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

“I’ve just seen Uncle Joe. He’s going to cough up the money he promised me.”

“I congratulate you.”

“So now I shall be able to get into that bookie’s business and make a pile. And, I say, you remember my telling you about Miss Halliday?”

“What was that?”

“Why, that I loved her, I mean, and all that.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Well, look here, between ourselves,” said Freddie earnestly, “the whole trouble all along has been that she thought I hadn’t any money to get married on. She didn’t actually say so in so many words, but you know how it is with women⁠—you can read between the lines, if you know what I mean. So now everything’s going to be all right. I shall simply go to her and say, ‘Well, what about it?’ and⁠—well, and so on, don’t you know?”

Psmith considered the point gravely.

“I see your reasoning, Comrade Threepwood,” he said. “I can detect but one flaw in it.”

“Flaw? What flaw?”

“The fact that Miss Halliday is going to marry me.”

The Hon. Freddie’s jaw dropped. His prominent eyes became more prawn-like.

“What!”

Psmith patted his shoulder commiseratingly.

“Be a man, Comrade Threepwood, and bite the bullet. These things will happen to the best of us. Some day you will be thankful that this has occurred. Purged in the holocaust of a mighty love, you will wander out into the sunset, a finer, broader man.⁠ ⁠… And now I must reluctantly tear myself away. I have an important appointment.” He patted his shoulder once more. “If you would care to be a page at the wedding, Comrade Threepwood, I can honestly say that there is no one whom I would rather have in that capacity.”

And with a stately gesture of farewell, Psmith passed out on to the terrace to join Eve.

Leave It to Psmith
was published in 1923 by
P. G. Wodehouse.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Vraj Mohan,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2019 by
Ramon Pajares Box, Jim Adcock, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
HathiTrust Digital Library.

The cover page is adapted from
Castle and Watermill by a River,
a painting completed in 1670 by
Jacob van Ruisdael.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
January 3, 2021, 10:31 p.m.
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May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

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