This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781473553231
Version 1.0
Published by Arrow Books 2017
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © The Trustees of the Wodehouse Estate
Cover Tabby cat © Alamy
Cover design by Natascha Nel
‘Goodbye to All Cats’ from Young Men in Spats, first published in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins Ltd in 1936
‘Ukridge’s Dog College’ and ‘Ukridge’s Accident Syndicate’ from Ukridge, first published in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins Ltd in 1924
Both collections published by Arrow Books in 2008
This collection first published in the United Kingdom by Arrow Books in 2017
Arrow Books
The Penguin Random House Group Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA
www.penguin.co.uk
www.wodehouse.co.uk
Arrow Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781787460133
AS THE CLUB kitten sauntered into the smoking-room of the Drones Club and greeted those present with a friendly miauw, Freddie Widgeon, who had been sitting in a corner with his head between his hands, rose stiffly.
‘I had supposed,’ he said, in a cold, level voice, ‘that this was a quiet retreat for gentlemen. As I perceive that it is a blasted Zoo, I will withdraw.’
And he left the room in a marked manner.
There was a good deal of surprise, mixed with consternation.
‘What’s the trouble?’ asked an Egg, concerned. Such exhibitions of the naked emotions are rare at the Drones. ‘Have they had a row?’
A Crumpet, always well-informed, shook his head.
‘Freddie has had no personal breach with this particular kitten,’ he said. ‘It is simply that since that week-end at Matcham Scratchings he can’t stand the sight of a cat.’
‘Matcham what?’
‘Scratchings. The ancestral home of Dahlia Prenderby in Oxfordshire.’
‘I met Dahlia Prenderby once,’ said the Egg. ‘I thought she seemed a nice girl.’
‘Freddie thought so, too. He loved her madly.’
‘And lost her, of course?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Do you know,’ said a thoughtful Bean, ‘I’ll bet that if all the girls Freddie Widgeon has loved and lost were placed end to end – not that I suppose one could do it – they would reach half-way down Piccadilly.’
‘Further than that,’ said the Egg. ‘Some of them were pretty tall. What beats me is why he ever bothers to love them. They always turn him down in the end. He might just as well never begin. Better, in fact, because in the time saved he could be reading some good book.’
‘I think the trouble with Freddie,’ said the Crumpet, ‘is that he always gets off to a flying start. He’s a good-looking sort of chap who dances well and can wiggle his ears, and the girl is dazzled for the moment, and this encourages him. From what he tells me, he appears to have gone very big with this Prenderby girl at the outset. So much so, indeed, that when she invited him down to Matcham Scratchings he had already bought his copy of What Every Young Bridegroom Ought To Know.’
‘Rummy, these old country-house names,’ mused the Bean. ‘Why Scratchings, I wonder?’
‘Freddie wondered, too, till he got to the place. Then he tells me he felt it was absolutely the mot juste. This girl Dahlia’s family, you see, was one of those animal-loving families, and the house, he tells me, was just a frothing maelstrom of dumb chums. As far as the eye could reach, there were dogs scratching themselves and cats scratching the furniture. I believe, though he never met it socially, there was even a tame chimpanzee somewhere on the premises, no doubt scratching away as assiduously as the rest of them. You get these conditions here and there in the depths of the country, and this Matcham place was well away from the centre of things, being about six miles from the nearest station.
‘It was at this station that Dahlia Prenderby met Freddie in her two-seater, and on the way to the house there occurred a conversation which I consider significant – showing, as it does, the cordial relations existing between the young couple at that point in the proceedings. I mean, it was only later that the bitter awakening and all that sort of thing popped up.’
‘I do want you to be a success, Freddie,’ said the girl, after talking a while of this and that. ‘Some of the men I’ve asked down here have been such awful flops. The great thing is to make a good impression on Father.’
‘I will,’ said Freddie.
‘He can be a little difficult at times.’
‘Lead me to him,’ said Freddie. ‘That’s all I ask. Lead me to him.’
‘The trouble is, he doesn’t much like young men.’
‘He’ll like me.’
‘He will, will he?’
‘Rather!’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I’m a dashed fascinating chap.’
‘Oh, you are?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘You are, are you?’
‘Rather!’
Upon which, she gave him a sort of push and he gave her a sort of push, and she giggled and he laughed like a paper bag bursting, and she gave him a kind of shove and he gave her a kind of shove, and she said, ‘You are a silly ass!’ and he said, ‘What ho!’ All of which shows you, I mean to say, the stage they had got to by this time. Nothing definitely settled, of course, but Love obviously beginning to burgeon in the girl’s heart.
Well, naturally, Freddie gave a good deal of thought during the drive to this father of whom the girl had spoken so feelingly, and he resolved that he would not fail her. The way he would suck up to the old dad would be nobody’s business. He proposed to exert upon him the full force of his magnetic personality, and looked forward to registering a very substantial hit.
Which being so, I need scarcely tell you, knowing Freddie as you do, that his first act on entering Sir Mortimer Prenderby’s orbit was to make the scaliest kind of floater, hitting him on the back of the neck with a tortoiseshell cat not ten minutes after his arrival.
His train having been a bit late, there was no time on reaching the house for any stately receptions or any of that ‘Welcome to Meadowsweet Hall’ stuff. The girl simply shot him up to his room and told him to dress like a streak, because dinner was in a quarter of an hour, and then buzzed off to don the soup and fish herself. And Freddie was just going well when, looking round for his shirt, which he had left on the bed, he saw a large tortoiseshell cat standing on it, kneading it with its paws.
Well, you know how a fellow feels about his shirtfront. For an instant, Freddie stood spellbound. Then with a hoarse cry he bounded forward, scooped up the animal, and, carrying it out on to the balcony, flung it into the void. And an elderly gentleman, coming round the corner at this moment, received a direct hit on the back of his neck.
‘Hell!’ cried the elderly gentleman.
A head popped out of a window.
‘Whatever is the matter, Mortimer?’
‘It’s raining cats.’
‘Nonsense. It’s a lovely evening,’ said the head, and disappeared.
Freddie thought an apology would be in order.
‘I say,’ he said.
The old gentleman looked in every direction of the compass, and finally located Freddie on his balcony.
‘I say,’ said Freddie, ‘I’m awfully sorry you got that nasty buffet. It was me.’
‘It was not you. It was a cat.’
‘I know. I threw the cat.’
‘Why?’
‘Well …’
‘Dam’ fool.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Freddie.
‘Go to blazes,’ said the old gentleman.
Freddie backed into the room, and the incident closed.
Freddie is a pretty slippy dresser, as a rule, but this episode had shaken him, and he not only lost a collar-stud but made a mess of the first two ties. The result was that the gong went while he was still in his shirtsleeves: and on emerging from his boudoir he was informed by a footman that the gang were already nuzzling their bouillon in the dining-room. He pushed straight on there, accordingly, and sank into a chair beside his hostess just in time to dead-heat with the final spoonful.
Awkward, of course, but he was feeling in pretty good form owing to the pleasantness of the thought that he was shoving his knees under the same board as the girl Dahlia: so, having nodded to his host, who was glaring at him from the head of the table, as much as to say that all would be explained in God’s good time, he shot his cuffs and started to make sparkling conversation to Lady Prenderby.
‘Charming place you have here, what?’
Lady Prenderby said that the local scenery was generally admired. She was one of those tall, rangy, Queen Elizabeth sort of women, with tight lips and cold, blanc-mange-y eyes. Freddie didn’t like her looks much, but he was feeling, as I say, fairly fizzy, so he carried on with a bright zip.
‘Pretty good hunting country, I should think?’
‘I believe there is a good deal of hunting near here, yes.’
‘I thought as much,’ said Freddie. ‘Ah, that’s the stuff, is it not? A cracking gallop across good country with a jolly fine kill at the end of it, what, what? Hark for’ard, yoicks, tally-ho, I mean to say, and all that sort of thing.’
Lady Prenderby shivered austerely.
‘I fear I cannot share your enthusiasm,’ she said. ‘I have the strongest possible objection to hunting. I have always set my face against it, as against all similar brutalizing blood-sports.’
This was a nasty jar for poor old Freddie, who had been relying on the topic to carry him nicely through at least a couple of courses. It silenced him for the nonce. And as he paused to collect his faculties, his host, who had now been glowering for six and a half minutes practically without cessation, put a hand in front of his mouth and addressed the girl Dahlia across the table. Freddie thinks he was under the impression that he was speaking in a guarded whisper, but, as a matter of fact, the words boomed through the air as if he had been a costermonger calling attention to his Brussels sprouts.
‘Dahlia!’
‘Yes, Father?’
‘Who’s that ugly feller?’
‘Hush!’
‘What do you mean, hush? Who is he?’
‘Mr Widgeon.’
‘Mr Who?’
‘Widgeon.’
‘I wish you would articulate clearly and not mumble,’ said Sir Mortimer fretfully. ‘It sounds to me just like “Widgeon”. Who asked him here?’
‘I did.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s a friend of mine.’
‘Well, he looks a pretty frightful young slab of damnation to me. What I’d call a criminal face.’
‘Hush!’
‘Why do you keep saying “Hush”? Must be a lunatic, too. Throws cats at people.’
‘Please, Father!’