14 Psmith in the City Read online

  Psmith got up, looked at his forehead once more in the glass, sighed, and sat down again.

  ‘All very disturbing,’ he said.

  ‘Great Scott,’ said Mike, ‘I wish I’d come. Why on earth didn’t you tell me you were going to rag? I think you might as well have done. I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds.’

  Psmith regarded him with raised eyebrows.

  ‘Rag!’ he said. ‘Comrade Jackson, I do not understand you. You surely do not think that I had any other object in doing what I did than to serve Comrade Bickersdyke? It’s terrible how one’s motives get distorted in this world of ours.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mike, with a grin, ‘I know one person who’ll jolly well distort your motives, as you call it, and that’s Bickersdyke.’

  Psmith looked thoughtful.

  ‘True,’ he said, ‘true. There is that possibility. I tell you, Comrade Jackson, once more that my bright young life is being slowly blighted by the frightful way in which that man misunderstands me. It seems almost impossible to try to do him a good turn without having the action misconstrued.’

  ‘What’ll you say to him tomorrow?’

  ‘I shall make no allusion to the painful affair. If I happen to meet him in the ordinary course of business routine, I shall pass some light, pleasant remark—on the weather, let us say, or the Bank rate—and continue my duties.’

  ‘How about if he sends for you, and wants to do the light, pleasant remark business on his own?’

  ‘In that case I shall not thwart him. If he invites me into his private room, I shall be his guest, and shall discuss, to the best of my ability, any topic which he may care to introduce. There shall be no constraint between Comrade Bickersdyke and myself.’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t think there would be. I wish I could come and hear you.’

  ‘I wish you could,’ said Psmith courteously.

  ‘Still, it doesn’t matter much to you. You don’t care if you do get sacked.’

  Psmith rose.

  ‘In that way possibly, as you say, I am agreeably situated. If the New Asiatic Bank does not require Psmith’s services, there are other spheres where a young man of spirit may carve a place for himself. No, what is worrying me, Comrade Jackson, is not the thought of the push. It is the growing fear that Comrade Bickersdyke and I will never thoroughly understand and appreciate one another. A deep gulf lies between us. I do what I can do to bridge it over, but he makes no response. On his side of the gulf building operations appear to be at an entire standstill. That is what is carving these lines of care on my forehead, Comrade Jackson. That is what is painting these purple circles beneath my eyes. Quite inadvertently to be disturbing Comrade Bickersdyke, annoying him, preventing him from enjoying life. How sad this is. Life bulges with these tragedies.’

  Mike picked up the evening paper.

  ‘Don’t let it keep you awake at night,’ he said. ‘By the way, did you see that Manchester United were playing this afternoon? They won. You’d better sit down and sweat up some of the details. You’ll want them tomorrow.’

  ‘You are very right, Comrade Jackson,’ said Psmith, reseating himself. ‘So the Mancunians pushed the bulb into the meshes beyond the uprights no fewer than four times, did they? Bless the dear boys, what spirits they do enjoy, to be sure. Comrade Jackson, do not disturb me. I must concentrate myself. These are deep waters.’

  12. In a Nutshell

  Mr Bickersdyke sat in his private room at the New Asiatic Bank with a pile of newspapers before him. At least, the casual observer would have said that it was Mr Bickersdyke. In reality, however, it was an active volcano in the shape and clothes of the bank-manager. It was freely admitted in the office that morning that the manager had lowered all records with ease. The staff had known him to be in a bad temper before—frequently; but his frame of mind on all previous occasions had been, compared with his present frame of mind, that of a rather exceptionally good-natured lamb. Within ten minutes of his arrival the entire office was on the jump. The messengers were collected in a pallid group in the basement, discussing the affair in whispers and endeavouring to restore their nerve with about sixpenn’orth of the beverage known as ‘unsweetened’. The heads of departments, to a man, had bowed before the storm. Within the space of seven minutes and a quarter Mr Bickersdyke had contrived to find some fault with each of them. Inward Bills was out at an A.B.C. shop snatching a hasty cup of coffee, to pull him together again. Outward Bills was sitting at his desk with the glazed stare of one who has been struck in the thorax by a thunderbolt. Mr Rossiter had been torn from Psmith in the middle of a highly technical discussion of the Manchester United match, just as he was showing—with the aid of a ball of paper—how he had once seen Meredith centre to Sandy Turnbull in a Cup match, and was now leaping about like a distracted grasshopper. Mr Waller, head of the Cash Department, had been summoned to the Presence, and after listening meekly to a rush of criticism, had retired to his desk with the air of a beaten spaniel.

  Only one man of the many in the building seemed calm and happy—Psmith.

  Psmith had resumed the chat about Manchester United, on Mr Rossiter’s return from the lion’s den, at the spot where it had been broken off; but, finding that the head of the Postage Department was in no mood for discussing football (or any thing else), he had postponed his remarks and placidly resumed his work.

  Mr Bickersdyke picked up a paper, opened it, and began searching the columns. He had not far to look. It was a slack season for the newspapers, and his little trouble, which might have received a paragraph in a busy week, was set forth fully in three-quarters of a column.

  The column was headed, ‘Amusing Heckling’.

  Mr Bickersdyke read a few lines, and crumpled the paper up with a snort.

  The next he examined was an organ of his own shade of political opinion. It too, gave him nearly a column, headed ‘Disgraceful Scene at Kenningford’. There was also a leaderette on the subject.

  The leaderette said so exactly what Mr Bickersdyke thought himself that for a moment he was soothed. Then the thought of his grievance returned, and he pressed the bell.

  ‘Send Mr Smith to me,’ he said.

  William, the messenger, proceeded to inform Psmith of the summons.

  Psmith’s face lit up.

  ‘I am always glad to sweeten the monotony of toil with a chat with Little Clarence,’ he said. ‘I shall be with him in a moment.’

  He cleaned his pen very carefully, placed it beside his ledger, flicked a little dust off his coatsleeve, and made his way to the manager’s room.

  Mr Bickersdyke received him with the ominous restraint of a tiger crouching for its spring. Psmith stood beside the table with languid grace, suggestive of some favoured confidential secretary waiting for instructions.

  A ponderous silence brooded over the room for some moments. Psmith broke it by remarking that the Bank Rate was unchanged. He mentioned this fact as if it afforded him a personal gratification.

  Mr Bickersdyke spoke.

  ‘Well, Mr Smith?’ he said.

  ‘You wished to see me about something, sir?’ inquired Psmith, ingratiatingly.

  ‘You know perfectly well what I wished to see you about. I want to hear your explanation of what occurred last night.’

  ‘May I sit, sir?’

  He dropped gracefully into a chair, without waiting for permission, and, having hitched up the knees of his trousers, beamed winningly at the manager.

  ‘A deplorable affair,’ he said, with a shake of his head. ‘Extremely deplorable. We must not judge these rough, uneducated men too harshly, however. In a time of excitement the emotions of the lower classes are easily stirred. Where you or I would—’

  Mr Bickersdyke interrupted.

  ‘I do not wish for any more buffoonery, Mr Smith—’

  Psmith raised a pained pair of eyebrows.

  ‘Buffoonery, sir!’

  ‘I cannot understand what made you act as you did last night, unless you are perfe
ctly mad, as I am beginning to think.’

  ‘But, surely, sir, there was nothing remarkable in my behaviour? When a merchant has attached himself to your collar, can you do less than smite him on the other cheek? I merely acted in self-defence. You saw for yourself—’

  ‘You know what I am alluding to. Your behaviour during my speech.’

  ‘An excellent speech,’ murmured Psmith courteously.

  ‘Well?’ said Mr Bickersdyke.

  ‘It was, perhaps, mistaken zeal on my part, sir, but you must remember that I acted purely from the best motives. It seemed to me—’

  ‘That is enough, Mr Smith. I confess that I am absolutely at a loss to understand you—’

  ‘It is too true, sir,’ sighed Psmith.

  ‘You seem,’ continued Mr Bickersdyke, warming to his subject, and turning gradually a richer shade of purple, ‘you seem to be determined to endeavour to annoy me.’ (‘No no,’ from Psmith.) ‘I can only assume that you are not in your right senses. You follow me about in my club—’

  ‘Our club, sir,’ murmured Psmith.

  ‘Be good enough not to interrupt me, Mr Smith. You dog my footsteps in my club—’

  ‘Purely accidental, sir. We happen to meet—that is all.’

  ‘You attend meetings at which I am speaking, and behave in a perfectly imbecile manner.’

  Psmith moaned slightly.

  ‘It may seem humorous to you, but I can assure you it is extremely bad policy on your part. The New Asiatic Bank is no place for humour, and I think—’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Psmith.

  The manager started at the familiar phrase. The plum-colour of his complexion deepened.

  ‘I entirely agree with you, sir,’ said Psmith, ‘that this bank is no place for humour.’

  ‘Very well, then. You—’

  ‘And I am never humorous in it. I arrive punctually in the; morning, and I work steadily and earnestly till my labours are completed. I think you will find, on inquiry, that Mr Rossiter is satisfied with my work.’

  ‘That is neither here nor—’

  ‘Surely, sir,’ said Psmith, ‘you are wrong? Surely your jurisdiction ceases after office hours? Any little misunderstanding we may have at the close of the day’s work cannot affect you officially. You could not, for instance, dismiss me from the service of the bank if we were partners at bridge at the club and I happened to revoke.’

  ‘I can dismiss you, let me tell you, Mr Smith, for studied insolence, whether in the office or not.’

  ‘I bow to superior knowledge,’ said Psmith politely, ‘but I confess I doubt it. And,’ he added, ‘there is another point. May I continue to some extent?’

  ‘If you have anything to say, say it.’

  Psmith flung one leg over the other, and settled his collar.

  ‘It is perhaps a delicate matter,’ he said, ‘but it is best to be frank. We should have no secrets. To put my point quite clearly, I must go back a little, to the time when you paid us that very welcome weekend visit at our house in August.’

  ‘If you hope to make capital out of the fact that I have been a guest of your father—’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Psmith deprecatingly. ‘Not at all. You do not take me. My point is this. I do not wish to revive painful memories, but it cannot be denied that there was, here and there, some slight bickering between us on that occasion. The fault,’ said Psmith magnanimously, ‘was possibly mine. I may have been too exacting, too capricious. Perhaps so. However, the fact remains that you conceived the happy notion of getting me into this bank, under the impression that, once I was in, you would be able to—if I may use the expression—give me beans. You said as much to me, if I remember. I hate to say it, but don’t you think that if you give me the sack, although my work is satisfactory to the head of my department, you will be by way of admitting that you bit off rather more than you could chew? I merely make the suggestion.’

  Mr Bickersdyke half rose from his chair.

  ‘You—’

  ‘Just so, just so, but—to return to the main point—don’t you? The whole painful affair reminds me of the story of Agesilaus and the Petulant Pterodactyl, which as you have never heard, I will now proceed to relate. Agesilaus—’

  Mr Bickersdyke made a curious clucking noise in his throat.

  ‘I am boring you,’ said Psmith, with ready tact. ‘Suffice it to say that Comrade Agesilaus interfered with the pterodactyl, which was doing him no harm; and the intelligent creature, whose motto was “Nemo me impune lacessit”, turned and bit him. Bit him good and hard, so that Agesilaus ever afterwards had a distaste for pterodactyls. His reluctance to disturb them became quite a byword. The Society papers of the period frequently commented upon it. Let us draw the parallel.’

  Here Mr Bickersdyke, who had been clucking throughout this speech, essayed to speak; but Psmith hurried on.

  ‘You are Agesilaus,’ he said. ‘I am the Petulant Pterodactyl. You, if I may say so, butted in of your own free will, and took me from a happy home, simply in order that you might get me into this place under you, and give me beans. But, curiously enough, the major portion of that vegetable seems to be coming to you. Of course, you can administer the push if you like; but, as I say, it will be by way of a confession that your scheme has sprung a leak. Personally,’ said Psmith, as one friend to another, ‘I should advise you to stick it out. You never know what may happen. At any moment I may fall from my present high standard of industry and excellence; and then you have me, so to speak, where the hair is crisp.’

  He paused. Mr Bickersdyke’s eyes, which even in their normal state protruded slightly, now looked as if they might fall out at any moment. His face had passed from the plum-coloured stage to something beyond. Every now and then he made the clucking noise, but except for that he was silent. Psmith, having waited for some time for something in the shape of comment or criticism on his remarks, now rose.

  ‘It has been a great treat to me, this little chat,’ he said affably, ‘but I fear that I must no longer allow purely social enjoyments to interfere with my commercial pursuits. With your permission, I will rejoin my department, where my absence is doubtless already causing comment and possibly dismay. But we shall be meeting at the club shortly, I hope. Good-bye, sir, good-bye.’

  He left the room, and walked dreamily back to the Postage Department, leaving the manager still staring glassily at nothing.

  13. Mike is Moved On

  This episode may be said to have concluded the first act of the commercial drama in which Mike and Psmith had been cast for leading parts. And, as usually happens after the end of an act, there was a lull for a while until things began to work up towards another climax. Mike, as day succeeded day, began to grow accustomed to the life of the bank, and to find that it had its pleasant side after all. Whenever a number of people are working at the same thing, even though that thing is not perhaps what they would have chosen as an object in life, if left to themselves, there is bound to exist an atmosphere of good-fellowship; something akin to, though a hundred times weaker than, the public school spirit. Such a community lacks the main motive of the public school spirit, which is pride in the school and its achievements. Nobody can be proud of the achievements of a bank. When the business of arranging a new Japanese loan was given to the New Asiatic Bank, its employees did not stand on stools, and cheer. On the contrary, they thought of the extra work it would involve; and they cursed a good deal, though there was no denying that it was a big thing for the bank—not unlike winning the Ashburton would be to a school. There is a cold impersonality about a bank. A school is a living thing.

  Setting aside this important difference, there was a good deal of the public school about the New Asiatic Bank. The heads of departments were not quite so autocratic as masters, and one was treated more on a grown-up scale, as man to man; but, nevertheless, there remained a distinct flavour of a school republic. Most of the men in the bank, with the exception of certain hard-headed Scotch youths draf
ted in from other establishments in the City, were old public school men. Mike found two Old Wrykinians in the first week. Neither was well known to him. They had left in his second year in the team. But it was pleasant to have them about, and to feel that they had been educated at the right place.

  As far as Mike’s personal comfort went, the presence of these two Wrykinians was very much for the good. Both of them knew all about his cricket, and they spread the news. The New Asiatic Bank, like most London banks, was keen on sport, and happened to possess a cricket team which could make a good game with most of the second-rank clubs. The disappearance to the East of two of the best bats of the previous season caused Mike’s advent to be hailed with a good deal of enthusiasm. Mike was a county man. He had only played once for his county, it was true, but that did not matter. He had passed the barrier which separates the second-class bat from the first-class, and the bank welcomed him with awe. County men did not come their way every day.

  Mike did not like being in the bank, considered in the light of a career. But he bore no grudge against the inmates of the bank, such as he had borne against the inmates of Sedleigh. He had looked on the latter as bound up with the school, and, consequently, enemies. His fellow workers in the bank he regarded as companions in misfortune. They were all in the same boat together. There were men from Tonbridge, Dulwich, Bedford, St Paul’s, and a dozen other schools. One or two of them he knew by repute from the pages of Wisden. Bannister, his cheerful predecessor in the Postage Department, was the Bannister, he recollected now, who had played for Geddington against Wrykyn in his second year in the Wrykyn team. Munroe, the big man in the Fixed Deposits, he remembered as leader of the Ripton pack. Every day brought fresh discoveries of this sort, and each made Mike more reconciled to his lot. They were a pleasant set of fellows in the New Asiatic Bank, and but for the dreary outlook which the future held—for Mike, unlike most of his follow workers, was not attracted by the idea of a life in the East—he would have been very fairly content.