Free Joy in the Morning by P. G. Wodehouse

expenses and to finance him generously for the rest of his life, but no, he just looks mulish and talks about earning his living. I am sick and tired of the whole thing, and I really don’t know what I shall do about it. Well, good-bye, Bertie, I must be getting along,’ she concluded abruptly, as if she found the subject too painful to dwell on, and was off-just at the very moment when I had remembered that it was her birthday and that I had a brooch in my pocket to deliver to her from Aunt Agatha.
    I could have called her back, I suppose, but somehow didn’t feel in the mood. Her words had left me shaking in every limb. The revelation of the flimsiness of the foundations on which the Florence-Stilton romance appeared to be founded had appalled me, and I had to remain in statu quo and smoke a couple of cigarettes before I felt strong enough to resume my journey.
    Then, feeling a little better and trying to tell myself that this was just a passing tiff and that matters would speedily adjust themselves, I pushed on and in another couple of minutes was coming to anchor abaft Wee Nooke.

CHAPTER 9
    W ee Nooke proved to be a decentish little shack, situated in agreeable surroundings. A bit Ye Olde, but otherwise all right. It had a thatched roof and a lot of those windows with small leaded panes, and there was a rockery in the front garden. It looked, in short, as I subsequently learned was the case, as if it had formerly been inhabited by an elderly female of good family who kept cats.
    I had walked in and deposited the small suitcase in the hall, when, as I stood gazing about me and inhaling the fug which always seems to linger about these antique interiors, I became aware that there was more in this joint than met the eye. In a word, I suddenly found myself speculating on the possibility of it not only being fuggy, but haunted.
    What started this train of thought was the fact that odd noises were in progress somewhere near at hand, here a bang and there a crash, suggesting the presence of a poltergeist or what not.
    The sounds seemed to proceed from the other side of a door at the end of the hall, and I was hastening thither to investigate, for I was dashed if I was going to have poltergeists lounging about the place as if it belonged to them, when I took a toss over a pail which had been placed in the fairway. And I had just picked myself up, rubbing the spot, when the door opened and there entered a small boy with a face like a ferret. He was wearing the uniform of a Boy Scout, and I had no difficulty, in spite of the fact that his features were liberally encrusted with dirt, in identifying him as Florence’s little brother Edwin – the child at whom Boko Fittleworth was accustomed to throw china ornaments.
    ‘Oh, hullo, Bertie,’ he said, grinning all over his loathsome face.
    ‘Hullo, you frightful young squirt,’ I responded civilly. ‘What are you doing here?’
    ‘Tidying up.’
    I touched on a point of absorbing interest.
    ‘Was it you who left that bally pail there?’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘In the middle of the hall.’
    ‘Coo! Yes, I remember now. I put it there to be out of the way.’
    ‘I see. Well, you’ll be amused to learn that I’ve nearly broken my leg.’
    He started. A fanatic gleam came into his eyes. He looked like a boy confronted with an unexpected saucer of ice cream.
    ‘I say! Have you really? This is a bit of bunce. I can give you first aid.’
    ‘No, you jolly well can’t.’
    ‘But if you’ve bust your leg—’
    ‘I haven’t bust my leg.’
    ‘You said you had.’
    ‘A mere figure of speech.’
    ‘Well, you may have sprained your ankle.’
    ‘I haven’t sprained my ankle.’
    ‘I can do first aid for contusions.’
    ‘I haven’t any contusions. Stand back!’ I cried, for I was prepared to defend myself with iron resolution.
    There was a pause. His manner was that of one who finds the situation at a deadlock. My spirited attitude had plainly disconcerted him.
    ‘Can’t