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

Circus. After a morning spent with Eve Halliday and the young man who was going about the place asking people to steal his aunt’s necklace, it was imperative that he select some place where he could sit and think quietly. Any food of which he partook must be consumed in calm, even cloistral surroundings, unpolluted by the presence of a first violin who tied himself into knots and an orchestra in whose lexicon there was no such word as piano. One of his clubs seemed indicated.

In the days of his prosperity, Psmith’s father, an enthusiastic clubman, had enrolled his son’s name on the list of several institutions: and now, although the lean years had arrived, he was still a member of six, and would continue to be a member till the beginning of the new year and the consequent call for fresh subscriptions. These clubs ranged from the Drones, frankly frivolous, to the Senior Conservative, solidly worthy. Almost immediately Psmith decided that for such a mood as was upon him at the moment, the latter might have been specially constructed.

Anybody familiar with the interior of the Senior Conservative Club would have applauded his choice. In the whole of London no better haven could have been found by one desirous of staying his interior with excellently-cooked food while passing his soul under a leisurely examination. They fed you well at the Drones, too, no doubt: but there Youth held carnival, and the thoughtful man, examining his soul, was apt at any moment to have his meditations broken in upon by a chunk of bread, dexterously thrown by some bright spirit at an adjoining table. No horror of that description could possibly occur at the Senior Conservative. The Senior Conservative has six thousand one hundred and eleven members. Some of the six thousand one hundred and eleven are more respectable than the others, but they are all respectable⁠—whether they be numbered among the oldest inhabitants like the Earl of Emsworth, who joined as a country member in 1888, or are among the recent creations of the last election of candidates. They are bald, reverend men, who look as if they are on their way to the City to preside at directors’ meetings or have dropped in after conferring with the Prime Minister at Downing Street as to the prospects at the coming by-election in the Little Wabsley Division.

With the quiet dignity which atoned for his lack in years in this stronghold of mellow worth, Psmith mounted the steps, passed through the doors which were obligingly flung open for him by two uniformed dignitaries, and made his way to the coffee-room. Here, having selected a table in the middle of the room and ordered a simple and appetising lunch, he gave himself up to thoughts of Eve Halliday. As he had confessed to his young friend Mr. Walderwick, she had made a powerful impression upon him. He was tearing himself from his daydreams in order to wrestle with a mutton chop, when a foreign body shot into his orbit and blundered heavily against the table. Looking up, he perceived a long, thin, elderly gentleman of pleasantly vague aspect, who immediately began to apologise.

“My dear sir, I am extremely sorry. I trust I have caused no damage.”

“None whatever,” replied Psmith courteously.

“The fact is, I have mislaid my glasses. Blind as a bat without them. Can’t see where I’m going.”

A gloomy-looking young man with long and disordered hair, who stood at the elderly gentleman’s elbow, coughed suggestively. He was shuffling restlessly, and appeared to be anxious to close the episode and move on. A young man, evidently, of highly-strung temperament. He had a sullen air.

The elderly gentleman started vaguely at the sound of the cough.

“Eh?” he said, as if in answer to some spoken remark. “Oh, yes, quite so, quite so, my dear fellow. Mustn’t stop here chatting, eh? Had to apologise, though. Nearly upset this gentleman’s table. Can’t see where I’m going without my glasses. Blind as a bat. Eh? What? Quite so, quite so.”

He ambled off, doddering cheerfully, while his companion still preserved his look of sulky aloofness. Psmith gazed after them with interest.

“Can you tell me,” he asked of the waiter, who was rallying round with the potatoes, “who that was?”

The waiter followed his glance.

“Don’t know who the young gentleman is, sir. Guest here, I fancy. The old gentleman is the Earl of Emsworth. Lives in the country and doesn’t often come to the club. Very absentminded gentleman, they tell me. Potatoes, sir?”

“Thank you,” said Psmith.

The waiter drifted away, and returned.

“I have been looking at the guest-book, sir. The name of the gentleman lunching with Lord Emsworth is Mr. Ralston McTodd.”

“Thank you very much. I am sorry you had the trouble.”

“No trouble, sir.”

Psmith resumed his meal.

IV

The sullen demeanour of the young man who had accompanied Lord Emsworth through the coffee-room accurately reflected the emotions which were vexing his troubled soul. Ralston McTodd, the powerful young singer of Saskatoon (“Plumbs the depths of human emotion and strikes a new note”⁠—Montreal Star. “Very readable”⁠—Ipsilanti Herald), had not enjoyed his lunch. The pleasing sense of importance induced by the fact that for the first time in his life he was hobnobbing with a genuine earl had given way after ten minutes of his host’s society to a mingled despair and irritation which had grown steadily deeper as the meal proceeded. It is not too much to say that by the time the fish course arrived it would have been a relief to Mr. McTodd’s feelings if he could have taken up the butter-dish and banged it down, butter and all, on his lordship’s bald head.

A temperamental young man was Ralston McTodd. He liked to be the centre of the picture, to do the talking, to air his views, to be listened to respectfully and with interest by a submissive audience. At the meal which had just concluded none of these reasonable demands had been permitted to him. From the very beginning, Lord