Short Fiction P. G. Wodehouse (good books to read in english .txt) 📖

things from a different standpoint. My belief is that the pigs like it. Try not to think of it.”

“Very well,” said Elizabeth, dutifully.

Concealed Art

If a fellow has lots of money and lots of time and lots of curiosity about other fellows’ business, it is astonishing, don’t you know, what a lot of strange affairs he can get mixed up in. Now, I have money and curiosity and all the time there is. My name’s Pepper⁠—Reggie Pepper. My uncle was the colliery-owner chappie, and he left me the dickens of a pile. And ever since the lawyer slipped the stuff into my hand, whispering “It’s yours!” life seems to have been one thing after another.

For instance, the dashed rummy case of dear old Archie. I first ran into old Archie when he was studying in Paris, and when he came back to London he looked me up, and we celebrated. He always liked me because I didn’t mind listening to his theories of Art. For Archie, you must know, was an artist. Not an ordinary artist either, but one of those fellows you read about who are several years ahead of the times, and paint the sort of thing that people will be educated up to by about 1999 or thereabouts.

Well, one day as I was sitting in the club watching the traffic coming up one way and going down the other, and thinking nothing in particular, in blew the old boy. He was looking rather worried.

“Reggie, I want your advice.”

“You shall have it,” I said. “State your point, old top.”

“It’s like this⁠—I’m engaged to be married.”

“My dear old scout, a million con⁠—”

“Yes, I know. Thanks very much, and all that, but listen.”

“What’s the trouble? Don’t you like her?”

A kind of rapt expression came over his face.

“Like her! Why, she’s the only⁠—”

He gibbered for a spell. When he had calmed down, I said, “Well then, what’s your trouble?”

“Reggie,” he said, “do you think a man is bound to tell his wife all about his past life?”

“Oh, well,” I said, “of course, I suppose she’s prepared to find that a man has⁠—er⁠—sowed his wild oats, don’t you know, and all that sort of thing, and⁠—”

He seemed quite irritated.

“Don’t be a chump. It’s nothing like that. Listen. When I came back to London and started to try and make a living by painting, I found that people simply wouldn’t buy the sort of work I did at any price. Do you know, Reggie, I’ve been at it three years now, and I haven’t sold a single picture.”

I whooped in a sort of amazed way, but I should have been far more startled if he’d told me he had sold a picture. I’ve seen his pictures, and they are like nothing on earth. So far as I can make out what he says, they aren’t supposed to be. There’s one in particular, called “The Coming of Summer,” which I sometimes dream about when I’ve been hitting it up a shade too vigorously. It’s all dots and splashes, with a great eye staring out of the middle of the mess. It looks as if summer, just as it was on the way, had stubbed its toe on a bomb. He tells me it’s his masterpiece, and that he will never do anything like it again. I should like to have that in writing.

“Well, artists eat, just the same as other people,” he went on, “and personally I like mine often and well cooked. Besides which, my sojourn in Paris gave me a rather nice taste in light wines. The consequence was that I came to the conclusion, after I had been back a few months, that something had to be done. Reggie, do you by any remote chance read a paper called Funny Slices?”

“Every week.”

He gazed at me with a kind of wistful admiration.

“I envy you, Reggie. Fancy being able to make a statement like that openly and without fear. Then I take it you know the Doughnut family?”

“I should say I did.”

His voice sank almost to a whisper, and he looked over his shoulder nervously.

“Reggie, I do them.”

“You what?”

“I do them⁠—draw them⁠—paint them. I am the creator of the Doughnut family.”

I stared at him, absolutely astounded. I was simply dumb. It was the biggest surprise of my life. Why, dash it, the Doughnut family was the best thing in its line in London. There is Pa Doughnut, Ma Doughnut, Aunt Bella, Cousin Joe, and Mabel, the daughter, and they have all sorts of slapstick adventures. Pa, Ma and Aunt Bella are pure gargoyles; Cousin Joe is a little more nearly semi-human, and Mabel is a perfect darling. I had often wondered who did them, for they were unsigned, and I had often thought what a deuced brainy fellow the chap must be. And all the time it was old Archie. I stammered as I tried to congratulate him.

He winced.

“Don’t gargle, Reggie, there’s a good fellow,” he said. “My nerves are all on edge. Well, as I say, I do the Doughnuts. It was that or starvation. I got the idea one night when I had a toothache, and next day I took some specimens round to an editor. He rolled in his chair, and told me to start in and go on till further notice. Since then I have done them without a break. Well, there’s the position. I must go on drawing these infernal things, or I shall be penniless. The question is, am I to tell her?”

“Tell her? Of course you must tell her.”

“Ah, but you don’t know her, Reggie. Have you ever heard of Eunice Nugent?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“As she doesn’t sprint up and down the joyway at the Hippodrome, I didn’t suppose you would.”

I thought this rather uncalled-for, seeing that, as a matter of fact, I scarcely know a dozen of the Hippodrome chorus, but I made allowances for his state of mind.

“She’s a poetess,” he went on, “and her work has appeared in