Read Online Uncle Dynamite by P.G. Wodehouse - Free Book Online

fluttering about its sidewalks and old banana skins, cores of
apples, plum stones and squashed strawberries lying in large quantities in its
gutters. Its cats are stringy, hard-boiled cats, who look as if they were
contemplating, or had just finished perpetrating, a series of murders of the
more brutal type.
    It was
a bit of luck, accordingly, for this dishevelled thoroughfare to be toned up by
Lord Ickenham’s ornamental presence. With his well-cut clothes and
distinguished deportment he lent to the scene a suggestion of the enclosure at Ascot on Cup Day.
    And he
had not been there long, strolling up and down, when Budge
Street had another slice of good fortune. Round the
corner from the King’s Road there came hurrying a small, alert girl in beige,
whose arrival intensified the Ascot note. Nobody, not even Pongo at the very height of that unfortunate
discussion about the tint of his liver, had ever attempted to deny that Sally
Painter was pretty: and even if she had not been, there was a jauntiness in her
carriage which would have gone far to create that illusion.
    To Lord
Ickenham she seemed like some spirit of the summer day. Watching her as she
paused to tickle a passing cat and noting how under the treatment the cat
became in an instant a better, more idealistic cat, his heart went out to her.
    ‘Hoy!’
he cried paternally, and she came running up, floating into his arms like a
columbine.
    ‘I hope
I haven’t kept you waiting, Uncle Fred. I had to see a man about a bust.’
    ‘Not at
all,’ said Lord Ickenham. Odd, he was thinking, how everybody seemed to be
seeing men about busts today. It was only a few hours since Pongo had come
charging into his study, clamouring for one. ‘Always see men about busts. It is
the secret of a happy and successful life.’
    Sally
linked her arm in his, and gave it a squeeze.
    ‘It’s
lovely seeing you again, angel.’
    ‘I am
always well worth looking at.’
    ‘How
wonderful of you to come. And how brave! How did you manage to sneak away?’
    ‘What
extraordinary verbs you employ, child.’
    ‘Well,
didn’t Aunt Jane say she would scalp you with a blunt knife next time you were
AWOL?’
    ‘In her
playful way she did say something of the sort. Odd, that craving of hers to
keep me vegetating in the country. But your honorary Aunt Jane is at the moment
on her way to the West Indies .
This has eased the situation a good deal. I thought it a good opportunity of
broadening my mind.’
    ‘Or
playing hooky.’
    ‘That
is another way of putting it, of course. Well, let’s find a taxi and go and get
some dinner. There’s one,’ said Lord Ickenham, as they turned the corner. ‘Hop
in. Barribault’s,’ he said to the driver, and Sally closed her eyes in a sort
of ecstasy. A girl who as a rule dined sparingly in Soho , she found enchantment in the mere name of London ’s premier restaurant.
    ‘Barribault’s?
We’re not dressed.’
    ‘Grill
room. Ev. dress not oblig.’
    ‘But do
I look smart enough?’
    ‘My
dear, you look like Helen of Troy after a good facial.’ Sally leaned back
against the cushions.
    ‘Barribault’s!’
she murmured.
    ‘We
Earls step high,’ Lord Ickenham assured her. ‘The best is none too good for
us.’
    ‘It
must be great being an Oil.’
    ‘It’s
terrific. I often lie awake at night, aching with pity for all the poor devils
who aren’t.’
    ‘Though
I suppose you know you’re an anachronistic parasite on the body of the State?
Or so Otis says. He’s just become a Communist.’
    ‘He
has, has he? Well, you can tell him from me that if he starts any nonsense of
trying to hang me from a lamp-post, I shall speak very sharply to him. Doesn’t
he like Earls?’
    ‘Not
much. He thinks they’re blood-suckers.’
    ‘What
an ass that boy is, to be sure. Where’s the harm in sucking blood? We need it,
to keep us rosy. And it isn’t as if I hadn’t had to work for my little bit of
gore. People see me now the dickens of a fellow with