Leave it to Psmith (9 page)

‘I can’t take you seriously.’

‘Oh, don’t say that, please.’

‘You really want me to find you work?’

‘I prefer the term “employment”.’

Miss Clarkson produced a notebook.

‘If you are really not making this application just as a joke . . .’

‘I assure you, no. My entire capital consists, in specie, of about ten pounds.’

‘Then perhaps you will tell me your name.’

‘Ah! Things are beginning to move. The name is Psmith. P-smith. The p is silent.’

‘Psmith?’

‘Psmith.’

Miss Clarkson brooded over this for a moment in almost pained silence, then recovered her slipping grip of affairs.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘you had better give me a few particulars about yourself.’

‘There is nothing I should like better,’ responded Psmith warmly. ‘I am always ready – I may say eager – to tell people the story of my life, but in this rushing age I get little encouragement. Let us start at the beginning. My infancy. 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. At the end of the first day she struck for a shilling, and got it. We now pass to my boyhood. At an early age I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a bright career for me. Those were happy days, Miss Clarkson. A merry, laughing lad with curly hair and a sunny smile, it is not too much to say that I was the pet of the place. The old cloisters. . . . But I am boring you. I can see it in your eye.’

‘No, no,’ protested Miss Clarkson. ‘But what I meant was . . . I thought you might have had some experience in some particular line of . . . In fact, what sort of work . . . ?’

‘Employment.’

‘What sort of employment do you require?’

‘Broadly speaking,’ said Psmith, ‘any reasonably salaried position that has nothing to do with fish.’

‘Fish!’ quavered Miss Clarkson, slipping again. ‘Why fish?’

‘Because, Miss Clarkson, the fish trade was until this morning my walk in life, and my soul has sickened of it.’

‘You are in the
fish
trade?’ squeaked Miss Clarkson, with an amazed glance at the knife-like crease in his trousers.

‘These are not my working clothes,’ said Psmith, following and interpreting her glance. ‘Yes, owing to a financial upheaval in my branch of the family, I was until this morning at the beck and call of an uncle who unfortunately happens to be a Mackerel Monarch or a Sardine Sultan, or whatever these merchant princes are called who rule the fish market. He insisted on my going into the business to learn it from the bottom up, thinking, no doubt, that I would follow in his footsteps and eventually work my way to the position of a Whitebait Wizard. Alas! he was too sanguine. It was not to be,’ said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like gaze on Miss Clarkson through his eyeglass.

‘No?’ said Miss Clarkson.

‘No. Last night I was obliged to inform him that the fish business was all right, but it wouldn’t do, and that I proposed to sever my connection with the firm for ever. I may say at once that there ensued something in the nature of a family earthquake. Hard words,’ sighed Psmith. ‘Black looks. Unseemly wrangle. And the upshot of it all was that my uncle washed his hands of me and drove me forth into the great world. Hence my anxiety to find employment. My uncle has definitely withdrawn his countenance from me, Miss Clarkson.’

‘Dear, dear!’ murmured the proprietress sympathetically.

‘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 has been practically a monomaniac on the subject offish. So much so that he actually looks like one. It is as if he had taken one of those auto-suggestion courses and had kept saying to himself, “Every day, in everyway, I grow more and more like a fish.” His closest friends can hardly tell now whether he more nearly resembles a halibut or a cod. . . . But I am boring you again with this family gossip?’

He eyed Miss Clarkson with such a sudden and penetrating glance that she started nervously.

‘No, no,’ she exclaimed.

‘You relieve my apprehensions. I am only too well aware that, when fairly launched on the topic offish, I am more than apt to weary my audience. I cannot understand this enthusiasm for fish. My uncle used to talk about an unusually large catch of pilchards in Cornwall in much the same awed way as a right-minded curate would talk about the spiritual excellence of his bishop. To me, Miss Clarkson, from the very start, the fish business was what I can only describe as awash-out. It nauseated my finer feelings. It got right in amongst my fibres. I had to rise and partake of a simple breakfast at about four in the morning, after which I would make my way to Billingsgate Market and stand for some hours knee-deep in dead fish of every description. A jolly life for a cat, no doubt, but a bit too thick for a Shropshire Psmith. Mine, Miss Clarkson, is a refined and poetic nature. I like to be surrounded by joy and life, and I know nothing more joyless and deader than a dead fish. Multiply that dead fish by a million, and you have an environment which only a Dante could contemplate with equanimity. My uncle used to tell me that the way to ascertain whether a fish was fresh was to peer into its eyes. Could I spend the springtime of life staring into the eyes of dead fish? No!’ He rose. ‘Well, I will not detain you any longer. Thank you for the unfailing courtesy and attention with which you have listened to me. You can understand now why my talents are on the market and why I am compelled to state specifically that no employment can be considered which has anything to do with fish. I am convinced that you will shortly have something particularly good to offer me.’

‘I don’t know that I can say that, Mr Psmith.’

‘The p is silent, as in pshrimp,’ he reminded her. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, pausing at the door, ‘there is one other thing before I go. While I was waiting for you to be disengaged, I chanced on an instalment of a serial story in
The Girl’s Pet
for January, 1919. My search for the remaining issues proved fruitless. The title was “Her Honour at Stake”, by Jane Emmeline Moss. You don’t happen to know how it all came out in the end, do you? Did Lord Eustace ever learn that, when he found Clarice in Sir Jasper’s rooms at midnight, she had only gone there to recover some compromising letters for a girl friend? You don’t know? I feared as much. Well, good morning, Miss Clarkson, good morning. I leave my future in your hands with a light heart.’

‘I will do my best for you, of course.’

‘And what,’ said Psmith cordially, ‘could be better than Miss Clarkson’s best?’

He closed the door gently behind him, and went out. Struck by a kindly thought, he tapped upon Enquiries’ window, and beamed benevolently as her bobbed head shot into view.

‘They tell me,’ he said, ‘that Aspidistra is much fancied for the four o’clock race at Birmingham this afternoon. I give the information without prejudice, for what it is worth. Good day!’

§ 1

T
HE
rain had stopped when Psmith stepped out into the street, and the sun was shining again in that half blustering, half apologetic manner which it affects on its reappearance after a summer shower. The pavements glistened cheerfully, and the air had a welcome freshness. Pausing at the corner, he pondered for a moment as to the best method of passing the hour and twenty minutes which must elapse before he could reasonably think of lunching. The fact that the offices of the
Morning Globe
were within easy strolling distance decided him to go thither and see if the first post had brought anything in the shape of answers to his advertisements. And his energy was rewarded a few minutes later when Box 365 on being opened yielded up quite a little budget of literary matter. No fewer than seven letters in all. A nice bag.

What, however, had appeared at first sight evidence of a pleasing ebullition of enterprise on the part of the newspaper-reading public turned out on closer inspection, when he had retired to a corner where he could concentrate in peace, a hollow delusion. Enterprising in a sense though the communications were – and they certainly showed the writers as men of considerable ginger and business push – to Psmith they came as a disappointment. He had expected better things. These letters were not at all what he had paid good money to receive. They missed the point altogether. The right spirit, it seemed to him, was entirely absent.

The first envelope, attractive though it looked from the outside, being of an expensive brand of stationery and gaily adorned with a somewhat startling crest, merely contained a pleasantly-worded offer from a Mr Alistair MacDougall to advance him any sum from ten to fifty thousand pounds on his note of hand only. The second revealed a similar proposal from another Scot named Colin MacDonald. While in the third Mr Ian Campbell was prepared to go as high as one hundred thousand. All three philanthropists had but one stipulation to make – they would have no dealings with minors. Youth, with all its glorious traditions, did not seem to appeal to them. But they cordially urged Psmith, in the event of his having celebrated his twenty-first birthday, to come round to the office and take the stuff away in a sack.

Keeping his head well in the midst of this shower of riches, Psmith dropped the three letters with a sigh into the waste-paper basket, and opened the next in order. This was a bulky envelope, and its contents consisted of a printed brochure entitled, ‘This Night Shall Thy Soul be Required of Thee’ – while, by a curious and appropriate coincidence, Number Five proved to be a circular from an energetic firm of coffin-makers offering to bury him for eight pounds ten. Number Six, also printed, was a manifesto from one Howard Hill, of Newmarket, recommending him to apply without delay for ‘Hill’s Three-Horse Special’, without which – (‘Who,’ demanded Mr Hill in large type, ‘gave you Wibbly-Wob for the Jubilee Cup?’) – no sportsman could hope to accomplish the undoing of the bookmakers.

Although by doing so he convicted himself of that very lack of enterprise which he had been deploring in the great public, Psmith placed this communication with the others in the waste-paper basket. There now remained only Number Seven, and a slight flicker of hope returned to him when he perceived that this envelope was addressed by hand and not in typescript. He opened it.

Beyond a doubt he had kept the pick of the bunch to the last. Here was something that made up for all those other disappointments. Written in a scrawly and apparently agitated hand, the letter ran as follows:

A pleased smile played about Psmith’s solemn face as he read this communication for the second time. It was much more the sort ofthing for which he had been hoping. Although his closest friend, Mike Jackson, was a young man of complete ordinariness, Psmith’s tastes when he sought companionship lay as a rule in the direction of the bizarre. He preferred his humanity eccentric. And ‘the writer’, to judge him by this specimen of his correspondence, appeared to be eccentric enough for the most exacting taste. Whether this promising person turned out to be a ribald jester or an earnest crank, Psmith felt no doubt whatever as to the advisability of following the matter up. Whichever he might be, his society ought to afford entertainment during the interval before lunch. Psmith glanced at his watch. The hour was a quarter to twelve. He would be able to secure the necessary chrysanthemum and reach the Piccadilly Palace Hotel by twelve sharp, thus achieving the businesslike punctuality on which the unknown writer seemed to set such store.

∗∗∗∗∗

It was not until he had entered a florist’s shop on the way to the tryst that it was borne in upon him that the adventure was going to have its drawbacks. The first of these was the chrysanthemum. Preoccupied with the rest of the communication, Psmith, when he had read the letter, had not given much thought to the decoration which it would be necessary for him to wear; and it was only when, in reply to his demand for a chrysanthemum, the florist came forward, almost hidden, like the army at Dunsinane, behind what looked like a small shrubbery, that he realised what he, a correct and fastidious dresser, was up against.

‘Is that a chrysanthemum?’

‘Yes, sir. Pink chrysanthemum.’

‘One?’

‘Yes, sir. One pink chrysanthemum.’

Psmith regarded the repellent object with disfavour through his eyeglass. Then, having placed it in his buttonhole, he proceeded on his way, feeling like some wild thing peering through the undergrowth. The distressing shrub completely spoiled his walk.

Arrived at the hotel and standing in the lobby, he perceived the existence of further complications. The lobby was in its usual state of congestion, it being a recognised meeting-place for those who did not find it convenient to go as far east as that traditional rendezvous of Londoners, the spot under the clock at Charing Cross Station; and ‘the writer’, while giving instructions as to how Psmith should ornament his exterior, had carelessly omitted to mention how he himself was to be recognised. A rollicking, slap-dash conspirator, was Psmith’s opinion.

It seemed best to take up a position as nearly as possible in the centre of the lobby and stand there until ‘the writer’, lured by the chrysanthemum, should come forward and start something. This he accordingly did, but when at the end of ten minutes nothing had happened beyond a series of collisions with perhaps a dozen hurrying visitors to the hotel, he decided on a more active course. A young man of sporting appearance had been standing beside him for the last five minutes, and ever and anon this young man had glanced with some impatience at his watch. He was plainly waiting for someone, so Psmith tried the formula on him.