The Manor Wodehouse Col ection

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  The Little Warrior

  The Swoop

  William Tell Told Again

  Mike: A Public School Story

  Jill the Reckless

  The Politeness of Princes & Other School Stories

  The Man Upstairs & Other Stories

  The Coming of Bill

  A Man of Means: A Series of Six Stories

  The Gem Collector

  The Adventures of Sally

  The Clicking of Cuthbert

  A Damsel in Distress

  Jeeves in the Springtime & Other Stories

  The Pothunters

  My Man Jeeves

  The Girl on the Boat

  Mike & Psmith

  The White Feather

  The Man With Two Left Feet & Other Stories

  Piccadilly Jim

  Psmith in the City

  Right Ho, Jeeves

  Uneasy Money

  A Prefect’s Uncle

  Psmith Journalist

  The Prince and Betty

  Something New

  The Gold Bat & Other Stories

  Head of Kay’s

  The Intrusion of Jimmy

  The Little Nugget

  Love Among the Chickens

  Tales of St. Austin’s

  Indiscretions of Archie

  Jeeves, Emsworth and Others

  Psmith, Journalist

  P. G. Wodehouse

  The Manor Wodehouse Collection

  Tark Classic Fiction

  an imprint of

  MANOR

  Rockville, Maryland

  2008

  Psmith, Journalist by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, in its current format, copyright © Arc Manor 2008. Th

  is book, in whole or in part, may not be copied or reproduced in its current format by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise without the permission of the publisher.

  Th

  e original text has been reformatted for clarity and to fi t this edition.

  Arc Manor, Arc Manor Classic Reprints, Manor Classics, TARK Classic Fiction, Th

  e and the Arc

  Manor logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Arc Manor Publishers, Rockville, Maryland.

  All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

  Th

  is book is presented as is, without any warranties (implied or otherwise) as to the accuracy of the production, text or translation. Th

  e publisher does not take responsibility for any typesetting, format-

  ting, translation or other errors which may have occurred during the production of this book.

  ISBN: 978-1-60450-074-5

  Please Visit

  www.ManorWodehouse.com

  for a complete list of titles available in our

  Manor Wodehouse Collection

  Published by TARK Classic Fiction

  An Imprint of Arc Manor

  P. O. Box 10339

  Rockville, MD 20849-0339

  www.ArcManor.com

  Printed in the United States of America/United Kingdom

  Contents

  Preface

  

  “Cosy Moments”

  

  Billy Windsor

  

  At “The Gardenia”

  

  Bat Jarvis

  

  Planning Improvements

  

  The Tenements

  

  Visitors at the Office

  

  The Honeyed Word

  

  Full Steam Ahead

  

  Going Some

  

  The Man at the Astor

  

  A Red Taximeter

  

  Reviewing the Situation

  

  The Highfield

  

  An Addition to the Staff

  

  The First Battle

  

  Guerilla Warfare

  

  An Episode by the Way

  

  In Pleasant Street

  

  Cornered 

  The Battle of Pleasant Street

  

  Concerning Mr. Waring

  

  Reductions in the Staff

  

  A Gathering of Cat-Specialists

  

  Trapped 

  A Friend in Need

  

  Psmith Concludes His Ride

  

  Standing Room Only

  

  The Knock-Out for Mr. Waring

  

  Conclusion 

  Preface

  The conditions of life in New York are so diff erent from those of

  London that a story of this kind calls for a little explanation. Th

  ere

  are several million inhabitants of New York. Not all of them eke

  out a precarious livelihood by murdering one another, but there is

  a defi nite section of the population which murders – not casually,

  on the spur of the moment, but on defi nitely commercial lines at

  so many dollars per murder. Th

  e “gangs” of New York exist in fact.

  I have not invented them. Most of the incidents in this story are

  based on actual happenings. Th

  e Rosenthal case, where four men,

  headed by a genial individual calling himself “Gyp the Blood” shot

  a fellow-citizen in cold blood in a spot as public and fashionable

  as Piccadilly Circus and escaped in a motor-car, made such a stir a

  few years ago that the noise of it was heard all over the world and

  not, as is generally the case with the doings of the gangs, in New

  York only. Rosenthal cases on a smaller and less sensational scale are

  frequent occurrences on Manhattan Island. It was the prominence

  of the victim rather than the unusual nature of the occurrence that

  excited the New York press. Most gang victims get a quarter of a

  column in small type.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  New York, 1915

  5

  Chapter 

  “Cosy Moments”

  The man in the street would not have known it, but a great crisis

  was imminent in New York journalism.

  Everything seemed much as usual in the city. Th

  e cars ran

  blithely on Broadway. Newsboys shouted “Wux-try!” into the ears

  of nervous pedestrians with their usual Caruso-like vim. Society

  passed up and down Fifth Avenue in its automobiles, and was there

  a furrow of anxiety upon Society’s brow? None. At a thousand

  street corners a thousand policemen preserved their air of massive

  superiority to the things of this world. Not one of them showed the

  least sign of perturbation. Nevertheless, the crisis was at hand. Mr.

  J. Fillken Wilberfl oss, editor-in-chief of Cosy Moments, was about

  to leave his post and start on a ten weeks’ holiday.

  In New York one may fi nd every class of paper which the imagi-

  nation can conceive. Every grade of society is catered for. If an Es-

  quimau came to New York, the fi rst thing he would fi nd on the

  bookstalls in all probability would be the Blubber Magazine, or some

  similar production written by Esquimaux for Esquimaux. Every-

  body reads in New York, and reads all the time. Th

  e New Yorker

  peruses his favourite paper while he is being jammed into a crowded

  compartment on the subway or leaping like an antelope into a mov-

  ing Street car.

  Th

  ere was thus a public for Cosy Moments. Cosy Moments, as its

  name (an inspiration of Mr. Wilberfl oss’s own) is designed to imply,

  is a journal for the home. It is the sort of paper which the father of

  the family is expected to take home with him from his offi

  ce and

  read aloud to the chicks before bed-time. It was founded by its pro-

  prietor, Mr. Benjamin White, as an antidote to yellow journalism.

  7

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  One is forced to admit that up to the present yellow journalism

  seems to be competing against it with a certain measure of success.

  Headlines are still of as generous a size as heretofore, and there is

  no tendency on the part of editors to scamp the details of the last

  murder-case.

  Nevertheless, Cosy Moments thrives. It has its public.

  Its contents are mildly interesting, if you like that sort of

  thing. Th

  ere is a “Moments in the Nursery” page, conducted by

  Luella Granville Waterman, to which parents are invited to con-

  tribute the bright speeches of their off spring, and which bris-

  tles with little stories about the nursery canary, by Jane (aged

  six), and other works of rising young authors. Th

  ere is a “Mo-

  ments of Meditation” page, conducted by the Reverend Edwin

  T. Philpotts; a “Moments Among the Masters” page, consisting

  of assorted chunks looted from the literature of the past, when

  foreheads were bulgy and thoughts profound, by Mr. Wilberfl oss

  himself; one or two other pages; a short story; answers to corre-

  spondents on domestic matters; and a “Moments of Mirth” page,

  conducted by an alleged humorist of the name of B. Henderson

  Asher, which is about the most painful production ever served up

  to a confi ding public.

  Th

  e guiding spirit of Cosy Moments was Mr. Wilberfl oss.

  Circumstances had left the development of the paper mainly to

  him. For the past twelve months the proprietor had been away

  in Europe, taking the waters at Carlsbad, and the sole control of

  Cosy Moments had passed into the hands of Mr. Wilberfl oss. Nor

  had he proved unworthy of the trust or unequal to the duties. In

  that year Cosy Moments had reached the highest possible level

  of domesticity. Anything not calculated to appeal to the home

  had been rigidly excluded. And as a result the circulation had

  increased steadily. Two extra pages had been added, “Moments

  Among the Shoppers” and “Moments with Society.” And the ad-

  vertisements had grown in volume. But the work had told upon

  the Editor. Work of that sort carries its penalties with it. Success

  means absorption, and absorption spells softening of the brain.

  Whether it was the strain of digging into the literature of

  the past every week, or the eff ort of reading B. Henderson Ash-

  er’s “Moments of Mirth” is uncertain. At any rate, his duties,

  combined with the heat of a New York summer, had sapped Mr.

  8

  PSMITH, JOURNALIST

  Wilberfl oss’s health to such an extent that the doctor had ordered

  him ten weeks’ complete rest in the mountains. Th

  is Mr. Wilber-

  fl oss could, perhaps, have endured, if this had been all. Th

  ere are

  worse places than the mountains of America in which to spend

  ten weeks of the tail-end of summer, when the sun has ceased

  to grill and the mosquitoes have relaxed their exertions. But it

  was not all. Th

  e doctor, a far-seeing man who went down to fi rst

  causes, had absolutely declined to consent to Mr. Wilberfl oss’s

  suggestion that he should keep in touch with the paper during his

  vacation. He was adamant. He had seen copies of Cosy Moments

  once or twice, and he refused to permit a man in the editor’s state

  of health to come in contact with Luella Granville Waterman’s

  “Moments in the Nursery” and B. Henderson Asher’s “Moments

  of Mirth.” Th

  e medicine-man put his foot down fi rmly.

  “You must not see so much as the cover of the paper for ten

  weeks,” he said. “And I’m not so sure that it shouldn’t be longer.

  You must forget that such a paper exists. You must dismiss the

  whole thing from your mind, live in the open, and develop a little

  fl esh and muscle.”

  To Mr. Wilberfl oss the sentence was almost equivalent to

  penal servitude. It was with tears in his voice that he was giving

  his fi nal instructions to his sub-editor, in whose charge the paper

  would be left during his absence. He had taken a long time doing

  this. For two days he had been fussing in and out of the offi

  ce, to

  the discontent of its inmates, more especially Billy Windsor, the

  sub-editor, who was now listening moodily to the last harangue

  of the series, with the air of one whose heart is not in the subject.

  Billy Windsor was a tall, wiry, loose-jointed young man, with

  unkempt hair and the general demeanour of a caged eagle. Look-

  ing at him, one could picture him astride of a bronco, rounding

  up cattle, or cooking his dinner at a camp-fi re. Somehow he did

  not seem to fi t into the Cosy Moments atmosphere.

  “Well, I think that that is all, Mr. Windsor,” chirruped the

  editor. He was a little man with a long neck and large pince-nez,

  and he always chirruped. “You understand the general lines on

  which I think the paper should be conducted?” Th

  e sub-editor

  nodded. Mr. Wilberfl oss made him tired. Sometimes he made

  him more tired than at other times. At the present moment he

  fi lled him with an aching weariness. Th

  e editor meant well, and

  9

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  was full of zeal, but he had a habit of covering and recovering the

  ground. He possessed the art of saying the same obvious thing in

  a number of diff erent ways to a degree which is found usually only

  in politicians. If Mr. Wilberfl oss had been a politician, he would

  have been one of those dealers in glittering generalities who used

  to be fashionable in American politics.

  “Th

  ere is just one thing,” he continued “Mrs. Julia Burdett

  Parslow is a little inclined – I may have mentioned this before—”

  “You did,” said the sub-editor.

  Mr. Wilberfl oss chirruped on, unchecked.

  “A little inclined to be late with her ‘Moments with Budding

  Girlhood’. If this should happen while I am away, just write her

  a letter, quite a pleasant letter, you understand, pointing out the

  necessity of being in good time. Th

  e machinery of a weekly paper,

  of course, cannot run smoothly unless contributors are in good

  time with their copy. She is a very sensible woman, and she will

  understand, I am sure, if you point it out to her.”

  Th

  e sub-editor nodded.

  “And there is just one other thing. I wish you would correct

  a slight tendency I have noticed lately in Mr. Asher to be just a

  trifl e – well, not precisely risky, but perhaps a shade broad in his humour.”

  “His what?” said Billy Windsor.

  “Mr. Asher is a very sensible man, and he will be the fi rst to

  acknowledge that his sense of humour has led him just a little

  beyond the bounds. You understand? Well, that is all, I think.

  Now I must really be going, or I shall miss my train. Good-bye,

  Mr. Windsor.”

  “Good-bye,” said the sub-editor thankfully.

  At the door Mr. Wilberfl oss paused with the air of an exile

  bidding farewell to his native land, sighed, and trotted out.

  Billy Windsor put his feet upon the table, and with a deep

  scowl resumed his task of reading the proofs of Luella Granville

  Waterman’s “Moments in the Nursery.”

  10

  PSMITH, JOURNALIST

  Chapter 

  Billy Windsor

  Billy Windsor had started life twenty-fi ve years before this sto-

  ry opens on his father’s ranch in Wyoming. From there he had

  gone to a local paper of the type whose Society column consists of

  such items as “Pawnee Jim Williams was to town yesterday with

  a bunch of other cheap skates. We take this opportunity of once

  more informing Jim that he is a liar and a skunk,” and whose editor

  works with a revolver on his desk and another in his hip-pocket.

  Graduating from this, he had proceeded to a reporter’s post on a

  daily paper in a Kentucky town, where there were blood feuds and

  other Southern devices for preventing life from becoming dull. All

  this time New York, the magnet, had been tugging at him. All

  reporters dream of reaching New York. At last, after four years on

  the Kentucky paper, he had come East, minus the lobe of one ear

  and plus a long scar that ran diagonally across his left shoulder, and

  had worked without much success as a free-lance. He was tough

  and ready for anything that might come his way, but these things

  are a great deal a matter of luck. Th

  e cub-reporter cannot make a

  name for himself unless he is favoured by fortune. Th

  ings had not

  come Billy Windsor’s way. His work had been confi ned to turning

  in reports of fi res and small street accidents, which the various pa-

 

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