The Intrusion of Jimmy by P. G. Wodehouse (new books to read .txt) 📗
- Author: P. G. Wodehouse
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"I loved it."
McEachern drew a breath of relief. The only possible obstacle to the great change did not exist.
"How would you like to go back to England, Molly?"
"To England! When I've just come home?"
"If I went, too?"
Molly twisted around so that she could see his face better.
"There's something the matter with you, father. You're trying to say something, and I want to know what it is. Tell me quick, or I'll make Rastus bite you!"
"It won't take long, dear. I've been lucky in some investments while you were away, and I'm going to leave the force, and take you over to England, and find a prince for you to marry—if you think you would like it."
"Father! It'll be perfectly splendid!"
"We'll start fair in England, Molly. I'll just be John McEachern, from America, and, if anybody wants to know anything about me, I'm a man who has made money on Wall Street—and that's no lie—and has come over to England to spend it."
Molly gave his arm a squeeze. Her eyes were wet.
"Father, dear," she whispered, "I believe you've been doing it all for me. You've been slaving away for me ever since I was born, stinting yourself and saving money just so that I could have a good time later on."
"No, no!"
"It's true," she said. She turned on him with a tremulous laugh. "I don't believe you've had enough to eat for years. I believe you're all skin and bone. Never mind. To-morrow, I'll take you out and buy you the best dinner you've ever had, out of my own money. We'll go to Sherry's, and you shall start at the top of the menu, and go straight down it till you've had enough."
"That will make up for everything. And, now, don't you think you ought to be going to bed? You'll be losing all that color you got on the ship."
"Soon—not just yet. I haven't seen you for such ages!" She pointed at the bull-terrier. "Look at Tommy, standing there and staring. He can't believe I've really come back. Father, there was a man on the Lusitania with eyes exactly like Tommy's—all brown and bright—and he used to stand and stare just like Tommy's doing."
"If I had been there," said her father wrathfully, "I'd have knocked his head off."
"No, you wouldn't, because I'm sure he was really a very nice young man. He had a chin rather like yours, father. Besides, you couldn't have got at him to knock his head off, because he was traveling second-class."
"Second-class? Then, you didn't talk with him?"
"We couldn't. You wouldn't expect him to shout at me across the railing! Only, whenever I walked round the deck, he seemed to be there."
"Staring!"
"He may not have been staring at me. Probably, he was just looking the way the ship was going, and thinking of some girl in New York. I don't think you can make much of a romance out of it, father."
"I don't want to, my dear. Princes don't travel in the second-cabin."
"He may have been a prince in disguise."
"More likely a drummer," grunted Mr. McEachern.
"Drummers are often quite nice, aren't they?"
"Princes are nicer."
"Well, I'll go to bed and dream of the nicest one I can think of. Come along, dogs. Stop biting my slipper, Tommy. Why can't you behave, like Rastus? Still, you don't snore, do you? Aren't you going to bed soon, father? I believe you've been sitting up late and getting into all sorts of bad habits while I've been away. I'm sure you have been smoking too much. When you've finished that cigar, you're not even to think of another till to-morrow. Promise!"
"Not one?"
"Not one. I'm not going to have my father getting like the people you read about in the magazine advertisements. You don't want to feel sudden shooting pains, do you?"
"No, my dear."
"And have to take some awful medicine?"
"No."
"Then, promise."
"Very well, my dear. I promise."
As the door closed, the captain threw away the stump he was smoking, and remained for a moment in thought. Then, he drew another cigar from his case, lighted it, and resumed the study of the little note-book. It was past three o'clock when he went to his bedroom.
CHAPTER V — A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
How long the light had been darting about the room like a very much enlarged firefly, Jimmy did not know. It seemed to him like hours, for it had woven itself into an incoherent waking dream of his; and for a moment, as the mists of sleep passed away from his brain, he fancied that he was dreaming still. Then, sleep left him, and he realized that the light, which was now moving slowly across the bookcase, was a real light.
That the man behind it could not have been there long was plain, or he would have seen the chair and its occupant. He seemed to be taking the room step by step. As Jimmy sat up noiselessly and gripped the arms of the chair in readiness for a spring, the light passed from the bookcase to the table. Another foot or so to the left, and it would have fallen on Jimmy.
From the position of the ray, Jimmy could see that the burglar was approaching on his side of the table. Though until that day he had not been in the room for two months, its geography was clearly stamped on his mind's eye. He knew almost to a foot where his visitor was standing. Consequently, when, rising swiftly from the chair, he made a football dive into the darkness, it was no speculative dive. It had a conscious aim, and it was not restrained by any uncertainty as to whether the road to the burglar's knees was clear or not.
His shoulder bumped into a human leg. His arms closed instantaneously on it, and pulled. There was a yelp of dismay, and a crash. The lantern bounced away across the room, and wrecked itself on the reef of the steam-heater. Its owner collapsed in a heap on top of Jimmy.
Jimmy, underneath at the fall, speedily put himself uppermost with a twist of his body. He had every advantage. The burglar was a small man, and had been taken very much by surprise, and any fight there might have been in him in normal circumstances had been shaken out of him by the fall. He lay still, not attempting to
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