Psmith in the City

Considering what a prominent figure Mr. John Bickersdyke was to be in Mike Jackson’s life, it was only appropriate that he should make a dramatic entry into it. This he did by walking behind the bowler’s arm when Mike had scored ninety-eight, causing him thereby to be clean bowled by a long-hop.

It was the last day of the Ilsworth cricket week, and the house team were struggling hard on a damaged wicket. During the first two matches of the week all had been well. Warm sunshine, true wickets, tea in the shade of the trees. But on the Thursday night, as the team champed their dinner contentedly after defeating the Incogniti by two wickets, a pattering of rain made itself heard upon the windows. By bedtime it had settled to a steady downpour. On Friday morning, when the team of the local regiment arrived in their brake, the sun was shining once more in a watery, melancholy way, but play was not possible before lunch. After lunch the bowlers were in their element. The regiment, winning the toss, put together a hundred and thirty, due principally to a last wicket stand between two enormous corporals, who swiped at everything and had luck enough for two whole teams. The house team followed with seventy-eight, of which Psmith, by his usual golf methods, claimed thirty. Mike, who had gone in first as the star bat of the side, had been run out with great promptitude off the first ball of the innings, which his partner had hit in the immediate neighbourhood of point.

“Commerce,” said Psmith, as he drew off his lavender gloves, “has claimed me for her own. Comrade of old, I, too, have joined this blighted institution.”

As he spoke, there was a whirring noise in the immediate neighbourhood, and Mr. Rossiter buzzed out from his den with the esprit and animation of a clockwork toy.

“Who’s here?” said Psmith with interest, removing his eyeglass, polishing it, and replacing it in his eye.

“Mr. Jackson,” exclaimed Mr. Rossiter. “I really must ask you to be good enough to come in from your lunch at the proper time. It was fully seven minutes to two when you returned, and⁠—”

“That little more,” sighed Psmith, “and how much is it!”

“Who are you?” snapped Mr. Rossiter, turning on him.

“I shall be delighted, Comrade⁠—”

“Rossiter,” said Mike, aside.

“Comrade Rossiter. I shall be delighted to furnish you with particulars of my family history. As follows. Soon after the Norman Conquest, a certain Sieur de Psmith grew tired of work⁠—a family failing, alas!⁠—and settled down in this country to live peacefully for the remainder of his life on what he could extract from the local peasantry. He may be described as the founder of the family which ultimately culminated in Me. Passing on⁠—”

Mr. Rossiter refused to pass on.

“What are you doing here? What have you come for?”

“Work,” said Psmith, with simple dignity. “I am now a member of the staff of this bank. Its interests are my interests.

There was nothing crude or overdone about Psmith’s methods. The ordinary man, having conceived the idea of haunting a fellow clubman, might have seized the first opportunity of engaging him in conversation. Not so Psmith. The first time he met Mr. Bickersdyke in the club was on the stairs after dinner one night. The great man, having received practical proof of the excellence of cuisine referred to above, was coming down the main staircase at peace with all men, when he was aware of a tall young man in the “faultless evening dress” of which the female novelist is so fond, who was regarding him with a fixed stare through an eyeglass. The tall young man, having caught his eye, smiled faintly, nodded in a friendly but patronizing manner, and passed on up the staircase to the library. Mr. Bickersdyke sped on in search of a waiter.

As Psmith sat in the library with a novel, the waiter entered, and approached him.

“Beg pardon, sir,” he said. “Are you a member of this club?”

Psmith fumbled in his pocket and produced his eyeglass, through which he examined the waiter, button by button.

“I am Psmith,” he said simply.

“A member, sir?”

“The member,” said Psmith. “Surely you participated in the general rejoicings which ensued when it was announced that I had been elected? But perhaps you were too busy working to pay any attention. If so, I respect you.

“Not at all,” said Psmith deprecatingly. “Not at all. You do not take me. My point is this. I do not wish to revive painful memories, but it cannot be denied that there was, here and there, some slight bickering between us on that occasion. The fault,” said Psmith magnanimously, “was possibly mine. I may have been too exacting, too capricious. Perhaps so. However, the fact remains that you conceived the happy notion of getting me into this bank, under the impression that, once I was in, you would be able to⁠—if I may use the expression⁠—give me beans. You said as much to me, if I remember. I hate to say it, but don’t you think that if you give me the sack, although my work is satisfactory to the head of my department, you will be by way of admitting that you bit off rather more than you could chew? I merely make the suggestion.”

Mr. Bickersdyke half rose from his chair.

“You⁠—”

“Just so, just so, but⁠—to return to the main point⁠—don’t you? The whole painful affair reminds me of the story of Agesilaus and the Petulant Pterodactyl, which as you have never heard, I will now proceed to relate. Agesilaus⁠—”

Mr. Bickersdyke made a curious clucking noise in his throat.

Mr. Bickersdyke was reclining in an easy chair in the first room, staring before him in the boiled-fish manner customary in a Turkish Bath. Psmith dropped into the next seat with a cheery “Good evening.” The manager started as if some firm hand had driven a bradawl into him. He looked at Psmith with what was intended to be a dignified stare. But dignity is hard to achieve in a couple of parti-coloured towels. The stare did not differ to any great extent from the conventional boiled-fish look, alluded to above.

Psmith settled himself comfortably in his chair. “Fancy finding you here,” he said pleasantly. “We seem always to be meeting. To me,” he added, with a reassuring smile, “it is a great pleasure. A very great pleasure indeed. We see too little of each other during office hours. Not that one must grumble at that. Work before everything. You have your duties, I mine. It is merely unfortunate that those duties are not such as to enable us to toil side by side, encouraging each other with word and gesture. However, it is idle to repine. We must make the most of these chance meetings when the work of the day is over.”

Mr. Bickersdyke heaved himself up from his chair and took another at the opposite end of the room. Psmith joined him.

“There’s something pleasantly mysterious, to my mind,” said he chattily, “in a Turkish Bath. It seems to take one out of the hurry and bustle of the everyday world.