P G Wodehouse – Man Upstairs

Owen stopped and looked round. A cab was standing across the road. He signalled to it. He felt incapable of walking home. No physical blow could have unmanned him more completely than this hideous disappointment just when, by a miracle, everything seemed to be running his way.

“Sooner ride than walk,” said Mr. Prosser, pushing his head through the open window. “Laziness-slackness-that’s the curse of the modern young man. Where shall I tell him to drive to?”

Owen mentioned his address. It struck him that he had not thanked his host for his hospitality.

“It was awfully good of you to give me supper, Mr. Prosser,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed it tremendously.”

“Come again,” said Mr. Prosser. “I’m afraid you’re disappointed about the play?”

Owen forced a smile.

“Oh, no, that’s all right,” he said. “It can’t be helped.”

Mr. Prosser half turned, then thrust his head through the window again.

“I knew there was something I had forgotten to say,” he said. “I ought to have told you that the play was produced in America before it came to London. It ran two seasons in New York and one in Chicago, and there are three companies playing it still on the road. Here’s my card. Come round and see me to- morrow. I can’t tell you the actual figures off-hand, but you’ll be all right. You’ll have pots o’ money.”

Out of School

Mark you, I am not defending James Datchett. I hold no brief for James. On the contrary, I am very decidedly of the opinion that he should not have done it. I merely say that there were extenuating circumstances. Just that. Ext. circ. Nothing more.

Let us review the matter calmly and judicially, not condemning James off-hand, but rather probing the whole affair to its core, to see if we can confirm my view that it is possible to find excuses for him.

We will begin at the time when the subject of the Colonies first showed a tendency to creep menacingly into the daily chit-chat of his Uncle Frederick.

James’s Uncle Frederick was always talking more or less about the Colonies, having made a substantial fortune out in Western Australia, but it was only when James came down from Oxford that the thing became really menacing. Up to that time the uncle had merely spoken of the Colonies as Colonies. Now he began to speak of them with sinister reference to his nephew. He starred James. It became a case of “Frederick Knott presents James Datchett in ‘The Colonies,’ ” and there seemed every prospect that the production would be an early one; for if there was one section of the public which Mr. Knott disliked more than another, it was Young Men Who Ought To Be Out Earning Their Livings Instead Of Idling At Home. He expressed his views on the subject with some eloquence whenever he visited his sister’s house. Mrs. Datchett was a widow, and since her husband’s death had been in the habit of accepting every utterance of her brother Frederick as a piece of genuine all-wool wisdom; though, as a matter of fact, James’s uncle had just about enough brain to make a jay-bird fly crooked, and no more. He had made his money keeping sheep. And any fool can keep sheep. However, he had this reputation for wisdom, and what he said went. It was not long, therefore, before it was evident that the ranks of the Y.M.W.O.T.B.O.E.T.L.I.O.I.A.H. were about to lose a member.

James, for his part, was all against the Colonies. As a setting for his career, that is to say. He was no Little Englander. He had no earthly objection to Great Britain having Colonies. By all means have Colonies. They could rely on him for moral support. But when it came to legging it out to West Australia to act as a sort of valet to Uncle Frederick’s beastly sheep-no. Not for James. For him the literary life. Yes, that was James’s dream-to have a stab at the literary life. At Oxford he had contributed to the Isis, and since coming down had been endeavouring to do the same to the papers of the Metropolis. He had had no success so far. But some inward voice seemed to tell him-(Read on. Read on. This is no story about the young beginner’s struggles in London. We do not get within fifty miles of Fleet Street.)