Psmith, Journalist, P. G. Wodehouse [top 5 ebook reader .txt] 📗

Psmith sighed.

“You have told me your painful story,” he said. “Now hear mine. After parting with you last night, I went meditatively back to my Fourth Avenue address, and, with a courtly good night to the large policeman who, as I have mentioned in previous conversations, is stationed almost at my very door, I passed on into my room, and had soon sunk into a dreamless slumber. At about three o’clock in the morning I was aroused by a somewhat hefty banging on the door.”

“What!”

“A banging at the door,” repeated Psmith. “There, standing on the mat, were three policemen. From their remarks I gathered that certain bright spirits had been running a gambling establishment in the lower regions of the building⁠—where, I think I told you, there is a saloon⁠—and the Law was now about to clean up the place. Very cordially the honest fellows invited me to go with them. A conveyance, it seemed, waited in the street without. I pointed out, even as you appear to have done, that sea-green pyjamas with old rose frogs were not the costume in which a Shropshire Psmith should be seen abroad in one of the world’s greatest cities; but they assured me⁠—more by their manner than their words⁠—that my misgivings were out of place, so I yielded. These men, I told myself, have lived longer in New York than I. They know what is done and what is not done. I will bow to their views. So I went with them, and after a very pleasant and cosy little ride in the patrol wagon, arrived at the police station. This morning I chatted a while with the courteous magistrate, convinced him by means of arguments and by silent evidence of my open, honest face and unwavering eye that I was not a professional gambler, and came away without a stain on my character.”

Billy Windsor listened to this narrative with growing interest.

“Gum! it’s them!” he cried.

“As Comrade Maloney would say,” said Psmith, “meaning what, Comrade Windsor?”

“Why, the fellows who are after that paper. They tipped the police off about the poolrooms, knowing that we should be hauled off without having time to take anything with us. I’ll bet anything you like they have been in and searched our rooms by now.”

“As regards yours, Comrade Windsor, I cannot say. But it is an undoubted fact that mine, which I revisited before going to the office, in order to correct what seemed to me even on reflection certain drawbacks to my costume, looks as if two cyclones and a threshing machine had passed through it.”

“They’ve searched it?”

“With a fine-toothed comb. Not one of my objects of vertu but has been displaced.”

Billy Windsor slapped his knee.

“It was lucky you thought of sending that paper by post,” he said. “We should have been done if you hadn’t. But, say,” he went on miserably, “this is awful. Things are just warming up for the final burst, and I’m out of it all.”

“For thirty days,” sighed Psmith. “What Cosy Moments really needs is a sitzredakteur.”

“A what?”

“A sitzredakteur, Comrade Windsor, is a gentleman employed by German newspapers with a taste for lése majesté to go to prison whenever required in place of the real editor. The real editor hints in his bright and snappy editorial, for instance, that the Kaiser’s moustache reminds him of a bad dream. The police force swoops down en masse on the office of the journal, and are met by the sitzredakteur, who goes with them peaceably, allowing the editor to remain and sketch out plans for his next week’s article on the Crown Prince. We need a sitzredakteur on Cosy Moments almost as much as a fighting editor; and we have neither.”

“The Kid has had to leave then?”

“He wants to go into training at once. He very sportingly offered to cancel his match, but of course that would never do. Unless you consider Comrade Maloney equal to the job, I must look around me for someone else. I shall be too fully occupied with purely literary matters to be able to deal with chance callers. But I have a scheme.”

“What’s that?”

“It seems to me that we are allowing much excellent material to lie unused in the shape of Comrade Jarvis.”

“Bat Jarvis.”

“The same. The cat specialist to whom you endeared yourself somewhat earlier in the proceedings by befriending one of his wandering animals. Little deeds of kindness, little acts of love, as you have doubtless heard, help, etc. Should we not give Comrade Jarvis an opportunity of proving the correctness of this statement? I think so. Shortly after you⁠—if you will forgive me for touching on a painful subject⁠—have been haled to your dungeon, I will push round to Comrade Jarvis’s address, and sound him on the subject. Unfortunately, his affection is confined, I fancy, to you. Whether he will consent to put himself out on my behalf remains to be seen. However, there is no harm in trying. If nothing else comes of the visit, I shall at least have had the opportunity of chatting with one of our most prominent citizens.”

A policeman appeared at the door.

“Say, pal,” he remarked to Psmith, “you’ll have to be fading away soon, I guess. Give you three minutes more. Say it quick.”

He retired. Billy leaned forward to Psmith.

“I guess they won’t give me much chance,” he whispered, “but if you see me around in the next day or two, don’t be surprised.”

“I fail to follow you, Comrade Windsor.”

“Men have escaped from Blackwell’s Island before now. Not many, it’s true; but it has been done.”

Psmith shook his head.

“I shouldn’t,” he said. “They’re bound to catch you, and then you will be immersed in the soup beyond hope of recovery. I shouldn’t wonder if they put you in your little cell for a year or so.”

“I don’t care,” said Billy stoutly. “I’d give a year later on to be round and