Uncle Fred - Adventures

Adventures

In "Uncle Fred Flits By", we learn that on the previous visit, in June the year before, he dragged Pongo to the Dog Races, and was arrested within ten minutes of arriving. On this occasion, he involves Pongo in a complex situation involving someone else's house and parrot.

His main talent is impersonation: by the end of this first outing, we hear of his having impersonated George Robinson, of 14 Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich (on the occasion of the trip to the Dog Races); a veterinarian come to clip the claws of a parrot at The Cedars, Mafeking Road, Mitching Hill; Mr Roddis, the resident of the same address; and Mr. J. B. Bulstrode, a neighbour of the same. He claims he would have impersonated the parrot as well, on broad impressionistic terms.

In Uncle Fred in the Springtime, when we next meet him, he cons slow-minded Lord Bosham of his wallet just for the sake of it, and heads merrily down to Blandings Castle in the guise of Sir Roderick Glossop, with Pongo taking the role of his nephew and secretary, Basil. While there, he wraps up the affairs of Polly and her man, and Pongo's money worries, with a panache only Gally himself could rival; he even avoids his wife finding out he has left home while she was away (tending her sick mother in the South of France), despite the wrath of his niece Valerie.

He has also masqueraded as Major Brabazon-Plank, the famed explorer, and as his older brother, a mining engineer. (In the argot of the English public school, the miner is Brabazon-Plank Major and the major is Brabazon-Plank Minor.)

His other exploits include shooting an old classmate's hat off with a Brazil nut with the precision of an Amazonian hunter, and happily breaking up an engagement between his nephew Pongo and the ghastly Hermione Bostock. All of them have rendered said nephew in constant fear of his uncle, and permanently convinced him of his elder's lunacy.