Read Online Full Moon by P. G. Wodehouse - Free Book Online Page B

clay in my hands from the start. You can paint pigs, Blister? Then take the next train, dig in at the Emsworth Arms, and expect to hear from me in due course. Bring paints, brushes, canvas, easels, palette knives, and what not.'
    He broke off, seeing that he was not gripping Bill's attention. Bill was thanking Gally with a good deal of fervour, and Gally
was saying no, no, my dear boy, not at all, not at all, adding that he was only too glad to have been of assistance.
    'As I see it,' he said, 'it should not be long before you are able to find an opportunity of sneaking off with Prudence and taking up this marrying business at the point where you left off. You've got the licence? Well, tuck it away in an inside pocket and when the moment arrives, grab young Prue and slide off somewhere and get hitched up. Can you see a flaw?'
    'No,' said Bill.
    'Just one,' said Freddie. 'I have a bit of bad news for you, Blister. I would like to be on the spot to watch over you with a fatherly eye, but I can't fit it in. I've got to pay a series of business visits to various hot-shots in the neighbourhood and shall have to start these immediately. I'm due to-morrow at a joint in Cheshire.'
    'It won't matter,' said Bill. 'I shall be all right.'
    This airy confidence seemed to displease Freddie.
    'You say you'll be all right,' he said sternly, 'but will you? There are a hundred pitfalls in your path.'
    The Hon. Galahad nodded.
    'I see what you mean. The name, for instance.'
    'Exactly. One of the first confessions extracted from Prue, while undergoing the third degree, was that her heart-throb's name was William Lister. You'd better call yourself Messmore Breamworthy.'
    'But I can't,' protested Bill, dismayed. 'There isn't such a name.'
    'As it happens, it's the name of one of my fellow vice-presidents at Donaldson's Inc. That's why I thought of it.'
    '"Messmore Breamworthy,"' said the Hon. Galahad, giving his casting vote, 'will be admirable. And now we come to the important matter of disguise.'
    'Disguise?'
    'Essential, in my opinion. You can't go wrong, adopting a disguise. My old friend, Fruity Biffen, hasn't stirred abroad without one for years. His relations with the bookies are always a bit strained, poor chap.'
    Freddie concurred.
    'Must have a disguise, Blister.'
    'But why? Nobody there has ever seen me.'
    'Aunt Dora may have found a photograph of you and sent it to Aunt Hermione.'
    'Prue's only got one photograph of me, and she carries that on her.'
    'And if on arrival Aunt Hermione searches her to the skin?'
    'You ought to allow for every contingency, my boy,' urged the Hon. Galahad. 'I advise a false beard. I have one I can lend you. Fruity Biffen borrowed it the other day, in order to be able to go to Hurst Park, but I can get it back.'
    'I won't wear a false beard.'
    'Think well. It's a sort of light mustard colour, and extraordinarily becoming. It made Fruity look like one of those Assyrian monarchs.'
    'No!'
    'That is your last word?'
    'Yes. I won't wear a false beard. I'm frightfully grateful for helping me like this—'
    'Not at all, not at all. Dash it, you're my godson. And I once saw your mother lift a dumb-bell weighing two hundred pounds. She did it after supper one night, simply to entertain me. That sort of thing puts a man under an obligation. Well, if you have this extraordinary prejudice against the beard, there is nothing more to be said. But I think you're running a grave risk. Don't
blame me if my sister Hermione springs out from behind a bush and starts setting about you with her parasol. Still, if that's the way you feel, all right. We waive the beard. But the rest of it is all straight?'
    'Absolutely.'
    'Good. Well, I must be pushing along. I'm lunching with a confidence man at the Pig and Whistle in Rupert Street.'
    'And I,' said Freddie, 'must be going up and seeing that fellow I spoke of. Heaven send I don't find him with the bottle at his lips, stewed to the eyebrows.'
    He need have had no concern. In his room