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

and Gentleman out of that house about three seconds after the clergyman had tied the knot.

“Jerry says, ‘These are my friends, Miss Tuxton⁠—Mr. Bailey and Mr. Roach. They are staying with me for a visit. This is Miss Jane Tuxton,’ he says to us. ‘I was just going to see Miss Tuxton home,’ he says, sort of wistful. ‘Excellent,’ says Gentleman. ‘We’ll come too.’ And we all goes along. There wasn’t much done in the way of conversation. Jerry never was one for pushing out the words; nor was I, when in the presence of the sect; and Miss Jane had her chin in the air, as if she thought me and Gentleman was not needed in any way whatsoever. The only talk before we turned her in at the garden gate was done by Gentleman, who told a pretty long story about a friend of his in Upper Sydenham who had been silly enough to marry, and had had trouble ever since.

“That night, after we had went to bed, I said to Gentleman, ‘Gentleman,’ I says, ‘what’s going to be done about this? We’ve got about as much chance, if Jerry marries that girl,’ I says, ‘as a couple of helpless chocolate creams at a schoolgirls’ picnic.’ ‘If,’ says Gentleman. ‘He ain’t married her yet. That is a girl of character, Jack. Trust me. Didn’t she strike you as a girl who would like a man with a bit of devil in him, a man with some go in him, a you-be-darned kind of man? Does Jerry fill the bill? He’s more like a doormat with “Welcome” written on it, than anything else.’

“Well, we seen a good deal of Miss Jane in the next week or so. We keeps Jerry under⁠—what’s it the heroine says in the melodrama? ‘Oh, cruel, cruel, S P something.’ Espionage, that’s it. We keeps Jerry under espionage, and whenever he goes trickling round after the girl, we goes trickling round after him.

“ ‘Things is running our way,’ says Gentleman to me, after one of these meetings. ‘That girl is getting cross with Jerry. She wants Reckless Rudolf, not a man who stands and grins when other men butt in on him and his girl. Mark my words, Jack. She’ll get tired of Jerry, and go off and marry a soldier, and we’ll live happy ever after.’ ‘Think so?’ I says. ‘Sure of it,’ said Gentleman.

“It was the Sunday after this that Jerry Moore announces to us, wriggling, that he had an engagement to take supper with Jane and her folks. He’d have liked to have slipped away secret, but we was keeping him under espionage too crisp for that, so he has to tell us. ‘Excellent,’ said Gentleman. ‘It will be a great treat to Jack and myself to meet the family. We will go along with you.’ So off we all goes, and pushes our boots in sociable fashion under the Tuxton table. I looked at Miss Jane out of the corner of my eye; and, honest, that chin of hers was sticking out a foot, and Jerry didn’t dare look at her. Love’s young dream, I muses to myself, how swift it fades when a man has the nature and disposition of a lop-eared rabbit!

“The Tuxtons was four in number, not counting the parrot, and all male. There was Pa Tuxton, an old feller with a beard and glasses; a fat uncle; a big brother, who worked in a bank and was dressed like Moses in all his glory; and a little brother with a snub nose, that cheeky you’d have been surprised. And the parrot in its cage and a fat yellow dog. And they’re all making themselves pleasant to Jerry, the wealthy future son-in-law, something awful. It’s ‘How are the fowls, Mr. Moore?’ and ‘A little bit of this pie, Mr. Moore; Jane made it,’ and Jerry sitting there with a feeble grin, saying ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ and nothing much more, while Miss Jane’s eyes are snapping like Fifth of November fireworks. I could feel Jerry’s chances going back a mile a minute. I felt as happy as a little child that evening. I sang going back home.

“Gentleman’s pleased, too. ‘Jack,’ he says to me when we’re in bed, ‘this is too easy. In my most sanguinary dreams I hardly hoped for this. No girl of spirit’s going to love a man who behaves that way to her parents. The way to win the heart of a certain type of girl,’ he says, beginning on his theories, ‘the type to which Jane Tuxton belongs, is to be rude to her family. I’ve got Jane Tuxton sized up and labelled. Her kind wants her folks to dislike her young man. She wants to feel that she’s the only one in the family that’s got the sense to see the hidden good in Willie. She doesn’t want to be one of a crowd hollering out what a nice young man he is. It takes some pluck in a man to stand up to a girl’s family, and that’s what Jane Tuxton is looking for in Jerry. Take it from one who has studied the sect,’ says Gentleman, ‘from John o’ Groat’s to Land’s End, and back again.’

“Next day Jerry Moore’s looking as if he’d only sixpence in the world and had swallowed it. ‘What’s the matter, Jerry?’ says Gentleman. Jerry heaves a sigh. ‘Bailey,’ he says, ‘and you, Mr. Roach, I expect you both seen how it is with me. I love Miss Jane Tuxton, and you seen for yourselves what transpires. She don’t value me, not tuppence.’ ‘Say not so,’ says Gentleman, sympathetic. ‘You’re doing fine. If you knew the sect as I do you wouldn’t go by mere superficial silences and chin-tiltings. I can read a girl’s heart, Jerry,’ he says, patting him on the shoulder, ‘and I tell you you’re doing fine. All you want now is a little rapid work, and you win easy. To make the thing a cert,’ he says, getting up,