Blandings Castle and Elsewhere Read Free Page A

remark which Beach the
butler had made at the breakfast-table about flowers in Kensington
Gardens. He could go to Kensington Gardens and look
at the flowers.
    He was about to hail a taxicab from the rank down the street
when there suddenly emerged from the Hotel Magnificent over
the way a young man. This young man proceeded to cross the
road, and, as he drew near, it seemed to Lord Emsworth that
there was about his appearance something oddly familiar. He
stared for a long instant before he could believe his eyes, then
with a wordless cry bounded down the steps just as the other
started to mount them.
    'Oh, hullo, guv'nor!' ejaculated the Hon. Freddie, plainly
startled.
    'What – what are you doing here?' demanded Lord Emsworth.
    He spoke with heat, and justly so. London, as the result of
several spirited escapades which still rankled in the mind of a
father who had had to foot the bills, was forbidden ground to
Freddie.
    The young man was plainly not at his ease. He had the air of
one who is being pushed towards dangerous machinery in which
he is loath to become entangled. He shuffled his feet for a
moment, then raised his left shoe and rubbed the back of his
right calf with it.
    'The fact is, guv'nor—'
    'You know you are forbidden to come to London.'
    'Absolutely, guv'nor, but the fact is—'
    And why anybody but an imbecile should want to come to
London when he could be at Blandings—'
    'I know, guv'nor, but the fact is—' Here Freddie, having
replaced his wandering foot on the pavement, raised the other,
and rubbed the back of his left calf. 'I wanted to see you,' he said.
'Yes. Particularly wanted to see you.'
    This was not strictly accurate. The last thing in the world
which the Hon. Freddie wanted was to see his parent. He had
come to the Senior Conservative Club to leave a carefully
written note. Having delivered which, it had been his intention
to bolt like a rabbit. This unforeseen meeting had upset his
plans.
    'To see me?' said Lord Emsworth. 'Why?'
    'Got – er – something to tell you. Bit of news.'
    'I trust it is of sufficient importance to justify your coming to
London against my express wishes.'
    'Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes-yes. Oh, rather. It's dashed important.
Yes – not to put too fine a point upon it – most dashed important.
I say, guv'nor, are you in fairly good form to stand a bit of a
shock?'
    A ghastly thought rushed into Lord Emsworth's mind. Freddie's
mysterious arrival – his strange manner – his odd hesitation
and uneasiness – could it mean—? He clutched the young man's
arm feverishly.
    'Frederick! Speak! Tell me! Have the cats got at it?'
    It was a fixed idea of Lord Emsworth, which no argument
would have induced him to abandon, that cats had the power to
work some dreadful mischief on his pumpkin and were continually
lying in wait for the opportunity of doing so; and his
behaviour on the occasion when one of the fast sporting set from
the stables, wandering into the kitchen garden and finding him
gazing at the Blandings Hope, had rubbed itself sociably against
his leg, lingered long in that animal's memory.
    Freddie stared.
    'Cats? Why? Where? Which? What cats?'
    'Frederick! Is anything wrong with the pumpkin?'
    In a crass and materialistic world there must inevitably be a
scattered few here and there in whom pumpkins touch no chord.
The Hon. Freddie Threepwood was one of these. He was
accustomed to speak in mockery of all pumpkins, and had even
gone so far as to allude to the Hope of Blandings as 'Percy.' His
father's anxiety, therefore, merely caused him to giggle.
    'Not that I know of,' he said.
    'Then what do you mean?' thundered Lord Emsworth, stung
by the giggle. 'What do you mean, sir, by coming here and
alarming me – scaring me out of my wits, by Gad! – with your
nonsense about giving me shocks?'
    The Hon. Freddie looked carefully at his fermenting parent.
His fingers, sliding into his pocket, closed on the note which
nestled there. He drew it forth.
    'Look here, guv'nor,'