Books: Psmith in the City
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P. G. Wodehouse >> Psmith in the City
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12 Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
Psmith in the City
by P. G. Wodehouse
[Dedication]
to Leslie Havergal Bradshaw
Contents
1. Mr Bickersdyke Walks behind the Bowler's Arm
2. Mike Hears Bad News
3. The New Era Begins
4. First Steps in a Business Career
5. The Other Man
6. Psmith Explains
7. Going into Winter Quarters
8. The Friendly Native
9. The Haunting of Mr Bickersdyke
10. Mr Bickersdyke Addresses His Constituents
11. Misunderstood
12. In a Nutshell
13. Mike is Moved On
14. Mr Waller Appears in a New Light
15. Stirring Times on the Common
16. Further Developments
17. Sunday Supper
18. Psmith Makes a Discovery
19. The Illness of Edward
20. Concerning a Cheque
21. Psmith Makes Inquiries
22. And Takes Steps
23. Mr Bickersdyke Makes a Concession
24. The Spirit of Unrest
25. At the Telephone
26. Breaking the News
27. At Lord's
28. Psmith Arranges His Future
29. And Mike's
30. The Last Sad Farewells
1. Mr Bickersdyke Walks behind the Bowler's Arm
Considering what a prominent figure Mr John Bickersdyke was to be in
Mike Jackson's life, it was only appropriate that he should make a
dramatic entry into it. This he did by walking behind the bowler's arm
when Mike had scored ninety-eight, causing him thereby to be clean
bowled by a long-hop.
It was the last day of the Ilsworth cricket week, and the house team
were struggling hard on a damaged wicket. During the first two matches
of the week all had been well. Warm sunshine, true wickets, tea in the
shade of the trees. But on the Thursday night, as the team champed
their dinner contentedly after defeating the Incogniti by two wickets,
a pattering of rain made itself heard upon the windows. By bedtime it
had settled to a steady downpour. On Friday morning, when the team of
the local regiment arrived in their brake, the sun was shining once
more in a watery, melancholy way, but play was not possible before
lunch. After lunch the bowlers were in their element. The regiment,
winning the toss, put together a hundred and thirty, due principally to
a last wicket stand between two enormous corporals, who swiped at
everything and had luck enough for two whole teams. The house team
followed with seventy-eight, of which Psmith, by his usual golf
methods, claimed thirty. Mike, who had gone in first as the star bat of
the side, had been run out with great promptitude off the first ball of
the innings, which his partner had hit in the immediate neighbourhood
of point. At close of play the regiment had made five without loss.
This, on the Saturday morning, helped by another shower of rain which
made the wicket easier for the moment, they had increased to a hundred
and forty-eight, leaving the house just two hundred to make on a pitch
which looked as if it were made of linseed.
It was during this week that Mike had first made the acquaintance of
Psmith's family. Mr Smith had moved from Shropshire, and taken Ilsworth
Hall in a neighbouring county. This he had done, as far as could be
ascertained, simply because he had a poor opinion of Shropshire
cricket. And just at the moment cricket happened to be the pivot of his
life.
'My father,' Psmith had confided to Mike, meeting him at the station in
the family motor on the Monday, 'is a man of vast but volatile brain.
He has not that calm, dispassionate outlook on life which marks your
true philosopher, such as myself. I--'
'I say,' interrupted Mike, eyeing Psmith's movements with apprehension,
'you aren't going to drive, are you?'
'Who else? As I was saying, I am like some contented spectator of a
Pageant. My pater wants to jump in and stage-manage. He is a man of
hobbies. He never has more than one at a time, and he never has that
long. But while he has it, it's all there. When I left the house this
morning he was all for cricket. But by the time we get to the ground he
may have chucked cricket and taken up the Territorial Army. Don't be
surprised if you find the wicket being dug up into trenches, when we
arrive, and the pro. moving in echelon towards the pavilion. No,' he
added, as the car turned into the drive, and they caught a glimpse of
white flannels and blazers in the distance, and heard the sound of bat
meeting ball, 'cricket seems still to be topping the bill. Come along,
and I'll show you your room. It's next to mine, so that, if brooding on
Life in the still hours of the night, I hit on any great truth, I shall
pop in and discuss it with you.'
While Mike was changing, Psmith sat on his bed, and continued to
discourse.
'I suppose you're going to the 'Varsity?' he said.
'Rather,' said Mike, lacing his boots. 'You are, of course? Cambridge,
I hope. I'm going to King's.'
'Between ourselves,' confided Psmith, 'I'm dashed if I know what's
going to happen to me. I am the thingummy of what's-its-name.'
'You look it,' said Mike, brushing his hair.
'Don't stand there cracking the glass,' said Psmith. 'I tell you I am
practically a human three-shies-a-penny ball. My father is poising me
lightly in his hand, preparatory to flinging me at one of the milky
cocos of Life. Which one he'll aim at I don't know. The least thing
fills him with a whirl of new views as to my future. Last week we were
out shooting together, and he said that the life of the gentleman-farmer
was the most manly and independent on earth, and that he had a good
mind to start me on that. I pointed out that lack of early training
had rendered me unable to distinguish between a threshing-machine and
a mangel-wurzel, so he chucked that. He has now worked round to
Commerce. It seems that a blighter of the name of Bickersdyke is
coming here for the week-end next Saturday. As far as I can say
without searching the Newgate Calendar, the man Bickersdyke's career
seems to have been as follows. He was at school with my pater, went
into the City, raked in a certain amount of doubloons--probably
dishonestly--and is now a sort of Captain of Industry, manager of some
bank or other, and about to stand for Parliament. The result of these
excesses is that my pater's imagination has been fired, and at time of
going to press he wants me to imitate Comrade Bickersdyke. However,
there's plenty of time. That's one comfort. He's certain to change his
mind again. Ready? Then suppose we filter forth into the arena?'
Out on the field Mike was introduced to the man of hobbies. Mr Smith,
senior, was a long, earnest-looking man who might have been Psmith in a
grey wig but for his obvious energy. He was as wholly on the move as
Psmith was wholly statuesque. Where Psmith stood like some dignified
piece of sculpture, musing on deep questions with a glassy eye, his
father would be trying to be in four places at once. When Psmith
presented Mike to him, he shook hands warmly with him and started a
sentence, but broke off in the middle of both performances to dash
wildly in the direction of the pavilion in an endeavour to catch an
impossible catch some thirty yards away. The impetus so gained carried
him on towards Bagley, the Ilsworth Hall ground-man, with whom a moment
later he was carrying on an animated discussion as to whether he had or
had not seen a dandelion on the field that morning. Two minutes
afterwards he had skimmed away again. Mike, as he watched him, began to
appreciate Psmith's reasons for feeling some doubt as to what would be
his future walk in life.
At lunch that day Mike sat next to Mr Smith, and improved his
acquaintance with him; and by the end of the week they were on
excellent terms. Psmith's father had Psmith's gift of getting on well
with people.
On this Saturday, as Mike buckled on his pads, Mr Smith bounded up,
full of advice and encouragement.
'My boy,' he said, 'we rely on you. These others'--he indicated with a
disparaging wave of the hand the rest of the team, who were visible
through the window of the changing-room--'are all very well. Decent
club bats. Good for a few on a billiard-table. But you're our hope on a
wicket like this. I have studied cricket all my life'--till that summer
it is improbable that Mr Smith had ever handled a bat--'and I know a
first-class batsman when I see one. I've seen your brothers play. Pooh,
you're better than any of them. That century of yours against the Green
Jackets was a wonderful innings, wonderful. Now look here, my boy. I
want you to be careful. We've a lot of runs to make, so we mustn't take
any risks. Hit plenty of boundaries, of course, but be careful.
Careful. Dash it, there's a youngster trying to climb up the elm. He'll
break his neck. It's young Giles, my keeper's boy. Hi! Hi, there!'
He scudded out to avert the tragedy, leaving Mike to digest his expert
advice on the art of batting on bad wickets.
Possibly it was the excellence of this advice which induced Mike to
play what was, to date, the best innings of his life. There are moments
when the batsman feels an almost super-human fitness. This came to Mike
now. The sun had begun to shine strongly. It made the wicket more
difficult, but it added a cheerful touch to the scene. Mike felt calm
and masterful. The bowling had no terrors for him. He scored nine off
his first over and seven off his second, half-way through which he lost
his partner. He was to undergo a similar bereavement several times that
afternoon, and at frequent intervals. However simple the bowling might
seem to him, it had enough sting in it to worry the rest of the team
considerably. Batsmen came and went at the other end with such rapidity
that it seemed hardly worth while their troubling to come in at all.
Every now and then one would give promise of better things by lifting
the slow bowler into the pavilion or over the boundary, but it always
happened that a similar stroke, a few balls later, ended in an easy
catch. At five o'clock the Ilsworth score was eighty-one for seven
wickets, last man nought, Mike not out fifty-nine. As most of the house
team, including Mike, were dispersing to their homes or were due for
visits at other houses that night, stumps were to be drawn at six. It
was obvious that they could not hope to win. Number nine on the list,
who was Bagley, the ground-man, went in with instructions to play for a
draw, and minute advice from Mr Smith as to how he was to do it. Mike
had now begun to score rapidly, and it was not to be expected that he
could change his game; but Bagley, a dried-up little man of the type
which bowls for five hours on a hot August day without exhibiting any
symptoms of fatigue, put a much-bound bat stolidly in front of every
ball he received; and the Hall's prospects of saving the game grew
brighter.
At a quarter to six the professional left, caught at very silly point
for eight. The score was a hundred and fifteen, of which Mike had made
eighty-five.
A lengthy young man with yellow hair, who had done some good fast
bowling for the Hall during the week, was the next man in. In previous
matches he had hit furiously at everything, and against the Green
Jackets had knocked up forty in twenty minutes while Mike was putting
the finishing touches to his century. Now, however, with his host's
warning ringing in his ears, he adopted the unspectacular, or Bagley,
style of play. His manner of dealing with the ball was that of one
playing croquet. He patted it gingerly back to the bowler when it was
straight, and left it icily alone when it was off the wicket. Mike,
still in the brilliant vein, clumped a half-volley past point to the
boundary, and with highly scientific late cuts and glides brought his
score to ninety-eight. With Mike's score at this, the total at a
hundred and thirty, and the hands of the clock at five minutes to six,
the yellow-haired croquet exponent fell, as Bagley had fallen, a victim
to silly point, the ball being the last of the over.
Mr Smith, who always went in last for his side, and who so far had not
received a single ball during the week, was down the pavilion steps and
half-way to the wicket before the retiring batsman had taken half a
dozen steps.
'Last over,' said the wicket-keeper to Mike. 'Any idea how many you've
got? You must be near your century, I should think.'
'Ninety-eight,' said Mike. He always counted his runs.
'By Jove, as near as that? This is something like a finish.'
Mike left the first ball alone, and the second. They were too wide of
the off-stump to be hit at safely. Then he felt a thrill as the third
ball left the bowler's hand. It was a long-hop. He faced square to pull
it.
And at that moment Mr John Bickersdyke walked into his life across the
bowling-screen.
He crossed the bowler's arm just before the ball pitched. Mike lost
sight of it for a fraction of a second, and hit wildly. The next moment
his leg stump was askew; and the Hall had lost the match.
'I'm sorry,' he said to Mr Smith. 'Some silly idiot walked across the
screen just as the ball was bowled.'
'What!' shouted Mr Smith. 'Who was the fool who walked behind the
bowler's arm?' he yelled appealingly to Space.
'Here he comes, whoever he is,' said Mike.
A short, stout man in a straw hat and a flannel suit was walking
towards them. As he came nearer Mike saw that he had a hard, thin-lipped
mouth, half-hidden by a rather ragged moustache, and that behind a pair
of gold spectacles were two pale and slightly protruding eyes, which,
like his mouth, looked hard.
'How are you, Smith,' he said.
'Hullo, Bickersdyke.' There was a slight internal struggle, and then Mr
Smith ceased to be the cricketer and became the host. He chatted
amiably to the new-comer.
'You lost the game, I suppose,' said Mr Bickersdyke.
The cricketer in Mr Smith came to the top again, blended now, however,
with the host. He was annoyed, but restrained in his annoyance.
'I say, Bickersdyke, you know, my dear fellow,' he said complainingly,
'you shouldn't have walked across the screen. You put Jackson off, and
made him get bowled.'
'The screen?'
'That curious white object,' said Mike. 'It is not put up merely as an
ornament. There's a sort of rough idea of giving the batsman a chance
of seeing the ball, as well. It's a great help to him when people come
charging across it just as the bowler bowls.'
Mr Bickersdyke turned a slightly deeper shade of purple, and was about
to reply, when what sporting reporters call 'the veritable ovation'
began.
Quite a large crowd had been watching the game, and they expressed
their approval of Mike's performance.
There is only one thing for a batsman to do on these occasions. Mike
ran into the pavilion, leaving Mr Bickersdyke standing.
2. Mike Hears Bad News
It seemed to Mike, when he got home, that there was a touch of gloom in
the air. His sisters were as glad to see him as ever. There was a good
deal of rejoicing going on among the female Jacksons because Joe had
scored his first double century in first-class cricket. Double
centuries are too common, nowadays, for the papers to take much notice
of them; but, still, it is not everybody who can make them, and the
occasion was one to be marked. Mike had read the news in the evening
paper in the train, and had sent his brother a wire from the station,
congratulating him. He had wondered whether he himself would ever
achieve the feat in first-class cricket. He did not see why he should
not. He looked forward through a long vista of years of county cricket.
He had a birth qualification for the county in which Mr Smith had
settled, and he had played for it once already at the beginning of the
holidays. His _debut_ had not been sensational, but it had been
promising. The fact that two members of the team had made centuries,
and a third seventy odd, had rather eclipsed his own twenty-nine not
out; but it had been a faultless innings, and nearly all the papers had
said that here was yet another Jackson, evidently well up to the family
standard, who was bound to do big things in the future.
The touch of gloom was contributed by his brother Bob to a certain
extent, and by his father more noticeably. Bob looked slightly
thoughtful. Mr Jackson seemed thoroughly worried.
Mike approached Bob on the subject in the billiard-room after dinner.
Bob was practising cannons in rather a listless way.
'What's up, Bob?' asked Mike.
Bob laid down his cue.
'I'm hanged if I know,' said Bob. 'Something seems to be. Father's
worried about something.'
'He looked as if he'd got the hump rather at dinner.'
'I only got here this afternoon, about three hours before you did. I
had a bit of a talk with him before dinner. I can't make out what's up.
He seemed awfully keen on my finding something to do now I've come down
from Oxford. Wanted to know whether I couldn't get a tutoring job or a
mastership at some school next term. I said I'd have a shot. I don't
see what all the hurry's about, though. I was hoping he'd give me a bit
of travelling on the Continent somewhere before I started in.'
'Rough luck,' said Mike. 'I wonder why it is. Jolly good about Joe,
wasn't it? Let's have fifty up, shall we?'
Bob's remarks had given Mike no hint of impending disaster. It seemed
strange, of course, that his father, who had always been so easy-going,
should have developed a hustling Get On or Get Out spirit, and be
urging Bob to Do It Now; but it never occurred to him that there could
be any serious reason for it. After all, fellows had to start working
some time or other. Probably his father had merely pointed this out to
Bob, and Bob had made too much of it.
Half-way through the game Mr Jackson entered the room, and stood
watching in silence.
'Want a game, father?' asked Mike.
'No, thanks, Mike. What is it? A hundred up?'
'Fifty.'
'Oh, then you'll be finished in a moment. When you are, I wish you'd
just look into the study for a moment, Mike. I want to have a talk with
you.'
'Rum,' said Mike, as the door closed. 'I wonder what's up?'
For a wonder his conscience was free. It was not as if a bad school-report
might have arrived in his absence. His Sedleigh report had come at
the beginning of the holidays, and had been, on the whole, fairly
decent--nothing startling either way. Mr Downing, perhaps through
remorse at having harried Mike to such an extent during the Sammy
episode, had exercised a studied moderation in his remarks. He had let
Mike down far more easily than he really deserved. So it could not be a
report that was worrying Mr Jackson. And there was nothing else on his
conscience.
Bob made a break of sixteen, and ran out. Mike replaced his cue, and
walked to the study.
His father was sitting at the table. Except for the very important fact
that this time he felt that he could plead Not Guilty on every possible
charge, Mike was struck by the resemblance in the general arrangement
of the scene to that painful ten minutes at the end of the previous
holidays, when his father had announced his intention of taking him
away from Wrykyn and sending him to Sedleigh. The resemblance was
increased by the fact that, as Mike entered, Mr Jackson was kicking at
the waste-paper basket--a thing which with him was an infallible sign
of mental unrest.
'Sit down, Mike,' said Mr Jackson. 'How did you get on during the
week?'
'Topping. Only once out under double figures. And then I was run out.
Got a century against the Green Jackets, seventy-one against the
Incogs, and today I made ninety-eight on a beast of a wicket, and only
got out because some silly goat of a chap--'
He broke off. Mr Jackson did not seem to be attending. There was a
silence. Then Mr Jackson spoke with an obvious effort.
'Look here, Mike, we've always understood one another, haven't we?'
'Of course we have.'
'You know I wouldn't do anything to prevent you having a good time, if
I could help it. I took you away from Wrykyn, I know, but that was a
special case. It was necessary. But I understand perfectly how keen you
are to go to Cambridge, and I wouldn't stand in the way for a minute,
if I could help it.'
Mike looked at him blankly. This could only mean one thing. He was not
to go to the 'Varsity. But why? What had happened? When he had left for
the Smith's cricket week, his name had been down for King's, and the
whole thing settled. What could have happened since then?
'But I can't help it,' continued Mr Jackson.
'Aren't I going up to Cambridge, father?' stammered Mike.
'I'm afraid not, Mike. I'd manage it if I possibly could. I'm just as
anxious to see you get your Blue as you are to get it. But it's kinder
to be quite frank. I can't afford to send you to Cambridge. I won't go
into details which you would not understand; but I've lost a very large
sum of money since I saw you last. So large that we shall have to
economize in every way. I shall let this house and take a much smaller
one. And you and Bob, I'm afraid, will have to start earning your
living. I know it's a terrible disappointment to you, old chap.'
'Oh, that's all right,' said Mike thickly. There seemed to be something
sticking in his throat, preventing him from speaking.
'If there was any possible way--'
'No, it's all right, father, really. I don't mind a bit. It's awfully
rough luck on you losing all that.'
There was another silence. The clock ticked away energetically on the
mantelpiece, as if glad to make itself heard at last. Outside, a
plaintive snuffle made itself heard. John, the bull-dog, Mike's
inseparable companion, who had followed him to the study, was getting
tired of waiting on the mat. Mike got up and opened the door. John
lumbered in.
The movement broke the tension.
'Thanks, Mike,' said Mr Jackson, as Mike started to leave the room,
'you're a sportsman.'
3. The New Era Begins
Details of what were in store for him were given to Mike next morning.
During his absence at Ilsworth a vacancy had been got for him in that
flourishing institution, the New Asiatic Bank; and he was to enter upon
his duties, whatever they might be, on the Tuesday of the following
week. It was short notice, but banks have a habit of swallowing their
victims rather abruptly. Mike remembered the case of Wyatt, who had had
just about the same amount of time in which to get used to the prospect
of Commerce.
On the Monday morning a letter arrived from Psmith. Psmith was still
perturbed. 'Commerce,' he wrote, 'continues to boom. My pater referred
to Comrade Bickersdyke last night as a Merchant Prince. Comrade B. and
I do not get on well together. Purely for his own good, I drew him
aside yesterday and explained to him at great length the frightfulness
of walking across the bowling-screen. He seemed restive, but I was
firm. We parted rather with the Distant Stare than the Friendly Smile.
But I shall persevere. In many ways the casual observer would say that
he was hopeless. He is a poor performer at Bridge, as I was compelled
to hint to him on Saturday night. His eyes have no animated sparkle of
intelligence. And the cut of his clothes jars my sensitive soul to its
foundations. I don't wish to speak ill of a man behind his back, but I
must confide in you, as my Boyhood's Friend, that he wore a made-up tie
at dinner. But no more of a painful subject. I am working away at him
with a brave smile. Sometimes I think that I am succeeding. Then he
seems to slip back again. However,' concluded the letter, ending on an
optimistic note, 'I think that I shall make a man of him yet--some
day.'
Mike re-read this letter in the train that took him to London. By this
time Psmith would know that his was not the only case in which Commerce
was booming. Mike had written to him by return, telling him of the
disaster which had befallen the house of Jackson. Mike wished he could
have told him in person, for Psmith had a way of treating unpleasant
situations as if he were merely playing at them for his own amusement.
Psmith's attitude towards the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune
was to regard them with a bland smile, as if they were part of an
entertainment got up for his express benefit.
Arriving at Paddington, Mike stood on the platform, waiting for his box
to emerge from the luggage-van, with mixed feelings of gloom and
excitement. The gloom was in the larger quantities, perhaps, but the
excitement was there, too. It was the first time in his life that he
had been entirely dependent on himself. He had crossed the Rubicon. The
occasion was too serious for him to feel the same helplessly furious
feeling with which he had embarked on life at Sedleigh. It was possible
to look on Sedleigh with quite a personal enmity. London was too big to
be angry with. It took no notice of him. It did not care whether he was
glad to be there or sorry, and there was no means of making it care.
That is the peculiarity of London. There is a sort of cold
unfriendliness about it. A city like New York makes the new arrival
feel at home in half an hour; but London is a specialist in what Psmith
in his letter had called the Distant Stare. You have to buy London's
good-will.
Mike drove across the Park to Victoria, feeling very empty and small.
He had settled on Dulwich as the spot to get lodgings, partly because,
knowing nothing about London, he was under the impression that rooms
anywhere inside the four-mile radius were very expensive, but
principally because there was a school at Dulwich, and it would be a
comfort being near a school. He might get a game of fives there
sometimes, he thought, on a Saturday afternoon, and, in the summer,
occasional cricket.
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