A Gentleman of Leisure
By P. G. Wodehouse.
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To
Douglas Fairbanks,
who
many years ago
played
“Jimmy”
in the dramatized version
of this novel
A Gentleman of Leisure
I
Jimmy Makes a Bet
The main smoking room of the Strollers’ Club had been filling for the last half-hour, and was now nearly full. In many ways the Strollers’, though not the most magnificent, is the pleasantest club in New York. Its ideals are those of the Savage Club—comfort without pomp—and it is given over after eleven o’clock at night mainly to the Stage. Everybody is young, clean-shaven, and full of conversation—and the conversation strikes a purely professional note.
Everybody in the room on this July night had come from the theatre. Most of those present had been acting, but a certain number had been to the opening performance of the latest better-than-“Raffles” play. There had been something of a boom that season in dramas whose heroes appealed to the public more pleasantly across the footlights than they might have done in real life. In the play which had opened tonight Arthur Mifflin, an exemplary young man off the stage, had been warmly applauded for a series of actions which, performed anywhere except in the theatre, would certainly have debarred him from remaining a member of the Strollers’ or any other club. In faultless evening dress, with a debonair smile on his face, he had broken open a safe, stolen bonds and jewellery to a large amount, and escaped without a blush of shame via the window. He had foiled a detective through four acts and held up a band of pursuers with a revolver. A large audience had intimated complete approval throughout.
“It’s a hit all right,” said somebody through the smoke.
“These imitation ‘Raffles’ plays always are,” grumbled Willett, who played bluff fathers in musical comedy. “A few years ago they would have been scared to death of putting on a show with a criminal hero. Now, it seems to me, the public doesn’t want anything else. Not that they know what they do want,” he concluded mournfully.
The Belle of Boulogne, in which Willett sustained the role of Cyrus K. Higgs, a Chicago millionaire, was slowly fading away on a diet of free passes, and this possibly prejudiced him.
Raikes, the character-actor, changed the subject. If Willett once got started on the wrongs of the ill-fated Belle, general conversation would become impossible. Willett, denouncing the stupidity of the public, was purely a monologue artiste.
“I saw Jimmy Pitt at the show,” said Raikes. Everybody displayed interest.
“Jimmy Pitt? When did he come back? I thought he was in England?”
“He came on the Mauretania, I suppose. She docked this morning.”
“Jimmy Pitt?” said Sutton, of the Majestic Theatre. “How long has he been away? Last I saw of him was at the opening of The Outsider, at the Astor. That’s a couple of months ago.”
“He’s been travelling in Europe, I believe,” said Raikes. “Lucky beggar to be able to. I wish I could.”
Sutton knocked the ash off his cigar.
“I envy Jimmy,” he said. “I don’t know anyone I’d rather be. He’s got much more money than any man, except a professional plute, has any right to. He’s as strong as an ox. I shouldn’t say he’d ever had anything worse than measles in his life. He’s got no relations. And he isn’t married.”
Sutton, who had been married three times, spoke with some feeling.
“He’s a good chap, Jimmy,” said Raikes. “Which considering he’s an Englishman—”
“Thanks,” said Mifflin.
“How’s that? Oh, beg pardon, Arthur; I keep forgetting that you’re one, too.”
“I’ll tattoo a Union Jack on my forehead tomorrow.”
“It’ll improve you,” said Raikes. “But about Jimmy. He’s a good chap, which—considering he’s an Englishman—is only what you might have expected. Is that better, Arthur?”
“Much,” said Mifflin. “Yes, Jimmy is a good chap—one of the best. I’ve known him for years. I was at school
