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Page 18
'My dear chap,' said Mike, 'it's all rot. I can't sponge on you.'
'You pain me, Comrade Jackson. I was not suggesting such a thing. We
are business men, hard-headed young bankers. I make you a business
proposition. I offer you the post of confidential secretary and adviser
to me in exchange for a comfortable home. The duties will be light. You
will be required to refuse invitations to dinner from crowned heads,
and to listen attentively to my views on Life. Apart from this, there
is little to do. So that's settled.'
'It isn't,' said Mike. 'I--'
'You will enter upon your duties tonight. Where are you suspended at
present?'
'Dulwich. But, look here--'
'A little more, and you'll get the sack. I tell you the thing is
settled. Now, let us hail yon taximeter cab, and desire the stern-faced
aristocrat on the box to drive us to Dulwich. We will then collect a
few of your things in a bag, have the rest off by train, come back in
the taxi, and go and bite a chop at the Carlton. This is a momentous
day in our careers, Comrade Jackson. We must buoy ourselves up.'
Mike made no further objections. The thought of that bed-sitting room
in Acacia Road and the pantomime dame rose up and killed them. After
all, Psmith was not like any ordinary person. There would be no
question of charity. Psmith had invited him to the flat in exactly the
same spirit as he had invited him to his house for the cricket week.
'You know,' said Psmith, after a silence, as they flitted through the
streets in the taximeter, 'one lives and learns. Were you so wrapped up
in your work this afternoon that you did not hear my very entertaining
little chat with Comrade Bickersdyke, or did it happen to come under
your notice? It did? Then I wonder if you were struck by the singular
conduct of Comrade Rossiter?'
'I thought it rather decent of him not to give you away to that
blighter Bickersdyke.'
'Admirably put. It was precisely that that struck me. He had his
opening, all ready made for him, but he refrained from depositing me in
the soup. I tell you, Comrade Jackson, my rugged old heart was touched.
I said to myself, "There must be good in Comrade Rossiter, after all. I
must cultivate him." I shall make it my business to be kind to our
Departmental head. He deserves the utmost consideration. His action
shone like a good deed in a wicked world. Which it was, of course. From
today onwards I take Comrade Rossiter under my wing. We seem to be
getting into a tolerably benighted quarter. Are we anywhere near?
"Through Darkest Dulwich in a Taximeter."'
The cab arrived at Dulwich station, and Mike stood up to direct the
driver. They whirred down Acacia Road. Mike stopped the cab and got
out. A brief and somewhat embarrassing interview with the pantomime
dame, during which Mike was separated from a week's rent in lieu of
notice, and he was in the cab again, bound for Clement's Inn.
His feelings that night differed considerably from the frame of mind in
which he had gone to bed the night before. It was partly a very
excellent dinner and partly the fact that Psmith's flat, though at
present in some disorder, was obviously going to be extremely
comfortable, that worked the change. But principally it was due to his
having found an ally. The gnawing loneliness had gone. He did not look
forward to a career of Commerce with any greater pleasure than before;
but there was no doubt that with Psmith, it would be easier to get
through the time after office hours. If all went well in the bank he
might find that he had not drawn such a bad ticket after all.
8. The Friendly Native
'The first principle of warfare,' said Psmith at breakfast next
morning, doling out bacon and eggs with the air of a medieval monarch
distributing largesse, 'is to collect a gang, to rope in allies, to
secure the cooperation of some friendly native. You may remember that
at Sedleigh it was partly the sympathetic cooperation of that record
blitherer, Comrade Jellicoe, which enabled us to nip the pro-Spiller
movement in the bud. It is the same in the present crisis. What Comrade
Jellicoe was to us at Sedleigh, Comrade Rossiter must be in the City.
We must make an ally of that man. Once I know that he and I are as
brothers, and that he will look with a lenient and benevolent eye on
any little shortcomings in my work, I shall be able to devote my
attention whole-heartedly to the moral reformation of Comrade
Bickersdyke, that man of blood. I look on Comrade Bickersdyke as a
bargee of the most pronounced type; and anything I can do towards
making him a decent member of Society shall be done freely and
ungrudgingly. A trifle more tea, Comrade Jackson?'
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