Leave It to Psmith, P. G. Wodehouse [novels to read .txt] 📗

mode, and he was standing on one leg. For Freddie Threepwood was seldom completely at his ease in his parent’s presence.

“Hallo, guv’nor.”

“Well, Frederick?”

It would be paltering with the truth to say that Lord Emsworth’s greeting was a warm one. It lacked the note of true affection. A few weeks before he had had to pay a matter of five hundred pounds to settle certain racing debts for his offspring; and, while this had not actually dealt an irretrievable blow at his bank account, it had undeniably tended to diminish Freddie’s charm in his eyes.

“Hear you’ve lost your glasses, guv’nor.”

“That is so.”

“Nuisance, what?”

“Undeniably.”

“Ought to have a spare pair.”

“I have broken my spare pair.”

“Tough luck! And lost the other?”

“And, as you say, lost the other.”

“Have you looked for the bally things?”

“I have.”

“Must be somewhere, I mean.”

“Quite possibly.”

“Where,” asked Freddie, warming to his work, “did you see them last?”

“Go away!” said Lord Emsworth, on whom his child’s conversation had begun to exercise an oppressive effect.

“Eh?”

“Go away!”

“Go away?”

“Yes, go away!”

“Right ho!”

The door closed. His lordship returned to the window once more.

He had been standing there some few minutes when one of those miracles occurred which happen in libraries. Without sound or warning a section of books started to move away from the parent body and, swinging out in a solid chunk into the room, showed a glimpse of a small, study-like apartment. A young man in spectacles came noiselessly through and the books returned to their place.

The contrast between Lord Emsworth and the newcomer, as they stood there, was striking, almost dramatic. Lord Emsworth was so acutely spectacle-less; Rupert Baxter, his secretary, so pronouncedly spectacled. It was his spectacles that struck you first as you saw the man. They gleamed efficiently at you. If you had a guilty conscience, they pierced you through and through; and even if your conscience was one hundred percent pure you could not ignore them. “Here,” you said to yourself, “is an efficient young man in spectacles.”

In describing Rupert Baxter as efficient, you did not overestimate him. He was essentially that. Technically but a salaried subordinate, he had become by degrees, owing to the limp amiability of his employer, the real master of the house. He was the Brains of Blandings, the man at the switch, the person in charge, and the pilot, so to speak, who weathered the storm. Lord Emsworth left everything to Baxter, only asking to be allowed to potter in peace; and Baxter, more than equal to the task, shouldered it without wincing.

Having got within range, Baxter coughed; and Lord Emsworth, recognising the sound, wheeled round with a faint flicker of hope. It might be that even this apparently insoluble problem of the missing pince-nez would yield before the other’s efficiency.

“Baxter, my dear fellow, I’ve lost my glasses. My glasses. I have mislaid them. I cannot think where they can have gone to. You haven’t seen them anywhere by any chance?”

“Yes, Lord Emsworth,” replied the secretary, quietly equal to the crisis. “They are hanging down your back.”

“Down my back? Why, bless my soul!” His lordship tested the statement and found it⁠—like all Baxter’s statements⁠—accurate. “Why, bless my soul, so they are! Do you know, Baxter, I really believe I must be growing absentminded.” He hauled in the slack, secured the pince-nez, adjusted them beamingly. His irritability had vanished like the dew off one of his roses. “Thank you, Baxter, thank you. You are invaluable.”

And with a radiant smile Lord Emsworth made buoyantly for the door, en route for God’s air and the society of McAllister. The movement drew from Baxter another cough⁠—a sharp, peremptory cough this time; and his lordship paused, reluctantly, like a dog whistled back from the chase. A cloud fell over the sunniness of his mood. Admirable as Baxter was in so many respects, he had a tendency to worry him at times; and something told Lord Emsworth that he was going to worry him now.

“The car will be at the door,” said Baxter with quiet firmness, “at two sharp.”

“Car? What car?”

“The car to take you to the station.”

“Station? What station?”

Rupert Baxter preserved his calm. There were times when he found his employer a little trying, but he never showed it.

“You have perhaps forgotten, Lord Emsworth, that you arranged with Lady Constance to go to London this afternoon.”

“Go to London!” gasped Lord Emsworth, appalled. “In weather like this? With a thousand things to attend to in the garden? What a perfectly preposterous notion! Why should I go to London? I hate London.”

“You arranged with Lady Constance that you would give Mr. McTodd lunch tomorrow at your club.”

“Who the devil is Mr. McTodd?”

“The well-known Canadian poet.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Lady Constance has long been a great admirer of his work. She wrote inviting him, should he ever come to England, to pay a visit to Blandings. He is now in London and is to come down tomorrow for two weeks. Lady Constance’s suggestion was that, as a compliment to Mr. McTodd’s eminence in the world of literature, you should meet him in London and bring him back here yourself.”

Lord Emsworth remembered now. He also remembered that this positively infernal scheme had not been his sister Constance’s in the first place. It was Baxter who had made the suggestion, and Constance had approved. He made use of the recovered pince-nez to glower through them at his secretary; and not for the first time in recent months was aware of a feeling that this fellow Baxter was becoming a dashed infliction. Baxter was getting above himself, throwing his weight about, making himself a confounded nuisance. He wished he could get rid of the man. But where could he find an adequate successor? That was the trouble. With all his drawbacks, Baxter was efficient. Nevertheless, for a moment Lord Emsworth toyed with the pleasant dream of dismissing him. And it is possible, such was his exasperation, that he might on this occasion have done something practical in that direction, had not the library door at this moment opened for the