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Topics in Topological Graph Theory

The use of topological ideas to explore various aspects of graph theory, and vice versa, is a fruitful
area of research. There are links with other areas of mathematics, such as design theory and geometry,
and increasingly with such areas as computer networks where symmetry is an important feature.
Other books cover portions of the material here, but there are no other books with such a wide scope.
This book contains fifteen expository chapters written by acknowledged international experts in
the field. Their well-written contributions have been carefully edited to enhance readability and to
standardize the chapter structure, terminology and notation throughout the book. To help the reader,
there is an extensive introductory chapter that covers the basic background material in graph theory
and the topology of surfaces. Each chapter concludes with an extensive list of references.

lowell w. beineke is Schrey Professor of Mathematics at Indiana University–Purdue University

Fort Wayne, where he has been since receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan under the
guidance of Frank Harary. His graph theory interests are broad, and include topological graph theory,
line graphs, tournaments, decompositions and vulnerability. With Robin Wilson he edited Selected
Topics in Graph Theory (3 volumes), Applications of Graph Theory, Graph Connections and Topics
in Algebraic Graph Theory. Until recently he was editor of the College Mathematics Journal.

robin j. wilson is Professor of Pure Mathematics at The Open University, UK, and Emeritus
Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London. After graduating from Oxford, he received his
Ph.D. in number theory from the University of Pennsylvania. He has written and edited many books
on graph theory and the history of mathematics, including Introduction to Graph Theory and Four
Colours Suffice, and his research interests include graph colourings and the history of combinatorics.
He has won a Lester Ford Award and a George Pólya Award from the MAA for his expository writing.

jonathan l. gross, Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, served as an

academic consultant for this volume. His mathematical work in topology and graph theory have
earned him an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, an IBM Postdoctoral Fellowship, and numerous research
grants. With Thomas Tucker, he wrote Topological Graph Theory and several fundamental
pioneering papers on voltage graphs and on enumerative methods. He has written and edited eight
books on graph theory and combinatorics, seven books on computer programming topics, and one
book on cultural sociometry.

thomas w. tucker, Charles Hetherington Professor of Mathematics at Colgate University, also

served as an academic consultant for this volume. He has been at Colgate University since 1973, after
a Ph.D. in 3-manifolds from Dartmouth in 1971 and a post-doctoral position at Princeton. He is
co-author (with Jonathan Gross) of Topological Graph Theory. His early publications were on
non-compact 3-manifolds, then topological graph theory, but his recent work is mostly algebraic,
especially distinguishability and the group-theoretic structure of symmetric maps.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MATHEMATICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS
All the titles listed below can be obtained from good booksellers or from Cambridge
University Press. For a complete series listing visit
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/series/sSeries.asp?code=EOM
68 R. Goodman and N. R. Wallach Representations and Invariants of the Classical Groups
69 T. Beth, D. Jungnickel, and H. Lenz Design Theory I, 2nd edn
70 A. Pietsch and J. Wenzel Orthonormal Systems for Banach Space Geometry
71 G. E. Andrews, R. Askey and R. Roy Special Functions
72 R. Ticciati Quantum Field Theory for Mathematicians
73 M. Stern Semimodular Lattices
74 I. Lasiecka and R. Triggiani Control Theory for Partial Differential Equations I
75 I. Lasiecka and R. Triggiani Control Theory for Partial Differential Equations II
76 A. A. Ivanov Geometry of Sporadic Groups I
77 A. Schinzel Polynomials with Special Regard to Reducibility
78 T. Beth, D. Jungnickel and H. Lenz Design Theory II, 2nd edn
79 T. W. Palmer Banach Algebras and the General Theory of *-Albegras II
80 O. Stormark Lie’s Structural Approach to PDE Systems
81 C. F. Dunkl and Y. Xu Orthogonal Polynomials of Several Variables
82 J. P. Mayberry The Foundations of Mathematics in the Theory of Sets
83 C. Foias, O. Manley, R. Rosa and R. Temam Navier–Stokes Equations and Turbulence
84 B. Polster and G. Steinke Geometries on Surfaces
85 R. B. Paris and D. Kaminski Asymptotics and Mellin–Barnes Integrals
86 R. McEliece The Theory of Information and Coding, 2nd edn
87 B. A. Magurn An Algebraic Introduction to K-Theory
88 T. Mora Solving Polynomial Equation Systems I
89 K. Bichteler Stochastic Integration with Jumps
90 M. Lothaire Algebraic Combinatorics on Words
91 A. A. Ivanov and S. V. Shpectorov Geometry of Sporadic Groups II
92 P. McMullen and E. Schulte Abstract Regular Polytopes
93 G. Gierz et al. Continuous Lattices and Domains
94 S. R. Finch Mathematical Constants
95 Y. Jabri The Mountain Pass Theorem
96 G. Gasper and M. Rahman Basic Hypergeometric Series, 2nd edn
97 M. C. Pedicchio and W. Tholen (eds.) Categorical Foundations
98 M. E. H. Ismail Classical and Quantum Orthogonal Polynomials in One Variable
99 T. Mora Solving Polynomial Equation Systems II
100 E. Olivieri and M. Eulália Vares Large Deviations and Metastability
101 A. Kushner, V. Lychagin and V. Rubtsov Contact Geometry and Nonlinear Differential Equations
102 L. W. Beineke and R. J. Wilson (eds.) with P. J. Cameron Topics in Algebraic Graph Theory
103 O. Staffans Well-Posed Linear Systems
104 J. M. Lewis, S. Lakshmivarahan and S. K. Dhall Dynamic Data Assimilation
105 M. Lothaire Applied Combinatorics on Words
106 A. Markoe Analytic Tomography
107 P. A. Martin Multiple Scattering
108 R. A. Brualdi Combinatorial Matrix Classes
110 M.-J. Lai and L. L. Schumaker Spline Functions on Triangulations
111 R. T. Curtis Symmetric Generation of Groups
112 H. Salzmann, T. Grundhöfer, H. Hähl and R. Löwen The Classical Fields
113 S. Peszat and J. Zabczyk Stochastic Partial Differential Equations with Lévy Noise
114 J. Beck Combinatorial Games
116 D. Z. Arov and H. Dym J-Contractive Matrix Valued Functions and Related Topics
117 R. Glowinski, J.-L. Lions and J. He Exact and Approximate Controllability for Distributed Parameter
Systems
118 A. A. Borovkov and K. A. Borovkov Asymptotic Analysis of Random Walks
119 M. Deza and M. Dutour Sikirić Geometry of Chemical Graphs
120 T. Nishiura Absolute Measurable Spaces
121 M. Prest Purity, Spectra and Localisation
122 S. Khrushchev Orthogonal Polynomials and Continued Fractions: From Euler’s Point of View
123 H. Nagamochi and T. Ibaraki Algorithmic Aspects of Graph Connectivity
124 F. W. King Hilbert Transforms I
125 F. W. King Hilbert Transforms II
126 O. Calin and D.-C. Chang Sub-Riemannian Geometry
127 M. Grabisch, J.-L. Marichal, R. Mesiar and E. Pap Aggregation Functions
 Leonhard Euler (1707–1783),
the founder of topological graph theory.
Topics in Topological Graph Theory

Edited by

LOWELL W. BEINEKE
Indiana University–Purdue University
Fort Wayne

ROBIN J. WILSON
The Open University

Academic Consultants

JONATHAN L. GROSS
Columbia University

THOMAS W. TUCKER
Colgate University
 cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521802307

c Cambridge University Press 2009

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2009

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-521-80230-7 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to
in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
This book is dedicated to the memory of Gerhard Ringel (1919–2008),
one of the pioneers of modern topological graph theory.
 Contents

Foreword by Jonathan L. Gross and Thomas W. Tucker page xv

Preface xvii

Introduction 1
LOWELL W. BEINEKE and ROBIN J. WILSON
1. Graph theory 1
2. Graphs in the plane 10
3. Surfaces 12
4. Graphs on surfaces 14

1 Embedding graphs on surfaces 18

JONATHAN L. GROSS and THOMAS W. TUCKER
1. Introduction 18
2. Graphs and surfaces 19
3. Embeddings 20
4. Rotation systems 23
5. Covering spaces and voltage graphs 26
6. Enumeration 29
7. Algorithms 30
8. Graph minors 31

2 Maximum genus 34
JIANER CHEN and YUANQIU HUANG
1. Introduction 34
2. Characterizations and complexity 36
3. Kuratowski-type theorems 38
4. Upper-embeddability 39
5. Lower bounds 40

ix
x Contents

3 Distribution of embeddings 45
JONATHAN L. GROSS
1. Introduction 45
2. Enumerating embeddings by surface type 48
3. Total embedding distributions 51
4. Congruence classes 53
5. The unimodality problem 55
6. Average genus 56
7. Stratification of embeddings 59

4 Algorithms and obstructions for embeddings 62

BOJAN MOHAR
1. Introduction 62
2. Planarity 64
3. Outerplanarity and face covers 66
4. Disc embeddings and the 2-path problem 68
5. Graph minors and obstructions 69
6. Algorithms for embeddability in general surfaces 73
7. Computing the genus 75

5 Graph minors: generalizing Kuratowski’s theorem 81

R. BRUCE RICHTER
1. Introduction 81
2. Graph decompositions 84
3. Linked decompositions 88
4. Graphs with bounded tree-width 94
5. Finding large grids 99
6. Embedding large grids 107

6 Colouring graphs on surfaces 111

JOAN P. HUTCHINSON
1. Introduction 111
2. High-end colouring 113
3. A transition from high-end to low-end colouring 116
4. Colouring graphs with few colours 119
5. Girth and chromatic number 124
6. List-colouring graphs 125
7. More colouring extensions 127
8. An open problem 129
 Contents xi

7 Crossing numbers 133

R. BRUCE RICHTER and G. SALAZAR
1. Introduction 133
2. What is the crossing number? 135
3. General bounds 137
4. Applications to geometry 139
5. Crossing-critical graphs 139
6. Other families of graphs 143
7. Algorithmic questions 144
8. Drawings in other surfaces 146
9. Conclusion 147

8 Representing graphs and maps 151

TOMAŽ PISANSKI and ARJANA ŽITNIK
1. Introduction 151
2. Representations of graphs 152
3. Energy and optimal representations 155
4. Representations of maps 163
5. Representations of maps in the plane 170
6. Representations of incidence geometries and related topics 174

9 Enumerating coverings 181

JIN HO KWAK and JAEUN LEE
1. Introduction 181
2. Graph coverings 183
3. Regular coverings 185
4. Surface branched coverings 190
5. Regular surface branched coverings 193
6. Distribution of surface branched coverings 195
7. Further remarks 196

10 Symmetric maps 199

JOZEF ŠIRÁŇ and THOMAS W. TUCKER
1. Introduction 199
2. Representing maps algebraically 200
3. Regular maps 205
4. Cayley maps 210
5. Regular Cayley maps 212
6. Edge-transitive maps 218
7. Maps and mathematics 221
xii Contents

11 The genus of a group 225

THOMAS W. TUCKER
1. Introduction 225
2. Symmetric embeddings and groups acting on surfaces 226
3. Quotient embeddings and voltage graphs 228
4. Inequalities 232
5. Groups of low genus 235
6. Genera of families of groups 239

12 Embeddings and geometries 245

ARTHUR T. WHITE
1. Introduction 245
2. Surface models 248
3. Projective geometries 250
4. Affine geometries 253
5. 3-configurations 256
6. Partial geometries 260
7. Regular embeddings for PG(2, n) 264
8. Problems 265

13 Embeddings and designs 268

M. J. GRANNELL and T. S. GRIGGS
1. Introduction 268
2. Steiner triple systems and triangulations 270
3. Recursive constructions 273
4. Small systems 278
5. Cyclic embeddings 280
6. Concluding remarks 284

14 Infinite graphs and planar maps 289

MARK E. WATKINS
1. Introduction 289
2. Ends 290
3. Automorphisms 293
4. Connectivities 295
5. Growth 300
6. Infinite planar graphs and maps 303
 Contents xiii

15 Open problems 313

DAN ARCHDEACON
1. Introduction 313
2. Drawings and crossings 314
3. Genus and obstructions 317
4. Cycles and factors 320
5. Colourings and flows 322
6. Local planarity 324
7. Thickness, book embeddings and covering graphs 325
8. Geometrical topics 328
9. Algorithms 330
10. Infinite graphs 332

Notes on contributors 337

Index 341
Other documents randomly have
different content
 “You seem to have taken on the job of acting as a sort of
unofficial keeper to the man,” said George. “You’ll have to help him
now.”

“Well, I’ll go and see him.”

“The whole thing is too absurd,” said George Tupper. “How can
Ukridge get married to anyone! He hasn’t a bob in the world.”

“I’ll point that out to him. He’s probably overlooked it.”

It was my custom when I visited Ukridge at his lodgings to stand

underneath his window and bellow his name—upon which, if at
home and receiving, he would lean out and drop me down his
latchkey, thus avoiding troubling his landlady to come up from the
basement to open the door. A very judicious proceeding, for his
relations with that autocrat were usually in a somewhat strained
condition. I bellowed now, and his head popped out.

“Hallo, laddie!”

It seemed to me, even at this long range, that there was

something peculiar about his face, but it was not till I had climbed
the stairs to his room that I was able to be certain. I then perceived
that he had somehow managed to acquire a black eye, which,
though past its first bloom, was still of an extraordinary richness.

“Great Scott!” I cried, staring at this decoration. “How and when?”

Ukridge drew at his pipe moodily.

“It’s a long story,” he said. “Do you remember some people named
Price at Clapham——”

“You aren’t going to tell me your fiancée has biffed you in the eye
already?”
 “Have you heard?” said Ukridge, surprised. “Who told you I was
engaged?”

“George Tupper. I’ve just been seeing him.”

“Oh, well, that saves a lot of explanation. Laddie,” said Ukridge,

solemnly, “let this be a warning to you. Never——”

I wanted facts, not moralisings.

“How did you get the eye?” I interrupted.

Ukridge blew out a cloud of smoke and his other eye glowed
sombrely.

“That was Ernie Finch,” he said, in a cold voice.

“Who is Ernie Finch? I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s a sort of friend of the family, and as far as I can make out
was going rather strong as regards Mabel till I came along. When we
got engaged he was away, and no one apparently thought it worth
while to tell him about it, and he came along one night and found
me kissing her good-bye in the front garden. Observe how these
things work out, Corky. The sight of him coming along suddenly
gave Mabel a start, and she screamed; the fact that she screamed
gave this man Finch a totally wrong angle on the situation; and this
caused him, blast him, to rush up, yank off my glasses with one
hand, and hit me with the other right in the eye. And before I could
get at him the family were roused by Mabel’s screeches and came
out and separated us and explained that I was engaged to Mabel. Of
course, when he heard that, the man apologised. And I wish you
could have seen the beastly smirk he gave when he was doing it.
Then there was a bit of a row and old Price forbade him the house.
A fat lot of good that was? I’ve had to stay indoors ever since
waiting for the colour-scheme to dim a bit.”
 “Of course,” I urged, “one can’t help being sorry for the chap in a
way.”

“I can,” said Ukridge, emphatically. “I’ve reached the conclusion

that there is not room in this world for Ernie Finch and myself, and
I’m living in the hope of meeting him one of these nights down in a
dark alley.”

“You sneaked his girl,” I pointed out.

“I don’t want his beastly girl,” said Ukridge, with ungallant heat.

“Then you really do want to get out of this thing?”

“Of course I want to get out of it.”

“But, if you feel like that, how on earth did you ever let it
happen?”

“I simply couldn’t tell you, old horse,” said Ukridge, frankly. “It’s all
a horrid blur. The whole affair was the most ghastly shock to me. It
came absolutely out of a blue sky. I had never so much as suspected
the possibility of such a thing. All I know is that we found ourselves
alone in the drawing-room after Sunday supper, and all of a sudden
the room became full of Prices of every description babbling
blessings. And there I was!”

“But you must have given them something to go on.”

“I was holding her hand. I admit that.”

“Ah!”

“Well, my gosh, I don’t see why there should have been such a
fuss about that. What does a bit of hand-holding amount to? The
whole thing, Corky, my boy, boils down to the question, Is any man
safe? It’s got so nowadays,” said Ukridge, with a strong sense of
injury, “that you’ve only to throw a girl a kindly word, and the next
thing you know you’re in the Lord Warden Hotel at Dover, picking
the rice out of your hair.”

“Well, you must own that you were asking for it. You rolled up in a
new Daimler and put on enough dog for half a dozen millionaires.
And you took the family for rides, didn’t you?”

“Perhaps a couple of times.”

“And talked about your aunt, I expect, and how rich she was?”

“I may have touched on my aunt occasionally.”

“Well, naturally these people thought you were sent from heaven.
The wealthy son-in-law.” Ukridge projected himself from the depths
sufficiently to muster up the beginnings of a faint smile of
gratification at the description. Then his troubles swept him back
again. “All you’ve got to do, if you want to get out of it, is to confess
to them that you haven’t a bob.”

“But, laddie, that’s the difficulty. It’s a most unfortunate thing, but,
as it happens, I am on the eve of making an immense fortune, and
I’m afraid I hinted as much to them from time to time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Since I saw you last I’ve put all my money in a bookmaker’s

business.”

“How do you mean—all your money? Where did you get any
money?”

“You haven’t forgotten the fifty quid I made selling tickets for my
aunt’s dance? And then I collected a bit more here and there out of
some judicious bets. So there it is. The firm is in a small way at
present, but with the world full of mugs shoving and jostling one
another to back losers, the thing is a potential goldmine, and I’m a
sleeping partner. It’s no good my trying to make these people
believe I’m hard up. They would simply laugh in my face and rush
off and start breach-of-promise actions. Upon my Sam, it’s a little
hard! Just when I have my foot firmly planted on the ladder of
success, this has to happen.” He brooded in silence for awhile.
“There’s just one scheme that occurred to me,” he said at length.
“Would you have any objection to writing an anonymous letter?”

“What’s the idea?”

“I was just thinking that, if you were to write them an anonymous

letter, accusing me of all sorts of things——Might say I was married
already.”

“Not a bit of good.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Ukridge, gloomily, and after a few

minutes more of thoughtful silence I left him. I was standing on the
front steps when I heard him clattering down the stairs.

“Corky, old man!”

“Hallo?”

“I think I’ve got it,” said Ukridge, joining me on the steps. “Came
to me in a flash a second ago. How would it be if someone were to
go down to Clapham and pretend to be a detective making enquiries
about me? Dashed sinister and mysterious, you know. A good deal
of meaning nods and shakes of the head. Give the impression that I
was wanted for something or other. You get the idea? You would ask
a lot of questions and take notes in a book——”

“How do you mean—I would?”

Ukridge looked at me in pained surprise.

 “Surely, old horse, you wouldn’t object to doing a trifling service
like this for an old friend?”

“I would, strongly. And in any case, what would be the use of my

going? They’ve seen me.”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t recognise you. Yours,” said Ukridge,

ingratiatingly, “is an ordinary, meaningless sort of face. Or one of
those theatrical costumier people would fit you out with a disguise
——”

“No!” I said, firmly. “I’m willing to do anything in reason to help

you out of this mess, but I refuse to wear false whiskers for you or
anyone.”

“All right then,” said Ukridge, despondently; “in that case, there’s
nothing to be——”

At this moment he disappeared. It was so swiftly done that he

seemed to have been snatched up to heaven. Only the searching
odour of his powerful tobacco lingered to remind me that he had
once been at my side, and only the slam of the front door told me
where he had gone. I looked about, puzzled to account for this
abrupt departure, and as I did so heard galloping footsteps and
perceived a stout, bearded gentleman of middle age, clad in a frock-
coat and a bowler hat. He was one of those men who, once seen,
are not readily forgotten; and I recognised him at once. It was the
creditor, the bloke Ukridge owed a bit of money to, the man who
had tried to board our car in the Haymarket. Halting on the
pavement below me, he removed the hat and dabbed at his
forehead with a large coloured silk handkerchief.

“Was that Mr. Smallweed you were talking to?” he demanded,

gustily. He was obviously touched in the wind.

“No,” I replied, civilly. “No. Not Mr. Smallweed.”

 “You’re lying to me, young man!” cried the creditor, his voice rising
in a too-familiar shout. And at the words, as if they had been some
magic spell, the street seemed suddenly to wake from slumber. It
seethed with human life. Maids popped out of windows, areas
disgorged landladies, the very stones seemed to belch forth excited
spectators. I found myself the centre of attraction—and, for some
reason which was beyond me, cast for the rôle of the villain of the
drama. What I had actually done to the poor old man, nobody
appeared to know; but the school of thought which held that I had
picked his pocket and brutally assaulted him had the largest number
of adherents, and there was a good deal of informal talk of lynching
me. Fortunately a young man in a blue flannel suit, who had been
one of the earliest arrivals on the scene, constituted himself a
peacemaker.

“Come along, o’ man,” he said, soothingly, his arm weaving itself

into that of the fermenting creditor. “You don’t want to make
yourself conspicuous, do you?”

“In there!” roared the creditor, pointing at the door.

The crowd seemed to recognise that there had been an error in its
diagnosis. The prevalent opinion now was that I had kidnapped the
man’s daughter and was holding her prisoner behind that sinister
door. The movement in favour of lynching me became almost
universal.

“Now, now!” said the young man, whom I was beginning to like
more every minute.

“I’ll kick the door in!”

“Now, now! You don’t want to go doing anything silly or foolish,”

pleaded the peacemaker. “There’ll be a policeman along before you
know where you are, and you’ll look foolish if he finds you kicking up
a silly row.”
 I must say that, if I had been in the bearded one’s place and had
had right so indisputably on my side, this argument would not have
influenced me greatly, but I suppose respectable citizens with a
reputation to lose have different views on the importance of colliding
with the police, however right they may be. The creditor’s violence
began to ebb. He hesitated. He was plainly trying to approach the
matter in the light of pure reason.

“You know where the fellow lives,” argued the young man. “See
what I mean? Meantersay, you can come and find him whenever you
like.”

This, too, sounded thin to me. But it appeared to convince the

injured man. He allowed himself to be led away, and presently, the
star having left the stage, the drama ceased to attract. The audience
melted away. Windows closed, areas emptied themselves, and
presently the street was given over once more to the cat lunching in
the gutter and the coster hymning his Brussels sprouts.

A hoarse voice spoke through the letter-box.

“Has he gone, laddie?”

I put my mouth to the slit, and we talked together like Pyramus

and Thisbe.

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Certain.”

“He isn’t lurking round the corner somewhere, waiting to pop

out?”

“No. He’s gone.”

 The door opened and an embittered Ukridge emerged.

“It’s a little hard!” he said, querulously. “You would scarcely credit

it, Corky, but all that fuss was about a measly one pound two and
threepence for a rotten little clockwork man that broke the first time
I wound it up. Absolutely the first time, old man! It’s not as if it had
been a tandem bicycle, an enlarging camera, a Kodak, and a magic
lantern.”

I could not follow him.

“Why should a clockwork man be a tandem bicycle and the rest of

it?”

“It’s like this,” said Ukridge. “There was a bicycle and photograph
shop down near where I lived a couple of years ago, and I happened
to see a tandem bicycle there which I rather liked the look of. So I
ordered it provisionally from this cove. Absolutely provisionally, you
understand. Also an enlarging camera, a Kodak, and a magic
lantern. The goods were to be delivered when I had made up my
mind about them. Well, after about a week the fellow asks if there
are any further particulars I want to learn before definitely buying
the muck. I say I am considering the matter, and in the meantime
will he be good enough to let me have that little clockwork man in
his window which walks when wound up?”

“Well?”

“Well, damme,” said Ukridge, aggrieved, “it didn’t walk. It broke

the first time I tried to wind it. Then a few weeks went by and this
bloke started to make himself dashed unpleasant. Wanted me to pay
him money! I reasoned with the blighter. I said: ‘Now look here, my
man, need we say any more about this? Really, I think you’ve come
out of the thing extremely well. Which,’ I said, ‘would you rather be
owed for? A clockwork man, or a tandem bicycle, an enlarging
camera, a Kodak, and a magic lantern?’ You’d think that would have
been simple enough for the meanest intellect, but no, he continued
to make a fuss, until finally I had to move out of the neighbourhood.
Fortunately, I had given him a false name——”

“Why?”

“Just an ordinary business precaution,” explained Ukridge.

“I see.”

“I looked on the matter as closed. But ever since then he has

been bounding out at me when I least expect him. Once, by gad, he
nearly nailed me in the middle of the Strand, and I had to leg it like
a hare up Burleigh Street and through Covent Garden. I’d have been
collared to a certainty, only he tripped over a basket of potatoes. It’s
persecution, damme, that’s what it is—persecution!”

“Why don’t you pay the man?” I suggested.

“Corky, old horse,” said Ukridge, with evident disapproval of these

reckless fiscal methods, “talk sense. How can I pay the man? Apart
from the fact that at this stage of my career it would be madness to
start flinging money right and left, there’s the principle of the thing!”

The immediate result of this disturbing episode was that Ukridge,

packing his belongings in a small suit-case and reluctantly disgorging
a week’s rent in lieu of notice, softly and silently vanished away from
his own lodgings and came to dwell in mine, to the acute
gratification of Bowles, who greeted his arrival with a solemn joy and
brooded over him at dinner the first night like a father over a long-
lost son. I had often given him sanctuary before in his hour of need,
and he settled down with the easy smoothness of an old
campaigner. He was good enough to describe my little place as a
home from home, and said that he had half a mind to stay on and
end his declining years there.

I cannot say that this suggestion gave me the rapturous pleasure

it seemed to give Bowles, who nearly dropped the potato dish in his
emotion; but still I must say that on the whole the man was not an
exacting guest. His practice of never rising before lunch-time
ensured me those mornings of undisturbed solitude which are so
necessary to the young writer if he is to give Interesting Bits of his
best; and if I had work to do in the evenings he was always ready to
toddle downstairs and smoke a pipe with Bowles, whom he seemed
to find as congenial a companion as Bowles found him. His only
defect, indeed, was the habit he had developed of looking in on me
in my bedroom at all hours of the night to discuss some new scheme
designed to relieve him of his honourable obligations to Miss Mabel
Price, of Balbriggan, Peabody Road, Clapham Common. My
outspoken remarks on this behaviour checked him for forty-eight
hours, but at three o’clock on the Sunday morning that ended the
first week of his visit light flashing out above my head told me that
he was in again.

“I think, laddie,” I heard a satisfied voice remark, as a heavy

weight descended on my toes, “I think, laddie, that at last I have hit
the bull’s-eye and rung the bell. Hats off to Bowles, without whom I
would never have got the idea. It was only when he told me the plot
of that story he is reading that I began to see daylight. Listen, old
man,” said Ukridge, settling himself more comfortably on my feet,
“and tell me if you don’t think I am on to a good thing. About a
couple of days before Lord Claude Tremaine was to marry Angela
Bracebridge, the most beautiful girl in London——”

“What the devil are you talking about? And do you know what the
time is?”

“Never mind the time, Corky my boy. To-morrow is the day of rest
and you can sleep on till an advanced hour. I was telling you the plot
of this Primrose Novelette thing that Bowles is reading.”

“You haven’t woken me up at three in the morning to tell me the

plot of a rotten novelette!”
 “You haven’t been listening, old man,” said Ukridge, with gentle
reproach. “I was saying that it was this plot that gave me my big
idea. To cut it fairly short, as you seem in a strange mood, this Lord
Claude bloke, having had a rummy pain in his left side, went to see
a doctor a couple of days before the wedding, and the doc. gave him
the start of his young life by telling him that he had only six months
to live. There’s a lot more of it, of course, and in the end it turns out
that the fool of a doctor was all wrong; but what I’m driving at is
that this development absolutely put the bee on the wedding.
Everybody sympathised with Claude and said it was out of the
question that he could dream of getting married. So it suddenly
occurred to me, laddie, that here was the scheme of a lifetime. I’m
going to supper at Balbriggan to-morrow, and what I want you to do
is simply to——”

“You can stop right there,” I said, with emotion. “I know what you
want me to do. You want me to come along with you, disguised in a
top-hat and a stethoscope, and explain to these people that I am a
Harley Street specialist, and have been sounding you and have
discovered that you are in the last stages of heart-disease.”

“Nothing of the kind, old man, nothing of the kind. I wouldn’t

dream of asking you to do anything like that.”

“Yes, you would, if you had happened to think of it.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, since you mention it,” said Ukridge,

thoughtfully, “it wouldn’t be a bad scheme. But if you don’t feel like
taking it on——”

“I don’t.”

“Well, then, all I want you to do is to come to Balbriggan at about

nine. Supper will be over by then. No sense,” said Ukridge,
thoughtfully, “in missing supper. Come to Balbriggan at about nine,
ask for me, and tell me in front of the gang that my aunt is
dangerously ill.”
 “What’s the sense in that?”

“You aren’t showing that clear, keen intelligence of which I have

often spoken so highly, Corky. Don’t you see? The news is a terrible
shock to me. It bowls me over. I clutch at my heart——”

“They’ll see through it in a second.”

“I ask for water——”

“Ah, that’s a convincing touch. That’ll make them realise you

aren’t yourself.”

“And after awhile we leave. In fact, we leave as quickly as we jolly

well can. You see what happens? I have established the fact that my
heart is weak, and in a few days I write and say I’ve been looked
over and the wedding must unfortunately be off because——”

“Damned silly idea!”

“Corky my boy,” said Ukridge gravely, “to a man as up against it as

I am no idea is silly that looks as if it might work. Don’t you think
this will work?”

“Well, it might, of course,” I admitted.

“Then I shall have a dash at it. I can rely on you to do your part?”

“How am I supposed to know that your aunt is ill?”

“Perfectly simple. They ’phoned from her house, and you are the
only person who knows where I’m spending the evening.”

“And will you swear that this is really all you want me to do?”

“Absolutely all.”

“No getting me there and letting me in for something foul?”

 “My dear old man!”

“All right,” I said. “I feel in my bones that something’s going to go

wrong, but I suppose I’ve got to do it.”

“Spoken like a true friend,” said Ukridge.

At nine o’clock on the following evening I stood on the steps of

Balbriggan waiting for my ring at the bell to be answered. Cats
prowled furtively in the purple dusk, and from behind a lighted
window on the ground floor of the house came the tinkle of a piano
and the sound of voices raised in one of the more mournful types of
hymn. I recognised Ukridge’s above the rest. He was expressing with
a vigour which nearly cracked the glass a desire to be as a little child
washed clean of sin, and it somehow seemed to deepen my already
substantial gloom. Long experience of Ukridge’s ingenious schemes
had given me a fatalistic feeling with regard to them. With whatever
fair prospects I started out to co-operate with him on these
occasions, I almost invariably found myself entangled sooner or later
in some nightmare imbroglio.

The door opened. A maid appeared.

“Is Mr. Ukridge here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Could I see him for a moment?”

I followed her into the drawing-room.

“Gentleman to see Mr. Ukridge, please,” said the maid, and left me
to do my stuff.

I was aware of a peculiar feeling. It was a sort of dry-mouthed

panic, and I suddenly recognised it as the same helpless stage-fright
which I had experienced years before on the occasion when, the old
place presumably being short of talent, I had been picked on to sing
a solo at the annual concert at school. I gazed upon the roomful of
Prices, and words failed me. Near the bookshelf against the wall was
a stuffed seagull of blackguardly aspect, suspended with
outstretched wings by a piece of string. It had a gaping gamboge
beak and its eye was bright and sardonic. I found myself gazing at it
in a hypnotised manner. It seemed to see through me at a glance.

It was Ukridge who came to the rescue. Incredibly at his ease in

this frightful room, he advanced to welcome me, resplendent in a
morning-coat, patent-leather shoes, and tie, all of which I
recognised as my property. As always when he looted my wardrobe,
he exuded wealth and respectability.

“Want to see me, laddie?”

His eye met mine meaningly, and I found speech. We had

rehearsed this little scene with a good deal of care over the
luncheon-table, and the dialogue began to come back to me. I was
able to ignore the seagull and proceed.

“I’m afraid I have serious news, old man,” I said, in a hushed

voice.

“Serious news?” said Ukridge, trying to turn pale.

“Serious news!”

I had warned him during rehearsals that this was going to sound
uncommonly like a vaudeville cross-talk act of the Argumentative
College Chums type, but he had ruled out the objection as far-
fetched. Nevertheless, that is just what it did sound like, and I found
myself blushing warmly.

“What is it?” demanded Ukridge, emotionally, clutching me by the

arm in a grip like the bite of a horse.
 “Ouch!” I cried. “Your aunt!”

“My aunt?”

“They telephoned from the house just now,” I proceeded, warming

to my work, “to say that she had had a relapse. Her condition is very
serious. They want you there at once. Even now it may be too late.”

“Water!” said Ukridge, staggering back and clawing at his

waistcoat—or rather at my waistcoat, which I had foolishly omitted
to lock up. “Water!”

It was well done. Even I, much as I wished that he would stop

wrenching one of my best ties all out of shape, was obliged to admit
that. I suppose it was his lifelong training in staggering under the
blows of Fate that made him so convincing. The Price family seemed
to be shaken to its foundations. There was no water in the room, but
a horde of juvenile Prices immediately rushed off in quest of some,
and meanwhile the rest of the family gathered about the stricken
man, solicitous and sympathetic.

“My aunt! Ill!” moaned Ukridge.

“I shouldn’t worry, o’ man,” said a voice at the door.

So sneering and altogether unpleasant was this voice that for a

moment I almost thought that it must have been the sea-gull that
had spoken. Then, turning, I perceived a young man in a blue
flannel suit. A young man whom I had seen before. It was the
Peacemaker, the fellow who had soothed and led away the infuriated
bloke to whom Ukridge owed a bit of money.

“I shouldn’t worry,” he said again, and looked malevolently upon

Ukridge. His advent caused a sensation. Mr. Price, who had been
kneading Ukridge’s shoulder with a strong man’s silent sympathy,
towered as majestically as his five feet six would permit him.
 “Mr. Finch,” he said, “may I enquire what you are doing in my
house?”

“All right, all right——”

“I thought I told you——”

“All right, all right,” repeated Ernie Finch, who appeared to be a

young man of character. “I’ve only come to expose an impostor.”

“Impostor!”

“Him!” said young Mr. Finch, pointing a scornful finger at Ukridge.

I think Ukridge was about to speak, but he seemed to change his

mind. As for me, I had edged out of the centre of things, and was
looking on as inconspicuously as I could from behind a red plush
sofa. I wished to dissociate myself entirely from the proceedings.

“Ernie Finch,” said Mrs. Price, swelling, “what do you mean?”

The young man seemed in no way discouraged by the general

atmosphere of hostility. He twirled his small moustache and smiled a
frosty smile.

“I mean,” he said, feeling in his pocket and producing an

envelope, “that this fellow here hasn’t got an aunt. Or, if he has, she
isn’t Miss Julia Ukridge, the well-known and wealthy novelist. I had
my suspicions about this gentleman right from the first, I may as
well tell you, and ever since he came to this house I’ve been going
round making a few enquiries about him. The first thing I did was to
write his aunt—the lady he says is his aunt—making out I wanted
her nephew’s address, me being an old school chum of his. Here’s
what she writes back—you can see it for yourselves if you want to:
‘Miss Ukridge acknowledges receipt of Mr. Finch’s letter, and in reply
wishes to state that she has no nephew.’ No nephew! That’s plain
enough, isn’t it?” He raised a hand to check comment. “And here’s
another thing,” he proceeded. “That motor-car he’s been swanking
about in. It doesn’t belong to him at all. It belongs to a man named
Fillimore. I noted the number and made investigations. This fellow’s
name isn’t Ukridge at all. It’s Smallweed. He’s a penniless impostor
who’s been pulling all your legs from the moment he came into the
house; and if you let Mabel marry him you’ll be making the biggest
bloomer of your lives!”

There was an awestruck silence. Price looked upon Price in dumb

consternation.

“I don’t believe you,” said the master of the house at length, but
he spoke without conviction.

“Then, perhaps,” retorted Ernie Finch, “you’ll believe this

gentleman. Come in, Mr. Grindlay.”

Bearded, frock-coated, and sinister beyond words, the Creditor

stalked into the room.

“You tell ’em,” said Ernie Finch.

The Creditor appeared more than willing. He fixed Ukridge with a

glittering eye, and his bosom heaved with pent-up emotion.

“Sorry to intrude on a family on Sunday evening,” he said, “but

this young man told me I should find Mr. Smallweed here, so I came
along. I’ve been hunting for him high and low for two years and
more about a matter of one pound two and threepence for goods
supplied.”

“He owes you money?” faltered Mr. Price.

“He bilked me,” said the Creditor, precisely.

“Is this true?” said Mr. Price, turning to Ukridge.

 Ukridge had risen and seemed to be wondering whether it was
possible to sidle unobserved from the room. At this question he
halted, and a weak smile played about his lips.

“Well——” said Ukridge.

The head of the family pursued his examination no further. His

mind appeared to be made up. He had weighed the evidence and
reached a decision. His eyes flashed. He raised a hand and pointed
to the door.

“Leave my house!” he thundered.

“Right-o!” said Ukridge, mildly.

“And never enter it again!”

“Right-o!” said Ukridge.

Mr. Price turned to his daughter.

“Mabel,” he said, “this engagement of yours is broken. Broken, do

you understand? I forbid you ever to see this scoundrel again. You
hear me?”

“All right, pa,” said Miss Price, speaking for the first and last time.
She seemed to be of a docile and equable disposition. I fancied I
caught a not-displeased glance on its way to Ernie Finch.

“And now, sir,” cried Mr. Price, “go!”

“Right-o!” said Ukridge.

But here the Creditor struck a business note.

“And what,” he enquired, “about my one pound two and

threepence?”
 It seemed for a moment that matters were about to become
difficult. But Ukridge, ever ready-witted, found the solution.

“Have you got one pound two and threepence on you, old man?”
he said to me.

And with my usual bad luck I had.

We walked together down Peabody Road. Already Ukridge’s

momentary discomfiture had passed.

“It just shows, laddie,” he said, exuberantly, “that one should

never despair. However black the outlook, old horse, never, never
despair. That scheme of mine might or might not have worked—one
cannot tell. But, instead of having to go to all the bother of
subterfuge, to which I always object, here we have a nice, clean-cut
solution of the thing without any trouble at all.” He mused happily
for a moment. “I never thought,” he said, “that the time would come
when I would feel a gush of kindly feeling towards Ernie Finch; but,
upon my Sam, laddie, if he were here now, I would embrace the
fellow. Clasp him to my bosom, dash it!” He fell once more into a
reverie. “Amazing, old horse,” he proceeded, “how things work out.
Many a time I’ve been on the very point of paying that blighter
Grindlay his money, merely to be rid of the annoyance of having him
always popping up, but every time something seemed to stop me. I
can’t tell you what it was—a sort of feeling. Almost as if one had a
guardian angel at one’s elbow guiding one. My gosh, just think
where I would have been if I had yielded to the impulse. It was
Grindlay blowing in that turned the scale. By gad, Corky my boy, this
is the happiest moment of my life.”

“It might be the happiest of mine,” I said, churlishly, “if I thought I

should ever see that one pound two and threepence again.”

“Now, laddie, laddie,” protested Ukridge, “these are not the words
of a friend. Don’t mar a moment of unalloyed gladness. Don’t you
worry, you’ll get your money back. A thousandfold!”
“When?”

“One of these days,” said Ukridge, buoyantly. “One of these days.”

 CHAPTER VIII
THE LONG ARM OF LOONEY COOTE

Given private means sufficiently large to pad them against the

moulding buffets of Life, it is extraordinary how little men change in
after years from the boys they once were. There was a youth in my
house at school named Coote. J. G. Coote. And he was popularly
known as Looney on account of the vain and foolish superstitions
which seemed to rule his every action. Boys are hard-headed,
practical persons, and they have small tolerance for the view-point
of one who declines to join in a quiet smoke behind the gymnasium
not through any moral scruples—which, to do him justice, he would
have scorned—but purely on the ground that he had seen a magpie
that morning. This was what J. G. Coote did, and it was the first
occasion on which I remember him being addressed as Looney.

But, once given, the nickname stuck; and this in spite of the fact—
seeing that we were caught half-way through the first cigarette and
forcefully dealt with by a muscular head master—that that magpie of
his would appear to have known a thing or two. For five happy
years, till we parted to go to our respective universities, I never
called Coote anything but Looney; and it was as Looney that I
greeted him when we happened upon each other one afternoon at
Sandown, shortly after the conclusion of the three o’clock race.
 “Did you do anything on that one?” I asked, after we had
exchanged salutations.

“I went down,” replied Looney, in the subdued but not heart-

broken manner of the plutocrat who can afford to do these things. “I
had a tenner on My Valet.”

“On My Valet!” I cried, aghast at this inexplicable patronage of an

animal which, even in the preliminary saunter round the paddock,
had shown symptoms of lethargy and fatigue, not to mention a
disposition to trip over his feet. “Whatever made you do that?”

“Yes, I suppose he never had a chance,” agreed Coote, “but a

week ago my man Spencer broke his leg, and I thought it might be
an omen.”

And then I knew that, for all his moustache and added weight, he
was still the old Looney of my boyhood.

“Is that the principle on which you always bet?” I enquired.

“Well, you’d be surprised how often it works. The day my aunt

was shut up in the private asylum I collected five hundred quid by
backing Crazy Jane for the Jubilee Cup. Have a cigarette?”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, my Lord!”

“Now what?”

“My pocket has been picked,” faltered Looney Coote, withdrawing

a trembling hand. “I had a note-case with nearly a hundred quid,
and it’s gone!”

The next moment I was astounded to observe a faint, resigned

smile on the man’s face.
 “Well, that makes two,” he murmured, as if to himself.

“Two what?”

“Two misfortunes. These things always go in threes, you know.

Whenever anything rotten happens, I simply brace myself up for the
other two things. Well, there’s only one more to come this time,
thank goodness.”

“What was the first one?”

“I told you my man Spencer broke his leg.”

“I should have thought that would have ranked as one of

Spencer’s three misfortunes. How do you come in?”

“Why, my dear fellow, I’ve been having the devil of a time since he
dropped out. The ass they sent me from the agency as a substitute
is no good at all. Look at that!” He extended a shapely leg. “Do you
call that a crease?”

From the humble standpoint of my own bagginess, I should have

called it an excellent crease, but he seemed thoroughly dissatisfied
with it, so there was nothing to do but tell him to set his teeth and
bear it like a man, and presently, the bell having rung for the three-
thirty race, we parted.

“Oh, by the way,” said Looney, as he left me, “are you going to be
at the old Wrykinian dinner next week?”

“Yes, I’m coming. So is Ukridge.”

“Ukridge? Good Lord, I haven’t seen old Ukridge for years.”

“Well, he will be there. And I expect he’ll touch you for a

temporary loan. That will make your third misfortune.”
 Ukridge’s decision to attend the annual dinner of the Old Boys of
the school at which he and I had been—in a manner of speaking—
educated had come as a surprise to me; for, though the meal was
likely to be well-cooked and sustaining, the tickets cost half a
sovereign apiece, and it was required of the celebrants that they
wear evening-dress. And, while Ukridge sometimes possessed ten
shillings which he had acquired by pawning a dress-suit, or a dress-
suit which he had hired for ten shillings, it was unusual for him to
have the two things together. Still, he was as good as his word, and
on the night of the banquet turned up at my lodgings for a
preliminary bracer faultlessly clad and ready for the feast.

Tactlessly, perhaps, I asked him what bank he had been robbing.

“I thought you told me a week ago that money was tight,” I said.

“It was tighter,” said Ukridge, “than these damned trousers. Never
buy ready-made dress-clothes, Corky, my boy. They’re always
unsatisfactory. But all that’s over now. I have turned the corner, old
man. Last Saturday we cleaned up to an extraordinary extent at
Sandown.”

“We?”

“The firm. I told you I had become a sleeping-partner in a bookie’s

business.”

“For Heaven’s sake! You don’t mean to say that it is really making
money?”

“Making money? My dear old lad, how could it help making

money? I told you from the first the thing was a gold-mine.
Affluence stares me in the eyeball. The day before yesterday I
bought half-a-dozen shirts. That’ll show you!”

“How much have you made?”

 “In some ways,” said Ukridge, sentimentally, “I regret this
prosperity. I mean to say, those old careless impecunious days were
not so bad. Not so bad, Corky, old boy, eh? Life had a tang then. It
was swift, vivid, interesting. And there’s always the danger that one
may allow oneself to grow slack and enervated with wealth. Still, it
has its compensations. Yes, on the whole I am not sorry to have
made my pile.”

“How much have you made?” I asked again, impressed by this

time. The fact of Ukridge buying shirts for himself instead of
purloining mine suggested an almost Monte Cristo-like opulence.

“Fifteen quid,” said Ukridge. “Fifteen golden sovereigns, my boy!

And out of one week’s racing! And you must remember that the
thing is going on all the year round. Month by month, week by
week, we shall expand, we shall unfold, we shall develop. It
wouldn’t be a bad scheme, old man, to drop a judicious word here
and there among the lads at this dinner to-night, advising them to
lodge their commissions with us. Isaac O’Brien is the name of the
firm, 3 Blue Street, St. James’s. Telegraphic address, ‘Ikobee,
London.’ and our representative attends all the recognised meetings.
But don’t mention my connection with the firm. I don’t want it
generally known, as it might impair my social standing. And now,
laddie, if we don’t want to be late for this binge, we had better be
starting.”

Ukridge, as I have recorded elsewhere, had left school under

something of a cloud. Not to put too fine a point on it, he had been
expelled for breaking out at night to attend the local fair, and it was
only after many years of cold exclusion that he had been admitted to
the pure-minded membership of the Old Boys’ Society.

Nevertheless, in the matter of patriotism he yielded to no one.

During our drive to the restaurant where the dinner was to be

held he grew more and more sentimental about the dear old school,
and by the time the meal was over and the speeches began he was
in the mood when men shed tears and invite people, to avoid whom
in calmer moments they would duck down side-streets, to go on
long walking tours with them. He wandered from table to table with
a large cigar in his mouth, now exchanging reminiscences, anon
advising contemporaries who had won high positions in the Church
to place their bets with Isaac O’Brien, of 3 Blue Street, St. James’s—
a sound and trustworthy firm, telegraphic address “Ikobee, London.”

The speeches at these dinners always opened with a long and

statistical harangue from the President, who, furtively consulting his
paper of notes, announced the various distinctions gained by Old
Boys during the past year. On this occasion, accordingly, he began
by mentioning that A. B. Bodger (“Good old Bodger!”—from Ukridge)
had been awarded the Mutt-Spivis Gold Medal for Geological
Research at Oxford University—that C. D. Codger had been
appointed to the sub-junior deanery of Westchester Cathedral—
(“That’s the stuff, Codger, old horse!”)—that as a reward for his
services in connection with the building of the new waterworks at
Strelsau J. J. Swodger had received from the Government of
Ruritania the Order of the Silver Trowel, third class (with crossed
pickaxes).

“By the way,” said the President, concluding, “before I finish there
is one more thing I would like to say. An old boy, B. V. Lawlor, is
standing for Parliament next week at Redbridge. If any of you would
care to go down and lend him a hand, I know he would be glad of
your help.”

He resumed his seat, and the leather-lunged toastmaster behind

him emitted a raucous “My Lord, Mr. President, and gentlemen, pray
silence for Mr. H. K. Hodger, who will propose the health of ‘The
Visitors.’” H. K. Hodger rose with the purposeful expression only to
be seen on the face of one who has been reminded by the remarks
of the last speaker of the story of the two Irishmen; and the
company, cosily replete, settled down to give him an indulgent
attention.

Not so Ukridge. He was staring emotionally across the table at his

old friend Lawlor. The seating arrangements at these dinners were
usually designed to bring contemporaries together at the same
table, and the future member for Redbridge was one of our platoon.

“Boko, old horse,” demanded Ukridge, “is this true?”

A handsome but rather prominent nose had led his little playmates
to bestow this affectionate sobriquet upon the coming M.P. It was
one of those boyish handicaps which are never lived down, but I
would not have thought of addressing B. V. Lawlor in this fashion
myself, for, though he was a man of my own age, the years had
made him extremely dignified. Ukridge, however, was above any
such weakness. He gave out the offensive word in a vinous bellow of
such a calibre as to cause H. K. Hodger to trip over a “begorra” and
lose the drift of his story.

“’Sh!” said the President, bending a reproving gaze at our table.

“’Sh!” said B. V. Lawlor, contorting his smooth face.

“Yes, but is it?” persisted Ukridge.

“Of course it is,” whispered Lawlor. “Be quiet!”

“Then, damme,” shouted Ukridge, “rely on me, young Boko. I shall

be at your side. I shall spare no efforts to pull you through. You can
count on me to——”

“Really! Please! At that table down there,” said the President,

rising, while H. K. Hodger, who had got as far as “Then, faith and
begob, it’s me that’ll be afther——” paused in a pained manner and
plucked at the table-cloth.
 Ukridge subsided. But his offer of assistance was no passing
whim, to be lightly forgotten in the slumbers of the night. I was still
in bed a few mornings later when he burst in, equipped for travel to
the last button and carrying a seedy suit-case.

“Just off, laddie, just off!”

“Fine!” I said. “Good-bye.”

“Corky, my boy,” boomed Ukridge, sitting creakingly on the bed

and poisoning the air with his noisome tobacco, “I feel happy this
morning. Stimulated. And why? Because I am doing an altruistic
action. We busy men of affairs, Corky, are too apt to exclude
altruism from our lives. We are too prone to say ‘What is there in it
for me?’ and, if there proves on investigation to be nothing in it for
us, to give it the miss-in-balk. That is why this business makes me
so confoundedly happy. At considerable expense and inconvenience
I am going down to Redbridge to-day, and what is there in it for me?
Nothing. Nothing, my boy, except the pure delight of helping an old
schoolfellow over a tough spot. If I can do anything, however little,
to bring young Boko in at the right end of the poll, that will be
enough reward for me. I am going to do my bit, Corky, and it may
be that my bit will turn out to be just the trifle that brings home the
bacon. I shall go down there and talk——”

“I bet you will.”

“I don’t know much about politics, it’s true, but I can bone up
enough to get by. Invective ought to meet the case, and I’m pretty
good at invective. I know the sort of thing. You accuse the rival
candidate of every low act under the sun, without giving him quite
enough to start a libel action on. Now, what I want you to do, Corky,
old horse——”

“Oh heavens!” I moaned at these familiar words.

 “——is just to polish up this election song of mine. I sat up half
the night writing it, but I can see it limps in spots. You can put it
right in half an hour. Polish it up, laddie, and forward without fail to
the Bull Hotel, Redbridge, this afternoon. It may just be the means
of shoving Boko past the post by a nose.”

He clattered out hurriedly; and, sleep being now impossible, I

picked up the sheet of paper he had left and read the verses.

They were well meant, but that let them out. Ukridge was no poet
or he would never have attempted to rhyme “Lawlor” with “before
us.”

A rather neat phrase happening to occur to me at the breakfast

table, coincident with the reflection that possibly Ukridge was right
and it did behove his old schoolfellows to rally round the candidate, I
spent the morning turning out a new ballad. Having finished this by
noon, I despatched it to the Bull Hotel, and went off to lunch with
something of that feeling of satisfaction which, as Ukridge had
pointed out, does come to altruists. I was strolling down Piccadilly,
enjoying an after-luncheon smoke, when I ran into Looney Coote.

On Looney’s amiable face there was a mingled expression of

chagrin and satisfaction.

“It’s happened,” he said.

“What?”

“The third misfortune. I told you it would.”

“What’s the trouble now? Has Spencer broken his other leg?”

“My car has been stolen.”

A decent sympathy would no doubt have become me, but from

earliest years I had always found it difficult to resist the temptation
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