P. G. Wodehouse

“ Mrs. Pett was not vulgar enough to describe the feeling, even to herself, as a hunch, but a hunch it had been; and, like every one whose hunches have proved correct, she was conscious in the midst of her grief of a certain complacency. It seemed to her that hers must be an intelligence and insight above the ordinary.
The peace of the early afternoon settled upon the drawing-room. Mrs. Pett had taken up a book; Ogden, on the settee, breathed stentorously. Faint snores proceeded from the basket in the corner where Aida, the Pomeranian, lay curled in refreshing sleep. ”

“ In the dim cavern of Paddington Station the boat-train snorted impatiently, varying the process with an occasional sharp shriek. The hands of the station clock pointed to ten minutes to six. The platform was a confused mass of travellers, porters, baggage, trucks, boys with buns and fruits, boys with magazines, friends, relatives, and Bayliss the butler, standing like a faithful watchdog beside a large suitcase. To the human surf that broke and swirled about him he paid no attention. He was looking for the young master.
Jimmy clove the crowd like a one-man flying-wedge. ”

“ Peter Pett, the well-known financier, on Riverside Drive is one of the leading eyesores of that breezy and expensive boulevard. As you pass by in your limousine, or while enjoying ten cents worth of fresh air on top of a green omnibus, it jumps out and bites at you. Architects, confronted with it, reel and throw up their hands defensively, and even the lay observer has a sense of shock. ”

“ But now her heart was racing, and the conviction had begun to steal over her that the cool and composed Ann Chester was in imminent danger of making a fool of herself. Quite suddenly, without any sort of warning, she realised that there was some quality in Jimmy which called aloud to some corresponding quality in herself—a nebulous something that made her know that he and she were mates. She knew herself hard to please where men were concerned. ”

“ At different spots in the room stood the six resident geniuses to whose presence in the home Mr. Pett had such strong objections, and in addition to these she had collected so many more of a like breed from the environs of Washington Square that the air was clamorous with the hoarse cries of futurist painters, esoteric Buddhists, vers libre poets, interior decorators, and stage reformers, sifted in among the more conventional members of society who had come to listen to them. Men with new religions drank tea with women with new hats. ”

“ Through a window to the left, healthfully open at the bottom, the sun streamed in, bringing with it the pleasantly subdued whirring of automobiles out on the Drive. At a desk at right angles to this window, her vivid red-gold hair rippling in the breeze from the river, sat the girl who had been working at the typewriter. She turned as Mr. Pett entered, and smiled over her shoulder.
Ann Chester, Mr. Pett's niece, looked her best when she smiled. Although her hair was the most obviously striking feature of her appearance, her mouth was really the most individual thing about her. ”

“ Prudence came at the eleventh hour to check Jimmy. This was not a matter, he perceived, to be decided recklessly, on the spur of a sudden impulse. Above all, it was not a matter to be decided before lunch. An empty stomach breeds imagination. He had ascertained that he could sail on the Atlantic if he wished to. The sensible thing to do now was to go and lunch and see how he felt about it after that. He thanked the clerk, and started to walk up the Haymarket, feeling hard-headed and practical, yet with a strong premonition that he was going to make a fool of himself just the same. ”

“ He could not help wondering what sort of a man this fellow Crocker was whom this sister-in-law of his had married. He pictured him as a handsome, powerful, robust individual with a strong jaw and a loud voice, for he could imagine no lesser type of man consenting to link his lot with such a woman. He sidled in a circuitous manner towards a distant chair, and, having lowered himself into it, kept perfectly still, pretending to be dead, like an opossum. He wished to take no part whatever in the coming interview.
"Ogden, of course, you know," said Mrs. Pett. ”

“ If he won't, I'll get another job somewhere. But, whatever happens, I stick to this side!"
Mr. Pett uttered a whoop of approval.
"There's always been a place for you in my house, old man!" he cried. "When I get a butler who—"
"But, Bingley! How can you be a butler?"
"You ought to watch him!" said Mr. Pett enthusiastically. "He's a wonder! He can pull all the starchy stuff as if he'd lived with the Duke of Whoosis for the last forty years, and then go right off and fling a pop-bottle at an umpire! He's all right!"
The eulogy was wasted on Mrs. Crocker. She burst into tears. ”

“ She glowered at the dog Aida, who had risen from the basket and removing the last remains of sleep from her system by a series of calisthenics of her own invention, as if she suspected her of masculinity. Mrs. Pett could not help wondering what tragedy in the dim past had caused this hatred of males on the part of her visitor. Miss Trimble had not the appearance of one who would lightly be deceived by Man; still less the appearance of one whom Man, unless short-sighted and extraordinarily susceptible, would go out of his way to deceive. ”

“ Pett. The frostiness which had crept into his manner thawed.
"It beats me," he said, "why you ever came over at all, if you feel like that."
"Duty!" said Jimmy. "Duty! There comes a time in the life of every man when he must choose between what is pleasant and what is right."
"And that last fool-game of yours, that Lord Percy Whipple business, must have made London pretty hot for you?" suggested Mr. Pett. ”

“ Lord Wisbeach had been doing some rapid thinking. Rapid thought is one of the essentials in the composition of men who are known as Gentleman Jack to the boys and whose livelihood is won only by a series of arduous struggles against the forces of Society and the machinations of Potter and his gang. Condensed into capsule form, his lordship's meditations during the minutes after he had left Jimmy in the dining-room amounted to the realisation that the best mode of defence is attack. It is your man who knows how to play the bold game on occasion who wins. ”

“ Candy-selling aliens jostled newsboys, and huge dray-horses endeavoured to the best of their ability not to grind the citizenry beneath their hooves. Eastward, pressing on to the City Hall, surged the usual dense army of happy lovers on their way to buy marriage-licenses. Men popped in and out of the subway entrances like rabbits. It was a stirring, bustling scene, typical of this nerve-centre of New York's vast body.
Jimmy Crocker, standing in the doorway, watched the throngs enviously. ”

“ Through the rich interior of this mansion Mr. Pett, its nominal proprietor, was wandering like a lost spirit. The hour was about ten of a fine Sunday morning, but the Sabbath calm which was upon the house had not communicated itself to him. There was a look of exasperation on his usually patient face, and a muttered oath, picked up no doubt on the godless Stock Exchange, escaped his lips. ”

“ Pett might well have provoked a blank stare of amazement. Such, however, is the almost superhuman intelligence and quickness of mind engendered by the study of America's national game that he answered without the slightest hesitation.
"Giants!"
"Wow!" said the butler.
No sense of anything strange or untoward about the situation came to mar the perfect joy of Mr. Pett, the overmastering joy of the baseball fan who in a strange land unexpectedly encounters a brother. He thrilled with a happiness which he had never hoped to feel that morning. ”

“ Never had she misjudged a man as she had misjudged Lord Wisbeach.
"Spies?" she quavered.
"They wouldn't call themselves that," said Lord Wisbeach. "Secret Service agents. Every country has its men whose only duty it is to handle this sort of work."
"They would try to steal Willie's—?" Mrs. Pett's voice failed.
"They would not look on it as stealing. Their motives would be patriotic. I tell you, Mrs. Pett, I have heard stories from friends of mine in the English Secret Service which would amaze you. Perfectly straight men in private life, but absolutely unscrupulous when at work. ”

“ He did not like to think how Ann would receive the news, but for her own sake he must speak now. It would have required a harder-hearted man than himself to resist the mute pleading of his father's grease-painted face. Mr. Crocker was a game sport: he would not have said a word without the sign from Jimmy, even to save himself from a night in prison, but he hoped that Jimmy would speak.
"It's perfectly simple," said Jimmy, with an attempt at airiness which broke down miserably under Miss Trimble's eye. "Perfectly simple. I really am Jimmy Crocker, you know." He avoided Ann's gaze. ”

“ The window, which the thoughtful architect had designed at least three sizes too large for the room and which admitted the evening air in pleasing profusion, looked out onto a series of forlorn back-yards. In boarding-houses, it is only the windows of the rich and haughty that face the street.
On the bed, a corn-cob pipe between his teeth, lay Jimmy Crocker. ”

“ Chester looked at his daughter with interest. Her growing-up and becoming a beauty had always been a perplexity to him. He could never rid himself of the impression of her as a long-legged child in short skirts. "I suppose you're refusing them all the time?"
"Every day from ten to four, with an hour off for lunch. I keep regular office hours. Admission on presentation of visiting card."
"And how do you feel about this Lord Wisbeach?"
"I don't know," said Ann frankly. "He's very nice. And—what is more important—he's different. Most of the men I know are all turned out of the same mould. ”

“ Pett had been able to please himself, for he had not taken a fancy to Lord Wisbeach. But he was an American, with an American's sense of hospitality, and, the young man being a friend of Hammond Chester, he had felt bound to invite him to Riverside Drive—with misgivings which were now, he felt, completely justified.
"Ann ought to marry," said Mrs. Pett. "She gets her own way too much now. However, it is entirely her own affair, and there is nothing that we can do." She rose. "I only hope she will be sensible." ”

“ A wave of tender compassion swept over Jimmy. He understood it all now. Naturally a girl who had associated all her life with the Rollos, Clarences, Dwights, and Twombleys would come to despair of the possibility of falling in love with any one.
"You haven't met the right man," he said. She had, of course, but only recently: and, anyway, he could point that out later.
"There is no such thing as the right man," said Ann resolutely, "if you are suggesting that there is a type of man in existence who is capable of inspiring what is called romantic love. I believe in marriage. ”

“ At the top of the steps which connect the main entrance of Drexdale House with the sidewalk three persons were standing. One was a tall and formidably handsome woman in the early forties whose appearance seemed somehow oddly familiar. The second was a small, fat, blobby, bulging boy who was chewing something. The third, lurking diffidently in the rear, was a little man of about Mr. Crocker's own age, grey-haired and thin with brown eyes that gazed meekly through rimless glasses. ”

“ To Ann Jimmy Crocker was no rescuer, but a sort of blend of ogre and vampire. She must never learn his real identity—or not until he had succeeded by assiduous toil, as he hoped he would, in neutralising that prejudice of the distant past. ”

“ And now—so true is it that though Time may blunt our boyish memories the traditions of boyhood live on in us and an emotional crisis will bring them to the surface as an explosion brings up the fish that lurk in the nethermost mud—it was as if he were facing the youthful Hammond Chester again and being irresistibly impelled to some course of which he entirely disapproved but which he knew that he was destined to undertake. ”

“ Jimmy was puzzled.
"But why the grouch?" he asked.
"I don't understand you."
"I mean, why do you feel that way about it?"
Ann was quite certain now that she did not like this young man nearly as well as she had supposed. It is trying for a strong-minded, clear-thinking girl to have her philosophy described as a grouch.
"Because I've had the courage to think about it for myself, and not let myself be blinded by popular superstition. The whole world has united in making itself imagine that there is something called love which is the most wonderful happening in life. ”

“ You can arrange all that yourselves later."
"But, Ann! . . . But, Ann! . . . Suppose your aunt finds out who did it!"
"Well, there will be a tremendous row!" said Ann composedly. "And you will have to assert yourself. It will be a splendid thing for you. You know you are much too kind to every one, uncle Peter. I don't think there's any one who would put up with what you do. Father told me in one of his letters that he used to call you Patient Pete as a boy."
Mr. Pett started. ”