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

up. It was not his father. It was a dangerous-looking female of uncertain age, dressed as a parlourmaid, who eyed him with what seemed to his conscience-stricken soul dislike and suspicion. She had a tightlipped mouth and beady eyes beneath heavy brows. Jimmy had seldom seen a woman who attracted him less at first sight.

“Jer ring, s’?”

Jimmy blinked and almost ducked. The words had come at him like a projectile.

“Oh, ah, yes.”

“J’ want anything, s’?”

With an effort Jimmy induced his mind to resume its interrupted equilibrium.

“Oh, ah, yes. Would you mind sending Skinner the butler to me.”

“Y’s’r.”

The apparition vanished. Jimmy drew out his handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. He felt weak and guilty. He felt as if he had just been accused of nameless crimes and had been unable to deny the charge. Such was the magic of Miss Trimble’s eye⁠—the left one, which looked directly at its object. Conjecture pauses baffled at the thought of the effect which her gaze might have created in the breasts of the sex she despised, had it been double instead of single-barrelled. But half of it had wasted itself on a spot some few feet to his right.

Presently the door opened again, and Mr. Crocker appeared, looking like a benevolent priest.

XIX Between Father and Son

“Well, Skinner, my man,” said Jimmy, “how goes it?”

Mr. Crocker looked about him cautiously. Then his priestly manner fell from him like a robe, and he bounded forward.

“Jimmy!” he exclaimed, seizing his son’s hand and shaking it violently. “Say, it’s great seeing you again, Jim!”

Jimmy drew himself up haughtily.

“Skinner, my good menial, you forget yourself strangely! You will be getting fired if you mitt the handsome guest in this chummy fashion!” He slapped his father on the back. “Dad, this is great! How on earth do you come to be here? What’s the idea? Why the buttling? When did you come over? Tell me all!”

Mr. Crocker hoisted himself nimbly onto the writing-desk, and sat there, beaming, with dangling legs.

“It was your letter that did it, Jimmy. Say, Jim, there wasn’t any need for you to do a thing like that just for me.”

“Well, I thought you would have a better chance of being a peer without me around. By the way, dad, how did my stepmother take the Lord Percy episode?”

A shadow fell upon Mr. Crocker’s happy face.

“I don’t like to do much thinking about your stepmother,” he said. “She was pretty sore about Percy. And she was pretty sore about your lighting out for America. But, gee! what she must be feeling like now that I’ve come over, I daren’t let myself think.”

“You haven’t explained that yet. Why did you come over?”

“Well, I’d been feeling homesick⁠—I always do over there in the baseball season⁠—and then talking with Pett made it worse⁠—”

“Talking with Pett? Did you see him, then, when he was in London?”

“See him? I let him in!”

“How?”

“Into the house, I mean. I had just gone to the front door to see what sort of a day it was⁠—I wanted to know if there had been enough rain in the night to stop my having to watch that cricket game⁠—and just as I got there the bell rang. I opened the door.”

“A revoltingly plebeian thing to do! I’m ashamed of you, dad! They won’t stand for that sort of thing in the House of Lords!”

“Well, before I knew what was happening they had taken me for the butler. I didn’t want your stepmother to know I’d been opening doors⁠—you remember how touchy she was always about it so I just let it go at that and jollied them along. But I just couldn’t help asking the old man how the pennant race was making out, and that tickled him so much that he offered me a job here as butler if I ever wanted to make a change. And then your note came saying that you were going to New York, and⁠—well, I couldn’t help myself. You couldn’t have kept me in London with ropes. I sneaked out next day and bought a passage on the Carmantic⁠—she sailed the Wednesday after you left⁠—and came straight here. They gave me this job right away.” Mr. Crocker paused, and a holy light of enthusiasm made his homely features almost beautiful. “Say, Jim, I’ve seen a ballgame every darned day since I landed! Say, two days running Larry Doyle made home-runs! But, gosh! that guy Klem is one swell robber! See here!” Mr. Crocker sprang down from the desk, and snatched up a handful of books, which he proceeded to distribute about the floor. “There were two men on bases in the sixth and What’s-his-name came to bat. He lined one out to centre-field⁠—where this book is⁠—and⁠—”

“Pull yourself together, Skinner! You can’t monkey about with the employer’s library like that.” Jimmy restored the books to their places. “Simmer down and tell me more. Postpone the gossip from the diamond. What plans have you made? Have you considered the future at all? You aren’t going to hold down this buttling job forever, are you? When do you go back to London?”

The light died out of Mr. Crocker’s face.

“I guess I shall have to go back some time. But how can I yet, with the Giants leading the league like this?”

“But did you just light out without saying anything?”

“I left a note for your stepmother telling her I had gone to America for a vacation. Jimmy, I hate to think what she’s going to do to me when she gets me back!”

“Assert yourself, dad! Tell her that woman’s place is the home and man’s the ballpark! Be firm!”

Mr. Crocker shook his head dubiously.

“It’s all very well to talk that way when you’re three thousand miles from home, but you know as well as I do, Jim, that your stepmother, though she’s a delightful woman, isn’t the sort you can assert yourself with. Look at this sister of hers here. I guess you haven’t been in the house long enough to have noticed, but