P. G. Wodehouse

“ The questions shot from her brain like sparks from an anvil.
The darkness began to tear at her nerves. She felt along the wall for the switch, and flooded the whole room with light.
Jimmy laid down, the torch, and stood for a moment, undecided. He had concealed the necklace behind him. Now, he brought it forward, and dangled it silently before the eyes of Molly and his lordship. Excellent as were his motives for being in that room with the necklace in his hand, he could not help feeling, as he met Molly's startled gaze, quite as guilty as if his intentions had been altogether different. ”

“ Molly, gazing over the side of the boat into the lake, abstained from feasting her eyes on the picturesque spectacle.
"Why did you do it?" she said, in a low voice.
Jimmy shipped the paddle, and allowed the canoe to drift. The ripple of the water against the prow sounded clear and thin in the stillness. The world seemed asleep. The sun blazed down, turning the water to flame. The air was hot, with the damp electrical heat that heralds a thunderstorm. Molly's face looked small and cool in the shade of her big hat. Jimmy, as he watched her, felt that he had done well. ”

“ It was his light-haired lordship of Dreever. "I say, by Jove, why we're always meeting!"
A tramp on a bench close by stirred uneasily in his sleep as the gurgling laugh rippled the air.
"Been looking at the water?" inquired Lord Dreever. "I have. I often do. Don't you think it sort of makes a chap feel—oh, you know. Sort of—I don't know how to put it."
"Mushy?" said Jimmy.
"I was going to say poetical. Suppose there's a girl—"
He paused, and looked down at the water. Jimmy was sympathetic with this mood of contemplation, for in his case, too, there was a girl. ”

“ On the night of the day on which Sir Thomas Blunt wrote and dispatched his letter to Wragge's Detective Agency, Jimmy Pitt chanced to stop at the Savoy.
If you have the money and the clothes, and do not object to being turned out into the night just as you are beginning to enjoy yourself, there are few things pleasanter than supper at the Savoy Hotel, London. But, as Jimmy sat there, eying the multitude through the smoke of his cigarette, he felt, despite all the brightness and glitter, that this was a flat world, and that he was very much alone in it. ”

“ Molly looked at him.
"Father."
"My dear?"
"Why do you want me to marry Lord Dreever?"
He met the attack stoutly.
"I think he's a fine young fellow," he said, avoiding her eyes.
"He's quite nice," said Molly, quietly.
McEachern had been trying not to say it. He did not wish to say it. If it could have been hinted at, he would have done it. But he was not good at hinting. A lifetime passed in surroundings where the subtlest hint is a drive in the ribs with a truncheon does not leave a man an adept at the art. He had to be blunt or silent.
"He's the Earl of Dreever, my dear." ”

“ There is a game called poker, at which a man without much control over his features may exceed the limits of the handsomest allowance. His lordship's face during a game of poker was like the surface of some quiet pond, ruffled by every breeze. The blank despair of his expression when he held bad cards made bluffing expensive. The honest joy that bubbled over in his eyes when his hand was good acted as an efficient danger-signal to his grateful opponents. Two weeks of poker had led to his writing to his uncle a distressed, but confident, request for more funds ”

“ Don't you want to be engaged? What's your—?"
He broke off, as a sudden, awful suspicion dawned upon him. "Who is she?" he cried.
He gripped the stricken peer's shoulder, and shook it savagely. Unfortunately, he selected the precise moment when the latter was in the act of calming his quivering nerve-centers with a gulp of brandy-and-soda, and for the space of some two minutes it seemed as if the engagement would be broken off by the premature extinction of the Dreever line. A long and painful fit of coughing, however, ended with his lordship still alive and on the road to recovery. ”

“ But, now Charteris had begun to forget. As he two-stepped down the room, the lines of agony on his face were softened. He even smiled.
As for Spennie, the brilliance of his happy grin dazzled all beholders.
He was still wearing it when he invaded the solitude of Mr. McEachern. In every dance, however greatly he may be enjoying it, there comes a time when a man needs a meditative cigarette apart from the throng. ”

“ Jimmy nodded.
"Funny thing," said Lord Dreever. "In the daytime, the water here looks all muddy and beastly. Damn' depressing, I call it. But at night—" He paused. "I say," he went on after a moment, "Did you see the girl I was with at the Savoy?"
"Yes," said Jimmy.
"She's a ripper," said Lord Dreever, devoutly.
On the Thames Embankment, in the small hours of a summer morning, there is no such thing as a stranger. The man you talk with is a friend, and, if he will listen—as, by the etiquette of the place, he must—you may pour out your heart to him without restraint. ”

“ From the position of the ray, Jimmy could see that the burglar was approaching on his side of the table. Though until that day he had not been in the room for two months, its geography was clearly stamped on his mind's eye. He knew almost to a foot where his visitor was standing. Consequently, when, rising swiftly from the chair, he made a football dive into the darkness, it was no speculative dive. It had a conscious aim, and it was not restrained by any uncertainty as to whether the road to the burglar's knees was clear or not.
His shoulder bumped into a human leg. ”

“ When Molly was home from school, they lived together simply and quietly in the small house which Molly's taste made so comfortable. The neighbors, knowing his profession and seeing the modest scale on which he lived, told one another, that here at any rate was a policeman whose hands were clean of graft. They did not know of the stream that poured week by week and year by year into his bank, to be diverted at intervals into the most profitable channels. Until the time should come for the great change, economy was his motto. ”

“ In a world that contained Molly, there was no room for other people. They were not in the picture. They did not exist.
To him, musing contentedly over the goodness of life, there entered, in the furtive manner habitual to that unreclaimed buccaneer, Spike Mullins. It may have been that Jimmy read his own satisfaction and happiness into the faces of others, but it certainly seemed to him that there was a sort of restrained joyousness about Spike's demeanor. The Bowery boy's shuffles on the carpet were almost a dance. ”

“ Spike had called the man with the revolver "boss" throughout—only that and nothing more. Except that he was a police-captain, Jimmy knew as little about the man as he had before their meeting. And Spike, who held the key to the mystery, had vanished. His acquaintances of that night had passed out of his life like figures in a waking dream. As far as the big man with the pistol was concerned, this did not distress him. He had known that massive person only for about a quarter of an hour, but to his thinking that was ample. ”

“ Jimmy did not apologize. The idea did not enter his mind. He was feeling prehistoric. His heart was beating fast, and his mind was in a whirl, but the one definite thought that came to him during the first few seconds of the journey was that he ought to have done this earlier. This was the right way. Pick her up and carry her off, and leave uncles and fathers and butter-haired peers of the realm to look after themselves. This was the way. Alone together in their own little world of water, with nobody to interrupt and nobody to overhear! ”

“ The last Jimmy saw was a hasty vision of him engaged in earnest conversation with Lady Julia. He did not seem to be enjoying himself. Nobody is at his best in conversation with a lady whom he knows to be possessed of a firm belief in the weakness of his intellect. A prolonged conversation with Lady Julia always made Lord Dreever feel as if he were being tied into knots. ”

“ It must. Nothing can stop us now."
The rain had ceased. The blue had routed the gray, and driven it from the sky. The sun, low down in the west, shone out bravely over the lake. The air was cool and fresh.
Jimmy's spirits rose with a bound. He accepted the omen. This was the world as it really was, smiling and friendly, not gray, as he had fancied it. He had won. Nothing could alter that. What remained to be done was trivial. He wondered how he could ever have allowed it to weigh upon him.
After awhile, he pushed the boat out of its shelter on to the glittering water, and seized the paddle. ”

“ Jimmy snorted violently.
"Eh?" said his lordship, blankly.
"Go on," said Jimmy, between his teeth.
"I felt a fearful fool, you know. I just said 'Right ho!' or something—dashed if I know now what I did say—and legged it. It's a jolly rum business, the whole thing. It isn't as if she wanted me. I could see that with half an eye. She doesn't care a hang for me. It's my belief, old man," he said solemnly, "that she's been badgered into it. I believe my uncle's been at her."
Jimmy laughed shortly.
"My dear man, you seem to think your uncle's persuasive influence is universal. ”

“ For a man whose intentions toward the jewels and their owner were so innocent, and even benevolent, Jimmy was in a singularly compromising position. It would have been difficult even under more favorable conditions to have explained to Sir Thomas's satisfaction his presence in the dressing-room. As things stood, it was even harder, for his lordship's last action before seeking cover had been to fling the necklace from him like a burning coal. ”

“ This, as reason coldly pointed out a few moments later, was merely the beginning, but to Jimmy, thoughtfully lathering, it seemed the end. It was only when he had finished shaving, and was tying his cravat, that he began to perceive obstacles in his way, and sufficiently big obstacles, at that.
In the first place, Molly did not love him. And, he was bound to admit, there was no earthly reason why she ever should. A man in love is seldom vain about his personal attractions. ”

“ I can't make out, though, why all this incense is being burned at the feet of the cracksman. To judge by some of the plays they produce now, you'd think that a man had only to be a successful burglar to become a national hero. One of these days, we shall have Arthur playing Charles Peace to a cheering house."
"It is the tribute," said Mifflin, "that bone-headedness pays to brains. It takes brains to be a successful cracksman. Unless the gray matter is surging about in your cerebrum, as in mine, you can't hope—"
Jimmy leaned back in his chair, and spoke calmly but with decision. ”

“ AS Jimmy sat smoking a last cigarette in his bedroom before going to bed that night, Spike Mullins came in. Jimmy had been thinking things over. He was one of those men who are at their best in a losing game. Imminent disaster always had the effect of keying him up and putting an edge on his mind. The news he had heard that night had left him with undiminished determination, but conscious that a change of method would be needed. He must stake all on a single throw now. Young Lochinvar rather than Romeo must be his model. ”

“ A LESSON IN PICQUET
LORD DREEVER, meanwhile, having left the waterside, lighted a cigarette, and proceeded to make a reflective tour of the grounds. He felt aggrieved with the world. Molly's desertion in the canoe with Jimmy did not trouble him: he had other sorrows. One is never at one's best and sunniest when one has been forced by a ruthless uncle into abandoning the girl one loves and becoming engaged to another, to whom one is indifferent. Something of a jaundiced tinge stains one's outlook on life in such circumstances. ”

“ Jimmy Pitt had now definitely ousted "Love, the Cracksman" as a topic of conversation. Everybody present knew him. Most of them had known him in his newspaper days; and, though every man there would have perished rather than admit it, they were grateful to Jimmy for being exactly the same to them now that he could sign a check for half a million as he had been on the old thirty-a-week basis. Inherited wealth, of course, does not make a young man nobler or more admirable; but the young man does not always know this.
"Jimmy's had a queer life," said Mifflin. ”

“ For some years now, Jimmy had had a feeling that the next arrival would come to stay; and he had adopted in consequence a gently defensive attitude toward the other sex. Molly had broken through this, and he saw that his estimate of his will-power had been just. Methods that had proved excellent in the past were useless now. There was no trace here of the dimly consoling feeling of earlier years, that there were other girls in the world. He did not try to deceive himself. He knew that he had passed the age when a man can fall in love with any one of a number of types. ”

“ Jimmy laid down the razor from motives of prudence, and proceeded to lighten Spike's reprehensible darkness.
"Spike, you're an ass," he said. "You don't know anything about it. If you had any sense at all, you'd understand that the only thing worth doing in life is to get married. You bone-headed bachelors make me sick. Think what it would mean to you, having a wife. Think of going out on a cold winter's night to crack a crib, knowing that there would be a cup of hot soup waiting for you when you got back, and your slippers all warmed and comfortable. ”

“ There are few moments in a man's day when his brain is more contemplative than during that brief space when he is lathering his face, preparatory to shaving. Plying the brush, Jimmy reviewed the situation. He was, perhaps, a little too optimistic. Not unnaturally, he was inclined to look upon his luck as a sort of special train which would convey him without effort to Paradise. Fate had behaved so exceedingly handsomely up till now! By a series of the most workmanlike miracles, it had brought him to the point of being Molly's fellow-guest at a country-house. ”

“ Jimmy, I couldn't. A girl can't cut away twenty years of her life, and start fresh like that. I should be haunted. I should make you miserable. Every day, a hundred little things would remind me of him, and I shouldn't be strong enough to resist them. ”

“ Spennie's idea had been to establish an alibi by mingling with the throng for a few minutes, and then to get through his burglarious specialty during the duologue, when his absence would not be noticed. It might be that, if he disappeared later in the evening, people would wonder what had become of him.
He lurked about until the last of the audience had taken their seats. As he was moving off through the hall, a hand fell upon his shoulder. Conscience makes cowards of us all. Spennie bit his tongue and leaped three inches into the air. ”

“ For pure discomfort, there are few things in the world that can compete with the final rehearsals of an amateur theatrical performance at a country-house. Every day, the atmosphere becomes more heavily charged with restlessness and depression. The producer of the piece, especially if he be also the author of it, develops a sort of intermittent insanity. He plucks at his mustache, if he has one: at his hair, if he has not. He mutters to himself. He gives vent to occasional despairing cries. The soothing suavity that marked his demeanor in the earlier rehearsals disappears. ”

“ You mustn't be rash, my dear. You mustn't act without thinking in these things. Lord Dreever is only a boy, as you say, but he will grow. You say you don't love him. Nonsense! You like him. You would go on liking him more and more. And why? Because you could make what you pleased of him. You've got character, my dear. With a girl like you to look after him, he would go a long way, a very long way. It's all there. It only wants bringing out. And think of it, Molly! Countess of Dreever! There's hardly a better title in England. It would make me very happy, my dear. ”