Luck of the Bodkins Read Online Free PDF Page A

again. He had earmarked the next hour and a half for silent communion with his tortured soul, and did not relish the prospect of having to talk to even an old friend.
    But at these words a powerful revulsion of feeling swept over him. His whole attention during the episode on the platform having been concentrated upon the girl he loved, he had not recognized the vague figure standing beyond her. Reason now told him that this must have been Reggie, and what he had just said suggested that Gertrude had been confiding in him. Reginald Tennyson had turned, in short, from an unwelcome intruder to a man who could give him inside information straight from the horse's mouth. He was too far in the depths to beam, but his drawn face relaxed and he offered his companion a gasper.
    'Did she,' he asked eagerly, 'tell you about it? ’ ‘ Rather.'
    ‘ What did she say?'
    'She said you had been engaged and it had been broken off. ’ 'Yes, but did she tell you why? ’
    ‘ No. Why was it?' 'I don't know.' 'You don't know? ’ ‘I haven't a notion.'
    'But, dash it, if you had a row, you must know what it was about.' 'We didn't have a row.' 'You must have had.'
    'We didn't, I tell you. The whole thing is inexplicable, ’
    'Is what? ’
    ‘ Rummy. ’
    'Oh, rummy? Yes.'
    'Shall I place the facts before you?'
    ‘ Do.'
    'I will. You will find them,' said Monty, 'inexplicable. ’ There was silence f or a moment. Monty seemed to be wrestling with his soul. He c lenched his fists, and his ears wiggled.
    'The odd thing is,' said Reggie, 'that I didn't know you had ever met Gertrude.'
    ‘I had,' said Monty. 'Otherwise, how could we have got engaged?'
    'Something,' Reggie was forced to admit, 'in that. But why was it all kept so dark? Why is this the first I have heard of any bally engagement? Why wasn't the thing shoved in the Morning Post and generally blazoned over the metropolis like any other engagement?'
    'That was because there were wheels within wheels.'
    'How do you mean?'
    ‘I will come to that. Let me begin at the beginning. ’
    'Skipping early childhood, of course?' said Reggie, a little anxiously. In his present delicate state of health, something a bit on the condensed side was what he was hoping for.
    A dreamy look came into Monty Bodkin's eyes - dreamy and at the same time anguished. He was living once more in the dear, dead past, and a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.
    'The first time ‘I met Gertrude,' he began, 'was at a picnic on the river, down Streatley way. We found ourselves sitting next to one another and from the very inception of our acquaintance we were, in the best and deepest sense of the words, like ham and eggs. I squashed a wasp for her, and from that moment never looked back. I sent her flowers a bit and called a bit and we lunched a bit and went out dancing a bit, and about two weeks later we becam e engaged. At least, sort of.' ‘ Sort of?'
    This is what ‘I meant when ‘I said there were wheels within wheels. It was her father who wouldn't let it be an ordinary straightforward engagement. Do you know her blasted father, by any chance - J. G. Butterwick, of Butterwick, Price & Mandelbaum, Export and Import Merchants? But of course you do,' said Monty, with a weary smile at the absurdity of the question. 'He's your uncle.'
    Reggie nodded.
    'He is my uncle. No good trying to hush that up at this time of day. But when you say know him - well, we don't mingle much. He doesn't approve of me.'
    'He didn't approve of me, either,'
    'And do you know what he's gone and done now, the old wart-hog? You asked me what I was doing on this train, and I told you I was on my way to Canada. You will scarcely credit this, but he has talked the family into shipping me off to Montreal to a foul office job. But don't let me get started talking about my own troubles,' said Reggie, realizing that he was interrupting a narrative of poignant interest. 'I want to hear all about you and Gertrude. You were