P. G. Wodehouse - "Jill the Reckless)"

Joseph Fisher - "Landholding In England"

T.S. Arthur - "The Home Mission"

David Hume - "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Little Nugget

P >> P.G. Wodehouse >> The Little Nugget




In the distance I heard the automobile moving off down the drive.
The sound roused me.

'Well, we may as well go,' I said dully. I lit the candle and held
it up. Audrey was standing against the wall, her face white and
set.

I raised the trap-door and followed her down the ladder.

The rain had ceased, and the stars were shining. After the
closeness of the loft, the clean wet air was delicious. For a
moment we stopped, held by the peace and stillness of the night.

Then, quite suddenly, she broke down.

It was the unexpectedness of it that first threw me off my balance.
In all the time I had known her, I had never before seen Audrey in
tears. Always, in the past, she had borne the blows of fate with a
stoical indifference which had alternately attracted and repelled
me, according as my mood led me to think it courage or insensibility.
In the old days, it had done much, this trait of hers, to rear a
barrier between us. It had made her seem aloof and unapproachable.
Subconsciously, I suppose, it had offended my egoism that she should
be able to support herself in times of trouble, and not feel it
necessary to lean on me.

And now the barrier had fallen. The old independence, the almost
aggressive self-reliance, had vanished. A new Audrey had revealed
herself.

She was sobbing helplessly, standing quite still, her arms hanging
and her eyes staring blankly before her. There was something in
her attitude so hopeless, so beaten, that the pathos of it seemed
to cut me like a knife.

'Audrey!'

The stars glittered in the little pools among the worn flagstones.
The night was very still. Only the steady drip of water from the
trees broke the silence.

A great wave of tenderness seemed to sweep from my mind everything
in the world but her. Everything broke abruptly that had been
checking me, stifling me, holding me gagged and bound since the
night when our lives had come together again after those five long
years. I forgot Cynthia, my promise, everything.

'Audrey!'

She was in my arms, clinging to me, murmuring my name. The
darkness was about us like a cloud.

And then she had slipped from me, and was gone.




Chapter 16


In my recollections of that strange night there are wide gaps.
Trivial incidents come back to me with extraordinary vividness;
while there are hours of which I can remember nothing. What I did
or where I went I cannot recall. It seems to me, looking back,
that I walked without a pause till morning; yet, when day came, I
was still in the school grounds. Perhaps I walked, as a wounded
animal runs, in circles. I lost, I know, all count of time. I
became aware of the dawn as something that had happened suddenly,
as if light had succeeded darkness in a flash. It had been night;
I looked about me, and it was day--a steely, cheerless day, like a
December evening. And I found that I was very cold, very tired,
and very miserable.

My mind was like the morning, grey and overcast. Conscience may be
expelled, but, like Nature, it will return. Mine, which I had cast
from me, had crept back with the daylight. I had had my hour of
freedom, and it was now for me to pay for it.

I paid in full. My thoughts tore me. I could see no way out.
Through the night the fever and exhilaration of that mad moment
had sustained me, but now the morning had come, when dreams must
yield to facts, and I had to face the future.

I sat on the stump of a tree, and buried my face in my hands. I
must have fallen asleep, for, when I raised my eyes again, the day
was brighter. Its cheerlessness had gone. The sky was blue, and
birds were singing.

It must have been about half an hour later that the first
beginnings of a plan of action came to me. I could not trust
myself to reason out my position clearly and honestly in this
place where Audrey's spell was over everything. The part of me
that was struggling to be loyal to Cynthia was overwhelmed here.
London called to me. I could think there, face my position
quietly, and make up my mind.

I turned to walk to the station. I could not guess even remotely
what time it was. The sun was shining through the trees, but in
the road outside the grounds there were no signs of workers
beginning the day.

It was half past five when I reached the station. A sleepy porter
informed me that there would be a train to London, a slow train,
at six.

* * * * *

I remained in London two days, and on the third went down to Sanstead
to see Audrey for the last time. I had made my decision.

I found her on the drive, close by the gate. She turned at my
footstep on the gravel; and, as I saw her, I knew that the fight
which I had thought over was only beginning.

I was shocked at her appearance. Her face was very pale, and there
were tired lines about her eyes.

I could not speak. Something choked me. Once again, as on that
night in the stable-yard, the world and all that was in it seemed
infinitely remote.

It was she who broke the silence.

'Well, Peter,' she said listlessly.

We walked up the drive together.

'Have you been to London?'

'Yes. I came down this morning.' I paused. 'I went there to
think,' I said.

She nodded.

'I have been thinking, too.'

I stopped, and began to hollow out a groove in the wet gravel with
my heel. Words were not coming readily.

Suddenly she found speech. She spoke quickly, but her voice was
dull and lifeless.

'Let us forget what has happened, Peter. We were neither of us
ourselves. I was tired and frightened and disappointed. You were
sorry for me just at the moment, and your nerves were strained,
like mine. It was all nothing. Let us forget it.'

I shook my head.

'No,' I said. 'It was not that. I can't let you even pretend you
think that was all. I love you. I always have loved you, though I
did not know how much till you had gone away. After a time, I
thought I had got over it. But when I met you again down here, I
knew that I had not, and never should. I came back to say good-bye,
but I shall always love you. It is my punishment for being the sort
of man I was five years ago.'

'And mine for being the sort of woman I was five years ago.' She
laughed bitterly. 'Woman! I was just a little fool, a sulky child.
My punishment is going to be worse than yours, Peter. You will not
be always thinking that you had the happiness of two lives in your
hands, and threw it away because you had not the sense to hold
it.'

'It is just that that I shall always be thinking. What happened
five years ago was my fault, Audrey, and nobody's but mine. I
don't think that, even when the loss of you hurt most, I ever
blamed you for going away. You had made me see myself as I was,
and I knew that you had done the right thing. I was selfish,
patronizing--I was insufferable. It was I who threw away our
happiness. You put it in a sentence that first day here, when you
said that I had been kind--sometimes--when I happened to think of
it. That summed me up. You have nothing to reproach yourself for.
I think we have not had the best of luck; but all the blame is
mine.'

A flush came into her pale face.

'I remember saying that. I said it because I was afraid of myself.
I was shaken by meeting you again. I thought you must be hating
me--you had every reason to hate me, and you spoke as if you
did--and I did not want to show you what you were to me. It wasn't
true, Peter. Five years ago I may have thought it, but not now. I
have grown to understand the realities by this time. I have been
through too much to have any false ideas left. I have had some
chance to compare men, and I realize that they are not all kind,
Peter, even sometimes, when they happen to think of it.'

'Audrey,' I said--I had never found myself able to ask the
question before--'was--was--he--was Sheridan kind to you?'

She did not speak for a moment, and I thought she was resenting
the question.

'No!' she said abruptly.

She shot out the monosyllable with a force that startled and
silenced me. There was a whole history of unhappiness in the word.

'No,' she said again, after a pause, more gently this time. I
understood. She was speaking of a dead man.

'I can't talk about him,' she went on hurriedly. 'I expect most of
it was my fault. I was unhappy because he was not you, and he saw
that I was unhappy and hated me for it. We had nothing in common.
It was just a piece of sheer madness, our marriage. He swept me
off my feet. I never had a great deal of sense, and I lost it all
then. I was far happier when he had left me.'

'Left you?'

'He deserted me almost directly we reached America.' She laughed.
'I told you I had grown to understand the realities. I began
then.'

I was horrified. For the first time I realized vividly all that
she had gone through. When she had spoken to me before of her
struggles that evening over the study fire, I had supposed that
they had begun only after her husband's death, and that her life
with him had in some measure trained her for the fight. That she
should have been pitched into the arena, a mere child, with no
experience of life, appalled me. And, as she spoke, there came to
me the knowledge that now I could never do what I had come to do.
I could not give her up. She needed me. I tried not to think of
Cynthia.

I took her hand.

'Audrey,' I said, 'I came here to say good-bye. I can't. I want
you. Nothing matters except you. I won't give you up.'

'It's too late,' she said, with a little catch in her voice. 'You
are engaged to Mrs Ford.'

'I am engaged, but not to Mrs Ford. I am engaged to someone you
have never met--Cynthia Drassilis.'

She pulled her hand away quickly, wide-eyed, and for some moments
was silent.

'Do you love her?' she asked at last.

'No.'

'Does she love you?'

Cynthia's letter rose before my eyes, that letter that could have
had no meaning, but one.

'I am afraid she does,' I said.

She looked at me steadily. Her face was very pale.

'You must marry her, Peter.'

I shook my head.

'You must. She believes in you.'

'I can't. I want you. And you need me. Can you deny that you need
me?'

'No.'

She said it quite simply, without emotion. I moved towards her,
thrilling, but she stepped back.

'She needs you too,' she said.

A dull despair was creeping over me. I was weighed down by a
premonition of failure. I had fought my conscience, my sense of
duty and honour, and crushed them. She was raising them up against
me once more. My self-control broke down.

'Audrey,' I cried, 'for God's sake can't you see what you're
doing? We have been given a second chance. Our happiness is in
your hands again, and you are throwing it away. Why should we make
ourselves wretched for the whole of our lives? What does anything
else matter except that we love each other? Why should we let
anything stand in our way? I won't give you up.'

She did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Hope began
to revive in me, telling me that I had persuaded her. But when she
looked up it was with the same steady gaze, and my heart sank
again.

'Peter,' she said, 'I want to tell you something. It will make you
understand, I think. I haven't been honest, Peter. I have not
fought fairly. All these weeks, ever since we met, I have been
trying to steal you. It's the only word. I have tried every little
miserable trick I could think of to steal you from the girl you
had promised to marry. And she wasn't here to fight for herself. I
didn't think of her. I was wrapped up in my own selfishness. And
then, after that night, when you had gone away, I thought it all
out. I had a sort of awakening. I saw the part I had been playing.
Even then I tried to persuade myself that I had done something
rather fine. I thought, you see, at that time that you were
infatuated with Mrs Ford--and I know Mrs Ford. If she is capable
of loving any man, she loves Mr Ford, though they are divorced. I
knew she would only make you unhappy. I told myself I was saving
you. Then you told me it was not Mrs Ford, but this girl. That
altered everything. Don't you see that I can't let you give her up
now? You would despise me. I shouldn't feel clean. I should feel
as if I had stabbed her in the back.'

I forced a laugh. It rang hollow against the barrier that
separated us. In my heart I knew that this barrier was not to be
laughed away.

'Can't you see, Peter? You must see.'

'I certainly don't. I think you're overstrained, and that you have
let your imagination run away with you. I--'

She interrupted me.

'Do you remember that evening in the study?' she asked abruptly.
'We had been talking. I had been telling you how I had lived
during those five years.'

'I remember.'

'Every word I spoke was spoken with an object--calculated.... Yes,
even the pauses. I tried to make _them_ tell, too. I knew
you, you see, Peter. I knew you through and through, because I
loved you, and I knew the effect those tales would have on you.
Oh, they were all true. I was honest as far as that goes. But they
had the mean motive at the back of them. I was playing on your
feelings. I knew how kind you were, how you would pity me. I set
myself to create an image which would stay in your mind and kill
the memory of the other girl; the image of a poor, ill-treated
little creature who should work through to your heart by way of
your compassion. I knew you, Peter, I knew you. And then I did a
meaner thing still. I pretended to stumble in the dark. I meant
you to catch me and hold me, and you did. And ...'

Her voice broke off.

'I'm glad I have told you,' she said. 'It makes it a little
better. You understand now how I feel, don't you?'

She held out her hand.

'Good-bye.'

'I am not going to give you up,' I said doggedly.

'Good-bye,' she said again. Her voice was a whisper.

I took her hand and began to draw her towards me.

'It is not good-bye. There is no one else in the world but you,
and I am not going to give you up.'

'Peter!' she struggled feebly. 'Oh, let me go.'

I drew her nearer.

'I won't let you go,' I said.

But, as I spoke, there came the sound of automobile wheels on the
gravel. A large red car was coming up the drive. I dropped
Audrey's hand, and she stepped back and was lost in the shrubbery.
The car slowed down and stopped beside me. There were two women in
the tonneau. One, who was dark and handsome, I did not know. The
other was Mrs Drassilis.




Chapter 17


I was given no leisure for wondering how Cynthia's mother came to
be in the grounds of Sanstead House, for her companion, almost
before the car had stopped, jumped out and clutched me by the arm,
at the same time uttering this cryptic speech: 'Whatever he offers
I'll double!'

She fixed me, as she spoke, with a commanding eye. She was a woman,
I gathered in that instant, born to command. There seemed, at any
rate, no doubt in her mind that she could command me. If I had
been a black beetle she could not have looked at me with a more
scornful superiority. Her eyes were very large and of a rich, fiery
brown colour, and it was these that gave me my first suspicion of
her identity. As to the meaning of her words, however, I had no clue.

'Bear that in mind,' she went on. 'I'll double it if it's a
million dollars.'

'I'm afraid I don't understand,' I said, finding speech.

She clicked her tongue impatiently.

'There's no need to be so cautious and mysterious. This lady is a
friend of mine. She knows all about it. I asked her to come. I'm
Mrs Elmer Ford. I came here directly I got your letter. I think
you're the lowest sort of scoundrel that ever managed to keep out
of gaol, but that needn't make any difference just now. We're here
to talk business, Mr Fisher, so we may as well begin.'

I was getting tired of being taken for Smooth Sam.

'I am not Smooth Sam Fisher.'

I turned to the automobile. 'Will you identify me, Mrs Drassilis?'

She was regarding me with wide-open eyes.

'What on earth are you doing down here? I have been trying
everywhere to find you, but nobody--'

Mrs Ford interrupted her. She gave me the impression of being a
woman who wanted a good deal of the conversation, and who did not
care how she got it. In a conversational sense she thugged Mrs
Drassilis at this point, or rather she swept over her like some
tidal wave, blotting her out.

'Oh,' she said fixing her brown eyes, less scornful now but still
imperious, on mine. 'I must apologize. I have made a mistake. I
took you for a low villain of the name of Sam Fisher. I hope you
will forgive me. I was to have met him at this exact spot just
about this time, by appointment, so, seeing you here, I mistook
you for him.'

'If I might have a word with you alone?' I said.

Mrs Ford had a short way with people. In matters concerning her
own wishes, she took their acquiescence for granted.

'Drive on up to the house, Jarvis,' she said, and Mrs Drassilis
was whirled away round the curve of the drive before she knew what
had happened to her.

'Well?'

'My name is Burns,' I said.

'Now I understand,' she said. 'I know who you are now.' She
paused, and I was expecting her to fawn upon me for my gallant
service in her cause, when she resumed in quite a different
strain.

'I can't think what you can have been about, Mr Burns, not to have
been able to do what Cynthia asked you. Surely in all these weeks
and months.... And then, after all, to have let this Fisher
scoundrel steal him away from under your nose...!'

She gave me a fleeting glance of unfathomable scorn. And when I
thought of all the sufferings I had gone through that term owing
to her repulsive son and, indirectly, for her sake, I felt that
the time had come to speak out.

'May I describe the way in which I allowed your son to be stolen
away from under my nose?' I said. And in well-chosen words, I
sketched the outline of what had happened. I did not omit to lay
stress on the fact that the Nugget's departure with the enemy was
entirely voluntary.

She heard me out in silence.

'That was too bad of Oggie,' she said tolerantly, when I had
ceased dramatically on the climax of my tale.

As a comment it seemed to me inadequate.

'Oggie was always high-spirited,' she went on. 'No doubt you have
noticed that?'

'A little.'

'He could be led, but never driven. With the best intentions, no
doubt, you refused to allow him to leave the stables that night
and return to the house, and he resented the check and took the
matter into his own hands.' She broke off and looked at her watch.
'Have you a watch? What time is it? Only that? I thought it must
be later. I arrived too soon. I got a letter from this man Fisher,
naming this spot and this hour for a meeting, when we could
discuss terms. He said that he had written to Mr Ford, appointing
the same time.' She frowned. 'I have no doubt he will come,' she
said coldly.

'Perhaps this is his car,' I said.

A second automobile was whirring up the drive. There was a shout
as it came within sight of us, and the chauffeur put on the brake.
A man sprang from the tonneau. He jerked a word to the chauffeur,
and the car went on up the drive.

He was a massively built man of middle age, with powerful shoulders,
and a face--when he had removed his motor-goggles very like any one
of half a dozen of those Roman emperors whose features have come
down to us on coins and statues, square-jawed, clean-shaven, and
aggressive. Like his late wife (who was now standing, drawn up to
her full height, staring haughtily at him) he had the air of one
born to command. I should imagine that the married life of these
two must have been something more of a battle even than most married
lives. The clashing of those wills must have smacked of a collision
between the immovable mass and the irresistible force.

He met Mrs Ford's stare with one equally militant, then turned to
me.

'I'll give you double what she has offered you,' he said. He
paused, and eyed me with loathing. 'You damned scoundrel,' he
added.

Custom ought to have rendered me immune to irritation, but it had
not. I spoke my mind.

'One of these days, Mr Ford,' I said, 'I am going to publish a
directory of the names and addresses of the people who have
mistaken me for Smooth Sam Fisher. I am not Sam Fisher. Can you
grasp that? My name is Peter Burns, and for the past term I have
been a master at this school. And I may say that, judging from
what I know of the little brute, any one who kidnapped your son as
long as two days ago will be so anxious by now to get rid of him
that he will probably want to pay you for taking him back.'

My words almost had the effect of bringing this divorced couple
together again. They made common cause against me. It was probably
the first time in years that they had formed even a temporary
alliance.

'How dare you talk like that!' said Mrs Ford. 'Oggie is a sweet
boy in every respect.'

'You're perfectly right, Nesta,' said Mr Ford. 'He may want
intelligent handling, but he's a mighty fine boy. I shall make
inquiries, and if this man has been ill-treating Ogden, I shall
complain to Mr Abney. Where the devil is this man Fisher?' he
broke off abruptly.

'On the spot,' said an affable voice. The bushes behind me parted,
and Smooth Sam stepped out on to the gravel.

I had recognized him by his voice. I certainly should not have
done so by his appearance. He had taken the precaution of 'making
up' for this important meeting. A white wig of indescribable
respectability peeped out beneath his black hat. His eyes twinkled
from under two penthouses of white eyebrows. A white moustache
covered his mouth. He was venerable to a degree.

He nodded to me, and bared his white head gallantly to Mrs Ford.

'No worse for our little outing, Mr Burns, I am glad to see. Mrs
Ford, I must apologize for my apparent unpunctuality, but I was
not really behind time. I have been waiting in the bushes. I
thought it just possible that you might have brought unwelcome
members of the police force with you, and I have been scouting, as
it were, before making my advance. I see, however, that all is
well, and we can come at once to business. May I say, before we
begin, that I overheard your recent conversation, and that I
entirely disagree with Mr Burns. Master Ford is a charming boy.
Already I feel like an elder brother to him. I am loath to part
with him.'

'How much?' snapped Mr Ford. 'You've got me. How much do you
want?'

'I'll give you double what he offers,' cried Mrs Ford.

Sam held up his hand, his old pontifical manner intensified by the
white wig.

'May I speak? Thank you. This is a little embarrassing. When I
asked you both to meet me here, it was not for the purpose of
holding an auction. I had a straight-forward business proposition
to make to you. It will necessitate a certain amount of plain and
somewhat personal speaking. May I proceed? Thank you. I will be as
brief as possible.'

His eloquence appeared to have had a soothing effect on the two
Fords. They remained silent.

'You must understand,' said Sam, 'that I am speaking as an expert.
I have been in the kidnapping business many years, and I know what
I am talking about. And I tell you that the moment you two got
your divorce, you said good-bye to all peace and quiet. Bless
you'--Sam's manner became fatherly--'I've seen it a hundred
times. Couple get divorced, and, if there's a child, what happens?
They start in playing battledore-and-shuttlecock with him. Wife
sneaks him from husband. Husband sneaks him back from wife. After
a while along comes a gentleman in my line of business, a
professional at the game, and he puts one across on both the
amateurs. He takes advantage of the confusion, slips in, and gets
away with the kid. That's what has happened here, and I'm going to
show you the way to stop it another time. Now I'll make you a
proposition. What you want to do'--I have never heard anything so
soothing, so suggestive of the old family friend healing an
unfortunate breach, as Sam's voice at this juncture--'what you
want to do is to get together again right quick. Never mind the
past. Let bygones be bygones. Kiss and be friends.'

A snort from Mr Ford checked him for a moment, but he resumed.

'I guess there were faults on both sides. Get together and talk it
over. And when you've agreed to call the fight off and start fair
again, that's where I come in. Mr Burns here will tell you, if you
ask him, that I'm anxious to quit this business and marry and
settle down. Well, see here. What you want to do is to give me a
salary--we can talk figures later on--to stay by you and watch
over the kid. Don't snort--I'm talking plain sense. You'd a sight
better have me with you than against you. Set a thief to catch a
thief. What I don't know about the fine points of the game isn't
worth knowing. I'll guarantee, if you put me in charge, to see
that nobody comes within a hundred miles of the kid unless he has
an order-to-view. You'll find I earn every penny of that salary ...
Mr Burns and I will now take a turn up the drive while you think
it over.'

He linked his arm in mine and drew me away. As we turned the
corner of the drive I caught a glimpse over my shoulder of the
Little Nugget's parents. They were standing where we had left
them, as if Sam's eloquence had rooted them to the spot.