A Gentleman of Leisure, P. G. Wodehouse [speld decodable readers .TXT] 📗

you did!” he cried. “You must have done. So that’s how it happened, is it? I don’t wonder it was a shock when I said I knew about the necklace.”

“Mr. Pitt!”

“Well?”

“I have something to say to you.”

“I’m listening.”

Sir Thomas tried to rally. There was a touch of the old pomposity in his manner when he spoke.

“Mr. Pitt, I find you in an unpleasant position⁠—”

Jimmy interrupted.

“Don’t you worry about my unpleasant position,” he said. “Fix your attention exclusively upon your own. Let us be frank with one another. You’re in the cart. What do you propose to do about it?”

“I do not understand you,” he began.

“No?” said Jimmy. “I’ll try and make my meaning clear. Correct me from time to time if I am wrong. The way I size the thing up is as follows: When you married Lady Julia I gather that it was, so to speak, up to you to some extent. People knew you were a millionaire, and they expected something special in the way of gifts from the bridegroom to the bride. Now you, being of a prudent and economical nature, began to wonder if there wasn’t some way of getting a reputation for lavishness without actually cashing up to any great extent. Am I right?”

Sir Thomas did not answer.

“I am,” said Jimmy. “Well, it occurred to you, naturally enough, that a properly selected gift of jewellery might work the trick. It only needed a little nerve. When you give a present of diamonds to a lady she is not likely to call for polarised light and refracting liquids and the rest of the circus. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred she will take the thing on trust. Very well. You trotted off to a jeweller and put the thing to him confidentially. I expect you suggested paste; but, being a wily person, he pointed out that paste has a habit of not wearing well. It is pretty enough when it’s new, but quite a small amount of ordinary wear and tear destroys the polish of the surface and the sharpness of the cutting. It gets scratched easily. Having heard this, and reflected that Lady Julia was not likely to keep the necklace under a glass case, you rejected paste as too risky. The genial jeweller then suggested white jargoon, mentioning, as I have done, that after an application or so of the blowpipe its own mother wouldn’t know it. If he was a bit of an antiquary, he probably added that in the eighteenth century jargoon stones were supposed to be actually an inferior sort of diamond. What could be more suitable? ‘Make it jargoon, dear heart,’ you cried joyfully, and all was well. Am I right? I notice that you have not corrected me so far.”

Whether Sir Thomas would have replied in the affirmative is uncertain. He was opening his mouth to speak when the curtain at the end of the room heaved, and Lord Dreever burst out like a cannonball in tweeds.

The apparition effectually checked any speech that Sir Thomas might have been intending to make. Lying back in his chair, he goggled silently at the new arrival. Even Jimmy, though knowing that his lordship was in hiding, was taken aback.

His lordship broke the silence.

“Great Scot!” he cried.

Neither Jimmy nor Sir Thomas seemed to consider the observation unsound or inadequate. They permitted it to pass without comment.

“You old scoundrel!” added his lordship, addressing Sir Thomas; “and you’re the man who called me a welsher!” There were signs of a flicker of spirit in the knight’s prominent eyes, but they died away. He made no reply.

“Great Scot!” moaned his lordship, in a fever of self-pity, “here have I been all these years letting you give me Hades in every shape and form, when all the while⁠—My goodness, if I’d only known earlier!”

He turned to Jimmy.

“Pitt, old man,” he said warmly, “I⁠—dash it⁠—I don’t know what to say. If it hadn’t been for you⁠—I always did like Americans.”

“I’m not one,” said Jimmy; but his lordship went on, unchecked.

“I always thought it bally rot that that fuss happened in⁠—in⁠—wherever it was. If it hadn’t been for fellows like you,” he continued, addressing Sir Thomas once more, “there wouldn’t have been any of that frightful Declaration of Independence business. Would there, Pitt, old man?”

These were deep problems too spacious for casual examination. Jimmy shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I should say Sir Thomas might not have got along with George Washington, anyhow,” he said.

“Of course not. Well”⁠—his lordship moved towards the door⁠—“I’m off downstairs to see what Aunt Julia has to say about it all.”

A shudder, as if from some electric shock, shook Sir Thomas. He leaped to his feet.

“Spencer,” he cried, “I forbid you to say a word to your aunt.”

“Oh!” said his lordship. “You do, do you?”

Sir Thomas shivered.

“She would never let me hear the last of it.”

“I bet she wouldn’t. I’ll go and see.”

“Stop!”

“Well?”

Sir Thomas dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief. He dared not face the vision of Lady Julia in possession of the truth. At one time the fear lest she might discover the harmless little deception he had practised had kept him awake at night, but gradually, as the days went by, and the excellence of the imitation stones had continued to impose upon her and upon everyone else who saw them, the fear had diminished. But it had always been at the back of his mind. Even in her calmer moments his wife was a source of mild terror to him. His imagination reeled at the thought of what depths of aristocratic scorn and indignation she would plumb in a case like this.

“Spencer,” he said, “I insist that you shall not inform your aunt of this!”

“What? You want me to keep my mouth shut? You want me to become an accomplice in this beastly, low-down deception? I like that!”

“The point,” said Jimmy, “is well taken⁠—noblesse oblige, and all that sort of thing. The blood of the Dreevers boils furiously at the idea. Listen! You