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

made a hit. There was no doubt about that. It was a success from the start. Quite a little chorus of voices expressed sincere approval of the very happy solution to what had seemed an insoluble problem. Psmith, listening from above, failed to detect in the choir of glad voices one that might belong to Sam himself. Probably gratification had rendered the chosen one dumb.

“Yes, let Sam do it!” cried the unseen chorus. The first speaker, unnecessarily, perhaps⁠—for the motion had been carried almost unanimously⁠—but possibly with the idea of convincing the one member of the party in whose bosom doubts might conceivably be harboured, went on to adduce reasons.

“Sam bein’ a coon,” he argued, “ain’t goin’ to git hoit by no stick. Youse can’t hoit a coon by soakin’ him on de coco, can you, Sam?”

Psmith waited with some interest for the reply, but it did not come. Possibly Sam did not wish to generalise on insufficient experience.

“Solvitur ambulando,” said Psmith softly, turning the stick round in his fingers. “Comrade Windsor!”

“Hullo?”

“Is it possible to hurt a coloured gentleman by hitting him on the head with a stick?”

“If you hit him hard enough.”

“I knew there was some way out of the difficulty,” said Psmith with satisfaction. “How are you getting on up at your end of the table, Comrade Windsor?”

“Fine.”

“Any result yet?”

“Not at present.”

“Don’t give up.”

“Not me.”

“The right spirit, Comrade Win⁠—”

A report like a cannon in the room below interrupted him. It was merely a revolver shot, but in the confined space it was deafening. The bullet sang up into the sky.

“Never hit me!” said Psmith with dignified triumph.

The noise was succeeded by a shuffling of feet. Psmith grasped his stick more firmly. This was evidently the real attack. The revolver shot had been a mere demonstration of artillery to cover the infantry’s advance.

Sure enough, the next moment a woolly head popped through the opening, and a pair of rolling eyes gleamed up at the old Etonian.

“Why, Sam!” said Psmith cordially, “this is well met! I remember you. Yes, indeed, I do. Wasn’t you the feller with the open umbereller that I met one rainy morning on the Av-en-ue? What, are you coming up? Sam, I hate to do it, but⁠—”

A yell rang out.

“What was that?” asked Billy Windsor over his shoulder.

“Your statement, Comrade Windsor, has been tested and proved correct.”

By this time the affair had begun to draw a “gate.” The noise of the revolver had proved a fine advertisement. The roof of the house next door began to fill up. Only a few of the occupants could get a clear view of the proceedings, for a large chimney-stack intervened. There was considerable speculation as to what was passing between Billy Windsor and Mr. Gooch. Psmith’s share in the entertainment was more obvious. The early comers had seen his interview with Sam, and were relating it with gusto to their friends. Their attitude towards Psmith was that of a group of men watching a terrier at a rat-hole. They looked to him to provide entertainment for them, but they realised that the first move must be with the attackers. They were fair-minded men, and they did not expect Psmith to make any aggressive move.

Their indignation, when the proceedings began to grow slow, was directed entirely at the dilatory Three Pointers. With an aggrieved air, akin to that of a crowd at a cricket match when batsmen are playing for a draw, they began to “barrack.” They hooted the Three Pointers. They begged them to go home and tuck themselves up in bed. The men on the roof were mostly Irishmen, and it offended them to see what should have been a spirited fight so grossly bungled.

“G’wan away home, ye quitters!” roared one.

“Call yersilves the Three Points, do ye? An’ would ye know what I call ye? The Young Ladies’ Seminary!” bellowed another with withering scorn.

A third member of the audience alluded to them as “stiffs.”

“I fear, Comrade Windsor,” said Psmith, “that our blithe friends below are beginning to grow a little unpopular with the many-headed. They must be up and doing if they wish to retain the esteem of Pleasant Street. Aha!”

Another and a longer explosion from below, and more bullets wasted themselves on air. Psmith sighed.

“They make me tired,” he said. “This is no time for a feu de joie. Action! That is the cry. Action! Get busy, you blighters!”

The Irish neighbours expressed the same sentiment in different and more forcible words. There was no doubt about it⁠—as warriors, the Three Pointers had failed to give satisfaction.

A voice from the room called up to Psmith.

“Say!”

“You have our ear,” said Psmith.

“What’s that?”

“I said you had our ear.”

“Are youse stiffs comin’ down off out of dat roof?”

“Would you mind repeating that remark?”

“Are youse guys goin’ to quit off out of dat roof?”

“Your grammar is perfectly beastly,” said Psmith severely.

“Hey!”

“Well?”

“Are youse guys⁠—?”

“No, my lad,” said Psmith, “since you ask, we are not. And why? Because the air up here is refreshing, the view pleasant, and we are expecting at any moment an important communication from Comrade Gooch.”

“We’re goin’ to wait here till youse come down.”

“If you wish it,” said Psmith courteously, “by all means do. Who am I that I should dictate your movements? The most I aspire to is to check them when they take an upward direction.”

There was silence below. The time began to pass slowly. The Irishmen on the other roof, now definitely abandoning hope of further entertainment, proceeded with hoots of scorn to climb down one by one into the recesses of their own house.

Suddenly from the street far below there came a fusillade of shots and a babel of shouts and counter-shouts. The roof of the house next door, which had been emptying itself slowly and reluctantly, filled again with a magical swiftness, and the low wall facing into the street became black with the backs of those craning over.

“What’s that?” inquired Billy.

“I rather fancy,” said Psmith, “that our allies of the Table