Galahad at Blandings by PG Wodehouse

Author:PG Wodehouse [Wodehouse, PG]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humour, Classics
ISBN: 9780140284645
Goodreads: 142442
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 1964-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

I

There is nothing that keys up the system like an eloquent pep talk, and Wilfred Allsop awoke next morning full of optimism and the will to win. ‘My woman’ he was murmuring as he shaved, ‘My woman’ he was saying to himself over the coffee and eggs at breakfast, and the words were still on his lips as he approached the Empress’s sty some hour or two later with Tipton’s flask in his pocket. Only when he reached his destination did there come to him the discouraging thought that things might not be going to go so neatly in accordance with plan as he had anticipated. The sty was there, the Empress was there, but of Monica Simmons there was no sign. He did not know what were the duties of a pig girl, but whatever they might be they had taken her elsewhere. To keep the record straight, one may mention that she was down at the pump in the kitchen garden, washing her face. A girl who is expecting an emotional scene with the man she loves naturally wishes to be at her best.

If there is one thing that damps a lover’s spirit, it is the absence from the scene of action of the party of the second part who is so essential to a proposal of marriage, and this unforeseen stage wait had the worst effect on Wilfred’s morale. The effervescent mood in which he had started out suffered a severe setback. He could feel his courage ebbing with every moment that passed. For the first time that day ‘My woman’ seemed to him a silly thing to say to anyone.

It was a moment for prompt action. He had taken one draught from the Tipton flask and had supposed that that would be sufficient but now he saw that the prudent course would be to take another. The old saying about spoiling ships for ha’porths of tar crossed his mind, together with the one that says that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. Convinced that he was on the right lines, he raised the flask to his lips, and he was leaning against the rail of the sty, his head tilted, when out of the corner of his eye he became conscious of a moving object not a dozen yards away and recognised it as Dame Daphne Winkworth’s son Huxley, who, though Wilfred was not aware of it, had come to ascertain how chances were for letting the Empress out of her sty. He was a child with a one-track mind, and the desire to do this and see what happened had become something of an obsession with him.

To say that Wilfred was appalled would in no way be overstating the case. Huxley, he knew instinctively, was one of those boys who tell their mother everything. To be found fortifying himself from a flask by Huxley was precisely the same thing as being found by Dame Daphne in person. Quick thought was called for, and he thought quickly.

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