Psmith in the City, P. G. Wodehouse [beach read TXT] 📗

was my greatest chum on earth. So the thing was fixed up and here I am. But you are not getting on with your porridge, Comrade Jackson. Perhaps you don’t care for porridge? Would you like a finnan haddock, instead? Or a piece of shortbread? You have only to say the word.”

“It seems to me,” said Mike gloomily, “that we are in for a pretty rotten time of it in this bally bank. If Bickersdyke’s got his knife into us, he can make it jolly warm for us. He’s got his knife into me all right about that walking-across-the-screen business.”

“True,” said Psmith, “to a certain extent. It is an undoubted fact that Comrade Bickersdyke will have a jolly good try at making life a nuisance to us; but, on the other hand, I propose, so far as in me lies, to make things moderately unrestful for him, here and there.”

“But you can’t,” objected Mike. “What I mean to say is, it isn’t like a school. If you wanted to score off a master at school, you could always rag and so on. But here you can’t. How can you rag a man who’s sitting all day in a room of his own while you’re sweating away at a desk at the other end of the building?”

“You put the case with admirable clearness, Comrade Jackson,” said Psmith approvingly. “At the hardheaded, commonsense business you sneak the biscuit every time with ridiculous ease. But you do not know all. I do not propose to do a thing in the bank except work. I shall be a model as far as work goes. I shall be flawless. I shall bound to do Comrade Rossiter’s bidding like a highly trained performing dog. It is outside the bank, when I have staggered away dazed with toil, that I shall resume my attention to the education of Comrade Bickersdyke.”

“But, dash it all, how can you? You won’t see him. He’ll go off home, or to his club, or⁠—”

Psmith tapped him earnestly on the chest.

“There, Comrade Jackson,” he said, “you have hit the bull’s-eye, rung the bell, and gathered in the cigar or coconut according to choice. He will go off to his club. And I shall do precisely the same.”

“How do you mean?”

“It is this way. My father, as you may have noticed during your stay at our stately home of England, is a man of a warm, impulsive character. He does not always do things as other people would do them. He has his own methods. Thus, he has sent me into the City to do the hardworking, bank clerk act, but at the same time he is allowing me just as large an allowance as he would have given me if I had gone to the ’Varsity. Moreover, while I was still at Eton he put my name up for his clubs, the Senior Conservative among others. My pater belongs to four clubs altogether, and in course of time, when my name comes up for election, I shall do the same. Meanwhile, I belong to one, the Senior Conservative. It is a bigger club than the others, and your name comes up for election sooner. About the middle of last month a great yell of joy made the West End of London shake like a jelly. The three thousand members of the Senior Conservative had just learned that I had been elected.”

Psmith paused, and ate some porridge.

“I wonder why they call this porridge,” he observed with mild interest. “It would be far more manly and straightforward of them to give it its real name. To resume. I have gleaned, from casual chitchat with my father, that Comrade Bickersdyke also infests the Senior Conservative. You might think that that would make me, seeing how particular I am about whom I mix with, avoid the club. Error. I shall go there every day. If Comrade Bickersdyke wishes to emend any little traits in my character of which he may disapprove, he shall never say that I did not give him the opportunity. I shall mix freely with Comrade Bickersdyke at the Senior Conservative Club. I shall be his constant companion. I shall, in short, haunt the man. By these strenuous means I shall, as it were, get a bit of my own back. And now,” said Psmith, rising, “it might be as well, perhaps, to return to the bank and resume our commercial duties. I don’t know how long you are supposed to be allowed for your little trips to and from the post office, but, seeing that the distance is about thirty yards, I should say at a venture not more than half an hour. Which is exactly the space of time which has flitted by since we started out on this important expedition. Your devotion to porridge, Comrade Jackson, has led to our spending about twenty-five minutes in this hostelry.”

“Great Scott,” said Mike, “there’ll be a row.”

“Some slight temporary breeze, perhaps,” said Psmith. “Annoying to men of culture and refinement, but not lasting. My only fear is lest we may have worried Comrade Rossiter at all. I regard Comrade Rossiter as an elder brother, and would not cause him a moment’s heartburning for worlds. However, we shall soon know,” he added, as they passed into the bank and walked up the aisle, “for there is Comrade Rossiter waiting to receive us in person.”

The little head of the Postage Department was moving restlessly about in the neighbourhood of Psmith’s and Mike’s desk.

“Am I mistaken,” said Psmith to Mike, “or is there the merest suspicion of a worried look on our chief’s face? It seems to me that there is the slightest soupçon of shadow about that broad, calm brow.”

VII Going Into Winter Quarters

There was.

Mr. Rossiter had discovered Psmith’s and Mike’s absence about five minutes after they had left the building. Ever since then, he had been popping out of his lair at intervals of three minutes, to see whether they