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‘Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo’ from Meet Mr Mulliner, first published in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins Ltd in 1927

‘The Spot of Art’ from Very Good, Jeeves, first published in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins Ltd in 1930

‘Strychnine in the Soup’ from Mulliner Nights, first published in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins Ltd in 1933

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.

Arrow Books
The Penguin Random House Group Limited
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Arrow Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

MULLINER’S BUCK-U-UPPO

THE VILLAGE CHORAL Society had been giving a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Sorcerer’ in aid of the Church Organ Fund; and, as we sat in the window of the Angler’s Rest, smoking our pipes, the audience came streaming past us down the little street. Snatches of song floated to our ears, and Mr Mulliner began to croon in unison.

‘“Ah me! I was a pa-ale you-oung curate then!”’ chanted Mr Mulliner in the rather snuffling voice in which the amateur singer seems to find it necessary to render the old songs.

‘Remarkable,’ he said, resuming his natural tones, ‘how fashions change, even in clergymen. There are very few pale young curates nowadays.’

‘True,’ I agreed. ‘Most of them are beefy young fellows who rowed for their colleges. I don’t believe I have ever seen a pale young curate.’

‘The description in the song would have fitted him perfectly. You will want to hear all about my nephew Augustine.’

At the time of which I am speaking (said Mr Mulliner) my nephew Augustine was a curate, and very young and extremely pale. As a boy he had completely outgrown his strength, and I rather think that at his Theological College some of the wilder spirits must have bullied him; for when he went to Lower Briskett-in-the-Midden to assist the vicar, the Rev. Stanley Brandon, in his cure of souls, he was as meek and mild a young man as you could meet in a day’s journey. He had flaxen hair, weak blue eyes, and the general demeanour of a saintly but timid cod-fish. Precisely, in short, the sort of young curate who seems to have been so common in the ’eighties, or whenever it was that Gilbert wrote ‘The Sorcerer’.

The personality of his immediate superior did little or nothing to help him to overcome his native diffidence. The Rev. Stanley Brandon was a huge and sinewy man of violent temper, whose red face and glittering eyes might well have intimidated the toughest curate. The Rev. Stanley had been a heavyweight boxer at Cambridge, and I gather from Augustine that he seemed to be always on the point of introducing into debates on parish matters the methods which had made him so successful in the roped ring. I remember Augustine telling me that once, on the occasion when he had ventured to oppose the other’s views in the matter of decorating the church for the Harvest Festival, he thought for a moment that the vicar was going to drop him with a right hook to the chin. It was some quite trivial point that had come up – a question as to whether the pumpkin would look better in the apse or the clerestory, if I recollect rightly – but for several seconds it seemed as if blood was about to be shed.

Such was the Rev. Stanley Brandon. And yet it was to the daughter of this formidable man that Augustine Mulliner had permitted himself to lose his heart. Truly, Cupid makes heroes of us all.

Jane was a very nice girl, and just as fond of Augustine as he was of her. But, as each lacked the nerve to go to the girl’s father and put him abreast of the position of affairs, they were forced to meet surreptitiously. This jarred upon Augustine, who, like all the Mulliners, loved the truth and hated any form of deception. And one evening, as they paced beside the laurels at the bottom of the vicarage garden, he rebelled.

‘My dearest,’ said Augustine, ‘I can no longer brook this secrecy. I shall go into the house immediately and ask your father for your hand.’

Jane paled and clung to his arm. She knew so well that it was not her hand but her father’s foot which he would receive if he carried out this mad scheme.

‘Because father is in a very bad temper. He has just had a letter from the bishop, rebuking him for wearing too many orphreys on his chasuble, and it has upset him terribly. You see, he and the bishop were at school together, and father can never forget it. He said at dinner that if old Boko Bickerton thought he was going to order him about he would jolly well show him.’

‘And the bishop comes here to-morrow for the Confirmation services!’ gasped Augustine.

‘Yes. And I’m so afraid they will quarrel. It’s such a pity father hasn’t some other bishop over him. He always remembers that he once hit this one in the eye for pouring ink on his collar, and this lowers his respect for his spiritual authority. So you won’t go in and tell him to-night, will you?’

‘And you will be sure to put your feet in hot mustard and water when you get home? The dew has made the grass so wet.’

The lovers parted. Jane slipped back into the vicarage, and Augustine made his way to his cosy rooms in the High Street. And the first thing he noticed on entering was a parcel on the table, and beside it a letter.

He turned to the last page and glanced at the signature. The letter was from his Aunt Angela, the wife of my brother, Wilfred Mulliner. You may remember that I once told you the story of how these two came together. If so, you will recall that my brother Wilfred was the eminent chemical researcher who had invented, among other specifics, such world-famous preparations as Mulliner’s Raven Gipsy Face-Cream and the Mulliner Snow of the Mountains Lotion. He and Augustine had never been particularly intimate, but between Augustine and his aunt there had always existed a warm friendship.

My dear Augustine (wrote Angela Mulliner),

I have been thinking so much about you lately, and I cannot forget that, when I saw you last, you seemed very fragile and deficient in vitamins. I do hope you take care of yourself.

I have been feeling for some time that you ought to take a tonic, and by a lucky chance Wilfred has just invented one which he tells me is the finest thing he has ever done. It is called Buck-U-Uppo, and acts directly on the red corpuscles. It is not yet on the market, but I have managed to smuggle a sample bottle from Wilfred’s laboratory, and I want you to try it at once. I am sure it is just what you need.

Your affectionate aunt,

Angela Mulliner.

P.S. – You take a tablespoonful before going to bed, and another just before breakfast.

Augustine was not an unduly superstitious young man, but the coincidence of this tonic arriving so soon after Jane had told him that a tonic was what he needed affected him deeply. It seemed to him that this thing must have been meant. He shook the bottle, uncorked it, and, pouring out a liberal tablespoonful, shut his eyes and swallowed it.

The medicine, he was glad to find, was not unpleasant to the taste. It had a slightly pungent flavour, rather like old boot-soles beaten up in sherry. Having taken the dose, he read for a while in a book of theological essays, and then went to bed.

And as his feet slipped between the sheets, he was annoyed to find that Mrs Wardle, his housekeeper, had once more forgotten his hot-water bottle.

He was thoroughly upset. He had told the woman over and over again that he suffered from cold feet and could not get to sleep unless the dogs were properly warmed up. He sprang out of bed and went to the head of the stairs.

‘Mrs Wardle!’ bellowed Augustine in a voice that rattled the window-panes like a strong nor’-easter. Until to-night he had always been very much afraid of his housekeeper and had both walked and talked softly in her presence. But now he was conscious of a strange new fortitude. His head was singing a little, and he felt equal to a dozen Mrs Wardles.

‘I’ll tell you what it is now,’ he roared. ‘How many times have I told you always to put a hot-water bottle in my bed? You’ve forgotten it again, you old cloth-head!’

‘Shut up!’ thundered Augustine. ‘What I want from you is less back-chat and more hot-water bottles. Bring it up at once, or I leave to-morrow. Let me endeavour to get it into your concrete skull that you aren’t the only person letting rooms in this village. Any more lip and I walk straight round the corner, where I’ll be appreciated. Hot-water bottle ho! And look slippy about it.’

‘Action! Action!’ boomed Augustine. ‘Show some speed. Put a little snap into it.’

‘Yes, yes, most decidedly, Mr Mulliner,’ replied the chastened voice from below.

An hour later, as he was dropping off to sleep, a thought crept into Augustine’s mind. Had he not been a little brusque with Mrs Wardle? Had there not been in his manner something a shade abrupt – almost rude? Yes, he decided regretfully, there had. He lit a candle and reached for the diary which lay on the table at his bedside.

The meek shall inherit the earth. Am I sufficiently meek? I wonder. This evening, when reproaching Mrs Wardle, my worthy housekeeper, for omitting to place a hot-water bottle in my bed, I spoke quite crossly. The provocation was severe, but still I was surely to blame for allowing my passions to run riot. Mem: Must guard agst this.