P G Wodehouse – Piccadilly Jim

“Very good, Mr. James.”

“I think I will go and sit in my father’s den. A man may lie hid there with some success as a rule.”

Jimmy heaved himself painfully off the sofa, blinked, and set out for the den, where his father, in a deep arm-chair, was smoking a restful pipe and reading the portions of the daily papers which did not deal with the game of cricket.

Mr. Crocker’s den was a small room at the back of the house. It was not luxurious, and it looked out onto a blank wall, but it was the spot he liked best in all that vast pile which had once echoed to the tread of titled shoes; for, as he sometimes observed to his son, it had the distinction of being the only room on the ground floor where a fellow could move without stubbing his toe on a countess or an honourable. In this peaceful backwater he could smoke a pipe, put his feet up, take off his coat, and generally indulge in that liberty and pursuit of happiness to which the Constitution entitles a free-born American. Nobody ever came there except Jimmy and himself.

He did not suspend his reading at his son’s entrance. He muttered a welcome through the clouds, but he did not raise his eyes. Jimmy took the other arm-chair, and began to smoke silently. It was the unwritten law of the den that soothing silence rather than aimless chatter should prevail. It was not until a quarter of an hour had passed that Mr. Crocker dropped his paper and spoke.

“Say, Jimmy, I want to talk to you.”

“Say on. You have our ear.”

“Seriously.”

“Continue–always, however, keeping before you the fact that I am a sick man. Last night was a wild night on the moors, dad.”

“It’s about your stepmother. She was talking at breakfast about you. She’s sore at you for giving Spike Dillon lunch at the Carlton. You oughtn’t to have taken him there, Jimmy. That’s what got her goat. She was there with a bunch of swells and they had to sit and listen to Spike talking about his half-scissors hook.”

“What’s their kick against Spike’s half-scissors hook? It’s a darned good one.”

“She said she was going to speak to you about it. I thought I’d let you know.”

“Thanks, dad. But was that all?”

“All.”

“All that she was going to speak to me about? Sure there was nothing else?”

“She didn’t say anything about anything else.”

“Then she -doesn’t- know! Fine!”

Mr. Crocker’s feet came down from the mantelpiece with a crash.

“Jimmy! You haven’t been raising Cain again?”

“No, no, dad. Nothing serious. High-spirited Young Patrician stuff, the sort of thing that’s expected of a fellow in my position.”

Mr. Crocker was not to be comforted.

“Jimmy, you’ve got to pull up. Honest, you have. I don’t care for myself. I like to see a boy having a good time. But your stepmother says you’re apt to queer us with the people up top, the way you’re going on. Lord knows I wouldn’t care if things were different, but I’ll tell you exactly how I stand. I didn’t get wise till this morning. Your stepmother sprang it on me suddenly. I’ve often wondered what all this stuff was about, this living in London and trailing the swells. I couldn’t think what was your stepmother’s idea. Now I know. Jimmy, she’s trying to get them to make me a peer!”

“What!”

“Just that. And she says–”

“But, dad, this is rich! This is comedy of a high order! A peer! Good Heavens, if it comes off, what shall I be? This title business is all so complicated. I know I should have to change my name to Hon. Rollo Cholmondeley or the Hon. Aubrey Marjoribanks, but what I want to know is which? I want to be prepared for the worst.”

“And you see, Jimmy, these people up top, the guys who arrange the giving of titles, are keeping an eye on you, because you would have the title after me and naturally they don’t want to get stung. I gathered all that from your stepmother. Say, Jimmy, I’m not asking a lot of you, but there is just one thing you can do for me without putting yourself out too much.”