Love Among the Chickens

Front Cover
General Books LLC, 2010 - Fiction - 52 pages
Excerpt: ... shall never forgive him for trying to drown papa." My heart bled for Mr. Henry Hawk, that modern martyr. "When I met him," said Tom Chase, "he looked as if he had been trying to drown his sorrow as well." "I knew he drank," said Phyllis severely, "the very first time I saw him." "You might have warned the professor," murmured Mr. Chase. "He couldn't have upset the boat if he had been sober." "You never know. He may have done it on purpose." "Tom, how absurd." "Rather rough on the man, aren't you?" I said. "Merely a suggestion," continued Mr. Chase airily. "I've been reading sensational novels lately, and it seems to me that Mr. Hawk's cut out to be a minion. Probably some secret foe of the professor's bribed him." My heart stood still. Did he know, I wondered, and was this all a roundabout way of telling me he knew? "The professor may be a member of an Anarchist League, or something, and this is his punishment for refusing to assassinate some sportsman." "Have another cup of tea, Tom, and stop talking nonsense." Mr. Chase handed in his cup. "What gave me the idea that the upset was done on purpose was this. I saw the whole thing from the Ware Cliff. The spill looked to me just like dozens I had seen at Malta." "Why do they upset themselves on purpose at Malta particularly?" inquired Phyllis. "Listen carefully, my dear, and you'll know more about the ways of the Navy that guards your coasts than you did before. When men are allowed on shore at Malta, the owner has a fancy to see them snugly on board again at a certain reasonable hour. After that hour any Maltese policeman who brings them aboard gets one sovereign, cash. But he has to do all the bringing part of it on his own. Consequence is, you see boats rowing out to the ship, carrying men who have overstayed their leave; and when they get near enough, the able-bodied gentleman in custody jumps to his feet, upsets the boat, and swims for the gangway. The policemen, if they aren't...

About the author (2010)

P. G. Wodehouse was born in 1881. His father was a magistrate in Hong Kong and his mother was staying with a sister in Guildford when he was born. The infant Wodehouse returned with her to Hong Kong, but was shipped back to England with his older brothers two years later to be brought up by a nanny. Wodehouse went to school at Dulwich College, where he did well at cricket. At first he worked hard at his studies, but when he discovered that there would not be enough money to send him to university, his attention drifted. After leaving school, he worked briefly at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in London. He had begun writing at the age of seven and so began contributing to numerous papers and magazines. Wodehouse had published his first book by 1902. He made his first trip to America in 1904 and by 1909 was coming regularly. By the 1920s he was earning $100,000 a year from his books and his work in the theater. In 1929, he went to Hollywood, where he was paid $2000 a week to be a rewrite man. In 1934, partly to escape tax authorities, Wodehouse and his wife bought a villa in Le Touquet on the coast of France. In 1939, Oxford gave him an honorary degree, the same year World War II began. The Wodehouses were still there the next year, when the Germans rolled through, appropriating the villa, confiscating property, and arresting Wodehouse. Wodehouse was in various German camps for about a year; he was released in 1941 just shy of his sixtieth birthday and was allowed to go to Berlin. It was there that he recorded five radio talks to be broadcast to America and England. The talks themselves were completely innocuous, but the response back home was betrayed. No one ever forgot the radio talks, even though Wodehouse was cleared of any propoganda. After the war, Wodehouse settled permanently in America, first in New York City, then in Remsenburg, Long Island. He was awarded a knighthood in 1975, two months before he died Wodehouse is widely regarded as one of the greatest humorists of the 20th century, and and wrote nearly 100 novels and collections of short stories, as well as plays, musicals and song lyrics. He died on February 14, 1975 at 93 years of age.

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