“——is just to polish up this election song of mine. I sat up half the night writing it, but I can see it limps in spots. You can put it right in half an hour. Polish it up, laddie, and forward without fail to the Bull Hotel, Redbridge, this afternoon. It may just be the means of shoving Boko past the post by a nose.”
He clattered out hurriedly; and, sleep being now impossible, I picked up the sheet of paper he had left and read the verses.
They were well meant, but that let them out. Ukridge was no poet or he would never have attempted to rhyme “Lawlor” with “before us.”
A rather neat phrase happening to occur to me at the breakfast table, coincident with the reflection that possibly Ukridge was right and it did behove his old schoolfellows to rally round the candidate, I spent the morning turning out a new ballad. Having finished this by noon, I despatched it to the Bull Hotel, and went off to lunch with something of that feeling of satisfaction which, as Ukridge had pointed out, does come to altruists. I was strolling down Piccadilly, enjoying an after-luncheon smoke, when I ran into Looney Coote.
On Looney’s amiable face there was a mingled expression of chagrin and satisfaction.
“It’s happened,” he said.
“What?”
“The third misfortune. I told you it would.”
“What’s the trouble now? Has Spencer broken his other leg?”
“My car has been stolen.”