Psmith, Journalist, P. G. Wodehouse [top 5 ebook reader .txt] 📗

building occupied by more than two families. Well, when there’s a fuss, all the man has to do is to clear out all the families but two. Then, when the inspector fellow comes along, and says, let’s say, ‘Where’s your running water on each floor? That’s what the law says you’ve got to have, and here are these people having to go downstairs and out of doors to fetch their water supplies,’ the landlord simply replies, ‘Nothing doing. This isn’t a tenement house at all. There are only two families here.’ And when the fuss has blown over, back come the rest of the crowd, and things go on the same as before.”

“I see,” said Psmith. “A very cheery scheme.”

“Then there’s another thing. You can’t get hold of the man who’s really responsible, unless you’re prepared to spend thousands ferreting out evidence. The land belongs in the first place to some corporation or other. They lease it to a lessee. When there’s a fuss, they say they aren’t responsible, it’s up to the lessee. And he lies so low that you can’t find out who he is. It’s all just like the East. Everything in the East is as crooked as Pearl Street. If you want a square deal, you’ve got to come out Wyoming way.”

“The main problem, then,” said Psmith, “appears to be the discovery of the lessee, lad? Surely a powerful organ like Cosy Moments, with its vast ramifications, could bring off a thing like that?”

“I doubt it. We’ll try, anyway. There’s no knowing but what we may have luck.”

“Precisely,” said Psmith. “Full steam ahead, and trust to luck. The chances are that, if we go on long enough, we shall eventually arrive somewhere. After all, Columbus didn’t know that America existed when he set out. All he knew was some highly interesting fact about an egg. What that was, I do not at the moment recall, but it bucked Columbus up like a tonic. It made him fizz ahead like a two-year-old. The facts which will nerve us to effort are two. In the first place, we know that there must be someone at the bottom of the business. Secondly, as there appears to be no law of libel whatsoever in this great and free country, we shall be enabled to haul up our slacks with a considerable absence of restraint.”

“Sure,” said Billy Windsor. “Which of us is going to write the first article?”

“You may leave it to me, Comrade Windsor. I am no hardened old journalist, I fear, but I have certain qualifications for the post. A young man once called at the office of a certain newspaper, and asked for a job. ‘Have you any special line?’ asked the editor. ‘Yes,’ said the bright lad, ‘I am rather good at invective.’ ‘Any special kind of invective?’ queried the man up top. ‘No,’ replied our hero, ‘just general invective.’ Such is my own case, Comrade Windsor. I am a very fair purveyor of good, general invective. And as my visit to Pleasant Street is of such recent date, I am tolerably full of my subject. Taking full advantage of the benevolent laws of this country governing libel, I fancy I will produce a screed which will make this anonymous lessee feel as if he had inadvertently seated himself upon a tin-tack. Give me pen and paper, Comrade Windsor, instruct Comrade Maloney to suspend his whistling till such time as I am better able to listen to it; and I think we have got a success.”

X Going Some

There was once an editor of a paper in the Far West who was sitting at his desk, musing pleasantly of life, when a bullet crashed through the window and embedded itself in the wall at the back of his head. A happy smile lit up the editor’s face. “Ah,” he said complacently, “I knew that Personal column of ours was going to be a success!”

What the bullet was to the Far West editor, the visit of Mr. Francis Parker to the offices of Cosy Moments was to Billy Windsor.

It occurred in the third week of the new régime of the paper. Cosy Moments, under its new management, had bounded ahead like a motorcar when the throttle is opened. Incessant work had been the order of the day. Billy Windsor’s hair had become more dishevelled than ever, and even Psmith had at moments lost a certain amount of his dignified calm. Sandwiched in between the painful case of Kid Brady and the matter of the tenements, which formed the star items of the paper’s contents, was a mass of bright reading dealing with the events of the day. Billy Windsor’s newspaper friends had turned in some fine, snappy stuff in their best Yellow Journal manner, relating to the more stirring happenings in the city. Psmith, who had constituted himself guardian of the literary and dramatic interests of the paper, had employed his gift of general invective to considerable effect, as was shown by a conversation between Master Maloney and a visitor one morning, heard through the open door.

“I wish to see the editor of this paper,” said the visitor.

“Editor not in,” said Master Maloney, untruthfully.

“Ha! Then when he returns I wish you to give him a message.”

“Sure.”

“I am Aubrey Bodkin, of the National Theatre. Give him my compliments, and tell him that Mr. Bodkin does not lightly forget.”

An unsolicited testimonial which caused Psmith the keenest satisfaction.

The section of the paper devoted to Kid Brady was attractive to all those with sporting blood in them. Each week there appeared in the same place on the same page a portrait of the Kid, looking moody and important, in an attitude of self-defence, and under the portrait the legend, “Jimmy Garvin must meet this boy.” Jimmy was the present holder of the lightweight title. He had won it a year before, and since then had confined himself to smoking cigars as long as walking