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

Hammond Chester, Ann’s father, whom he had met in Canada, where the latter was at present engaged in the comparatively mild occupation of bass-fishing. With their business talk the acquaintance would have begun and finished, if Mr. Pett had been able to please himself, for he had not taken a fancy to Lord Wisbeach. But he was an American, with an American’s sense of hospitality, and, the young man being a friend of Hammond Chester, he had felt bound to invite him to Riverside Drive⁠—with misgivings which were now, he felt, completely justified.

“Ann ought to marry,” said Mrs. Pett. “She gets her own way too much now. However, it is entirely her own affair, and there is nothing that we can do.” She rose. “I only hope she will be sensible.”

She went out, leaving Mr. Pett gloomier than she had found him. He hated the idea of Ann marrying Lord Wisbeach, who, even if he had had no faults at all, would be objectionable in that he would probably take her to live three thousand miles away in his own country. The thought of losing Ann oppressed Mr. Pett sorely.

Ann, meanwhile, had made her way down the passage to the gymnasium which Mr. Pett, in the interests of his health, had caused to be constructed in a large room at the end of the house⁠—a room designed by the original owner, who had had artistic leanings, for a studio. The tap-tap-tap of the leather bag had ceased, but voices from within told her that Jerry Mitchell, Mr. Pett’s private physical instructor, was still there. She wondered who was his companion, and found on opening the door that it was Ogden. The boy was leaning against the wall and regarding Jerry with a dull and supercilious gaze which the latter was plainly finding it hard to bear.

“Yes, sir!” Ogden was saying, as Ann entered. “I heard Biggs asking her to come for a joyride.”

“I bet she turned him down,” said Jerry Mitchell sullenly.

“I bet she didn’t. Why should she? Biggs is an awful good-looking fellow.”

“What are you talking about, Ogden?” said Ann.

“I was telling him that Biggs asked Celestine to go for a ride in the car with him.”

“I’ll knock his block off,” muttered the incensed Jerry.

Ogden laughed derisively.

“Yes, you will! Mother would fire you if you touched him. She wouldn’t stand for having her chauffeur beaten up.”

Jerry Mitchell turned an appealing face to Ann. Ogden’s revelations and especially his eulogy of Biggs’ personal appearance had tormented him. He knew that, in his wooing of Mrs. Pett’s maid, Celestine, he was handicapped by his looks, concerning which he had no illusions. No Adonis to begin with, he had been so edited and re-edited during a long and prosperous ring career by the gloved fists of a hundred foes that in affairs of the heart he was obliged to rely exclusively on moral worth and charm of manner. He belonged to the old school of fighters who looked the part, and in these days of pugilists who resemble matinee idols he had the appearance of an anachronism. He was a stocky man with a round, solid head, small eyes, an undershot jaw, and a nose which ill-treatment had reduced to a mere scenario. A narrow strip of forehead acted as a kind of buffer-state, separating his front hair from his eyebrows, and he bore beyond hope of concealment the badge of his late employment, the cauliflower ear. Yet was he a man of worth and a good citizen, and Ann had liked him from their first meeting. As for Jerry, he worshipped Ann and would have done anything she asked him. Ever since he had discovered that Ann was willing to listen to and sympathise with his outpourings on the subject of his troubled wooing, he had been her slave.

Ann came to the rescue in characteristically direct fashion.

“Get out, Ogden,” she said.

Ogden tried to meet her eye mutinously, but failed. Why he should be afraid of Ann he had never been able to understand, but it was a fact that she was the only person of his acquaintance whom he respected. She had a bright eye and a calm, imperious stare which never failed to tame him.

“Why?” he muttered. “You’re not my boss.”

“Be quick, Ogden.”

“What’s the big idea⁠—ordering a fellow⁠—”

“And close the door gently behind you,” said Ann. She turned to Jerry, as the order was obeyed.

“Has he been bothering you, Jerry?”

Jerry Mitchell wiped his forehead.

“Say, if that kid don’t quit butting in when I’m working in the gym⁠—You heard what he was saying about Maggie, Miss Ann?”

Celestine had been born Maggie O’Toole, a name which Mrs. Pett stoutly refused to countenance in any maid of hers.

“Why on earth do you pay any attention to him, Jerry? You must have seen that he was making it all up. He spends his whole time wandering about till he finds someone he can torment, and then he enjoys himself. Maggie would never dream of going out in the car with Biggs.”

Jerry Mitchell sighed a sigh of relief.

“It’s great for a fellow to have you in his corner, Miss Ann.”

Ann went to the door and opened it. She looked down the passage, then, satisfied as to its emptiness, returned to her seat.

“Jerry, I want to talk to you. I have an idea. Something I want you to do for me.”

“Yes, Miss Ann?”

“We’ve got to do something about that child, Ogden. He’s been worrying uncle Peter again, and I’m not going to have it. I warned him once that, if he did it again, awful things would happen to him, but he didn’t believe me. I suppose, Jerry⁠—what sort of a man is your friend, Mr. Smethurst?”

“Do you mean Smithers, Miss Ann?”

“I knew it was either Smithers or Smethurst. The dog man, I mean. Is he a man you can trust?”

“With my last buck. I’ve known him since we were kids.”

“I don’t mean as regards money. I am going to send Ogden to him for treatment, and I want to know if I can rely