walking-stick, which stood in the hall, and went out into the September sunshine. He spent the next hour and a half in calling on several Dell-dwellers who lived in the numbers between 1 and 50, telling them about the committee meeting and Grundy’s atrocious behaviour, and asking whether they would be prepared to pay the extra money involved. To his surprise most of them felt that the waste patch was such an eyesore that they would do almost anything, including paying the extra upkeep cost, to get rid of it.
Grundy spent that afternoon with his friend Theo Werner, in the first-floor room that in most Dell houses served as a bedroom, but which Grundy had turned into a working study. They discussed the problems of Guffy McTuffie.
Guffy was a child of the small agency which Grundy had started when he came out of the Army after the war and discovered his complete lack of any obvious commercial talent. His father had been a moderately successful Irish actor, a big magniloquent expansive extroverted ginger man who never tired of telling about the part he had played in the glorious days of the Troubles, a part which varied from a major role in the storming of the Post Office to exploits as what he called the good right hand of Michael Collins. Holding out his own hairy freckled hand in front of him, Pat Grundy would repeat the words that Michael Collins had used so often: “I’d sooner lose this right hand than I’d lose Pat Grundy.” His hearers in bar rooms and boarding houses were only occasionally enthralled, and the small ginger-haired boy who knew the stories by heart passed through the usual stages of fascination, adoration and repulsion. He had been given the name of Solomon partly because of the nursery rhyme, which appealed to his father’s simple sense of humour, but also because Pat hoped that his son would combine, as he said with wearisome frequency, “the wisdom of a Solomon with the courage of a Grundy.”
Solomon Grundy spent his childhood in theatre dressing-rooms, among bits of stage scenery, in boarding houses, and in railway station waiting-rooms. His mother, an Irish woman who was frail, pathetic and often ill, could not bear that he should be parted from her. Sometimes he went to school, once he went to a boarding school for a couple of terms, but for the most part she educated him herself, teaching him to read and write. She took refuge in her son from the drunkenness and unfaithfulness of her husband. Pat Grundy made only a few appearances in the West End, but he could always obtain a place in touring repertory companies. Mrs Grundy died of cancer when her son was sixteen years old, and Pat was killed during the blitz on London, when a bomb scored a near miss on the shelter in which, a trouper to the end, he was entertaining the shelterers with dramatic impersonations of characters from Dickens. Solomon was called up, fought in Africa, Italy and France, took a commission and reached the rank of captain. In the mess his colleagues found him reticent and self-contained. He rarely joined in the good-natured horseplay that is common among soldiers, and when he did there was nothing good-natured about his violence. After he broke the arm of a fellow officer who had played a practical joke on him, everybody became a little afraid of Solomon Grundy.
He had read a good deal in the Army, and when he came out wrote a number of short stories, none of which was printed. He drifted into advertising, and after a couple of years as a copywriter started an art agency with an artist who worked in the same firm, Theo Werner. The agency led a struggling existence for some time, before the birth of Guffy McTuffie.
Guffy was a comic strip character. The essence of him was that, although a coward by nature, he was led to perform courageous actions. When, for instance, a gang of teenage bandits took over Slumside, where Guffy was paying a visit, he went down to their headquarters and talked to them, chattering with
Grundy spent that afternoon with his friend Theo Werner, in the first-floor room that in most Dell houses served as a bedroom, but which Grundy had turned into a working study. They discussed the problems of Guffy McTuffie.
Guffy was a child of the small agency which Grundy had started when he came out of the Army after the war and discovered his complete lack of any obvious commercial talent. His father had been a moderately successful Irish actor, a big magniloquent expansive extroverted ginger man who never tired of telling about the part he had played in the glorious days of the Troubles, a part which varied from a major role in the storming of the Post Office to exploits as what he called the good right hand of Michael Collins. Holding out his own hairy freckled hand in front of him, Pat Grundy would repeat the words that Michael Collins had used so often: “I’d sooner lose this right hand than I’d lose Pat Grundy.” His hearers in bar rooms and boarding houses were only occasionally enthralled, and the small ginger-haired boy who knew the stories by heart passed through the usual stages of fascination, adoration and repulsion. He had been given the name of Solomon partly because of the nursery rhyme, which appealed to his father’s simple sense of humour, but also because Pat hoped that his son would combine, as he said with wearisome frequency, “the wisdom of a Solomon with the courage of a Grundy.”
Solomon Grundy spent his childhood in theatre dressing-rooms, among bits of stage scenery, in boarding houses, and in railway station waiting-rooms. His mother, an Irish woman who was frail, pathetic and often ill, could not bear that he should be parted from her. Sometimes he went to school, once he went to a boarding school for a couple of terms, but for the most part she educated him herself, teaching him to read and write. She took refuge in her son from the drunkenness and unfaithfulness of her husband. Pat Grundy made only a few appearances in the West End, but he could always obtain a place in touring repertory companies. Mrs Grundy died of cancer when her son was sixteen years old, and Pat was killed during the blitz on London, when a bomb scored a near miss on the shelter in which, a trouper to the end, he was entertaining the shelterers with dramatic impersonations of characters from Dickens. Solomon was called up, fought in Africa, Italy and France, took a commission and reached the rank of captain. In the mess his colleagues found him reticent and self-contained. He rarely joined in the good-natured horseplay that is common among soldiers, and when he did there was nothing good-natured about his violence. After he broke the arm of a fellow officer who had played a practical joke on him, everybody became a little afraid of Solomon Grundy.
He had read a good deal in the Army, and when he came out wrote a number of short stories, none of which was printed. He drifted into advertising, and after a couple of years as a copywriter started an art agency with an artist who worked in the same firm, Theo Werner. The agency led a struggling existence for some time, before the birth of Guffy McTuffie.
Guffy was a comic strip character. The essence of him was that, although a coward by nature, he was led to perform courageous actions. When, for instance, a gang of teenage bandits took over Slumside, where Guffy was paying a visit, he went down to their headquarters and talked to them, chattering with
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