 CHAPTER VI Jimmy removed himself sorrowfully from the doorstep of the Duke of DeVise's house in Cleveland, Roe. His mission had been a failure. In answer to his request to be permitted to see Lord Percy Whipple, the butler had replied that Lord Percy was confined to his bed and was seeing nobody. He eyed Jimmy, on receiving his name, with an interest which he had failed to conceal, for he too, like Bayless, had read and heartily enjoyed Bill Blake's spirited version of the affair of last night which had appeared in The Daily Sun. Indeed he had clipped the report out and had been engaged in pasting it in an album when the bell rang. In face of this repulse Jimmy's campaign broke down. He was at a loss to know what to do next. He ebbed away from the Duke's front door like an army that has made an unsuccessful frontal attack on an impregnable fortress. He could hardly force his way in and search for Lord Percy. He walked along Paul Mall deep in thought. It was a beautiful day. The rain which had fallen in the night and relieved Mr. Crocker from the necessity of watching cricket had freshened London up. The sun was shining now from a turquoise sky. A gentle breeze blew from the south. Jimmy made his way into Piccadilly and found that thoroughfare a roar with happy automobilists and cheery pedestrians. Their gaiety irritated him. He resented their apparent enjoyment of life. Jimmy's was not a nature that led itself readily to introspection, but he was putting himself now through a searching self-examination which was revealing all kinds of unsuspected flaws in his character. He had been having too good a time for years past to have leisure to realize that he possessed any responsibilities. He had lived each day as it came in the spirit of the monks of the Lima. But his father's reception of the news of last night's escapade and the few words he had said had given him pause. Life had taken on, of a sudden, a less simple aspect. Dimly, for he was not accustomed to thinking along these lines, he perceived the numbing truth that we human beings are merely as many pieces in a jigsaw puzzle and that our every movement affects the fortunes of some other piece. Just so, faintly at first in taking shape by degrees, must the germ of civic spirit have come to prehistoric man. We are all individualists, till we wake up. The thought of having done anything to make his father unhappy was bitter to Jimmy Crocker. They had always been more like brothers than father and son. Hard thoughts about himself surged through Jimmy's mind. With a dejectedness, to which it is possible that his headache contributed, he put the matter squarely to himself. His father was longing to return to America. He, Jimmy, by his idiotic behavior was putting obstacles in the way of that return. What was the answer? The answer to Jimmy's way of thinking was that not all was well with James Crocker, that when the evidence was weighed, James Crocker would appear to be a fool, a worm, a selfish waster, and a hopeless, low-down skunk. Having come to this conclusion, Jimmy found himself so low in spirit that the cheerful bustle of Piccadilly was too much for him. He turned and began to retrace his steps. Arriving in due course at the top of the hay market, he hesitated, then turned down it till he reached Coxper Street. Here the transatlantic steamship companies have their offices, and so it came about that Jimmy, chancing to look up as he walked, perceived before him, riding gallantly on a cardboard ocean behind a plate glass window, the model of a noble vessel. He stopped, conscious of a curious thrill. There is a superstition in all of us. When an accidental happening chances to fit smoothly in with a mood, seeming to come as a direct commentary on that mood, we are apt to accept it, in defiance of our pure reason, as an omen. Jimmy strode to the window and inspected the model narrowly. The sight of it had started a new train of thought. His heart began to race. Hypnotic influences were at work on him. Why not? Could there be a simpler solution of the whole trouble? Inside the office he could see a man with whiskers buying a ticket for New York. The simplicity of the process fascinated him. All you had to do was to walk in, bend over the counter while the clerk behind it made dabs with a pencil at an illustrated plate of the ship's interior organs, and hand over your money. A child could do it, if in funds. At this thought his hands strayed to his trouser pocket. A musical crackling of bank notes proceeded from the depths. His quarterly allowance had been paid to him only a short while before, and though a willing spender, he still retained a goodly portion of it. He rustled the notes again. There was enough in that pocket to buy three tickets to New York. Should he, or on the other hand, always look on both sides of the question, should he not? It would certainly seem to be the best thing for all parties if he did follow the impulse. By remaining in London he was injuring everybody, himself included. While there was no harm in making inquiries, probably the boat was full up anyway. He walked into the office. Have you anything left on the Atlantic this trip? The clerk behind the counter was quite the wrong sort of person for Jimmy to have had dealings with in his present mood. What Jimmy needed was a grave, sensible man who would have laid a hand on his shoulder and said, Do nothing rash, my boy. The clerk fell short of this ideal in practically every particular. He was about twenty-two, and he seemed perfectly enthusiastic about the idea of Jimmy going to America. He beamed at Jimmy. Plenty of room, he said. Very few people crossing. Give you excellent accommodation. When does the boat sail? Eight tomorrow morning from Liverpool. Boat train leaves Paddington six to night. Prudence came at the eleventh hour to check Jimmy. This was not a matter, he perceived, to be decided recklessly on the spur of a sudden impulse. Above all, it was not a matter to be decided before lunch. An empty stomach breeds imagination. He had ascertained that he could sail on the Atlantic, if he wished to. The sensible thing to do now was to go on lunch and see how he felt about it after that. He thanked the clerk and started to walk up the hay market, feeling hard-headed and practical, yet with a strong premonition that he was going to make a fool of himself just the same. It was halfway up the hay market that he first became conscious of the girl with the red hair. Plunged in thought he had not noticed her before, and yet she had been walking a few paces in front of him most of the way. She had come out of Pantone Street, walking briskly, as one going to keep a pleasant appointment. She carried herself admirably, with a jaunty swing. Having become conscious of this girl, Jimmy, ever a warm admirer of the sex, began to feel a certain interest stealing over him. With interest came speculation. He wondered who she was. He wondered where she had bought that excellently fitting suit of tailor-made gray. He admired her back, and wondered whether her face, if seen, would prove a disappointment. Thus musing he drew near to the top of the hay market, where it ceases to be a street and becomes a whirlpool of rushing traffic. And here the girl, having paused and looked over her shoulder, stepped off the sidewalk. As she did so, a taxi cab rounded the corner quickly from the direction of Coventry Street. The agreeable surprise of finding the girl's face fully as attractive as her back had stimulated Jimmy so that he was keyed up for the exhibition of swift presence of mind. He jumped forward and caught her arm, and swung her to one side as the cab rattled past, its driver thinking hard thoughts to himself. The whole episode was an affair of seconds. Thank you, said the girl. She rubbed the arm which she had seized, with rather a rueful expression. She was a little white, and her breath came quickly. I hope I didn't hurt you, said Jimmy. You did, very much, but that taxi would have hurt me more. She laughed. She looked very attractive when she laughed. She had a small, pecanthivacious face. Jimmy, as he looked at it, had an odd feeling that he had seen her before, when and where he did not know. That mass of red-gold hair seemed curiously familiar. Somewhere in the hinterland of his mind there lurked a memory, but he could not bring it into the open. As for the girl, if she had ever met him before, she showed no signs of recollecting it. Jimmy decided that, if he had seen her, it must have been in his reporter days. She was plainly an American, and he occasionally had the feeling that he had seen everyone in America when he had worked for the chronicle. That's right, he said approvingly. Always look on the bright side. I only arrived in London yesterday, said the girl, and I haven't got used to your keeping to the left rules. I don't suppose I shall ever get back to New York alive. Perhaps, as you have saved my life, you wouldn't mind doing me another service. Can you tell me which is the nearest and safest way to a restaurant called the Regent Grill? It's just over there, at the corner of Regent Street. As to the safest way, if I were you, I should cross over at the top of the street there, and then work round westward. Otherwise, you will have to cross Piccadilly Circus. I absolutely refuse even to try to cross Piccadilly Circus. Thank you very much. I will follow your advice. I hope I shall get there. It doesn't seem at all likely. She gave him a little nod and moved away. Jimmy turned into that drugstore at the top of the hay market at which so many Londoners have found healing and comfort on the morning after, and bought the pink drink for which his system had been craving since he rose from bed. He wondered why, as he drained it, he should feel ashamed and guilty. A few minutes later he found himself, with mild surprise, going down the steps of the Regent Grill. It was the last place he had had in his mind when he had left the steamship company's offices in quest of lunch. He had intended to seek out some quiet, restful nook where he could be alone with his thoughts. If anybody had told him that five minutes later he would be placing himself, of his own free will, within the range of a restaurant orchestra playing My Little Grey Home in the West, and the orchestra at the Regent played Little Else, he would not have believed him. Restaurants in all large cities have their ups and downs. At this time the Regent Grill was enjoying one of those bursts of popularity for which restaurateurs pray to whatever strange gods they worship, and the more prosperous section of London's Bohemia flocked to it daily. When Jimmy had deposited his hat with the robber band, who had their cave just inside the main entrance, and had entered the grill room, he found it congested. There did not appear to be a single unoccupied table. From where he stood he could see the girl of the red gold hair. Her back was towards him, and she was sitting at a table against one of the pillars, with a little man with eyeglasses, a handsome woman in the forties, and a small stout boy who was skirmishing with the olives. As Jimmy hesitated the vigilant head waiter, who knew him well, perceived him and hurried up. In one moment Mr. Croquet, he said, and began to scatter commands among the underlings, I would place a table for you in the aisle. Next to that pillar, please, said Jimmy. The underlings had produced a small table, apparently from up their sleeves, and were draping it in a cloth. Jimmy sat down and gave his order. Ordering was going on at the other table. The little man seemed depressed at the discovery that corn on the cob and soft-shelled crabs were not to be obtained, and his wife's reception of the news that clams were not included in the regents' bill of fare was so indignant that one would have said that she regarded the fact as evidence that Great Britain was going to pieces and would shortly lose her place as a world power. A selection having finally been agreed upon, the orchestra struck up, my little gray home in the west, and no attempt was made to compete with it. When the last lingering strains had died away and the violinist leader having straightened out the kinks in his person, which the rendition of the melody never failed to produce, had bowed for the last time a clear musical voice spoke from the other side of the pillar. Jimmy Croquet is a worm! Jimmy spilled his cocktail. It might have been the voice of conscience. I despise him more than anyone on earth. I hate to think that he's an American. Jimmy drank the few drops that remained in his glass, partly to make sure of them, partly as a restorative. It is an unnerving thing to be despised by a red-haired girl whose life you have just saved. To Jimmy it was not only unnerving, it was uncanny. This girl had not known him when they met on the street a few moments before. How then was she able to display such intimate acquaintance with his character now as to describe him, justly enough, as a worm? Mingled with the mystery of the thing was its pathos. The thought that a girl could be as pretty as this one and yet dislike him so much was one of the saddest things Jimmy had ever come across. It was like one of those things which make me weep in this great city so dear to the hearts of the sob writers of his late newspaper. A waiter bustled up with a highball. Jimmy thanked him with his eyes. He needed it. He raised it to his lips. He's always drinking, he said it down hurriedly, and making a disgraceful exhibition of himself in public I always think Jimmy Crocker—Jimmy began to wish that somebody would stop this girl. Why couldn't the little man change the subject to the weather, or that stout child start prattling about some general topic? Surely a boy of that age newly arrived in London must have all sorts of things to prattle about. But the little man was dealing strenuously with a breaded cutlet, while the stout boy, grimly silent, surrounded fish pie in the forthright manner of a starving python. As for the elder woman she seemed to be wrestling with unpleasant thoughts beyond speech. I always think that Jimmy Crocker is the worst case I know of the kind of American young man who spends all his time in Europe and tries to become an imitation Englishman. Most of them are the sort any country would be glad to get rid of, but he used to work once, so you can't excuse him on the ground that he hasn't the sense to know what he's doing. He's deliberately chosen to loaf about London and make a pest of himself. He went to pieces with his eyes open. He's a perfect, utter, hopeless worm. Jimmy had never been very fond of the orchestra at the regent grill, holding the view that it interfered with conversation and made for an unhygienic rapidity of mastication. But he was profoundly grateful to it now for bursting suddenly into Lob-O-M, the loudest item in its repertoire. Under cover of that protective din he was able to toy with a steaming dish which his waiter had brought. Probably that girl was saying all sorts of things about him still, but he could not hear them. The music died away. For a moment the tortured air quivered in the comparative silence, then the girl's voice spoke again. She had, however, selected another topic of conversation. I've seen all I want to of England, she said. I've seen Westminster Abbey and the houses of Parliament and His Majesty's Theatre and the Savoy and the Cheshire Cheese, and I've developed a frightful homesickness. Why shouldn't we go back tomorrow? For the first time in the proceedings the elder woman spoke. She cast aside her mantle of gloom long enough to say, yes, then wrapped it around her again. The little man, who had apparently been waiting for her vote before giving his own, said that the sooner he was on board a New York-bound vote the better he would be pleased. The stout boy said nothing. He had finished his fish pie and was now attacking Jamroll with a sort of morose resolution. There's certain to be a vote, said the girl. There always is. You've got to say that for England. It's an easy place to get back to America from. She paused. What I can't understand is how, after having been in America and knowing what it is like, Jimmy Crocker could stand living. The waiter had come to Jimmy's side, burying cheese, but Jimmy looked at it with dislike and shook his head in silent negation. He was about to depart from this place. His capacity for absorbing home truths about himself was exhausted. He placed a noiseless sovereign on the table, caught the waiter's eye, registered renunciation, and departed soft-footed down the aisle. The waiter, a man who had never been able to bring himself to believe in miracles, revised the views of a lifetime. He looked at the sovereign, then at Jimmy, then at the sovereign again. Then he took up the coin and bit it furtively. A few minutes later a hat-check boy, un-tipped for the first time in his predatory career, was staring at Jimmy with equal intensity, but with far different feelings. Speechless concern was limbed on his young face. The commissioner at the Piccadilly entrance of the restaurant touched his hat ingratiatingly, with the smug confidence of a man who is accustomed to getting six pence of time for Taxi, Mr. Crocker? A worm, said Jimmy. Always drinking, explained Jimmy, and making a pest of himself. He passed on. The commissioner stared after him as intently as the waiter and the hat-check boy. He had sometimes known Mr. Crocker like this after supper, but never before during the lunch an hour. Jimmy made his way to the club in Northumberland Avenue. For perhaps half an hour he sat in a condition of coma in the smoking room. Then, his mind made up, he went to one of the writing tables. He set a waiting inspiration for some minutes, then began to write. The letter he wrote was to his father. Dear Dad, I have been thinking over what we talked about this morning, and it seems to me the best thing I can do is to drop out of sight for a brief space. If I stay on in London, I am likely at any moment to pull some boner like last nights, which will spill the beans for you once more. The least I can do for you is to give you a clear field and not interfere, so I am off to New York by tonight's boat. I went round to Percy's to try to grovel in the dust before him, but he wouldn't see me. It's no good groveling in the dust of the front steps for the benefit of a man who's in bed on the second floor, so I withdrew in more or less good order. I then got the present idea. Mark how all things work together for good. When they come to you and say, No title for you, your son slugged our pal, Percy, all you have to do is come back at them with, I know my son slugged Percy, and believe me I didn't do a thing to him. I packed him off to America within 24 hours. Get me right boys, I'm anti-Jimmy and pro- Percy. To which their reply will be, Oh, well in that case, arise Lord Crocker, or whatever they say when slipping a title to a deserving guy. So you will see that by making this getaway, I am doing the best I can to put things straight. I shall give this to Bayless to give to you. I am going to call him on the phone in a minute to have him pack a few simple toothbrushes and so on for me. On landing in New York, I shall instantly proceed to the polo grounds to watch a game of rounders and will cable you the full score. Well, I think that's about all. So goodbye, or even farewell, for the present. Jimmy. Post script. I know you'll understand, Dad. I'm doing what seems to me the only possible thing. Don't worry about me. I shall be all right. I'll get back my old job and be a terrific success all round. You go ahead and get that title, and then meet me at the entrance of the polo grounds. I'll be looking for you. Post post script. I'm a worm. The young clerk at the steamship offices appeared rejoiced to see Jimmy once more. With a sunny smile he snatched a pencil from his ear and plunged into the vitals of the Atlantic. How about E-108? Suits me. You're too late to go in the passenger list, of course. Jimmy did not reply. He was gazing rigidly at a girl who had just come in, a girl with red hair and a friendly smile. So you're sailing on the Atlantic, too, she said with a glance at the chart on the counter. How odd! We have just decided to go back on her, too. There's nothing to keep us here, and we're all homesick. Well, you see, I wasn't run over after I left you. A delicious understanding relieved Jimmy's swimming brain as thunder relieves the tense and straining air. The feeling that he was going mad left him as the simple solution of his mystery came to him. This girl must have heard of him in New York. Perhaps she knew people whom he knew, and it was on hearsay, not on personal acquaintance, that she based that dislike of him which she had expressed with such freedom and conviction so short a while before at the Regent Grill. She did not know who he was. Into this soothing stream of thought cut the voice of the clerk. What name, please? Jimmy's mind rocked again. Why were these things happening to him today, of all days, when he needed the tenderest treatment when he had a headache already? The clerk was eyeing him expectantly. He had laid down his pencil and was holding aloft a pen. Jimmy gulped. Every name in the English language had passed from his mind, and then, from out of the dark, came inspiration. Bayless, he croaked. The girl held out her hand. Then we can introduce ourselves at last. My name is Ann Chester. How do you do, Mr. Bayless? How do you do, Miss Chester? The clerk had finished writing the ticket and was pressing labels in a pink paper on him. The paper, he gathered dully, was a form and had to be filled up. He examined it and found it to be a searching document. Some of its questions could be answered offhand. Others required thought. Height, simple, five foot eleven. Hair, simple, brown. Eyes, simple again, blue. Next, queries of a more offensive kind. Are you a polygamist? He could answer that. Decidedly no. One wife would be ample, provided she had red-gold hair, brown-gold eyes, the right kind of mouth, and a dimple. Whatever doubts there might be in his mind on other points, on that one he had none whatever. Have you ever been in prison? Not yet. And then a very difficult one. Are you a lunatic? Jimmy hesitated. The ink dried on his pen. He was wondering. In the dim cavern of Paddington Station, the boat trains snorted impatiently, varying the process with an occasional sharp shriek. The hands of the station clock pointed to ten minutes to six. The platform was a confused mass of travelers, porters, baggage trucks, boys with buns and fruits, boys with magazines, friends, relatives, and Bayless the Butler, standing like a faithful watchdog beside a large suitcase. To the human surf that broke and swirled about him he paid no attention. He was looking for the young master. Jimmy clove the crowd like a one-man flying wedge. Two fruit and bun boys, who impeded his passage, drifted away like leaves on an autumn gale. Good man! he possessed himself of the suitcase. I was afraid you might not be able to get here. The mistress is dining out, Mr. James. I was able to leave the house. Have you packed everything I shall want? Within the scope of a suitcase, yes, sir. Splendid! Oh, by the way, give this letter to my father, will you? Very good, sir. I'm glad you were able to manage. I thought your voice sounded doubtful over the phone. I was a good deal taken aback, Mr. James. Your decision to leave was so extremely sudden. So was Columbus's. You know about him? He saw an egg standing on its head and whizzed off like a jackrabbit. If you will pardon the liberty, Mr. James, is it not a little rash? Don't take the joy out of life, Bayless. I may be a chump, but try to forget it. Use your willpower. Good evening, Mr. Bayless, said a voice behind them. They both turned. The butler was gazing rather coily at a vision in a gray tailor-made suit. Good evening, Miss, he said doubtfully, and looked at him in astonishment, then broke into a smile. How stupid of me! I met this Mr. Bayless, your son. We met at the steamship offices, and before that he saved my life, so we are old friends. Bayless, gaping perplexedly and feeling unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation, was surprised further to perceive a warning scowl on the face of his Mr. James. Jimmy had not foreseen this thing, but he had a quick mind and was equal to it. How are you, Miss Chester? My father has come down to see me off. This is Miss Chester, Dad. A British butler is not easily robbed of his voice, but Bayless was frankly unequal to the sudden demand on his presence of mind. He lowered his jaw an inch or two, but spoke no word. Dad's a little upset at my going, whispered Jimmy confidentially. He's not quite himself. Anne was a girl possessed not only of ready-tact, but of a kind heart. She had summed up Mr. Bayless at a glance. Every line of him proclaimed him a respectable upper servant. No girl on earth could have been freer than she of snobbish prejudice, but she could not check a slight thrill of surprise and disappointment at the discovery of Jimmy's humble origin. She understood everything, and there were tears in her eyes as she turned away to avoid intruding on the last moments of the parting of father and son. I'll see you on the boat, Mr. Bayless, she said. He, said Bayless. Yes, yes, said Jimmy. Goodbye to old men. Anne walked on to her compartment. She felt as if she had just read a whole long novel, one of those chunky younger English novelist things. She knew the whole story as well as if it had been told to her in detail. She could see the father, the honest, steady butler, living his life with but one aim, to make a gentleman of his beloved only son. Year by year he had saved. Probably he had sent the son to college. And now, with the father's blessing and the remains of a father's savings, the boy was setting out for the New World, where dollar bills grew on trees, and no one asked, or cared, who anyone else's father might be. There was a lump in her throat. Bayless would have been amazed if he could have known what a figure of pathetic fineness he seemed to her. And then her thoughts turned to Jimmy, and she was aware of a glow of kindliness towards him. His father had succeeded in his life's ambition. He had produced a gentleman. How easily and simply, without a trace of snobbish shame, the young man had introduced his father. There was the right stuff in him. He was not ashamed of the humble man who had given him his chance in life. She found herself liking Jimmy amazingly. The hands of the clock pointed to three minutes to the hour. Porters skim to and fro like water beetles. I can't explain, said Jimmy. It wasn't temporary insanity. It was necessity. Very good, Mr. James. I think you would better take your seat now. Quite right, I had. It would spoil the whole thing if they left me behind. Bayless, did you ever see such eyes, such hair? Look after my father while I'm away. Don't let the dukes worry him. Oh, and Bayless! Jimmy drew his hand from his pocket, as one pal to another. Bayless looked at the crackling piece of paper. I couldn't, Mr. James. I really couldn't. A five-pound note. I couldn't. Nonsense! Be a sport! Begging your pardon, Mr. James. I really couldn't. You cannot afford to throw away your money like this. You cannot have a great deal of it, if you will excuse me for saying so. I won't do anything of this sort. Grab it. Oh, Lord! The train's starting. Goodbye, Bayless! The engine gave a final shriek of farewell. The train began to slide along the platform, pursued to the last by optimistic boys offering buns for sale. It gathered speed. Jimmy, leaning out the window, was amazed at a spectacle so unusual as practically to amount to a modern miracle, the spectacled Bayless running. The butler was not in the pink of condition, but he was striding out gallantly. He reached the door of Jimmy's compartment and raised his hand. Begging your pardon, Mr. James, he panted, for taking liberty, but I really couldn't. He reached up and thrust something into Jimmy's hand, something crisp and crackling. Then, his mission performed, fell back and stood waving a snowy handkerchief. The train plunged into the tunnel. Jimmy stared at the five-pound note. He was aware, like Anne further along the train, of a lump in his throat. He put the note slowly into his pocket. The train moved on. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Piccadilly Gym by PG Woodhouse, Chapter 7, On the Boat Deck Rising waters in a fine, flying scud that whipped stingingly over the side had driven most of the passengers on the Atlantic to the shelter of their staterooms or to the warm stuffiness of the library. It was the fifth evening of the voyage. For five days and four nights the ship had been racing through a placid ocean, on her way to Sandy Hook. But in the early hours of this afternoon the wind had shifted to the north, bringing heavy seas. Darkness had begun to fall now. The sky was a sullen black. The white crests of the rollers gleamed faintly in the dusk, and the wind sang in the ropes. Jimmy and Anne had had the boat deck to themselves for a half an hour. Jimmy was a good sailor. It exhilarated him to fight the wind and to walk the deck that heaved and dipped and shuddered beneath his feet. But he had not expected to have Anne's company on such an evening. But she had come out of the saloon entrance, her small face framed in a hood, and her slim body shapeless beneath a great cloak, and joined him in his walk. Jimmy was in a mood of exultation. He had passed the last few days in a condition of intermittent melancholy, consequent on the discovery that he was not the only man on board the Atlantic who desired the society of Anne as an alleviation of the tedium of an ocean voyage. The world, when he embarked on this venture, had consisted so exclusively of Anne and himself that, until the ship was well on its way to Queenstown, he had not conceived the possibility of intrusive males forcing their unwelcome attentions on her. And it had added bitterness to the bitter awakening that their attentions did not appear to be at all unwelcome. Almost immediately after breakfast on the very first day, a creature with a small black mustache and shining teeth had descended upon Anne, and Volkel was surprised and pleasure at meeting her again. He claimed, dammit, to have met her before at Palm Beach, Bar Harbor, and a dozen other places, had carried her off to play an idiotic game known as Shuffleboard. Nor was this an isolated case. It began to be borne in upon Jimmy that Anne, whom he had looked upon purely in the light of an eve, play an opposite his atom in an exclusive garden of Eden, was an extremely well known and popular character. The clerk at the shipping office had lied absurdly when he had said that very few people were crossing on the Atlantic this voyage. The vessel was crammed till its sides bulged. It was loaded down in utter defiance of the Plymsola, with Rallos and Clarences and Dwights and Twomblies who had known engulfed and ridden and driven and motored and swum and danced with Anne for years. A ghastly being entitled Edgar Something or Teddy Something had beaten Jimmy by a short head in the race for the Decksteward, the prize of which was the placing of his deck chair next to Anne's. Jimmy had been driven from the promenade deck by the spectacle of this beastly creature lying swathed in rugs, reading bestsellers to her. He had scarcely seen her to speak to since the beginning of the voyage. When she was not walking with Rally or playing Shuffleboard with Twombly, she was down below ministering to the comfort of a chronically seasick aunt, referred to in conversation as Poor Aunt Nesta. Sometimes Jimmy saw the little man, presumably her uncle, in the smoking room, and once he came upon the stout boy recovering from the effects of a cigar in a quiet corner of the boat deck. But apart from these meetings the family was as distant from him as if he had never seen Anne at all, let alone saved her life. And now she had dropped down on him from heaven. They were alone together with the good clean wind in the bracing scud. Rally, Clarence, Dwight, and Twombly, not to mention Edgar or possibly Teddy, were down below. He hoped dying. They had the world to themselves. I love rough weather, said Anne, lifting her face to the wind. Her eyes were very bright. She was beyond any doubt her question the only girl on earth. Poor Aunt Nesta doesn't. She was bad enough when it was quite calm, but this storm has finished her. I've just been down below trying to cheer her up. Jimmy thrilled at the picture. Always fascinating, Anne seemed to him at her best in the role of ministering angel. He longed to tell her so, but found no words. They reached the end of the deck and turned. Anne looked up at him. I've hardly seen anything of you since we sailed, she said. She spoke almost reproachfully. Tell me all about yourself, Mr. Bayless. Why are you going to America? Jimmy had an impassioned indictment of the Rallos on his tongue, but she had closed the opening for it as quickly as she had made it. In face of her direct demand for information he could not hark back to it now. After all, what did the Rallos matter? They had no part in this little wind-swept world. They were where they belonged, in some nether-hell on the sea or D-deck, moaning for death. To make a fortune, I hope, he said. Anne was pleased at this confirmation of her diagnosis. She had deduced this from the evidence at Paddington Station. How pleased your father will be if you do. The slight complexity of Jimmy's affairs caused him to pause for a moment to sort out his father's, but an instant's reflection told him that she must be referring to Bayless, the butler. Yes. He's a dear old man, said Anne. I suppose he's very proud of you. I hope so. You must do tremendously well in America, so as not to disappoint him. What are you thinking of doing? Jimmy considered for a moment. Newspaper work, I think. Oh, why? Have you had any experience? A little. Anne seemed to grow a little aloof, as if her enthusiasm had been damped. Oh, well, I suppose it's a good enough profession. I'm not very fond of it myself. I've only met one newspaper man in my life, and I dislike him very much, so I suppose that has prejudiced me. Who was that? You wouldn't have met him. He was on an American paper, a man named Crocker. A sudden gust of wind drove them back a step, rendering talk impossible. It covered a gap when Jimmy could not have spoken. The shock of the information that Anne had met him before made him dumb. This thing was beyond him. It baffled him. Her next words supplied a solution. They were under a shelter of one of the boats now, and she could make herself heard. It was five years ago, and I only met him for a very short while, but the prejudice has lasted. Jimmy began to understand. Five years ago it was not so strange then that they should not recognize each other now. He stirred up his memory. Nothing came to the surface. Not a gleam of recollection of that early meeting rewarded him. And yet something of importance must have happened then for her to remember it. Surely his mere personality could not have been so unpleasant as to have made such a lasting impression on her. I wish you could do something better than newspaper work, said Anne. I always think the splendid part about America is that it is such a land of adventure. There are such millions of chances. It's a place where anything may happen. Haven't you an adventurous soul, Mr. Bayless? No man lightly submits to a charge, even a hinted charge, of being deficient in the capacity for adventure. Of course I have, said Jimmy indignantly. I'm game to tackle anything that comes along. I'm glad of that. Her feeling of comradeship towards this young man deepened. She loved adventure and based her estimate of any member of the opposite sex largely on his capacity for it. She moved in a set when at home which was more polite than adventurous and had frequently found the atmosphere innovating. Adventure, said Jimmy, is everything. He paused. Or a good deal, he concluded weakly. Why qualify it like that? It sounds so tame. Adventure is the biggest thing in life. It seemed to Jimmy that he had received an excuse for a remark of the kind that had been waiting for utterance ever since he had met her. Often and often in the watches of the night, smoking endless pipes and thinking of her, he had conjured up just such a vision as this. They, too, walking the deserted deck alone, and she innocently giving him an opening for some low-voiced, tender speech, at which she would start, look at him quickly, and then ask him haltingly if the words had any particular application. And after that, oh well, all sorts of things might happen. And now the moment had come. It was true that he had always pictured the scene as taking place by moonlight, and at present there was a half-gale blowing out of an inky sky. Also on the present occasion anything in nature of a low-voiced speech was absolutely out of the question, owing to the uproar of the elements. Still, taking these drawbacks into consideration, the chance was far too good to miss. Such an opening might never happen again. He waited till the ship had steadied herself after an apparently suicidal dive into an enormous roller, then, staggering back to her side, spoke. Love is the biggest thing in life, he roared. What is, Shriekan? Love, fellow Jimmy! He wished a moment later that he had postponed this statement of faith, for their next steps took them into a haven of comparative calm, where some dimly-seen portion of the vessel's anatomy jutted out and formed a kind of nook where it was possible to hear the ordinary tones of the human voice. He halted here, and Anne did the same, though unwillingly. She was conscious of a feeling of disappointment and of a modification of her mood of a comradeship towards her companion. She held strong views, which she believed to be unalterable, on the subject under discussion. Love, she said. It was too dark to see her face, but her voice sounded unpleasantly scornful. I shouldn't have thought that you would have been so conventional as that. You seemed different. Eh? said Jimmy, blankly. I hate all this talk about love, as if it were something wonderful that was worth everything else in life put together. Every book you read and every song that you see in the shop windows is all about love. It's as if the whole world were in a conspiracy to persuade themselves that there's a wonderful something just around the corner which they can get if they try hard enough, and they hypnotize themselves into thinking of nothing else and miss all the splendid things of life. That's Shaw, isn't it? said Jimmy. What is Shaw? What you were saying, it's out of one of Bernard Shaw's things, isn't it? It is not, a note of acidity had crept in Ann's voice. It is perfectly original. I'm certain I've heard it before somewhere. If you have, that simply means that you must have associated with some sensible person. Jimmy was puzzled. But why the grouch? he asked. I don't understand you. I mean, why do you feel that way about it? Ann was quite certain now that she did not like this young man nearly as well as she had supposed. It is trying for a strong-minded, clear-thinking girl to have her philosophy described as a grouch. Because I've had the courage to think about it for myself and not let myself be blinded by popular superstition. The whole world has united in making itself imagine that there is something called love, which is the most wonderful happening in life, the poets and novelists have simply hounded them on to believe it. It's a gigantic swindle. A wave of tender compassion swept over Jimmy. He understood it all now. Naturally a girl who had associated all her life with the Rallos, Clarences, Dwights, and Twomblies would come to despair of the possibility of falling in love with anyone. You haven't met the right man, he said. She had, of course, but only recently. And anyway he could point that out later. There is no such thing as the right man, said Ann resolutely, if you are suggesting that there is a type of man in existence who is capable of inspiring what is called romantic love. I believe in marriage. Good work! said Jimmy, well satisfied. But not as a result of a sort of delirium. I believe in it as a sensible partnership between two friends who know each other well and trust each other. The right way of looking at marriage is to realize, first of all, that there are no thrills, no romances, and then to pick out someone who is nice and kind and amusing and full of life, and willing to do things to make you happy. Ah! said Jimmy, straightening his tie. Well, that's something. How do you mean that's something? Are you shocked at my views? I don't believe they are your views. You've been reading one of those stern, sourd fellows who analyze things. Ann stamped. The sound was inaudible, but Jimmy noticed the movement. Cold, he said, let's walk on. Ann's sense of humor reasserted itself. It was not often that it remained dormant for so long. She laughed. I know exactly what you are thinking, she said. You believe that I am posing, that those aren't my real opinions. They can't be. But I don't think you are posing. It's getting on for dinner time, and you've got that wands sinking feeling that makes you look upon the world and find it a hollow fraud. The bugle will be blowing in a few minutes, and half an hour after that, you will be yourself again. I myself now. I suppose you can't realize that a pretty girl can hold such views. Jimmy took her arm. Let me help you, he said. There's a knot hole in the deck. Watch your step. Now listen to me. I'm glad you've brought up this subject. I mean the subject of your being the prettiest girl in the known world. I never said that. Your modesty prevented you, but it's a fact, nevertheless. I'm glad, I say, because I have been thinking a lot along those lines myself, and I have been anxious to discuss the point with you. You have the most glorious hair I have ever seen. Do you like red hair? Red gold. It is nice of you to put it like that. When I was a child, all except a few of the other children called me Carrots. They have undoubtedly come to a bad end by this time. If bears were sent to attend to the children who criticized Elijah, your little friends were in line for a troop of tigers. But there were some of a finer fiber. There were a few who didn't call you Carrots. One or two, they called me Bricktop. They have probably been electrocuted since. Your eyes are perfectly wonderful. Anne withdrew her arm. An extensive acquaintance of young men told her that the topic of conversation was now due to be changed. You will like America, she said. We are not discussing America. I am. It is a wonderful country for a man who wants to succeed. If I were you, I should go out west. Do you live out west? No. Then why suggest my going there? Where do you live? I live in New York. I shall stay in New York, then. Anne was wary, but amused. Proposals of marriage, and Jimmy seemed to be moving swiftly towards one, were no novelty in her life. In the course of several seasons at Bar Harbor, Tuxedo, Palm Beach, and in New York itself, she had spent much of her time foiling and discouraging the ardor of a series of sentimental youths who had laid their unwelcome hearts at her feet. New York is open for staying in, about this time, I believe. Jimmy was silent. He had done his best to fight a tendency to become depressed, and had striven by means of a light tone to keep himself resolutely cheerful, but the girl's apparently total indifference to him was too much for his spirits. One of the young men who had had to pick up the heart he had flung at Anne's feet and carried away for repairs had once confided to an intimate friend after the sting had to some extent passed, that the feelings of a man who made love to Anne might be likened to the emotions which hot chocolate might be supposed to entertain on contact with vanilla ice cream. Jimmy, had the comparison been presented to him, would have endorsed its perfect accuracy. The wind from the sea, until now keen in bracing, had become merely infernally cold. The song of the wind in the rigging, erstwhile melodious, had turned into a damned, depressing howling. I used to be as sentimental as any one a few years ago, said Anne, returning to the dropped subject. Just after I left college, I was quite modlin'. I dreamed of moons and dunes and loves and doves all the time. Then something happened which made me see what a little fool I was. It wasn't pleasant at the time, but it had a very bracing effect. I have been quite different ever since. It was a man, of course, who did it. His method was quite simple. He just made fun of me, and nature did the rest. Jimmy scowled in the darkness, murderous thoughts towards the unknown, brute fluttered his mind. I wish I could meet him, he growled. You aren't likely to, said Anne. He lives in England. His name is Crocker, Jimmy Crocker. I spoke about him just now. Through the howling of the wind cut the sharp notes of a bugle. Anne turned to the saloon entrance. Dinner, she said brightly. How hungry one gets on board ship. She stopped. Aren't you coming down, Mr. Bayless? Not just yet, said Jimmy, thickly. 8. Painful Scene in a Café The noonday sun beat down on Park Row. Hurrying mortals released from a thousand offices congested the sidewalks, their thoughts busy with the vision of lunch. Up and down the canyon of Nassau Street, the crowds moved more slowly. Candies selling aliens jostled newsboys, and huge stray horses endeavored to the best of their ability, not to grind the citizenry beneath their hooves. Eastward, pressing on to the city hall, surged the usual dense army of happy lovers on their way to buy marriage licenses. Men popped in and out of the subway entrances like rabbits. It was a stirring, bustling scene, typical of this nerve center of New York's vast body. Jimmy Crocker, standing in the doorway, watched the throngs inviously. There were men in that crowd who chewed gum. There were men who wore white satin ties with imitation diamond stickpins. There were men who, having smoked seven tenths of a cigar, were eating the remainder. But there was not one with whom he would not at that moment willingly have exchanged identities. For these men had jobs. And, in his present frame of mind, it seemed to him that no further ingredient was needed for the recipe of the ultimate human bliss. The poet has said some very searching and unpleasant things about the man whose heart has never within him burned, as home his footsteps he has turned from wandering on some foreign strand. But he might have excused Jimmy for feeling just then not so much a warmth of heart as a cold and clammy sensation of dismay. He would have had to admit that the words, high though his titles, proud his name, boundless his wealth as wish can claim, did not apply to Jimmy Crocker. The latter may have been concentred all on self, but his wealth consisted of $133.40, and his name was so far from being proud that the mere sight of it in the files of the New York Sunday Chronicle, the record room of which he had just been visiting, had made him consider the fact that he had changed it to Bayless the most sensible act of his career. The reason for Jimmy's lack of enthusiasm as he surveyed the portion of his native land visible from his doorway is not far to seek. The Atlantic had docked on Saturday night, and Jimmy, having driven to an excellent hotel and engaged in expensive room therein, had left instructions at the desk that breakfast should be served to him at ten o'clock and with it the Sunday issue of the Chronicle. Five years had passed since he had seen the dear old rag, for which he had reported so many fires, murders, street accidents and weddings, and he looked forward to its perusal as a formal taking end session of his long neglected country. Nothing could be more fitting and symbolic than that the first morning of his return to America should find him propped up in bed reading the good old Chronicle. Among his final meditations as he dropped off to sleep was a gentle speculation as to who was City Editor now and whether the comic supplement was still featuring the sprightly adventures of the Donut family. A wave of not unmanly sentiment passed over him on the following morning as he reached out for the paper. The skyline of New York, seen as the boat comes up the bay, has its points, and the rattle of the elevated trains and the quaint odor of the subway extend a kindly welcome, but the thing that really convinces the return to traveler that he is back on Manhattan Island is the first Sunday paper. Jimmy, like everyone else, began by opening the comic supplement, and as he scanned it, a chilly discomfort, almost a premonition of evil, came upon him. The Donut family was no more. He knew that it was unreasonable of him to feel as if he had just been informed of the death of a dear friend, for Pa Donut and his associates had been having their adventures five years before he had left the country and even the toughest comic supplementary hero rarely endures for a decade. But nevertheless the shadow did fall upon his morning optimism, and he derived no pleasure whatever from the artificial rollikings of a degraded creature called old Pop Dill Pickle who was offered as a substitute. But this, he was to discover almost immediately, was a trifling disaster. It distressed him, but it did not affect his material welfare. Tragedy really began when he turned to the magazine section. Scarcely had he started to glance at it when this headline struck him like a bullet. Piccadilly Jim added again, and beneath it his own name. Nothing is so capable of diversity as the emotion we feel on seeing our name unexpectedly in print. We may soar to the heights, or we may sink to the depths. Jimmy did the latter. A mere cursory first inspection of the article revealed the fact that it was no eulogy. With an unsparing hand the writer had muck-raked his eventful past, the text on which he hung his remarks being that ill-fated encounter with Lord Percy Whipple at the 600 Club. This describe had recounted at a length and with a boisterous vim which outdid even Bill Blake's effort in the London Daily Sun. Bill Blake had been handicapped by consideration of space and the fact that he had turned in his copy in an advanced hour when the paper was almost made up. The present writer was shackled by no restrictions. He had plenty of room to spread himself in, and he had spread himself. So liberal had been the editor's views in the respect to that, in addition to the letterpress, the pages contained an unspeakably offensive picture of a burly young man in an obviously advanced condition of alcoholism, raising his fists to strike a monocled youth in evening dress who had so little chin that Jimmy was surprised that he had ever been able to hit it. The only gleam of consolation that he could discover in this repellent drawing was the fact that the artist had treated Lord Percy even more scurvally than himself. Among other things, the second son of the Duke of Davises was depicted as wearing a coronet, a thing which would have excited remark even in a London nightclub. Jimmy read the thing through in its entirety three times before he appreciated a nuance which his disordered mind had at first failed to grasp, to wit that this character sketch of himself was no mere isolated outburst, but apparently one of a series. In several places, the writer alluded unmistakably to other theses on the same subject. Jimmy's breakfast congealed on its tray, untouched. That boon which the God so seldom bestowed of seeing ourselves as others see us had been accorded to him in full measure. By the time he had completed his third reading he was regarding himself in a purely objective fashion not unlike the attitude of a naturalist toward some strange and loathsome manifestation of insect life. So this was the sort of fellow he was. He wondered they had led him in at a reputable hotel. The rest of the day he passed in a state of such humility that he could have wept when the waiters were civil to him. On the Monday morning he made his way to Park Row to read the files of the Chronicle, a morbid enterprise akin to the eccentric behavior of those priests of Baal who gashed themselves with knives or of authors who subscribed to press-clipping the agencies. He came upon another of the articles almost at once, in an issue not a month old. Then there was a gap of several weeks and hope revived that things might not be as bad as he had feared, only to be crushed by another trenchant screed. After that he said about his excavations methodically, resolved to know the worst. He knew it in just under two hours. There it all was, his row with the bookie, his bad behavior at the political meeting, his breach of promise case. It was a complete biography. And the name they called him, Piccadilly Jim. He went out into Park Row and sought a quiet doorway where he could brood upon these matters. It was not immediately that the practical or financial aspect of the affair came to scourge him. For an appreciable time he suffered in his self-esteem alone. It seemed to him that all these bustling persons who passed knew him, that they were casting side-long glances at him and laughing derisively, that those who chewed gum chewed it sneeringly, and that those who ate their cigars ate them with thinly veiled disproval and scorn. Then, the passage of time blunting sensitiveness, he found that there were other and weightier things to consider. As far as he had had any connected plan of action in his sudden casting off of the flesh-pots of London, he had determined as soon as possible after landing to report at the offices of his old paper and apply for his ancient position. So little thought had he given to the minutiae of his future plans that it had not occurred to him that he had anything to do but walk in, slap the gang on the back, and announce that he was ready to work. Work on the staff of a paper whose chief diversion appeared to be the satirizing of his escapades. Even had he possessed the moral courage or gall to make the application, what good would it be? He was a byword in a world where he had once been a worthy citizen. What paper would trust Piccadilly Jim with an assignment? What paper would consider Piccadilly Jim even on space rates? A chill dismay crept over him. He seemed to hear the grave voice of Bayless the Butler speaking in his car as he had spoken so short a while before at Paddington Station. Is it not a little rash, Mr. James? Rash was the word. Here he stood in a country that had no possible use for him, a country where competition was keen and jobs for the unskilled infrequent. What on earth was there that he could do? Well, he could go home. No, he couldn't. His pride revolted at that solution. Prodigal son stuff was all very well in its way, but it lost its impressiveness if you turned up again at home two weeks after you had left. A decent interval among the husks and swine was essential. Besides, there was his father to consider. He might be a poor specimen of a fellow as witnessed at Sunday Chronicle Passing, but he was not so poor as to come slinking back to upset things for his father, just when he had done the only decent thing by removing himself. No, that was out of the question. What remained? The air of New York is bracing and healthy, but a man cannot live on it. Obviously, he must find a job. But what job? What could he do? Annoying sensation in the region of the waistcoat answered the question. The solution, which it put forward was, it was true, but a temporary one, yet it appealed strongly to Jimmy. He had found it admirable at many crises. He would go into lunch, and it might be that food would bring inspiration. He moved from his doorway and crossed to the entrance of the subway. He caught a timely express, and a few minutes later emerged into the sunlight again at Grand Central. He made his way westward along 42nd Street to the hotel which he thought would meet his needs. He had scarcely entered it when, in a chair by the door, he perceived Ann Chester, and at the side of her all his depression vanished, and he was himself again. Why, how do you do, Mr. Baylis? Are you lunching here? Unless there is some other place that you would prefer, said Jimmy. I hope I haven't kept you waiting. Ann laughed. She was looking very delightful in something soft and green. I'm not going to lunch with you. I'm waiting for Mr. Rolstone and his sister. Do you remember him? He crossed over with us. His chair was next to mine on the promenade deck. Jimmy was shocked when he thought how narrowly she had escaped, poor girl, from lunching with that insufferable, pilled teddy, or was it Edgar? He felt quite weak. Recovering himself, he spoke firmly. When were they to have met you? At one o'clock. It is now five past. You are certainly not going to wait any longer. Come with me, and we will whistle for cabs. Don't be absurd. Come along. I want to talk to you about my future. I shall certainly do nothing of the kind, said Ann, rising. She went with him to the door. Teddy would never forgive me. She got into the cab. It's only because you have appealed to me to help you discuss your future, she said, as they drove off. Nothing else would have induced me. I know, said Jimmy. I felt that I could rely on your womanly sympathy. Where shall we go? Where do you want to go? Oh, I forgot that you have never been in New York before. By the way, what are your impressions of our glorious country? Most gratifying, if only I could get a job. Tell them to drive to Delmonico's. It's just around the corner on 44th Street. There are some things round the corner, then. That sounds cryptic. What do you mean? You've forgotten our conversation that night on the ship. You refused to admit the existence of wonderful things just round the corner. You said some very regrettable things that night, about love, if you remember. You can't be going to talk about love at one o'clock in the afternoon. Talk about your future. Love is inextricably mixed up with my future. Not with your immediate future. I thought that you said you were trying to get a job. Have you given up the idea of newspaper work, then? Absolutely. Well, I'm rather glad. The cab drew up at the restaurant door, and the conversation was interrupted. When they were seated at their table, and Jimmy had given an order to the waiter of absolutely inexcusable extravagance, Anne returned to the topic. Well, now the thing is to find something for you to do. Jimmy looked round the restaurant with appreciative eyes. The summer exodus from New York was still several weeks distant, and the place was full of prosperous-looking luncheers, not one of whom appeared to have a care or an unpaid bill in the world. The atmosphere was redolent of substantial bank balances, solvency shown from the closely-shaven faces of the men, and reflected itself in the dresses of the women. Jimmy sighed. I suppose so, he said. Though for choice, I'd like to be one of the idle rich. To my mind the ideal profession is strolling into the office and touching the old dad for another thousand. Anne was severe. You revolt me, she said. I'd never heard anything so thoroughly disgraceful. You need work. One of these days, said Jimmy plaintively, I shall be sitting by the roadside with my dinner-pail, and you will come by in your limousine, and I shall look up at you and say, You hounded me into this. How will you feel then? Very proud of myself. In that case there is no more to be said. I'd much rather hang about and try to get adopted by a millionaire, but if you insist on my working. Waiter. What do you want? asked Anne. Will you get me a classified telephone directory? said Jimmy. What for, asked Anne, to look for a profession there is nothing like being methodical. The waiter returned, burying a red book. Jimmy thanked him and opened it at the ace. The boy. What will he become? he said. He turned the pages. How about an auditor? What do you think of that? Do you think you could audit? That I could not say till I had tried. I might turn out to be very good at it. How about an adjuster? An adjuster of what? The book doesn't say, it just remarks broadly, in a sort of spacious way, adjuster. I take it that, having decided to become an adjuster, you then sit down and decide what you wish to adjust. One might, for example, become an asparagus adjuster. A what? Surely you know, asparagus adjusters are the fellows who sell those rope and pulley affairs, by means of which the smart set lower asparagus into their mouths, or rather Francis the footman does it for them, of course. The diner leans back in his chair, and this menial works the apparatus in the background. It is entirely superseding the old fashioned method of picking the vegetable up and taking a snap at it. But I suspect that, to be a successful asparagus adjuster, requires capital. We now come to awning crank and spring rollers. I don't think I should like that. Rolling awning crank seems to me a sorry way of spending life springtime. Let's try the bees. Let's try this omelet. It looks delicious, Jimmy shook his head. I will toy with it, but absently and in a distraight manner, as becomes a man of affairs. There's nothing in the bees. I might devote my ardent youth to barroom glassware and bottler supplies. On the other hand, I might not. Similarly, while there is no doubt a bright future for somebody in celluloid, fibroloid, and other factitious goods, instinct tells me that there is none for— he pulled up on the verge of saying, James Braithwaite Crocker, and shuddered at the nearness of the pitfall. For, he hesitated again. For, Algernon Bayless, he concluded. Anne smiled delightedly. It was so typical that his father should have called him something like that. Time had not dimmed her regard for the old man she had seen for that brief moment at Paddington Station. He was an old deer, and she thoroughly approved of this latest manifestation of his supposed pride in his offspring. Is that really your name, Algernon? I cannot deny it. I think your father is a darling, said Anne, inconsequently. Jimmy had buried himself in the directory again. The dease, he said, is it possible that posterity will know me as Bayless the dermatologist, or is Bayless the drop forger? I don't quite like that last one. It may be a respectable occupation, but it sounds rather criminal to me. The sentence for 14 drops is probably about 20 years with hard labor. I wish you would put that book away and go on with your lunch, said Anne. Perhaps, said Jimmy, my grandchildren will cluster round my knee someday and say in their piping childish voices, tell us how you became the elastic stocking-king, Grandpa. What do you think? I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You are wasting your time when you ought to be either talking to me or else thinking very seriously about what you mean to do. Jimmy was turning the pages rapidly. I will be with you in a moment, he said. Try to amuse yourself somehow till I am at leisure. Ask yourself a riddle. Tell yourself an anecdote. Think of life. No, it's no good. I don't see myself as a fan importer, a glass beveler, a hotel broker, an insect exterminator, a junk dealer, a calcimine manufacturer, a laundryman, a mausoleum architect, a nurse, an oculus, a paper hanger, a quilt designer, a roofer, a ship plumber, a tensmith, an undertaker, a veterinarian, a wigmaker, an x-ray apparatus manufacturer, a yeast producer, or a zinc spelter. He closed the book. There is only one thing to do. I must starve in the gutter. Tell me, you know New York better than I do. Where is there a good gutter? At this moment there entered the restaurant an immaculate person. He was a young man attired in faultlessly fitting clothes, with shoes of flawless polish and a perfectly proportioned flourette in his buttonhole. He surveyed the room through a monocle. He was a pleasure to look upon, but Jimmy, catching sight of him, started violently and felt no joy at all, for he had recognized him. It was a man he knew well, and who knew him well, a man whom he had last seen a bear two weeks ago at the bachelor's club in London. Few things are certain in this world, but one was that, if Bartling, such was division's name, should see him, he would come over and address him as Crocker. He braced himself to the task of being Bayless, the whole Bayless, and nothing but Bayless. It might be that stout denial would carry him through. After all, Reggie Bartling was a man of notoriously feeble intellect who could believe in anything. The monocle continued its sweep. It rested on Jimmy's profile. By God! said the division. Reginald Bartling had landed in New York that morning, and already the loneliness of a strange city had begun to oppress him. He had come over on a visit of pleasure, his suitcase stuffed with letters of introduction, but these he had not yet used. There was a feeling of homesickness upon him, and he ached for a pal. And there before him set Jimmy Crocker one of the best. He hastened to the table. All I say, Crocker, old chap! I didn't know you were over here. When did you arrive? Jimmy was profoundly thankful that he had seen this pest in time to be prepared for him. Suddenly assailed in this fashion, he would undoubtedly have incriminated himself by recognition of his name. But, having anticipated the visitation, he was able to say a whole sentence to Anne before showing himself aware that it was he who was addressed. I say, Jimmy Crocker! Jimmy achieved one of the blankest stares of modern times. He looked at Anne, then he looked at Bartling again. I think there's some mistake, he said. My name is Bayless. Before his stony eye the immaculate Bartling wilted. It was a perfectly astounding likeness, but it was apparent to him when what he had ever heard and read about doubles came to him. He was confused. He blushed. It was deuced bad form going up to a perfect stranger like this and pretending you knew him. Probably the chap he thought he was some kind of a confidence Johnny or something. It was absolutely rotten. He continued to blush till one could have fancied him scarlet to the ankles. He backed away, apologizing in ragged mutters. Jimmy was not insensible to the pathos of his suffering acquaintances position. He knew Reggie and his devotion to good form sufficiently well to enable him to appreciate the other's horror at having spoken to a fellow to whom he had never been introduced but necessity forbade any other course. However Reggie's soul might writhe and however sleepless Reggie's nights might become as a result of this encounter he was prepared to fight it out on those lines if it took all summer. And anyway, it was darned good for Reggie to get a jolt like that every once in a while. Kept him bright and lively. So thinking he turned to Anne again, while a crimson Bartling tottered off to restore his nerve centers to their normal tone at some other hostelry. He found Anne staring amazingly at him, eyes wide and lips parted. Odd that he observed with a light carelessness which he admired extremely and of which he would not have believed himself capable. I suppose I must be somebody's double. What was the name he said? Jimmy Crocker cried Anne. Jimmy raised his glass, sipped and put it down. Oh yes, I remember, so it was. It's a curious thing, too, that it sounds familiar. I've heard the name before somewhere. I was talking about Jimmy Crocker on the ship that evening on deck. Jimmy looked at her doubtfully. Were you? Oh yes, of course. I've got it now. He is the man you dislike so. Anne was still looking at him as if he had undergone a change into something new and strange. I hope you aren't going to let the resemblance prejudice you against me, said Jimmy. Some are born Jimmy Crocker's, others have Jimmy Crocker's thrust upon them. I hope you'll bear in mind that I belong to the latter class. It's such an extraordinary thing! Oh, I don't know. You often hear of doubles. There was a man in England a few years ago who kept getting sent to prison for things some genial stranger who happened to look like him had done. I don't mean that. Of course there are doubles. But it is curious that you should have come over here and that we should have met like this at just this time. You see, the reason I went over to England at all was to try to get Jimmy Crocker to come back here. What? I don't mean that I did. I mean that I went with my uncle and aunt who wanted to persuade him to come and live with them. Jimmy was now feeling completely out of his depth. Your uncle and aunt? Why? I ought to have explained that they are his uncle and aunt, too. My aunt's sister married his father. But it's quite simple, though it doesn't sound so. Perhaps you haven't read the Sunday Chronicle lately. It has been publishing articles about Jimmy Crocker's disgusting behaviour in London. They call him Piccadilly Jim, you know. In print that name had shocked Jimmy. Spoken, and by Anne, it was locally remorse for his painful past tour at him. There was another one printed yesterday. I saw it, said Jimmy, to avert description. Oh, did you? Well, just to show you what sort of a man Jimmy Crocker is. The Lord Percy Whipple, whom he attacked in the club, was his very best friend. His stepmother told my aunt so. He seems to be absolutely hopeless. She smiled. You're looking quite sad, Mr. Bayless. Cheer up! You may look like him, but you aren't him. He? Him? No. He is right. The soul is what counts. If you've got a good, virtuous, aljernanish soul, it doesn't matter if you're so like Jimmy Crocker that his friends come up and talk to you in restaurants. In fact, it's rather an advantage, really. I'm sure that if you were to go to my aunt and pretend to be Jimmy Crocker who had come over after all in a fit of repentance, she would be so pleased that there would be nothing she wouldn't do for you. You might realize your ambition of being adopted by a millionaire. Why don't you try it? I won't give you away. Before they found me out and hauled me off to prison, I should have been near you for a time. I should have lived in the same house with you, spoken to you, Jimmy's voice shook. Anne turned her head to address an imaginary companion. You must listen to this, my dear, she said, in an undertone. He speaks wonderfully. They used to call him the boy orator in his hometown. Sometimes that, and sometimes eloquent aljernan. Jimmy Eider fixedly. He disapproved of this frivolity. One of these days you will try me too high. Oh, you didn't hear what I was saying to my friend, did you? she said in concern. But I meant it, every word. I love to hear you talk. You have such feeling. Jimmy attuned himself to the key of the conversation. Have you no sentiment in you, he demanded? I was just warming up, too. In another minute you would have heard something worthwhile. You've damped me now. Let's talk about my life work again. Have you thought of anything? I'd like to be one of those fellows who sit in offices and sign checks, and tell the office boy to tell Mr. Rockefeller they can give him five minutes. But, of course, I should need a checkbook, and I haven't got one. Oh, well, I shall find something to do, all right. Now, tell me something about yourself. Let's drop the future for a while. An hour later Jimmy turned into Broadway. He walked pensively, for he had much to occupy his mind. How strange that the pets should have come over to England to try to induce him to return to New York, and how galling that, now that he was in New York, this avenue to a prosperous future was closed by the fact that something which he had done five years ago, that he could remember nothing about it was quite maddening, had caused Anne to nurse this abiding hatred of him. He began to dream tenderly of Anne, bumping from pedestrian to pedestrian, in a gentle trance. From this trance the seventh pedestrian aroused him by uttering his name, the name which circumstances had compelled him to abandon. Jimmy Quacker! Surprise brought Jimmy back from his dreams to the hard world, surprise and certain exasperation. It was ridiculous to be incognito in a city which had not visited in five years, and to be instantly recognized in this way by every second man he met. He looked sourly at the man. The other was a sturdy, square-shouldered, battered young man, who wore on his homelink face a grin of recognition and regard. Jimmy was not particularly good at remembering faces, but this person's was of a kind which the poorest memory might have recalled. It was, as the advertisements say, distinctively individual. The broken nose, the exogenous forehead, and the enlarged ears all clamored for recognition. The last time Jimmy had seen Jerry Mitchell had been two years before at the national sporting club in London, and, placing him at once, he braced himself as a short while ago he had braced himself to confound immaculate Reggie. Hello! said the battered one. Hello indeed! said Jimmy courteously. In what way can I brighten your life? The grin faded from the other's face. He looked puzzled. You'll dreamy Quacker, ain't you? No, my name chances to be Algernon Bayless. Jerry Mitchell reddened. Excuse me, my mistake! He was moving off, but Jimmy stopped him. Parting from Ann had left a large gap in his life, and he craved human society. I know you now, he said. You're Jerry Mitchell. I saw you fight Kid Burke four years ago in London. The grin returned to the pugilist's face, wider than ever. He beamed with gratification. Gee, think of that! I've quit since then. I'm working for an old guy named Pet. Funny thing, he's Jimmy Crocker's uncle that I mistook you for. Say, you're a dead ringer for that guy. I could have sworn it was him when you bumped into me. Say, are you doing anything? Nothing in particular? Come and have a yarn. There's a place I know just round by here. Delighted. They made their way to the place. What's yours? said Jerry Mitchell. I'm on the wagon myself, he said, apologetically. So am I, said Jimmy. It's the only way, no sense in always drinking and making a disgraceful exhibition of yourself in public. Jerry Mitchell received this homily in silence. It disposed, definitely, of the lurking doubt in his mind as to the possibility of this man really being Jimmy Crocker. Though outwardly convinced by the other's denial, he had not been able to rid himself till now of a nebulous suspicion. But this convinced him. Jimmy Crocker would never have said a thing like that. Nora would have refused the offer of alcohol. He fell into pleasant conversation with him. His mind eased. Mrs. Pett is shocked. At five o'clock in the afternoon, some ten days after her return to America, Mrs. Pett was at home to her friends in the house on Riverside Drive. The proceedings were on a scale that amounted to a reception, for they were not only a sort of official notification to New York that one of its most prominent hostesses was once more in its midst, but were also designed to entertain and impress Mr. Hammond Chester, Ann's father, who had been spending a couple of days in the Metropolis, preparatory to departing for South America on one of his frequent trips. He was very fond of Ann in his curious, detached way, though he never ceased in his private heart to consider it injudicious of her not to have been born a boy, and he always took in New York for a day or two on his way from one wild and lonely spot to another, if he could manage it. The large drawing-room overlooking the Hudson was filled almost to capacity with that strange mixture of humanity which Mrs. Pett chiefly affected. She prided herself on the Bohemian element in her parties, and had become, during the past two years, a human dragnet, scooping genius from its hiding place and bringing it into the open. At different spots in the room stood the six resident geniuses to whose presence in the home Mr. Pett had such strong objections, and in addition to these she had collected so many more of a like breed from the environs of Washington Square that the air was clamorous with the horse cries of futurist painters, esoteric Buddhists, very liberate poets, interior decorators, and stage reformers sifted in among the more conventional members of society who had come to listen to them. Men with new religions drank tea with women with new hats. Apostles of free love expounded their doctrines to persons who had been practicing them for years without realizing it. All over the room, throats were being strained and minds broadened. Mr. Chester, standing near the door with Anne, eyed the assemblage with the genial contempt of a large dog for a voluble pack of small ones. He was a massive, weather-beaten man who looked very like Anne in some ways and would have looked more like her, but for the misfortune of having had some of his face clawed away by an irritable jaguar with whom he had had a different some years back in the jungles of Peru. Do you like this sort of thing? he asked. I don't mind it, said Anne. Well, I shall be very sorry to leave you, Anne, but I'm glad I'm pulling out of here this evening. Who are all these people? Anne surveyed the gathering. That's Ernst Wisden, the playwright, over there, talking to Laura Delaine Porter, the feminist writer. That's Clara Whatsername, the sculptor, with the bobbed hair. Next to her, Mr. Chester cut short the catalogue with a stifled yawn. Where's old Pete? Doesn't he come to these jamborees? Anne laughed. Poor Uncle Peter! If he gets back from the office before these people leave, he will sneak up to his room and stay there till it's safe to come out. The last time I made him come to one of these parties, he was pounced on by a woman who talked to him for an hour about the morality of finance and seemed to think that millionaires were the scum of the earth. He never would stand up for himself. Mr. Chester's gaze hovered about the room and paused. Who's that fellow? I believe I've seen him before somewhere. A constant eddying swirl was animating the multitude. Whenever the mass tended to congeal, something always seemed to stir it up again. This was due to the restless activity of Mrs. Pet, who held it to be the duty of a good hostess to keep her guests moving. From the moment when the maroon began to fill, till the moment when it began to empty, she did not cease to plow her way to and fro, in a manner equally reminiscent of a hawk swooping on chickens and an earnest collegian bucking the line. Her guests were, as a result, perpetually forming nuanced taunts and combinations, finding themselves bumped about like those little moving figures which one sees in shop windows on Broadway, which revolve on a metal disc until urged by impact with another little figure, they scatter to regroup themselves elsewhere. It was a fascinating feature of Mrs. Pet's at-homes and one which assisted that mental broadening process already alluded to that one never knew when listening to a discussion on the sincerity of Oscar Wilde, whether it would not suddenly change in the middle of a sentence to an argument on the inner meeting of the Russian ballet. Plunging now into a group dominated for the moment by an angular woman who was saying loud and penetrating things about the suffrage, Mrs. Pet had seized and removed a tall, blonde young man with a mild, vacuous face. For the past few minutes this young man had been sitting bolt upright on a chair with his hands on his knees, so exactly in the manner of an end man at a minstrel show that one would hardly have been surprised had he burst into song or asked conundrum. Anne followed her father's gaze. Do you mean the man talking to Aunt Nesta? There, they've gone over to speak to Willie Partridge. Do you mean that one? Yes, who is he? Well, I like that, said Anne, considering that you introduced him to us. That's Lord Wisbeach, who came to Uncle Peter with a letter of introduction from you. You met him in Canada. I remember now. I ran across him in British Columbia. We camped together one night. I'd never seen him before, and I didn't see him again. He said he wanted a letter to Old Pete for some reason, so I scribbled him one in pencil on the back of an envelope. I've never met anyone who played a better game of draw poker. He cleaned me out. There's a lot in that fellow, in spite of his looking like a musical comedy dude. He's clever. Anne looked at him meditatively. It's odd that you should be discovering hidden virtues in Lord Wisbeach, father. I've been trying to make up my mind about him. He wants me to marry him. He does. I suppose a good many of these young fellows here want the same thing, don't they, Anne? Mr. Chester looked at his daughter with interest. Her growing up and becoming a beauty had always been a perplexity to him. He could never rid himself of the impression of her as a long-legged child in short skirts. I suppose you're refusing them all the time. Every day, from ten to four, with an hour off for lunch, I keep regular office hours, admission on presentation of visiting card. And how do you feel about this, Lord Wisbeach? I don't know, said Anne, frankly. He's very nice, and what is more important, he's different. Most of the men I know are all turned out of the same mold. Lord Wisbeach and one other man are the only two I've met who might not be brothers of all the rest. Who's the other? A man I hardly know. I met him on board ship. Mr. Chester looked at his watch. It's up to you, Anne, he said. There's one comfort in being your father. I don't mean that exactly. I mean that it is a comfort to me, as your father, to know that I need feel no paternal anxiety about you. I don't have to give you advice. You've not only got three times the sense that I have, but you're not the sort of girl who would take advice. You've always known just what you wanted ever since you were a kid. Well, if you're going to take me down to the boat, we'd better be starting. Where's the car? Waiting outside. Aren't you going to say goodbye to Aunt Nesta? Good God, no, exclaimed Mr. Chester in honest concern. What, plunge into that pack of coyotes and fight my way through to her? I'd be torn to pieces by wild poets. Besides, it seems silly to make a fuss saying goodbye when I'm only going to be away for a short time. I shan't go any further than Columbia this trip. You'll be able to run back for weekends, said Anne. She paused at the door to cast a fleeting glance over her shoulder at the fair-haired Lord Whizbeach, who was now in animated conversation with her aunt and Willie Partridge. Then she followed her father down the stairs. She was a little thoughtful as she took her place at the wheel of her automobile. It was not often that her independent nature craved outside support, but she was half-conscious of wishing at the present juncture that she possessed a somewhat less casual father. She would have liked to have asked him to help her decide a problem which had been vexing her for nearly three weeks now, ever since Lord Whizbeach had asked her to marry him, and she had promised to give him his answer on her return from England. She had been back in New York several days now, but she had not been able to make up her mind. This annoyed her, for she was a girl who liked swift decisiveness of thought and action both in others and in herself. She was fond of Mr. Chester, in much the same unemotional, detached way that he was fond of her, but she was perfectly well aware of the futility of expecting counsel from him. She said good-bye to him at the boat, fussed over his comfort for a while in a motherly way, and then drove slowly back. For the first time in her life she was feeling uncertain of herself. When she had left for England, she had practically made up her mind to accept Lord Whizbeach, and had only deferred actual acceptance of him because in her cool way she wished to re-examine the position at her leisure. Second thoughts had brought no revulsion of feeling. She had not wavered until her arrival in New York. Then, for some reason which baffled her, the idea of marrying Lord Whizbeach had become vaguely distasteful, and now she found herself fluctuating between this mood and her former one. She reached a house on Riverside Drive, but did not slacken the speed of the machine. She knew that Lord Whizbeach would be waiting for her there, and she did not wish to meet him just yet. She wanted to be alone. She was feeling depressed. She wondered if this was because she had just departed from her father, and decided that it was. His swift entrances into and exits from her life always left her temporarily restless. She drove on up the river. She meant to decide her problem one way or the other before she returned home. Lord Whizbeach, meanwhile, was talking to Mrs. Pett and Willie, its inventor, about partridgeite. Willie, on hearing himself addressed, had turned slowly with an air of absent self-importance, the air of a great thinker disturbed in mid-thought. He always looked like that when spoken to, and there were those, Mr. Pett belonged to this school of thought, who held that there was nothing to him beyond that look, and that he had built up his reputation as a budding mastermind on a foundation that consisted entirely of a vacant eye, a mop of hair through which he could run his fingers, and the fame of his late father. Willie Partridge was the son of the great inventor, DeWyte Partridge, and it was generally understood that the explosive, partridgeite, was to be the result of a continuation of experiments which his father had been working upon at the time of his death. That DeWyte Partridge had been trying experiments in the direction of a new and powerful explosive during the last year of his life was common knowledge in those circles which are interested in such things. Foreign governments were understood to have made tentative overtures to him, but a sudden illness ending fatally had finished the budding career of Partridgeite abruptly, and the world had thought no more of it until an interview in the Sunday Chronicle, that storehouse of information about interesting people, announced that Willie was carrying on his father's experiments at the point where he had left off. Since then there had been vague rumors of possible sensational developments which Willie had neither denied nor confirmed. He preserved the mysterious silence which went so well with his appearance. Having turned slowly so that his eyes rested on Lord Wisbeach's ingenuous countenance, Willie paused, and his face assumed the expression of his photograph in the Chronicle. Ah, Wisbeach, he said. Lord Wisbeach did not appear to resent the patronage of his manner. He plunged cheerily into talk. He had a pleasant simple way of comporting himself which made people like him. I was just telling Mrs. Pet, he said, that I shouldn't be surprised if you were to get an offer for your stuff from our fellows at home before long. I saw a lot of our war-office men when I was in England, don't you know, several of them mentioned the stuff. Willie resented Partridgeite as being referred to as the stuff, but he made allowance. All Englishmen talked that way, he supposed. Indeed, he said. Of course, said Mrs. Pet, Willie is a patriot and would have to give his own authorities the first chance. Rather. But you know what officials are all over the world. They are so skeptical and they move so slowly. I know, our minute home are just the same as a rule. I've got a pal who invented something or other, I forget what, but it was a most decent little contrivance and very useful and all that, and he simply can't get them to say yes or no about it. But all the same, I wonder you didn't have some of them trying to put out feelers to you when you were in London. Oh, we were only in London a few hours. By the way, Lord Whitspeech, my sister— Mrs. Pet paused. She disliked to have to mention her sister or to refer to this subject at all, but curiosity impelled her. My sister said that you were a great friend of her stepson, James Crocker. I didn't know that you knew him. Lord Whitspeech seemed to hesitate for a moment. He's not coming over, is he? Pity! It would have done him a world of good. Yes, Jimmy Crocker and I have always been great pals. He's a bit of a nut, of course. I beg your pardon. I mean—he broke off confusedly and turned to Willie again to cover himself. How are you getting on with this jolly old stuff? he asked. If Willie had objected to partridgeite being called the stuff, he was still less in favour of it being termed the jolly old stuff. He replied coldly. I have ceased to get along with the jolly old stuff. Struck a snag, inquired Lord Whitspeech sympathetically. On the contrary, my experiments have been entirely successful. I have enough partridgeite in my laboratory to blow New York to bits. Willie! exclaimed Mrs. Pet. Why didn't you tell me before? You know I am so interested. I only completed my work last night. He moved off with an important nod. He was tired of Lord Whitspeech's society. There was something about the young man which he did not like. He went to find more congenial company in a group by the window. Lord Whitspeech turned to his hostess. The vacuous expression had dropped from his face like a mask. A pair of keen and intelligent eyes met Mrs. Pet's. Mrs. Pet, may I speak to you seriously? Mrs. Pet's surprise at the alteration in the man prevented her from replying. Much as she liked Lord Whitspeech, she had never given him credit for brains, and it was a man with brains and keen ones who was looking at her now. She nodded. If your nephew has really succeeded in his experiments, you should be awfully careful. That stuff ought not to lie about in his laboratory, though no doubt he has hidden it as carefully as possible. It ought to be in a safe somewhere, in that safe in your library. News of this kind moves like lightning. At this very moment there may be people watching for a chance of getting at the stuff. Every nerve in Mrs. Pet's body, every cell of a brain which had for years been absorbing and giving out sensational fiction, quivered irrepressibly at these words, spoken in a low, tense voice which gave them additional emphasis. Never had she misjudged a man as she had misjudged Lord Whitspeech. Spies? she quivered. They wouldn't call themselves that, said Lord Whitspeech. Secret service agents. Every country has its men whose only duty it is to handle this sort of work. They would try to steal Willys? Mrs. Pet's voice failed. They would not look at it as stealing. Their motives would be patriotic. I tell you, Mrs. Pet, I have heard stories from friends of mine in the English Secret Service, which would amaze you. Perfectly straight men in private life, but absolutely unscrupulous when at work. They stick at nothing, nothing. If I were you, I should suspect everyone, especially every stranger. He smiled engagingly. You are thinking that that is odd advice from one who is practically a stranger like myself. Never mind. Suspect me too, if you like. Be on the safe side. I would not dream of doing such a thing, Lord Whitspeech, said Mrs. Pet, horrified. I trust you implicitly. Even supposing such a thing were possible, would you have warned me like this, if you had been? That's true, said Lord Whitspeech. I never thought of that. Well, let me say, suspect everybody but me. He stopped abruptly. Mrs. Pet, he whispered, don't look round for a moment. Wait! the words were almost inaudible. Who is that man behind you? He's been listening to us. Turn slowly. With elaborate carelessness Mrs. Pet turned her head. At first she thought her companion must have alluded to one of a small group of young men who, very improperly in such surroundings, were discussing with raised voices the prospects of the clubs competing for the National League Baseball Penet. Then, extending the sweep of her gaze, she saw that she had been mistaken. Midway between her and this group stood a single figure, the figure of a stout man in a swallow-tail suit, who bore before him a tray with cups on it. As she turned, this man caught her eye, gave a guilty start, and hurried across the room. You saw, said Lord Whitspeech, he was listening. Who is that man? Your butler, apparently. What do you know of him? He is my new butler. His name is Skinner. Ah, your new butler! He hasn't been with you long, then. He only arrived from England three days ago. From England? How did he get in here? I mean, on whose recommendation? Mr. Pet offered him the place when we met him at my sisters in London. We went over there to see my sister Eugenia, Mrs. Crocker. This man was the butler who admitted us. He asked Mr. Pet something about baseball, and Mr. Pet was so pleased, he offered him a place here if he wanted to come over. The man did not give any definite answer then, but apparently he sailed on the next boat, and came to the house a few days after we had returned. Lord Whitspeech laughed softly. Very smart! Of course, they had implanted there for the purpose. What ought I to do? asked Mrs. Pet agitatedly. Do nothing. There is nothing that you can do for the present, except keep your eyes open. Watch this man, Skinner. See if he has any accomplices. It is hardly likely that he is working alone. Suspect everybody, believe me. At this moment, apparently from some upper region, there burst forth an uproar so sudden and overwhelming that it might well have been taken for a premature testing of a large sample of partridgeite, until a moment later it began to resemble more nearly the shrieks of some partially destroyed victim of that death-dealing invention. It was a bellow of anguish, and it poured through the house in a cascade of sound, advertising to all beneath the roof the twin facts that some person unknown was suffering, and that, whoever the sufferer might be, he had excellent lungs. The effect on the gathering in the drawing room was immediate and impressive. Conversation seized as if it had been turned off with a tap. Twelve separate and distinct discussions on twelve highly intellectual topics died instantaneously. It was as if the last trump had sounded. Futurist painters stared pallidly at Vers Libre poets, speech smitten from their lips, and stage performers looked at esoteric Buddhists with a wild surmise. The sudden silence had the effect of emphasizing the strange noise and rendering it more distinct, thus enabling it to carry its message to one, at least, of the listeners. Mrs. Pet, after a moment of strained attention in which time seemed to her to stand still, uttered a wailing cry and leaped for the door. Ogden! she shrilled, and passed up the stairs to at a time, gathering speed as she went. A boy's best friend is his mother. Piccadilly Gym by P. G. Woodhouse Chapter 10 Instruction in Deportment While the feast of reason and flow of soul had been in progress in the drawing room, in the gymnasium on the top floor, Jerry Mitchell, awaiting the coming of Mr. Pet, had been passing the time and improving with strenuous exercise his already impressive physique. If Mrs. Pet's guests had been less noisily concentrated on their conversation, they might have heard the muffled tap-tap-tap that proclaimed that Jerry Mitchell was punching the bag upstairs. It was not until he had punched it for perhaps five minutes that, desisting from his labors, he perceived that he had the pleasure of the company of little Ogden Ford. The stout boy was standing in the doorway, observing him with an attentive eye. What are you doing, inquired Ogden? Jerry passed a gloved fist over his damp brow. Punch in the bag! He began to remove his gloves, eyeing Ogden the while, with a disapproval, which he made no attempt to conceal. An extremist on the subject of keeping in condition, the spectacle of the bulbous stripling was a constant offense to him. Ogden, in pursuance of his invariable custom on the days when Mrs. Pet entertained, had been lurking on the stairs outside the drawing room for the past hour, levying toll on the foodstuffs that passed his way. He wore a congested look, and there was jam about his mouth. Why, he said, retrieving a morsel of jam from his right cheek with the tip of his tongue. To keep in condition! Why do you want to keep in condition? Jerry flung the gloves into their locker. Fade, he said, wearily. Fade! Huh? Beat it! Huh? Much pastry seemed to have clouded the boy's mind. Run away! Don't want to run away! The annoyed pugilist sat down and scrutinized his visitor critically. You never do anything you don't want to, I guess. No, said Ogden simply. You've got a funny nose, he added, dispassionately. What did you do to it to make it like that? Mr. Mitchell shifted restlessly on his chair. He was not a vain man, but he was a little sensitive about that particular item in his makeup. Lizzie says it's the funniest nose she ever saw. She says it's something out of a comic supplement. A dull flush, such as five minutes with the bag had been unable to produce, appeared on Jerry Mitchell's peculiar countenance. It was not that he looked on Lizzie Murphy, herself no Lillian Russell, as an accepted authority on the subject of facial beauty, but he was aware that in this instance she spoke not without reason, and he was vexed, moreover, as many another had been before him, by the note of indulgent patronage in Ogden's voice. His fingers twitched a little eagerly, and he looked solemnly at his tactless junior. Get out! Huh? Get out of here! Don't want to get out of here, said Ogden with finality. He put his hand in his trouser pocket and pulled out a sticky mass, which looked as if it might once have been a cream puff or a meringue. He swallowed it contentedly. I'd forgotten I had that, he explained. Mary gave it to me on the stairs. Mary thinks you've a funny nose, too. He proceeded as one relating agreeable gossip. Cunnit! Cunnit! exclaimed the exasperated pugilist. I'm only telling you what I heard her say. Mr. Mitchell rose convulsively and took a step towards his persecutor, breathing noisily through the criticised organ. He was a chivalrous man, a warm admirer of the sex, but he was conscious of a wish that it was in his power to give Mary what he would have described as hers. She was one of the parlor maids, a homely woman with a hard eye, and it was part of his grievance against her that his Maggie, alias Celestine, Mrs. Petzmaid, had formed an enthusiastic friendship with her. He had no evidence to go on, but he suspected Mary of using her influence with Celestine to urge the suit of his leading rival for the latter's hand, Biggs the chauffeur. He disliked Mary intensely, even on general grounds. Ogden's revelation added fuel to his aversion. For a moment he toyed with the fascinating thought of relieving his feelings by spanking the boy, but restrained himself reluctantly at the thought of the inevitable ruin which would ensue. He had been an inmate of the house long enough to know, with a completeness which would have embarrassed that gentleman, what a cipher Mr. Petzmaid was in the home, and how little his championship would avail in the event of a clash with Mrs. Petzmaid. And to give Ogden that physical treatment which should long since have formed the main plank in the platform of his education would be to invite her wrath as nothing else could. He checked himself and reached out for the skipping rope, hoping to ease his mind by further exercise. Ogden, chewing the remains of the green puff, eyed him with languid curiosity. What are you doing that for? Mr. Mitchell skipped grimly on. What are you doing that for? I thought only girls skipped. Mr. Mitchell paid no heed. Ogden, after a moment's silent contemplation, returned to his original train of thought. I saw an advertisement in a magazine the other day of a sort of machine for altering the shape of noses. You strap it on when you go to bed. You ought to get pop to blow you to one. Jerry Mitchell breathed in a labored way. You want to look nice about the place, don't you? Well then, there's no sense in going around looking like that if you don't have to, is there? I heard Mary talking about your nose to bigs and celestine. She said she had to laugh every time she saw it. The skipping rope faltered in its sweep, caught in the skipper's legs, and sent him staggering across the room. Ogden threw back his head and laughed merrily. He liked free entertainments, and this struck him as a particularly enjoyable one. There are moments in the life of every man when the impulse attacks him to sacrifice his future to the alluring gratification of the present. The strong man resists such impulses. Jerry Mitchell was not a weak man, but he had been sorely tried. The annoyance of Ogden's presence in conversation had sapped his sulfur strength, as dripping water will wear away a rock. A short while before he had fought down the urgent temptation to massacre this exasperating child, but now, despised love adding its sting to that of injured vanity, he forgot the consequences. Bounding across the room, he seized Ogden in a powerful grip, and the next instant, the latter's education in the true sense of the word so long postponed had begun, and with it that avalanche of sound which, rolling down into the drawing room, hurled Mrs. Pett so violently and with such abruptness from the society of her guests. Disposing of the last flight of stairs with the agility of the chamois, which leaps from crag to crag of the snow-topped Alps, Mrs. Pett.