The Adventures of Sally, P. G. Wodehouse [interesting novels in english txt] 📗

Fillmore awoke from happy dreams.

“Eh?”

“I said 'Yes, do.' I think you owe it to your position.”

“Do what?”

“Buy a fur coat. Wasn't that what you were meditating about?”

“Don't be a chump,” said Fillmore, blushing nevertheless. It was true that once or twice during the past week he had toyed negligently, as Mr. Bunbury would have said, with the notion, and why not? A fellow must keep warm.

“With an astrakhan collar,” insisted Sally.

“As a matter of fact,” said Fillmore loftily, his great soul ill-attuned to this badinage, “what I was really thinking about at the moment was something Ike said.”

“Ike?”

“Ike Schumann. He's on the train. I met him just now.”

“We call him Ike!”

“Of course I call him Ike,” said Fillmore heatedly. “Everyone calls him Ike.”

“He wears a fur coat,” Sally murmured.

Fillmore registered annoyance.

“I wish you wouldn't keep on harping on that damned coat. And, anyway, why shouldn't I have a fur coat?”

“Fill...! How can you be so brutal as to suggest that I ever said you shouldn't? Why, I'm one of the strongest supporters of the fur coat. With big cuffs. And you must roll up Fifth Avenue in your car, and I'll point and say 'That's my brother!' 'Your brother? No!' 'He is, really.' 'You're joking. Why, that's the great Fillmore Nicholas.' 'I know. But he really is my brother. And I was with him when he bought that coat.'”

“Do leave off about the coat!”

“'And it isn't only the coat,' I shall say. 'It's what's underneath. Tucked away inside that mass of fur, dodging about behind that dollar cigar, is one to whom we point with pride... '”

Fillmore looked coldly at his watch.

“I've got to go and see Ike Schumann.”

“We are in hourly consultation with Ike.”

“He wants to see me about the show. He suggests putting it into Chicago before opening in New York.”

“Oh no,” cried Sally, dismayed.

“Why not?”

Sally recovered herself. Identifying Gerald so closely with his play, she had supposed for a moment that if the piece opened in Chicago it would mean a further prolonged separation from him. But of course there would be no need, she realized, for him to stay with the company after the first day or two.

“You're thinking that we ought to have a New York reputation before tackling Chicago. There's a lot to be said for that. Still, it works both ways. A Chicago run would help us in New York. Well, I'll have to think it over,” said Fillmore, importantly, “I'll have to think it over.”

He mused with drawn brows.

“All wrong,” said Sally.

“Eh?”

“Not a bit like it. The lips should be compressed and the forefinger of the right hand laid in a careworn way against the right temple. You've a lot to learn. Fill.”

“Oh, stop it!”

“Fillmore Nicholas,” said Sally, “if you knew what pain it gives me to josh my only brother, you'd be sorry for me. But you know it's for your good. Now run along and put Ike out of his misery. I know he's waiting for you with his watch out. 'You do think he'll come, Miss Nicholas?' were his last words to me as he stepped on the train, and oh, Fill, the yearning in his voice. 'Why, of course he will, Mr. Schumann,' I said. 'For all his exalted position, my brother is kindliness itself. Of course he'll come.' 'If I could only think so!' he said with a gulp. 'If I could only think so. But you know what these managers are. A thousand calls on their time. They get brooding on their fur coats and forget everything else.' 'Have no fear, Mr. Schumann,' I said. 'Fillmore Nicholas is a man of his word.'”

She would have been willing, for she was a girl who never believed in sparing herself where it was a question of entertaining her nearest and dearest, to continue the dialogue, but Fillmore was already moving down the car, his rigid back a silent protest against sisterly levity. Sally watched him disappear, then picked up a magazine and began to read.

She had just finished tracking a story of gripping interest through a jungle of advertisements, only to find that it was in two parts, of which the one she was reading was the first, when a voice spoke.

“How do you do, Miss Nicholas?”

Into the seat before her, recently released from the weight of the coming manager, Bruce Carmyle of all people in the world insinuated himself with that well-bred air of deferential restraint which never left him.

2

Sally was considerably startled. Everybody travels nowadays, of course, and there is nothing really remarkable in finding a man in America whom you had supposed to be in Europe: but nevertheless she was conscious of a dream-like sensation, as though the clock had been turned back and a chapter of her life reopened which she had thought closed for ever.

“Mr. Carmyle!” she cried.

If Sally had been constantly in Bruce Carmyle's thoughts since they had parted on the Paris express, Mr. Carmyle had been very little in Sally's—so little, indeed, that she had had to search her memory for a moment before she identified him.

“We're always meeting on trains, aren't we?” she went on, her composure returning. “I never expected to see you in America.”

“I came over.”

Sally was tempted to reply that she gathered that, but a sudden embarrassment curbed her tongue. She had just remembered that at their last meeting she had been abominably rude to this man. She was never rude to anyone, without subsequent remorse. She contented herself with a tame “Yes.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Carmyle, “it is a good many years since I have taken a real holiday. My doctor seemed to think I was a trifle run down. It seemed a good opportunity to visit America. Everybody,” said Mr. Carmyle oracularly, endeavouring, as he had often done since his ship had left England, to persuade himself that his object in making the trip had not been merely to renew his acquaintance with Sally, “everybody ought to visit America at least once. It is part of one's education.”

“And what are your impressions of our glorious country?” said Sally rallying.

Mr. Carmyle seemed glad of the opportunity of lecturing