Joy in the Morning by P. G. Wodehouse Page A

I’ve always absolutely barred being from the days of childhood.
    ‘Oh, hullo, Uncle Percy,’ I said. ‘Good afternoon, good afternoon.’
    A casual passer-by, hearing the words and noting the hearty voice in which they had been spoken, might have been deceived into supposing that Bertram was at his ease. Such, however, was far from being the case. Whether anyone was ever at his ease in the society of this old Gawd-help-us, I cannot say, but I definitely was not. The spine, and I do not attempt to conceal the fact, had become soluble in the last degree.
    You may wonder at this, arguing that as I was not responsible for the disaster which had come upon us, I had nothing to fear. But a longish experience has taught me that on these occasions innocence pays no dividends. Pure as the driven snow though he may be, or even purer, it is the man on the spot who gets the brickbats.
    My civil greeting elicited no response. He was staring past me at the little home, now beyond any possible doubt destined to be a total loss. Edwin might return with all the fire brigades in Hampshire, but nothing was going to prevent Wee Nooke winding up as a heap of ashes.
    ‘What?’ he said, speaking thickly, as if the soul were bruised, as I imagine to have been the case. ‘What? What? What? What . . .?’
    I saw that, unless checked, this was going to take some time.
    ‘There’s been a fire,’ I said.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    Well, I didn’t see how I could have put it much clearer.
    ‘A fire,’ I repeated, waving a hand in the direction of the burning edifice, as much as to tell him to take a glance for himself. ‘How are you, Uncle Percy? You’re looking fine.’
    He wasn’t, as a matter of fact, nor did this attempt to ease the strain by giving him the old oil have the desired effect. He directed at me a kind of frenzied glare, containing practically nil in the way of an uncle’s love, and spoke in a sort of hollow, despairing voice.
    ‘I might have known! My best friends would have warned me what would come of letting a lunatic like you loose in the place. I ought to have guessed that the first thing you would do – before so much as unpacking – would be to set the whole damned premises ablaze.’
    ‘Not me,’ I said, wishing to give credit where credit was due. ‘Edwin.’
    ‘Edwin? My son?’
    ‘Yes, I know,’ I said sympathetically. ‘Too bad. Yes, he’s your son, all right. He’s been tidying up.’
    You can’t start a fire by tidying up.’
    You can if you use gunpowder.’
    ‘Gunpowder?’
    ‘He appears to have touched off a keg or two in the kitchen chimney, to correct a disposition on its part to harbour soot.’
    Well, I had naturally supposed, as anyone would have supposed, that this frank explanation would have set me right, causing him to dismiss me without a stain on my character, and that the rather personal note which had crept into his remarks would instantly have been switched off. What I had anticipated was that he would issue an apology for that crack of his about lunatics, which I would gracefully accept, and that we would then get together like two old buddies and shake our heads over the impulsiveness of the younger generation.
    Not a bit of it, however. He continued to bend upon me the accusing gaze which I had disliked so much from the start.
    ‘Why the devil did you give the boy gunpowder?’
    I saw that he had still got the wrong angle.
    ‘I didn’t give the boy gunpowder.’
    ‘Only a congenital idiot would give a boy gunpowder. There’s not a man in England, except you, who wouldn’t know what would happen if you gave a boy gunpowder. Do you realize what you have done? The sole reason for your coming here was that I should have a place where I could meet an old friend and discuss certain matters of interest, and now look at it. I ask you. Look at it.’
    ‘Not too good,’ I was forced to concede, as the roof fell in, sending up a shower of sparks and causing a genial glow to