P G Wodehouse – Man Upstairs

“Do you remember the old school, Eddy, and how you and I used to walk there together, you carrying my dinner-basket and helping me over the fences?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And we’d gather hickory-nuts and persimmons?”

“Persimmons, yes,” murmured Eddy.

“Do you remember the prizes the teacher gave the one who got best marks in the spelling class? And the treats at Christmas, when we all got twelve sticks of striped peppermint candy? And drawing the water out of the well in that old wooden bucket in the winter, and pouring it out in the playground and skating on it when it froze? And wasn’t it cold in the winter, too! Do you remember the stove in the schoolroom? How we used to crowd round it!”

“The stove, yes,” said Eddy, dreamily. “Ah, yes, the stove. Yes, yes. Those were dear old days!”

Mary leaned her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands, and looked across at him with sparkling eyes.

“Oh, Eddy,” she said, “you don’t know how nice it is to meet someone who remembers all about those old times! I felt a hundred million miles from Dunsterville before I saw you, and I was homesick. But now it’s all different.”

“Poor little Mary!”

“Do you remember-?”

He glanced at his watch with some haste.

“It’s two o’clock,” he said. “I think we should be going.”

Mary’s face fell.

“Back to that pig, Joe! I hate him. And I’ll show him that I do!”

Eddy looked almost alarmed.

“I-I shouldn’t do that,” he said. “I don’t think I should do that. It’s only his manner at first. You’ll get to like him better. He’s an awfully good fellow really, Joe. And if you-er-quarrelled with him you might find it hard-what I mean is, it’s not so easy to pick up jobs in New York. I shouldn’t like to think of you, Mary,” he added, tenderly, “hunting for a job-tired-perhaps hungry-”

Mary’s eyes filled with tears.

“How good you are, Eddy!” she said. “And I’m horrid, grumbling when I ought to be thanking you for getting me the place. I’ll be nice to him-if I can-as nice as I can.”

“That’s right. Do try. And we shall be seeing quite a lot of each other. We must often lunch together.”

Mary re-entered the office not without some trepidation. Two hours ago it would have seemed absurd to be frightened of Joe, but Eddy had brought it home to her again how completely she was dependent on her former serf’s goodwill. And he had told her to be back at two sharp, and it was now nearly a quarter past.

The outer office was empty. She went on into the inner room.

She had speculated as she went on Joe’s probable attitude. She had pictured him as annoyed, even rude. What she was not prepared for was to find him on all fours, grunting and rooting about in a pile of papers. She stopped short.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

“I can’t think what you meant,” he said. “There must be some mistake. I’m not even a passable pig. I couldn’t deceive a novice.”

He rose, and dusted his knees.

“Yet you seemed absolutely certain in the restaurant just now. Did you notice that you were sitting near to a sort of jungle of potted palms? I was lunching immediately on the other side of the forest.”

Mary drew herself up and fixed him with an eye that shone with rage and scorn

“Eavesdropper!” she cried.

“Not guilty,” he said, cheerfully. “I hadn’t a notion that you were there till you shouted, ‘That pig Joe, I hate him!’ and almost directly afterwards I left.”

“I did not shout.”

“My dear girl, you cracked a wine-glass at my table. The man I was lunching with jumped clean out of his seat and swallowed his cigar. You ought to be more careful!”

Mary bit her lip.

“And now, I suppose, you are going to dismiss me?”

“Dismiss you? Not much. The thing has simply confirmed my high opinion of your qualifications. The ideal secretary must have two qualities: she must be able to sec. and she must think her employer a pig. You fill the bill. Would you mind taking down this letter?”