Short Fiction - P. G. Wodehouse (top ten ebook reader txt) 📗

false pretences, but⁠—liver is liver. I let it go at that. The Romance of an Ugly Policeman

Crossing the Thames by Chelsea Bridge, the wanderer through London finds himself in pleasant Battersea. Rounding the Park, where the female of the species wanders with its young by the ornamental water where the wildfowl are, he comes upon a vast road. One side of this is given up to Nature, the other to Intellect. On the right, green trees stretch into the middle distance; on the left, endless blocks of residential flats. It is Battersea Park Road, the home of the cliff-dwellers.

Police-constable Plimmer’s beat embraced the first quarter of a mile of the cliffs. It was his duty to pace in the measured fashion of the London policeman along the front of them, turn to the right, turn to the left, and come back along the road which ran behind them. In this way he was enabled to keep the king’s peace over no fewer than four blocks of mansions.

It did not require a deal of keeping. Battersea may have its tough citizens, but they do not live in Battersea Park Road. Battersea Park Road’s speciality is Brain, not Crime. Authors, musicians, newspaper men, actors, and artists are the inhabitants of these mansions. A child could control them. They assault and batter nothing but pianos; they steal nothing but ideas; they murder nobody except Chopin and Beethoven. Not through these shall an ambitious young constable achieve promotion.

At this conclusion Edward Plimmer arrived within forty-eight hours of his installation. He recognized the flats for what they were⁠—just so many layers of big-brained blamelessness. And there was not even the chance of a burglary. No burglar wastes his time burgling authors. Constable Plimmer reconciled his mind to the fact that his term in Battersea must be looked on as something in the nature of a vacation.

He was not altogether sorry. At first, indeed, he found the new atmosphere soothing. His last beat had been in the heart of tempestuous Whitechapel, where his arms had ached from the incessant hauling of wiry inebriates to the station, and his shins had revolted at the kicks showered upon them by haughty spirits impatient of restraint. Also, one Saturday night, three friends of a gentleman whom he was trying to induce not to murder his wife had so wrought upon him that, when he came out of hospital, his already homely appearance was further marred by a nose which resembled the gnarled root of a tree. All these things had taken from the charm of Whitechapel, and the cloistral peace of Battersea Park Road was grateful and comforting.

And just when the unbroken calm had begun to lose its attraction and dreams of action were once more troubling him, a new interest entered his life; and with its coming he ceased to wish to be removed from Battersea. He fell in love.

It happened at the back of York Mansions. Anything that ever happened, happened there; for it is at the back of these blocks of flats that the real life is. At the front you never see anything, except an occasional tousle-headed young man smoking a pipe; but at the back, where the cooks come out to parley with the tradesmen, there is at certain hours of the day quite a respectable activity. Pointed dialogues about yesterday’s eggs and the toughness of Saturday’s meat are conducted fortissimo between cheerful youths in the road and satirical young women in print dresses, who come out of their kitchen doors on to little balconies. The whole thing has a pleasing Romeo and Juliet touch. Romeo rattles up in his cart. “Sixty-four!” he cries. “Sixty-fower, sixty-fower, sixty-fow⁠—” The kitchen door opens, and Juliet emerges. She eyes Romeo without any great show of affection. “Are you Perkins and Blissett?” she inquires coldly. Romeo admits it. “Two of them yesterday’s eggs was bad.” Romeo protests. He defends his eggs. They were fresh from the hen; he stood over her while she laid them. Juliet listens frigidly. “I don’t think,” she says. “Well, half of sugar, one marmalade, and two of breakfast bacon,” she adds, and ends the argument. There is a rattling as of a steamer weighing anchor; the goods go up in the tradesman’s lift; Juliet collects them, and exits, banging the door. The little drama is over.

Such is life at the back of York Mansions⁠—a busy, throbbing thing.

The peace of afternoon had fallen upon the world one day towards the end of Constable Plimmer’s second week of the simple life, when his attention was attracted by a whistle. It was followed by a musical “Hi!”

Constable Plimmer looked up. On the kitchen balcony of a second-floor flat a girl was standing. As he took her in with a slow and exhaustive gaze, he was aware of strange thrills. There was something about this girl which excited Constable Plimmer. I do not say that she was a beauty; I do not claim that you or I would have raved about her; I merely say that Constable Plimmer thought she was All Right.

“Miss?” he said.

“Got the time about you?” said the girl. “All the clocks have stopped.”

“The time,” said Constable Plimmer, consulting his watch, “wants exactly ten minutes to four.”

“Thanks.”

“Not at all, miss.”

The girl was inclined for conversation. It was that gracious hour of the day when you have cleared lunch and haven’t got to think of dinner yet, and have a bit of time to draw a breath or two. She leaned over the balcony and smiled pleasantly.

“If you want to know the time, ask a pleeceman,” she said. “You been on this beat long?”

“Just short of two weeks, miss.”

“I been here three days.”

“I hope you like it, miss.”

“So-so. The milkman’s a nice boy.”

Constable Plimmer did not reply. He was busy silently hating the milkman. He knew him⁠—one of those good-looking blighters; one of those oiled and curled perishers; one of those blooming fascinators who go about the world making things hard