Piccadilly Jim - P. G. Wodehouse (best romance ebooks TXT) 📗

“I’m strong fer Jer!” she said.

“Huh?” said the student of Schopenhauer.

“Jerry Mitchell, you know. You ain’t never met him, have you? Say, he’s a grand man!”

For the first time she had the other’s undivided attention. The new parlourmaid placed her book upon the table.

“Uh?” she said.

Celestine could hold back her dramatic surprise no longer. Her concealed left hand flashed into view. On the third finger glittered a ring. She gazed at it with awed affection.

“Ain’t it a beaut!”

She contemplated its sparkling perfection for a moment in rapturous silence.

“Say, you could have knocked me down with a feather!” she resumed. “He telephones me awhile ago and says to be outside the back door at ten tonight, because he’d something he wanted to tell me. Of course he couldn’t come in and tell it me here, because he’d been fired and everything. So I goes out, and there he is. ‘Hello, kid!’ he says to me. ‘Fresh!’ I says to him. ‘Say, I got something to be fresh about!’ he says to me. And then he reaches into his jeans and hauls out the sparkler. ‘What’s that?’ I says to him. ‘It’s an engagement ring,’ he says to me. ‘For you, if you’ll wear it!’ I came over so weak, I could have fell! And the next thing I know he’s got it on my finger and⁠—” Celestine broke off modestly. “Say, ain’t it a beaut, honest!” She gave herself over to contemplation once more. “He says to me how he’s on Easy Street now, or will be pretty soon. I says to him ‘Have you got a job, then?’ He says to me ‘Now, I ain’t got a job, but I’m going to pull off a stunt tonight that’s going to mean enough to me to start that health-farm I’ve told you about.’ Say, he’s always had a line of talk about starting a health-farm down on Long Island, he knowing all about training and health and everything through having been one of them fighters. I asks him what the stunt is, but he won’t tell me yet. He says he’ll tell me after we’re married, but he says it’s sure-fire and he’s going to buy the license tomorrow.”

She paused for comment and congratulations, eyeing her companion expectantly.

“Huh!” said the new parlourmaid briefly, and resumed her Schopenhauer. Decidedly hers was not a winning personality.

“Ain’t it a beaut?” demanded Celestine, damped.

The new parlourmaid uttered a curious sound at the back of her throat.

“He’s a beaut!” she said cryptically.

She added another remark in a lower tone, too low for Celestine’s ears. It could hardly have been that, but it sounded to Celestine like:

“I’ll fix ’m!”

Riverside Drive slept. The moon shone on darkened windows and deserted sidewalks. It was past one o’clock in the morning. The wicked Forties were still ablaze with light and noisy foxtrots; but in the virtuous Hundreds, where Mr. Pett’s house stood, respectable slumber reigned. Only the occasional drone of a passing automobile broke the silence, or the lovesick cry of some feline Romeo patrolling a wall-top.

Jimmy was awake. He was sitting on the edge of his bed watching his father put the finishing touches to his makeup, which was of a shaggy and intimidating nature. The elder Crocker had conceived the outward aspect of Chicago Ed., King of the Kidnappers, on broad and impressive lines, and one glance would have been enough to tell the sagacious observer that here was no white-souled comrade for a nocturnal saunter down lonely lanes and out-of-the-way alleys.

Mr. Crocker seemed to feel this himself.

“The only trouble is, Jim,” he said, peering at himself in the glass, “shan’t I scare the boy to death directly he sees me? Oughtn’t I to give him some sort of warning?”

“How? Do you suggest sending him a formal note?”

Mr. Crocker surveyed his repellent features doubtfully.

“It’s a good deal to spring on a kid at one in the morning,” he said. “Suppose he has a fit!”

“He’s far more likely to give you one. Don’t you worry about Ogden, dad. I shouldn’t think there was a child alive more equal to handling such a situation.”

There was an empty glass standing on a tray on the dressing-table. Mr. Crocker eyed this sadly.

“I wish you hadn’t thrown that stuff away, Jim. I could have done with it. I’m feeling nervous.”

“Nonsense, dad! You’re all right! I had to throw it away. I’m on the wagon now, but how long I should have stayed on with that smiling up at me I don’t know. I’ve made up my mind never to lower myself to the level of the beasts that perish with the demon Rum again, because my future wife has strong views on the subject: but there’s no sense in taking chances. Temptation is all very well, but you don’t need it on your dressing-table. It was a kindly thought of yours to place it there, dad, but⁠—”

“Eh? I didn’t put it there.”

“I thought that sort of thing came in your department. Isn’t it the butler’s job to supply drinks to the nobility and gentry? Well, it doesn’t matter. It is now distributed over the neighbouring soil, thus removing a powerful temptation from your path. You’re better without it.” He looked at his watch. “Well, it ought to be all right now.” He went to the window. “There’s an automobile down there. I suppose it’s Jerry. I told him to be outside at one sharp and it’s nearly half-past. I think you might be starting, dad. Oh, by the way, you had better tell Ogden that you represent a gentleman of the name of Buck Maginnis. It was Buck who got away with him last time, and a firm friendship seems to have sprung up between them. There’s nothing like coming with a good introduction.”

Mr. Crocker took a final survey of himself in the mirror.

“Gee! I’d hate to meet myself on a lonely road!”

He opened the door,