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

say?⁠—yes, sacked. An employe whom I yesterday sacked, today he returns. I say to him, ‘Cochon, va!’ ”

“What’s that?”

“I say, ‘Peeg, go!’ How you say? Yes, ‘pop off!’ I say, ‘Peeg, pop off!’ But he⁠—no, no; he sits and will not go. Come in, officer, and expel him.”

With massive dignity the policeman entered the restaurant. At one of the tables sat Paul, calm and distrait. From across the room Jeanne stared freezingly.

“What’s all this?” inquired Constable Parsons. Paul looked up.

“I too,” he admitted, “I cannot understand. Figure to yourself, monsieur. I enter this café to lunch, and this man here would expel me.”

“He is an employe whom I⁠—I myself⁠—have but yesterday dismissed,” vociferated M. Bredin. “He has no money to lunch at my restaurant.”

The policeman eyed Paul sternly.

“Eh?” he said. “That so? You’d better come along.”

Paul’s eyebrows rose.

Before the round eyes of M. Bredin he began to produce from his pockets and to lay upon the table banknotes and sovereigns. The cloth was covered with them.

He picked up a half-sovereign.

“If monsieur,” he said to the policeman, “would accept this as a slight consolation for the inconvenience which this foolish person here has caused him⁠—”

“Not half,” said Mr. Parsons, affably. “Look here”⁠—he turned to the gaping proprietor⁠—“if you go on like this you’ll be getting yourself into trouble. See? You take care another time.”

Paul called for the bill of fare.

It was the inferior person who had succeeded to his place as waiter who attended to his needs during the meal; but when he had lunched it was Jeanne who brought his coffee.

She bent over the table.

“You sold your picture, Paul⁠—yes?” she whispered. “For much money? How glad I am, dear Paul. Now we will⁠—”

Paul met her glance coolly.

“Will you be so kind,” he said, “as to bring me also a cigarette, my good girl?”

The Goalkeeper and the Plutocrat

The main difficulty in writing a story is to convey to the reader clearly yet tersely the natures and dispositions of one’s leading characters. Brevity, brevity⁠—that is the cry. Perhaps, after all, the playbill style is the best. In this drama of love, football (Association code), and politics, then, the principals are as follows, in their order of entry:

Isabel Rackstraw (an angel).

The Hon. Clarence Tresillian (a Greek god).

Lady Runnymede (a proud old aristocrat).

Mr. Rackstraw (a multi-millionaire City man and Radical politician).

More about Clarence later. For the moment let him go as a Greek god. There were other sides, too, to Mr. Rackstraw’s character, but for the moment let him go as a multi-millionaire City man and Radical politician. Not that it is satisfactory; it is too mild. The Radical politics of other Radical politicians were as skim milk to the Radical politics of Radical Politician Rackstraw. Where Mr. Lloyd George referred to the House of Lords as blithering backwoodsmen and asinine anachronisms, Mr. Rackstraw scorned to be so guarded in his speech. He did not mince his words. His attitude towards a member of the peerage was that of the terrier to the perambulating cat.

It was at a charity bazaar that Isabel and Clarence first met. Isabel was presiding over the Billiken, Teddy-bear, and Fancy Goods stall. There she stood, that slim, radiant girl, bouncing Ardent Youth out of its father’s hard-earned with a smile that alone was nearly worth the money, when she observed, approaching, the handsomest man she had ever seen. It was⁠—this is not one of those mystery stories⁠—it was Clarence Tresillian. Over the heads of the bevy of gilded youths who clustered round the stall their eyes met. A thrill ran through Isabel. She dropped her eyes. The next moment Clarence had made his spring; the gilded youths had shredded away like a mist, and he was leaning towards her, opening negotiations for the purchase of a yellow Teddy-bear at sixteen times its face value.

He returned at intervals during the afternoon. Over the second Teddy-bear they became friendly, over the third intimate. He proposed as she was wrapping up the fourth golliwog, and she gave him her heart and the parcel simultaneously. At six o’clock, carrying four Teddy-bears, seven photograph frames, five golliwogs, and a billiken, Clarence went home to tell the news to his parents.

Clarence, when not at the University, lived with his father and mother in Belgrave Square. His mother had been a Miss Trotter, of Chicago, and it was on her dowry that the Runnymedes contrived to make both ends meet. For a noble family they were in somewhat straitened circumstances financially. They lived, simply and without envy of their rich fellow-citizens, on their hundred thousand pounds a year. They asked no more. It enabled them to entertain on a modest scale. Clarence had been able to go to Oxford; his elder brother, Lord Staines, into the Guards. The girls could buy an occasional new frock. On the whole, they were a thoroughly happy, contented English family of the best sort. Mr. Trotter, it is true, was something of a drawback. He was a rugged old tainted millionaire of the old school, with a fondness for shirtsleeves and a tendency to give undue publicity to toothpicks. But he had been made to understand at an early date that the deadline for him was the farther shore of the Atlantic Ocean, and he now gave little trouble.

Having dressed for dinner, Clarence proceeded to the library, where he found his mother in hysterics and his father in a state of collapse on the sofa. Clarence was too well-bred to make any comment. A true Runnymede, he affected to notice nothing, and, picking up the evening paper, began to read. The announcement of his engagement could be postponed to a more suitable time.

“Clarence!” whispered a voice from the sofa.

“Yes, father?”

The silver-haired old man gasped for utterance.

“I’ve lost my little veto,” he said, brokenly, at length.

“Where did you see it last?” asked Clarence, ever practical.

“It’s that fellow Rackstraw!” cried the old man, in feeble rage. “That bounder Rackstraw! He’s the man behind it all. The robber!”

“Clarence!”

It was his mother who spoke. Her voice seemed to rip