Read Online Mr Mulliner Speaking by P. G. Wodehouse - Free Book Online Page A

cab, and, having directed the driver to take him to the Albany, leaped hastily in.
     
The relief of being under cover was at first so exquisite that his mind had no room for other thoughts. Soon, he told himself, he would be safe in his cosy apartment, with the choice of thirty-seven pairs of black boots to take the place of these ghastly objects. It was only when the cab reached the Albany that he realized the difficulties which lay in his path.
     
How could he walk through the lobby of the Albany looking like a ship with yellow fever on board – he, Cedric Mulliner, the man whose advice on the niceties of dress had frequently been sought by young men in the Brigade of Guards and once by the second son of a Marquis? The thing was inconceivable. All his better nature recoiled from it. Then what to do?
     
It is characteristic of the Mulliners as a family that, however sore the straits in which they find themselves, they never wholly lose their presence of mind. Cedric leaned out of the window and addressed the driver of the cab.
     
'My man,' he said, 'how much do you want for your boots?'
     
The driver was not one of London's lightning thinkers. For a full minute he sat, looking like a red-nosed sheep, allowing the idea to penetrate.
     
'My boots?' he said at length.
     
'Your boots!'
     
'How much do I want for my boots?'
     
'Precisely. I am anxious to obtain your boots. How much for the boots?'
     
'How much for the boots?'
     
'Exactly. The boots. How much for them?'
     
'You want to buy my boots?'
     
'Precisely.'
     
'Ah,' said the driver, 'but the whole thing is, you see, it's like this. I'm not wearing any boots. I suffer from corns, so I come out in a tennis shoe and a carpet slipper. I could do you them at ten bob the pair.'
     
Cedric Mulliner sank dumbly back. The disappointment had been numbing. But the old Mulliner resourcefulness stood him in good stead. A moment later, his head was out of the window again.
     
'Take me,' he said, 'to Seven, Nasturtium Villas, Marigold Road, Valley Fields.'
     
The driver thought this over for a while.
     
'Why?' he said.
     
'Never mind why.'
     
'The Albany you told me,' said the driver. 'Take me to the Albany was what you said. And this here is the Albany. Ask anyone.'
     
'Yes, yes, yes. But I now wish to go to Seven, Nasturtium Villas . . .'
     
'How do you spell it?'
     
'One ''n''. Seven, Nasturtium Villas, Marigold Road . . .'
     
'How do you spell that ?'
     
'One ''g''.'
     
'And it's in Valley Fields, you say?'
     
'Precisely.'
     
'One ''v''?'
     
'One ''v'' and one ''f '',' said Cedric.
     
The driver sat silent for awhile. The spelling-bee over, he seemed to be marshalling his thoughts.
     
'Now I'm beginning to get the whole thing,' he said. 'What you want to do is go to Seven, Nasturtium Villas, Marigold Road, Valley Fields.'
     
'Precisely.'
     
'Well, will you have the tennis shoe and the carpet slipper now, or wait till we get there?'
     
'I do not desire the tennis shoe. I have no wish for the carpet slipper. I am not in the market for them.'
     
'I could do you them at half-a-crown apiece.'
     
'No, thank you.'
     
'Couple of bob, then.'
     
'No, no, no. I do not want the tennis shoe. The carpet slipper makes no appeal to me.'
     
'You don't want the shoe?'
     
'No.'
     
'And you don't want the slipper?'
     
'No.'
     
'But you do want,' said the driver, assembling the facts and arranging them in an ordinary manner, 'to go to Seven, Nasturtium Villas, Marigold Road, Valley Fields?'
     
'Precisely.'
     
'Ah,' said the driver, slipping in his clutch with an air of quiet rebuke. 'Now we've got the thing straight. If you'd only told me that in the first place, we'd have been 'arf-way there by now.'
     
 
     
The urge which had come upon Cedric Mulliner to visit Seven, Nasturtium Villas, Marigold Road, Valley Fields, that picturesque suburb in the south-eastern postal division of London, had been due to no idle whim. Nor was it prompted by a mere passion