|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 54
'I couldn't wait to hear. I was too jolly glad to get away. Old Bick
looked at me as if he could eat me, snatched the letter out of my hand,
signed it, and waved his hand at the door as a hint to hop it. Which I
jolly well did. He had started jawing Jackson again before I was out of
the room.'
'While applauding his hustle,' said Psmith, 'I fear that I must take
official notice of this. Comrade Jackson is essentially a Sensitive
Plant, highly strung, neurotic. I cannot have his nervous system jolted
and disorganized in this manner, and his value as a confidential
secretary and adviser impaired, even though it be only temporarily. I
must look into this. I will go and see if the orgy is concluded. I will
hear what Comrade Jackson has to say on the matter. I shall not act
rashly, Comrade Bristow. If the man Bickersdyke is proved to have had
good grounds for his outbreak, he shall escape uncensured. I may even
look in on him and throw him a word of praise. But if I find, as I
suspect, that he has wronged Comrade Jackson, I shall be forced to
speak sharply to him.'
* * * * *
Mike had left the scene of battle by the time Psmith reached the Cash
Department, and was sitting at his desk in a somewhat dazed condition,
trying to clear his mind sufficiently to enable him to see exactly how
matters stood as concerned himself. He felt confused and rattled. He
had known, when he went to the manager's room to make his statement,
that there would be trouble. But, then, trouble is such an elastic
word. It embraces a hundred degrees of meaning. Mike had expected
sentence of dismissal, and he had got it. So far he had nothing to
complain of. But he had not expected it to come to him riding high on
the crest of a great, frothing wave of verbal denunciation. Mr
Bickersdyke, through constantly speaking in public, had developed the
habit of fluent denunciation to a remarkable extent. He had thundered
at Mike as if Mike had been his Majesty's Government or the Encroaching
Alien, or something of that sort. And that kind of thing is a little
overwhelming at short range. Mike's head was still spinning.
It continued to spin; but he never lost sight of the fact round which
it revolved, namely, that he had been dismissed from the service of the
bank. And for the first time he began to wonder what they would say
about this at home.
Up till now the matter had seemed entirely a personal one. He had
charged in to rescue the harassed cashier in precisely the same way as
that in which he had dashed in to save him from Bill, the Stone-Flinging
Scourge of Clapham Common. Mike's was one of those direct, honest minds
which are apt to concentrate themselves on the crisis of the moment,
and to leave the consequences out of the question entirely.
What would they say at home? That was the point.
Again, what could he do by way of earning a living? He did not know
much about the City and its ways, but he knew enough to understand that
summary dismissal from a bank is not the best recommendation one can
put forward in applying for another job. And if he did not get another
job in the City, what could he do? If it were only summer, he might get
taken on somewhere as a cricket professional. Cricket was his line. He
could earn his pay at that. But it was very far from being summer.
He had turned the problem over in his mind till his head ached, and had
eaten in the process one-third of a wooden penholder, when Psmith
arrived.
'It has reached me,' said Psmith, 'that you and Comrade Bickersdyke
have been seen doing the Hackenschmidt-Gotch act on the floor. When my
informant left, he tells me, Comrade B. had got a half-Nelson on you,
and was biting pieces out of your ear. Is this so?'
Mike got up. Psmith was the man, he felt, to advise him in this crisis.
Psmith's was the mind to grapple with his Hard Case.
'Look here, Smith,' he said, 'I want to speak to you. I'm in a bit of a
hole, and perhaps you can tell me what to do. Let's go out and have a
cup of coffee, shall we? I can't tell you about it here.'
'An admirable suggestion,' said Psmith. 'Things in the Postage
Department are tolerably quiescent at present. Naturally I shall be
missed, if I go out. But my absence will not spell irretrievable ruin,
as it would at a period of greater commercial activity. Comrades
Rossiter and Bristow have studied my methods. They know how I like
things to be done. They are fully competent to conduct the business of
the department in my absence. Let us, as you say, scud forth. We will
go to a Mecca. Why so-called I do not know, nor, indeed, do I ever hope
to know. There we may obtain, at a price, a passable cup of coffee, and
you shall tell me your painful story.'
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|