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

So little did Ted Brady realize at first the true complexity of the situation that he was inclined, when he heard of the news, to treat the crisis in the jaunty, dashing, love-laughs-at-locksmith fashion so popular with young men of spirit when thwarted in their loves by the interference of parents and guardians.

It took Katie some time to convince him that, just because he had the licence in his pocket, he could not snatch her up on his saddlebow and carry her off to the nearest clergyman after the manner of young Lochinvar.

In the first flush of his resentment at restraint he saw no reason why he should differentiate between old Mr. Bennett and the conventional banns-forbidding father of the novelettes with which he was accustomed to sweeten his hours of idleness. To him, till Katie explained the intricacies of the position, Mr. Bennett was simply the proud millionaire who would not hear of his daughter marrying the artist.

“But, Ted, dear, you don’t understand,” Katie said. “We simply couldn’t do that. There’s no one but me to look after him, poor old man. How could I run away like that and get married? What would become of him?”

“You wouldn’t be away long,” urged Mr. Brady, a man of many parts, but not a rapid thinker. “The minister would have us fixed up inside of half an hour. Then we’d look in at Mouquin’s for a steak and fried, just to make a sort of wedding breakfast. And then back we’d come, hand-in-hand, and say, ‘Well, here we are. Now what?’ ”

“He would never forgive me.”

“That,” said Ted judicially, “would be up to him.”

“It would kill him. Don’t you see, we know that it’s all nonsense, this idea of his; but he really thinks he is the king, and he’s so old that the shock of my disobeying him would be too much. Honest, Ted, dear, I couldn’t.”

Gloom unutterable darkened Ted Brady’s always serious countenance. The difficulties of the situation were beginning to come home to him.

“Maybe if I went and saw him⁠—” he suggested at last.

“You could,” said Katie doubtfully.

Ted tightened his belt with an air of determination, and bit resolutely on the chewing-gum which was his inseparable companion.

“I will,” he said.

“You’ll be nice to him, Ted?”

He nodded. He was the man of action, not words.

It was perhaps ten minutes before he came out of the inner room in which Mr. Bennett passed his days. When he did, there was no light of jubilation on his face. His brow was darker than ever.

Katie looked at him anxiously. He returned the look with a sombre shake of the head.

“Nothing doing,” he said shortly. He paused. “Unless,” he added, “you count it anything that he’s made me an earl.”

In the next two weeks several brains busied themselves with the situation. Genevieve, reconciled to Katie after a decent interval of wounded dignity, said she supposed there was a way out, if one could only think of it, but it certainly got past her. The only approach to a plan of action was suggested by the broken-nosed individual who had been Ted’s companion that day at Palisades Park, a gentleman of some eminence in the boxing world, who rejoiced in the name of the Tennessee Bearcat.

What they ought to do, in the Bearcat’s opinion, was to get the old man out into Washington Square one morning. He of Tennessee would then sasshay up in a flip manner and make a break. Ted, waiting close by, would resent his insolence. There would be words, followed by blows.

“See what I mean?” pursued the Bearcat. “There’s you and me mixing it. I’ll square the cop on the beat to leave us be; he’s a friend of mine. Pretty soon you land me one on the plexus, and I take th’ count. Then there’s you hauling me up by th’ collar to the old gentleman, and me saying I quits and apologizing. See what I mean?”

The whole, presumably, to conclude with warm expressions of gratitude and esteem from Mr. Bennett, and an instant withdrawal of the veto.

Ted himself approved of the scheme. He said it was a cracker-jaw, and he wondered how one so notoriously ivory-skulled as the other could have had such an idea. The Bearcat said modestly that he had ’em sometimes. And it is probable that all would have been well, had it not been necessary to tell the plan to Katie, who was horrified at the very idea, spoke warmly of the danger to her grandfather’s nervous system, and said she did not think the Bearcat could be a nice friend for Ted. And matters relapsed into their old state of hopelessness.

And then, one day, Katie forced herself to tell Ted that she thought it would be better if they did not see each other for a time. She said that these meetings were only a source of pain to both of them. It would really be better if he did not come round for⁠—well, quite some time.

It had not been easy for her to say it. The decision was the outcome of many wakeful nights. She had asked herself the question whether it was fair for her to keep Ted chained to her in this hopeless fashion, when, left to himself and away from her, he might so easily find some other girl to make him happy.

So Ted went, reluctantly, and the little shop on Sixth Avenue knew him no more. And Katie spent her time looking after old Mr. Bennett (who had completely forgotten the affair by now, and sometimes wondered why Katie was not so cheerful as she had been), and⁠—for, though unselfish, she was human⁠—hating those unknown girls whom in her mind’s eye she could see clustering round Ted, smiling at him, making much of him, and driving the bare recollection of her out of his mind.

The summer passed. July came and went, making New York an oven. August followed, and one wondered why one had complained of July’s tepid advances.

It was on the evening of September