HAVING DEPOSITED LORD Emsworth in his library and the Empress in her headquarters, Gally returned to his car and drove it into the garage of Blandings Castle. He almost collided with another which was coming out with Lord Vosper at its wheel.
‘Hullo,’ said Gally, surprised. ‘You off somewhere?’
‘That’s right.’
‘A little late, isn’t it?’
‘It is a bit, I suppose.’
Lord Vosper seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then he remembered that this was the man in whom he had confided. As such, he was entitled to hear the latest news.
‘As a matter of fact, Gloria and I are driving to London to get married.’
‘Well, I’ll be dashed. You are?’
‘That’s right. We both rather shrank from the thought of explaining things to Lady Constance, so we decided we’d just slide off and spring the news in our bread-and-butter letters.’
‘Very sensible. “Dear Lady Constance. How can we thank you enough for our delightful visit to your beautiful home? Such a treat meeting your brother Galahad. By the way, we’re married. Yours faithfully, The Vospers.” Something on those lines?’
‘That’s right. We shall drive through the silent night, hitting the metropolis about dawn, I imagine. A couple of hours sleep, a quick shower, the coffee, the oatmeal, the eggs and bacon, and then off to the registrar’s.’
‘It sounds a most attractive programme.’
‘So Penny was saying. She was wishing that she and Jerry Vail could do the same.’
‘They may be able to ere long. You’ve seen Penny, then?’
‘Just now.’
‘I’m looking for her.’
‘She’s looking for you. Between ourselves, she seems a bit disgruntled.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. What about?’
‘Ah, there you rather have me. Pigs entered into it, I remember, but if you ask me if I definitely got a toe-hold on the gist, I must answer frankly that I didn’t. But you appear to have been upsetting Jerry Vail in some way somehow connected with pigs, and, as I say, she’s looking for you. She struck me as being a shade below par, and she spoke with a good deal of animation of skinning you with a blunt knife.’
Gally remained calm.
‘She won’t want to do that when she hears my news. Her only thought will be to dance about the premises, clapping her little hands. Where is she?’
‘In Beach’s pantry. At least, I left her there five minutes ago.’
‘Beach is back, then?’
‘I didn’t know he’d gone anywhere.’
‘Yes, I believe he went into Market Blandings about something.’
‘Oh? Well, he’s back, all right. I was looking for him, to tip him, and finally located him in his pantry. He was having a spot of port with Penny and Jerry Vail. Which struck me as odd, as I understood Jerry had got the push.’
‘He had. But he bobbed up again. Well, I’ll be running along and seeing them. Good luck to your matrimonial venture. I wish you every happiness.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’ll enjoy being married. Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing. It was King Solomon who said that, and he knew, eh! I mean, nothing much you could tell him about wives, what?’
‘That’s right,’ said Lord Vosper.
It seemed to Gally, who was quick to notice things, that there was a certain strain in the atmosphere of Beach’s pantry when he entered it a few minutes later. The port appeared to be circulating, as always when the hospitable butler presided over the revels, but he sensed an absence of the mellow jollity which port should produce. Beach had a dazed, stunned look, as if something hard and heavy had recently fallen on his head. So had Jerry. Penny’s look, which came shooting in his direction as he crossed the threshold, was of a different quality. It was like a death ray or something out of a flame-thrower, and he saw that in describing her as disgruntled Orlo Vosper had selected the mot juste.
‘Oh, there you are!’ she said, speaking from between pearly teeth.
‘And just in time for a drop of the right stuff, it seems,’ said Gally genially. ‘How pleasant a little something is at this hour of the day, is it not, and how much better a firkin of port than the barley-water which our good host takes into the drawing-room at nine-thirty each night on the tray of beverages. Thank you,’ he said, accepting his glass.
Penny continued to glare.
‘I’m not speaking to you, Gally Threepwood,’ she said. ‘I suppose you know,’ she went on, with feminine inconsistency, ‘that you’ve reduced my poor darling Jerry and my poor precious Beach to nervous wrecks?’
‘They look all right to me,’ said Gally, having inspected her poor darling Jerry and her poor precious Beach.
‘Outwardly,’ said Jerry coldly. ‘Inside, I’m just a fluttering fawn.’
‘So is Beach,’ said Penny. ‘Say Boo.’
‘Boo!’
‘There! See him jump. Now drop a plate or something.’
Beach quivered.
‘No, please, miss. My nerves could not endure it.’
‘Nor mine,’ said Jerry.
‘Come, come,’ said Gally. ‘This is not the spirit I like to see. You were made of sterner stuff when we three fought side by side at the battle of Agincourt. Well, I must say this surprises me. Who would have thought that a mere half hour in the jug would have affected you so deeply, Beach? Why, in my hot youth I frequently spent whole nights in the oubliettes of the old Vine Street police station, and came out rejoicing in my strength. And you, Jerry. Fancy you being so allergic to pigs.’
‘I should prefer not to have the word pig mentioned in my presence,’ said Jerry stiffly. He brooded for a moment. ‘I remember,’ he went on, ‘hearing my uncle Major Basham once speak of you. I cannot recall in what connexion your name came up, but he said: “If ever you find yourself getting entangled with Galahad Threepwood, my boy, there is only one thing to do – commend your soul to God and try to escape with your life.” How right he was, how terribly right!’
‘He knew!’ said Penny. ‘He, too, had suffered.’
Gally seemed puzzled.
‘Now why would he have said a thing like that? Ah!’ He brightened. ‘He must have been thinking of the time when Puffy Benger and I put old Wivenhoe’s pig in his bedroom the night of the Bachelors’ Ball at Hammer’s Easton.’
Jerry frowned.
‘I think I expressed a wish that that word –’
‘Quite, quite,’ said Gally. ‘Let us change the subject. I’ve just been talking to young Vosper,’ he said, doing so.
‘Oh?’ said Penny coldly.
‘Orlo Vosper,’ said Gally, ‘is not what I would call one of our brightest intellects, but he does occasionally get good ideas. His latest, as you know, is to drive up to London tonight with that dark-eyed serpent, Gloria Salt, and get married at a registrar’s, and he was saying that you were wishing you could do the same. Why don’t you? You could borrow the small car.’
Jerry gave him a frigid look.
‘You are suggesting that Penny and I should go to London and get married?’
‘Why not?’
Jerry laughed bitterly.
‘Let me supply you with a few statistics relating to my financial position,’ he said. ‘My income last year, after taxes, was –’
‘Yes, yes, I know. But Penny was telling me of this magnificent opening you’ve got with this health cure place. She stunned me with her story of its possibilities. It is not too much to say that I was electrified. You may argue that you cannot be both stunned and electrified, but I say you can, if the conditions are right. “Stap my vitals!” I said to myself. “I must keep in with this fellow Vail, endear myself to him in every possible way, so that in time to come I shall be in a position to get into his ribs for occasional loans. A young man with a future.”’
Penny regarded him with distaste.
‘Go on. Twist the knife in the wound.’
‘I don’t follow you, my dear.’
‘You know perfectly well that Jerry has to raise two thousand pounds and hasn’t a hope of getting it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Who’s going to give it to him?’
Gally’s eyebrows rose.
‘Why, Clarence, of course.’
‘Lord Emsworth?’
‘Who else?’
Penny stared.
‘You’re crazy, Gally. There isn’t a hope. I told you about him and Jerry straining their relations. Don’t you remember?’
‘Certainly, I remember. That point came up in the course of conversation as we were driving back from Matchingham. I mentioned Jerry’s name, and he drew in his breath sharply. “He called me a muddleheaded old ass,” he said. “Well, you are a muddleheaded old ass,” I pointed out, quick as a flash, and he seemed to see the justice of this. He didn’t actually say “Egad, that’s true,” but he drew in his breath sharply, and seeing that I had got him on the run, I pressed my advantage. Didn’t he realize, I said, that it was entirely through Jerry’s efforts that the Empress had been restored to him? He would be showing himself a pretty degenerate scion of a noble race, I said, if he allowed a few heated words spoken under the stress of emotion to outweigh a signal service like that. He drew in his breath sharply. “Was it young Vail who recovered the Empress?” he said, his voice a-quaver and his pince-nez a-quiver. “Of course it was,” I said. “Who the dickens did you think it was? How on earth do you suppose she got into that kitchen at Sunnybrae, if Vail didn’t put her there – at great personal peril, I may add,” I added. “God bless my soul!” he said, and drew in his breath sharply. It was one of those big evenings for sharp-breath-drawers.’
Gally paused, and accepted another glass of port. He was experiencing the quiet satisfaction of the raconteur who sees that his story is going well. A good audience, Beach and these two young people, he felt. Just the right hushed silence, and the eyes protruding just the correct distance from their sockets.
‘I saw now,’ he resumed, ‘that I had touched the spot and got him where I wanted him. You have probably no conception of Clarence’s frame of mind, now that he has got that blighted pig of his back. Exalted ecstasy is about the nearest I can come to it. I should imagine that you felt rather the same, Jerry, when you asked Penny to marry you and her shy response told you that you had brought home the bacon. You leaped, I presume. You sang, no doubt. You scoured the countryside looking for someone to do a good turn to, I should suppose – it is the same with Clarence. As the car drove in at the gate, we struck a bumpy patch, and I could hear the milk of human kindness sloshing about inside him. So I hesitated no longer. I got him to the library, dumped him in a chair, and told him all about your hard case. “Here are these two excellent young eggs, Clarence,” I said, “linked in the silken fetters of love, and unable to do anything constructive about it because the funds are a bit low. Tragic, eh, Clarence?” “Dashed tragic,” he said. “Brings the bally tear to the eye. Can nothing be done about it before my heart breaks?” “The whole matter can be satisfactorily adjusted, Clarence,” I said, “if somebody, as it might be you, slips Jerry Vail two thousand pounds. That is the sum he requires in order to unleash the clergyman and set him bustling about his business.” He stared at me, amazed. “Two thousand pounds?” he said. “Is that all? Why, I feed such sums to the birds. You’re sure he doesn’t need more?” “No, two thousand will fix it,” I said. “Then I’ll write him a cheque immediately,” he said. And to cut a long story short, he did, grumbling a little because he wasn’t allowed to make it larger, and here it is.’
Jerry and Penny stared at the cheque. They could not speak. In moments of intense emotion words do not come readily.
‘He made but one stipulation,’ said Gally, ‘that you were not to thank him.’
Penny gasped.
‘But we must thank him!’
‘No. He is a shy, shrinking, nervous fellow. It would embarrass him terribly.’
‘Well, we can thank you.’
‘Yes, you can do that. I enjoy that sort of thing. You can kiss me, if you like.’
‘I will. Oh, Gally!’ said Penny, her voice breaking.
‘There, there,’ said Gally. ‘There, there, there!’
It was some little time later that Gally, a good deal dishevelled, turned to Beach. The door had closed, and they were alone.
‘Ah, love, love!’ he said. ‘Is there anything like it? Were you ever in love, Beach?’
‘Yes, sir, on one occasion, when I was a young under-footman. But it blew over.’
‘Nice, making the young folks happy.’
‘Yes, indeed, Mr Galahad.’
‘I feel all of glow. But what of the old folks?’
‘Sir?’
‘I was only thinking that you don’t seem to have got much out of this. And you ought to have your cut. You don’t feel like bringing an action against Parsloe?’
Beach was shocked.
‘I wouldn’t take such a liberty, Mr Galahad.’
‘No, I suppose it would be awkward for you, suing your future nephew by marriage. But you certainly are entitled to some compensation for all you have been through, and I think with a little tact I can get it for you. About how much would you suggest? A hundred? Two hundred? Five hundred is a nice round sum,’ said Gally. ‘I’ll see what I can do about it.’
In her bedroom on the first floor, the second on the right – not the left – as you went along the corridor, Lady Constance, despite her nasty cold, was feeling on the whole, pretty good.
There is this to be said for a nasty cold, that when you get it, you can go to bed and cuddle up between the sheets and reflect that but for this passing indisposition you would have been downstairs, meeting your brother Galahad. After all, felt Lady Constance philosophically, kneading the hot water bottle with her toes, a couple of sniffs and a few sneezes are a small price to pay for the luxury of passing an evening away from a brother the mere sight of whom has always made you wonder if Man can really be Nature’s last word.
It was consequently with something of the emotions of a character in a Greek Tragedy pursued by the Fates that she saw the door open and observed this brother enter in person, complete with the monocle which had always aroused her worst passions. Lying awake in the still watches of the night, she had sometimes thought that she could have endured Gally if he had not worn an eyeglass.
‘Go away!’ she said.
‘In due season,’ said Gally. ‘But first a word with you, Connie.’ He seated himself on the bed, and ate one of the grapes which loving hands had placed on the table. ‘How’s your cold?’
‘Very bad.’
‘Clarence’s recent cold was cured, he tells me, by a sudden shock.’
‘I am not likely to get a sudden shock.’
‘Oh, aren’t you?’ said Gally. ‘That’s what you think. Beach is bringing an action against Sir Gregory Parsloe, claiming thousands of pounds damages. Try that one on your nasal douche.’
Lady Constance sneezed bitterly. She was feeling that if there was one time more than another when this established blot on the family exasperated her, it was when he attempted to be humorous.
‘Is this one of your elaborate jokes, Galahad?’
‘Certainly not. Straight, serious stuff. A stark slice of life.’
Lady Constance stared.
‘But how can Beach possibly be bringing an action against Sir Gregory? What for?’
‘Wrongful arrest. Injury to reputation. Defamation of character.’
‘Wrongful arrest? What do you mean?’
Gally clicked his tongue.
‘Come, come. You know perfectly well what wrongful arrest is. Suppose you were doing a bit of shopping one afternoon at one of the big London stores and suddenly a bunch of store detectives piled themselves on your neck and frog’s-marched you off to the coop on a charge of shoplifting. It happening to be one of the days when you weren’t shoplifting, you prove your innocence. What then? Are you satisfied with an apology? You bet you’re not. You race off to your lawyer and instruct him to bring an action against the blighters and soak them for millions. That’s Beach’s position. Parsloe, for some reason known only to himself, got the idea that Beach had pinched his pig, and instead of waiting like a sensible man and sifting the evidence had him summarily arrested and taken off to Market Blandings prison, courtesy of Constable Evans. Beach now, quite naturally, proposes to sue him.’
The full horror of the situation smote Lady Constance like a blow.
‘The scandal!’ she wailed.
Gally nodded.
‘Yes, I thought of that.’
Lady Constance’s eyes flashed imperiously.
‘I will speak to Beach!’
‘You will not speak to Beach,’ said Gally firmly. ‘Start giving him that grande dame stuff of yours, and you’ll only put his back up worse.’
‘Then what is to be done?’
Gally shrugged his shoulders.
‘Nothing, as far as I can see. The situation seems hopeless to me. It would all be simple, if Parsloe would only agree to a settlement out of court, but he refuses to consider it. And Beach wants five hundred pounds.’
Lady Constance stared.
‘Five hundred? You said thousands of pounds.’
‘Just a figure of speech.’
‘You really mean that Beach would consent to drop this action of his for five hundred pounds?’
‘It’s a lot of money.’
‘A lot of money? To avoid a scandal that would make us all the laughing stock of the county? Give me my cheque book. It’s in the drawer over there.’
Amazement showed itself on every feature of Gally’s face.
‘You aren’t telling me that you are going to brass up?’
‘Of course I am.’
Gally, infringing Lord Emsworth’s copyright, drew in his breath sharply.
‘Well, this opens up a new line of thought,’ he said. ‘I’m bound to say that that solution of the problem never occurred to me. And yet I ought to have known that you would prove equal to the situation. That’s you!’ said Gally admiringly. ‘Where weaker vessels like myself lose their heads and run round in circles, wringing their hands and crying “What to do? What to do?” you act. Just like that! It’s character. That’s what it is – character. It comes out in a crisis. Make the cheque payable to Sebastian Beach, and if you find any difficulty in spelling it, call on me. Were you aware that Beach’s name is Sebastian? Incredible though it may seem, it is. Showing, in my opinion, that one half of the world never knows how the other half lives, or something of that sort.’
Blandings Castle was preparing to call it a day. Now slept the crimson petal and the white, and pretty soon the sandman would be along, closing tired eyes.
Maudie, in her bedroom, was creaming her face and thinking of her Tubby.
Lady Constance, in hers, was having the time of her life. Lord Emsworth, being in no further need of it, had passed on to her his store of cinnamon, aspirin, vapex, glycerine of thymol, black currant tea, camphorated oil and thermogene wool, and she was trying them one by one. As she did so, she was feeling that pleasant glow of satisfaction which comes to women who, when men are losing their heads and running round in circles, wringing their hands and crying ‘What to do? What to do?’ have handled a critical situation promptly and well. She was even thinking reasonably kindly of her brother Galahad, for his open admiration of her resourcefulness had touched her.
Beach was in his pantry. From time to time he sipped port, from time to time raised his eyes thankfully heavenwards. He, too, was thinking kindly of Gally. Mr Galahad might ask a man to steal rather more pigs than was agreeable, but in the larger affairs of life, such as making cheques for five hundred pounds grow where none had been before, he was a rock to lean on.
Gally, in the library, was having a last quick one with his brother Clarence. He was planning to turn in before long. It was some hours before his usual time for bed, but he had had a busy day and was not so young as he had been. Fighting the good fight takes it out of a man.
He heaved himself out of his chair with a yawn.
‘Well, I’m off,’ he said. ‘Oddly fatigued, for some reason. Have you ever been kissed by the younger daughter of an American manufacturer of dog biscuits, Clarence?’
‘Eh? No. No, I don’t think so.’
‘You would remember, if you had been. It is an unforgettable experience. What’s the matter?’
Lord Emsworth was chuckling.
‘I was only thinking of something that girl Monica Simmons said to me down at the sty,’ he replied. ‘She said “Oh, Lord Emsworth, I thought I was never going to see the piggy-wiggy again!” She meant the Empress. She called the Empress a piggy-wiggy. Piggy-wiggy! Most amusing.’
Gally gave him a long look.
‘God bless you, Clarence!’ he said. ‘Good night.’
Down in her boudoir by the kitchen garden, Empress of Blandings had just woken refreshed from a light sleep. She looked about her, happy to be back in the old familiar surroundings. It was pleasant to feel settled once more. She was a philosopher and could take things as they came, but she did like a quiet life. All that whizzing about in cars and being dumped in strange kitchens didn’t do a pig of regular habits any good.
There seemed to be edible substances in the trough beside her. She rose, and inspected it. Yes, substances, plainly edible. It was a little late, perhaps, but one could always do with a snack. Whiffle, in his monumental book, had said that a pig, if aiming at the old mid-season form, should consume daily nourishment amounting to not less than fifty-seven thousand eight hundred calories, and what Whiffle said today, Empress of Blandings thought tomorrow.
She lowered her noble head and got down to it.
In the tap room of the Emsworth Arms a good time was being had by all. It was the hour when business there was always at its briskest, and many a sun-burned son of the soil had rolled up to slake a well-earned thirst. Strong men, their day’s work done, were getting outside the nightly tankard. Other strong men, compelled by slender resources to wait for someone to come along and ask them to have one, were filling in the time by playing darts. It was a scene of gay revelry, and of all the revellers present none was gayer than George Cyril Wellbeloved, quaffing at his ease in the company of Mr Bulstrode, the chemist in the High Street. His merry laugh rang out like the voice of the daughter of the village blacksmith, and on no fewer than three occasions G. Ovens, the landlord, had found it necessary to rebuke him for singing.
Carpers and cavillers, of whom there are far too many around these days, will interrupt at this point with a derisive ‘Hoy cocky! Aren’t you forgetting something?’ thinking that they have caught the historian out in one of those blunders which historians sometimes make. But the historian has made no blunder. He has not forgotten Sir Gregory Parsloe’s edict that no alcoholic liquors were to be served to George Cyril Wellbeloved. It is with a quiet smile that he confounds these carpers and cavillers by informing them that as a reward to that faithful pig man for his services in restoring Queen of Matchingham to her sty the edict had been withdrawn.
‘Go and lower yourself to the level of the beasts of the field, if you want to, my man,’ Sir Gregory had said heartily, and had given George Cyril a princely sum to do it with. So now, as we say, he sat quaffing at his ease in the company of Mr Bulstrode, the chemist in the High Street. And Mr Bulstrode was telling him a story which would probably have convulsed him, if he had been listening to it, when through the door there came the jaunty figure of Herbert Binstead.
In response to George Cyril’s ‘Oi! Herb!’ the butler joined him and his companion, but it speedily became apparent that he was to prove no pleasant addition to the company. Between him and Mr Bulstrode there seemed to be bad blood. When the latter started his story again and this time brought it to a conclusion, Herbert Binstead sneered openly, saying in a most offensive manner that he had heard that one in his cradle. And when Mr Bulstrode gave it as his opinion that the current spell of fine weather would be good for the crops, Herbert Binstead said No, it wouldn’t be good for the crops, adding that he did not suppose that the other would know a ruddy crop if he saw one. In short, so unco-operative was his attitude that after a short while the chemist said ‘Well, time to be getting along, I suppose,’ and withdrew.
George Cyril Wellbeloved found himself at a loss.
‘What’s the trouble?’ he inquired. ‘Have you two had a row?’
Binstead shrugged his shoulders.
‘I would not describe it as a row. We did not see eye to eye on a certain matter, but I was perfectly civil to the old geezer. “If that’s the way you feel about it, Mr Bulstrode,” I said, “righty-ho,” and I walked out of the shop.’
‘Feel about what?’
‘I’m telling you. I must begin by saying that a few days ago Sir Gregory Parsloe said to me “Binstead,” he said, “a distant connexion of mine wants me to get him some of this stuff Slimmo. So order a half dozen bottles from Bulstrode in the High Street, the large economy size.” And I done so.’
‘Slimmo? What’s that?’
‘Slimmo, George, is a preparation for reducing the weight. It makes you thin. Putting it in a nutshell, it’s an anti-fat. You take it, if you see what I mean, and you come over all slender. Well, as I was saying, I got this Slimmo from Bulstrode, and then Sir Gregory says he doesn’t want it after all, and I can have it, and if I can get Bulstrode to refund the money, I can keep it.’
‘Bit of luck.’
‘So I thought. Five bob apiece those bottles cost, so I naturally estimated that that would be thirty bob for me, and very nice, too.’
‘Very nice.’
‘So I went to Bulstrode’s and you could have knocked me down with a feather when he flatly refused to cough up a penny.’
‘Coo!’
‘Said a sale was a sale, and that was all there was about it.’
‘So you’re stuck with the stuff?’
‘Oh, no. I’ve passed it on.’
‘How do you mean passed it on? Who to?’
‘A lady of our acquaintance.’
‘Eh?’
Binstead chuckled quietly.
‘You know me, George. I’m the fellow they were thinking about when they said you can’t keep a good man down. It was a bit of a knock at first, I’ll admit, when I found myself landed with six bottles of anti-fat medicine the large economy size, and no way of cashing in on them, but it wasn’t long before I began to see that those bottles had been sent for a purpose. Here are you, Herbert Binstead, I said to myself, with a lot of money invested on Queen of Matchingham for the Fat Pigs event at the Agricultural Show, and there, in a sty at your elbow as you might say, is Empress of Blandings, the Queen’s only rival. What simpler, Herbert, I said to myself, than to empty those large economy size bottles of Slimmo into the Empress’s trough of food …’
He broke off. A loud, agonized cry had proceeded from his companion’s lips. George Cyril Wellbeloved was gaping at him pallidly.
‘You didn’t?’
‘Yes, I did. All six bottles. A man’s got to look after his own interests, hasn’t he? Here, where are you off to?’
George Cyril Wellbeloved was off to get his bicycle, to pedal like a racing cyclist to Matchingham Hall, trusting that he might not be too late, that there might still be time to snatch the tainted food from Queen of Matchingham’s lips.
It was an idle hope. The Queen, like the Empress, was a pig who believed in getting hers quick. If food was placed in her trough, she accorded it her immediate attention. George Cyril, leaning limply on the rail of the sty, gave a low moan and averted his eyes.
The moon shone down on an empty trough.
(From the Bridgnorth, Shifnal and Albrighton Argus, with which is incorporated the Wheat Growers’ Intelligencer and Stock Breeders’ Gazetteer). It isn’t often, goodness knows, that we are urged to quit the prose with which we earn our daily bread and take to poetry instead. But great events come now and then which call for the poetic pen. So you will pardon us, we know, if, dealing with the Shropshire Show, we lisp in numbers to explain that Emp. of Blandings won again.
This year her chance at first appeared a slender one, for it was feared that she, alas, had had her day. On every side you heard folks say ‘She’s won it twice. She can’t repeat. ’Twould be a super-porcine feat.’ ’Twas freely whispered up and down that Fate would place the laurel crown this time on the capacious bean of Matchingham’s up-and-coming Queen. For though the Emp. is fat, the latter, they felt, would prove distinctly fatter. ‘Her too, too solid flesh,’ they said, ‘’ll be sure to cop that silver medal.’
Such was the story which one heard, but nothing of the sort occurred, and, as in both the previous years, a hurricane of rousing cheers from the nobility and gentry acclaimed the Blandings Castle entry as all the judges – Colonel Brice, Sir Henry Boole and Major Price (three minds with but a single thought whose verdict none can set at naught) – announced the Fat Pigs champ to be Lord Emsworth’s portly nominee.
With reference to her success, she gave a statement to the Press. ‘Although,’ she said, ‘one hates to brag, I knew the thing was in the bag. Though I admit the Queen is stout, the issue never was in doubt. Clean living did the trick,’ said she. ‘To that I owe my victory.’
Ah, what a lesson does it teach to all of us, that splendid speech!