P. G. Wodehouse

“ Love is the master passion. It had come to Hash Todhunter late, but, like measles, the more violent for the delay. A natural inclination to go upstairs and rend his recent aggressor limb from limb faded before the more imperious urge to dash across to San Rafael and see Claire. It was the first thing of which he spoke when Sam, with the aid of a carving knife, had cut his bonds. ”

“ He blew out a cloud of tobacco smoke and through it stared bleakly at Chimp Twist, who was in a reverie on the other side of the kitchen table.
It came to him, not for the first time, that he did not like Chimp’s looks. Handsome not even his mother could have called Chimp Twist; and yet there was about him a certain something calculated to inspire uneasiness in an engaged man. He had that expression in his eyes which home wreckers wear in the movies. A human snake, if ever there was one, felt Hash, as his interior mechanism strove vainly to overcome that which he had thrust upon it. ”

“ All she felt now was that her first impressions of this young man had been right, and that she had been mauled and insulted by a black-hearted bounder whose very clothes should have warned her of his innate despicableness. It seems almost incredible that anyone should think such a thing of anybody, but it is a fact that in that instant Kay Derrick looked upon Sam as something even lower in the graduated scale of human subspecies than Claude Winnington-Bates. ”

“ Sam’s stupor of astonishment had passed away, whirled to the four winds on a tempestuous rush of homicidal fury. “You mean to tell me that you had the—the nerve—the insolence——” He gulped. Being a young man usually quick to express his rare bursts of anger in terms of action, he looked longingly at Lord Tilbury, regretting that the latter’s age and physique disqualified him as a candidate for assault and battery. “Do you mean to tell me——” He swallowed rapidly. The thought of this awful little man spying upon Kay and smirching her with his loathly innuendoes made mere words inadequate. ”

“ So did Sam.
“You seem amused,” he said coldly.
“Of course I’m amused,” said Kay.
Her eyes were sparkling, and that little dimple on her chin which had so excited Sam’s admiration when seen in photographic reproduction had become a large dimple. Sam tickled her sense of humour. He appealed to her in precisely the same way as the dog Amy had appealed to her in the garden that morning.
“I don’t see why,” said Sam. “There’s nothing funny about it. It’s monstrous that you should be going about at the mercy of every bounder who takes it into his head to insult you. ”

“ Fittings take place in a dimly lit interior, with the result that suits destined to make phlegmatic horses shy in the open street seem in the shop to possess merely a rather pleasing vivacity. One of these Sam had bought, and it had been a blunder on his part. If he had intended to sing comic songs from a punt at Henley Regatta, he would have been suitably, even admirably, attired. But as a private gentleman he was a little on the bright side. He looked, in fact, like a bookmaker who won billiard tournaments, and Kay gazed upon him with repulsion. ”

“ The depression which had swept over him on hearing Sam’s dreadful edict had not lasted long. Men of Mr. Twist’s mode of life are generally resilient. They have to be.
After all, he felt, it would be churlish of him, in the face of this almost supernatural slice of luck, to grumble at the one crumpled rose leaf. Besides, it would only take him about a couple of days to get away with the treasure of Mon Repos, and then he could go into retirement and grow his moustache again. ”

“ While Sam was walking down Fleet Street on his way to Tilbury House, thrilled with the joy of existence and swishing the air jovially with his newly purchased wanghee, in Tilbury House itself the proprietor of the Mammoth Publishing Company was pacing the floor of his private office, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, his eyes staring bleakly before him. ”

“ Sam choked.
“I’ll tell you why I’m going. Simply because I might as well be in New York as anywhere. If there was the slightest hope that by staying on here I could get you to—to marry me——” His hand rasped on the fence again. “Of course, I know there isn’t. I know you don’t take me seriously. I haven’t any illusions about myself. I know just what I amount to in your eyes. I’m the fellow who blunders about and trips over himself and is rather amusing when you’re in the mood. But I don’t count. I don’t amount to anything.” Kay stirred in the darkness, but she did not speak. ”

“ The tonic of new clothes is recognised by all students of human nature. Sam walked with a springy jauntiness, and his gay bearing, combined with the brightness of his exterior, drew many eyes upon him.
Two of these eyes belonged to a lean and stringy man of mournful countenance who was moving in the opposite direction, away from London’s newspaper land. For a moment they rested upon Sam in a stare that had something of dislike in it, as if their owner resented the intrusion upon his notice of so much cheerfulness. ”

“ The omnibus stopped at the corner of Burberry Road, and Kay, alighting, walked toward San Rafael. Burberry Road is not one of the more fashionable and wealthy districts of Valley Fields, and most of the houses in it are semi-detached. San Rafael belonged to this class, being joined, like a stucco Siamese Twin, in indissoluble union to its next-door neighbour, Mon Repos. It had in front of it a strip of gravel, two apologetic-looking flower beds with evergreens in them, a fence, and in the fence a gate, modelled on the five-barred gates of the country. ”

“ And let me tell you——”
“Listen!” said Sam. “If you aren’t out of this house in two seconds, I’ll take those trousers back.”
Every Achilles has his heel. Of all the possible threats that Sam could have used, this was probably the only one to which Lord Tilbury, in his dangerously elevated and hostile frame of mind, would have paid heed. For one moment he stood swelling like a toy balloon, then he slid out and the door banged behind him.
A dark shape loomed up before Lord Tilbury as he stood upon the gravel outside the portal of Mon Repos. ”

“ He awoke to find that the cab had come to a standstill outside a wooden gate which led by a short gravel path to a stucco-covered house. A street lamp, shining feebly, was strong enough to light up the name San Rafael. Mr. Braddock paid the cabman and ushered Sam through the gate. He produced a key after a little searching, and having mounted the steps opened the door. Sam found himself in a small hall, dimly lighted by a turned-down jet of gas.
“Go right in,” said Mr. Braddock. “I’ll be back in a moment. Got to see a man.” ”

“ He regretted that he had pledged himself to dinner that night at the house of his Aunt Julia. Aunt Julia was no bad sort, as aunts go, but dinner at her house was scarcely likely to provide him with melodrama, and it was melodrama that Mr. Braddock’s drugged soul now craved, and nothing but melodrama. It irked him to be compelled to leave this suburban maelstrom of swift events and return to a London which could not but seem mild and tame by comparison. ”

“ Lord Tilbury was a short, stout, commanding-looking man, and practically everything he did had in it something of the Napoleonic quality. His demeanour now suggested Napoleon in captivity, striding the deck of the Bellerophon with vultures gnawing at his breast.{104}
So striking was his attitude that his sister, Mrs. Frances Hammond, who had called to see him, as was her habit when business took her into the neighbourhood of Tilbury House, paused aghast in the doorway, while the obsequious boy in buttons who was ushering her in frankly lost his nerve and bolted. ”

“ He walked warily, like some not too courageous explorer picking his way through a jungle in which he suspects the presence of unpleasant wild beasts. Drawn by the lure of gain to revisit Mon Repos, Chimp Twist was wondering pallidly if each moment might not not bring Hash ravening out at him from the shadows. ”

“ The one fault which undoes diplomatists more than any other is the temptation to be too elaborate. If it had been merely a case of exchanging rooms, as two medieval monarchs, celebrating a truce, might have exchanged chargers and suits of armour, Hash would probably have consented. He would have thought it silly, but he would have done it by way of a gesture indicating his opinion of the world’s excellence this morning and of his desire to show Mr. Twist that he had forgiven him and wished him well. ”

“ Kay paced the gravel path with hard feelings, which were not removed by the appearance a few moments later of Sam, clad in flannels and a sweater. Sam, his back to her and his face to the sun, began to fling himself about in a forceful and hygienic manner; and Kay, interested in spite of herself, came to the fence to watch him. She was angry with him, for no girl likes to have her singing criticised by bangs upon the wall; but nevertheless she could not entirely check a faint feeling of approval as she watched him. A country-bred girl, Kay liked men to be strong and of the open air ”

“ The fact that, though so widely built over, Valley Fields has not altogether lost its ancient air of rusticity is due entirely to the zeal and devotion of its amateur horticulturists. More seeds are sold each spring in Valley Fields, more lawn mowers pushed, more garden rollers borrowed, more snails destroyed, more green fly squirted with patent mixtures, than in any other suburb on the Surrey side of the river. Brixton may have its Bon Marché and Sydenham its Crystal Palace; but when it comes to pansies, roses, tulips, hollyhocks and nasturtiums, Valley Fields points with pride. ”

“ A sharp cracking noise came to Willoughby Braddock’s ears as he halted snakily on the first landing. It sounded like the breaking open of a door.
And so it was. Chimp, had the conditions been favourable, would have preferred to insinuate himself into Hash’s boudoir in a manner involving less noise; but in this enterprise of his time was of the essence and he had no leisure for niggling at locks with a{326} chisel. Arriving on the threshold, he raised his boot and drove it like a battering-ram.
The doors of suburban villas are not constructed to stand rough treatment. ”

“ Braddock’s collar box and hair-brushes was a small mountain of notes and silver—a fascinating spectacle with the morning sunshine playing on them. With twitching fingers, Sam scooped them up; and finding pencil and paper, paused for a moment, seeking for words.
It is foolish to attempt to improve on the style of a master. Hash Todhunter had shown himself in a class of his own at this kind of literary composition, and Sam was content to take him as a model. He wrote:
“Dear Bradder: You will doubtless be surprised to learn that I have borrowed your money. I will return it in God’s good time. ”

“ Dazedly he flapped out into the hall, the grey flannel trousers swirling about his feet. At the front door, however, it suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet fired the most important shell in his ammunition wagon. He turned at bay.
“Wait!” he cried. “I may add——”
“No, you mayn’t,” said Sam.
“I wish to add——”
“Keep moving!”
“I insist on informing you,” shouted Lord Tilbury, plucking at the trousers with a nautical twitch, “of this one thing: Your uncle said in his cable that you were to take the next boat back to America.” ”

“ The hour being early even for a perpetually thirsty community like that of Fleet Street, the saloon bar into which they made their way was free from the crowds which would have interfered with a quiet chat between friends. Two men who looked like printers were drinking beer in a corner, while at the counter a haughty barmaid was mixing a cocktail for a solitary reveller in a velours hat. This individual had just made a remark about the weather in a rich and attractive voice, and his intonation was so unmistakably American that Sam glanced at him as he passed ”

“ The photograph which had so excited this young man was the large one that stood in the centre of the mantelpiece. It represented a girl in hunting costume, standing beside her horse, and it was Claire’s favourite. A dashing and vigorous duster, with an impressive record of smashed china and broken glass to her name, she always handled this particular work of art with a gentle tenderness.
“That?” she said. “Why, that’s Miss Kay, of course.” ”

“ Whether we are fifty years old or forty or thirty or twenty, we are none the less all of us contemporaries. And why? Because, gentlemen, we are all—er—linked by that link.”
“Jolly good!” murmured Kay, impressed.
“That is why, Mr. President and gentlemen, though I am glad, delighted, pleased, happy and—er—overjoyed to see so many of you responding to the annual call of our dear old school, I am not surprised.”
From the kitchen door, a small knife in one hand and a half-peeled onion in the other, there emerged the stocky figure of Claire Lippett. She gazed up at the window wrathfully. ”

“ His agile brain was stirring once more.
“You can’t do anything,” he said. “It wasn’t breaking and entering. I live here. I know the law.”
“Never mind about that. What were you up to?”
“Looking for something,” said Chimp sullenly. “And it wasn’t there.”
“Did you know Finglass?” asked Sam keenly.
Chimp gave a short laugh of intense bitterness.
“I thought I did. But I didn’t know he was so fond of a joke.”
“Bradder,” said Sam urgently, “a crook named Finglass used to live in this house, and he buried a lot of his swag somewhere in it.”
“Good gosh!” exclaimed Mr. Braddock. “You don’t say so!” ”

“ Mr. Molloy started violently. So did the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham.
“I’m in the bedroom, honey bunch. Come right on up.”
A dull flush reddened the Rev. Aubrey’s ascetic face.
“I understood you to say that you were not married, Mr. Shotter,” he said in a metallic voice.
“No—er—ah——”
He caught the Rev. Aubrey’s eye. He was looking as Sherlock Holmes might have looked had he discovered Doctor Watson stealing his watch.
“No—I—er—ah——”
It is not given to every man always to do the right thing in trying circumstances. Mr. Molloy may be said at this point definitely to have committed a social blunder. ”

“ Hash would have none of this airy indifference.
“Ah,” he said, “and the next thing you know you’ll be getting dirt into ’em and going down with lockjaw. I had an uncle what got dirt into a cut ’and, and three days later we were buying our blacks for him.”
“Oh!” gasped Kay.
“Two and a half, really,” said Hash. “Because he expired toward evening.”
“I’ll run and get a sponge and a basin,” said Kay in agitation.
“That’s awfully good of you,” said Sam. Oh, woman, he felt, in our hours of ease uncertain, coy and hard to please; when pain and anguish rack the brow, a ministering angel thou. ”