Psmith, Journalist

The man in the street would not have known it, but a great crisis was imminent in New York journalism.

Everything seemed much as usual in the city. The cars ran blithely on Broadway. Newsboys shouted “Wux-try!” into the ears of nervous pedestrians with their usual Caruso-like vim. Society passed up and down Fifth Avenue in its automobiles, and was there a furrow of anxiety upon Society’s brow? None. At a thousand street corners a thousand policemen preserved their air of massive superiority to the things of this world. Not one of them showed the least sign of perturbation. Nevertheless, the crisis was at hand. Mr. J. Fillken Wilberfloss, editor-in-chief of Cosy Moments, was about to leave his post and start on a ten weeks’ holiday.

In New York one may find every class of paper which the imagination can conceive. Every grade of society is catered for. If an Eskimo came to New York, the first thing he would find on the bookstalls in all probability would be the Blubber Magazine, or some similar production written by Eskimo for Eskimo. Everybody reads in New York, and reads all the time. The New Yorker peruses his favourite paper while he is being jammed into a crowded compartment on the subway or leaping like an antelope into a moving street car.

There was thus a public for Cosy Moments. Cosy Moments, as its name (an inspiration of Mr. Wilberfloss’s own) is designed to imply, is a journal for the home.

“It would ill beseem me, Comrade Jackson,” said Psmith, thoughtfully sipping his coffee, “to run down the metropolis of a great and friendly nation, but candour compels me to state that New York is in some respects a singularly blighted town.”

“What’s the matter with it?” asked Mike.

“Too decorous, Comrade Jackson. I came over here principally, it is true, to be at your side, should you be in any way persecuted by scoundrels. But at the same time I confess that at the back of my mind there lurked a hope that stirring adventures might come my way. I had heard so much of the place. Report had it that an earnest seeker after amusement might have a tolerably spacious rag in this modern Byzantium. I thought that a few weeks here might restore that keen edge to my nervous system which the languor of the past term had in a measure blunted. I wished my visit to be a tonic rather than a sedative. I anticipated that on my return the cry would go round Cambridge, ‘Psmith has been to New York. He is full of oats. For he on honeydew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise. He is hot stuff. Rah!’ But what do we find?”

He paused, and lit a cigarette.

“What do we find?” he asked again.

“I don’t know,” said Mike. “What?”

“A very judicious query, Comrade Jackson. What, indeed? We find a town very like London. A quiet, self-respecting town, admirable to the apostle of social reform, but disappointing to one who, like myself, arrives with a brush and a little bucket of red paint, all eager for a treat.

“Then⁠—excuse me⁠—” said Mr. Parker, turning to Billy, “You, I take it, are responsible for this very vigorous attack on the tenement house owners?”

“You can take it I am,” said Billy.

Psmith interposed.

“We are both responsible, Comrade Parker. If any husky guy, as I fancy Master Maloney would phrase it, is anxious to aim a swift kick at the man behind those articles, he must distribute it evenly between Comrade Windsor and myself.”

“I see.” Mr. Parker paused. “They are⁠—er⁠—very outspoken articles,” he added.

“Warm stuff,” agreed Psmith. “Distinctly warm stuff.”

“May I speak frankly?” said Mr. Parker.

“Assuredly, Comrade Parker. There must be no secrets, no restraint between us. We would not have you go away and say to yourself, ‘Did I make my meaning clear? Was I too elusive?’ Say on.”

Billy was muscular, and his heart was so much in the business that Mr. Gooch behaved as if he had been caught in a high wind. It is probable that in another moment the desired information might have been shaken out of him, but before this could happen there was a banging at the door, followed by the entrance of Master Maloney. For the first time since Psmith had known him, Pugsy was openly excited.

“Say,” he began, “youse had better beat it quick, you had. Dey’s coming!”

“And now go back to the beginning, Comrade Maloney,” said Psmith patiently, “which in the exuberance of the moment you have skipped. Who are coming?”

“Why, dem. De guys.”

Psmith shook his head.

“Your habit of omitting essentials, Comrade Maloney, is going to undo you one of these days. When you get to that ranch of yours, you will probably start out to gallop after the cattle without remembering to mount your mustang. There are four million guys in New York. Which section is it that is coming?”

“Gum! I don’t know how many dere is ob dem. I seen Spider Reilly an’ Jack Repetto an’⁠—”

“Say no more,” said Psmith. “If Comrade Repetto is there, that is enough for me. I am going to get on the roof and pull it up after me.”

They found Mr. Jarvis in his Groome Street fancier’s shop, engaged in the intellectual occupation of greasing a cat’s paws with butter. He looked up as they entered, and began to breathe a melody with a certain coyness.

“Comrade Jarvis,” said Psmith, “we meet again. You remember me?”

“Nope,” said Mr. Jarvis, pausing for a moment in the middle of a bar, and then taking up the air where he had left off. Psmith was not discouraged.

“Ah,” he said tolerantly, “the fierce rush of New York life. How it wipes from the retina of today the image impressed on it but yesterday. Are you with me, Comrade Jarvis?”

The cat expert concentrated himself on the cat’s paws without replying.

“A fine animal,” said Psmith, adjusting his eyeglass. “To which particular family of the Felis Domestica does that belong? In colour it resembles a Neapolitan ice more than anything.”

Mr. Jarvis’s manner became unfriendly.

“Say, what do youse want? That’s straight ain’t it? If youse want to buy a boid or a snake why don’t youse say so?”

“I stand corrected,” said Psmith. “I should have remembered that time is money. I called in here partly on the strength of being a colleague and side-partner of Comrade Windsor⁠—”

“Mr. Windsor! De gent what caught my cat?”

“The same⁠—and partly in order that I might make two very eminent cat-fanciers acquainted. This,” he said, with a wave of his hand in the direction of the silently protesting Mike, “is Comrade Jackson, possibly the best known of our English cat-fanciers.