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

perceived a pair of shutters, and shut them. He moved the washhand-stand till it rested against the shutters. He placed two chairs and a small bookcase against the washhand-stand. Then he went to bed, leaving the light burning.

“Day by day, in every way,” said Mr. Potter, “I am getting better and better.”

But his voice lacked the ring of true conviction.

Sunshine filtering in through the shutters, and the song of birds busy in the ivy outside his window, woke Mr. Potter at an early hour next morning; but it was some time before he could bring himself to spring from his bed to greet another day. His disturbed night had left him heavy and lethargic. When finally he had summoned up the energy to rise and remove the zareba in front of the window and open the shutters, he became aware that a glorious morning was upon the world. The samples of sunlight that had crept into the room had indicated only feebly the golden wealth without.

But there was no corresponding sunshine in Mr. Potter’s heart. Spiritually as well as physically he was at a low ebb. The more he examined the position of affairs, the less he liked it. He went down to breakfast in pensive mood.

Breakfast at Skeldings was an informal meal, and visitors were expected to take it when they pleased, irrespective of the movements of their hostess, who was a late riser. In the dining-room, when Mr. Potter entered it, only the daughter of the house was present.

Bobbie was reading the morning paper. She nodded cheerfully to him over its top.

“Good morning, Mr. Potter. I hope you slept well.” Mr. Potter winced.

“Miss Wickham,” he said, “last night an appalling thing occurred.”

A startled look came into Bobbie’s eyes.

“You don’t mean⁠—Mr. Gandle?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Mr. Potter, what?”

“Just as I was going to bed, the man knocked at my door and asked if he could borrow my razah⁠—I mean my razor.”

“You didn’t lend it to him?”

“No, I did not,” replied Mr. Potter, with a touch of asperity. “I barricaded the door.”

“How wise of you!”

“And at two in the morning he came in through the window!”

“How horrible!”

“He took my razor. Why he did not attack me, I cannot say. But, having obtained it, he grinned at me in a ghastly way and went out.”

There was a silence.

“Have an egg or something,” said Bobbie, in a hushed voice.

“Thank you, I will take a little ham,” whispered Mr. Potter.

There was another silence.

“I’m afraid,” said Bobbie at length, “you will have to go.”

“That is what I think.”

“It is quite evident that Mr. Gandle has taken one of his uncontrollable dislikes to you.”

“Yes.”

“What I think you ought to do is to leave quite quietly, without saying goodbye or anything, so that he won’t know where you’ve gone and won’t be able to follow you. Then you could write mother a letter, saying that you had to go because of Mr. Gandle’s persecution.”

“Exactly.”

“You needn’t say anything about his being mad. She knows that. Just say that he ducked you in the moat and then came into your room at two in the morning and made faces at you. She will understand.”

“Yes. I⁠—”

“Hush!”

Clifford Gandle came into the room.

“Good morning,” said Bobbie.

“Good morning,” said Mr. Gandle.

He helped himself to a poached egg; and, glancing across the table at the publisher, was concerned to note how wan and sombre was his aspect. If ever a man looked as if he were on the verge of putting an end to everything, that man was John Hamilton Potter.

Clifford Gandle was not feeling particularly festive himself at the moment, for he was a man who depended greatly for his well-being on a placid eight hours of sleep; but he exerted himself to be bright and optimistic.

“What a lovely morning!” he trilled.

“Yes,” said Mr. Potter.

“Surely such weather is enough to make any man happy and satisfied with life.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Potter, doubtfully.

“Who, with all Na-chah smiling, could seriously contemplate removing himself from so bright a world?”

“George Philibert, of 32, Acacia Road, Cricklewood, did,” said Bobbie, who had resumed her study of the paper.

“Eh?” said Mr. Gandle.

“George Philibert, of 32, Acacia Road, Cricklewood, was had up before the beak yesterday, charged with attempted suicide. He stated that⁠—”

Mr. Gandle cast a reproachful look at her. He had always supposed Roberta Wickham to be a girl of fair intelligence, as women go; and it seemed to him that he had overestimated her good sense. He did his best to cover up her blunder.

“Possibly,” he said, “with some really definite and serious reason⁠—”

“I can never understand,” said Mr. Potter, coming out of what had all the outward appearance of a trance, “why the idea arose that suicide is wrong.”

He spoke with a curious intensity. The author of Ethics of Suicide had wielded a plausible pen, and the subject was one on which he now held strong views. And, even if he had not already held them, his mood this morning was of a kind to breed them in his bosom.

“The author of a very interesting book which I intend to publish shortly,” he said, “points out that none but the votaries of the monotheistic religions look upon suicide as a crime.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Gandle, “but⁠—”

“If, he goes on to say, the criminal law forbids suicide, that is not an argument valid in the Church. And, besides, the prohibition is ridiculous, for what penalty can frighten a man who is not afraid of death itself?”

“George Philibert got fourteen days,” said Bobbie.

“Yes, but⁠—” said Mr. Gandle.

“The ancients were very far from regarding the matter in the modern light. Indeed, in Massilia and on the island of Ceos, the man who could give valid reasons for relinquishing his life was handed the cup of hemlock by the magistrate, and that, too, in public.”

“Yes, but⁠—”

“And why,” said Mr. Potter, “suicide should be regarded as cowardly is beyond me. Surely no man who had not an iron nerve⁠—”

He broke off. The last two words had tapped a chord in his memory. Abruptly it occurred to him that here he was, halfway through breakfast, and he had not taken those iron nerve-pills which his doctor