P. G. Wodehouse

“ At this moment Cynthia came in. Out of the corner of my eye I observed a look of fuddled displeasure come into Tanky's face at her frank pleasure at seeing me.
I had never seen her looking better. She is a tall girl, who carries herself magnificently. The simplicity of her dress gained an added dignity from comparison with the rank glitter of her mother's. She wore unrelieved black, a colour which set off to wonderful advantage the clear white of her skin and her pale-gold hair.
'You're late, Peter,' she said, looking at the clock. ”

“ Mrs Drassilis was connected with money on all sides, but could only obtain it in rare and minute quantities. Any one of a dozen relations-in-law could, if they had wished, have trebled her annual income without feeling it. But they did not so wish. They disapproved of Mrs Drassilis. In their opinion the Hon. Hugo Drassilis had married beneath him—not so far beneath him as to make the thing a horror to be avoided in conversation and thought, but far enough to render them coldly polite to his wife during his lifetime and almost icy to his widow after his death. ”

“ With Cynthia my feet would always be on the solid earth. To the end of the chapter we should be friends and nothing more.
I found myself pitying Cynthia intensely. I saw her future a series of years of intolerable dullness. She was too good to be tied for life to a battered hulk like myself.
I drank more coffee and my mood changed. Even in the grey of a winter morning a man of thirty, in excellent health, cannot pose to himself for long as a piece of human junk, especially if he comforts himself with hot coffee. ”

“ Men like Elmer Ford aren't fit to have charge of a child. You don't know him, but he's just an unscrupulous financier, without a thought above money. To think of a boy growing up in that tainted atmosphere—at his most impressionable age. It means death to any good there is in him.'
My mind was still grappling feebly with the legal aspect of the affair.
'But, Cynthia, kidnapping's kidnapping, you know! The law doesn't take any notice of motives. ”

“ This offer was not the outcome of a sudden spasm of warm-heartedness on his lordship's part. He had pondered the matter deeply, and had come to the conclusion that, though it had flaws, it was the best plan. He was alive to the fact that a small boy was not an absolute essential to the success of a yachting trip, and, since seeing Ogden's portrait, he had realized still more clearly that the scheme had drawbacks. But he badly wanted Stanborough to make one of the party. ”

“ I was to pose, Cynthia told me, as a young man of private means, anxious to learn the business, with a view to setting up a school of his own. The objection to that was, I held, that I obviously did not want to do anything of the sort. I had not the appearance of a man with such an ambition. I had none of the conversation of such a man.
I put it to Cynthia.
'They would find me out in a day,' I assured her. 'A man who wants to set up a school has got to be a pretty brainy sort of fellow. ”

“ Her voice was harsh and strained.
'Eh?'
'You see—I have not—' She stopped. 'My little boy is not—Ogden is not living with me just now.'
'At school, eh?'
'No, not at school. Let me tell you the whole position. Mr Ford and I did not get on very well together, and a year ago we were divorced in Washington, on the ground of incompatibility, and—and—'
She choked. His lordship, a young man with a shrinking horror of the deeper emotions, whether exhibited in woman or man, writhed silently. That was the worst of these Americans! Always getting divorced and causing unpleasantness. ”

“ Some of us are going to the south of France in his yacht next week.'
'What a delightful idea!'
There was a certain pensive note in Cynthia's voice.
'A splendid idea!' she murmured.
Mrs Ford swooped. She descended on Ogden in a swirl and rustle of expensive millinery, and clasped him to her.
'My boy!'
It is not given to everybody to glide neatly into a scene of tense emotion. Ogden failed to do so. He wriggled roughly from the embrace.
'Got a cigarette?' he said.
He was an extraordinarily unpleasant little boy. Physically the portrait standing on the chair did him more than justice. ”

“ Thank you so much, Lord Mountry.'
'Rather a good scheme occurred to me, that is, if you haven't thought over the idea of that trip on my yacht and decided it would bore you to death. You still feel like making one of the party—what?'
Mrs Ford shot a swift glance at the clock.
'I'm looking forward to it,' she said.
'Well, then, why shouldn't we kill two birds with one stone? Combine the voyage and the portrait, don't you know. ”

“ I made new friends, among them Cynthia Drassilis.
I liked Cynthia, and I was sorry for her. I think that, about that time I met her, I was sorry for most people. The shock of Audrey's departure had had that effect upon me. It is always the bad nigger who gets religion most strongly at the camp-meeting, and in my case 'getting religion' had taken the form of suppression of self. I never have been able to do things by halves, or even with a decent moderation. As an egoist I had been thorough in my egoism ”

“ I gathered that the old feudal spirit still glowed to some extent in Mr Abney's bosom.
We came to business.
'So you wish to be one of us, Mr Burns, to enter the scholastic profession?'
I tried to look as if I did.
'Well, in certain circumstances, the circumstances in which I—ah—myself, I may say, am situated, there is no more delightful occupation. The work is interesting. There is the constant fascination of seeing these fresh young lives develop—and of helping them to develop—under one's eyes ”

“ A proprietor of a patent Infants' Food, not satisfied with the bare statement that Baby Cried For It, would feel it necessary to push the fact home to the public through the medium of Art, and Mr Blake would be commissioned to draw the picture. ”

“ Women have these intuitions.
III Looking back, I think I can fix the point at which this insane venture I had undertaken ceased to be a distorted dream, from which I vaguely hoped that I might shortly waken, and took shape as a reality of the immediate future. That moment came when I met Mr Arnold Abney by appointment at his club.
Till then the whole enterprise had been visionary. I gathered from Cynthia that the boy Ogden was shortly to be sent to a preparatory school, and that I was to insinuate myself into this school and, watching my opportunity, to remove him ”

“ School-mastering is a profession, which cannot be taught adequately except in practice. "Only those who—ah—brave its dangers comprehend its mystery ." Yes, I would certainly recommend you to begin at the foot of the ladder and go, at least for a time, through the mill.'
'Certainly,' I said. ”

“ I was extremely sorry for Cynthia Drassilis. Meeting her mother frequently, I could hardly fail to be. Mrs Drassilis was a representative of a type I disliked. She was a widow, who had been left with what she considered insufficient means, and her outlook on life was a compound of greed and querulousness. Sloane Square and South Kensington are full of women in her situation. ”

“ A man may make a living by these means, but it is one that inclines him to jump at a wealthy son-in-law. Mr Blake jumped at me. It was one of his last acts on this earth. A week after he had—as I now suspect—bullied Audrey into accepting me, he died of pneumonia. ”

“ So I promised to look after Ogden while he fetched it. I sent him off to get it just in time for us to catch the train. Off he went, and here we are. And now, won't you order that lunch you mentioned? I'm starving.'
Mrs Ford rose. Half-way to the telephone she stopped suddenly.
'My dear child! It has only just struck me! We must leave here at once. He will have followed you. He will guess that Ogden has been kidnapped.'
Cynthia smiled.
'Believe me, it takes Reggie quite a long time to guess anything. Besides, there are no trains for hours. We are quite safe.'
'Are you sure?'
'Absolutely. ”

“ He understood but dimly, yet enough to enable him to realize that a scene was about to take place in which he was most emphatically not 'on'. A mother's meeting with her long-lost child, this is a sacred thing. ”

“ The preparatory-school age limit may be estimated roughly at fourteen. That is to say, in any event Sanstead House could only harbour him for one year. Mr Abney's fees I had to guess at. To be on the safe side, I fixed my premium at an outside figure, and, getting to the point at once, I named it.
It was entirely satisfactory. My mental arithmetic had done me credit. Mr Abney beamed upon me. Over tea and muffins we became very friendly. In half an hour I heard more of the theory of school-mastering than I had dreamed existed.
We said good-bye at the club front door. ”

“ Of stirring times at a private school for young gentlemen. Of stratagems, spoils, and alarms by night. Of journeys ending in lovers' meetings. The whole related by Mr Peter Burns, gentleman of leisure, who forfeits that leisure in a good cause.
Peter Burns's Narrative I I am strongly of the opinion that, after the age of twenty-one, a man ought not to be out of bed and awake at four in the morning. The hour breeds thought. At twenty-one, life being all future, it may be examined with impunity. ”

“ It's quite charming—and told the butler that I wanted to see Mr Ford on business. I had taken the precaution to find out that he was not there. He is at Droitwich.'
'Rheumatism,' murmured Mrs Ford. 'He has it sometimes.'
'The man told me he was away, and then he seemed to think that I ought to go. I stuck like a limpet. I sent him to fetch Ogden's tutor. His name is Broster—Reggie Broster. He is a very nice young man. ”

“ The whole concluding with a momentous telephone-call.
I If the management of the Hotel Guelph, that London landmark, could have been present at three o'clock one afternoon in early January in the sitting-room of the suite which they had assigned to Mrs Elmer Ford, late of New York, they might well have felt a little aggrieved. Philosophers among them would possibly have meditated on the limitations of human effort; for they had done their best for Mrs Ford. They had housed her well. They had fed her well. They had caused inspired servants to anticipate her every need. ”

“ Of course I could make her happy. No man and woman had ever been more admirably suited to each other. As for that first disaster, which I had been magnifying into a life-tragedy, what of it? An incident of my boyhood. A ridiculous episode which—I rose with the intention of doing so at once—I should now proceed to eliminate from my life.
I went quickly to my desk, unlocked it, and took out a photograph. ”