Books: Psmith in the City
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P. G. Wodehouse >> Psmith in the City
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'I shall lose my place. Mr Bickersdyke has wanted to get rid of me for
a long time. He never liked me. I shall be dismissed. What can I do?
I'm an old man. I can't make another start. I am good for nothing.
Nobody will take an old man like me.'
His voice died away. There was a silence. Mike sat staring miserably in
front of him.
Then, quite suddenly, an idea came to him. The whole pressure of the
atmosphere seemed to lift. He saw a way out. It was a curious crooked
way, but at that moment it stretched clear and broad before him. He
felt lighthearted and excited, as if he were watching the development
of some interesting play at the theatre.
He got up, smiling.
The cashier did not notice the movement. Somebody had come in to cash a
cheque, and he was working mechanically.
Mike walked up the aisle to Mr Bickersdyke's room, and went in.
The manager was in his chair at the big table. Opposite him, facing
slightly sideways, was a small, round, very red-faced man. Mr
Bickersdyke was speaking as Mike entered.
'I can assure you, Sir John--' he was saying.
He looked up as the door opened.
'Well, Mr Jackson?'
Mike almost laughed. The situation was tickling him.
'Mr Waller has told me--' he began.
'I have already seen Mr Waller.'
'I know. He told me about the cheque. I came to explain.'
'Explain?'
'Yes. He didn't cash it at all.'
'I don't understand you, Mr Jackson.'
'I was at the counter when it was brought in,' said Mike. 'I cashed it.'
21. Psmith Makes Inquiries
Psmith, as was his habit of a morning when the fierce rush of his
commercial duties had abated somewhat, was leaning gracefully against
his desk, musing on many things, when he was aware that Bristow was
standing before him.
Focusing his attention with some reluctance upon this blot on the
horizon, he discovered that the exploiter of rainbow waistcoats and
satin ties was addressing him.
'I say, Smithy,' said Bristow. He spoke in rather an awed voice.
'Say on, Comrade Bristow,' said Psmith graciously. 'You have our ear.
You would seem to have something on your chest in addition to that
Neapolitan ice garment which, I regret to see, you still flaunt. If it
is one tithe as painful as that, you have my sympathy. Jerk it out,
Comrade Bristow.'
'Jackson isn't half copping it from old Bick.'
'Isn't--? What exactly did you say?'
'He's getting it hot on the carpet.'
'You wish to indicate,' said Psmith, 'that there is some slight
disturbance, some passing breeze between Comrades Jackson and
Bickersdyke?'
Bristow chuckled.
'Breeze! Blooming hurricane, more like it. I was in Bick's room just
now with a letter to sign, and I tell you, the fur was flying all over
the bally shop. There was old Bick cursing for all he was worth, and a
little red-faced buffer puffing out his cheeks in an armchair.'
'We all have our hobbies,' said Psmith.
'Jackson wasn't saying much. He jolly well hadn't a chance. Old Bick
was shooting it out fourteen to the dozen.'
'I have been privileged,' said Psmith, 'to hear Comrade Bickersdyke
speak both in his sanctum and in public. He has, as you suggest, a
ready flow of speech. What, exactly was the cause of the turmoil?'
'I couldn't wait to hear. I was too jolly glad to get away. Old Bick
looked at me as if he could eat me, snatched the letter out of my hand,
signed it, and waved his hand at the door as a hint to hop it. Which I
jolly well did. He had started jawing Jackson again before I was out of
the room.'
'While applauding his hustle,' said Psmith, 'I fear that I must take
official notice of this. Comrade Jackson is essentially a Sensitive
Plant, highly strung, neurotic. I cannot have his nervous system jolted
and disorganized in this manner, and his value as a confidential
secretary and adviser impaired, even though it be only temporarily. I
must look into this. I will go and see if the orgy is concluded. I will
hear what Comrade Jackson has to say on the matter. I shall not act
rashly, Comrade Bristow. If the man Bickersdyke is proved to have had
good grounds for his outbreak, he shall escape uncensured. I may even
look in on him and throw him a word of praise. But if I find, as I
suspect, that he has wronged Comrade Jackson, I shall be forced to
speak sharply to him.'
* * * * *
Mike had left the scene of battle by the time Psmith reached the Cash
Department, and was sitting at his desk in a somewhat dazed condition,
trying to clear his mind sufficiently to enable him to see exactly how
matters stood as concerned himself. He felt confused and rattled. He
had known, when he went to the manager's room to make his statement,
that there would be trouble. But, then, trouble is such an elastic
word. It embraces a hundred degrees of meaning. Mike had expected
sentence of dismissal, and he had got it. So far he had nothing to
complain of. But he had not expected it to come to him riding high on
the crest of a great, frothing wave of verbal denunciation. Mr
Bickersdyke, through constantly speaking in public, had developed the
habit of fluent denunciation to a remarkable extent. He had thundered
at Mike as if Mike had been his Majesty's Government or the Encroaching
Alien, or something of that sort. And that kind of thing is a little
overwhelming at short range. Mike's head was still spinning.
It continued to spin; but he never lost sight of the fact round which
it revolved, namely, that he had been dismissed from the service of the
bank. And for the first time he began to wonder what they would say
about this at home.
Up till now the matter had seemed entirely a personal one. He had
charged in to rescue the harassed cashier in precisely the same way as
that in which he had dashed in to save him from Bill, the Stone-Flinging
Scourge of Clapham Common. Mike's was one of those direct, honest minds
which are apt to concentrate themselves on the crisis of the moment,
and to leave the consequences out of the question entirely.
What would they say at home? That was the point.
Again, what could he do by way of earning a living? He did not know
much about the City and its ways, but he knew enough to understand that
summary dismissal from a bank is not the best recommendation one can
put forward in applying for another job. And if he did not get another
job in the City, what could he do? If it were only summer, he might get
taken on somewhere as a cricket professional. Cricket was his line. He
could earn his pay at that. But it was very far from being summer.
He had turned the problem over in his mind till his head ached, and had
eaten in the process one-third of a wooden penholder, when Psmith
arrived.
'It has reached me,' said Psmith, 'that you and Comrade Bickersdyke
have been seen doing the Hackenschmidt-Gotch act on the floor. When my
informant left, he tells me, Comrade B. had got a half-Nelson on you,
and was biting pieces out of your ear. Is this so?'
Mike got up. Psmith was the man, he felt, to advise him in this crisis.
Psmith's was the mind to grapple with his Hard Case.
'Look here, Smith,' he said, 'I want to speak to you. I'm in a bit of a
hole, and perhaps you can tell me what to do. Let's go out and have a
cup of coffee, shall we? I can't tell you about it here.'
'An admirable suggestion,' said Psmith. 'Things in the Postage
Department are tolerably quiescent at present. Naturally I shall be
missed, if I go out. But my absence will not spell irretrievable ruin,
as it would at a period of greater commercial activity. Comrades
Rossiter and Bristow have studied my methods. They know how I like
things to be done. They are fully competent to conduct the business of
the department in my absence. Let us, as you say, scud forth. We will
go to a Mecca. Why so-called I do not know, nor, indeed, do I ever hope
to know. There we may obtain, at a price, a passable cup of coffee, and
you shall tell me your painful story.'
The Mecca, except for the curious aroma which pervades all Meccas, was
deserted. Psmith, moving a box of dominoes on to the next table, sat
down.
'Dominoes,' he said, 'is one of the few manly sports which have never
had great attractions for me. A cousin of mine, who secured his chess
blue at Oxford, would, they tell me, have represented his University in
the dominoes match also, had he not unfortunately dislocated the radius
bone of his bazooka while training for it. Except for him, there has
been little dominoes talent in the Psmith family. Let us merely talk.
What of this slight brass-rag-parting to which I alluded just now? Tell
me all.'
He listened gravely while Mike related the incidents which had led up
to his confession and the results of the same. At the conclusion of the
narrative he sipped his coffee in silence for a moment.
'This habit of taking on to your shoulders the harvest of other
people's bloomers,' he said meditatively, 'is growing upon you, Comrade
Jackson. You must check it. It is like dram-drinking. You begin in a
small way by breaking school rules to extract Comrade Jellicoe (perhaps
the supremest of all the blitherers I have ever met) from a hole. If
you had stopped there, all might have been well. But the thing, once
started, fascinated you. Now you have landed yourself with a splash in
the very centre of the Oxo in order to do a good turn to Comrade
Waller. You must drop it, Comrade Jackson. When you were free and
without ties, it did not so much matter. But now that you are
confidential secretary and adviser to a Shropshire Psmith, the thing
must stop. Your secretarial duties must be paramount. Nothing must be
allowed to interfere with them. Yes. The thing must stop before it goes
too far.'
'It seems to me,' said Mike, 'that it has gone too far. I've got the
sack. I don't know how much farther you want it to go.'
Psmith stirred his coffee before replying.
'True,' he said, 'things look perhaps a shade rocky just now, but all
is not yet lost. You must recollect that Comrade Bickersdyke spoke in
the heat of the moment. That generous temperament was stirred to its
depths. He did not pick his words. But calm will succeed storm, and we
may be able to do something yet. I have some little influence with
Comrade Bickersdyke. Wrongly, perhaps,' added Psmith modestly, 'he
thinks somewhat highly of my judgement. If he sees that I am opposed to
this step, he may possibly reconsider it. What Psmith thinks today, is
his motto, I shall think tomorrow. However, we shall see.'
'I bet we shall!' said Mike ruefully.
'There is, moreover,' continued Psmith, 'another aspect to the affair.
When you were being put through it, in Comrade Bickersdyke's inimitably
breezy manner, Sir John What's-his-name was, I am given to understand,
present. Naturally, to pacify the aggrieved bart., Comrade B. had to
lay it on regardless of expense. In America, as possibly you are aware,
there is a regular post of mistake-clerk, whose duty it is to receive
in the neck anything that happens to be coming along when customers
make complaints. He is hauled into the presence of the foaming
customer, cursed, and sacked. The customer goes away appeased. The
mistake-clerk, if the harangue has been unusually energetic, applies
for a rise of salary. Now, possibly, in your case--'
'In my case,' interrupted Mike, 'there was none of that rot.
Bickersdyke wasn't putting it on. He meant every word. Why, dash it
all, you know yourself he'd be only too glad to sack me, just to get
some of his own back with me.'
Psmith's eyes opened in pained surprise.
'Get some of his own back!' he repeated.
'Are you insinuating, Comrade Jackson, that my relations with Comrade
Bickersdyke are not of the most pleasant and agreeable nature possible?
How do these ideas get about? I yield to nobody in my respect for our
manager. I may have had occasion from time to time to correct him in
some trifling matter, but surely he is not the man to let such a thing
rankle? No! I prefer to think that Comrade Bickersdyke regards me as
his friend and well-wisher, and will lend a courteous ear to any
proposal I see fit to make. I hope shortly to be able to prove this to
you. I will discuss this little affair of the cheque with him at our
ease at the club, and I shall be surprised if we do not come to some
arrangement.'
'Look here, Smith,' said Mike earnestly, 'for goodness' sake don't go
playing the goat. There's no earthly need for you to get lugged into
this business. Don't you worry about me. I shall be all right.'
'I think,' said Psmith, 'that you will--when I have chatted with
Comrade Bickersdyke.'
22. And Take Steps
On returning to the bank, Mike found Mr Waller in the grip of a
peculiarly varied set of mixed feelings. Shortly after Mike's departure
for the Mecca, the cashier had been summoned once more into the
Presence, and had there been informed that, as apparently he had not
been directly responsible for the gross piece of carelessness by which
the bank had suffered so considerable a loss (here Sir John puffed out
his cheeks like a meditative toad), the matter, as far as he was
concerned, was at an end. On the other hand--! Here Mr Waller was
hauled over the coals for Incredible Rashness in allowing a mere junior
subordinate to handle important tasks like the paying out of money, and
so on, till he felt raw all over. However, it was not dismissal. That
was the great thing. And his principal sensation was one of relief.
Mingled with the relief were sympathy for Mike, gratitude to him for
having given himself up so promptly, and a curiously dazed sensation,
as if somebody had been hitting him on the head with a bolster.
All of which emotions, taken simultaneously, had the effect of
rendering him completely dumb when he saw Mike. He felt that he did not
know what to say to him. And as Mike, for his part, simply wanted to be
let alone, and not compelled to talk, conversation was at something of
a standstill in the Cash Department.
After five minutes, it occurred to Mr Waller that perhaps the best plan
would be to interview Psmith. Psmith would know exactly how matters
stood. He could not ask Mike point-blank whether he had been dismissed.
But there was the probability that Psmith had been informed and would
pass on the information.
Psmith received the cashier with a dignified kindliness.
'Oh, er, Smith,' said Mr Waller, 'I wanted just to ask you about
Jackson.'
Psmith bowed his head gravely.
'Exactly,' he said. 'Comrade Jackson. I think I may say that you have
come to the right man. Comrade Jackson has placed himself in my hands,
and I am dealing with his case. A somewhat tricky business, but I shall
see him through.'
'Has he--?' Mr Waller hesitated.
'You were saying?' said Psmith.
'Does Mr Bickersdyke intend to dismiss him?'
'At present,' admitted Psmith, 'there is some idea of that description
floating--nebulously, as it were--in Comrade Bickersdyke's mind.
Indeed, from what I gather from my client, the push was actually
administered, in so many words. But tush! And possibly bah! we know
what happens on these occasions, do we not? You and I are students of
human nature, and we know that a man of Comrade Bickersdyke's
warm-hearted type is apt to say in the heat of the moment a great deal
more than he really means. Men of his impulsive character cannot help
expressing themselves in times of stress with a certain generous
strength which those who do not understand them are inclined to take a
little too seriously. I shall have a chat with Comrade Bickersdyke at
the conclusion of the day's work, and I have no doubt that we shall
both laugh heartily over this little episode.'
Mr Waller pulled at his beard, with an expression on his face that
seemed to suggest that he was not quite so confident on this point. He
was about to put his doubts into words when Mr Rossiter appeared, and
Psmith, murmuring something about duty, turned again to his ledger. The
cashier drifted back to his own department.
It was one of Psmith's theories of Life, which he was accustomed to
propound to Mike in the small hours of the morning with his feet on the
mantelpiece, that the secret of success lay in taking advantage of
one's occasional slices of luck, in seizing, as it were, the happy
moment. When Mike, who had had the passage to write out ten times at
Wrykyn on one occasion as an imposition, reminded him that Shakespeare
had once said something about there being a tide in the affairs of men,
which, taken at the flood, &c., Psmith had acknowledged with an easy
grace that possibly Shakespeare _had_ got on to it first, and that
it was but one more proof of how often great minds thought alike.
Though waiving his claim to the copyright of the maxim, he nevertheless
had a high opinion of it, and frequently acted upon it in the conduct
of his own life.
Thus, when approaching the Senior Conservative Club at five o'clock
with the idea of finding Mr Bickersdyke there, he observed his quarry
entering the Turkish Baths which stand some twenty yards from the
club's front door, he acted on his maxim, and decided, instead of
waiting for the manager to finish his bath before approaching him on
the subject of Mike, to corner him in the Baths themselves.
He gave Mr Bickersdyke five minutes' start. Then, reckoning that by
that time he would probably have settled down, he pushed open the door
and went in himself. And, having paid his money, and left his boots
with the boy at the threshold, he was rewarded by the sight of the
manager emerging from a box at the far end of the room, clad in the
mottled towels which the bather, irrespective of his personal taste in
dress, is obliged to wear in a Turkish bath.
Psmith made for the same box. Mr Bickersdyke's clothes lay at the head
of one of the sofas, but nobody else had staked out a claim. Psmith
took possession of the sofa next to the manager's. Then, humming
lightly, he undressed, and made his way downstairs to the Hot Rooms. He
rather fancied himself in towels. There was something about them which
seemed to suit his figure. They gave him, he though, rather a
_debonnaire_ look. He paused for a moment before the looking-glass
to examine himself, with approval, then pushed open the door of the Hot
Rooms and went in.
23. Mr Bickersdyke Makes a Concession
Mr Bickersdyke was reclining in an easy-chair in the first room,
staring before him in the boiled-fish manner customary in a Turkish
Bath. Psmith dropped into the next seat with a cheery 'Good evening.'
The manager started as if some firm hand had driven a bradawl into him.
He looked at Psmith with what was intended to be a dignified stare. But
dignity is hard to achieve in a couple of parti-coloured towels. The
stare did not differ to any great extent from the conventional
boiled-fish look, alluded to above.
Psmith settled himself comfortably in his chair. 'Fancy finding you
here,' he said pleasantly. 'We seem always to be meeting. To me,' he
added, with a reassuring smile, 'it is a great pleasure. A very great
pleasure indeed. We see too little of each other during office hours.
Not that one must grumble at that. Work before everything. You have
your duties, I mine. It is merely unfortunate that those duties are not
such as to enable us to toil side by side, encouraging each other with
word and gesture. However, it is idle to repine. We must make the most
of these chance meetings when the work of the day is over.'
Mr Bickersdyke heaved himself up from his chair and took another at the
opposite end of the room. Psmith joined him.
'There's something pleasantly mysterious, to my mind,' said he
chattily, 'in a Turkish Bath. It seems to take one out of the hurry and
bustle of the everyday world. It is a quiet backwater in the rushing
river of Life. I like to sit and think in a Turkish Bath. Except, of
course, when I have a congenial companion to talk to. As now. To me--'
Mr Bickersdyke rose, and went into the next room.
'To me,' continued Psmith, again following, and seating himself beside
the manager, 'there is, too, something eerie in these places. There is
a certain sinister air about the attendants. They glide rather than
walk. They say little. Who knows what they may be planning and
plotting? That drip-drip again. It may be merely water, but how are we
to know that it is not blood? It would be so easy to do away with a man
in a Turkish Bath. Nobody has seen him come in. Nobody can trace him if
he disappears. These are uncomfortable thoughts, Mr Bickersdyke.'
Mr Bickersdyke seemed to think them so. He rose again, and returned to
the first room.
'I have made you restless,' said Psmith, in a voice of self-reproach,
when he had settled himself once more by the manager's side. 'I am
sorry. I will not pursue the subject. Indeed, I believe that my fears
are unnecessary. Statistics show, I understand, that large numbers of
men emerge in safety every year from Turkish Baths. There was another
matter of which I wished to speak to you. It is a somewhat delicate
matter, and I am only encouraged to mention it to you by the fact that
you are so close a friend of my father's.'
Mr Bickersdyke had picked up an early edition of an evening paper, left
on the table at his side by a previous bather, and was to all
appearances engrossed in it. Psmith, however, not discouraged,
proceeded to touch upon the matter of Mike.
'There was,' he said, 'some little friction, I hear, in the office
today in connection with a cheque.' The evening paper hid the manager's
expressive face, but from the fact that the hands holding it tightened
their grip Psmith deduced that Mr Bickersdyke's attention was not
wholly concentrated on the City news. Moreover, his toes wriggled. And
when a man's toes wriggle, he is interested in what you are saying.
'All these petty breezes,' continued Psmith sympathetically, 'must be
very trying to a man in your position, a man who wishes to be left
alone in order to devote his entire thought to the niceties of the
higher Finance. It is as if Napoleon, while planning out some intricate
scheme of campaign, were to be called upon in the midst of his
meditations to bully a private for not cleaning his buttons. Naturally,
you were annoyed. Your giant brain, wrenched temporarily from its
proper groove, expended its force in one tremendous reprimand of
Comrade Jackson. It was as if one had diverted some terrific electric
current which should have been controlling a vast system of machinery,
and turned it on to annihilate a black-beetle. In the present case, of
course, the result is as might have been expected. Comrade Jackson, not
realizing the position of affairs, went away with the absurd idea that
all was over, that you meant all you said--briefly, that his number was
up. I assured him that he was mistaken, but no! He persisted in
declaring that all was over, that you had dismissed him from the bank.'
Mr Bickersdyke lowered the paper and glared bulbously at the old
Etonian.
'Mr Jackson is perfectly right,' he snapped. 'Of course I dismissed
him.'
'Yes, yes,' said Psmith, 'I have no doubt that at the moment you did
work the rapid push. What I am endeavouring to point out is that
Comrade Jackson is under the impression that the edict is permanent,
that he can hope for no reprieve.'
'Nor can he.'
'You don't mean--'
'I mean what I say.'
'Ah, I quite understand,' said Psmith, as one who sees that he must
make allowances. 'The incident is too recent. The storm has not yet had
time to expend itself. You have not had leisure to think the matter
over coolly. It is hard, of course, to be cool in a Turkish Bath. Your
ganglions are still vibrating. Later, perhaps--'
'Once and for all,' growled Mr Bickersdyke, 'the thing is ended. Mr
Jackson will leave the bank at the end of the month. We have no room
for fools in the office.'
'You surprise me,' said Psmith. 'I should not have thought that the
standard of intelligence in the bank was extremely high. With the
exception of our two selves, I think that there are hardly any men of
real intelligence on the staff. And comrade Jackson is improving every
day. Being, as he is, under my constant supervision he is rapidly
developing a stranglehold on his duties, which--'
'I have no wish to discuss the matter any further.'
'No, no. Quite so, quite so. Not another word. I am dumb.'
'There are limits you see, to the uses of impertinence, Mr Smith.'
Psmith started.
'You are not suggesting--! You do not mean that I--!'
'I have no more to say. I shall be glad if you will allow me to read my
paper.'
Psmith waved a damp hand.
'I should be the last man,' he said stiffly, 'to force my conversation
on another. I was under the impression that you enjoyed these little
chats as keenly as I did. If I was wrong--'
He relapsed into a wounded silence. Mr Bickersdyke resumed his perusal
of the evening paper, and presently, laying it down, rose and made his
way to the room where muscular attendants were in waiting to perform
that blend of Jiu-Jitsu and Catch-as-catch-can which is the most
valuable and at the same time most painful part of a Turkish Bath.
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