Free Pigs Have Wings by P. G. Wodehouse Page B

sexes. Of all the overbearing lice that ever overbore, I told him, you are the undisputed champion, and I gave him back his ring.’
    ‘Oh, you were engaged?’
    ‘Don’t rub it in. We all make mistakes.’
    ‘I didn’t see anything about it in the papers.’
    ‘We were going to announce it just before Wimbledon.’
    ‘What did he do to incur your displeasure?’
    ‘I’ll tell you. We were playing in the mixed doubles, and I admit that I may have been slightly off my game, but that was no reason why, after we had dropped the first set, he should have started barging into my half of the court, taking my shots for me as if I were some elderly aunt with arthritis in both legs who had learned tennis in the previous week at a correspondence school. “Mine!” he kept yelling. “Mine, mine!”, and where was Gloria? Crouching in a corner, looking at him with wide, admiring eyes and saying “My hero!”? No, sir. I told him that if he didn’t stop his damned poaching, I would brain him, if he had a brain. That held him for a while. After that, he kept himself to himself, as it were. But every time I missed a shot, and a girl with an emotional nature couldn’t be expected not to miss a few after an ordeal like that, he raised his eyebrows in a superior kind of way and gave a sort of nasty dry snigger and kept saying “Too bad, too bad.” And when it was over and we had lost – two six, three six – he said what a pity it all was and if only I had left it to him … Well, that was when we parted brass rags. Shortly afterwards I got engaged to Greg Parsloe.’
    Jerry clicked his tongue, and when his guest inquired with some asperity why he was making that idiotic noise, and did he think he was riding in the Grand National and encouraging his horse to jump Becher’s Brook, explained that her story had distressed him. As, indeed, it had. Nobody likes to hear of these rifts between old friends. He had been devoted to Lord Vosper since the days when they had thrown inked darts at one another, while for Gloria Salt he felt that gentle affection which men feel for women who could have married them and didn’t.
    ‘Has the Wasp heard about it?’
    ‘I suppose so. It was in The Times .’
    ‘It must have given him a jolt.’
    ‘One hopes so.’
    ‘Where is he now?’
    ‘Goodness knows. I don’t. And for heaven’s sake let’s stop talking about him. I should have thought you would have shown some interest in what I said to you over the phone this afternoon. I pictured you running up to me the moment I came in, all full of eager questions. And you haven’t so much as mentioned it.’
    Jerry was dismayed to think that she should have got so wrong an impression from his gentlemanly reserve.
    ‘Good Lord, of course I’m interested. But I thought you would get around to that when you felt like it. I didn’t want you to think that was the only reason I wanted to dine with you.’
    ‘Did you want to dine with me?’
    ‘Of course I did.’
    ‘You didn’t sound too pleased.’
    ‘Well, you see, actually I had another date for tonight, and I was feeling it might be awkward breaking it.’
    ‘A girl?’
    It was a loose way of describing the divinest of her species, but Jerry let it pass.
    ‘Yes, a girl.’
    Gloria Salt’s eyes grew soft and sympathetic. She leaned across the table and patted his cheek.
    ‘I’m terribly sorry, Jerry. I didn’t know. Is this love? Yes, I can see it is from the way your eyes are goggling. Well, well. When did this happen?’
    ‘Not so long ago. I dashed over to New York the other day, and she was on the boat coming back.’
    ‘When are you going to get married?’
    ‘Never, unless I can raise that two thousand pounds.’
    ‘It’s like that, is it? Don’t you make anything with your writing?’
    ‘Not half enough.’
    ‘I see. Well, as I say, I’m sorry I had to come butting in, but this was my last chance of getting hold of you. I’m motoring down to Shropshire tomorrow, to