Read Online Nothing Serious by P.G. Wodehouse - Free Book Online Page B

whom patients can show their tongues without
secret misgivings as to his ability to read their message. And Ambrose,
recalling some of his recent activities, could not but feel that a ciné-kodak
record of these must lower, if not absolutely destroy, his prestige.
    One
moment in particular stood out in his memory, when in a fruitless effort to
reach and return one of Evangeline’s testing drives he had got his left foot
entangled with his right elbow and had rolled over and over like a shot rabbit,
eventually coming to rest with his head between his legs. Such a picture,
exhibited to anything like a wide audience, might well ruin his practice
irretrievably.
    He woke
from a troubled sleep next morning filled with a stern resolve. He had decided
to confront Dwight Messmore and demand that film from him. So after a light
breakfast he got in his car and drove to the other’s residence. Alighting at
the door with tight lip and a set face, he beat a sharp tattoo on it with the
knocker. And simultaneously there came from within a loud cry, almost a scream,
if not a shriek. The next moment the door opened, and Dwight Messmore stood
before him.
    “Holy
smoke!” said Dwight Messmore. “I thought it was an atom bomb.”
    It was
plain to Ambrose’s experienced eye that the man was not in his customary
vigorous health. He was wearing about his forehead a towel which appeared to
have ice in it, and his complexion was a curious greenish yellow.
    “Come
in,” said Dwight Messmore, speaking in a hollow, husky voice, like a spirit at
a séance. “I was just going to send for you. Walk on tip-toe, do you
mind, and speak very softly. I am on the point of expiring.”
    As he
led the way into the living-room, shuffling along like a Volga boatman, a
genial voice with a rather nasal intonation cried “Hello!”, and Ambrose
perceived a handsome parrot in a cage on the table.
    “I didn’t
know you had a parrot,” he said.
    “I didn’t
know it myself till this morning,” said Dwight Mess-more. “It suddenly arrived
out of the unknown. A man in a sweater came in a van and left it. He insisted
that I had ordered it. Damn fool. Do I look like a man who orders parrots?”
    “Ko-ko,”
observed the bird, which for some moments had taken no part in the
conversation.
    “Cocoa!”
whispered Dwight Messmore with a powerful shudder. “At a moment like this!”
    He
lowered himself into a chair, and Ambrose gently placed a thermometer in his
mouth.
    “Can we
think of anything that can have caused this little indisposition?” he asked.
    “Charcoal
poisoning,” said Dwight Messmore promptly. “I gave a little party last night to
a few fellows to celebrate my making the Davis Cup team—”
    “Did we
drink anything?”
    “Not a
thing. Well, just a bottle or two of champagne, and liqueurs… brandy,
chartreuse, benedictine, curaçao, crème de menthe, kummel and so forth… and
of course whisky. But nothing more. It was practically a teetotal evening. No,
what did the trick was that charcoal. As you are probably aware, the stuff they
sell you as caviare in this country isn’t caviare. It’s whitefish roe, and they
colour it with powdered charcoal. Well, you can’t sit up half the night eating
powdered charcoal without paying the penalty.”
    “Quite,”
said Ambrose. “Well, I think our best plan will be to remain perfectly quiet
with our eyes closed, and presently I will send us a little sedative.”
    “Have a
nut,” suggested the parrot.
    “No
nuts, of course,” said Ambrose.
    It was
only after Ambrose had returned to his car and was driving off to the
Tewkesbury home in the hope of seeing Evangeline that it occurred to him that
he had forgotten all about that film. Feeling, however, that there would be
plenty of time to collect that later, he fetched up at chez Tewkesbury
and was informed by Miss Martha that Evangeline was out.
    “She’s
upset to-day,” said the adored object’s aunt. “Not ill, just in a temper.