Plot
When Jimmy Corcoran is hired to help prepare the memoirs of a deceased colonial, he is amazed to see his friend Ukridge visiting the house, pretending not to know him. He had, earlier that day, received a bottle of patent medicine and a parrot, delivered by Ukridge, so he is even more amazed when Ukridge brings up parrots to his employer, Lady Elizabeth Lakenheath.
Ukridge later reveals that he has fallen in love with and wooed Millie, Lady Elizabeth's niece and ward, and together they have kidnapped the parrot in order to help obtain the aunt's consent to their marriage. Ukridge is also involved in the sale of "Peppo", the patent medicine.
The parrot scheme is successful, but Millie's aunt wishes to meet Ukridge's Aunt Julia. Knowing that any such meeting will result in the revealing of Ukridge's past, they must stop the two from coming into contact until Aunt Julia, currently working in rural seclusion, leaves for a tour of America.
When Lady Elizabeth is invited to a meeting of the Pen and Ink Club, Corky goes to Aunt Julia's house to intercept a speech she is due to make at the meeting, hoping that the lack of a speech will prevent her from attending. Julia has returned early, however, and is highly suspicious of Corky's presence. Next day at the Lakenheath's he expects to find Ukridge's name turned to mud, but all is well; Lady Elizabeth was unable to attend the meeting, as her precious parrot was sick.
Ukridge reveals that the plucky Millie had plied the parrot with Peppo, rendering it dangerously inebriated.
Millie and Ukridge would later marry, and on occasion rely on Lady Elizabeth to pull them out of hot water, as in Love Among the Chickens (1913).
Read more about this topic: Ukridge Rounds A Nasty Corner
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“The westward march has stopped, upon the final plains of the Pacific; and now the plot thickens ... with the change, the pause, the settlement, our people draw into closer groups, stand face to face, to know each other and be known.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)