Summer Moonshine Read Online Free PDF

can ever be eradicated. If it's there, it's there.'
    'Well, let us hope for the best.'
    'That's the spirit.'
    'And now, I suppose, you ought to be off,' said Sir Buckstone. 'I've got to go and see your mother. A rather strange thing has occurred. Miss Whittaker tells me that a telephone message has arrived from her brother.'
    'Miss Whittaker's brother?'
    'Your mother's brother.'
    'But mother hasn't got a brother.'
    'Exactly. That is why I feel it's so odd that he should be ringing up on the telephone. I put that point to Miss Whittaker, but she stuck to her story. It's all most peculiar, and I shall be glad to get to the bottom of it.'
    'I wish I could come too. But I want to catch Busby before lunch. That's psychology, Buck. Some people would say wait till he's mellowed with food, but I think publishers are like pythons. They hate to be disturbed while they are digesting. I prefer to deal with a snappy, alert Busby.'
    'Get back as early as you can.'
    'I will. I want to go down to the houseboat and see how Mr Peake is getting on.'
    'Is that the name of the fellow who's taken the Mignonette ?'
    'Yes. Adrian Peake. I met him when I was at the Willoughbys' that week-end.'
    'Nice chap?'
    'Charming.'
    'Then we'd better have him up here as soon as possible. It's about time,' said Sir Buckstone, thinking of Mr Chinnery Mr Waugh-Bonner, Colonel Tanner and others, 'that I saw someone charming. I'll send Miss Whittaker down with a note. But you can't go and see the fellow today. I want you here, the instant you get back, to soothe old Chinnery. A full afternoon's work it will be.'
    'Oh, Buck! Must I?'
    'Certainly you must. It was your own suggestion. You said you would prattle to him. Play clock golf with him, too, and ask him to tell you all about his wives and waffles. Otherwise, I shall have him on my neck till bedtime. Extraordinarily pertinacious that man is. Like a horsefly.'
    'What a pity you ever bit his ear.'
    'A great pity. But no good regretting it now. What's done is done. "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit—"'
    'Yes, I know. I was given that to write out a hundred times at school too.'
    '" – shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it,"' said Sir Buckstone, who was a hard man to stop. 'The thing about it all that I find so bitter is that the fellow hasn't the slightest earthly need for the money. He must
have millions. No ordinary purse could stand the drain of what he pays out to ex-wives.'
    'Not to mention ex-waffles, I expect. All right, I'll soothe him.'
    'Good girl,' said Sir Buckstone paternally. Then he was struck by another thought. 'I say, Jane, this brother of your mother's. When he shows up, I'll have to ask him to stay, won't I?'
    'Of course.'
    'For an indefinite visit.'
    'Yes.'
    'And,' said Sir Buckstone, making his point, 'I don't suppose I can very well charge him anything, dash it. Crawling in, upsetting my home life, swigging my port – and not so much as five pounds a week out of it. Hell!' said Sir Buckstone, with old-fashioned English hospitality.
    Jane said that he must not be a Shylock. Sir Buckstone replied that it was impossible for a man situated as he was not to be a Shylock and that, anyway, Shylock's was a character which he had come greatly to admire. He then moved heavily toward the house; and Jane, going to the stables, started up her Widgeon Seven for the drive to London and Mr Busby.

CHAPTER 3
    M R Mortimer Busby , the enterprising publisher with whom the Society of Authors has for so many years waged a spirited but always fruitless warfare, leaned forward to his desk telephone and took off the receiver.
    The movement caused him to wince and utter a stifled yelp, for his skin was sensitive this morning to sudden movements. The brilliance of the weather had led him on the previous day to stay away from the office, and like Mr Billing, of Walsingford Hall, to indulge in a sun bath. But, unlike Mr