P G Wodehouse, page 10
up their sleeves, and were draping it in a cloth. Jimmy sat down and
gave his order. Ordering was going on at the other table. Th
e little
man seemed depressed at the discovery that corn on the cob and
soft-shelled crabs were not to be obtained, and his wife’s reception
of the news that clams were not included in the Regent’s bill-of-fare
was so indignant that one would have said that she regarded the fact
as evidence that Great Britain was going to pieces and would shortly
lose her place as a world power.
A selection having fi nally been agreed upon, the orchestra struck
up “My Little Grey Home in the West,” and no attempt was made
to compete with it. When the last lingering strains had died away
and the violinist-leader, having straightened out the kinks in his
person which the rendition of the melody never failed to produce,
had bowed for the last time, a clear, musical voice spoke from the
other side of the pillar.
“Jimmy Crocker is a WORM!”
Jimmy spilled his cocktail. It might have been the voice of
Conscience.
“I despise him more than any one on earth. I hate to think that
he’s an American.”
Jimmy drank the few drops that remained in his glass, partly to
make sure of them, partly as a restorative. It is an unnerving thing
to be despised by a red-haired girl whose life you have just saved.
To Jimmy it was not only unnerving; it was uncanny. Th
is girl had
not known him when they met on the street a few moments before.
How then was she able to display such intimate acquaintance with
his character now as to describe him – justly enough – as a worm?
Mingled with the mystery of the thing was its pathos. Th
e thought
that a girl could be as pretty as this one and yet dislike him so much
was one of the saddest things Jimmy had ever come across. It was
like one of those Th
ings Which Make Me Weep In Th
is Great City
so dear to the hearts of the sob-writers of his late newspaper.
A waiter bustled up with a high-ball. Jimmy thanked him with
his eyes. He needed it. He raised it to his lips.
“He’s always drinking—”
He set it down hurriedly.
“– and making a disgraceful exhibition of himself in public! I
always think Jimmy Crocker—”
67
P. G. WODEHOUSE
Jimmy began to wish that somebody would stop this girl. Why
couldn’t the little man change the subject to the weather, or that
stout child start prattling about some general topic? Surely a boy
of that age, newly arrived in London, must have all sorts of things
to prattle about? But the little man was dealing strenuously with a
breaded cutlet, while the stout boy, grimly silent, surrounded fi sh-
pie in the forthright manner of a starving python. As for the elder
woman, she seemed to be wrestling with unpleasant thoughts, be-
yond speech.
“—I always think that Jimmy Crocker is the worst case I know
of the kind of American young man who spends all his time in Eu-
rope and tries to become an imitation Englishman. Most of them
are the sort any country would be glad to get rid of, but he used to
work once, so you can’t excuse him on the ground that he hasn’t the
sense to know what he’s doing. He’s deliberately chosen to loaf about
London and make a pest of himself. He went to pieces with his eyes
open. He’s a perfect, utter, hopeless WORM!”
Jimmy had never been very fond of the orchestra at the Regent
Grill, holding the view that it interfered with conversation and made
for an unhygienic rapidity of mastication; but he was profoundly
grateful to it now for bursting suddenly into La Boheme, the loudest
item in its repertory. Under cover of that protective din he was able
to toy with a steaming dish which his waiter had brought. Probably
that girl was saying all sorts of things about him still but he could
not hear them.
Th
e music died away. For a moment the tortured air quivered
in comparative silence; then the girl’s voice spoke again. She had,
however, selected another topic of conversation.
“I’ve seen all I want to of England,” she said, “I’ve seen West-
minster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament and His Majesty’s
Th
eatre and the Savoy and the Cheshire Cheese, and I’ve developed
a frightful home-sickness. Why shouldn’t we go back to-morrow?”
For the fi rst time in the proceedings the elder woman spoke.
She cast aside her mantle of gloom long enough to say “Yes,” then
wrapped it round her again. Th
e little man, who had apparently
been waiting for her vote before giving his own, said that the sooner
he was on board a New York-bound boat the better he would be
pleased. Th
e stout boy said nothing. He had fi nished his fi sh-pie,
and was now attacking jam roll with a sort of morose resolution.
68
PICADILLY JIM
“Th
ere’s certain to be a boat,” said the girl. “Th
ere always is.
You’ve got to say that for England – it’s an easy place to get back
to America from.” She paused. “What I can’t understand is how,
after having been in America and knowing what it was like, Jimmy
Crocker could stand living . . .”
Th
e waiter had come to Jimmy’s side, bearing cheese; but Jimmy
looked at it with dislike and shook his head in silent negation. He was
about to depart from this place. His capacity for absorbing home-
truths about himself was exhausted. He placed a noiseless sovereign
on the table, caught the waiter’s eye, registered renunciation, and de-
parted soft-footed down the aisle. Th
e waiter, a man who had never
been able to bring himself to believe in miracles, revised the views
of a life-time. He looked at the sovereign, then at Jimmy, then at the
sovereign again. Th
en he took up the coin and bit it furtively.
A few minutes later, a hat-check boy, untipped for the fi rst time
in his predatory career, was staring at Jimmy with equal intensity,
but with far diff erent feelings. Speechless concern was limned on
his young face.
Th
e commissionaire at the Piccadilly entrance of the restaurant
touched his hat ingratiatingly, with the smug confi dence of a man
who is accustomed to getting sixpence a time for doing it.
“Taxi, Mr. Crocker?”
“A worm,” said Jimmy.
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“Always drinking,” explained Jimmy, “and making a pest of
himself.”
He passed on. Th
e commissionaire stared after him as intently as the
waiter and the hat-check boy. He had sometimes known Mr. Crocker
like this after supper, but never before during the luncheon hour.
Jimmy made his way to his club in Northumberland Avenue. For
perhaps half an hour he sat in a condition of coma in the smoking-
room; then, his mind made up, he went to one of the writing-tables.
He sat awaiting inspiration for some minutes, then began to write.
Th
e letter he wrote was to his father:
Dear Dad:
I have been thinking over what we talked about this morning,
and it seems to me the best thing I can do is to drop out of sight for
a brief space. If I stay on in London, I am likely at any moment to
pull some boner like last night’s which will spill the beans for you
69
P. G. WODEHOUSE
once more. Th
e least I can do for you is to give you a clear fi eld and
not interfere, so I am off to New York by to-night’s boat.
I went round to Percy’s to try to grovel in the dust before him,
but he wouldn’t see me. It’s no good grovelling in the dust of the
front steps for the benefi t of a man who’s in bed on the second fl oor,
so I withdrew in more or less good order. I then got the present idea.
Mark how all things work together for good. When they come to
you and say “No title for you. Your son slugged our pal Percy,” all
you have to do is to come back at them with “I know my son slugged
Percy, and believe me I didn’t do a thing to him! I packed him off
to America within twenty-four hours. Get me right, boys! I’m anti-
Jimmy and pro-Percy.” To which their reply will be “Oh, well, in
that case arise, Lord Crocker!” or whatever they say when slipping a
title to a deserving guy. So you will see that by making this getaway
I am doing the best I can to put things straight. I shall give this to
Bayliss to give to you. I am going to call him up on the phone in a
minute to have him pack a few simple tooth-brushes and so on for
me. On landing in New York, I shall instantly proceed to the Polo
Grounds to watch a game of Rounders, and will cable you the full
score. Well. I think that’s about all. So good-bye – or even farewell
– for the present.
J.
P.S. I know you’ll understand, dad. I’m doing what seems to me
the only possible thing. Don’t worry about me. I shall be all right.
I’ll get back my old job and be a terrifi c success all round. You go
ahead and get that title and then meet me at the entrance of the Polo
Grounds. I’ll be looking for you.
P.P.S. I’m a worm.
Th
e young clerk at the steamship offi
ces appeared rejoiced to see
Jimmy once more. With a sunny smile he snatched a pencil from his
ear and plunged it into the vitals of the Atlantic.
“How about E. a hundred and eight?”
“Suits me.”
“You’re too late to go in the passenger-list, of course.”
Jimmy did not reply. He was gazing rigidly at a girl who had just
come in, a girl with red hair and a friendly smile.
“So you’re sailing on the Atlantic, too!” she said, with a glance
at the chart on the counter. “How odd! We have just decided to go
70
PICADILLY JIM
back on her too. Th
ere’s nothing to keep us here and we’re all home-
sick. Well, you see I wasn’t run over after I left you.”
A delicious understanding relieved Jimmy’s swimming brain, as
thunder relieves the tense and straining air. Th
e feeling that he was
going mad left him, as the simple solution of his mystery came to
him. Th
is girl must have heard of him in New York – perhaps she
knew people whom he knew and it was on hearsay, not on personal
acquaintance, that she based that dislike of him which she had ex-
pressed with such freedom and conviction so short a while before at
the Regent Grill. She did not know who he was!
Into this soothing stream of thought cut the voice of the clerk.
“What name, please?”
Jimmy’s mind rocked again. Why were these things happening
to him to-day of all days, when he needed the tenderest treatment,
when he had a headache already?
Th
e clerk was eyeing him expectantly. He had laid down his
pencil and was holding aloft a pen. Jimmy gulped. Every name in
the English language had passed from his mind. And then from out
of the dark came inspiration.
“Bayliss,” he croaked.
Th
e girl held out her hand.
“Th
en we can introduce ourselves at last. My name is Ann Ches-
ter. How do you do, Mr. Bayliss?”
“How do you do, Miss Chester?”
Th
e clerk had fi nished writing the ticket, and was pressing labels
and a pink paper on him. Th
e paper, he gathered dully, was a form
and had to be fi lled up. He examined it, and found it to be a search-
ing document. Some of its questions could be answered off -hand,
others required thought.
“Height?” Simple. Five foot eleven.
“Hair?” Simple. Brown.
“Eyes?” Simple again. Blue.
Next, queries of a more off ensive kind.
“Are you a polygamist?”
He could answer that. Decidedly no. One wife would be ample
– provided she had red-gold hair, brown-gold eyes, the right kind of
mouth, and a dimple. Whatever doubts there might be in his mind
on other points, on that one he had none whatever.
“Have you ever been in prison?”
71
P. G. WODEHOUSE
Not yet.
And then a very diffi
cult one. “Are you a lunatic?”
Jimmy hesitated. Th
e ink dried on his pen. He was wondering.
Z
In the dim cavern of Paddington Station the boat-train snorted
impatiently, varying the process with an occasional sharp shriek.
Th
e hands of the station clock pointed to ten minutes to six. Th
e
platform was a confused mass of travellers, porters, baggage, trucks,
boys with buns and fruits, boys with magazines, friends, relatives,
and Bayliss the butler, standing like a faithful watchdog beside a
large suitcase. To the human surf that broke and swirled about him
he paid no attention. He was looking for the young master.
Jimmy clove the crowd like a one-man fl ying-wedge. Two fruit
and bun boys who impeded his passage drifted away like leaves on
an Autumn gale.
“Good man!” He possessed himself of the suitcase. “I was afraid
you might not be able to get here.”
“Th
e mistress is dining out, Mr. James. I was able to leave
the house.”
“Have you packed everything I shall want?”
“Within the scope of a suitcase, yes, sir.”
“Splendid! Oh, by the way, give this letter to my father, will you?”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’m glad you were able to manage. I thought your voice sounded
doubtful over the phone.”
“I was a good deal taken aback, Mr. James. Your decision to
leave was so extremely sudden.”
“So was Columbus’. You know about him? He saw an egg stand-
ing on its head and whizzed off like a jack-rabbit.”
“If you will pardon the liberty, Mr. James, is it not a little rash – ?”
“Don’t take the joy out of life, Bayliss. I may be a chump, but try
to forget it. Use your willpower.”
“Good evening, Mr. Bayliss,” said a voice behind them. Th
ey
both turned. Th
e butler was gazing rather coyly at a vision in a grey
tailor-made suit.
“Good evening, miss,” he said doubtfully.
Ann looked at him in astonishment, then broke into a smile.
72
PICADILLY JIM
“How stupid of me! I meant this Mr. Bayliss. Your son! We met
at the steamship offi
ces. And before that he saved my life. So we are
old friends.”
Bayliss, gaping perplexedly and feeling unequal to the intellec-
tual pressure of the conversation, was surprised further to perceive a
warning scowl on the face of his Mr. James. Jimmy had not foreseen
this thing, but he had a quick mind and was equal to it.
“How are you, Miss Chester? My father has come down to see
me off . Th
is is Miss Chester, dad.”
A British butler is not easily robbed of his poise, but Bayliss was
frankly unequal to the sudden demand on his presence of mind. He
lowered his jaw an inch or two, but spoke no word.
“Dad’s a little upset at my going,” whispered Jimmy confi den-
tially. “He’s not quite himself.”
Ann was a girl possessed not only of ready tact but of a kind
heart. She had summed up Mr. Bayliss at a glance. Every line of him
proclaimed him a respectable upper servant. No girl on earth could
have been freer than she of snobbish prejudice, but she could not
check a slight thrill of surprise and disappointment at the discov-
ery of Jimmy’s humble origin. She understood everything, and there
were tears in her eyes as she turned away to avoid intruding on the
last moments of the parting of father and son.
“I’ll see you on the boat, Mr. Bayliss,” she said.
“Eh?” said Bayliss.
“Yes, yes,” said Jimmy. “Good-bye till then.”
Ann walked on to her compartment. She felt as if she had just
read a whole long novel, one of those chunky younger-English-nov-
elist things. She knew the whole story as well as if it had been told
to her in detail. She could see the father, the honest steady butler,
living his life with but one aim, to make a gentleman of his beloved
only son. Year by year he had saved. Probably he had sent the son
to college. And now, with a father’s blessing and the remains of a
father’s savings, the boy was setting out for the New World, where
