A Few Quick Ones by P. G. Wodehouse Page A

which would strip him of his last bean. But such was not the case. Still mellowed by a father's love, all he thought next day was that as a gift to a superchild like Algernon Aubrey a tenner was a bit on the cheeseparing side. Surely twenty would be far more suitable. And he could pick that up by slapping his ten on Hot Potato in the two-thirty at Haydock Park. At dinner on the previous night he had burned his mouth by incautiously placing in it a fried spud about ninety degrees Fahrenheit warmer than he had supposed it to be, and he is always far too inclined to accept omens like this as stable information. He made the investment, accordingly, and at two-forty-five was informed by the club tape that he was now penniless.
    Well, as you can readily imagine, it did not take him long to perceive that a crisis of the first magnitude had been precipitated. Mrs. Bingo, a charming woman but deficient in sporting blood, had strictly forbidden him ever to venture money on the speed and endurance of racehorses, and the discovery that he had once more been chancing his arm would be bound to lead to an unpleasant scene, from which he shrank. As every young husband knows, there is nothing less agreeable than having the little woman bring her teeth together with a sharp click and after saying "Oh, how could you?" follow it up with about two thousand words of the kind that go through the soul like a bullet through butter.
    And discovery, unless he could somehow balance the budget, was of course inevitable. Sooner or later Mrs. Bingo would be taking a look at the infant's wee little passbook, and when she did would immediately spot something wrong with the wee little figures. "Hoy!" she would cry. "Where's that ten-spot you said you were depositing?" and from this to the bleak show-down would be but a short step.
    It was a situation in which many fellows would just have turned their faces to the wall and waited for the end. But there is good stuff in Bingo. A sudden inspiration showed him the way out. He sat right down and wrote a story about a little girl called Gwendoline and her cat Tibby. The idea of course being to publish it in Wee Tots and clean up.
    It was no easy task. Until he started on it he had had no notion what blood, sweat and tears are demanded from the poor sap who takes a pop at the life literary, and a new admiration for Mrs. Bingo awoke in him. Mrs. Bingo, he knew, did her three thousand words a day without ricking a muscle, and to complete this Tibby number, though it ran only to about fifteen hundred, took him over a week, during which period he on several occasions as near as a toucher went off his onion.
    However, he finished it at last, copied it out neatly, submitted it to himself, read it with considerable interest and accepted it, putting it down on the charge sheet for ten of the best. And when pay day arrived and no tenner, he sought audience of Purkiss.
    "Oh, Mr. Purkiss," he said. "Sorry to come butting in at a moment when you were probably meditating, but it's about that story."
    Purkiss looked at him fishily. Nature having made it impossible for him to look at anyone otherwise, he being a man with a face like a halibut.
    "Story?"
    Bingo explained the circumstances. He said that he was the author of "Tibby's Wonderful Adventure" in the current issue, and Purkiss Oh-yes-ed and said he had read it with considerable interest, and Bingo oh-thanks-ed and simpered coyly, and then there was a rather long silence.
    "Well, how about the emolument?" said Bingo at length, getting down to the res.
    Purkiss started. The fishy glitter in his eye became intensified. He looked like a halibut which has just been asked by another halibut to lend it a couple of quid till next Wednesday.
    "There should be a tenner coming to me," said Bingo.
    "Oh, no, no, no," said Purkiss. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. All contributions which you may make to the paper are of course covered by your salary."
    "What!" cried Bingo. "You mean I don't