Short Fiction, P. G. Wodehouse [books for 20 year olds .txt] 📗

Short Fiction

By P. G. Wodehouse.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint When Papa Swore in Hindustani Tom, Dick, and Harry In Alcala I II III IV V VI Out of School Ahead of Schedule By Advice of Counsel Deep Waters Misunderstood Rough-Hew Them How We Will The Goalkeeper and the Plutocrat The Good Angel The Man Upstairs The Man, the Maid, and the Miasma When Doctors Disagree Pots O’Money The Best Sauce Three from Dunsterville Disentangling Old Duggie Ruth in Exile Sir Agravaine The Man Who Disliked Cats The Tuppenny Millionaire Something to Worry About Crowned Heads Death at the Excelsior I II III IV V VI VII One Touch of Nature At Geisenheimer’s Bill the Bloodhound Black for Luck Concealed Art The Making of Mac’s The Mixer I: He Meets a Shy Gentleman II: He Moves in Society The Romance of an Ugly Policeman The Test Case Wilton’s Holiday The Man with Two Left Feet A Sea of Troubles Absent Treatment Mister Potter Takes a Rest Cure Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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When Papa Swore in Hindustani

“Sylvia!”

“Yes, papa.”

“That infernal dog of yours⁠—”

“Oh, papa!”

“Yes, that infernal dog of yours has been at my carnations again!”

Colonel Reynolds, V.C., glared sternly across the table at Miss Sylvia Reynolds, and Miss Sylvia Reynolds looked in a deprecatory manner back at Colonel Reynolds, V.C.; while the dog in question⁠—a foppish pug⁠—happening to meet the colonel’s eye in transit, crawled unostentatiously under the sideboard, and began to wrestle with a bad conscience.

“Oh, naughty Tommy!” said Miss Reynolds mildly, in the direction of the sideboard.

“Yes, my dear,” assented the colonel; “and if you could convey to him the information that if he does it once more⁠—yes, just once more!⁠—I shall shoot him on the spot you would be doing him a kindness.” And the colonel bit a large crescent out of his toast, with all the energy and conviction of a man who has thoroughly made up his mind. “At six o’clock this morning,” continued he, in a voice of gentle melancholy, “I happened to look out of my bedroom window, and saw him. He had then destroyed two of my best plants, and was commencing on a third, with every appearance of self-satisfaction. I threw two large brushes and a boot at him.”

“Oh, papa! They didn’t hit him?”

“No, my dear, they did not. The brushes missed him by several yards, and the boot smashed a fourth carnation. However, I was so fortunate as to attract his attention, and he left off.”

“I can’t think what makes him do it. I suppose it’s bones. He’s got bones buried all over the garden.”

“Well, if he does it again, you’ll find that there will be a few more bones buried in the garden!” said the colonel grimly; and he subsided into his paper.

Sylvia loved the dog partly for its own sake, but principally for that of the giver, one Reginald Dallas, whom it had struck at an early period of their acquaintance that he and Miss Sylvia Reynolds were made for one another. On communicating this discovery to Sylvia herself he had found that her views upon the subject were identical with his own; and all would have gone well had it not been for a melancholy accident.

One day while out shooting with the colonel, with whom he was doing his best to ingratiate himself, with a view to obtaining his consent to the match, he had allowed his sporting instincts to carry him away to such a degree that, in sporting parlance, he wiped his eye badly. Now, the colonel prided himself with justice on his powers as a shot; but on this particular day he had a touch of liver, which resulted in his shooting over the birds, and under the birds, and on each side of the birds, but very rarely at the birds. Dallas being in especially good form, it was found, when the bag came to be counted, that, while he had shot seventy brace, the colonel had only managed to secure five and a half!

His bad marksmanship destroyed the last remnant of his temper. He swore for half an hour in Hindustani, and for another half-hour in English. After that he felt better. And when, at the end of dinner, Sylvia came to him with the absurd request that she might marry Mr. Reginald Dallas he did not have a fit, but merely signified in fairly moderate terms his entire and absolute refusal to think of such a thing.

This had happened a month before, and the pug, which had changed hands in the earlier days of the friendship, still remained, at the imminent risk of its life,