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.
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.