“I’m going to bed,” said Mike, rising.
Psmith watched him lounge from the room, and shook his head sadly. All was not well with his confidential secretary and adviser.
The next day, which was a Thursday, found Mike no more reconciled to the prospect of spending from ten till five in the company of Mr. Gregory and the ledgers. He was silent at breakfast, and Psmith, seeing that things were still wrong, abstained from conversation. Mike propped the Sportsman up against the hot-water jug, and read the cricket news. His county, captained by brother Joe, had, as he had learned already from yesterday’s evening paper, beaten Sussex by five wickets at Brighton. Today they were due to play Middlesex at Lord’s. Mike thought that he would try to get off early, and go and see some of the first day’s play.
As events turned out, he got off a good deal earlier, and saw a good deal more of the first day’s play than he had anticipated.
He had just finished the preliminary stages of the morning’s work, which consisted mostly of washing his hands, changing his coat, and eating a section of a pen-holder, when William, the messenger, approached.
“You’re wanted on the phone, Mr. Jackson.”
The New Asiatic Bank, unlike the majority of London banks, was on the telephone, a fact which Psmith found a great convenience when securing seats at the theatre. Mike went to the box and took up the receiver.
“Hullo!” he said.
“Who’s that?” said an agitated voice. “Is that you, Mike? I’m Joe.”
“Hullo, Joe,” said Mike. “What’s up? I’m coming to see you this evening. I’m going to try and get off early.”
“Look here, Mike, are you busy at the bank just now?”
“Not at the moment. There’s never anything much going on before eleven.”
“I mean, are you busy today? Could you possibly manage to get off and play for us against Middlesex?”
Mike nearly dropped the receiver.
“What?” he cried.
“There’s been the dickens of a mix-up. We’re one short, and you’re our only hope. We can’t possibly get another man in the time. We start in half an hour. Can you play?”
For the space of, perhaps, one minute, Mike thought.
“Well?” said Joe’s voice.
The sudden vision of Lord’s ground, all green and cool in the morning sunlight, was too much for Mike’s resolution, sapped as it was by days of restlessness. The feeling surged over him that whatever happened afterwards, the joy of the match in perfect weather on a perfect wicket would make it worth while. What did it matter what happened afterwards?
“All right, Joe,” he said. “I’ll hop into a cab now, and go and get my things.”
“Good man,” said Joe, hugely relieved.
XXVI
Breaking the News
Dashing away from the call box, Mike nearly cannoned into Psmith, who was making his way pensively to the telephone with the object of ringing up the box office of the Haymarket Theatre.
“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—?” he 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
