Two minutes later, Mr. Rossiter was sitting at his desk with a dazed expression, while Psmith, perched gracefully on a stool, entered figures in a ledger.
VI
Psmith Explains
For the space of about twenty-five minutes Psmith sat in silence, concentrated on his ledger, the picture of the model bank-clerk. Then he flung down his pen, slid from his stool with a satisfied sigh, and dusted his waistcoat. “A commercial crisis,” he said, “has passed. The job of work which Comrade Rossiter indicated for me has been completed with masterly skill. The period of anxiety is over. The bank ceases to totter. Are you busy, Comrade Jackson, or shall we chat awhile?”
Mike was not busy. He had worked off the last batch of letters, and there was nothing to do but to wait for the next, or—happy thought—to take the present batch down to the post, and so get out into the sunshine and fresh air for a short time. “I rather think I’ll nip down to the post office,” said he, “You couldn’t come too, I suppose?”
“On the contrary,” said Psmith, “I could, and will. A stroll will just restore those tissues which the gruelling work of the last half-hour has wasted away. It is a fearful strain, this commercial toil. Let us trickle towards the post office. I will leave my hat and gloves as a guarantee of good faith. The cry will go round, ‘Psmith has gone! Some rival institution has kidnapped him!’ Then they will see my hat,”—he built up a foundation of ledgers, planted a long ruler in the middle, and hung his hat on it—“my gloves,”—he stuck two pens into the desk and hung a lavender glove on each—“and they will sink back swooning with relief. The awful suspense will be over. They will say, ‘No, he has not gone permanently. Psmith will return. When the fields are white with daisies he’ll return.’ And now, Comrade Jackson, lead me to this picturesque little post office of yours of which I have heard so much.”
Mike picked up the long basket into which he had thrown the letters after entering the addresses in his ledger, and they moved off down the aisle. No movement came from Mr. Rossiter’s lair. Its energetic occupant was hard at work. They could just see part of his hunched-up back.
“I wish Comrade Downing could see us now,” said Psmith. “He always set us down as mere idlers. Triflers. Butterflies. It would be a wholesome corrective for him to watch us perspiring like this in the cause of Commerce.”
“You haven’t told me yet what on earth you’re doing here,” said Mike. “I thought you were going to the ’Varsity. Why the dickens are you in a bank? Your pater hasn’t lost his money, has he?”
“No. There is still a tolerable supply of doubloons in the old oak chest. Mine is a painful story.”
“It always is,” said Mike.
“You are very right, Comrade Jackson. I am the victim of Fate. Ah, so you put the little chaps in there, do you?” he said, as Mike, reaching the post office, began to bundle the letters into the box. “You seem to have grasped your duties with admirable promptitude. It is the same with me. I fancy we are both born men of Commerce. In a few years we shall be pinching Comrade Bickersdyke’s job. And talking of Comrade B. brings me back to my painful story. But I shall never have time to tell it to you during our walk back. Let us drift aside into this teashop. We can order a buckwheat cake or a butternut, or something equally succulent, and carefully refraining from consuming these dainties, I will tell you all.”
“Right O!” said Mike.
“When last I saw you,” resumed Psmith, hanging Mike’s basket on the hatstand and ordering two portions of porridge, “you may remember that a serious crisis in my affairs had arrived. My father inflamed with the idea of Commerce had invited Comrade Bickersdyke—”
“When did you know he was a manager here?” asked Mike.
“At an early date. I have my spies everywhere. However, my pater invited Comrade Bickersdyke to our house for the weekend. Things turned out rather unfortunately. Comrade B. resented my purely altruistic efforts to improve him mentally and morally. Indeed, on one occasion he went so far as to call me an impudent young cub, and to add that he wished he had me under him in his bank, where, he asserted, he would knock some of the nonsense out of me. All very painful. I tell you, Comrade Jackson, for the moment it reduced my delicately vibrating ganglions to a mere frazzle. Recovering myself, I made a few blithe remarks, and we then parted. I cannot say that we parted friends, but at any rate I bore him no ill-will. I was still determined to make him a credit to me. My feelings towards him were those of some kindly father to his prodigal son. But he, if I may say so, was fairly on the hop. And when my pater, after dinner the same night, played into his hands by mentioning that he thought I ought to plunge into a career of commerce, Comrade B. was, I gather, all over him. Offered to make a vacancy for me in the bank, and to take me on at once. My pater, feeling that this was the real hustle which he admired so much, had me in, stated his case, and said, in effect, ‘How do we go?’ I intimated that Comrade Bickersdyke
