‘Sorry,’ said Mike. ‘Hullo, Smith.’
‘Hullo indeed,’ said Psmith, courteously. ‘I rejoice, Comrade Jackson, to find you going about your commercial duties like a young bomb. How is it, people repeatedly ask me, that Comrade Jackson contrives to catch his employer’s eye and win the friendly smile from the head of his department? My reply is that where others walk, Comrade Jackson runs. Where others stroll, Comrade Jackson legs it like a highly-trained mustang of the prairie. He does not loiter. He gets back to his department bathed in perspiration, in level time. He—’
‘I say, Smith,’ said Mike, ‘you might do me a favour.’
‘A thousand. Say on.’
‘Just look in at the Fixed Deposits and tell old Gregory that I shan’t be with him today, will you? I haven’t time myself. I must rush!’
Psmith screwed his eyeglass into his eye, and examined Mike carefully.
‘What exactly—?’ be began.
‘Tell the old ass I’ve popped off.’
‘Just so, just so,’ murmured Psmith, as one who assents to a thoroughly reasonable proposition. ‘Tell him you have popped off. It shall be done. But it is within the bounds of possibility that Comrade Gregory may inquire further. Could you give me some inkling as to why you are popping?’
‘My brother Joe has just rung me up from Lords. The county are playing Middlesex and they’re one short. He wants me to roll up.’
Psmith shook his head sadly.
‘I don’t wish to interfere in any way,’ he said, ‘but I suppose you realize that, by acting thus, you are to some extent knocking the stuffing out of your chances of becoming manager of this bank? If you dash off now, I shouldn’t count too much on that marrying the Governor’s daughter scheme I sketched out for you last night. I doubt whether this is going to help you to hold the gorgeous East in fee, and all that sort of thing.’
‘Oh, dash the gorgeous East.’
‘By all means,’ said Psmith obligingly. ‘I just thought I’d mention it. I’ll look in at Lord’s this afternoon. I shall send my card up to you, and trust to your sympathetic cooperation to enable me to effect an entry into the pavilion on my face. My father is coming up to London today. I’ll bring him along, too.’
‘Right ho. Dash it, it’s twenty to. So long. See you at Lord’s.’
Psmith looked after his retreating form till it had vanished through the swing-door, and shrugged his shoulders resignedly, as if disclaiming all responsibility.
‘He has gone without his hat,’ he murmured. ‘It seems to me that this is practically a case of running amok. And now to break the news to bereaved Comrade Gregory.’
He abandoned his intention of ringing up the Haymarket Theatre, and turning away from the call-box, walked meditatively down the aisle till he came to the Fixed Deposits Department, where the top of Mr Gregory’s head was to be seen over the glass barrier, as he applied himself to his work.
Psmith, resting his elbows on the top of the barrier and holding his head between his hands, eyed the absorbed toiler for a moment in silence, then emitted a hollow groan.
Mr Gregory, who was ruling a line in a ledger—most of the work in the Fixed Deposits Department consisted of ruling lines in ledgers, sometimes in black ink, sometimes in red—started as if he had been stung, and made a complete mess of the ruled line. He lifted a fiery, bearded face, and met Psmith’s eye, which shone with kindly sympathy.
He found words.
‘What the dickens are you standing there for, mooing like a blanked cow?’ he inquired.
‘I was groaning,’ explained Psmith with quiet dignity. ‘And why was I groaning?’ he continued. ‘Because a shadow has fallen on the Fixed Deposits Department. Comrade Jackson, the Pride of the Office, has gone.’
Mr Gregory rose from his seat.
‘I don’t know who the dickens you are—’ he began.
‘I am Psmith,’ said the old Etonian,
‘Oh, you’re Smith, are you?’
‘With a preliminary P. Which, however, is not sounded.’
‘And what’s all this dashed nonsense about Jackson?’
‘He is gone. Gone like the dew from the petal of a rose.’
‘Gone! Where’s he gone to?’
‘Lord’s.’
‘What lord’s?’
Psmith waved his hand gently.
‘You misunderstand me. Comrade Jackson has not gone to mix with any member of our gay and thoughtless aristocracy. He has gone to Lord’s cricket ground.’
Mr Gregory’s beard bristled even more than was its wont.
‘What!’ he roared. ‘Gone to watch a cricket match! Gone—!’
‘Not to watch. To play. An urgent summons I need not say. Nothing but an urgent summons could have wrenched him from your very delightful society, I am sure.’
