Free A Few Quick Ones by P. G. Wodehouse

see to it that they are kept on a short chain and not permitted to roam hither and thither at will, scattering desolation on all sides?", I would reply, "Wilbraham," if his name was Wilbraham, "I am with you heart and soul. Put me down as a foundation member." And my mind would flit to the sinister episode of my Aunt Dahlia and the Fothergill Venus, from which I am making only a slow recovery. Whisper the words "Marsham Manor" in my ear, and I still quiver like a humming-bird.
    At the time of its inception, if inception is the word I want, I was, I recall, feeling at the top of my form and without a care in the world. Pleasantly relaxed after thirty-six holes of golf and dinner at the Drones, I was lying on the chez Wooster sofa doing the Telegraph crossword puzzle, when the telephone rang. I could hear Jeeves out in the hail dealing with it, and presently he trickled in.
    "Mrs. Travers. sir."
    "Aunt Dahlia? What does she want?'
    "She did not confide in me, sir. But she appears anxious to establish communication with you."
    "To talk to me, do you mean?"
    "Precisely, sir."
    A bit oddish it seems to me, looking back on it, that as I went to the instrument I should have had no premonition of an impending doom. Not psychic, that's my trouble. Having no inkling of the soup into which I was so shortly to be plunged, I welcomed the opportunity of exchanging ideas with this sister of my late father who, as is widely known, is my good and deserving aunt, not to be confused with Aunt Agatha, the werewolf. What with one thing and another, it was some little time since we had chewed the fat together.
    "What ho, old blood relation," I said.
    "Hullo, Bertie, you revolting young blot," she responded in her hearty way. "Are you sober?"
    "As a judge."
    "Then listen attentively. I'm speaking from an undersized hamlet in Hampshire called Marsham-in-the-Vale. I'm staying at Marsham Manor with Cornelia Fothergill, the novelist. Ever heard of her?"
    "Vaguely, as it were. She is not on my library list."
    "She would be, if you were a woman. She specializes in rich goo for the female trade."
    "Ah, yes, like Mrs. Bingo Little. Rosie M. Banks to you."
    "That sort of thing, yes, but even goo-ier. Where Rosie M. Banks merely touches the heart strings, Cornelia Fothergill grabs them in both hands and ties them into knots. I'm trying to talk her into letting me have her new novel as a serial for the Boudoir."
    I got the gist. She has since sold it, but at the time of which I speak this aunt was the proprietor or proprietress of a weekly paper for the half-witted woman called Milady's Boudoir, to which I once contributed an article - a "piece" we old hands call it - on What The Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing. Like all weekly papers it was in the process of turning the corner, as the expression is, and I could well understand that a serial by a specialist in rich goo would give it a much-needed shot in the arm.
    "How's it coming?" I asked. "Any luck?"
    "Not so far. She demurs."
    "De what's?"
    "Murs, you silly ass."
    "You mean she meets your pleas with what Jeeves would call a nolle prosequi?"
    "Not quite that. She has not closed the door to a peaceful settlement, but, as I say, she de…”
    "Murs?"
    "Murs is right. She doesn't say No, but she won't say Yes. The trouble is that Tom is doing his Gaspard-the-Miser stuff again."
    Her allusion was to my uncle, Thomas Portarlington Travers, who foots the bills for what he always calls Madame's Nightshirt.He is as rich as creosote, as I believe the phrase is, but like so many of our wealthier citizens he hates to give up. Until you have heard Uncle Tom on the subject of income tax and supertax, you haven't heard anything.
    "He won't let me go above five hundred pounds, and she wants eight."
    "Looks like an impasse."
    "It did till this morning."
    "What happened this morning?"
    "Oh, just a sort of break in the clouds. She said something which gave me the impression that she was weakening and that one more shove would do