Piccadilly Jim P. G. Wodehouse (great book club books .TXT) 📖

and lavishly generous in his contributions to the party funds, who was only given a knighthood, simply because he had a son who had behaved in a manner that could not possibly be overlooked. The present Court is extraordinarily strict in its views. James cannot be too careful. A certain amount of wildness in a young man is quite proper in the best set, provided that he is wild in the right company. Everyone knows that young Lord Datchet was ejected from the Empire Music-Hall on Boat-Race night every year during his residence at Oxford University, but nobody minds. The family treats it as a joke. But James has such low tastes. Professional pugilists! I believe that many years ago it was not unfashionable for young men in Society to be seen about with such persons, but those days are over. I shall certainly speak to James. He cannot afford to call attention to himself in any way. That breach-of-promise case of his three years ago, is, I hope and trust, forgotten, but the slightest slip on his part might start the papers talking about it again, and that would be fatal. The eventual successor to a title must be quite as careful as⁠—”

It was not, as has been hinted above, the usual practice of Mr. Crocker to interrupt his wife when she was speaking, but he did it now.

“Say!”

Mrs. Crocker frowned.

“I wish, Bingley⁠—and I have told you so often⁠—that you would not begin your sentences with the word ‘Say’! It is such a revolting Americanism. Suppose some day when you are addressing the House of Lords you should make a slip like that! The papers would never let you hear the end of it.”

Mr. Crocker was swallowing convulsively, as if testing his larynx with a view to speech. Like Saul of Tarsus, he had been stricken dumb by the sudden bright light which his wife’s words had caused to flash upon him. Frequently during his sojourn in London he had wondered just why Eugenia had settled there in preference to her own country. It was not her wont to do things without an object, yet until this moment he had been unable to fathom her motives. Even now it seemed almost incredible. And yet what meaning would her words have other than the monstrous one which had smitten him as a blackjack?

“Say⁠—I mean, Eugenia⁠—you don’t want⁠—you aren’t trying⁠—you aren’t working to⁠—you haven’t any idea of trying to get them to make me a Lord, have you?”

“It is what I have been working for all these years!”

“But⁠—but why? Why? That’s what I want to know. Why?”

Mrs. Crocker’s fine eyes glittered.

“I will tell you why, Bingley. Just before we were married I had a talk with my sister Nesta. She was insufferably offensive. She referred to you in terms which I shall never forgive. She affected to look down on you, to think that I was marrying beneath me. So I am going to make you an English peer and send Nesta a newspaper clipping of the Birthday Honours with your name in it, if I have to keep working till I die! Now you know!”

Silence fell. Mr. Crocker drank cold coffee. His wife stared with gleaming eyes into the glorious future.

“Do you mean that I shall have to stop on here till they make me a lord?” said Mr. Crocker limply.

“Yes.”

“Never go back to America?”

“Not till we have succeeded.”

“Oh Gee! Oh Gosh! Oh Hell!” said Mr. Crocker, bursting the bonds of years.

Mrs. Crocker though resolute, was not unkindly. She made allowances for her husband’s state of mind. She was willing to permit even American expletives during the sinking-in process of her great idea, much as a broad-minded cowboy might listen indulgently to the squealing of a mustang during the branding process. Docility and obedience would be demanded of him later, but not till the first agony had abated. She spoke soothingly to him.

“I am glad we have had this talk, Bingley. It is best that you should know. It will help you to realise your responsibilities. And that brings me back to James. Thank goodness Lord Percy Whipple is in town. He is about James’ age, and from what Lady Corstorphine tells me will be an ideal friend for him. You understand who he is, of course? The second son of the Duke of Devizes, the Premier’s closest friend, the man who can practically dictate the Birthday Honours. If James and Lord Percy can only form a close friendship, our battle will be as good as won. It will mean everything. Lady Corstorphine has promised to arrange a meeting. In the meantime, I will speak to James and warn him to be more careful.”

Mr. Crocker had produced a stump of pencil from his pocket and was writing on the tablecloth.

Lord Crocker

Lord Bingley Crocker

Lord Crocker of Crocker

The Marquis of Crocker

Baron Crocker

Bingley, first Viscount Crocker

He blanched as he read the frightful words. A sudden thought stung him.

“Eugenia!”

“Well?”

“What will the boys at the Lambs say?”

“I am not interested,” replied his wife, “in the boys at the Lambs.”

“I thought you wouldn’t be,” said the future baron gloomily.

III Family Jars

It is a peculiarity of the human mind that, with whatever apprehension it may be regarding the distant future, it must return after a while to face the minor troubles of the future that is immediate. The prospect of a visit to the dentist this afternoon causes us to forget for the moment the prospect of total ruin next year. Mr. Crocker, therefore, having tortured himself for about a quarter of an hour with his meditations on the subject of titles, was jerked back to a more imminent calamity than the appearance of his name in the Birthday Honours⁠—the fact that in all probability he would be taken again this morning to watch the continuation of that infernal cricket-match, and would be compelled to spend the greater part of today, as he had spent the greater part of yesterday, bored to the verge of dissolution in the pavilion at Lord’s.

One