14 Psmith in the City

by Unknown

  27. At Lord’s

  Mike got to Lord’s just as the umpires moved out into the field. He raced round to the pavilion. Joe met him on the stairs.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘No hurry. We’ve won the toss. I’ve put you in fourth wicket.’

  ‘Right ho,’ said Mike. ‘Glad we haven’t to field just yet.’

  ‘We oughtn’t to have to field today if we don’t chuck our wickets away.’

  ‘Good wicket?’

  ‘Like a billiard-table. I’m glad you were able to come. Have any difficulty in getting away?’

  Joe Jackson’s knowledge of the workings of a bank was of the slightest. He himself had never, since he left Oxford, been in a position where there were obstacles to getting off to play in first-class cricket. By profession he was agent to a sporting baronet whose hobby was the cricket of the county, and so, far from finding any difficulty in playing for the county, he was given to understand by his employer that that was his chief duty. It never occurred to him that Mike might find his bank less amenable in the matter of giving leave. His only fear, when he rang Mike up that morning, had been that this might be a particularly busy day at the New Asiatic Bank. If there was no special rush of work, he took it for granted that Mike would simply go to the manager, ask for leave to play in the match, and be given it with a beaming smile.

  Mike did not answer the question, but asked one on his own account.

  ‘How did you happen to be short?’ he said.

  ‘It was rotten luck. It was like this. We were altering our team after the Sussex match, to bring in Ballard, Keene, and Willis. They couldn’t get down to Brighton, as the ‘Varsity had a match, but there was nothing on for them in the last half of the week, so they’d promised to roll up.’

  Ballard, Keene, and Willis were members of the Cambridge team, all very capable performers and much in demand by the county, when they could get away to play for it.

  ‘Well?’ said Mike.

  ‘Well, we all came up by train from Brighton last night. But these three asses had arranged to motor down from Cambridge early today, and get here in time for the start. What happens? Why, Willis, who fancies himself as a chauffeur, undertakes to do the driving; and naturally, being an absolute rotter, goes and smashes up the whole concern just outside St Albans. The first thing I knew of it was when I got to Lord’s at half past ten, and found a wire waiting for me to say that they were all three of them crocked, and couldn’t possibly play. I tell you, it was a bit of a jar to get half an hour before the match started. Willis has sprained his ankle, apparently; Keene’s damaged his wrist; and Ballard has smashed his collar-bone. I don’t suppose they’ll be able to play in the ‘Varsity match. Rotten luck for Cambridge. Well, fortunately we’d had two reserve pros, with us at Brighton, who had come up to London with the team in case they might be wanted, so, with them, we were only one short. Then I thought of you. That’s how it was.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mike. ‘Who are the pros?’

  ‘Davis and Brockley. Both bowlers. It weakens our batting a lot. Ballard or Willis might have got a stack of runs on this wicket. Still, we’ve got a certain amount of batting as it is. We oughtn’t to do badly, if we’re careful. You’ve been getting some practice, I suppose, this season?’

  ‘In a sort of a way. Nets and so on. No matches of any importance.’

  ‘Dash it, I wish you’d had a game or two in decent class cricket. Still, nets are better than nothing, I hope you’ll be in form. We may want a pretty long knock from you, if things go wrong. These men seem to be settling down all right, thank goodness,’ he added, looking out of the window at the county’s first pair, Warrington and Mills, two professionals, who, as the result of ten minutes’ play, had put up twenty.

  ‘I’d better go and change,’ said Mike, picking up his bag. ‘You’re in first wicket, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes. And Reggie, second wicket.’

  Reggie was another of Mike’s brothers, not nearly so fine a player as Joe, but a sound bat, who generally made runs if allowed to stay in.

  Mike changed, and went out into the little balcony at the top of the pavilion. He had it to himself. There were not many spectators in the pavilion at this early stage of the game.

  There are few more restful places, if one wishes to think, than the upper balconies of Lord’s pavilion. Mike, watching the game making its leisurely progress on the turf below, set himself seriously to review the situation in all its aspects. The exhilaration of bursting the bonds had begun to fade, and he found himself able to look into the matter of his desertion and weigh up the consequences. There was no doubt that he had cut the painter once and for all. Even a friendly-disposed management could hardly overlook what he had done. And the management of the New Asiatic Bank was the very reverse of friendly. Mr Bickersdyke, he knew, would jump at this chance of getting rid of him. He realized that he must look on his career in the bank as a closed book. It was definitely over, and he must now think about the future.

  It was not a time for half-measures. He could not go home. He must carry the thing through, now that he had begun, and find something definite to do, to support himself.

  There seemed only one opening for him. What could he do, he asked himself. Just one thing. He could play cricket. It was by his cricket that he must live. He would have to become a professional. Could he get taken on? That was the question. It was impossible that he should play for his own county on his residential qualification. He could not appear as a professional in the same team in which his brothers were playing as amateurs. He must stake all on his birth qualification for Surrey.

  On the other hand, had he the credentials which Surrey would want? He had a school reputation. But was that enough? He could not help feeling that it might not be.

  Thinking it over more tensely than he had ever thought over anything in his whole life, he saw clearly that everything depended on what sort of show he made in this match which was now in progress. It was his big chance. If he succeeded, all would be well. He did not care to think what his position would be if he did not succeed.

  A distant appeal and a sound of clapping from the crowd broke in on his thoughts. Mills was out, caught at the wicket. The telegraph-board gave the total as forty-eight. Not sensational. The success of the team depended largely on what sort of a start the two professionals made.

  The clapping broke out again as Joe made his way down the steps. Joe, as an All England player, was a favourite with the crowd.

  Mike watched him play an over in his strong, graceful style: then it suddenly occurred to him that he would like to know how matters had gone at the bank in his absence.

  He went down to the telephone, rang up the bank, and asked for Psmith.

  Presently the familiar voice made itself heard.

  ‘Hullo, Smith.’

  ‘Hullo. Is that Comrade Jackson? How are things progressing?’

  ‘Fairly well. We’re in first. We’ve lost one wicket, and the fifty’s just up. I say, what’s happened at the bank?’

  ‘I broke the news to Comrade Gregory. A charming personality. I feel that we shall be friends.’

  ‘Was he sick?’

  ‘In a measure, yes. Indeed, I may say he practically foamed at the mouth. I explained the situation, but he was not to be appeased. He jerked me into the presence of Comrade Bickersdyke, with whom I had a brief but entertaining chat. He had not a great deal to say, but he listened attentively to my narrative, and eventually told me off to take your place in the Fixed Deposits. That melancholy task I am now performing to the best of my ability. I find the work a little trying. There is too much ledger-lugging to be done for my simple tastes. I have been hauling ledgers from the safe all the morning. The cry is beginning to go round, “Psmith is willing, but can his physique stand the strain?” In the excitement of the moment just now I dropped a somewhat massive tome on to Comrade Gregory’s foot, unfortunately, I understand, the foot in which he has of late been suffering twinges of gout.
I passed the thing off with ready tact, but I cannot deny that there was a certain temporary coolness, which, indeed, is not yet past. These things, Comrade Jackson, are the whirlpools in the quiet stream of commercial life.’

  ‘Have I got the sack.’

  ‘No official pronouncement has been made to me as yet on the subject, but I think I should advise you, if you are offered another job in the course of the day, to accept it. I cannot say that you are precisely the pet of the management just at present. However, I have ideas for your future, which I will divulge when we meet. I propose to slide coyly from the office at about four o’clock. I am meeting my father at that hour. We shall come straight on to Lord’s.’

  ‘Right ho,’ said Mike. ‘I’ll be looking out for you.’

  ‘Is there any little message I can give Comrade Gregory from you?’

  ‘You can give him my love, if you like.’

  ‘It shall be done. Good-bye.’

  ‘Good-bye.’

  Mike replaced the receiver, and went up to his balcony again.

  As soon as his eye fell on the telegraph-board he saw with a start that things had been moving rapidly in his brief absence. The numbers of the batsmen on the board were three and five.

  ‘Great Scott!’ he cried. ‘Why, I’m in next. What on earth’s been happening?’

  He put on his pads hurriedly, expecting every moment that a wicket would fall and find him unprepared. But the batsmen were still together when he rose, ready for the fray, and went downstairs to get news.

  He found his brother Reggie in the dressing-room,

  ‘What’s happened?’ he said. ‘How were you out?’

  ‘L.b.w.,’ said Reggie. ‘Goodness knows how it happened. My eyesight must be going. I mistimed the thing altogether.’

  ‘How was Warrington out?’

  ‘Caught in the slips.’

  ‘By Jove!’ said Mike. ‘This is pretty rocky. Three for sixty-one. We shall get mopped.’

  ‘Unless you and Joe do something. There’s no earthly need to get out. The wicket’s as good as you want, and the bowling’s nothing special. Well played, Joe!’

  A beautiful glide to leg by the greatest of the Jacksons had rolled up against the pavilion rails. The fieldsmen changed across for the next over.

  ‘If only Peters stops a bit—’ began Mike, and broke off. Peters’ off stump was lying at an angle of forty-five degrees.

  ‘Well, he hasn’t,’ said Reggie grimly. ‘Silly ass, why did he hit at that one? All he’d got to do was to stay in with Joe. Now it’s up to you. Do try and do something, or we’ll be out under the hundred.’

  Mike waited till the outcoming batsman had turned in at the professionals’ gate. Then he walked down the steps and out into the open, feeling more nervous than he had felt since that far-off day when he had first gone in to bat for Wrykyn against the M.C.C. He found his thoughts flying back to that occasion. Today, as then, everything seemed very distant and unreal. The spectators were miles away. He had often been to Lord’s as a spectator, but the place seemed entirely unfamiliar now. He felt as if he were in a strange land.

  He was conscious of Joe leaving the crease to meet him on his way. He smiled feebly. ‘Buck up,’ said Joe in that robust way of his which was so heartening. ‘Nothing in the bowling, and the wicket like a shirt-front. Play just as if you were at the nets. And for goodness’ sake don’t try to score all your runs in the first over. Stick in, and we’ve got them.’

  Mike smiled again more feebly than before, and made a weird gurgling noise in his throat.

  It had been the Middlesex fast bowler who had destroyed Peters. Mike was not sorry. He did not object to fast bowling. He took guard, and looked round him, taking careful note of the positions of the slips.

  As usual, once he was at the wicket the paralysed feeling left him. He became conscious again of his power. Dash it all, what was there to be afraid of? He was a jolly good bat, and he would jolly well show them that he was, too.

  The fast bowler, with a preliminary bound, began his run. Mike settled himself into position, his whole soul concentrated on the ball. Everything else was wiped from his mind.

  28. Psmith Arranges his Future

  It was exactly four o’clock when Psmith, sliding unostentatiously from his stool, flicked divers pieces of dust from the leg of his trousers, and sidled towards the basement, where he was wont to keep his hat during business hours. He was aware that it would be a matter of some delicacy to leave the bank at that hour. There was a certain quantity of work still to be done in the Fixed Deposits Department—work in which, by rights, as Mike’s understudy, he should have lent a sympathetic and helping hand. ‘But what of that?’ he mused, thoughtfully smoothing his hat with his knuckles. ‘Comrade Gregory is a man who takes such an enthusiastic pleasure in his duties that he will go singing about the office when he discovers that he has got a double lot of work to do.’

  With this comforting thought, he started on his perilous journey to the open air. As he walked delicately, not courting observation, he reminded himself of the hero of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’. On all sides of him lay fearsome beasts, lying in wait to pounce upon him. At any moment Mr Gregory’s hoarse roar might shatter the comparative stillness, or the sinister note of Mr Bickersdyke make itself heard.

  ‘However,’ said Psmith philosophically, ‘these are Life’s Trials, and must be borne patiently.’

  A roundabout route, via the Postage and Inwards Bills Departments, took him to the swing-doors. It was here that the danger became acute. The doors were well within view of the Fixed Deposits Department, and Mr Gregory had an eye compared with which that of an eagle was more or less bleared.

  Psmith looked up. Mr Gregory was leaning over the barrier manner. As he did so a bellow rang through the office, causing a timid customer, who had come in to arrange about an overdraft, to lose his nerve completely and postpone his business till the following afternoon.

  Psmith looked up. Mr Gregory was leaning over the barrier which divided his lair from the outer world, and gesticulating violently.

  ‘Where are you going,’ roared the head of the Fixed Deposits.

  Psmith did not reply. With a benevolent smile and a gesture intended to signify all would come right in the future, he slid through the swing-doors, and began to move down the street at a somewhat swifter pace than was his habit.

  Once round the corner he slackened his speed.

  ‘This can’t go on,’ he said to himself. ‘This life of commerce is too great a strain. One is practically a hunted hare. Either the heads of my department must refrain from View Halloos when they observe me going for a stroll, or I abandon Commerce for some less exacting walk in life.’

  He removed his hat, and allowed the cool breeze to play upon his forehead. The episode had been disturbing.

  He was to meet his father at the Mansion House. As he reached that land-mark he saw with approval that punctuality was a virtue of which he had not the sole monopoly in the Smith family. His father was waiting for him at the tryst.

  ‘Certainly, my boy,’ said Mr Smith senior, all activity in a moment, when Psmith had suggested going to Lord’s. ‘Excellent. We must be getting on. We must not miss a moment of the match. Bless my soul: I haven’t seen a first-class match this season. Where’s a cab? Hi, cabby! No, that one’s got some one in it. There’s another. Hi! Here, lunatic! Are you blind? Good, he’s seen us. That’s right. Here he comes. Lord’s Cricket Ground, cabby, as quick as you can. Jump in, Rupert, my boy, jump in.’

  Psmith rarely jumped. He entered the cab with something of the stateliness of an old Roman Emperor boarding his chariot, and settled himself comfortably in his seat. Mr Smith dived in like a rabbit.

  A vendor of newspapers came to the cab thrusting an evening paper into the interior. Psmith bought it.

  ‘Let’s see how they’re getting on,’ he said, opening the paper. ‘Where are we? Lunch scores. Lord’s. Aha! Comrade Jackson is in form.’

  �
�Jackson?’ said Mr Smith, ‘is that the same youngster you brought home last summer? The batsman? Is he playing today?’

  ‘He was not out thirty at lunch-time. He would appear to be making something of a stand with his brother Joe, who has made sixty-one up to the moment of going to press. It’s possible he may still be in when we get there. In which case we shall not be able to slide into the pavilion.’

  ‘A grand bat, that boy. I said so last summer. Better than any of his brothers. He’s in the bank with you, isn’t he?’

  ‘He was this morning. I doubt, however, whether he can be said to be still in that position.’

  ‘Eh? what? How’s that?’

  ‘There was some slight friction between him and the management. They wished him to be glued to his stool; he preferred to play for the county. I think we may say that Comrade Jackson has secured the Order of the Boot.’

  ‘What? Do you mean to say—?’

  Psmith related briefly the history of Mike’s departure.

  Mr Smith listened with interest.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘hang me if I blame the boy. It’s a sin cooping up a fellow who can bat like that in a bank. I should have done the same myself in his place.’

  Psmith smoothed his waistcoat.

  ‘Do you know, father,’ he said, ‘this bank business is far from being much of a catch. Indeed, I should describe it definitely as a bit off. I have given it a fair trial, and I now denounce it unhesitatingly as a shade too thick.’

  ‘What? Are you getting tired of it?’

  ‘Not precisely tired. But, after considerable reflection, I have come to the conclusion that my talents lie elsewhere. At lugging ledgers I am among the also-rans—a mere cipher. I have been wanting to speak to you about this for some time. If you have no objection, I should like to go to the Bar.’