A Gentleman of Leisure - P. G. Wodehouse (best english books to read for beginners txt) 📗

and Cambridge with him. He was about the most popular man at both. I should say he had put more deadbeats on their legs again than half the men in New York put together.”

“Well,” growled Willett, whom the misfortunes of The Belle had soured, “what’s there in that? It’s mighty easy to do the philanthropist act when you’re next door to a millionaire.”

“Yes,” said Mifflin warmly; “but it’s not so easy when you’re getting thirty dollars a week on a newspaper. When Jimmy was a reporter on the News there used to be a whole crowd of fellows just living on him. Not borrowing an occasional dollar, mind you, but living on him⁠—sleeping on his sofa and staying to breakfast. It made me mad. I used to ask him why he stood it. He said there was nowhere else for them to go, and he thought he could see them through all right. Which he did, though I don’t see how he managed it on thirty dollars a week.”

“If a man’s fool enough to be an easy mark⁠—” began Willett.

“Oh, stop it,” said Raikes. “We don’t want anybody knocking Jimmy here.”

“All the same,” said Sutton, “it seems to me that it was darned lucky that he came into that money. You can’t keep open house forever on thirty a week. By the way, Arthur, how was that? I heard it was his uncle.”

“It wasn’t his uncle,” said Mifflin. “It was by way of being a romance of sorts, I believe. Fellow who had been in love with Jimmy’s mother years ago. Went to Australia, made a fortune, and left it to Mrs. Pitt or her children. She had been dead some time when that happened. Jimmy, of course, hadn’t a notion of what was coming to him, when suddenly he got a solicitor’s letter, asking him to call. He rolled round, and found that there was about five hundred thousand dollars waiting for him to spend it.”

Jimmy Pitt had now definitely ousted Love, the Cracksman, as a topic of conversation. Everybody present knew him. Most of them had known him in his newspaper days; and though every man there would have perished rather than admit it, they were grateful to Jimmy for being exactly the same to them now that he could sign a cheque for half a million as he had been on the old thirty-a-week basis. Inherited wealth, of course, does not make a young man nobler or more admirable; but the young man does not always know this.

“Jimmy’s had a queer life,” said Mifflin. “He’s been pretty nearly everything in his time. Did you know he was on the stage before he took up newspaper work? Only in touring companies, I believe. He got tired of it, and dropped it. That’s always been his trouble. He wouldn’t settle down to anything. He studied Law at the ’Varsity, but he never kept it up. After he left the stage he moved all over the States without a cent, picking up any odd job he could get. He was a waiter once for a couple of days, but they sacked him for breaking plates. Then he got a job in a jeweller’s shop. I believe he’s a bit of an expert on jewels. And another time he made a hundred dollars by staying three rounds against Kid Brady, when the Kid was touring the country after he got the championship away from Jimmy Garwin. The Kid was offering a hundred to anyone who could last three rounds with him. Jimmy did it on his head. He was the best amateur of his weight I ever saw. The Kid wanted him to take up scrapping seriously. But Jimmy wouldn’t have stuck to anything long enough in those days. He’s one of the gipsies of the world. He was never really happy unless he was on the move, and he doesn’t seem to have altered since he came into his money.”

“Well, he can afford to keep on the move now,” said Raikes. “I wish I⁠—”

“Did you ever hear about Jimmy and⁠—” Mifflin was beginning, when the Odyssey of Jimmy Pitt was interrupted by the opening of the door and the entrance of Ulysses in person.

Jimmy Pitt was a young man of medium height, whose great breadth and depth of chest made him look shorter than he really was. His jaw was square and protruded slightly; and this, combined with a certain athletic jauntiness of carriage and a pair of piercing brown eyes very much like those of a bull terrier, gave him an air of aggressiveness which belied his character. He was not aggressive. He had the good nature as well as the eyes of a bull terrier. He also possessed, when stirred, all the bull terrier’s dogged determination.

There were shouts of welcome.

“Holloa, Jimmy!”

“When did you get back?”

“Come and sit down. Plenty of room over here.”

“Where is my wandering boy tonight?”

“Waiter! What’s yours, Jimmy?”

Jimmy dropped into a seat and yawned.

“Well,” he said, “how goes it? Halloa, Raikes! Weren’t you at Love, the Cracksman? I thought I saw you. Halloa, Arthur! Congratulate you. You spoke your piece nicely.”

“Thanks,” said Mifflin. “We were just talking about you, Jimmy. You came on the Mauretania, I suppose?”

“She didn’t break the record this time,” said Sutton.

A somewhat pensive look came into Jimmy’s eyes.

“She came much too quick for me,” he said. “I don’t see why they want to rip along at that pace,” he went on hurriedly. “I like to have a chance of enjoying the sea air.”

“I know that sea air,” murmured Mifflin.

Jimmy looked up quickly.

“What are you babbling about, Arthur?”

“I said nothing,” replied Mifflin suavely.

“What did you think of the show tonight, Jimmy?” asked Raikes.

“I liked it. Arthur was fine. I can’t make out, though, why all this incense is being burned at the feet of the cracksman. To judge by some of the plays they produce now, you’d think that a man had only to be a successful burglar