Blandings Castle and Elsewhere Read Online Free PDF Page A

wish ... What I want to say,' faltered Lord
Emsworth humbly, 'is, have you accepted another situation yet?'
    'I am conseederin' twa.'
    'Come back to me!' pleaded his lordship, his voice breaking.
'Robert Barker is worse than useless. Come back to me!'
    Angus McAllister gazed woodenly at the tulips.
    'A' weel—' he said at length.
    'You will?' cried Lord Emsworth joyfully. 'Splendid! Capital!
Excellent!'
    'A' didna say I wud.'
    'I thought you said "I will,"' said his lordship, dashed.
    'I didna say "A' weel"; I said "A weel,"' said Mr McAllister
stiffly. 'Meanin' mebbe I might, mebbe not.'
    Lord Emsworth laid a trembling hand upon his shoulder.
    'McAllister, I will raise your salary.'
    The beard twitched.
    'Dash it, I'll double it!'
    The eyebrows flickered.
    'McAllister ... Angus ...' said Lord Emsworth in a low voice.
    'Come back! The pumpkin needs you.'
     
    In an age of rush and hurry like that of to-day, an age in which
there are innumerable calls on the time of everyone, it is possible
that here and there throughout the ranks of those who have read
this chronicle there may be one or two who for various reasons
found themselves unable to attend the last Agricultural Show at
Shrewsbury. For these a few words must be added.
    Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, of Matchingham Hall, was there,
of course, but it would not have escaped the notice of a close
observer that his mien lacked something of the haughty arrogance
which had characterized it in other years. From time to time, as he
paced the tent devoted to the exhibition of vegetables, he might
have been seen to bite his lip, and his eye had something of that
brooding look which Napoleon's must have worn at Waterloo.
    But there was the right stuff in Sir Gregory. He was a gentleman
and a sportsman. In the Parsloe tradition there was nothing
small or mean. Half-way down the tent he stopped, and with a
quick, manly gesture thrust out his hand.
    'Congratulate you, Emsworth,' he said huskily.
    Lord Emsworth looked up with a start. He had been deep in
his thoughts.
    'Eh? Oh, thanks. Thanks, my dear fellow, thanks, thanks.
Thank you very much.' He hesitated. 'Er – can't both win, eh?'
    Sir Gregory puzzled it out and saw that he was right.
    'No,' he said. 'No. See what you mean. Can't both win. No
getting round that.'
    He nodded and walked on, with who knows what vultures
gnawing at his broad bosom. And Lord Emsworth – with
Angus McAllister, who had been a silent, beard-waggling witness
of the scene, at his side – turned once more to stare
reverently at that which lay on the strawy bottom of one of the
largest packing-cases ever seen in Shrewsbury town.
    A card had been attached to the exterior of the packing-case.
It bore the simple legend:
    PUMPKINS. FIRST PRIZE

2 LORD EMSWORTH ACTS FOR THE BEST
    T HE housekeeper's room at Blandings Castle, G.H.Q. of
the domestic staff that ministered to the needs of the Earl
of Emsworth, was in normal circumstances a pleasant and cheerful
apartment. It caught the afternoon sun; and the paper which
covered its walls had been conceived in a jovial spirit by someone
who held that the human eye, resting on ninety-seven simultaneous
pink birds perched upon ninety-seven blue rose-bushes,
could not but be agreeably stimulated and refreshed. Yet, with
the entry of Beach, the butler, it was as though there had crept
into its atmosphere a chill dreariness; and Mrs Twemlow, the
housekeeper, laying down her knitting, gazed at him in alarm.
    'Whatever is the matter, Mr Beach?'
    The butler stared moodily out of the window. His face was
drawn and he breathed heavily, as a man will who is suffering
from a combination of strong emotion and adenoids. A ray of
sunshine, which had been advancing jauntily along the carpet,
caught sight of his face and slunk out, abashed.
    'I have come to a decision, Mrs Twemlow.'
    'What about?'
    'Ever since his lordship started to grow it I have seen the
writing on the wall plainer and plainer, and now I have made
up my mind.