Big Money Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise for the Author

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Title

  CHAPTER 1I

  II

  III

  IV

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6I

  II

  III

  CHAPTER 7I

  II

  III

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  CHAPTER 10I

  II

  III

  CHAPTER 11I

  II

  III

  IV

  CHAPTER 12I

  II

  III

  CHAPTER 13I

  II

  III

  IV

  CHAPTER 14

  Extract: Hot WaterChapter 1

  www.wodehouse.co.uk

  P.G.Wodehouse

  'The ultimate in comfort reading because nothing bad ever happens in P.G.Wodehouse land. Or even if it does, it's always sorted out by the end of the book. For as long as I'm immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day' Marian Keyes

  'You should read Wodehouse when you're well and when you're poorly; when you're travelling, and when you're not; when you're feeling clever, and when you're feeling utterly dim. Wodehouse always lifts your spirits, no matter how high they happen to be already' Lynne Truss

  'P.G.Wodehouse remains the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness, that no one else has ever captured quite so sharply, or with quite as much wit and affection' Julian Fellowes

  'Not only the funniest English novelist who ever wrote but one of our finest stylists. His world is perfect, his stories are perfect, his writing is perfect. What more is there to be said?' Susan Hill

  'One of my (few) proud boasts is that I once spent a day interviewing P.G. Wodehouse at his home in America. He was exactly as I'd expected: a lovely, modest man. He could have walked out of one of his own novels. It's dangerous to use the word genius to describe a writer, but I'll risk it with him' John Humphrys

  'The incomparable and timeless genius – perfect for readers of all ages, shapes and sizes!' Kate Mosse

  'A genius . . . Elusive, delicate but lasting. He created such a credible world that, sadly, I suppose, never really existed but what a delight it always is to enter it and the temptation to linger there is sometimes almost overwhelming' Alan Ayckbourn

  'Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some' Joseph Connolly

  'Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt – or a sense of humour!' Lindsey Davis

  'I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language' Simon Brett

  'I've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music' Simon Callow

  'Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work' Jane Moore

  'To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius – no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment' John Julius Norwich

  'P.G. Wodehouse is the gold standard of English wit' Christopher Hitchens

  'Wodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny' Adele Parks

  'To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language' Ben Schott

  'P.G. Wodehouse should be prescribed to treat depression. Cheaper, more effective than valium and far, far more addictive' Olivia Williams

  'My only problem with Wodehouse is deciding which of his enchanting books to take to my desert island' Ruth Dudley Edwards

  The author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr Mulliner, P.G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After two years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank he became a full-time writer, contributing to a variety of periodicals including Punch and the Globe. He married in 1914. As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, and at one time had five musicals running simultaneously on Broadway. His time in Hollywood also provided much source material for fiction.

  At the age of 93, in the New Year's Honours List of 1975, he received a long-overdue knighthood, only to die on St Valentine 's Day some 45 days later.

  Some of the P.G. Wodehouse titles to be published

  by Arrow in 2008

  JEEVES

  The Inimitable Jeeves

  Carry On, Jeeves

  Very Good, Jeeves

  Thank You, Jeeves

  Right Ho, Jeeves

  The Code of the Woosters

  Joy in the Morning

  The Mating Season

  Ring for Jeeves

  Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

  Jeeves in the Offing

  Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

  Much Obliged, Jeeves

  Aunts Aren't Gentlemen

  UNCLE FRED

  Cocktail Time

  Uncle Dynamite

  BLANDINGS

  Something Fresh

  Leave it to Psmith

  Summer Lightning

  Blandings Castle

  Uncle Fred in the Springtime

  Full Moon

  Pigs Have Wings

  Service with a Smile

  A Pelican at Blandings

  MULLINER

  Meet Mr Mulliner

  Mulliner Nights

  Mr Mulliner Speaking

  GOLF

  The Clicking of Cuthbert

  The Heart of a Goof

  OTHERS

  Piccadilly Jim

  Ukridge

  The Luck of the Bodkins

  Laughing Gas

  A Damsel in Distress

  The Small Bachelor

  Hot Water

  Summer Moonshine

  The Adventures of Sally

  Money for Nothing

  The Girl in Blue

  Big Money

  P.G.WODEHOUSE

  Big Money

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781409063537

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow Books 2008

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright by The Trustees of the Wodehouse Estate

  All rights reserved

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in the United Kingdom in 1931 by Herbert Jenkins Ltd

  Arrow Books

  The Random
House Group Limited

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  www.wodehouse.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 9781409063537

  Version 1.0

  Big Money

  CHAPTER 1

  I

  On an afternoon in May, at the hour when London pauses in its labours to refresh itself with a bite of lunch, there was taking place in the coffee-room of the Drones Club in Dover Street that pleasantest of functions, a reunion of old school friends. The host at the meal was Godfrey, Lord Biskerton, son and heir of the sixth Earl of Hoddesdon, the guest his one-time inseparable comrade, John Beresford Conway.

  Happening that morning to go down to the City to discuss with his bank-manager a little matter of an overdraft, Lord Biskerton had run into Berry Conway in Cornhill. It was three years since they had last met, and in his lordship's manner, as he gazed across the table, there was something of the affectionate reproach a conscientious trainer of performing fleas might have shown towards one of his artists who had strayed from the fold.

  'Amazing!' he said.

  Lord Biskerton was a young man with red hair and what looked like a preliminary scenario for a moustache of the same striking hue. He dug into his fried sole emotionally.

  'Absolutely amazing,' he repeated. 'It beats me. I am mystified. Here we have two birds – you, on the one hand; I, on the other – who were once as close as the paper on the wall. Our chumminess was a silent sermon on Brotherly Love. And yet I'm dashed if we've set eyes on one another since the summer Peanut Brittle won the Jubilee Handicap. I can't understand it.'

  Berry Conway shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat. He seemed embarrassed.

  'We just happened to miss each other, I suppose.'

  'But how?' Lord Biskerton was resolved to probe this thing to its depths. 'That's what I want to know. How? I go everywhere. Races, restaurants, theatres, all the usual round. It seems incredible that we haven't met before. If you ask most people, they will tell you the difficult thing is to avoid meeting me. It poisons their lives, poor devils. "Oh, my sainted aunt!" they mutter. "You again?" and they dash down side-streets, only to bump into me coming up the other way. Then why should you have been immune?'

  'Just the luck of the Conways, I expect.'

  'Anyway, why haven't you looked me up? You must have known where I was. I'm in the 'phone book.'

  Berry fingered his bread.

  'I don't go about much these days,' he said. 'I'm living in the suburbs now, down at Valley Fields.'

  'You aren't married, are you?' asked Lord Biskerton with sudden alarm. 'Not got a little wife or any rot of that sort?'

  'No. I live with an old family retainer. She used to be my nurse. And she seems to think she still is,' said Berry, his face darkening. 'I heard her shouting after me as I left the house this morning something about had I got on my warm woollies.'

  'My dear chap!' Lord Biskerton raised his eyebrows. 'These intimate details. Keep the conversation clean. She fusses over you, does she? They will, these old nurses. Mine,' said Lord Biskerton, wincing at the memory, 'once kissed me on the platform at Paddington Station, thereby ruining my prestige at school for the whole of one term. Why don't you break away from this old disease? Why not pension her off ?'

  'Pension her off !' Berry gave a short laugh. 'What with? I suppose I had better tell you, Biscuit. The reason I've dropped out of things and am living in the suburbs and have stopped seeing my old friends lately is that I've come down in the world. I've no money now.'

  The Biscuit stared.

  'No money?'

  'Well, that's exaggerating perhaps. To be absolutely accurate, I'm better off at the moment than I've been for two years, because I've just got a job as private secretary to Frisby, the American financier. But he only pays me a few pounds a week.'

  'But doesn't a secretary have to know shorthand and all that sort of rather revolting stuff ?'

  'I learned shorthand.'

  'Golly!' said the Biscuit. It was as if this revelation had brought the tragedy home to him in all its stark grimness. 'You must have been properly up against it.'

  'I was. If an old sportsman, on whom I had absolutely no claim, hadn't lent me two hundred pounds, I should probably have starved.'

  'But what on earth has been happening?' asked the Biscuit, bewildered. 'At school you were a sort of young millionaire. You jingled as you walked. A twopenny jam-sandwich for self and friend was a mere nothing to you. Where's all the money gone to? What came unstuck?'

  Berry hesitated. His had been for some time a lonely existence, and the idea of confiding his troubles to a sympathetic ear was appealing.

  'Do you really want to hear the story of my life, Biscuit?' he said wistfully. 'Sure it won't bore you?'

  'Bore me? My dear chap! I'm agog. Let's have the whole thing. Start from the beginning. Childhood – early surroundings – genius probably inherited from male grandparent – push along.'

  'Well, you've brought it on yourself, remember.'

  The Biscuit mused.

  'When we first met,' he said, 'you were, if I recollect, about fourteen. An offensive stripling, all feet and red ears, but worth cultivating on account of your extraordinary wealth. How did you get the stuff ? Honestly, I hope!'

  'That came from an aunt. It was like this. I was an only child—'

  'And I bet one of you was ample.'

  'My mother died when I was born. I never knew my father.'

  'I sometimes wish I didn't know mine,' said the Biscuit. 'The sixth Earl has his moments, but he can on occasion be more than a bit of a blister. Why didn't you know your father? A pretty exclusive kid, were you?'

  'He was killed in a railway accident when I was three. And then this aunt adopted me. Her husband had just died, leaving her a fortune. That's where the money came from that you used to hear jingling at school. He was in the jute business, I believe. All I remember of him is that he had whiskers.'

  'What a gruesome mess you must have been at three,' said the Biscuit meditatively. 'You were bad enough at fourteen. At three you must have made strong men shudder.'

  'On the contrary. Hannah has often told me—'

  'Who's Hannah?'

  'Hannah Wisdom. My old retainer.'

  'I see. The one who gets worried about your woollies. I thought for the moment you were introducing a new sex motive.'

  'Hannah has often told me that I looked like a little angel in my velvet suit. I had long golden curls—'

  'This is loathsome,' said the Biscuit austerely. 'Stop it. There are certain subjects which should not be mentioned when gentlemen are present. Get on with the story. Enter rich aunt. So far, so good. What happened then?'

  'She did me like a prince. Sent me to school and Cambridge and surrounded me with every circumstance of luxury and refinement, so to speak.'

  The Biscuit frowned.

  'Obviously,' he said, 'there must be a catch somewhere. But I'm dashed if I can spot it yet. Up to now, you've been making my mouth water.'

  'The catch,' said Berry, 'was this. During all those happy, halcyon years, when you and I were throwing inked darts at one another without a care in the world, my aunt, it now appears, had been going through her capital like a drunken sailor. I don't know if she ever endowed a scheme for getting gold out of seawater, but, if not, that's the only one she missed. Anybody who had anything in the way of a speculation so fishy that nobody else would look at it, used to come frisking up to her, waving prospectuses, and she would fall over her feet to get at her cheque-book.'

  'Women,' commented the Biscuit, 'ought never to be allowed cheque-books. I've often said so. Mugs, every one of them.'

  'She died two years ag
o, leaving me everything she possessed. This consisted of about three tons of shares in bogus companies. I was right up against it.'

  'From Riches to Rags, what?'

  'Yes.'

  'Scaly,' said the Biscuit. 'Undeniably scaly.'

  'My aunt's lawyer, a man named Attwater, happened by a miracle to be one of those fellows who pop up every now and then just to show that there is a future for the human race, after all. He had an eye like a haddock and a face like teak, and whenever he came to dinner at our place he always snubbed me like a fine old gentleman of the old school if I dared to utter a word; but, my gosh, beneath that rough exterior—! He lent me two hundred pounds to keep me going – two hundred solid quid – and if ever I have a son he is going to be christened Ebenezer Attwater Conway.'

  'Better not have a son,' advised the Biscuit.

  'That money just saved my life. I managed after running all over London for three months to get a sort of job. And at night I used to sweat away at learning typing and shorthand. Eventually I got taken on as secretary by a man in the Import and Export business. He retired about a month ago, and very decently shoved me off on to this fellow Frisby, who was a friend of his. That's how Frisby comes to own my poor black body now. And that,' concluded Berry, 'is why I am living in the suburbs and have not been mixing much of late with the Biskertons and the rest of the gilded aristocracy. And the really damnable part of it is that at the time when the crash came I was just going to buzz off round the world on a tramp steamer. I had to give that up, of course.'

  The Biscuit appeared stupefied.

  'You mean to tell me,' he said, 'that you've been avoiding me just because you were hard-up? You were ashamed of your honest poverty? I never heard anything so dashed drivelling in my life.'

  Berry flushed.

  'It's all very well to talk like that. You can't keep up with people who are much richer than you are.'

  'Who can't?'

  'Nobody can.'