Read Online Sunset at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse - Free Book Online

the Gorgon objected and had spells, let her have spells.

 
     
     
    CHAPTER
TEN
     
    GALLY had no difficulty in
finding Freddie. A man in London on an expense account generally tends to do
himself well, and Freddie, when sent across the Atlantic by his father-in-law
to promote the interests of the English branch of Donaldson’s Dog Joy, never
watched the pennies. It was in a suite at the Ritz that the meeting between
uncle and nephew took place. Freddie was having a late breakfast.
    Gally
was surprised to see a cloud on his nephew’s brow, for normally Freddie was a
cheerful young man, inclined perhaps, as his Aunt Florence had said, to confine
his talk to the subject of dog-biscuits, but uniformly cheerful. His sunny
smile, Gally had always understood, was one of the sights of Long Island City,
but now it no longer split his face. It was with a moody fork that he pronged
the kippered herring on his plate, and not even James Piper could have more
closely resembled the Mona Lisa as he sipped coffee.
    Gally
noted these symptoms with interest. His experienced eye told him that they
were not due to a hangover, so it would seem that some business worry was
causing this depression.
    ‘Something
on your mind, I see,’ he said. ‘Is it that trade is not brisk?’
    ‘Trade
is a pain in the neck,’ said Freddie, abandoning the kipper and going on to
marmalade. ‘In England I mean, not in America. I have not a word of criticism
of the American dog, whose appetite for biscuits remains the same as always.
But the dogs over here … Old Donaldson will have a fit when I turn in my report.’
    Gally’s
face took on a grave expression in keeping with the solemnity of the moment,
but he had come here on a mission of vital importance and was not to be
diverted from the main issue.
    ‘I’m
sorry,’ he said, ‘but before going into that in depth I will explain why I
wanted to see you. Your cousin Victoria —’
    ‘I don’t
know what England’s coming to.’
    ‘Your
cousin Victoria has fallen in love with the wrong man and is immured at
Blandings, and I have got the man there under a false name. I can reveal this
to you without reserve as you have been associated with me in many of my cases.
You will recall the Bill Lister incident.’ [35]
    ‘And I’ll
tell you why trade isn’t brisk,’ said Freddie. ‘It’s because of the bad
practice of English dog owners of giving their dogs scraps at the luncheon and
dinner tables. I was lunching —’
    ‘Freddie
—’
    ‘I was
lunching at a house in Sussex only yesterday, and there was my hostess with a
dog on each side of her, and all through the meal she kept giving them
hand-outs, yes, even of the Bavarian Cream which was the final course.’
    ‘Freddie
—’
    ‘Is it
reasonable to suppose that a dog full of Bavarian Cream will be satisfied with
a biscuit, even one as wholesome and rich in all the essential vitamins as
Donaldson’s Dog Joy? Naturally when I produced a sample and offered it to the
animals they backed away, turning up their noses, and I was unable to book an
order. And the same thing has happened over and over —’Freddie,’ said Gaily, ‘if
you don’t stop babbling about your damned dog-biscuits and listen to me, I’ll
shove the remains of that kipper down your neck.’
    Freddie
looked up from his marmalade, surprised. ‘Were you saying something?’
    ‘I was
trying to. It’s about Jeff Bennison.’
    ‘I know
Jeff Bennison.’
    ‘I know
you do.’
    ‘What
about him?’
    ‘He and
Vicky are in love.’
    ‘Nothing
wrong with that, is there?’
    ‘Yes,
there is, because Florence has imprisoned her at Blandings to get her out of
Jeff’s way and I have got Jeff into the house, calling himself Smith.’
    ‘You
mean he’s in?’
    ‘Yes,
he’s in.’
    ‘Hob-nobbing
daily with Vicky?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Absolutely
on the premises?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then
what’s your problem?’
    ‘I
wouldn’t have one if you hadn’t wired Clarence that you