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Aug. 19th, 2004 10:34 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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indeedsir_backupLEAVE IT TO PSMITH
The contrast between Lord Emsworth and the newcomer, as they stood there, was striking, almost dramatic. Lord Emsworth, was so acutely spectacleless; Rupert Baxter, his secretary, so pronouncedly spectacle. It was his spectacles that struck you first as you saw the man. If you had a guilty conscience, they pierced you through and through; and even if your conscience was one hundred per cent pure you could not ignore them. “Here,” you said to yourself, “is an efficient young man in spectacles.”
‘You are so wonderfully capable. I don’t know what in the world we would to without you.’
The Efficient Baxter bowed. But, though gratified, he was not overwhelmed by the tribute. The same thought had often occurred to him independently.
He and Lady Constance had a mutual banking account, and it was she who supervised the spending of it. This was an arrangement, subsequently regretted by Mr. Keeble, which had been come to in the early days of the honeymoon, when men are apt to do foolish things.
Lady Constance left the room, and a deep masculine silence fell.
‘Will you inform her that I called? The name is Psmith. P-smith.’
‘Peasmith, sir?’
‘No, no, P-s-m-i-t-h. I should explain to you that I started life without the initial letter, and my father always clung ruggedly to the plain Smith. But it seemed to me that there were so many Smiths in the world that a little variety might well be introduced. Smythe I took on as a cowardly evasion, nor do I approve of the too prevalent custom of tacking another name on in front by means of a hyphen. So I decided to adopt the Psmith. The p, I should add for your guidance, is silent, as in phthisis, psychic, and ptarmigan.’
‘I suppose I treated Rollo awfully badly.’
‘Never mind. A man with a name like that was made for suffering.’
The world seems full of hard-hearted relatives.
‘Mr Baxter, Lord Emsworth’s secretary, I expect. I don’t like him at all, he’s a sort of spectacled caveman.’
The offices of the Ada Clarkson International Employment Bureau (“Promtitude-Courtesy-Intelligence”) are at the top of Shaftesbury Avenue […]
‘What name please?’ responded Enquiries promptly and with intelligent courtesy.
He went into the waiting-room, and, having picked up a magazine from the table, settled down to read a story in The Girl’s Pet – the January number of the year 1919, for employment agencies, like dentists, prefer their literature of a mature vintage.
‘Look on it as a present.’
‘A present!’
‘A gift,’ explained Psmith.
‘This is an Employment Bureau,’ admitted Miss Clarkson.
‘I knew it, I knew it,’ said Psmith. ‘Something seemed to tell me. Possibly it was the legend “Employment Bureau” over the door. And those framed testimonials would convince the most sceptical.’
‘When I was but a babe, my eldest sister was bribed with sixpence an hour by my nurse to keep an eye on me and see that I did not raise Cain.’
‘Yes. He is a hard man, and he judges his fellows solely by their devotion to fish. I never in my life met a man so wrapped up in a subject. For years he had practically been a monomaniac on the subject of fish. So much so that he actually looks like one. It is as if he had taken on of those auto-suggestion courses and had kept saying to himself, “Every day, in every way, I grow more and more like a fish.” His closest friends now can hardly tell whether he more nearly resembles a halibut or a cod.’
‘I don’t know that I can say that, Mr Psmith.’
‘The p is silent, as in pshrimp,’ he reminded her.
‘These trousers may sit well, but, if they do, it’s because the pockets are empty.’
‘Are you really broke?’
‘As broke as the Ten Commandments.’
The loss of his glasses had had its usual effect on Lord Emsworth, making the world a misty place in which indefinable objects swam dimly like fish in muddy water. Not that this mattered much, seeing that he was in London, for in London there was never anything worth looking at.
Mr McTodd had not agreed with him. The grunt which Lord Emsworth had taken for an exclamation of rapturous adhesion to his sentiments had been merely a sort of bubble of sound rising from the tortured depths of Mr McTodd’s suffering soul –the cry, as the poet beautifully puts it, ‘of some strong smoker in his agony’.
And Lord Emsworth, slowly rising from his chair, “pointed” like a dog that sees a pheasant.
Psmith shook his head sadly. These clashings of human temperament were very lamentable. They disturbed the after-luncheon repose of the man of sensibility.
The fact that it never for an instant occurred to Psmith to do so was due, no doubt, to some innate defect in his character.
‘But my dear fellow, I simply had to pop across the street.’
‘Most decidedly,’ said Psmith. ‘Always pop across streets. It is the secret of a happy and successful life.’
He raced across the room in a manner that drew some censorious glances from the local grey-beards, many of whom had half a mind to write to the committee about it.
‘We must always remember,’ said Psmith gravely, ‘that poets are also God’s creatures.’
A sound of two or three pigs feeding rather noisily in the middle of a thunderstorm interrupted his meditations.
There is always a way. Almost immediately Psmith saw what Napoleon would have done in this crisis.
‘…About the necklace.’
‘Great Scott!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, of course!’
‘You still have not made it quite clear.’
‘It fits splendidly.’
‘The necklace?’
The sun, taken in as usual by the never-failing practical-joke of the Daylight’s Saving Act, had only just set.
‘What a beautiful thought, Mr McTodd!’ exclaimed Miss Peavey rapturously.
‘Yes,’ agreed Psmith. ‘Don’t pinch it. It’s copyright.’
‘I have always held,’ said Psmith,’ that there is no finer tonic than a good look at a lobelia immediately after breakfast. Doctors, I believe, recommend it.’
‘Oh, I say,’ said Freddie hastily, as he reached the door, ‘can I have a couple of words with you later on?’
‘A thousand, if you wish,’ said Psmith. ‘You will find me somewhere out there in the great open spaces where men are men.’
‘Why, there’s something fishy about you.’
Psmith winced.
‘I would be infinitely obliged to you, Comrade Threepwood, if you would not use that particular adjective. It awakens old memories, all very painful.’
‘We must remind ourselves that it is Baxter’s misfortune rather than his fault that he looks like a dyspeptic lizard.’
‘I mean, won’t take me seriously and all that. Laughs at me, don’t you know, when I propose. What would you do?’
‘I should stop proposing,’ said Psmith, having given the matter thought.
‘But I can’t!’
‘Tut, tut!’ said Psmith severely. ‘And, in case the expression is new to you, what I mean is ‘Pooh, pooh!’ Just say to yourself, ‘from now on I will not start proposing until after lunch.’ That done it will be an easy step to do no proposing during the afternoon. And by degrees you will find that you can give it up altogether. Once you have conquered the impulse for the after-breakfast proposal, the rest will be easy. The first one of the day is always the hardest to drop.’
‘I believe she thinks me a mere butterfly,’ said Freddie, who had not been listening to this most valuable homily.
Psmith slid down from the wall and stretched himself.
‘Why,’ he said, ‘are butterflies so often described as ‘mere’? I have heard them so called a hundred times, and I cannot understand the reason.’
‘Are we old friends?’
‘Surely. Have you forgotten all those happy days in London?’
‘There was only one.’
‘True. But think how many meetings we crammed into it.’
‘I nearly always take luggage when I am going to stay a month or two in the country.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘I could have done with a trifle more emphasis on the last word,’ said Psmith gently. ‘Forgive me for criticising your methods of voice production, but surely you can see how much better it would have sounded spoken thus: ‘Oh no!’’
‘I think you’re terribly conceited.’
‘Not at all,’ said Psmith. ‘Conceited? No, no, success has not spoiled me.’
‘Have you had any success?’
‘None whatever.’
‘We are now approaching the main buildings. I am no expert in architecture, so cannot tell you much about the façade, but you can see there is a façade, and in my opinion – for what it is worth – a jolly good one.’
‘I ventured the suggestion that girls worship the strong, rough, dashing type of man. And, after I had done my best to convince him that he was a strong, rough, dashing man, I came away. By now, of course, he may have had a relapse into despair; so, if you happen to see a body bobbing about in the water as we row along, it will probably be Freddie’s.’
What one fancied was the piping of Pan turns out to be a police-whistle, summoning assistance.
The goddess Fortune had handed him something on a plate with watercress around it.
‘If I’d walked under a ladder on a Friday to smash a mirror over the dome of a black cat, I couldn’t have had it tougher.’
‘I’d like,’ said Mr Cootes with asperity, ‘to beat your block off.’
‘No doubt. But…’
‘I’d like to knock you for a goal.’
Psmith discouraged these Utopian dreams with a deprecating wave of the hand.
‘Every stomach has a silver lining.’
Even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.
‘Prod him in the ribs, sir?’ he quavered.
‘Prod him in the ribs,’ said Psmith firmly. ‘And at the same time whisper in his ear the word ‘Aha!’’
Beach licked his dry lips.
‘Aha, sir?’
‘Aha! And say it came from me.’
‘Very good, sir. The matter will be attended to.’
She was alone. It is a sad but indisputable fact that in this world Genius is too often condemned to walk alone – if the earthier member of the community see it coming and have time to duck.
As he approached her now, he was thinking pleasantly of all those delightful walks, those excellent driftings on the lake, and those cheery conversations which had gone to cement his conviction that of all possible girls, she was the only possible one.
“The stats,” he proceeded, indicating them with a kindly yet not patronising wave of the hand. “Bright, twinkling, and – if I may say so – rather neatly arranged.”
“They were showing Episode Eleven of a serial. It concluded with the heroine, kidnapped by Indians, stretched out on the sacrificial altar with the high-priest making passes at her with a knife. The hero meanwhile had started to climb a rather nasty precipice on his way to the rescue. The final picture was a close-up of his fingertips slipping slowly off a rock. Twelve next week.”
Eve looked out into the night without speaking.
“I’m afraid it won’t end happily,” said Psmith with a sigh. “I think he’ll save her.”
“Reflect that I may be an acquired taste. You probably did not like olives the first time you tasted them. Now you probably do. Give me the same chance you would an olive.”
“All you have against me is the fact that I am not Ralston McTodd. Think how comparatively few people are Ralston McTodd.”
“It is these strange clashings of personal taste which constitute what we call Life.”
She wasted no time with bewildered inaction.
“Miss Simmons, we must act! We must act!”
“Yes, but not like idiots.”
The relaxed body seems to invite thought.
“Say it with flower-pots!”
Just as every dog is permitted one bite without having its sanity questioned, so, if you consider it in a broad-minded way, may every man be allowed to throw one flower-pot. But let the thing become a habit, and we look askance.
Day in, day out, Rupert Baxter had been exercising his brain ever since he had come to the castle – and now he had gone and sprained it.
[Loony houses:]
Those palatial establishments set in pleasant parks and surrounded by high walls with broken bottles on them, to which the wealthy and aristocratic are wont to retire when the strain of modern life becomes too great.
A depressing, musty scent pervaded the air, as if a cheese had recently died there in painful circumstances.
“By the by, returning to the subject we were discussing last night. I forgot to mention, when asking you to marry me, that I can do card-tricks.”
“Really?”
“And also a passable imitation of a cat calling to her young. Has this no weight with you? Think! These things come in very handy on the long winter evenings.”
“But I shan’t be there when you are imitating cats on the long winter evenings.”
“I think you are wrong. As I visualise my little home, I can see you there very clearly, sitting before the fire. Your maid has put you into something loose. The light of the flickering flames reflects itself into your lovely eyes. You are pleasantly tired after an afternoon’s shopping, but not so tired as to be unable to select a card – any card – from the pack which I offer…”
“Ed,” said Miss Peavey with quiet authority, “shut your trap!”
Mr Cootes subsided once more. Psmith gazed at him through his monocle, interested.
“Pardon me,” he said, “but—if it is not a rude question – are you two married?”
“Eh?”
“You seemed to me to talk to him like a wife.”
“Why, bless my soul, I knew your father well.”
“Really?”
“Yes. That is to say, I never met him.”
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Date: 2004-08-19 08:50 pm (UTC)Thank you.
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Date: 2004-08-19 08:57 pm (UTC)I have, too.
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Date: 2004-08-19 10:18 pm (UTC)For that line alone, the man deserves his knighthood.
Cheese is also the subject of a particularly interesting essay by GK Chesterton.
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Date: 2004-08-20 09:23 am (UTC)Am I the only one who thinks it a shame that he only got his knighthood that late in life? *pets him* Poor, poor, brilliant man.
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Date: 2004-08-20 10:09 am (UTC)PERCY!! /cross-fandom spam
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Date: 2004-08-20 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-20 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-20 10:14 am (UTC)*protects*
O.o
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Date: 2004-08-20 10:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-20 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-20 10:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-20 10:39 am (UTC)*titter*
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Date: 2004-08-21 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-21 09:21 am (UTC)We definitely should make a list now!
Had fun, love? *G*
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Date: 2004-08-23 12:59 am (UTC)I shall be combing the books as soon as I finish answering all my internet-related whatnot.
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Date: 2004-08-23 09:37 am (UTC)Bwee! Book-combing!
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Date: 2004-09-05 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-06 06:49 am (UTC)Well, I have to translate psalms right now, but tomorrow...
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Date: 2004-09-06 12:23 pm (UTC)