P G Wodehouse – Man Upstairs

“Next day Jerry Moore’s looking as if he’d only sixpence in the world and had swallowed it. ‘What’s the matter, Jerry?’ says Gentleman. Jerry heaves a sigh. ‘Bailey,’ he says, ‘and you, Mr. Roach, I expect you both seen how it is with me. I love Miss Jane Tuxton, and you seen for yourselves what transpires. She don’t value me, not tuppence.’ ‘Say not so,’ says Gentleman, sympathetic. ‘You’re doing fine. If you knew the sect as I do you wouldn’t go by mere superficial silences and chin-tiltings. I can read a girl’s heart, Jerry,’ he says, patting him on the shoulder, ‘and I tell you you’re doing fine. All you want now is a little rapid work, and you win easy. To make the thing a cert.,’ he says, getting up, ‘all you have to do is to make a dead set at her folks.’ He winks at me. ‘Don’t just sit there like you did last night. Show ’em you’ve got something in you. You know what folks are: they think themselves the most important things on the map. Well, go to work. Consult them all you know. Every opportunity you get. There’s nothing like consulting a girl’s folks to put you in good with her.’ And he pats Jerry on the shoulder again and goes indoors to find his pipe.

“Jerry turns to me. ‘Do you think that’s really so?’ he says. I says, ‘I do.’ ‘He knows all about girls, I reckon,’ says Jerry. ‘You can go by him every time,’ I says. ‘Well, well,’ says Jerry, sort of thoughtful.”

The waiter paused. His eye was sad and dreamy. Then he took up the burden of his tale.

“First thing that happens is that Gentleman has a sore tooth on the next Sunday, so don’t feel like coming along with us. He sits at home, dosing it with whisky, and Jerry and me goes off alone.

“So Jerry and me pikes off, and once more we prepares to settle down around the board. I hadn’t noticed Jerry particular, but just now I catches sight of his face in the light of the lamp. Ever see one of those fighters when he’s sitting in his corner before a fight, waiting for the gong to go? Well, Jerry looks like that; and it surprises me.

“I told you about the fat yellow dog that permeated the Tuxton’s house, didn’t I? The family thought a lot of that dog, though of all the ugly brutes I ever met he was the worst. Sniffing round and growling all the time. Well, this evening he comes up to Jerry just as he’s going to sit down, and starts to growl. Old Pa Tuxton looks over his glasses and licks his tongue. ‘Rover! Rover!’ he says, kind of mild. ‘Naughty Rover; he don’t like strangers, I’m afraid.’ Jerry looks at Pa Tuxton, and he looks at the dog, and I’m just expecting him to say ‘No,’ or ‘Yes,’ same as the other night, when he lets out a nasty laugh-one of them bitter laughs. ‘Ho!’ he says. ‘Ho! don’t he? Then perhaps he’d better get further away from them.’ And he ups with his boot and-well, the dog hit the far wall.

“Jerry sits down and pulls up his chair. ‘I don’t approve,’ he says, fierce, ‘of folks keeping great, fat, ugly, bad-tempered yellow dogs that are a nuisance to all. I don’t like it.’

“There was a silence you could have scooped out with a spoon. Have you ever had a rabbit turn round on you and growl? That’s how we all felt when Jerry outs with them crisp words. They took our breath away.

“While we were getting it back again the parrot, which was in its cage, let out a squawk. Honest, I jumped a foot in my chair.

“Jerry gets up very deliberate, and walks over to the parrot.

” ‘Is this a menagerie?’ he says. ‘Can’t a man have supper in peace without an image like you starting to holler?’ Go to sleep.’

“We was all staring at him surprised, especially Uncle Dick Tuxton, whose particular pet the parrot was. He’d brought him home all the way from some foreign parts.