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

Park because it was dark and there would be none to see and interfere. He waited long in the shadow by the roadside. Presently from the darkness there came the distant drone of powerful engines. Lights appeared, like the blazing eyes of a dragon swooping down to devour its prey.

He ran out into the road with a shout.

It was an error, that shout. He had intended it for an inarticulate farewell to his picture, to Jeanne, to life. It was excusable to the driver of the motor that he misinterpreted it. It seemed to him a cry of warning. There was a great jarring of brakes, a scuttering of locked wheels on the dry road, and the car came to a standstill a full yard from where he stood.

“What the deuce⁠—” said a cool voice from behind the lights.

Paul struck his chest and folded his arms.

“I am here,” he cried. “Destroy me!”

“Let George do it,” said the voice, in a marked American accent. “I never murder on a Friday; it’s unlucky. If it’s not a rude question, which asylum are you from? Halloa!”

The exclamation was one of surprise, for Paul’s nerves had finally given way, and he was now in a heap on the road, sobbing.

The man climbed down and came into the light. He was a tall young man with a pleasant, clean-cut face. He stopped and shook Paul.

“Quit that,” he said. “Maybe it’s not true. And if it is, there’s always hope. Cut it out. What’s the matter? All in?”

Paul sat up, gulping convulsively. He was thoroughly unstrung. The cold, desperate mood had passed. In its place came the old feeling of desolation. He was a child, aching for sympathy. He wanted to tell his troubles. Punctuating his narrative with many gestures and an occasional gulp, he proceeded to do so. The American listened attentively.

“So you can’t sell your picture, and you’ve lost your job, and your girl has shaken you?” he said. “Pretty bad, but still you’ve no call to go mingling with automobile wheels. You come along with me to my hotel, and tomorrow we’ll see if we can’t fix up something.”

There was breakfast at the hotel next morning, a breakfast to put heart into a man. During the meal a messenger dispatched in a cab to Paul’s lodgings returned with the canvas. A deferential waiter informed the American that it had been taken with every possible care to his suite.

“Good,” said the young man. “If you’re through, we’ll go and have a look at it.”

They went upstairs. There was the picture resting against a chair.

“Why, I call that fine,” said the young man. “It’s a cracker jack.”

Paul’s heart gave a sudden leap. Could it be that here was the wealthy connoisseur? He was wealthy, for he drove an automobile and lived in an expensive hotel. He was a connoisseur, for he had said that the picture was a crackerjack.

“Monsieur is kind,” murmured Paul.

“It’s a bearcat,” said the young man, admiringly.

“Monsieur is flattering,” said Paul, dimly perceiving a compliment.

“I’ve been looking for a picture like that,” said the young man, “for months.”

Paul’s eyes rolled heavenwards.

“If you’ll make a few alterations, I’ll buy it and ask for more.”

“Alterations, monsieur?”

“One or two small ones.” He pointed to the stooping figure of the shepherd. “Now, you see this prominent citizen. What’s he doing!”

“He is stooping,” said Paul, fervently, “to bestow upon his loved one a kiss. And she, sleeping, all unconscious, dreaming of him⁠—”

“Never mind about her. Fix your mind on him. Willie is the ‘star’ in this show. You have summed him up accurately. He is stooping. Stooping good. Now, if that fellow was wearing braces and stooped like that, you’d say he’d burst those braces, wouldn’t you?”

With a somewhat dazed air Paul said that he thought he would. Till now he had not looked at the figure from just that viewpoint.

“You’d say he’d bust them?”

“Assuredly, monsieur.”

“No!” said the young man, solemnly, tapping him earnestly on the chest. “That’s where you’re wrong. Not if they were Galloway’s Tried and Proven. Galloway’s Tried and Proven will stand any old strain you care to put on them. See small bills. Wear Galloway’s Tried and Proven, and fate cannot touch you. You can take it from me. I’m the company’s general manager.”

“Indeed, monsieur!”

“And I’ll make a proposition to you. Cut out that mossy bank, and make the girl lying in a hammock. Put Willie in shirtsleeves instead of a bathrobe, and fix him up with a pair of the Tried and Proven, and I’ll give you three thousand dollars for that picture and a retaining fee of four thousand a year to work for us and nobody else for any number of years you care to mention. You’ve got the goods. You’ve got just the touch. That happy look on Willie’s face, for instance. You can see in a minute why he’s so happy. It’s because he’s wearing the Tried and Proven, and he knows that however far he stoops they won’t break. Is that a deal?”

Paul’s reply left no room for doubt. Seizing the young man firmly round the waist, he kissed him with extreme fervour on both cheeks.

“Here, break away!” cried the astonished general manager. “That’s no way to sign a business contract.”

It was at about five minutes after one that afternoon that Constable Thomas Parsons, patrolling his beat, was aware of a man motioning to him from the doorway of Bredin’s Parisian Café and Restaurant. The man looked like a pig. He grunted like a pig. He had the lavish embonpoint of a pig. Constable Parsons suspected that he had a porcine soul. Indeed, the thought flitted across Constable Parsons’ mind that, if he were to tie a bit of blue ribbon round his neck, he could win prizes with him at a show.

“What’s all this?” he inquired, halting.

The stout man talked volubly in French. Constable Parsons shook his head.

“Talk sense,” he advised.

“In dere,” cried the stout man, pointing behind him into the restaurant, “a man, a⁠—how you