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

looked about her and could see no flaw in it... except... She had a sudden sense of something missing.

“Hullo!” she said. “Where's that photograph of me? I'm sure I put it on the mantelpiece yesterday.”

His exertions seemed to have brought the blood to Ginger's face. He was a rich red. He inspected the mantelpiece narrowly.

“No. No photograph here.”

“I know there isn't. But it was there yesterday. Or was it? I know I meant to put it there. Perhaps I forgot. It's the most beautiful thing you ever saw. Not a bit like me; but what of that? They touch 'em up in the dark-room, you know. I value it because it looks the way I should like to look if I could.”

“I've never had a beautiful photograph taken of myself,” said Ginger, solemnly, with gentle regret.

“Cheer up!”

“Oh, I don't mind. I only mentioned...”

“Ginger,” said Sally, “pardon my interrupting your remarks, which I know are valuable, but this chair is—not—right! It ought to be where it was at the beginning. Could you give your imitation of a pack-mule just once more? And after that I'll make you some tea. If there's any tea—or milk—or cups.”

“There are cups all right. I know, because I smashed two the day before yesterday. I'll nip round the corner for some milk, shall I?”

“Yes, please nip. All this hard work has taken it out of me terribly.”

Over the tea-table Sally became inquisitive.

“What I can't understand about this job of yours. Ginger—which as you are just about to observe, I was noble enough to secure for you—is the amount of leisure that seems to go with it. How is it that you are able to spend your valuable time—Fillmore's valuable time, rather—juggling with my furniture every day?”

“Oh, I can usually get off.”

“But oughtn't you to be at your post doing—whatever it is you do? What do you do?”

Ginger stirred his tea thoughtfully and gave his mind to the question.

“Well, I sort of mess about, you know.” He pondered. “I interview divers blighters and tell 'em your brother is out and take their names and addresses and... oh, all that sort of thing.”

“Does Fillmore consult you much?”

“He lets me read some of the plays that are sent in. Awful tosh most of them. Sometimes he sends me off to a vaudeville house of an evening.”

“As a treat?”

“To see some special act, you know. To report on it. In case he might want to use it for this revue of his.”

“Which revue?”

“Didn't you know he was going to put on a revue? Oh, rather. A whacking big affair. Going to cut out the Follies and all that sort of thing.”

“But—my goodness!” Sally was alarmed. It was just like Fillmore, she felt, to go branching out into these expensive schemes when he ought to be moving warily and trying to consolidate the small success he had had. All his life he had thought in millions where the prudent man would have been content with hundreds. An inexhaustible fount of optimism bubbled eternally within him. “That's rather ambitious,” she said.

“Yes. Ambitious sort of cove, your brother. Quite the Napoleon.”

“I shall have to talk to him,” said Sally decidedly. She was annoyed with Fillmore. Everything had been going so beautifully, with everybody peaceful and happy and prosperous and no anxiety anywhere, till he had spoiled things. Now she would have to start worrying again.

“Of course,” argued Ginger, “there's money in revues. Over in London fellows make pots out of them.”

Sally shook her head.

“It won't do,” she said. “And I'll tell you another thing that won't do. This armchair. Of course it ought to be over by the window. You can see that yourself, can't you.”

“Absolutely!” said Ginger, patiently preparing for action once more.

2

Sally's anxiety with regard to her ebullient brother was not lessened by the receipt shortly afterwards of a telegram from Miss Winch in Chicago.

Have you been feeding Fillmore meat?

the telegram ran: and, while Sally could not have claimed that she completely understood it, there was a sinister suggestion about the message which decided her to wait no longer before making investigations. She tore herself away from the joys of furnishing and went round to the headquarters of the Fillmore Nicholas Theatrical Enterprises Ltd. (Managing Director, Fillmore Nicholas) without delay.

Ginger, she discovered on arrival, was absent from his customary post, his place in the outer office being taken by a lad of tender years and pimply exterior, who thawed and cast off a proud reserve on hearing Sally's name, and told her to walk right in. Sally walked right in, and found Fillmore with his feet on an untidy desk, studying what appeared to be costume-designs.

“Ah, Sally!” he said in the distrait, tired voice which speaks of vast preoccupations. Prosperity was still putting in its silent, deadly work on the Hope of the American Theatre. What, even at as late an epoch as the return from Detroit, had been merely a smooth fullness around the angle of the jaw was now frankly and without disguise a double chin. He was wearing a new waistcoat and it was unbuttoned. “I am rather busy,” he went on. “Always glad to see you, but I am rather busy. I have a hundred things to attend to.”

“Well, attend to me. That'll only make a hundred and one. Fill, what's all this I hear about a revue?”

Fillmore looked as like a small boy caught in the act of stealing jam as it is possible for a great theatrical manager to look. He had been wondering in his darker moments what Sally would say about that project when she heard of it, and he had hoped that she would not hear of it until all the preparations were so complete that interference would be impossible. He was extremely fond of Sally, but there was, he knew, a lamentable vein of caution in her make-up which might lead her to criticize. And how can your man of affairs carry on if women are buzzing round criticizing all the time? He picked up a pen and put it down; buttoned his waistcoat and unbuttoned it; and scratched his ear with one of the costume-designs.

“Oh yes, the revue!”

“It's no good saying 'Oh yes'! You know perfectly well it's a crazy idea.”

“Really... these business matters... this interference...”

“I don't want to run your affairs for you, Fill, but that money of mine does make me a sort of partner, I suppose, and I think I have a