Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-19
MONEY FOR NOTHING
By P. 9. Wodehouse
1922 North s:Sp:Psr Alliance and Metropolitan
: P. G. Wodehouse
nth American Newspaper Alliance and Metropolitan
Newspaper Service1

the heir to a great estate and an ex-
| cellent match
Mashed potatoesl" said the Stone
Age ancestor coarsely. THE thing ere,
| young fellow is you just take this girl
and grab her and old 'er in your arms,
as the saying is, and never mind how
many bright good-looking young men
! she's engaged to. 'Strewth! When ]
was in me prime. you wouldn't have
found me 'esitating. Just you spring
srnartly to attention and grab 'er with
! both 'ands in a soldierly manner"
"Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie!' said Pat,
| and her voice was a wall. Her eyes
we're bright with dismay and her hands
! fiuttered in a helpless manner.
| John hesitated no longer. Hugo be
| blowedl His better self be bloWed
| Everything and everybody be bloWed,
except this really excellent old gentle
man who, though he might have been
better tailored, was SO obviously mine
| of information on what young man
should know. Springing smartly TO at
! tention, he held out his arms in SOL
dierly manner, and Pat came into them
like a little boat into harbor after a
storm A faint sigh told him that his
better self had withdrawn discounted,
but the sigh was drowned by the ap-
prevail of the ancestor.
"Oo-er," doomed the ancestor thuu-
derously.
The garden had learned that dance
now. 1t was simple, once you got the
hang of it. All you had to do, if you
were tree, was to jump up and down,
while, if you were lawn, you just went
round and round. So the trees jumped
up and down and the lawn went round
and round and John stood still in the
middle of it all, admiring it.
ooh Johnnie said Pat "What on
earth shall I do?"
Go on just like you are now"
But about Hugo mean"
Hugo? Hugo? John concentrated.
Yes, he recalled now. there had been
some little difficulty about Hugo.
Pat" he said, Il love you. Do you
love me?"
yes"
'Then what on earth" demanded
John, did you go and get engaged to
Hugo for?"
He spoke a little severely, for in some
mysterious fashion all the awe with
which this girl had inspired him for
so many years had left him. His in
| feriority complex had gone. And it
was due, he gathered, solely to the fact
that he was holding her in his arms
and kissing her. At any moment during
the last half dozen years this childishly
simple remedy had been at his disposal
and he had not availed himself of it.
He was astonished at his remissness.
But thought you didn't care bit
for me-" walled Pat.
John stared.
We'll, you had promed to take me
to Wenlock Edge and you never turned
up and I found you had gone out
with that Molloy girl. Naturally, I
| thought /. :"
You shouldn't have"
well, I did. And SO, when Hugo's
letter come, it seemed such wonderful
chance of showing you that I didn't
care. And now what can l say to
Hugo"
Hugo thinks he's engaged to you?"
Eyes"
well. he isn't"
NO"
"Then that" said John seeing the
thing absolutely clearly, lis all we've
got to tell him"
"You talk as if it were so simplei"
$50 it is. What's hard about it?"
"I wish you had 1t to do"
But, of course, I'll do it." said John.
It astonished him that she should have
contemplated any other course. Nat
urally, when the great strong man be-
comes engaged to the timid, fluttering
little girl he takes over all her worries