P G Wodehouse – Man Upstairs

“He was quite right.”

“What!”

“I was.”

Mr. Mifflin sat down on the bed.

“This fellow fell off the pier, and a girl brought him in.”

George nodded.

“And that was you?”

George nodded.

Mr. Mifflin’s eyes opened wide.

“It’s the heat,” he declared, finally. “That and the worry of rehearsals. I expect a doctor could give you the technical name for it. It’s a what-do-you-call-it-an obsession. You often hear of cases. Fellows who are absolutely sane really, but cracked on one particular subject. Some of them think they’re teapots and things. You’ve got a craving for being rescued from drowning. What happens, old man? Do you suddenly get the delusion that you can’t swim? No, it can’t be that, because you were doing all the swimming for the two of us just now. I don’t know, though. Maybe you didn’t realise that you were swimming?”

George finished lacing his shoe and looked up.

“Listen,” he said; “I’ll talk slow, so that you can understand. Suppose you fell off a pier, and a girl took a great deal of trouble to get you to the shore, would you say, ‘Much obliged, but you needn’t have been so officious. I can swim perfectly well?”

Mr. Mifflin considered this point. Intelligence began to dawn in his face. “There is more in this than meets the eye,” he said. “Tell me all.”

“This morning”-George’s voice grew dreamy-“she gave me a swimming-lesson. She thought it was my first. Don’t cackle like that. There’s nothing to laugh at.”

Mr. Mifflin contradicted this assertion.

“There is you,” he said, simply. “This should be a lesson to you, George. Avoid deceit. In future be simple and straightforward. Take me as your model. You have managed to scrape through this time. Don’t risk it again. You are young. There is still time to make a fresh start. It only needs will-power. Meanwhile, lend me something to wear. They are going to take a week drying my clothes.”

There was a rehearsal at the Beach Theatre that evening. George attended it in a spirit of resignation and left it in one of elation. Three days had passed since his last sight of the company at work, and in those three days, apparently, the impossible had been achieved. There was a snap and go about the piece now. The leading lady had at length mastered that cue, and gave it out with bell-like clearness. Arthur Mifflin, as if refreshed and braced by his salt-water bath, was infusing a welcome vigour into his part. And even the comedian George could not help admitting, showed signs of being on the eve of becoming funny. It was with a light heart and a light step that he made his way back to the hotel.

In the veranda were a number of basket-chairs. Only one was occupied. He recognised the occupant.

“I’ve just come back from a rehearsal,” he said, seating himself beside her.

“Really?”

“The whole thing is different,” he went on, buoyantly. “They know their lines. They act as if they meant it. Arthur Mifflin’s fine. The comedian’s improved till you wouldn’t know him. I’m awfully pleased about it.”

“Really?”

George felt damped.

“I thought you might be pleased, too,” he said, lamely.

“Of course I am glad that things are going well. Your accident this afternoon was lucky, too, in a way, was it not? It will interest people in the play.”

“You heard about it?”

“I have been hearing about nothing else.”

“Curious it happening so soon after-”

“And so soon before the production of your play. Most curious.”

There was a silence. George began to feel uneasy. You could never tell with women, of course. It might be nothing; but it looked uncommonly as if-

He changed the subject.

“How is your aunt this evening, Miss Vaughan?”

“Quite well, thank you. She went in. She found it a little chilly.”

George heartily commended her good sense. A little chilly did not begin to express it. If the girl had been like this all the evening, he wondered her aunt had not caught pneumonia. He tried again.

“Will you have time to give me another lesson to-morrow?” he said.

She turned on him.