page 61, and his misgivings were confirmed. “Yes,” said Ronnie, having skimmed through all the stuff about barley meal and maize meal and linseed meal and potatoes, and separated milk or but-ter-milk. This, he now saw clearly,

was no one man job. It called not only for a dashing principal but a zealous assistant.

And what assistant? Hugo? No. In many respects the ideal accomplice for an undertaking of this nature, Hugo Carmody had certain defects which automatically disqualified him. To enrol Hugo as his lieutenant would mean revealing to him the motives that lay at the back of the venture. . And if Hugo knew that he, Bonnie, was endeavouring to collect funds in order to get married, the thing would be all over Shropshire in a couple of days. Short of putting it on the front page of the “Daily Mail” or having it broadcasted over the wireless, the surest way of obtaining publicity for anything you wanted kept dark was to confide it to Hugo Carmody. . A splendid chap, but the real, genuine humane colander. No, not Hugo. Then who? Ahl

Ronnie Fish sprang from his chair, threw his head back, and uttered a yodel of joy so loud and penetrating that the door of the small library flew open as if he had touched a spring. A tousled literary man emerged.

*‘Stop that damned noise! How the devil can I write with a row like that going on?” * ‘ Sorry, uncle, I was just thinking of something. ’’ “Well, think of something else. How do you spell ‘intoxicated’?” “One ‘x.’ ” “Thanks,” said the Hon. Galahad, and vanished again. (To be continued).