Books: Psmith in the City
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P. G. Wodehouse >> Psmith in the City
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Wandering at a venture up the asphalt passage which leads from Dulwich
station in the direction of the College, he came out into Acacia Road.
There is something about Acacia Road which inevitably suggests
furnished apartments. A child could tell at a glance that it was
bristling with bed-sitting rooms.
Mike knocked at the first door over which a card hung.
There is probably no more depressing experience in the world than the
process of engaging furnished apartments. Those who let furnished
apartments seem to take no joy in the act. Like Pooh-Bah, they do it,
but it revolts them.
In answer to Mike's knock, a female person opened the door. In
appearance she resembled a pantomime 'dame', inclining towards the
restrained melancholy of Mr Wilkie Bard rather than the joyous abandon
of Mr George Robey. Her voice she had modelled on the gramophone. Her
most recent occupation seemed to have been something with a good deal
of yellow soap in it. As a matter of fact--there are no secrets between
our readers and ourselves--she had been washing a shirt. A useful
occupation, and an honourable, but one that tends to produce a certain
homeliness in the appearance.
She wiped a pair of steaming hands on her apron, and regarded Mike with
an eye which would have been markedly expressionless in a boiled fish.
'Was there anything?' she asked.
Mike felt that he was in for it now. He had not sufficient ease of
manner to back gracefully away and disappear, so he said that there was
something. In point of fact, he wanted a bed-sitting room.
'Orkup stays,' said the pantomime dame. Which Mike interpreted to mean,
would he walk upstairs?
The procession moved up a dark flight of stairs until it came to a
door. The pantomime dame opened this, and shuffled through. Mike stood
in the doorway, and looked in.
It was a repulsive room. One of those characterless rooms which are
only found in furnished apartments. To Mike, used to the comforts of
his bedroom at home and the cheerful simplicity of a school dormitory,
it seemed about the most dismal spot he had ever struck. A sort of
Sargasso Sea among bedrooms.
He looked round in silence. Then he said: 'Yes.' There did not seem
much else to say.
'It's a nice room,' said the pantomime dame. Which was a black lie. It
was not a nice room. It never had been a nice room. And it did not seem
at all probable that it ever would be a nice room. But it looked cheap.
That was the great thing. Nobody could have the assurance to charge
much for a room like that. A landlady with a conscience might even have
gone to the length of paying people some small sum by way of
compensation to them for sleeping in it.
'About what?' queried Mike. Cheapness was the great consideration. He
understood that his salary at the bank would be about four pounds ten a
month, to begin with, and his father was allowing him five pounds a
month. One does not do things _en prince_ on a hundred and
fourteen pounds a year.
The pantomime dame became slightly more animated. Prefacing her remarks
by a repetition of her statement that it was a nice room, she went on
to say that she could 'do' it at seven and sixpence per week 'for
him'--giving him to understand, presumably, that, if the Shah of Persia
or Mr Carnegie ever applied for a night's rest, they would sigh in vain
for such easy terms. And that included lights. Coals were to be looked
on as an extra. 'Sixpence a scuttle.' Attendance was thrown in.
Having stated these terms, she dribbled a piece of fluff under the bed,
after the manner of a professional Association footballer, and relapsed
into her former moody silence.
Mike said he thought that would be all right. The pantomime dame
exhibited no pleasure.
''Bout meals?' she said. 'You'll be wanting breakfast. Bacon, aigs,
an' that, I suppose?'
Mike said he supposed so.
'That'll be extra,' she said. 'And dinner? A chop, or a nice steak?'
Mike bowed before this original flight of fancy. A chop or a nice steak
seemed to be about what he might want.
'That'll be extra,' said the pantomime dame in her best Wilkie Bard
manner.
Mike said yes, he supposed so. After which, having put down seven and
sixpence, one week's rent in advance, he was presented with a grubby
receipt and an enormous latchkey, and the _seance_ was at an end.
Mike wandered out of the house. A few steps took him to the railings
that bounded the College grounds. It was late August, and the evenings
had begun to close in. The cricket-field looked very cool and spacious
in the dim light, with the school buildings looming vague and shadowy
through the slight mist. The little gate by the railway bridge was not
locked. He went in, and walked slowly across the turf towards the big
clump of trees which marked the division between the cricket and
football fields. It was all very pleasant and soothing after the
pantomime dame and her stuffy bed-sitting room. He sat down on a bench
beside the second eleven telegraph-board, and looked across the ground
at the pavilion. For the first time that day he began to feel really
home-sick. Up till now the excitement of a strange venture had borne
him up; but the cricket-field and the pavilion reminded him so sharply
of Wrykyn. They brought home to him with a cutting distinctness, the
absolute finality of his break with the old order of things. Summers
would come and go, matches would be played on this ground with all the
glory of big scores and keen finishes; but he was done. 'He was a jolly
good bat at school. Top of the Wrykyn averages two years. But didn't do
anything after he left. Went into the city or something.' That was what
they would say of him, if they didn't quite forget him.
The clock on the tower over the senior block chimed quarter after
quarter, but Mike sat on, thinking. It was quite late when he got up,
and began to walk back to Acacia Road. He felt cold and stiff and very
miserable.
4. First Steps in a Business Career
The City received Mike with the same aloofness with which the more
western portion of London had welcomed him on the previous day. Nobody
seemed to look at him. He was permitted to alight at St Paul's and make
his way up Queen Victoria Street without any demonstration. He followed
the human stream till he reached the Mansion House, and eventually
found himself at the massive building of the New Asiatic Bank, Limited.
The difficulty now was to know how to make an effective entrance. There
was the bank, and here was he. How had he better set about breaking it
to the authorities that he had positively arrived and was ready to
start earning his four pound ten _per mensem_? Inside, the bank
seemed to be in a state of some confusion. Men were moving about in an
apparently irresolute manner. Nobody seemed actually to be working. As
a matter of fact, the business of a bank does not start very early in
the morning. Mike had arrived before things had really begun to move.
As he stood near the doorway, one or two panting figures rushed up the
steps, and flung themselves at a large book which stood on the counter
near the door. Mike was to come to know this book well. In it, if you
were an _employe_ of the New Asiatic Bank, you had to inscribe
your name every morning. It was removed at ten sharp to the
accountant's room, and if you reached the bank a certain number of
times in the year too late to sign, bang went your bonus.
After a while things began to settle down. The stir and confusion
gradually ceased. All down the length of the bank, figures could be
seen, seated on stools and writing hieroglyphics in large letters. A
benevolent-looking man, with spectacles and a straggling grey beard,
crossed the gangway close to where Mike was standing. Mike put the
thing to him, as man to man.
'Could you tell me,' he said, 'what I'm supposed to do? I've just
joined the bank.' The benevolent man stopped, and looked at him with a
pair of mild blue eyes. 'I think, perhaps, that your best plan would be
to see the manager,' he said. 'Yes, I should certainly do that. He will
tell you what work you have to do. If you will permit me, I will show
you the way.'
'It's awfully good of you,' said Mike. He felt very grateful. After his
experience of London, it was a pleasant change to find someone who
really seemed to care what happened to him. His heart warmed to the
benevolent man.
'It feels strange to you, perhaps, at first, Mr--'
'Jackson.'
'Mr Jackson. My name is Waller. I have been in the City some time, but
I can still recall my first day. But one shakes down. One shakes down
quite quickly. Here is the manager's room. If you go in, he will tell
you what to do.'
'Thanks awfully,' said Mike.
'Not at all.' He ambled off on the quest which Mike had interrupted,
turning, as he went, to bestow a mild smile of encouragement on the new
arrival. There was something about Mr Waller which reminded Mike
pleasantly of the White Knight in 'Alice through the Looking-glass.'
Mike knocked at the managerial door, and went in.
Two men were sitting at the table. The one facing the door was writing
when Mike went in. He continued to write all the time he was in the
room. Conversation between other people in his presence had apparently
no interest for him, nor was it able to disturb him in any way.
The other man was talking into a telephone. Mike waited till he had
finished. Then he coughed. The man turned round. Mike had thought, as
he looked at his back and heard his voice, that something about his
appearance or his way of speaking was familiar. He was right. The man
in the chair was Mr Bickersdyke, the cross-screen pedestrian.
These reunions are very awkward. Mike was frankly unequal to the
situation. Psmith, in his place, would have opened the conversation,
and relaxed the tension with some remark on the weather or the state of
the crops. Mike merely stood wrapped in silence, as in a garment.
That the recognition was mutual was evident from Mr Bickersdyke's look.
But apart from this, he gave no sign of having already had the pleasure
of making Mike's acquaintance. He merely stared at him as if he were a
blot on the arrangement of the furniture, and said, 'Well?'
The most difficult parts to play in real life as well as on the stage
are those in which no 'business' is arranged for the performer. It was
all very well for Mr Bickersdyke. He had been 'discovered sitting'. But
Mike had had to enter, and he wished now that there was something he
could do instead of merely standing and speaking.
'I've come,' was the best speech he could think of. It was not a good
speech. It was too sinister. He felt that even as he said it. It was
the sort of thing Mephistopheles would have said to Faust by way of
opening conversation. And he was not sure, either, whether he ought not
to have added, 'Sir.'
Apparently such subtleties of address were not necessary, for Mr
Bickersdyke did not start up and shout, 'This language to me!' or
anything of that kind. He merely said, 'Oh! And who are you?'
'Jackson,' said Mike. It was irritating, this assumption on Mr
Bickersdyke's part that they had never met before.
'Jackson? Ah, yes. You have joined the staff?'
Mike rather liked this way of putting it. It lent a certain dignity to
the proceedings, making him feel like some important person for whose
services there had been strenuous competition. He seemed to see the
bank's directors being reassured by the chairman. ('I am happy to say,
gentlemen, that our profits for the past year are 3,000,006-2-2 1/2
pounds--(cheers)--and'--impressively--'that we have finally succeeded
in inducing Mr Mike Jackson--(sensation)--to--er--in fact, to join the
staff!' (Frantic cheers, in which the chairman joined.)
'Yes,' he said.
Mr Bickersdyke pressed a bell on the table beside him, and picking up a
pen, began to write. Of Mike he took no further notice, leaving that
toy of Fate standing stranded in the middle of the room.
After a few moments one of the men in fancy dress, whom Mike had seen
hanging about the gangway, and whom he afterwards found to be
messengers, appeared. Mr Bickersdyke looked up.
'Ask Mr Bannister to step this way,' he said.
The messenger disappeared, and presently the door opened again to admit
a shock-headed youth with paper cuff-protectors round his wrists.
'This is Mr Jackson, a new member of the staff. He will take your place
in the postage department. You will go into the cash department, under
Mr Waller. Kindly show him what he has to do.'
Mike followed Mr Bannister out. On the other side of the door the
shock-headed one became communicative.
'Whew!' he said, mopping his brow. 'That's the sort of thing which
gives me the pip. When William came and said old Bick wanted to see me,
I said to him, "William, my boy, my number is up. This is the sack." I
made certain that Rossiter had run me in for something. He's been
waiting for a chance to do it for weeks, only I've been as good as gold
and haven't given it him. I pity you going into the postage. There's
one thing, though. If you can stick it for about a month, you'll get
through all right. Men are always leaving for the East, and then you
get shunted on into another department, and the next new man goes into
the postage. That's the best of this place. It's not like one of those
banks where you stay in London all your life. You only have three years
here, and then you get your orders, and go to one of the branches in
the East, where you're the dickens of a big pot straight away, with a
big screw and a dozen native Johnnies under you. Bit of all right,
that. I shan't get my orders for another two and a half years and more,
worse luck. Still, it's something to look forward to.'
'Who's Rossiter?' asked Mike.
'The head of the postage department. Fussy little brute. Won't leave
you alone. Always trying to catch you on the hop. There's one thing,
though. The work in the postage is pretty simple. You can't make many
mistakes, if you're careful. It's mostly entering letters and stamping
them.'
They turned in at the door in the counter, and arrived at a desk which
ran parallel to the gangway. There was a high rack running along it, on
which were several ledgers. Tall, green-shaded electric lamps gave it
rather a cosy look.
As they reached the desk, a little man with short, black whiskers
buzzed out from behind a glass screen, where there was another desk.
'Where have you been, Bannister, where have you been? You must not
leave your work in this way. There are several letters waiting to be
entered. Where have you been?'
'Mr Bickersdyke sent for me,' said Bannister, with the calm triumph of
one who trumps an ace.
'Oh! Ah! Oh! Yes, very well. I see. But get to work, get to work. Who
is this?'
'This is a new man. He's taking my place. I've been moved on to the
cash.'
'Oh! Ah! Is your name Smith?' asked Mr Rossiter, turning to Mike.
Mike corrected the rash guess, and gave his name. It struck him as a
curious coincidence that he should be asked if his name were Smith, of
all others. Not that it is an uncommon name.
'Mr Bickersdyke told me to expect a Mr Smith. Well, well, perhaps there
are two new men. Mr Bickersdyke knows we are short-handed in this
department. But, come along, Bannister, come along. Show Jackson what
he has to do. We must get on. There is no time to waste.'
He buzzed back to his lair. Bannister grinned at Mike. He was a
cheerful youth. His normal expression was a grin.
'That's a sample of Rossiter,' he said. 'You'd think from the fuss he's
made that the business of the place was at a standstill till we got to
work. Perfect rot! There's never anything to do here till after lunch,
except checking the stamps and petty cash, and I've done that ages ago.
There are three letters. You may as well enter them. It all looks like
work. But you'll find the best way is to wait till you get a couple of
dozen or so, and then work them off in a batch. But if you see Rossiter
about, then start stamping something or writing something, or he'll run
you in for neglecting your job. He's a nut. I'm jolly glad I'm under
old Waller now. He's the pick of the bunch. The other heads of
departments are all nuts, and Bickersdyke's the nuttiest of the lot.
Now, look here. This is all you've got to do. I'll just show you, and
then you can manage for yourself. I shall have to be shunting off to my
own work in a minute.'
5. The Other Man
As Bannister had said, the work in the postage department was not
intricate. There was nothing much to do except enter and stamp letters,
and, at intervals, take them down to the post office at the end of the
street. The nature of the work gave Mike plenty of time for reflection.
His thoughts became gloomy again. All this was very far removed from
the life to which he had looked forward. There are some people who take
naturally to a life of commerce. Mike was not of these. To him the
restraint of the business was irksome. He had been used to an open-air
life, and a life, in its way, of excitement. He gathered that he would
not be free till five o'clock, and that on the following day he would
come at ten and go at five, and the same every day, except Saturdays
and Sundays, all the year round, with a ten days' holiday. The monotony
of the prospect appalled him. He was not old enough to know what a
narcotic is Habit, and that one can become attached to and interested
in the most unpromising jobs. He worked away dismally at his letters
till he had finished them. Then there was nothing to do except sit and
wait for more.
He looked through the letters he had stamped, and re-read the
addresses. Some of them were directed to people living in the country,
one to a house which he knew quite well, near to his own home in
Shropshire. It made him home-sick, conjuring up visions of shady
gardens and country sounds and smells, and the silver Severn gleaming
in the distance through the trees. About now, if he were not in this
dismal place, he would be lying in the shade in the garden with a book,
or wandering down to the river to boat or bathe. That envelope
addressed to the man in Shropshire gave him the worst moment he had
experienced that day.
The time crept slowly on to one o'clock. At two minutes past Mike awoke
from a day-dream to find Mr Waller standing by his side. The cashier
had his hat on.
'I wonder,' said Mr Waller, 'if you would care to come out to lunch. I
generally go about this time, and Mr Rossiter, I know, does not go out
till two. I thought perhaps that, being unused to the City, you might
have some difficulty in finding your way about.'
'It's awfully good of you,' said Mike. 'I should like to.'
The other led the way through the streets and down obscure alleys till
they came to a chop-house. Here one could have the doubtful pleasure of
seeing one's chop in its various stages of evolution. Mr Waller ordered
lunch with the care of one to whom lunch is no slight matter. Few
workers in the City do regard lunch as a trivial affair. It is the
keynote of their day. It is an oasis in a desert of ink and ledgers.
Conversation in city office deals, in the morning, with what one is
going to have for lunch, and in the afternoon with what one has had for
lunch.
At intervals during the meal Mr Waller talked. Mike was content to
listen. There was something soothing about the grey-bearded one.
'What sort of a man is Bickersdyke?' asked Mike.
'A very able man. A very able man indeed. I'm afraid he's not popular
in the office. A little inclined, perhaps, to be hard on mistakes. I
can remember the time when he was quite different. He and I were fellow
clerks in Morton and Blatherwick's. He got on better than I did. A
great fellow for getting on. They say he is to be the Unionist
candidate for Kenningford when the time comes. A great worker, but
perhaps not quite the sort of man to be generally popular in an
office.'
'He's a blighter,' was Mike's verdict. Mr Waller made no comment. Mike
was to learn later that the manager and the cashier, despite the fact
that they had been together in less prosperous days--or possibly
because of it--were not on very good terms. Mr Bickersdyke was a man of
strong prejudices, and he disliked the cashier, whom he looked down
upon as one who had climbed to a lower rung of the ladder than he
himself had reached.
As the hands of the chop-house clock reached a quarter to two, Mr
Waller rose, and led the way back to the office, where they parted for
their respective desks. Gratitude for any good turn done to him was a
leading characteristic of Mike's nature, and he felt genuinely grateful
to the cashier for troubling to seek him out and be friendly to him.
His three-quarters-of-an-hour absence had led to the accumulation of a
small pile of letters on his desk. He sat down and began to work them
off. The addresses continued to exercise a fascination for him. He was
miles away from the office, speculating on what sort of a man J. B.
Garside, Esq, was, and whether he had a good time at his house in
Worcestershire, when somebody tapped him on the shoulder.
He looked up.
Standing by his side, immaculately dressed as ever, with his eye-glass
fixed and a gentle smile on his face, was Psmith.
Mike stared.
'Commerce,' said Psmith, as he drew off his lavender gloves, 'has
claimed me for her own. Comrade of old, I, too, have joined this
blighted institution.'
As he spoke, there was a whirring noise in the immediate neighbourhood,
and Mr Rossiter buzzed out from his den with the _esprit_ and
animation of a clock-work toy.
'Who's here?' said Psmith with interest, removing his eye-glass,
polishing it, and replacing it in his eye.
'Mr Jackson,' exclaimed Mr Rossiter. 'I really must ask you to be good
enough to come in from your lunch at the proper time. It was fully
seven minutes to two when you returned, and--'
'That little more,' sighed Psmith, 'and how much is it!'
'Who are you?' snapped Mr Rossiter, turning on him.
'I shall be delighted, Comrade--'
'Rossiter,' said Mike, aside.
'Comrade Rossiter. I shall be delighted to furnish you with particulars
of my family history. As follows. Soon after the Norman Conquest, a
certain Sieur de Psmith grew tired of work--a family failing,
alas!--and settled down in this country to live peacefully for the
remainder of his life on what he could extract from the local
peasantry. He may be described as the founder of the family which
ultimately culminated in Me. Passing on--'
Mr Rossiter refused to pass on.
'What are you doing here? What have you come for?'
'Work,' said Psmith, with simple dignity. 'I am now a member of the
staff of this bank. Its interests are my interests. Psmith, the
individual, ceases to exist, and there springs into being Psmith, the
cog in the wheel of the New Asiatic Bank; Psmith, the link in the
bank's chain; Psmith, the Worker. I shall not spare myself,' he
proceeded earnestly. 'I shall toil with all the accumulated energy of
one who, up till now, has only known what work is like from hearsay.
Whose is that form sitting on the steps of the bank in the morning,
waiting eagerly for the place to open? It is the form of Psmith, the
Worker. Whose is that haggard, drawn face which bends over a ledger
long after the other toilers have sped blithely westwards to dine at
Lyons' Popular Cafe? It is the face of Psmith, the Worker.'
'I--' began Mr Rossiter.
'I tell you,' continued Psmith, waving aside the interruption and
tapping the head of the department rhythmically in the region of the
second waistcoat-button with a long finger, 'I tell _you_, Comrade
Rossiter, that you have got hold of a good man. You and I together, not
forgetting Comrade Jackson, the pet of the Smart Set, will toil early
and late till we boost up this Postage Department into a shining model
of what a Postage Department should be. What that is, at present, I do
not exactly know. However. Excursion trains will be run from distant
shires to see this Postage Department. American visitors to London will
do it before going on to the Tower. And now,' he broke off, with a
crisp, businesslike intonation, 'I must ask you to excuse me. Much as I
have enjoyed this little chat, I fear it must now cease. The time has
come to work. Our trade rivals are getting ahead of us. The whisper
goes round, "Rossiter and Psmith are talking, not working," and other
firms prepare to pinch our business. Let me Work.'
Two minutes later, Mr Rossiter was sitting at his desk with a dazed
expression, while Psmith, perched gracefully on a stool, entered
figures in a ledger.
6. Psmith Explains
For the space of about twenty-five minutes Psmith sat in silence,
concentrated on his ledger, the picture of the model bank-clerk. Then
he flung down his pen, slid from his stool with a satisfied sigh, and
dusted his waistcoat. 'A commercial crisis,' he said, 'has passed. The
job of work which Comrade Rossiter indicated for me has been completed
with masterly skill. The period of anxiety is over. The bank ceases to
totter. Are you busy, Comrade Jackson, or shall we chat awhile?'
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