Psmith, Journalist - P. G. Wodehouse (i am reading a book TXT) 📗

the same, I should like to see this W. Windsor,” said Mr. Asher.

Psmith shook his head.

“I shouldn’t,” he said. “I speak in your best interests. Comrade Windsor is a man of the fiercest passions. He cannot brook interference. Were you to question the wisdom of his plans, there is no knowing what might not happen. He would be the first to regret any violent action, when once he had cooled off, but would that be any consolation to his victim? I think not. Of course, if you wish it, I could arrange a meeting⁠—”

Mr. Asher said no, he thought it didn’t matter.

“I guess I can wait,” he said.

“That,” said Psmith approvingly, “is the right spirit. Wait. That is the watchword. And now,” he added, rising, “I wonder if a bit of lunch somewhere might not be a good thing? We have had an interesting but fatiguing little chat. Our tissues require restoring. If you gentlemen would care to join me⁠—”

Ten minutes later the company was seated in complete harmony round a table at the Knickerbocker. Psmith, with the dignified bonhomie of a seigneur of the old school, was ordering the wine; while B. Henderson Asher, brimming over with good-humour, was relating to an attentive circle an anecdote which should have appeared in his next instalment of “Moments of Mirth.”

IX Full Steam Ahead

When Psmith returned to the office, he found Billy Windsor in the doorway, just parting from a thickset young man, who seemed to be expressing his gratitude to the editor for some good turn. He was shaking him warmly by the hand.

Psmith stood aside to let him pass.

“An old college chum, Comrade Windsor?” he asked.

“That was Kid Brady.”

“The name is unfamiliar to me. Another contributor?”

“He’s from my part of the country⁠—Wyoming. He wants to fight anyone in the world at a hundred and thirty-three pounds.”

“We all have our hobbies. Comrade Brady appears to have selected a somewhat exciting one. He would find stamp collecting less exacting.”

“It hasn’t given him much excitement so far, poor chap,” said Billy Windsor. “He’s in the championship class, and here he has been pottering about New York for a month without being able to get a fight. It’s always the way in this rotten East,” continued Billy, warming up as was his custom when discussing a case of oppression and injustice. “It’s all graft here. You’ve got to let half a dozen brutes dip into every dollar you earn, or you don’t get a chance. If the kid had a manager, he’d get all the fights he wanted. And the manager would get nearly all the money. I’ve told him that we will back him up.”

“You have hit it, Comrade Windsor,” said Psmith with enthusiasm. “Cosy Moments shall be Comrade Brady’s manager. We will give him a much-needed boost up in our columns. A sporting section is what the paper requires more than anything.”

“If things go on as they’ve started, what it will require still more will be a fighting editor. Pugsy tells me you had visitors while I was out.”

“A few,” said Psmith. “One or two very entertaining fellows. Comrades Asher, Philpotts, and others. I have just been giving them a bite of lunch at the Knickerbocker.”

“Lunch!”

“A most pleasant little lunch. We are now as brothers. I fear I have made you perhaps a shade unpopular with our late contributors; but these things must be. We must clench our teeth and face them manfully. If I were you, I think I should not drop in at the house of Comrade Asher and the rest to take potluck for some little time to come. In order to soothe the squad I was compelled to curse you to some extent.”

“Don’t mind me.”

“I think I may say I didn’t.”

“Say, look here, you must charge up the price of that lunch to the office. Necessary expenses, you know.”

“I could not dream of doing such a thing, Comrade Windsor. The whole affair was a great treat to me. I have few pleasures. Comrade Asher alone was worth the money. I found his society intensely interesting. I have always believed in the Darwinian theory. Comrade Asher confirmed my views.”

They went into the inner office. Psmith removed his hat and coat.

“And now once more to work,” he said. “Psmith the flaneur of Fifth Avenue ceases to exist. In his place we find Psmith the hardheaded subeditor. Be so good as to indicate a job of work for me, Comrade Windsor. I am champing at my bit.”

Billy Windsor sat down, and lit his pipe.

“What we want most,” he said thoughtfully, “is some big topic. That’s the only way to get a paper going. Look at Everybody’s Magazine. They didn’t amount to a row of beans till Lawson started his ‘Frenzied Finance’ articles. Directly they began, the whole country was squealing for copies. Everybody’s put up their price from ten to fifteen cents, and now they lead the field.”

“The country must squeal for Cosy Moments,” said Psmith firmly. “I fancy I have a scheme which may not prove wholly scaly. Wandering yesterday with Comrade Jackson in a search for Fourth Avenue, I happened upon a spot called Pleasant Street. Do you know it?”

Billy Windsor nodded.

“I went down there once or twice when I was a reporter. It’s a beastly place.”

“It is a singularly beastly place. We went into one of the houses.”

“They’re pretty bad.”

“Who owns them?”

“I don’t know. Probably some millionaire. Those tenement houses are about as paying an investment as you can have.”

“Hasn’t anybody ever tried to do anything about them?”

“Not so far as I know. It’s pretty difficult to get at these fellows, you see. But they’re fierce, aren’t they, those houses!”

“What,” asked Psmith, “is the precise difficulty of getting at these merchants?”

“Well, it’s this way. There are all sorts of laws about the places, but anyone who wants can get round them as easy as falling off a log. The law says a tenement house is a