Aunts Aren't Gentlemen Read Free Page B

while
and then said 'Hullo', and conceive my emotion when I
recognized him as Major Plank the explorer and Rugby
football aficionado, whom I had last seen at his house in
Gloucestershire when he was accusing me of trying to get
five quid out of him under false pretences. A groundless
charge, I need scarcely say, self being as pure as the driven
snow, if not purer, but things had got a bit difficult and the
betting was that they would become difficult now. I sat
waiting for him to denounce me and was wondering what the
harvest would be, when he spoke, to my astonishment, in the
most bonhomous way, as if we were old buddies.
    'We've met before. I never forget a face. Isn't your name
Allen or Allenby or Alexander or something?'
    'Wooster,' I said, relieved to the core. I had been anticipating
a painful scene. He clicked his tongue. 'I could have
sworn it was something beginning with Al. It's this malaria of
mine. Picked it up in Equatorial Africa, and it affects my
memory. So you've changed your name, have you? Secret
enemies after you?'
    'No, no secret enemies.'
    'That's generally why one changes one's name. I had to
change mine that time I shot the chief of the 'Mgombis. In
self-defence, of course, but that made no difference to his
widows and surviving relatives who were looking for me. If
they had caught me, they would have roasted me alive over a
slow fire, which is a thing one always wants to avoid. But I
baffled them. Plank was the man they were trying to contact,
and it never occurred to them that somebody called George
Bernard Shaw could be the chap they were after. They are not
very bright in those parts. Well, Wooster, how have you been
since we last met? Pretty bobbish?'
    'Oh, fine, thanks, except that I've got spots on my chest.'
    'Spots? That's bad. How many?'
    I said I had not actually taken a census, but there were quite
a few, and he shook his head gravely.
    'Might be bubonic plague or possibly sprue or schistosomiasis.
One of my native bearers got spots on his chest, and
we buried him before sundown. Had to. Delicate fellows,
these native bearers, though you wouldn't think so to look at
them. Catch everything that's going around – sprue, bubonic
plague, schistosomiasis, jungle fever, colds in the head – the
lot. Well, Wooster, it's been nice seeing you again. I would ask
you to lunch, but I have a train to catch. I'm off to the country.'
    He left me, as you may imagine, in something of a twitter.
Bertram Wooster, as is well known, is intrepid and it takes a
lot to scare the pants off him. But his talk of native bearers who
had to be buried before sundown had caused me not a little
anxiety. Nor did the first sight of E. Jimpson Murgatroyd do
anything to put me at my ease. Tipton had warned me that he
was a gloomy old buster, and a gloomy old buster was what he
proved to be. He had sad, brooding eyes and long whiskers,
and his resemblance to a frog which had been looking on the
dark side since it was a slip of a tadpole sent my spirits right
down into the basement.
    However, as so often happens when you get to know a
fellow better, he turned out to be not nearly as pessimistic a
Gawd-help-us as he appeared to be at first sight. By the time
he had weighed me and tied that rubber thing round my biceps
and felt my pulse and tapped me all over like a whiskered
woodpecker he had quite brightened up and words of good
cheer were pouring out of him like ginger beer from a bottle.
    'I don't think you have much to worry about,' he said.
    'You don't?' I said, considerably bucked up. 'Then it isn't
sprue or schistosomiasis?'
    'Of course it is not. What gave you the idea it might be?'
    'Major Plank said it might. The chap who was in here
before me.'
    'You shouldn't listen to people, especially Plank. We were
at school together. Barmy Plank we used to call him. No, the
spots are of no importance. They will disappear in a few days.'
    'Well, that's a relief,' I said, and he said he was glad I was
pleased.
    'But,' he