“How on earth are we going to afford champagne?” said Victor Beamish.
“Well, there it is,” said Teddy Weeks. “Take it or leave it.”
“Gentlemen,” said Ukridge, “it would seem that the company requires more capital. How about it, old horses? Let’s get together in a frank, business-like cards-on-the-table spirit, and see what can be done. I can raise ten bob.”
“What!” cried the entire assembled company, amazed. “How?”
“I’ll pawn a banjo.”
“You haven’t got a banjo.”
“No, but George Tupper has, and I know where he keeps it.”
Started in this spirited way, the subscriptions came pouring in. I contributed a cigarette-case, Bertram Fox thought his landlady would let him owe for another week, Robert Dunhill had an uncle in Kensington who, he fancied, if tactfully approached, would be good for a quid, and Victor Beamish said that if the advertisement-manager of the O-So-Eesi Piano-Player was churlish enough to refuse an advance of five shillings against future work he misjudged him sadly. Within a few minutes, in short, the Lightning Drive had produced the impressive total of two pounds six shillings, and we asked Teddy Weeks if he thought that he could get adequately keyed up within the limits of that sum.
“I’ll try,” said Teddy Weeks.
So, not unmindful of the fact that that excellent hostelry supplied champagne at eight shillings the quart bottle, we fixed the meeting for seven o’clock at Barolini’s.