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

seem to be an inexorable law of Nature that no man shall shine at both ends. If he has a high forehead and a thirst for wisdom, his foxtrotting (if any) shall be as the staggerings of the drunken; while, if he is a good dancer, he is nearly always petrified from the ears upward. No better examples of this law could have been found than Henry Mills and his fellow-cashier, Sidney Mercer. In New York banks paying-cashiers, like bears, tigers, lions, and other fauna, are always shut up in a cage in pairs, and are consequently dependent on each other for entertainment and social intercourse when business is slack. Henry Mills and Sidney simply could not find a subject in common. Sidney knew absolutely nothing of even such elementary things as Abana, Aberration, Abraham, or Acrogenae; while Henry, on his side, was scarcely aware that there had been any developments in the dance since the polka. It was a relief to Henry when Sidney threw up his job to join the chorus of a musical comedy, and was succeeded by a man who, though full of limitations, could at least converse intelligently on Bowls.

Such, then, was Henry Wallace Mills. He was in the middle thirties, temperate, studious, a moderate smoker, and⁠—one would have said⁠—a bachelor of the bachelors, armour-plated against Cupid’s well-meant but obsolete artillery. Sometimes Sidney Mercer’s successor in the teller’s cage, a sentimental young man, would broach the topic of Woman and Marriage. He would ask Henry if he ever intended to get married. On such occasions Henry would look at him in a manner which was a blend of scorn, amusement, and indignation; and would reply with a single word:

“Me!”

It was the way he said it that impressed you.

But Henry had yet to experience the unmanning atmosphere of a lonely summer resort. He had only just reached the position in the bank where he was permitted to take his annual vacation in the summer. Hitherto he had always been released from his cage during the winter months, and had spent his ten days of freedom at his flat, with a book in his hand and his feet on the radiator. But the summer after Sidney Mercer’s departure they unleashed him in August.

It was meltingly warm in the city. Something in Henry cried out for the country. For a month before the beginning of his vacation he devoted much of the time that should have been given to the Encyclopaedia Britannica in reading summer-resort literature. He decided at length upon Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm because the advertisements spoke so well of it.

Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm was a rather battered frame building many miles from anywhere. Its attractions included a Lovers’ Leap, a Grotto, golf-links⁠—a five-hole course where the enthusiast found unusual hazards in the shape of a number of goats tethered at intervals between the holes⁠—and a silvery lake, only portions of which were used as a dumping-ground for tin cans and wooden boxes. It was all new and strange to Henry and caused him an odd exhilaration. Something of gaiety and reckless abandon began to creep into his veins. He had a curious feeling that in these romantic surroundings some adventure ought to happen to him.

At this juncture Minnie Hill arrived. She was a small, slim girl, thinner and paler than she should have been, with large eyes that seemed to Henry pathetic and stirred his chivalry. He began to think a good deal about Minnie Hill.

And then one evening he met her on the shores of the silvery lake. He was standing there, slapping at things that looked like mosquitoes, but could not have been, for the advertisements expressly stated that none were ever found in the neighbourhood of Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm, when along she came. She walked slowly, as if she were tired. A strange thrill, half of pity, half of something else, ran through Henry. He looked at her. She looked at him.

“Good evening,” he said.

They were the first words he had spoken to her. She never contributed to the dialogue of the dining room, and he had been too shy to seek her out in the open.

She said “Good evening,” too, tying the score. And there was silence for a moment.

Commiseration overcame Henry’s shyness.

“You’re looking tired,” he said.

“I feel tired.” She paused. “I overdid it in the city.”

“It?”

“Dancing.”

“Oh, dancing. Did you dance much?”

“Yes; a great deal.”

“Ah!”

A promising, even a dashing start. But how to continue? For the first time Henry regretted the steady determination of his methods with the Encyclopaedia. How pleasant if he could have been in a position to talk easily of Dancing. Then memory reminded him that, though he had not yet got up to Dancing, it was only a few weeks before that he had been reading of the Ballet.

“I don’t dance myself,” he said, “but I am fond of reading about it. Did you know that the word ‘ballet’ incorporated three distinct modern words, ‘ballet,’ ‘ball,’ and ‘ballad,’ and that ballet-dancing was originally accompanied by singing?”

It hit her. It had her weak. She looked at him with awe in her eyes. One might almost say that she gaped at Henry.

“I hardly know anything,” she said.

“The first descriptive ballet seen in London, England,” said Henry, quietly, “was ‘The Tavern Bilkers,’ which was played at Drury Lane in⁠—in seventeen⁠—something.”

“Was it?”

“And the earliest modern ballet on record was that given by⁠—by someone to celebrate the marriage of the Duke of Milan in 1489.”

There was no doubt or hesitation about the date this time. It was grappled to his memory by hoops of steel owing to the singular coincidence of it being also his telephone number. He gave it out with a roll, and the girl’s eyes widened.

“What an awful lot you know!”

“Oh, no,” said Henry, modestly. “I read a great deal.”

“It must be splendid to know a lot,” she said, wistfully. “I’ve never had time for reading. I’ve always wanted to. I think you’re wonderful!”

Henry’s soul was