Something New by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (rom com books to read .TXT) 📖
- Author: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
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The Sunshine Of A Fair Spring Morning Fell Graciously On London
Town. Out In Piccadilly Its Heartening Warmth Seemed To Infuse
Into Traffic And Pedestrians Alike A Novel Jauntiness, So That
Bus Drivers Jested And Even The Lips Of Chauffeurs Uncurled Into
Not Unkindly Smiles. Policemen Whistled At Their Posts--Clerks,
On Their Way To Work; Beggars Approached The Task Of Trying To
Persuade Perfect Strangers To Bear The Burden Of Their
Maintenance With That Optimistic Vim Which Makes All The
Difference. It Was One Of Those Happy Mornings.
At Nine O'clock Precisely The Door Of Number Seven Arundell
Street, Leicester Square, Opened And A Young Man Stepped Out.
Of All The Spots In London Which May Fairly Be Described As
Backwaters There Is None That Answers So Completely To The
Description As Arundell Street, Leicester Square. Passing Along
The North Sidewalk Of The Square, Just Where It Joins Piccadilly,
You Hardly Notice The Bottleneck Opening Of The Tiny Cul-De-Sac.
Day And Night The Human Flood Roars Past, Ignoring It. Arundell
Street Is Less Than Forty Yards In Length; And, Though There Are
Two Hotels In It, They Are Not Fashionable Hotels. It Is Just A
Backwater.
In Shape Arundell Street Is Exactly Like One Of Those Flat Stone
Jars In Which Italian Wine Of The Cheaper Sort Is Stored. The
Narrow Neck That Leads Off Leicester Square Opens Abruptly Into A
Small Court. Hotels Occupy Two Sides Of This; The Third Is At
Present Given Up To Rooming Houses For The Impecunious. These Are
Always Just Going To Be Pulled Down In The Name Of Progress To
Make Room For Another Hotel, But They Never Do Meet With That
Fate; And As They Stand Now So Will They In All Probability Stand
For Generations To Come.
They Provide Single Rooms Of Moderate Size, The Bed Modestly
Chapter 1 Pg 2Hidden During The Day Behind A Battered Screen. The Rooms Contain
A Table, An Easy-Chair, A Hard Chair, A Bureau, And A Round Tin
Bath, Which, Like The Bed, Goes Into Hiding After Its Useful Work
Is Performed. And You May Rent One Of These Rooms, With Breakfast
Thrown In, For Five Dollars A Week.
Ashe Marson Had Done So. He Had Rented The Second-Floor Front Of
Number Seven.
Twenty-Six Years Before This Story Opens There Had Been Born To
Joseph Marson, Minister, And Sarah His Wife, Of Hayling,
Massachusetts, In The United States Of America, A Son. This Son,
Christened Ashe After A Wealthy Uncle Who Subsequently
Double-Crossed Them By Leaving His Money To Charities, In Due
Course Proceeded To Harvard To Study For The Ministry. So Far As
Can Be Ascertained From Contemporary Records, He Did Not Study A
Great Deal For The Ministry; But He Did Succeed In Running The
Mile In Four Minutes And A Half And The Half Mile At A
Correspondingly Rapid Speed, And His Researches In The Art Of
Long Jumping Won Him The Respect Of All.
That He Should Be Awarded, At The Conclusion Of His Harvard
Career, One Of Those Scholarships At Oxford University Instituted
By The Late Cecil Rhodes For The Encouragement Of The Liberal
Arts, Was A Natural Sequence Of Events.
That Was How Ashe Came To Be In England.
The Rest Of Ashe's History Follows Almost Automatically. He Won
His Blue For Athletics At Oxford, And Gladdened Thousands By
Winning The Mile And The Half Mile Two Years In Succession
Against Cambridge At Queen's Club. But Owing To The Pressure Of
Other Engagements He Unfortunately Omitted To Do Any Studying,
And When The Hour Of Parting Arrived He Was Peculiarly Unfitted
For Any Of The Learned Professions. Having, However, Managed To
Obtain A Sort Of Degree, Enough To Enable Him To Call Himself A
Bachelor Of Arts, And Realizing That You Can Fool Some Of The
People Some Of The Time, He Applied For And Secured A Series Of
Private Tutorships.
A Private Tutor Is A Sort Of Blend Of Poor Relation And
Nursemaid, And Few Of The Stately Homes Of England Are Without
One. He Is Supposed To Instill Learning And Deportment Into The
Small Son Of The House; But What He Is Really There For Is To
Prevent The Latter From Being A Nuisance To His Parents When He
Is Home From School On His Vacation.
Having Saved A Little Money At This Dreadful Trade, Ashe Came To
London And Tried Newspaper Work. After Two Years Of Moderate
Success He Got In Touch With The Mammoth Publishing Company.
The Mammoth Publishing Company, Which Controls Several Important
Newspapers, A Few Weekly Journals, And A Number Of Other Things,
Does Not Disdain The Pennies Of The Office Boy And The Junior
Chapter 1 Pg 3Clerk. One Of Its Many Profitable Ventures Is A Series Of
Paper-Covered Tales Of Crime And Adventure. It Was Here That Ashe
Found His Niche. Those Adventures Of Gridley Quayle,
Investigator, Which Are So Popular With A Certain Section Of The
Reading Public, Were His Work.
Until The Advent Of Ashe And Mr. Quayle, The British Pluck
Library Had Been Written By Many Hands And Had Included The
Adventures Of Many Heroes: But In Gridley Quayle The Proprietors
Held That The Ideal Had Been Reached, And Ashe Received A
Commission To Conduct The Entire British Pluck
Library--Monthly--Himself. On The Meager Salary Paid Him For
These Labors He Had Been Supporting Himself Ever Since.
That Was How Ashe Came To Be In Arundell Street, Leicester Square,
On This May Morning.
He Was A Tall, Well-Built, Fit-Looking Young Man, With A Clear
Eye And A Strong Chin; And He Was Dressed, As He Closed The Front
Door Behind Him, In A Sweater, Flannel Trousers, And Rubber-Soled
Gymnasium Shoes. In One Hand He Bore A Pair Of Indian Clubs, In
The Other A Skipping Rope.
Having Drawn In And Expelled The Morning Air In A Measured And
Solemn Fashion, Which The Initiated Observer Would Have
Recognized As That Scientific Deep Breathing So Popular Nowadays,
He Laid Down His Clubs, Adjusted His Rope And Began To Skip.
When He Had Taken The Second-Floor Front Of Number Seven, Three
Months Before, Ashe Marson Had Realized That He Must Forego Those
Morning Exercises Which Had Become A Second Nature To Him, Or
Else Defy London's Unwritten Law And Brave London's Mockery. He
Had Not Hesitated Long. Physical Fitness Was His Gospel. On The
Subject Of Exercise He Was Confessedly A Crank. He Decided To
Defy London.
The First Time He Appeared In Arundell Street In His Sweater And
Flannels He Had Barely Whirled His Indian Clubs Once Around His
Head Before He Had Attracted The Following Audience:
A) Two Cabmen--One Intoxicated;
B) Four Waiters From The Hotel Mathis;
C) Six Waiters From The Hotel Previtali;
D) Six Chambermaids From The Hotel Mathis;
E) Five Chambermaids From The Hotel Previtali;
F) The Proprietor Of The Hotel Mathis;
G) The Proprietor Of The Hotel Previtali;
H) A Street Cleaner;
I) Eleven Nondescript Loafers;
J) Twenty-Seven Children;
K) A Cat.
They All Laughed--Even The Cat--And Kept On Laughing. The
Intoxicated Cabman Called Ashe "Sunny Jim." And Ashe Kept On
Chapter 1 Pg 4Swinging His Clubs.
A Month Later, Such Is The Magic Of Perseverance, His Audience
Had Narrowed Down To The Twenty-Seven Children. They Still
Laughed, But Without That Ringing Conviction Which The
Sympathetic Support Of Their Elders Had Lent Them.
And Now, After Three Months, The Neighborhood, Having Accepted
Ashe And His Morning Exercises As A Natural Phenomenon, Paid Him
No Further Attention.
On This Particular Morning Ashe Marson Skipped With Even More
Than His Usual Vigor. This Was Because He Wished To Expel By
Means Of Physical Fatigue A Small Devil Of Discontent, Of Whose
Presence Within Him He Had Been Aware Ever Since Getting Out Of
Bed. It Is In The Spring That The Ache For The Larger Life Comes
On Us, And This Was A Particularly Mellow Spring Morning. It Was
The Sort Of Morning When The Air Gives Us A Feeling Of
Anticipation--A Feeling That, On A Day Like This, Things Surely
Cannot Go Jogging Along In The Same Dull Old Groove; A
Premonition That Something Romantic And Exciting Is About To
Happen To Us.
But The Southwest Wind Of Spring Brings Also Remorse. We Catch
The Vague Spirit Of Unrest In The Air And We Regret Our Misspent
Youth.
Ashe Was Doing This. Even As He Skipped, He Was Conscious Of A
Wish That He Had Studied Harder At College And Was Now In A
Position To Be Doing Something Better Than Hack Work For A
Soulless Publishing Company. Never Before Had He Been So
Completely Certain That He Was Sick To Death Of The Rut Into
Which He Had Fallen.
Skipping Brought No Balm. He Threw Down His Rope And Took Up The
Indian Clubs. Indian Clubs Left Him Still Unsatisfied. The
Thought Came To Him That It Was A Long Time Since He Had Done His
Larsen Exercises. Perhaps They Would Heal Him.
The Larsen Exercises, Invented By A Certain Lieutenant Larsen, Of
The Swedish Army, Have Almost Every Sort Of Merit. They Make A
Man Strong, Supple, And Slender. But They Are Not Dignified.
Indeed, To One Seeing Them Suddenly And Without Warning For The
First Time, They Are Markedly Humorous. The Only Reason Why King
Henry, Of England, Whose Son Sank With The White Ship, Never
Smiled Again, Was Because Lieutenant Larsen Had Not Then Invented
His Admirable Exercises.
So Complacent, So Insolently Unselfconscious Had Ashe Become In
The Course Of Three Months, Owing To His Success In Inducing The
Populace To Look On Anything He Did With The Indulgent Eye Of
Understanding, That It Simply Did Not Occur To Him, When He
Abruptly Twisted His Body Into The Shape Of A Corkscrew, In
Accordance With The Directions In The Lieutenant's Book For The
Chapter 1 Pg 5
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