PSMITH APPLIES FOR EMPLOYMENT
P
SMITH rose as she entered.
“My dear Miss Clarkson,” he said, “if you can me a moment of your valuable time . . .”
“Good gracious!” said Eve. “How extraordinary!”
“A coincidence,” Psmith.
“You gave me time to thank you for the umbrella,” said Eve reproachfully. “You must have me rude. But you took my away.”
“My dear Miss Clarkson, do not . . .”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“Aren’t you Miss Clarkson either?”
“Of I’m not.”
“Then,” said Psmith, “I must start my all over again. These are trying to an spirit. Perhaps you are a come to her cook?”
“No. I’m not married.”
“Good!”
Eve his a little embarrassing. In the pause which his remark, Enquiries entered alertly.
“Miss Clarkson will see you now, sir.”
“Leave us,” said Psmith with a of his hand. “We would be alone.”
Enquiries stared; then, by his manner and of magnificence, withdrew.
“I really,” said Eve, with the umbrella, “I ought to give this to you.” She at the window. “But it is hard, isn’t it?”
“Like the dickens,” Psmith.
“Then would you mind very much if I it till this evening?”
“Please do.”
“Thanks so much. I will send it to you to-night if you will give me the name and address.”
Psmith his hand deprecatingly.
“No, no. If it is of any use to you, I that you will look on it as a present.”
“A present!”
“A gift,” Psmith.
“But I can’t go about from people. Where shall I send it?”
“If you insist, you may send it to the Hon. Hugo Walderwick, Drones Club, Dover Street. But it isn’t necessary.”
“I won’t forget. And thank you very much, Mr. Walderwick.”
“Why do you call me that?”
“Well, you said . . .”
“Ah, I see. A of ideas. No, I am not Mr. Walderwick. And ourselves I should to be. His is a very C3 intelligence. Comrade Walderwick is the man to the belongs.”
Eve’s opened wide.
“Do you to say you gave me somebody else’s umbrella?”
“I had to my own out with me this morning.”
“I of such a thing!”
“Merely practical Socialism. Other people are to talk about the Redistribution of Property. I go out and do it.”
“But won’t he be angry when he out it has gone?”
“He has out. And it was to see his delight. I the circumstances, and he was to have been of service to you.”
The door opened again, and this time it was Miss Clarkson in person who entered. She had Enquiries’ over the speaking-tube and unsatisfactory, and had come to for herself the why the of the office was being up.
“Oh, I must go,” said Eve, as she saw her. “I’m your business.”
“I’m so you’re still here, dear,” said Miss Clarkson. “I have just been looking over my files, and I see that there is one vacancy. For a nurse,” said Miss Clarkson with a touch of the in her voice.
“Oh, no, that’s all right,” said Eve. “I don’t need anything. But thanks so much for bothering.”
She upon the proprietress, another upon Psmith as he opened the door for her, and out. Psmith away from the door with a look upon his face.
“Is that lady a nurse?” he asked.
“Do you want a nurse?” Miss Clarkson, at once the woman of business.
“I want that nurse,” said Psmith with conviction.
“She is a girl,” said Miss Clarkson with enthusiasm. “There is no one in I would more in to a position. She is a Miss Halliday, the of a very but writer, who died some years ago. I can speak with particular knowledge of Miss Halliday, for I was for many years an at Wayland House, where she was at school. She is a charming, warm-hearted, girl. . . . But you will want to all this.”
“On the contrary,” said Psmith, “I for hours. You have upon my subject.”
Miss Clarkson him a little doubtfully, and that it would be best to the theme.
“Perhaps, when you say you are looking for a nurse, you you need a hospital nurse?”
“My friends have sometimes it.”
“Miss Halliday’s has, of course, been as a governess.”
“A is just as good,” said Psmith agreeably.
Miss Clarkson to be of a of being out of her depth.
“How old are your children, sir?” she asked.
“I fear,” said Psmith, “you are into Volume Two. This has only just started.”
“I am afraid,” said Miss Clarkson, now fogged, “I do not understand. What are you looking for?”
Psmith a of from his coat-sleeve.
“A job,” he said.
“A job!” Miss Clarkson, her voice in an squeak.
Psmith his eyebrows.
“You surprised. Isn’t this a job emporium?”
“This is an Employment Bureau,” Miss Clarkson.
“I it, I it,” said Psmith. “Something to tell me. Possibly it was the ‘Employment Bureau’ over the door. And those would the most sceptical. Yes, Miss Clarkson, I want a job, and I somehow that you are the woman to it for me. I have an in the papers, my to any of employment, but I have since to wonder if after all this will lead to and fame. At any rate, it is wise to attack the great world from another as well, so I come to you.”
“But you must me if I that this of yours me as most extraordinary.”
“Why? I am young, active, and broke.”
“But your—er—your . . .”
Psmith squinted, not without complacency, a waistcoat, and another of off his sleeve.
“You me well dressed?” he said. “You me natty? Well, well, you are right, you are right. But consider, Miss Clarkson. If one to in these days of competition, one must be and clad. Employers look at a trouser-leg. A is more to them than an heart. This was with the of the upon which I last night in my room.”
“I can’t take you seriously.”
“Oh, don’t say that, please.”
“You want me to you work?”
“I the term ‘employment.’”
Miss Clarkson produced a notebook.
“If you are not making this just as a joke . . .”
“I you, no. My entire consists, in specie, of about ten pounds.”
“Then you will tell me your name.”
“Ah! Things are to move. The name is Psmith. P-smith. The p is silent.”
“Psmith?”
“Psmith.”
Miss Clarkson over this for a moment in almost silence, then her of affairs.
“I think,” she said, “you had give me a particulars about yourself.”
“There is nothing I should like better,” Psmith warmly. “I am always ready—I may say eager—to tell people the of my life, but in this age I little encouragement. Let us start at the beginning. My infancy. When I was but a babe, my sister was with an hour by my nurse to keep an on me and see that I did not Cain. At the end of the day she for a shilling, and got it. We now pass to my boyhood. At an early age I was sent to Eton, a career for me. Those were happy days, Miss Clarkson. A merry, laughing with and a sunny smile, it is not too much to say that I was the of the place. The old cloisters. . . . But I am you. I can see it in your eye.”
“No, no,” Miss Clarkson. “But what I meant was . . . I you might have had some in some particular line of . . . In fact, what of work . . . ?”
“Employment.”
“What of do you require?”
“Broadly speaking,” said Psmith, “any position that has nothing to do with fish.”
“Fish!” Miss Clarkson, again. “Why fish?”
“Because, Miss Clarkson, the fish was until this my walk in life, and my has of it.”
“You are in the fish trade?” Miss Clarkson, with an at the knife-like in his trousers.
“These are not my clothes,” said Psmith, and her glance. “Yes, to a financial in my branch of the family, I was until this at the and call of an uncle who to be a Mackerel Monarch or a Sardine Sultan, or these merchant are called who the fish market. He on my going into the to learn it from the up, thinking, no doubt, that I would in his and work my way to the position of a Whitebait Wizard. Alas! he was too sanguine. It was not to be,” said Psmith solemnly, an owl-like on Miss Clarkson through his eyeglass.
“No?” said Miss Clarkson.
“No. Last night I was to him that the fish was all right, but it wouldn’t do, and that I to my with the for ever. I may say at once that there something in the nature of a family earthquake. Hard words,” Psmith. “Black looks. Unseemly wrangle. And the of it all was that my uncle his hands of me and me into the great world. Hence my to employment. My uncle has definitely his from me, Miss Clarkson.”
“Dear, dear!” the sympathetically.
“Yes. He is a hard man, and he his by their to fish. I in my life met a man so up in a subject. For years he has been a on the of fish. So much so that he actually looks like one. It is as if he had taken one of those auto-suggestion and had saying to himself, ‘Every day, in every way, I more and more like a fish.’ His friends can tell now he more nearly a or a cod. . . . But I am you again with this family gossip?”
He Miss Clarkson with such a and that she started nervously.
“No, no,” she exclaimed.
“You my apprehensions. I am only too well aware that, when on the of fish, I am more than to my audience. I cannot this for fish. My uncle used to talk about an large catch of in Cornwall in much the same way as a right-minded would talk about the of his bishop. To me, Miss Clarkson, from the very start, the fish was what I can only as a wash-out. It my feelings. It got right in my fibres. I had to and of a at about four in the morning, after which I would make my way to Billingsgate Market and for some hours knee-deep in fish of every description. A life for a cat, no doubt, but a too thick for a Shropshire Psmith. Mine, Miss Clarkson, is a and nature. I like to be by and life, and I know nothing more and than a fish. Multiply that fish by a million, and you have an which only a Dante with equanimity. My uncle used to tell me that the way to a fish was fresh was to into its eyes. Could I the of life into the of fish? No!” He rose. “Well, I will not you any longer. Thank you for the and attention with which you have to me. You can now why my are on the market and why I am to that no can be which has anything to do with fish. I am that you will have something particularly good to offer me.”
“I don’t know that I can say that, Mr. Psmith.”
“The p is silent, as in pshrimp,” he her. “Oh, by the way,” he said, at the door, “there is one other thing I go. While I was waiting for you to be disengaged, I on an of a in The Girl’s Pet for January, 1919. My search for the proved fruitless. The title was ‘Her Honour At Stake,’ by Jane Emmeline Moss. You don’t to know how it all came out in the end, do you? Did Lord Eustace learn that, when he Clarice in Sir Jasper’s rooms at midnight, she had only gone there to some for a girl friend? You don’t know? I as much. Well, good morning, Miss Clarkson, good morning. I my in your hands with a light heart.”
“I will do my best for you, of course.”
“And what,” said Psmith cordially, “could be than Miss Clarkson’s best?”
He closed the door him, and out. Struck by a thought, he upon Enquiries’ window, and as her into view.
“They tell me,” he said, “that Aspidistra is much for the four o’clock at Birmingham this afternoon. I give the without prejudice, for what it is worth. Good day!”
