Something New - P. G. Wodehouse (books to read to get smarter txt) 📗

was crossing the hall. He was a wiry-haired, severe-looking young man, with a sharp nose and eyes that gleamed through rimless spectacles⁠—none other, in fact than Lord Emsworth’s private secretary, the Efficient Baxter. Ashe hailed him:

“I say, old man, would you mind telling me how I get to Mr. Peters’ room? I’ve lost my bearings.”

He did not reflect that this was hardly the way in which valets in the best society addressed their superiors. That is the worst of adopting what might be called a character part. One can manage the business well enough; it is the dialogue that provides the pitfalls.

Mr. Baxter would have accorded a hearty agreement to the statement that this was not the way in which a valet should have spoken to him; but at the moment he was not aware that Ashe was a valet. From his easy mode of address he assumed that he was one of the numerous guests who had been arriving at the castle all day. As he had asked for Mr. Peters, he fancied that Ashe must be the Honorable Freddie’s American friend, George Emerson, whom he had not yet met. Consequently he replied with much cordiality that Mr. Peters’ room was the second at the left on the second floor.

He said Ashe could not miss it. Ashe said he was much obliged.

“Awfully good of you,” said Ashe.

“Not at all,” said Mr. Baxter.

“You lose your way in a place like this,” said Ashe.

“You certainly do,” said Mr. Baxter.

Ashe went on his upward path and in a few moments was knocking at the door indicated. And sure enough it was Mr. Peters’ voice that invited him to enter.

Mr. Peters, partially arrayed in the correct garb for gentlemen about to dine, was standing in front of the mirror, wrestling with his evening tie. As Ashe entered he removed his fingers and anxiously examined his handiwork. It proved unsatisfactory. With a yelp and an oath, he tore the offending linen from his neck.

“Damn the thing!”

It was plain to Ashe that his employer was in no sunny mood. There are few things less calculated to engender sunniness in a naturally bad-tempered man than a dress tie that will not let itself be pulled and twisted into the right shape. Even when things went well, Mr. Peters hated dressing for dinner. Words cannot describe his feelings when they went wrong.

There is something to be said in excuse for this impatience: It is a hollow mockery to be obliged to deck one’s person as for a feast when that feast is to consist of a little asparagus and a few nuts.

Mr. Peters’ eye met Ashe’s in the mirror.

“Oh, it’s you, is it? Come in, then. Don’t stand staring. Close that door quick! Hustle! Don’t scrape your feet on the floor. Try to look intelligent. Don’t gape. Where have you been all this while? Why didn’t you come before? Can you tie a tie? All right, then⁠—do it!”

Somewhat calmed by the snow-white butterfly-shaped creation that grew under Ashe’s fingers, he permitted himself to be helped into his coat. He picked up the remnant of a black cigar from the dressing-table and relit it.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said.

“Yes?” said Ashe.

“Have you located the scarab yet?”

“No.”

“What the devil have you been doing with yourself then? You’ve had time to collar it a dozen times.”

“I have been talking to the butler.”

“What the devil do you waste time talking to butlers for? I suppose you haven’t even located the museum yet?”

“Yes; I’ve done that.”

“Oh, you have, have you? Well, that’s something. And how do you propose setting about the job?”

“The best plan would be to go there very late at night.”

“Well, you didn’t propose to stroll in in the afternoon, did you? How are you going to find the scarab when you do get in?”

Ashe had not thought of that. The deeper he went into this business the more things did there seem to be in it of which he had not thought.

“I don’t know,” he confessed.

“You don’t know! Tell me, young man, are you considered pretty bright, as Englishmen go?”

“I am not English. I was born near Boston.”

“Oh, you were, were you? You blanked boneheaded, bean-eating boob!” cried Mr. Peters, frothing over quite unexpectedly and waving his arms in a sudden burst of fury. “Then if you are an American why don’t you show a little more enterprise? Why don’t you put something over? Why do you loaf about the place as though you were supposed to be an ornament? I want results⁠—and I want them quick!

“I’ll tell you how you can recognize my scarab when you get into the museum. That shameless old green-goods man who sneaked it from me has had the gall, the nerve, to put it all by itself, with a notice as big as a circus poster alongside of it saying that it is a Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty, presented”⁠—Mr. Peters choked⁠—“presented by J. Preston Peters, Esquire! That’s how you’re going to recognize it.”

Ashe did not laugh, but he nearly dislocated a rib in his effort to abstain from doing so. It seemed to him that this act on Lord Emsworth’s part effectually disposed of the theory that Britons have no sense of humor. To rob a man of his choicest possession and then thank him publicly for letting you have it appealed to Ashe as excellent comedy.

“The thing isn’t even in a glass case,” continued Mr. Peters. “It’s lying on an open tray on top of a cabinet of Roman coins. Anybody who was left alone for two minutes in the place could take it! It’s criminal carelessness to leave a valuable scarab about like that. If Lord Jesse James was going to steal my Cheops he might at least have had the decency to treat it as though it was worth something.”

“But it makes it easier for me to get it,” said Ashe consolingly.

“It’s got to be made easy if you are to get it!” snapped Mr. Peters. “Here’s another thing: You say you are going to try for it late at night.