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- Herausgeber: Diamond Book Publishing
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
In the Angler's Rest, drinking hot scotch and lemon, sits one of Wodehouse's greatest raconteurs. Mr Mulliner, his vivid imagination lubricated by Miss Postlethwaite the barmaid, has fabulous stories to tell of the extraordinary behaviour of his far-flung family: in particular there's Wilfred, inventor of Raven Gypsy face-cream and Snow of the Mountain Lotion, who lights on the formula for Buck-U-Uppo, a tonic given to elephants to enable them to face tigers with the necessary nonchalance. Its explosive effects on a shy young curate and then the higher clergy is gravely revealed. Then there's his cousin James, the detective-story writer, who has inherited a cottage more haunted than anything in his own imagination. And Isadore Zinzinheimer, head of the Bigger, Better & Brighter Motion Picture Company. Tall tales all - but among Wodehouse's best.
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P. G. Wodehouse
Meet Mr Mulliner Preview
Classic Humorous Fiction
Table of contents
CHAPTER 1. THE TRUTH ABOUT GEORGE
By
P. G. Wodehouse
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1. THE TRUTH ABOUT GEORGE
CHAPTER 2. A SLICE OF LIFE
CHAPTER 3. MULLINER'S BUCK-U-UPPO
CHAPTER 4. THE BISHOP'S MOVE
CHAPTER 5. CAME THE DAWN
CHAPTER 6. THE STORY OF WILLIAM
CHAPTER 7. PORTRAIT OF A DISCIPLINARIAN
CHAPTER 8. THE ROMANCE OF A BULB-SQUEEZER
CHAPTER 9. HONEYSUCKLE COTTAGE
CHAPTER 1. THE TRUTH ABOUT GEORGE
Two men were sitting in the bar-parlour of the Anglers' Rest as I entered it; and one of them, I gathered from his low, excited voice and wide gestures, was telling the other a story. I could hear nothing but an occasional 'Biggest I ever saw in my life!' and 'Fully as large as that!' but in such a place it was not difficult to imagine the rest; and when the second man, catching my eye, winked at me with a sort of humorous misery, I smiled sympathetically back at him.
The action had the effect of establishing a bond between us; and when the story-teller finished his tale and left, he came over to my table as if answering a formal invitation.
'Dreadful liars some men are,' he said genially.
'Fishermen,' I suggested, 'are traditionally careless of the truth.'
'He wasn't a fisherman,' said my companion. 'That was our local doctor. He was telling me about his latest case of dropsy. Besides'—he tapped me earnestly on the knee—'you must not fall into the popular error about fishermen. Tradition has maligned them. I am a fisherman myself, and I have never told a lie in my life.'
I could well believe it. He was a short, stout, comfortable man of middle age, and the thing that struck me first about him was the extraordinary childlike candour of his eyes. They were large and round and honest. I would have bought oil stock from him without a tremor.
The door leading into the white dusty road opened, and a small man with rimless pince-nez and an anxious expression shot in like a rabbit and had consumed a gin and ginger-beer almost before we knew he was there. Having thus refreshed himself, he stood looking at us, seemingly ill at ease.
'N-n-n-n-n-n—' he said.
We looked at him inquiringly.
'N-n-n-n-n-n-ice d-d-d-d—'
His nerve appeared to fail him, and he vanished as abruptly as he had come.
'I think he was leading up to telling us that it was a nice day,' hazarded my companion.
'It must be very embarrassing,' I said, 'for a man with such a painful impediment in his speech to open conversation with strangers.'
'Probably trying to cure himself. Like my nephew George. Have I ever told you about my nephew George?'
I reminded him that we had only just met, and that this was the first time I had learned that he had a nephew George.
'Young George Mulliner. My name is Mulliner. I will tell you about George's case—in many ways a rather remarkable one.'
My nephew George (said Mr Mulliner) was as nice a young fellow as you would ever wish to meet, but from childhood up he had been cursed with a terrible stammer. If he had had to earn his living, he would undoubtedly have found this affliction a great handicap, but fortunately his father had left him a comfortable income; and George spent a not unhappy life, residing in the village where he had been born and passing his days in the usual country sports and his evenings in doing cross-word puzzles. By the time he was thirty he knew more about Eli, the prophet, Ra, the Sun God, and the bird Emu than anybody else in the county except Susan Blake, the vicar's daughter, who had also taken up the solving of cross-word puzzles and was the first girl in Worcestershire to find out the meaning of 'stearine' and 'crepuscular'.
It was his association with Miss Blake that first turned George's thoughts to a serious endeavour to cure himself of his stammer. Naturally, with this hobby in common, the young people saw a great deal of one another: for George was always looking in at the vicarage to ask her if she knew a word of seven letters meaning 'appertaining to the profession of plumbing', and Susan was just as constant a caller at George's cosy little cottage, being frequently stumped, as girls will be, by words of eight letters signifying 'largely used in the manufacture of poppet-valves'. The consequence was that one evening, just after she had helped him out of a tight place with the word 'disestablishmentarianism', the boy suddenly awoke to the truth and realized that she was all the world to him—or, as he put it to himself from force of habit, precious, beloved, darling, much-loved, highly esteemed or valued.
And yet, every time he tried to tell her so, he could get no further than a sibilant gurgle which was no more practical use than a hiccup.
Something obviously had to be done, and George went to London to see a specialist.
'Yes?' said the specialist.
'I-I-I-I-I-I-I—' said George.
'You were saying—?'
'Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo—'
'Sing it,' said the specialist.
'S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s—?' said George, puzzled.
The specialist explained. He was a kindly man with moth-eaten whiskers and an eye like a meditative cod-fish.
'Many people,' he said, 'who are unable to articulate clearly in ordinary speech find themselves lucid and bell-like when they burst into song.'
It seemed a good idea to George. He thought for a moment; then threw his head back, shut his eyes, and let it go in a musical baritone.
'I love a lassie, a bonny, bonny lassie,' sang George. 'She's as pure as the lily in the dell.'
'No doubt,' said the specialist, wincing a little.
'She's as sweet as the heather, the bonny purple heather—Susan, my Worcestershire bluebell.'
'Ah!' said the specialist. 'Sounds a nice girl. Is this she?' he asked, adjusting his glasses and peering at the photograph which George had extracted from the interior of the left side of his under-vest.
George nodded, and drew in breath.
'Yes, sir,' he carolled, 'that's my baby. No, sir, don't mean maybe. Yes, sir, that's my baby now. And, by the way, by the way, when I meet that preacher I shall say—"Yes, sir, that's my—"'
'Quite,' said the specialist, hurriedly. He had a sensitive ear. 'Quite, quite.'
'If you knew Susie like I know Susie,' George was beginning, but the other stopped him.
'Quite. Exactly. I shouldn't wonder. And now,' said the specialist, 'what precisely is the trouble? No,' he added, hastily, as George inflated his lungs, 'don't sing it. Write the particulars on this piece of paper.'
George did so.
'H'm!' said the specialist, examining the screed. 'You wish to woo, court, and become betrothed, engaged, affianced to this girl, but you find yourself unable, incapable, incompetent, impotent, and powerless. Every time you attempt it, your vocal cords fail, fall short, are insufficient, wanting, deficient, and go blooey.'
George nodded.
'A not unusual case. I have had to deal with this sort of thing before. The effect of love on the vocal cords of even a normally eloquent subject is frequently deleterious. As regards the habitual stammerer, tests have shown that in ninety-seven point five six nine recurring of cases the divine passion reduces him to a condition where he sounds like a soda-water siphon trying to recite Gunga Din. There is only one cure.'
'W-w-w-w-w—?' asked George.
'I will tell you. Stammering,' proceeded the specialist, putting the tips of his fingers together and eyeing George benevolently, 'is mainly mental and is caused by shyness, which is caused by the inferiority complex, which in its turn is caused by suppressed desires or introverted inhibitions or something. The advice I give to all young men who come in here behaving like soda-water siphons is to go out and make a point of speaking to at least three perfect strangers every day. Engage these strangers in conversation, persevering no matter how priceless a chump you may feel, and before many weeks are out you will find that the little daily dose has had its effect. Shyness will wear off, and with it the stammer.'
And, having requested the young man—in a voice of the clearest timbre, free from all trace of impediment—to hand over a fee of five guineas, the specialist sent George out into the world.
The more George thought about the advice he had been given, the less he liked it. He shivered in the cab that took him to the station to catch the train back to East Wobsley. Like all shy young men, he had never hitherto looked upon himself as shy—preferring to attribute his distaste for the society of his fellows to some subtle rareness of soul. But now that the thing had been put squarely up to him, he was compelled to realize that in all essentials he was a perfect rabbit. The thought of accosting perfect strangers and forcing his conversation upon them sickened him.
But no Mulliner has ever shirked an unpleasant duty. As he reached the platform and strode along it to the train, his teeth were set, his eyes shone with an almost fanatical light of determination, and he intended before his journey was over to conduct three heart-to-heart chats if he had to sing every bar of them.
