“Do you think he’ll be able to stay four rounds?”
“Stay four rounds!” cried Ukridge. “Why, he could stay four rounds with a fellow armed with a Gatling-gun and a couple of pickaxes. That money’s as good as in our pockets, laddie. And once we’re through with this job, there isn’t a boxing-place in England that won’t jump at us. I don’t mind telling you in confidence, old horse, that in a year from now I expect to be pulling in hundreds a week. Clean up a bit here first, you know, and then pop over to America and make an enormous fortune. Damme, I shan’t know how to spend the money!”
“Why not buy some socks? I’m running a bit short of them.”
“Now, laddie, laddie,” said Ukridge, reprovingly, “need we strike a jarring note? Is this the moment to fling your beastly socks in an old friend’s face? A broader-minded spirit is what I would like to see.”
I was ten minutes late in arriving at the Regent Grill on the Wednesday of George Tupper’s invitation, and the spectacle of George in person standing bare-headed at the Piccadilly entrance filled me with guilty remorse. George was the best fellow in the world, but the atmosphere of the Foreign Office had increased the tendency he had always had from boyhood to a sort of precise fussiness, and it upset him if his affairs did not run exactly on schedule. The thought that my unpunctuality should have marred this great evening sent me hurrying towards him full of apologies.
“Oh, there you are,” said George Tupper. “I say, it’s too bad——”
“I’m awfully sorry. My watch——”
“Ukridge!” cried George Tupper, and I perceived that it was not I who had caused his concern.
“Isn’t he coming?” I asked, amazed. The idea of Ukridge evading a free meal was one of those that seem to make the solid foundations of the world rock.
“He’s come. And he’s brought a girl with him!”