Читать книгу Well, Really, Mr. Twiddle - Enid blyton - Страница 3

“I’m certainly in luck to-day, wife,” said Mr. Twiddle, looking very pleased with himself. “First, I found that nice pencil I lost last week, and then when I went to feed the hens there were five eggs, and now the postman has brought me a present from my sister Hannah—a nice new hat!”

He tried it on. It certainly was a nice hat. Mrs. Twiddle wanted to put a little brown hen-feather in the band, but Mr. Twiddle wouldn’t let her.

“No. I don’t like feathers in hats,” he said. “If only I had a nice new suit now, to go with my hat. I should look smart!”

“Well, as you’re having such a lucky day you might find one lying in the road,” said Mrs. Twiddle, with a giggle.

“You simply never know what might happen when your luck is in,” said Twiddle. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if I found a five-pound note when I was out walking this morning.”

“Well, you’d have to take it to the police station and hand it in to the police, and tell them to find the owner,” said Mrs. Twiddle.

“Ah, but as my luck is in they wouldn’t find the owner, and they would have to give it back to me,” said Mr. Twiddle, still admiring himself in his new hat.

“You’ve got it on back to front, but I suppose you don’t really mind that,” said Mrs. Twiddle, with another little giggle.

A timid knock came at the door, and a little girl’s head peeped in. “Please, Mrs. Twiddle, may I borrow your cat to play with this morning?”

“Certainly, dear,” said Mrs. Twiddle. “Call her. She does so love playing with a kind little girl like you.”

Mr. Twiddle watched the little girl carry the purring cat away, and he looked very pleased. “Well, if that isn’t another bit of luck!” he said. “We’ve got rid of that cat for a whole morning. Now I can walk about the house without falling over it.”

“I don’t know why you don’t like our dear old cat,” said Mrs. Twiddle. “You’re the only person who ever falls over it, anyway.”

“And do you know why?” said Mr. Twiddle, suddenly looking rather fierce. “I’ll tell you! It’s because I’m the only person that cat tries to trip up! She’s always walking through my legs! Bit of good luck, I tell you, Puss going off with Polly.”

“Well, if you don’t go and get the fish for dinner your good luck will come to an end, because you’ll go hungry,” said Mrs. Twiddle, looking at the clock. “Put on your old hat, Twiddle, and get the shopping basket, do. Take some paper with you for the fish.”

Twiddle fetched the basket. He put a newspaper in it to wrap the fish in when he bought it. But he didn’t change his nice new hat for his old one. No, he thought he looked so nice in the new one that he felt he might as well give everyone a treat when they looked at him!

“Put your old hat on!” called Mrs. Twiddle, when she saw him going out with his new one on his head.

“No, no, dear,” said Mr. Twiddle, trying to find a quick reason for keeping it on. “I told you my luck is in to-day—suppose I find a nice new suit somewhere. I’d look dreadful if I didn’t have a nice hat to wear with it.”

“Don’t be silly, Twiddle!” called his wife, but by that time he was out of the front gate and couldn’t hear her. He hurried along to the fishshop.

He stood in the queue for ten minutes and then got a large piece of rather smelly cod. He had it wrapped carefully in the newspaper, and hoped that he wouldn’t be followed home by half a dozen cats.

“I won’t go home through the village in case the cats smell the fish and come after me,” thought Twiddle, remembering how annoyed he had been last time by having five cats trailing after him all the way home, sniffing the kippers in his basket. “I’ll go back through the wood.”

So he took the other way home and wandered along in the wood, enjoying the smell of the hawthorn blossom and the sight of the bluebells. It was a very hot day, and Mr. Twiddle was glad he hadn’t got an overcoat on.

Then he saw a most extraordinary sight. He stopped and looked as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Neatly folded up under a bush was a suit of beautiful new clothes!

Twiddle stood and stared and his heart began to thump in excitement. There! What had he said that very morning! His luck was certainly in, because here was a new suit of clothes waiting to go with his nice new hat!

“But, wait, Twiddle,” said Twiddle to himself, cautiously. “They might belong to someone, you know. Have a look around and see.”

So he had a good look round, but he could see nobody at all. He went back to the neat pile of clothes and looked at them. Coat, trousers, waistcoat, vest, socks, braces ... why, there was everything except a hat!

“This is most extraordinary,” said Twiddle. “It just shows what can happen when your luck is in! I get a new hat from Hannah—and, lo and behold, I find a complete set of new clothes to go with it, and nobody to own them!”

He looked at them again. They were exactly his size. They were meant for him! He looked at the collar of the suit, half expecting to see his own name marked there, and was quite disappointed when it wasn’t. But, would you believe it, on the neat white handkerchief folded inside the left-hand top pocket of the coat was the letter T in pale blue thread! Twiddle stared in the greatest delight.

“That proves it,” he said. “Absolutely. Completely. No doubt whatever. This certainly is my lucky morning! Goodness knows what I shall find next!”

He picked up the clothes and was about to put them into his basket when he remembered the fish. “Better undo the fish, take a bit of the paper and wrap up the clothes in it or they’ll smell of fish,” said Twiddle, forgetting that the paper must smell very strongly of fish already.

He wrapped the clothes up carefully in some of the newspaper, and then made his way home, wondering what bit of good luck would happen to him next. “I shall put on this new suit as soon as I get home,” thought Mr. Twiddle, “and wear it with my new hat. How grand I shall look!”

He was longing to tell his wife of his new piece of luck, and he was disappointed when he got home and found that she was out. He went to get himself some lemonade to drink, and then heard Mrs. Twiddle at the front door. She was talking to somebody.

“Bother! She’s brought a visitor home,” thought Mr. Twiddle, who didn’t like his wife’s visitors very much because they talked such a lot.

Then he got a terrible shock. Mrs. Twiddle brought her visitor into the kitchen, and Twiddle could hardly believe his eyes when he saw a poor, shivering, dripping man in a wet bathing-suit! He gaped at him in surprise.

“Twiddle! I met this poor fellow running down the street in an awful state,” said Mrs. Twiddle. “He thought he would bathe in the Blue Pool because it was so hot to-day, so he took his bathing-suit and went to the wood. He took off his nice new clothes, hid them under a bush, and went to bathe.”

“And w-w-when I c-c-c-came b-b-b-back, they had been t-t-taken by a r-r-robber!” said the shivering man, standing as close to the kitchen fire as he could.

“So, Twiddle, I brought the poor fellow in here, and I thought you could lend him a suit,” said Mrs. Twiddle, “and I thought I’d give him a good hot meal, or he’ll get a terrible cold, and then perhaps you’d go along to the police station with him and tell the police about the robbery. I mean, a man who is hateful enough to take a bather’s clothes deserves to go to prison at once!”

Twiddle’s heart went right down into his boots and stayed there. He stared at his wife in such a peculiar way that she thought he must be ill. He couldn’t say a single word.

But he thought a lot! “Oh, dear! So they were his clothes—and he was bathing! Why didn’t I think of the Blue Pool? Oh, dear, oh, dear—I hope Mrs. Twiddle doesn’t look in the basket yet and find the clothes. What am I to do?”

“Twiddle, don’t stand there gaping like a moonstruck goldfish!” said Mrs. Twiddle, sharply. “Go and get an old suit of clothes, quickly. Do you want this poor fellow to die of cold?”

Mr. Twiddle wasn’t sure if he did or not, he felt in such a terrible muddle. He went upstairs to think it over, but then came down again very quickly when he remembered he had left the basket in the scullery with the fish and the suit there. He must certainly hide that basket!

He snatched up the basket, opened the scullery window and dropped the basket and its contents neatly outside under a lilac bush. There! They would be safe there till he could think what was best to do.

“Twiddle! What in the world are you doing in the scullery?” called his wife. “You don’t keep your clothes there! They’re in the cupboard upstairs.”

Twiddle shot upstairs. He sank down on his bed. What could he do? What could he say? Nobody would believe him if he said he had thought that finding those clothes was just a bit of the good luck he had had that day. He could see himself now that it had been a very silly thing to think. But he really had thought it.

“If I go down and give him his right clothes, he might quite well haul me off to the police station and put me into prison,” thought poor Mr. Twiddle. “And if I don’t give him them I shall feel really awful. He’s got to have them back somehow.”

Mrs. Twiddle shouted upstairs: “TWIDDLE! Will you bring some clothes down at once for this poor shivering fellow? I’m just going to cook dinner quickly, so that he can have something hot. Where’s the fish?”

Now Twiddle was in another muddle. The fish was in the basket underneath the lilac bush outside the scullery window. But he couldn’t say that, of course. He seemed to be getting deeper and deeper into trouble. He scrabbled hastily in the cupboard and took down an armful of clothes. Mrs. Twiddle gave them to the wet, shivering bather, and shut him into the drawing-room to change.

“Where’s the fish?” she said to Twiddle, sharply.

“Er—now let me see,” said Twiddle looking very vague. “Now—just let me see.”

A miaow suddenly came from the scullery next to the kitchen. “There’s Puss back again,” said Mrs. Twiddle, and she looked pleased. “Open the kitchen door and let her in, Twiddle. She’s a real home-cat—never stays away for long!”

Twiddle opened the door, feeling that his good luck had completely vanished. The cat appeared, dragging behind it a pair of fishy-smelling trousers!

Twiddle stared at the cat with great dislike. He knew at once what had happened. That tiresome animal had come home, smelt the fish in the basket lying under the clothes, and had scrabbled about in the paper and brought in the trousers, because they now smelt so deliciously of fish.

“Well! Look at that!” said Mrs. Twiddle, in the greatest astonishment. “Whatever will the cat bring in next? A pair of trousers! Where did she get them from?”

The cat disappeared, and came back again dragging a coat, which also smelt very strongly of fish. Mrs. Twiddle began to think she must be in some kind of peculiar dream made up of shivering bathers, fishy clothes and a cat that came in and out with them.

Then the drawing-room door flew open and out came the bather, looking very different in Twiddle’s old suit, which fitted him perfectly. He stood still and stared when he saw his coat and trousers over Mrs. Twiddle’s arm—and then stared even more when the cat reappeared, dragging a pair of fishy socks.

“I say—look—they’re my clothes the cat is bringing in,” stammered the man, in amazement.

“Your clothes? Your c-c-c ...” stammered Mrs. Twiddle, thinking that her dream was turning into a nightmare. “But how could Puss find them? Oh, goodness me, now she’s bringing in a vest!”

The man picked up all his clothes. Mr. Twiddle forced himself to speak in an ordinary kind of voice, though he was trembling inside. “Well—if they’re your clothes, perhaps you’d like to go back into the drawing-room again, take off my suit, and put your own on.”

“No,” said the man, decidedly, sniffing at his clothes. “They smell of fish. I couldn’t possibly wear them till the smell is gone. If you don’t mind, I’ll wear yours till to-morrow, then put my own on. I’ll return yours then. I’ll go now—but I wish I knew where your cat got my clothes from.”

He went out of the front door and banged it shut. Mrs. Twiddle stared at Mr. Twiddle, feeling rather faint. She sat down in her rocking-chair. “Oh, Twiddle! I don’t understand this at all. I feel quite queer. How did Puss get those clothes? Do you think she was clever enough to understand all we said, and went to hunt for them and found them?”

“No, I don’t,” said Twiddle. “It was just a bit of that cat’s usual interference. She ...”

Mrs. Twiddle alarmed him by suddenly leaping to her feet with a yell. “Look! The cat’s got the fish! Is that the fish you brought home for dinner, Twiddle? Oh, she’s stolen it—she’s over the wall by now. Twiddle, where did you put that fish, you silly, stupid fellow?”

“It was in the basket—er—under the lilac bush,” said poor Twiddle.

Mrs. Twiddle looked at him as if he was quite mad. “Under the lilac bush! But WHY? Have you gone mad, Twiddle? You’d better go to bed, I think. You must be ill.”

Twiddle thought that bed would be a very nice peaceful place, and he went up very thankfully. There was no dinner because the cat had taken the fish, but Mr. Twiddle didn’t mind that. It was nice to be able to pretend to be asleep, and not be asked any more awkward questions. What a good thing the cat had found the clothes and brought them in, after all! Now nobody would ever know the silly thing he had done in taking them home himself.

But Twiddle is going to get a shock—because that bather isn’t going to come back with Twiddle’s old suit! He’s a dishonest fellow, and he’s going to keep it. But how can Twiddle go to the police and complain about that? Didn’t he do exactly the same thing himself, when he thought his luck was in?

Poor old Twiddle! He’s not so lucky, after all!