P. G. Wodehouse Read Online Free PDF Page B

minute he was talking to the
managing director of the Mammoth Syndicate Halls on the telephone. In
five minutes the managing director had agreed to pay Prince Otto of
Saxe-Pfennig five hundred pounds a week, if he could be prevailed upon
to appear. In ten minutes the Grand Duke Vodkakoff had been engaged,
subject to his approval, at a weekly four hundred and fifty by the
Stone-Rafferty circuit. And in a quarter of an hour Solly Quhayne,
having pushed his way through a mixed crowd of Tricky Serios and
Versatile Comedians and Patterers who had been waiting to see him for
the last hour and a half, was bowling off in a taximeter-cab to the
Russian lines at Hampstead.
    General Vodkakoff received his visitor civilly, but at first without
enthusiasm. There were, it seemed, objections to his becoming an
artiste. Would he have to wear a properly bald head and sing songs
about wanting people to see his girl? He didn't think he could. He had
only sung once in his life, and that was twenty years ago at a
bump-supper at Moscow University. And even then, he confided to Mr.
Quhayne, it had taken a decanter and a-half of neat vodka to bring him
up to the scratch.
    The agent ridiculed the idea.
    "Why, your Grand Grace," he cried, "there won't be anything of that
sort. You ain't going to be starred as a
comic
. You're a Refined
Lecturer and Society Monologue Artist. 'How I Invaded England,' with
lights down and the cinematograph going. We can easily fake the
pictures."
    The Grand Duke made another objection.
    "I understand," he said, "it is etiquette for music-hall artists in
their spare time to eat—er—fried fish with their fingers. Must I do
that? I doubt if I could manage it."
    Mr Quhayne once more became the human semaphore.
    "S'elp me! Of course you needn't! All the leading pros, eat it with a
spoon. Bless you, you can be the refined gentleman on the Halls same as
anywhere else. Come now, your Grand Grace, is it a deal? Four hundred
and fifty chinking o'Goblins a week for one hall a night, and
press-agented at eight hundred and seventy-five. S'elp me! Lauder
doesn't get it, not in England."
    The Grand Duke reflected. The invasion has proved more expensive than
he had foreseen. The English are proverbially a nation of shopkeepers,
and they had put up their prices in all the shops for his special
benefit. And he was expected to do such a lot of tipping. Four hundred
and fifty a week would come in uncommonly useful.
    "Where do I sign?" he asked, extending his hand for the agreement.
*
    Five minutes later Mr. Quhayne was urging his taxidriver to exceed the
speed-limit in the direction of Tottenham.

Chapter 3 - A Bird's-Eye View of the Situation
*
    Clarence read the news of the two engagements on the tape at the office
of his paper, but the first intimation the general public had of it was
through the medium of headlines:—
    MUSIC-HALL SENSATION
INVADING GENERALS' GIGANTIC SALARIES
RUMOURED RESENTMENT OF V.A.F.
WHAT WILL WATER-RATS DO?
INTERVIEW WITH MR. HARRY LAUDER
    Clarence chuckled grimly as the tape clicked out the news. The end had
begun. To sow jealousy between the rival generals would have been easy.
To sow it between two rival music-hall artistes would be among the
world's softest jobs.
    Among the general public, of course, the announcement created a
profound sensation. Nothing else was talked about in train and omnibus.
The papers had leaders on the subject. At first the popular impression
was that the generals were going to do a comedy duo act of the
Who-Was-It-I-Seen-You-Coming-Down-the-Street-With? type, and there was
disappointment when it was found that the engagements were for
different halls. Rumours sprang up. It was said that the Grand Duke had
for years been an enthusiastic amateur sword-swallower, and had,
indeed, come to England mainly for the purpose of getting bookings;
that the Prince had a secure reputation in Potsdam as a singer of songs
in the George Robey style; that both were expert trick-cyclists.
    Then the