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

writers as men of considerable ginger and business push⁠—to Psmith they came as a disappointment. He had expected better things. These letters were not at all what he had paid good money to receive. They missed the point altogether. The right spirit, it seemed to him, was entirely absent.

The first envelope, attractive though it looked from the outside, being of an expensive brand of stationery and gaily adorned with a somewhat startling crest merely contained a pleasantly-worded offer from a Mr. Alistair MacDougall to advance him any sum from ten to fifty thousand pounds on his note of hand only. The second revealed a similar proposal from another Scot named Colin MacDonald. While in the third Mr. Ian Campbell was prepared to go as high as one hundred thousand. All three philanthropists had but one stipulation to make⁠—they would have no dealings with minors. Youth, with all its glorious traditions, did not seem to appeal to them. But they cordially urged Psmith, in the event of his having celebrated his twenty-first birthday, to come round to the office and take the stuff away in a sack.

Keeping his head well in the midst of this shower of riches, Psmith dropped the three letters with a sigh into the waste-paper basket, and opened the next in order. This was a bulky envelope, and its contents consisted of a printed brochure entitled, “This Night Shall Thy Soul Be Required Of Thee”⁠—while, by a curious and appropriate coincidence, Number Five proved to be a circular from an energetic firm of coffin-makers offering to bury him for eight pounds ten. Number Six, also printed, was a manifesto from one Howard Hill, of Newmarket, recommending him to apply without delay for “Hill’s Three-Horse Special,” without which⁠—(“Who,” demanded Mr. Hill in large type, “gave you Wibbly-Wob for the Jubilee Cup?”)⁠—no sportsman could hope to accomplish the undoing of the bookmakers.

Although by doing so he convicted himself of that very lack of enterprise which he had been deploring in the great public, Psmith placed this communication with the others in the waste-paper baskets. There now remained only Number Seven, and a slight flicker of hope returned to him when he perceived that this envelope was addressed by hand and not in typescript. He opened it.

Beyond a doubt he had kept the pick of the bunch to the last. Here was something that made up for all those other disappointments. Written in a scrawly and apparently agitated hand, the letter ran as follows:

“If R. Psmith will meet the writer in the lobby of the Piccadilly Palace Hotel at twelve sharp, Friday, July 1, business may result if business meant and terms reasonable. R. Psmith will wear a pink chrysanthemum in his buttonhole, and will say to the writer, ‘There will be rain in Northumberland tomorrow,’ to which the writer will reply, ‘Good for the crops.’ Kindly be punctual.”

A pleased smile played about Psmith’s solemn face as he read this communication for the second time. It was much more the sort of thing for which he had been hoping. Although his closest friend, Mike Jackson, was a young man of complete ordinariness, Psmith’s tastes when he sought companionship lay as a rule in the direction of the bizarre. He preferred his humanity eccentric. And “the writer,” to judge him by this specimen of his correspondence, appeared to be eccentric enough for the most exacting taste. Whether this promising person turned out to be a ribald jester or an earnest crank, Psmith felt no doubt whatever as to the advisability of following the matter up. Whichever he might be, his society ought to afford entertainment during the interval before lunch. Psmith glanced at his watch. The hour was a quarter to twelve. He would be able to secure the necessary chrysanthemum and reach the Piccadilly Palace Hotel by twelve sharp, thus achieving the businesslike punctuality on which the unknown writer seemed to set such store.

It was not until he had entered a florist’s shop on the way to the tryst that it was borne in upon him that the adventure was going to have its drawbacks. The first of these was the chrysanthemum. Preoccupied with the rest of the communication, Psmith, when he had read the letter, had not given much thought to the decoration which it would be necessary for him to wear; and it was only when, in reply to his demand for a chrysanthemum, the florist came forward, almost hidden, like the army at Dunsinane, behind what looked like a small shrubbery, that he realised what he, a correct and fastidious dresser, was up against.

“Is that a chrysanthemum?”

“Yes, sir. Pink chrysanthemum.”

“One?”

“Yes, sir. One pink chrysanthemum.”

Psmith regarded the repellent object with disfavour through his eyeglass. Then, having placed it in his buttonhole, he proceeded on his way, feeling like some wild thing peering through the undergrowth. The distressing shrub completely spoiled his walk.

Arrived at the hotel and standing in the lobby, he perceived the existence of further complications. The lobby was in its usual state of congestion, it being a recognised meeting-place for those who did not find it convenient to go as far east as that traditional rendezvous of Londoners, the spot under the clock at Charing Cross Station; and “the writer,” while giving instructions as to how Psmith should ornament his exterior, had carelessly omitted to mention how he himself was to be recognised. A rollicking, slapdash conspirator, was Psmith’s opinion.

It seemed best to take up a position as nearly as possible in the centre of the lobby and stand there until “the writer,” lured by the chrysanthemum, should come forward and start something. This he accordingly did, but when at the end of ten minutes nothing had happened beyond a series of collisions with perhaps a dozen hurrying visitors to the hotel, he decided on a more active course. A young man of sporting appearance had been standing beside him for the last five minutes, and ever and anon this young man had glanced with some