My Man Jeeves by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (reading cloud ebooks TXT) 📖

what I mean. Kind of cosy and

domestic—what!”

 

Just then the kid upset the milk over Freddie’s trousers, and when he

had come back after changing his clothes he began to talk about what a

much-maligned man King Herod was. The more he saw of Tootles, he said,

the less he wondered at those impulsive views of his on infanticide.

 

Two days later Jimmy Pinkerton came down. Jimmy took one look at the

kid, who happened to be howling at the moment, and picked up his

portmanteau.

 

“For me,” he said, “the hotel. I can’t write dialogue with that sort of

thing going on. Whose work is this? Which of you adopted this little

treasure?”

 

I told him about Mr. Medwin and the mumps. Jimmy seemed interested.

 

“I might work this up for the stage,” he said. “It wouldn’t make a bad

situation for act two of a farce.”

 

“Farce!” snarled poor old Freddie.

 

“Rather. Curtain of act one on hero, a well-meaning, half-baked sort of

idiot just like—that is to say, a well-meaning, half-baked sort of

idiot, kidnapping the child. Second act, his adventures with it. I’ll

rough it out to-night. Come along and show me the hotel, Reggie.”

 

As we went I told him the rest of the story—the Angela part. He laid

down his portmanteau and looked at me like an owl through his glasses.

 

“What!” he said. “Why, hang it, this is a play, ready-made. It’s the

old ‘Tiny Hand’ business. Always safe stuff. Parted lovers. Lisping

child. Reconciliation over the little cradle. It’s big. Child, centre.

Girl L.C.; Freddie, up stage, by the piano. Can Freddie play the

piano?”

 

“He can play a little of ‘The Rosary’ with one finger.”

 

Jimmy shook his head.

 

“No; we shall have to cut out the soft music. But the rest’s all right.

Look here.” He squatted in the sand. “This stone is the girl. This bit

of seaweed’s the child. This nutshell is Freddie. Dialogue leading up

to child’s line. Child speaks like, ‘Boofer lady, does ‘oo love dadda?’

Business of outstretched hands. Hold picture for a moment. Freddie crosses

L., takes girl’s hand. Business of swallowing lump in throat. Then big

speech. ‘Ah, Marie,’ or whatever her name is—Jane—Agnes—Angela? Very

well. ‘Ah, Angela, has not this gone on too long? A little child rebukes

us! Angela!’ And so on. Freddie must work up his own part. I’m just

giving you the general outline. And we must get a good line for the

child. ‘Boofer lady, does ‘oo love dadda?’ isn’t definite enough. We

want something more—ah! ‘Kiss Freddie,’ that’s it. Short, crisp, and

has the punch.”

 

“But, Jimmy, old top,” I said, “the only objection is, don’t you know,

that there’s no way of getting the girl to the cottage. She cuts

Freddie. She wouldn’t come within a mile of him.”

 

Jimmy frowned.

 

“That’s awkward,” he said. “Well, we shall have to make it an exterior set

instead of an interior. We can easily corner her on the beach somewhere,

when we’re ready. Meanwhile, we must get the kid letter-perfect. First

rehearsal for lines and business eleven sharp to-morrow.”

 

Poor old Freddie was in such a gloomy state of mind that we decided not

to tell him the idea till we had finished coaching the kid. He wasn’t

in the mood to have a thing like that hanging over him. So we

concentrated on Tootles. And pretty early in the proceedings we saw

that the only way to get Tootles worked up to the spirit of the thing

was to introduce sweets of some sort as a sub-motive, so to speak.

 

“The chief difficulty,” said Jimmy Pinkerton at the end of the first

rehearsal, “is to establish a connection in the kid’s mind between his

line and the sweets. Once he has grasped the basic fact that those two

words, clearly spoken, result automatically in acid-drops, we have got

a success.”

 

I’ve often thought, don’t you know, how interesting it must be to be

one of those animal-trainer Johnnies: to stimulate the dawning

intelligence, and that sort of thing. Well, this was every bit as

exciting. Some days success seemed to be staring us in the eye, and the

kid got the line out as if he’d been an old professional. And then he’d

go all to pieces again. And time was flying.

 

“We must hurry up, Jimmy,” I said. “The kid’s uncle may arrive any day

now and take him away.”

 

“And we haven’t an understudy,” said Jimmy. “There’s something in that.

We must work! My goodness, that kid’s a bad study. I’ve known deaf-mutes

who would have learned the part quicker.”

 

I will say this for the kid, though: he was a trier. Failure didn’t

discourage him. Whenever there was any kind of sweet near he had a dash

at his line, and kept on saying something till he got what he was

after. His only fault was his uncertainty. Personally, I would have

been prepared to risk it, and start the performance at the first

opportunity, but Jimmy said no.

 

“We’re not nearly ready,” said Jimmy. “To-day, for instance, he said

‘Kick Freddie.’ That’s not going to win any girl’s heart. And she might

do it, too. No; we must postpone production awhile yet.”

 

But, by George, we didn’t. The curtain went up the very next afternoon.

 

It was nobody’s fault—certainly not mine. It was just Fate. Freddie

had settled down at the piano, and I was leading the kid out of the

house to exercise it, when, just as we’d got out to the veranda, along

came the girl Angela on her way to the beach. The kid set up his usual

yell at the sight of her, and she stopped at the foot of the steps.

 

“Hello, baby!” she said. “Good morning,” she said to me. “May I come

up?”

 

She didn’t wait for an answer. She just came. She seemed to be that

sort of girl. She came up on the veranda and started fussing over the

kid. And six feet away, mind you, Freddie smiting the piano in the

sitting-room. It was a dash disturbing situation, don’t you know. At

any minute Freddie might take it into his head to come out on to the

veranda, and we hadn’t even begun to rehearse him in his part.

 

I tried to break up the scene.

 

“We were just going down to the beach,” I said.

 

“Yes?” said the girl. She listened for a moment. “So you’re having your

piano tuned?” she said. “My aunt has been trying to find a tuner for

ours. Do you mind if I go in and tell this man to come on to us when

he’s finished here?”

 

“Er—not yet!” I said. “Not yet, if you don’t mind. He can’t bear to be

disturbed when he’s working. It’s the artistic temperament. I’ll tell

him later.”

 

“Very well,” she said, getting up to go. “Ask him to call at Pine

Bungalow. West is the name. Oh, he seems to have stopped. I suppose he

will be out in a minute now. I’ll wait.”

 

“Don’t you think—shouldn’t we be going on to the beach?” I said.

 

She had started talking to the kid and didn’t hear. She was feeling in

her pocket for something.

 

“The beach,” I babbled.

 

“See what I’ve brought for you, baby,” she said. And, by George, don’t

you know, she held up in front of the kid’s bulging eyes a chunk of

toffee about the size of the Automobile Club.

 

That finished it. We had just been having a long rehearsal, and the kid

was all worked up in his part. He got it right first time.

 

“Kiss Fweddie!” he shouted.

 

And the front door opened, and Freddie came out on to the veranda, for

all the world as if he had been taking a cue.

 

He looked at the girl, and the girl looked at him. I looked at the

ground, and the kid looked at the toffee.

 

“Kiss Fweddie!” he yelled. “Kiss Fweddie!”

 

The girl was still holding up the toffee, and the kid did what Jimmy

Pinkerton would have called “business of outstretched hands” towards

it.

 

“Kiss Fweddie!” he shrieked.

 

“What does this mean?” said the girl, turning to me.

 

“You’d better give it to him, don’t you know,” I said. “He’ll go on

till you do.”

 

She gave the kid his toffee, and he subsided. Poor old Freddie still

stood there gaping, without a word.

 

“What does it mean?” said the girl again. Her face was pink, and her

eyes were sparkling in the sort of way, don’t you know, that makes a

fellow feel as if he hadn’t any bones in him, if you know what I mean.

Did you ever tread on your partner’s dress at a dance and tear it, and

see her smile at you like an angel and say: “Please don’t apologize.

It’s nothing,” and then suddenly meet her clear blue eyes and feel as

if you had stepped on the teeth of a rake and had the handle jump up

and hit you in the face? Well, that’s how Freddie’s Angela looked.

 

“Well?” she said, and her teeth gave a little click.

 

I gulped. Then I said it was nothing. Then I said it was nothing much.

Then I said, “Oh, well, it was this way.” And, after a few brief

remarks about Jimmy Pinkerton, I told her all about it. And all the

while Idiot Freddie stood there gaping, without a word.

 

And the girl didn’t speak, either. She just stood listening.

 

And then she began to laugh. I never heard a girl laugh so much. She

leaned against the side of the veranda and shrieked. And all the while

Freddie, the World’s Champion Chump, stood there, saying nothing.

 

Well I sidled towards the steps. I had said all I had to say, and it

seemed to me that about here the stage-direction “exit” was written in

my part. I gave poor old Freddie up in despair. If only he had said a

word, it might have been all right. But there he stood, speechless.

What can a fellow do with a fellow like that?

 

Just out of sight of the house I met Jimmy Pinkerton.

 

“Hello, Reggie!” he said. “I was just coming to you. Where’s the kid?

We must have a big rehearsal to-day.”

 

“No good,” I said sadly. “It’s all over. The thing’s finished. Poor

dear old Freddie has made an ass of himself and killed the whole show.”

 

“Tell me,” said Jimmy.

 

I told him.

 

“Fluffed in his lines, did he?” said Jimmy, nodding thoughtfully. “It’s

always the way with these amateurs. We must go back at once. Things

look bad, but it may not be too late,” he said as we started. “Even now

a few well-chosen words from a man of the world, and–-”

 

“Great Scot!” I cried. “Look!”

 

In front of the cottage stood six children, a nurse, and the fellow

from the grocer’s staring. From the windows of the houses opposite

projected about four hundred heads of both sexes, staring. Down the

road came galloping five more children, a dog, three men, and a boy,

about to stare. And on our porch, as unconscious of the spectators as

if they had been alone in the Sahara, stood Freddie and Angela, clasped

in each other’s arms.

 

*

 

Dear old Freddie may have been fluffy in his lines, but, by George, his

business had certainly gone with a bang!

RALLYING ROUND OLD GEORGE

I think one of