Blandings Castle and Elsewhere Read Free

pumpkins, and that he had every
confidence, the most complete and unswerving confidence, in
Robert Barker, recently Angus's second-in-command, now promoted
to the post of head-gardener and custodian of the Blandings
Hope, he knew that this was but shallow bravado. When
you are a pumpkin-owner with a big winner in your stable, you
judge men by hard standards, and every day it became plainer
that Robert Barker was only a makeshift. Within a week Lord
Emsworth was pining for Angus McAllister.
    It might be purely imagination, but to his excited fancy the
pumpkin seemed to be pining for Angus too. It appeared to be
drooping and losing weight. Lord Emsworth could not rid
himself of the horrible idea that it was shrinking. And on the
tenth night after McAllister's departure he dreamed a strange
dream. He had gone with King George to show his Gracious
Majesty the pumpkin, promising him the treat of a lifetime; and,
when they arrived, there in the corner of the frame was a
shrivelled thing the size of a pea. He woke, sweating, with his
sovereign's disappointed screams ringing in his ears; and Pride
gave its last quiver and collapsed. To reinstate Angus would be a
surrender, but it must be done.
    'Beach,' he said that morning at breakfast, 'do you happen to – er –
to have McAllister's address?'
    'Yes, your lordship,' replied the butler. 'He is in London,
residing at number eleven Buxton Crescent.'
    'Buxton Crescent? Never heard of it.'
    'It is, I fancy, your lordship, a boarding-house or some such
establishment off the Cromwell Road. McAllister was accustomed
to make it his head-quarters whenever he visited the
Metropolis on account of its handiness for Kensington Gardens.
He liked,' said Beach with respectful reproach, for Angus had
been a friend of his for nine years, 'to be near the flowers, your
lordship.'
    Two telegrams, passing through it in the course of the next
twelve hours, caused some gossip at the post office of the little
town of Market Blandings.
    The first ran:
    McAllister,
11, Buxton Crescent,
Cromwell Road,
London.
    Return immediately. – Emsworth.
    The second!
    Lord Emsworth,
Blandings Castle,
Shropshire.
    I will not. – McAllister.
    Lord Emsworth had one of those minds capable of accommodating
    but one thought at a time – if that; and the possibility that Angus
    McAllister might decline to return had not occurred to him. It was difficult
    to adjust himself to this new problem, but he managed it at last. Before nightfall
    he had made up his mind. Robert Barker, that broken reed, could remain in
    charge for another day or so, and meanwhile he would go up to London and engage
    a real head-gardener, the finest head-gardener that money could buy.
     
    It was the opinion of Dr Johnson that there is in London all
that life can afford. A man, he held, who is tired of London is
tired of life itself. Lord Emsworth, had he been aware of this
statement, would have contested it warmly. He hated London.
He loathed its crowds, its smells, its noises; its omnibuses, its
taxis, and its hard pavements. And, in addition to all its other
defects, the miserable town did not seem able to produce a single
decent head-gardener. He went from agency to agency, interviewing
candidates, and not one of them came within a mile of
meeting his requirements. He disliked their faces, he distrusted
their references. It was a harsh thing to say of any man, but he
was dashed if the best of them was even as good as Robert
Barker.
    It was, therefore, in a black and soured mood that his lordship,
having lunched frugally at the Senior Conservative Club
on the third day of his visit, stood on the steps in the sunshine,
wondering how on earth he was to get through the afternoon.
He had spent the morning rejecting head-gardeners, and the
next batch was not due until the morrow. And what – besides
rejecting head-gardeners – was there for a man of reasonable
tastes to do with his time in this hopeless town?
    And then there came into his mind a