P. G. Wodehouse

“ Before doing anything else, I felt I must see Audrey and tell her the facts in the case of Smooth Sam. If she were on her guard, my assistance might not be needed. But her present state of trust in him was fatal.
A school, when the boys are away, is a lonely place. The deserted air of the grounds, as I slipped cautiously through the trees, was almost eerie. A stillness brooded over everything, as if the place had been laid under a spell. Never before had I been so impressed with the isolation of Sanstead House. ”

“ I cannot even faintly imagine what were Mr Abney's emotions at that moment. He was a man who, from boyhood up, had led a quiet and regular life. Things like Buck had appeared to him hitherto, if they appeared at all, only in dreams after injudicious suppers. Even in the ordinary costume of the Bowery gentleman, without such adventitious extras as masks and pistols, Buck was no beauty. With that hideous strip of dingy white linen on his face, he was a walking nightmare. ”

“ I am writing by the light of an imperfect memory; and the work is complicated by the fact that the early days of my sojourn at Sanstead House are a blur, a confused welter like a Futurist picture, from which emerge haphazard the figures of boys—boys working, boys eating, boys playing football, boys whispering, shouting, asking questions, banging doors, jumping on beds, and clattering upstairs and along passages, the whole picture faintly scented with a composite aroma consisting of roast beef, ink, chalk, and that curious classroom smell which is like nothing else on earth. ”

“ My self-control broke down.
'Audrey,' I cried, 'for God's sake can't you see what you're doing? We have been given a second chance. Our happiness is in your hands again, and you are throwing it away. Why should we make ourselves wretched for the whole of our lives? What does anything else matter except that we love each other? Why should we let anything stand in our way? ”

“ In the small hours I could have understood it; but at nine o'clock at night, with Glossop, Mr Abney and myself awake and liable to be met at any moment on the stairs, it was absurd. I marvelled at Smooth Sam's effrontery.
I lay still. I imagined that, being in, he would switch on the electric light. He did, and I greeted him pleasantly.
'And what can I do for you, Mr Fisher?'
For a man who had learned to control himself in difficult situations he took the shock badly. He uttered a startled exclamation and spun round, open-mouthed. ”

“ Astonishment does not last. The fact of Audrey and myself being under the same roof after all these years had ceased to amaze me. It was a minor point, and my mind shelved it in order to deal with the one thing that really mattered, the fact that she had come back into my life just when I had definitely, as I thought, put her out of it.
My resentment deepened. Fate had played me a wanton trick. Cynthia trusted me. If I were weak, I should not be the only one to suffer. ”

“ You won't regret taking me on as a partner. You won't lose a cent by it. I can work him for just double what you would get, even supposing you didn't make a mess of the deal and get nothing.'
'It's very good of you, but there won't be any negotiations with Mr Ford. I am taking the boy back to Sanstead, as I told you.' I caught his pained eye. 'I'm afraid you don't believe me.'
He drew at his cigar without replying.
It is a human weakness to wish to convince those who doubt us, even if their opinion is not intrinsically valuable. I remembered that I had Cynthia's letter in my pocket. ”

“ Cynthia Drassilis closed the door and smiled.
'A nervous young person!' she said. 'What was he saying about a yacht, Nesta?'
Mrs Ford roused herself from her fascinated contemplation of
Ogden.
'Oh, nothing. 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. ”

“ Glossop came up at a gallop, springing from stair to stair like the chamois of the Alps.
'We must telephone for the police!' he cried.
'I have telephoned,' said Audrey, 'ten minutes ago. They are sending some men at once. Mr Glossop, was Ogden Ford in your classroom?'
'No, Mrs Sheridan. I thought he was with you, Burns.'
I shook my head.
'Those men came to kidnap him, Mr Glossop,' said Audrey.
'Undoubtedly the gang of scoundrels to which that man the other night belonged! This is preposterous. My nerves will not stand these repeated outrages. We must have police protection. ”

“ Why was a man given chances of happiness without the sense to realize and use them? If Nature had made me so self-satisfied that I had lost Audrey because of my self-satisfaction why had she not made me so self-satisfied that I could lose her without a pang? Audrey! It annoyed me that, whenever I was free for a moment from active work, my thoughts should keep turning to her. It frightened me, too. Engaged to Cynthia, I had no right to have such thoughts. ”

“ Quite early in my sojourn I enjoyed that sweetest triumph of the assistant-master's life, the spectacle of one boy smacking another boy's head because the latter persisted in making a noise after I had told him to stop. I doubt if a man can experience so keenly in any other way that thrill which comes from the knowledge that the populace is his friend. Political orators must have the same sort of feeling when their audience clamours for the ejection of a heckler, but it cannot be so keen. ”

“ I needn't pose to you, Nesta, thank goodness! That's one reason why I'm fond of you. You know how I am situated. I've got to marry some one rich, and Peter's quite the nicest rich man I've ever met. He's really wonderfully unselfish. I can't understand it. With his money, you would expect him to be a perfect horror.'
A thought seemed to strike Mrs Ford.
'But, if he's so rich—' she began. 'I forget what I was going to say,' she broke off.
'Dear Nesta, I know what you were going to say. If he's so rich, why should he be marrying me, when he could take his pick of half London? ”

“ In estimating the possibilities of attack, I had figured assaults as coming only from below. I had omitted from my calculations the fact that the loft had a roof.
It was a scraping on the tiles above my head that first brought the new danger-point to my notice. There followed the sound of heavy hammering, and with it came a sickening realization of the truth of what Sam had said. We were beaten.
I was too paralysed by the unexpectedness of the attack to form any plan; and, indeed, I do not think that there was anything that I could have done. I was unarmed and helpless. ”

“ There were moments when I clung to the memory of her, when she seemed the only thing solid and safe in a world of chaos, and moments, again, when she was a burden crushing me. There were days when I would give up the struggle and let myself drift, and days when I would fight myself inch by inch. But every day found my position more hopeless than the last. ”

“ And yet there remained something that made for uneasiness, a sort of foreboding at the back of my mind.
I had taken a step in the dark, and I was afraid for Cynthia. I had undertaken to give her happiness. Was I certain that I could succeed? The glow of chivalry had left me, and I began to doubt.
Audrey had taken from me something that I could not recover—poetry was as near as I could get to a definition of it. Yes, poetry. With Cynthia my feet would always be on the solid earth. To the end of the chapter we should be friends and nothing more. ”

“ Mrs Drassilis blocked the motion. I imagine that the sharp note in her voice was lost on Tanky, but it rang out like a clarion to me.
'I am in no hurry,' she said. 'Mr Gifford, will you take Cynthia?
I will follow with Mr Burns. You will meet Parker on the stairs.
Tell him to call another cab.'
As the door closed behind them, she turned on me like a many-coloured snake.
'How can you be so extraordinarily tactless, Peter?' she cried.
'You're a perfect fool. Have you no eyes?'
'I'm sorry,' I said. ”

“ It was odd to wake up and realize that I was in London. Years seemed to have passed since I had left it. Time is a thing of emotions, not of hours and minutes, and I had certainly packed a considerable number of emotional moments into my stay at Sanstead House. I lay in bed, reviewing the past, while Smith, with a cheerful clatter of crockery, prepared my breakfast in the next room. ”

“ It was at the height of this period that I became engaged to Audrey. Now that I can understand her better and see myself, impartially, as I was in those days, I can realize how indescribably offensive I must have been. My love was real, but that did not prevent its patronizing complacency being an insult. I was King Cophetua. If I did not actually say in so many words, 'This beggar-maid shall be my queen', I said it plainly and often in my manner. She was the daughter of a dissolute, evil-tempered artist whom I had met at a Bohemian club. ”

“ The upper part of his face was covered by a strip of white linen, with holes for the eyes, and there was a Browning pistol in his hand.
It is my belief that, if assistant-masters were allowed to wear white masks and carry automatic pistols, keeping order in a school would become child's play. A silence such as no threat of bad marks had ever been able to produce fell instantaneously upon the classroom. Out of the corner of my eye, as I turned to face our visitor, I could see small boys goggling rapturously at this miraculous realization of all the dreams induced by juvenile adventure fiction. ”

“ I disengaged myself—Mr MacGinnis strangely quiescent during the process—and was on my feet in the safety of the darkness just as the reinforcement touched earth. This time I did not wait. My hunger for fight had been appeased to some extent by my brush with Buck, and I was satisfied to have achieved safety with honour.
Making a wide detour I crossed the drive and worked my way through the bushes to within a few yards of where the automobile stood, filling the night with the soft purring of its engines. I was interested to see what would be the enemy's next move. ”

“ Up to this point, my match, long since extinguished, had been the only illumination the affair had received; but now somebody, who proved to be White, the butler, came from the direction of the stable-yard with a carriage-lamp. Every one seemed calmer and happier for it. The boys stopped squealing, Mrs Attwell and Glossop subsided, and Mr Abney said 'Ah!' in a self-satisfied voice, as if he had directed this move and was congratulating himself on the success with which it had been carried out.
The whole strength of the company gathered round the light. ”

“ He had decided on the evidence that I was Smooth Sam Fisher, and no denials on my part were going to shake his belief. He looked on them merely as so many unsportsmanlike quibbles prompted by greed.
'Tell it to Sweeney!' was the form in which he crystallized his scepticism.
'May be you'll say youse ain't trailin' de Nugget, huh?'
It was a home-thrust. If truth-telling has become a habit, one gets slowly off the mark when the moment arrives for the prudent lie. Quite against my will, I hesitated. Observant Mr MacGinnis perceived my hesitation and expectorated triumphantly. ”

“ Would professional zeal cause him to omit his beauty sleep?
I did not relish the idea of spending the night patrolling the grounds, but it was imperative that the house be protected. Then it occurred to me that the man for the vigil was Smooth Sam. If the arrival of Mr MacGinnis had complicated matters in one way, it had simplified them in another, for there was no more need for the secrecy which had been, till now, the basis of my plan of action. Buck's arrival made it possible for me to come out and fight in the open, instead of brooding over Sanstead House from afar like a Providence. ”

“ We permit the great general, confronted suddenly with a mad bull, to turn and run, without forfeiting his reputation for courage. The bishop who, stepping on a concealed slide in winter, entertains passers-by with momentary rag-time steps, loses none of his dignity once the performance is concluded.
In the same way we must condone the behaviour of Cynthia Drassilis on opening the door of Mrs Ford's sitting-room and admitting, not Ogden, but this total stranger, who accompanied his entry with the remarkable speech recorded at the close of the last section. ”

“ The Little Nugget strolled easily into the circle of light. He was wearing a dressing-gown, and in his hand was a smouldering cigarette, from which he proceeded, before continuing his remarks, to blow a cloud of smoke.
'Say, I guess you're wrong. That wasn't any ordinary porch-climber.'
The spectacle of his bete noire wreathed in smoke, coming on top of the emotions of the night, was almost too much for Mr Abney. He gesticulated for a moment in impassioned silence, his arms throwing grotesque shadows on the gravel.
'How dare you smoke, boy! ”

“ The hour breeds thought. At twenty-one, life being all future, it may be examined with impunity. But, at thirty, having become an uncomfortable mixture of future and past, it is a thing to be looked at only when the sun is high and the world full of warmth and optimism.
This thought came to me as I returned to my rooms after the Fletchers' ball. The dawn was breaking as I let myself in. The air was heavy with the peculiar desolation of a London winter morning. ”

“ 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.
His death had several results. It postponed the wedding: it stirred me to a very crescendo of patronage, for with the removal of the bread-winner the only flaw in my Cophetua pose had vanished: and it gave Audrey a great deal more scope than she had hitherto been granted for the exercise of free will in the choice of a husband. ”

“ To search at random for an individual unit among London's millions lends an undeniable attraction to a day in town. In a desultory way I pursued my investigations through the morning and afternoon, but neither of Ogden nor of his young friend Lord Beckford was I vouchsafed a glimpse. My consolation was that Smooth Sam was probably being equally unsuccessful.
Towards the evening there arose the question of return to Sanstead. I had not gathered whether Mr Abney had intended to set any time-limit on my wanderings, or whether I was not supposed to come back except with the deserters. ”

“ In the moment of their downfall I was able to form a plan and execute it.
'The stables!'
I shouted the words to Audrey in the act of snatching up the Nugget and starting to run. She understood. She did not hesitate in the direction of the house for even the instant which might have undone us, but was with me at once; and we were across the open space and in the stable-yard before the first of the men in the drive loomed up through the darkness. Half of the wooden double-gate of the yard was open, and the other half served us as a shield. ”

“ You have had little or no previous experience of school-mastering?'
'None whatever.'
'Then your best plan would undoubtedly be to consider yourself and work for a time simply as an ordinary assistant-master. You would thus get a sound knowledge of the intricacies of the profession which would stand you in good stead when you decide to set up your own school. School-mastering is a profession, which cannot be taught adequately except in practice. "Only those who—ah—brave its dangers comprehend its mystery." ”

“ In my misery I cursed Cynthia for leading me into this tangle.
I heard my name spoken, and turned to find White at my elbow.
'Mr Abney would like to see you, sir.'
I went upstairs, glad to escape. The tension of the situation had begun to tear at my nerves.
'Cub id, Bister Burds,' said my employer, swallowing a lozenge. His aspect was more dazed than ever. 'White has just bade an—ah—extraordinary cobbudicatiod to me. It seebs he is in reality a detective, an employee of Pidkertod's Agedcy, of which you have, of course—ah—heard.'
So White had revealed himself. On the whole, I was not surprised. ”

“ I looked for frontal attack from Buck, not subtlety; but, when the attack came, it was so excessively frontal that my chief emotion was a sort of paralysed amazement. It seemed incredible that such peculiarly Wild Western events could happen in peaceful England, even in so isolated a spot as Sanstead House.
It had been one of those interminable days which occur only at schools. A school, more than any other institution, is dependent on the weather. Every small boy rises from his bed of a morning charged with a definite quantity of devilry ”

“ I had not been at Sanstead House two days before doubts began to creep in on this point. What the boy, observing the assistant-master standing about in apparently magnificent idleness, does not realize is that the unfortunate is really putting in a spell of exceedingly hard work. He is 'taking duty'. And 'taking duty' is a thing to be remembered, especially by a man who, like myself, has lived a life of fatted ease, protected from all the minor annoyances of life by a substantial income. ”

“ The clashing of those wills must have smacked of a collision between the immovable mass and the irresistible force.
He met Mrs Ford's stare with one equally militant, then turned to me.
'I'll give you double what she has offered you,' he said. He paused, and eyed me with loathing. 'You damned scoundrel,' he added.
Custom ought to have rendered me immune to irritation, but it had not. I spoke my mind.
'One of these days, Mr Ford,' I said, 'I am going to publish a directory of the names and addresses of the people who have mistaken me for Smooth Sam Fisher. I am not Sam Fisher. ”

“ Tell me, you don't take me for that sort of ivory-skulled boob? Do you imagine for one instant, sonny, that I'm not next to every move in this game? Are you deluding yourself with the idea that this thing isn't a perfect cinch for me? Let's hear what's troubling you. You seem to have gotten some foolish ideas in your head. Let's talk it over quietly.'
'If you have no objection,' I said, 'no. I don't want to talk to you, Mr Fisher. I don't like you, and I don't like your way of earning your living. Buck MacGinnis was bad enough, but at least he was a straightforward tough. ”

“ I was so relieved that he was not a Pinkerton's man that I did not really care what else he might be.
'It's always been a habit of mine, in these little matters,' he went on, 'to let other folks do the rough work, and chip in myself when they've cleared the way. It saves trouble and expense. I don't travel with a gang, like that bone-headed Buck. What's the use of a gang? They only get tumbling over each other and spoiling everything. Look at Buck! ”

“ I shall get that job, sonny. Old man Ford isn't a fool, and it won't take him long, when he gets to thinking it over, to see that I'm right. He'll hire me.'
'Aren't you rather reckoning without your partner?' I said. 'Where does Buck MacGinnis come in on the deal?'
Sam patted my shoulder paternally.
'He doesn't, sonny, he doesn't. It was a shame to do it—it was like taking candy from a kid—but business is business, and I was reluctantly compelled to double-cross poor old Buck. I sneaked the Nugget away from him next day. It's not worth talking about; it was too easy. ”

“ It seemed curious to me that in a life of thirty years I should have been able to find, among the hundreds of women I had met, only one capable of creating in me that disquieting welter of emotions which is called love, and hard that that one should reciprocate my feeling only to the extent of the mild liking which Audrey entertained for me. ”

“ A belated sense of professional duty returned to Glossop and myself. We descended the stairs and began to do our best, in our respective styles, to produce order. It was not an easy task. Small boys are always prone to make a noise, even without provocation. When they get a genuine excuse like the incursion of men in white masks, who prod assistant-masters in the small of the back with Browning pistols, they tend to eclipse themselves. ”