Psmith Series. P. G. Wodehouse

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      “Are you asleep, Jackson?”

      “Who’s that?”

      “Me—­Jellicoe.; I can’t get to sleep.”

      “Nor can I. I’m stiff all over.”

      “I’ll come over and sit on your bed.”

      There was a creaking, and then a weight descended in the neighbourhood of Mike’s toes.

      Jellicoe was apparently not in conversational mood.; He uttered no word for quite three minutes.; At the end of which time he gave a sound midway between a snort and a sigh.

      “I say, Jackson!” he said.

      “Yes?”

      “Have you—­oh, nothing.”

      Silence again.

      “Jackson.”

      “Hullo?”

      “I say, what would your people say if you got sacked?”

      “All sorts of things.; Especially my pater.; Why?”

      “Oh, I don’t know.; So would mine.”

      “Everybody’s would, I expect.”

      “Yes.”

      The bed creaked, as Jellicoe digested these great thoughts.; Then he spoke again.

      “It would be a jolly beastly thing to get sacked.”

      Mike was too tired to give his mind to the subject.; He was not really listening.; Jellicoe droned on in a depressed sort of way.

      “You’d get home in the middle of the afternoon, I suppose, and you’d drive up to the house, and the servant would open the door, and you’d go in.; They might all be out, and then you’d have to hang about, and wait; and presently you’d hear them come in, and you’d go out into the passage, and they’d say ‘Hullo!’”

      Jellicoe, in order to give verisimilitude, as it were, to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative, flung so much agitated surprise into the last word that it woke Mike from a troubled doze into which he had fallen.

      “Hullo?” he said.; “What’s up?”

      “Then you’d say.; ‘Hullo!’ And then they’d say, ’What are you doing here?; ’And you’d say——­”

      “What on earth are you talking about?”

      “About what would happen.”

      “Happen when?”

      “When you got home.; After being sacked, you know.”

      “Who’s been sacked?” Mike’s mind was still under a cloud.

      “Nobody.; But if you were, I meant.; And then I suppose there’d be an awful row and general sickness, and all that.; And then you’d be sent into a bank, or to Australia, or something.”

      Mike dozed off again.

      “My pater would be frightfully sick.; My mater would be sick.; My sister would be jolly sick, too.; Have you got any sisters, Jackson?; I say, Jackson!”

      “Hullo!; What’s the matter?; Who’s that?”

      “Me—­Jellicoe.”

      “What’s up?”

      “I asked you if you’d got any sisters.”

      “Any what?”

      “Sisters.”

      “Whose sisters?”

      “Yours.; I asked if you’d got any.”

      “Any what?”

      “Sisters.”

      “What about them?”

      The conversation was becoming too intricate for Jellicoe.; He changed the subject.

      “I say, Jackson!”

      “Well?”

      “I say, you don’t know any one who could lend me a pound, do you?”

      “What!” cried Mike, sitting up in bed and staring through the darkness in the direction whence the numismatist’s voice was proceeding.; “Do what?”

      “I say, look out.; You’ll wake Smith.”

      “Did you say you wanted some one to lend you a quid?”

      “Yes,” said Jellicoe eagerly.; “Do you know any one?”

      Mike’s head throbbed.; This thing was too much.; The human brain could not be expected to cope with it.; Here was a youth who had borrowed a pound from one friend the day before, and three pounds from another friend that very afternoon, already looking about him for further loans.; Was it a hobby, or was he saving up to buy an aeroplane?

      “What on earth do you want a pound for?”

      “I don’t want to tell anybody.; But it’s jolly serious.; I shall get sacked if I don’t get it.”

      Mike pondered.

      Those who have followed Mike’s career as set forth by the present historian will have realised by this time that he was a good long way from being perfect.; As the Blue-Eyed Hero he would have been a rank failure.; Except on the cricket field, where he was a natural genius, he was just ordinary.; He resembled ninety per cent. of other members of English public schools.; He had some virtues and a good many defects.; He was as obstinate as a mule, though people whom he liked could do as they pleased with him.; He was good-natured as a general thing, but on occasion his temper could be of the worst, and had, in his childhood, been the subject of much adverse comment among his aunts.; He was rigidly truthful, where the issue concerned only himself.; Where it was a case of saving a friend, he was prepared to act in a manner reminiscent of an American expert witness.

      He had, in addition, one good quality without any defect to balance it.; He was always ready to help people.; And when he set himself to do this, he was never put off by discomfort or risk.; He went at the thing with a singleness of purpose that asked no questions.

      Bob’s postal order, which had arrived that evening, was reposing in the breast-pocket of his coat.

      It was a wrench, but, if the situation was so serious with Jellicoe, it had to be done.

      * * * * *

      Two minutes later the night was being made hideous by Jellicoe’s almost tearful protestations of gratitude, and the postal order had moved from one side of the dormitory to the other.

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