Pigs Have Wings

by P. G. Wodehouse

  Amazement showed itself on every feature of Gally’s face.

  ‘You aren’t telling me that you are going to brass up?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  Gally, infringing Lord Emsworth’s copyright, drew in his breath sharply.

  ‘Well, this opens up a new line of thought,’ he said. ‘I’m bound to say that that solution of the problem never occurred to me. And yet I ought to have known that you would prove equal to the situation. That’s you!’ said Gally admiringly. ‘Where weaker vessels like myself lose their heads and run round in circles, wringing their hands and crying “What to do? What to do?” you act. Just like that! It’s character. That’s what it is – character. It comes out in a crisis. Make the cheque payable to Sebastian Beach, and if you find any difficulty in spelling it, call on me. Were you aware that Beach’s name is Sebastian? Incredible though it may seem, it is. Showing, in my opinion, that one half of the world never knows how the other half lives, or something of that sort.’

  4

  Blandings Castle was preparing to call it a day. Now slept the crimson petal and the white, and pretty soon the sandman would be along, closing tired eyes.

  Maudie, in her bedroom, was creaming her face and thinking of her Tubby.

  Lady Constance, in hers, was having the time of her life. Lord Emsworth, being in no further need of it, had passed on to her his store of cinnamon, aspirin, vapex, glycerine of thymol, black currant tea, camphorated oil and thermogene wool, and she was trying them one by one. As she did so, she was feeling that pleasant glow of satisfaction which comes to women who, when men are losing their heads and running round in circles, wringing their hands and crying ‘What to do? What to do?’ have handled a critical situation promptly and well. She was even thinking reasonably kindly of her brother Galahad, for his open admiration of her resourcefulness had touched her.

  Beach was in his pantry. From time to time he sipped port, from time to time raised his eyes thankfully heavenwards. He, too, was thinking kindly of Gally. Mr Galahad might ask a man to steal rather more pigs than was agreeable, but in the larger affairs of life, such as making cheques for five hundred pounds grow where none had been before, he was a rock to lean on.

  Gally, in the library, was having a last quick one with his brother Clarence. He was planning to turn in before long. It was some hours before his usual time for bed, but he had had a busy day and was not so young as he had been. Fighting the good fight takes it out of a man.

  He heaved himself out of his chair with a yawn.

  ‘Well, I’m off,’ he said. ‘Oddly fatigued, for some reason. Have you ever been kissed by the younger daughter of an American manufacturer of dog biscuits, Clarence?’

  ‘Eh? No. No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You would remember, if you had been. It is an unforgettable experience. What’s the matter?’

  Lord Emsworth was chuckling.

  ‘I was only thinking of something that girl Monica Simmons said to me down at the sty,’ he replied. ‘She said “Oh, Lord Emsworth, I thought I was never going to see the piggy-wiggy again!” She meant the Empress. She called the Empress a piggy-wiggy. Piggy-wiggy! Most amusing.’

  Gally gave him a long look.

  ‘God bless you, Clarence!’ he said. ‘Good night.’

  Down in her boudoir by the kitchen garden, Empress of Blandings had just woken refreshed from a light sleep. She looked about her, happy to be back in the old familiar surroundings. It was pleasant to feel settled once more. She was a philosopher and could take things as they came, but she did like a quiet life. All that whizzing about in cars and being dumped in strange kitchens didn’t do a pig of regular habits any good.

  There seemed to be edible substances in the trough beside her. She rose, and inspected it. Yes, substances, plainly edible. It was a little late, perhaps, but one could always do with a snack. Whiffle, in his monumental book, had said that a pig, if aiming at the old mid-season form, should consume daily nourishment amounting to not less than fifty-seven thousand eight hundred calories, and what Whiffle said today, Empress of Blandings thought tomorrow.

  She lowered her noble head and got down to it.

  5

  In the tap room of the Emsworth Arms a good time was being had by all. It was the hour when business there was always at its briskest, and many a sun-burned son of the soil had rolled up to slake a well-earned thirst. Strong men, their day’s work done, were getting outside the nightly tankard. Other strong men, compelled by slender resources to wait for someone to come along and ask them to have one, were filling in the time by playing darts. It was a scene of gay revelry, and of all the revellers present none was gayer than George Cyril Wellbeloved, quaffing at his ease in the company of Mr Bulstrode, the chemist in the High Street. His merry laugh rang out like the voice of the daughter of the village blacksmith, and on no fewer than three occasions G. Ovens, the landlord, had found it necessary to rebuke him for singing.

  Carpers and cavillers, of whom there are far too many around these days, will interrupt at this point with a derisive ‘Hoy cocky! Aren’t you forgetting something?’ thinking that they have caught the historian out in one of those blunders which historians sometimes make. But the historian has made no blunder. He has not forgotten Sir Gregory Parsloe’s edict that no alcoholic liquors were to be served to George Cyril Wellbeloved. It is with a quiet smile that he confounds these carpers and cavillers by informing them that as a reward to that faithful pig man for his services in restoring Queen of Matchingham to her sty the edict had been withdrawn.

  ‘Go and lower yourself to the level of the beasts of the field, if you want to, my man,’ Sir Gregory had said heartily, and had given George Cyril a princely sum to do it with. So now, as we say, he sat quaffing at his ease in the company of Mr Bulstrode, the chemist in the High Street. And Mr Bulstrode was telling him a story which would probably have convulsed him, if he had been listening to it, when through the door there came the jaunty figure of Herbert Binstead.

  In response to George Cyril’s ‘Oi! Herb!’ the butler joined him and his companion, but it speedily became apparent that he was to prove no pleasant addition to the company. Between him and Mr Bulstrode there seemed to be bad blood. When the latter started his story again and this time brought it to a conclusion, Herbert Binstead sneered openly, saying in a most offensive manner that he had heard that one in his cradle. And when Mr Bulstrode gave it as his opinion that the current spell of fine weather would be good for the crops, Herbert Binstead said No, it wouldn’t be good for the crops, adding that he did not suppose that the other would know a ruddy crop if he saw one. In short, so unco-operative was his attitude that after a short while the chemist said ‘Well, time to be getting along, I suppose,’ and withdrew.

  George Cyril Wellbeloved found himself at a loss.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ he inquired. ‘Have you two had a row?’

  Binstead shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I would not describe it as a row. We did not see eye to eye on a certain matter, but I was perfectly civil to the old geezer. “If that’s the way you feel about it, Mr Bulstrode,” I said, “righty-ho,” and I walked out of the shop.’

  ‘Feel about what?’

  ‘I’m telling you. I must begin by saying that a few days ago Sir Gregory Parsloe said to me “Binstead,” he said, “a distant connexion of mine wants me to get him some of this stuff Slimmo. So order a half dozen bottles from Bulstrode in the High Street, the large economy size.” And I done so.’

  ‘Slimmo? What’s that?’

  ‘Slimmo, George, is a preparation for reducing the weight. It makes you thin. Putting it in a nutshell, it’s an anti-fat. You take it, if you see what I mean, and you come over all slender. Well, as I was saying, I got this Slimmo from Bulstrode, and then Sir Gregory says he doesn’t want it after all, and I can have it, and if I can get Bulstrode to refund the money, I can keep it.’

  ‘Bit of luck.’

  ‘So I thought. Five bo
b apiece those bottles cost, so I naturally estimated that that would be thirty bob for me, and very nice, too.’

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘So I went to Bulstrode’s and you could have knocked me down with a feather when he flatly refused to cough up a penny.’

  ‘Coo!’

  ‘Said a sale was a sale, and that was all there was about it.’

  ‘So you’re stuck with the stuff?’

  ‘Oh, no. I’ve passed it on.’

  ‘How do you mean passed it on? Who to?’

  ‘A lady of our acquaintance.’

  ‘Eh?’

  Binstead chuckled quietly.

  ‘You know me, George. I’m the fellow they were thinking about when they said you can’t keep a good man down. It was a bit of a knock at first, I’ll admit, when I found myself landed with six bottles of anti-fat medicine the large economy size, and no way of cashing in on them, but it wasn’t long before I began to see that those bottles had been sent for a purpose. Here are you, Herbert Binstead, I said to myself, with a lot of money invested on Queen of Matchingham for the Fat Pigs event at the Agricultural Show, and there, in a sty at your elbow as you might say, is Empress of Blandings, the Queen’s only rival. What simpler, Herbert, I said to myself, than to empty those large economy size bottles of Slimmo into the Empress’s trough of food …’

  He broke off. A loud, agonized cry had proceeded from his companion’s lips. George Cyril Wellbeloved was gaping at him pallidly.

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘Yes, I did. All six bottles. A man’s got to look after his own interests, hasn’t he? Here, where are you off to?’

  George Cyril Wellbeloved was off to get his bicycle, to pedal like a racing cyclist to Matchingham Hall, trusting that he might not be too late, that there might still be time to snatch the tainted food from Queen of Matchingham’s lips.

  It was an idle hope. The Queen, like the Empress, was a pig who believed in getting hers quick. If food was placed in her trough, she accorded it her immediate attention. George Cyril, leaning limply on the rail of the sty, gave a low moan and averted his eyes.

  The moon shone down on an empty trough.

  6

  (From the Bridgnorth, Shifnal and Albrighton Argus, with which is incorporated the Wheat Growers’ Intelligencer and Stock Breeders’ Gazetteer). It isn’t often, goodness knows, that we are urged to quit the prose with which we earn our daily bread and take to poetry instead. But great events come now and then which call for the poetic pen. So you will pardon us, we know, if, dealing with the Shropshire Show, we lisp in numbers to explain that Emp. of Blandings won again.

  This year her chance at first appeared a slender one, for it was feared that she, alas, had had her day. On every side you heard folks say ‘She’s won it twice. She can’t repeat. ’Twould be a super-porcine feat.’ ’Twas freely whispered up and down that Fate would place the laurel crown this time on the capacious bean of Matchingham’s up-and-coming Queen. For though the Emp. is fat, the latter, they felt, would prove distinctly fatter. ‘Her too, too solid flesh,’ they said, ‘’ll be sure to cop that silver medal.’

  Such was the story which one heard, but nothing of the sort occurred, and, as in both the previous years, a hurricane of rousing cheers from the nobility and gentry acclaimed the Blandings Castle entry as all the judges – Colonel Brice, Sir Henry Boole and Major Price (three minds with but a single thought whose verdict none can set at naught) – announced the Fat Pigs champ to be Lord Emsworth’s portly nominee.

  With reference to her success, she gave a statement to the Press. ‘Although,’ she said, ‘one hates to brag, I knew the thing was in the bag. Though I admit the Queen is stout, the issue never was in doubt. Clean living did the trick,’ said she. ‘To that I owe my victory.’

  Ah, what a lesson does it teach to all of us, that splendid speech!

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