Short Fiction P. G. Wodehouse (good books to read in english .txt) 📖

the stolidity of a messenger boy handing over a parcel, he had proceeded, by way of establishing his bona fides, to tell her all about himself. He supplied the facts in no settled order, just as they happened to occur to him in the long silences with which his speech was punctuated. Small facts jostled large facts. He spoke of his morals and his fox-terrier in the same breath.

“I’m on the level. Ask anyone who knows me. They’ll tell you that. Say, I got the cutest little dog you ever seen. Do you like dogs? I’ve never been a fellow that’s got himself mixed up with girls. I don’t like ’em as a general thing. A fellow’s got too much to do keeping himself in training, if his club expects him to do things. I belong to the Glencoe Athletic. I ran the hundred yards dash in evens last sports there was. They expect me to do it at the Glencoe, so I’ve never got myself mixed up with girls. Till I seen you that afternoon I reckon I’d hardly looked at a girl, honest. They didn’t seem to kind of make any hit with me. And then I seen you, and I says to myself, ‘That’s the one.’ It sort of came over me in a flash. I fell for you directly I seen you. And I’m on the level. Don’t forget that.”

And more in the same strain, leaning on the counter and looking into Katie’s eyes with a devotion that added emphasis to his measured speech.

Next day he came again, and kissed her respectfully but firmly, making a sort of shuffling dive across the counter. Breaking away, he fumbled in his pocket and produced a ring, which he proceeded to place on her finger with the serious air which accompanied all his actions.

“That looks pretty good to me,” he said, as he stepped back and eyed it.

It struck Katie, when he had gone, how differently different men did things. Genevieve had often related stories of men who had proposed to her, and according to Genevieve, they always got excited and emotional, and sometimes cried. Ted Brady had fitted her with the ring more like a glover’s assistant than anything else, and he had hardly spoken a word from beginning to end. He had seemed to take her acquiescence for granted. And yet there had been nothing flat or disappointing about the proceedings. She had been thrilled throughout. It is to be supposed that Mr. Brady had the force of character which does not require the aid of speech.

It was not till she took the news of her engagement to old Mr. Bennett that it was borne in upon Katie that Fate did not intend to be so wholly benevolent to her as she supposed.

That her grandfather could offer any opposition had not occurred to her as a possibility. She took his approval for granted. Never, as long as she could remember, had he been anything but kind to her. And the only possible objections to marriage from a grandfather’s point of view⁠—badness of character, insufficient means, or inferiority of social position⁠—were in this case gloriously absent.

She could not see how anyone, however hypercritical, could find a flaw in Ted. His character was spotless. He was comfortably off. And so far from being in any way inferior socially, it was he who condescended. For Ted, she had discovered from conversation with Mr. Murdoch, the glazier, was no ordinary young man. He was a celebrity. So much so that for a moment, when told the news of the engagement, Mr. Murdoch, startled out of his usual tact, had exhibited frank surprise that the great Ted Brady should not have aimed higher.

“You’re sure you’ve got the name right, Katie?” he had said. “It’s really Ted Brady? No mistake about the first name? Well-built, good-looking young chap with brown eyes? Well, this beats me. Not,” he went on hurriedly, “that any young fellow mightn’t think himself lucky to get a wife like you, Katie, but Ted Brady! Why, there isn’t a girl in this part of the town, or in Harlem or the Bronx, for that matter, who wouldn’t give her eyes to be in your place. Why, Ted Brady is the big noise. He’s the star of the Glencoe.”

“He told me he belonged to the Glencoe Athletic.”

“Don’t you believe it. It belongs to him. Why, the way that boy runs and jumps is the real limit. There’s only Billy Burton, of the Irish-American, that can touch him. You’ve certainly got the pick of the bunch, Katie.”

He stared at her admiringly, as if for the first time realizing her true worth. For Mr. Murdoch was a great patron of sport.

With these facts in her possession Katie had approached the interview with her grandfather with a good deal of confidence.

The old man listened to her recital of Mr. Brady’s qualities in silence. Then he shook his head.

“It can’t be, Katie. I couldn’t have it.”

“Grandpapa!”

“You’re forgetting, my dear.”

“Forgetting?”

“Who ever heard of such a thing? The granddaughter of the King of England marrying a commoner! It wouldn’t do at all.”

Consternation, surprise, and misery kept Katie dumb. She had learned in a hard school to be prepared for sudden blows from the hand of fate, but this one was so entirely unforeseen that it found her unprepared, and she was crushed by it. She knew her grandfather’s obstinacy too well to argue against the decision.

“Oh, no, not at all,” he repeated. “Oh, no, it wouldn’t do.”

Katie said nothing; she was beyond speech. She stood there wide-eyed and silent among the ruins of her little air-castle. The old man patted her hand affectionately. He was pleased at her docility. It was the right attitude, becoming in one of her high rank.

“I am very sorry, my dear, but⁠—oh, no! oh, no! oh, no⁠—” His voice trailed away into an unintelligible mutter. He was a very old man, and he was not always able to concentrate his thoughts on a subject for any length of