From: kannan@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Kannan Subramanian)
Subject: "He rather enjoyed it!"
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 05:35:08 GMT
Organization: Colorado State University



[ Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge is one of my heroes. As mentioned elsewhere,
for sheer individual enterprise, he remains untouched. A free-thinker in search
of doubloons, his highly original get-rich-schemes do not, unfortunately, reap 
the rewards they deserve. Ukridge, of course, is indomitable and never says die.
Two random extracts follow. Both are from the book, "He rather enjoyed it"
(also published in America under the more obvious title "Ukridge") ]  

(from Ukridge's Dog College ; begin extract)

"Laddie," said Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, that much-enduring man,
helping himself to my tobacco and slipping the pouch absently into his pocket,
"listen to me, you son of Belial."

"What?" I said, retrieving the pouch.

"Do you want to make an enormous fortune?"

"I do."

"Then write my biography. Bung it down on paper, and we'll split the proceeds.
I've been making a pretty close study of your stuff lately, old horse, and it's
all wrong. The trouble with you is that you don't plumb the well-springs of
human nature and all that. You just think up some rotten yarn about
some-dam-thing-or-other and shove it down. Now, if you tackled my life, you'd
have something worth writing about. Pots of money in it my boy - English serial
rights and American serial rights and book rights, and dramatic rights and
movie rights - well, you can take it from me that, at a conservative estimate,
we should clean up at least fifty thousand pounds apiece."

"As much as that?"

"Fully that. And listen, laddie, I'll tell you what. You're a good chap and
we've been pals for years, so I'll let you have my share of the English serial
rights for a hundred pounds down."

"What makes you think I've got a hundred pounds?"

"Well, then, I'll make it my share of the English _and_ American serial rights
for fifty."

"Your collar's come off its stud."

"How about my complete share of the whole dashed outfit for twenty-five?"

"Not for me, thanks."

"Then I'll tell you what, old horse," said Ukridge, inspired. "Just lend me
half a crown to be going on with."

                             ---

(a couple of pages later)

"You see, laddie, I've hit on the most amazing scheme." He swept his arm round
dramatically, overturning a plaster cast of the Infant Samuel at Prayer. "All
right, all right, you can mend it with glue or something, and, anyway, you're
probably better without it. Yessir, I've hit on a great scheme. The idea of a
thousand years."

"What's that?"

"I'm going to train dogs."

"Train dogs?"

"For the music-hall stage. Dog acts, you know. Performing dogs. Pots of money
in it. I start in a modest way with these six. When I've taught 'em a few
tricks, I sell them to a fellow in the profession for a large sum and buy
twelve more. I train those, sell 'em for a large sum and with the money buy
twenty four more. I train those --"

"Here, wait a minute." My head was beginning to swim. I had a vision of England
paved with Pekingese dogs, all doing tricks. "How do you know you'll be able to
sell them?"

"Of course I shall. The demand's enormous. Supply can't cope with it. At a
conservative estimate I should think I ought to scoop in four or five thousand
pounds the first year. That, of course, is before the business really starts to
expand. "

"I see."

"When I get going properly, with a dozen assistants under me and an organised
establishment, I shall begin to touch the big money. What I'm aiming at is a
sort of Dogs' College out in the country somewhere. Big place with a lot of
ground. Regular classes with a set curriculum. Large staff, each member of it
with so many dogs under his care, me looking on and superintending. Why, once
the thing starts moving it'll run itself, and all I have to will be to sit back
and endorse the cheques. It isn't as if I would have to confine my operations
to England. The demand for performing dogs is universal throughout the
civilised world. America wants performing dogs. Australia wants performing
dogs. Africa could do with a few, I've no doubt. My aim, laddie, is gradually
to get a monopoly of the trade. I want everybody who needs a performing dog of
any description to come automatically to me. And I'll tell you what, laddie, if
you like to put up a bit of capital, I'll let you in on the ground floor."

"No, thanks."  

"All right. Have it your own way. Only don't forget that there was a fellow who
put nine hundred dollars into the Ford Car business when it was starting and he
collected a cool forty million. I say, is that clock right? Great Scott! I'll
be missing my train. Help me mobilise these dashed animals. "

Five minutes later, accompanied by the six Pekingese and bearing about him a
pound of my tobacco, three pairs of my socks and the remains of a bottle of
whisky, Ukridge departed in a taxi-cab for Charing Cross Station to begin his
life-work.

       -- (end extract) --

More later, perhaps. Gotta run. Ukridge fans, stand up and be counted.  

-kannan