Pelham Wodehouse - Piccadilly Jim

"Is it not a little rash, Mr. James?"

Rash was the word. Here he stood, in a country that had no possible use for him, a country where competition was keen and jobs for the unskilled infrequent. What on earth was there that he could do?

Well, he could go home. . . . No, he couldn't. His pride revolted at that solution. Prodigal Son stuff was all very well in its way, but it lost its impressiveness if you turned up again at home two weeks after you had left. A decent interval among the husks and swine was essential. Besides, there was his father to consider. He might be a poor specimen of a fellow, as witness the Sunday Chronicle passim , but he was not so poor as to come slinking back to upset things for his father just when he had done the only decent thing by removing himself. No, that was out of the question.

What remained? The air of New York is bracing and healthy, but a man cannot live on it. Obviously he must find a job. But what job?

What could he do?

A gnawing sensation in the region of the waistcoat answered the question. The solution—which it put forward was, it was true, but a temporary one, yet it appealed strongly to Jimmy. He had found it admirable at many crises. He would go and lunch, and it might be that food would bring inspiration.

He moved from his doorway and crossed to the entrance of the subway. He caught a timely express, and a few minutes later emerged into the sunlight again at Grand Central. He made his way westward along Forty-second Street to the hotel which he thought would meet his needs. He had scarcely entered it when in a chair by the door he perceived Ann Chester, and at the sight of her all his depression vanished and he was himself again.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Bayliss? Are you lunching here?"

"Unless there is some other place that you would prefer," said Jimmy. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting."

Ann laughed. She was looking very delightful in something soft and green.

"I'm not going to lunch with you. I'm waiting for Mr. Ralstone and his sister. Do you remember him? He crossed over with us. His chair was next to mine on the promenade deck."

Jimmy was shocked. When he thought how narrowly she had escaped, poor girl, from lunching with that insufferable pill Teddy—or was it Edgar?—he felt quite weak. Recovering himself, he spoke firmly.

"When were they to have met you?"

"At one o'clock."

"It is now five past. You are certainly not going to wait any longer. Come with me, and we will whistle for cabs."

"Don't be absurd!"

"Come along. I want to talk to you about my future."

"I shall certainly do nothing of the kind," said Ann, rising. She went with him to the door. "Teddy would never forgive me." She got into the cab. "It's only because you have appealed to me to help you discuss your future," she said, as they drove off. "Nothing else would have induced me . . ."

"I know," said Jimmy. "I felt that I could rely on your womanly sympathy. Where shall we go?"

"Where do you want to go? Oh, I forget that you have never been in New York before. By the way, what are your impressions of our glorious country?"

"Most gratifying, if only I could get a job."

"Tell him to drive to Delmonico's. It's just around the corner on Forty-fourth Street."

"There are some things round the corner, then?"

"That sounds cryptic. What do you mean."

"You've forgotten our conversation that night on the ship. You refused to admit the existence of wonderful things just round the corner. You said some very regrettable things that night. About love, if you remember."

"You can't be going to talk about love at one o'clock in the afternoon! Talk about your future."

"Love is inextricably mixed up with my future."

"Not with your immediate future. I thought you said that you were trying to get a job. Have you given up the idea of newspaper work, then?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, I'm rather glad."

The cab drew up at the restaurant door, and the conversation was interrupted. When they were seated at their table and Jimmy had given an order to the waiter of absolutely inexcusable extravagance, Ann returned to the topic.

"Well, now the thing is to find something for you to do."

Jimmy looked round the restaurant with appreciative eyes. The summer exodus from New York was still several weeks distant, and the place was full of prosperous-looking lunchers, not one of whom appeared to have a care or an unpaid bill in the world. The atmosphere was redolent of substantial bank-balances. Solvency shone from the closely shaven faces of the men and reflected itself in the dresses of the women. Jimmy sighed.

"I suppose so," he said. "Though for choice I'd like to be one of the Idle Rich. To my mind the ideal profession is strolling into the office and touching the old dad for another thousand."

Ann was severe.

"You revolt me!" she said. "I never heard anything so thoroughly disgraceful. You need work!"

"One of these days," said Jimmy plaintively, "I shall be sitting by the roadside with my dinner-pail, and you will come by in your limousine, and I shall look up at you and say ' You hounded me into this!' How will you feel then?"

"Very proud of myself."

"In that case, there is no more to be said. I'd much rather hang about and try to get adopted by a millionaire, but if you insist on my working—Waiter!"

"What do you want?" asked Ann.

"Will you get me a Classified Telephone Directory," said Jimmy.

"What for?" asked Ann.

"To look for a profession. There is nothing like being methodical."

The waiter returned, bearing a red book. Jimmy thanked him and opened it at the A's.

"The boy, what will he become?" he said. He turned the pages. "How about an Auditor? What do you think of that?"

"Do you think you could audit?"

"That I could not say till I had tried. I might turn out to be very good at it. How about an Adjuster?"

"An adjuster of what?"

"The book doesn't say. It just remarks broadly—in a sort of spacious way—'Adjuster.' I take it that, having decided to become an adjuster, you then sit down and decide what you wish to adjust. One might, for example, become an Asparagus Adjuster."

"A what?"

"Surely you know? Asparagus Adjusters are the fellows who sell those rope-and-pulley affairs by means of which the Smart Set lower asparagus into their mouths—or rather Francis the footman does it for them, of course. The diner leans back in his chair, and the menial works the apparatus in the background. It is entirely superseding the old-fashioned method of picking the vegetable up and taking a snap at it. But I suspect that to be a successful Asparagus Adjuster requires capital. We now come to Awning Crank and Spring Rollers. I don't think I should like that. Rolling awning cranks seems to me a sorry way of spending life's springtime. Let's try the B's."

"Let's try this omelette. It looks delicious." Jimmy shook his head.

"I will toy with it—but absently and in a distrait manner, as becomes a man of affairs. There's nothing in the B's. I might devote my ardent youth to Bar-Room Glassware and Bottlers' Supplies. On the other hand, I might not. Similarly, while there is no doubt a bright future for somebody in Celluloid, Fiberloid, and Other Factitious Goods, instinct tells me that there is none for—" he pulled up on the verge of saying, "James Braithwaite Crocker," and shuddered at the nearness of the pitfall. "—for—" he hesitated again—"for Algernon Bayliss," he concluded.

Ann smiled delightedly. It was so typical that his father should have called him something like that. Time had not dimmed her regard for the old man she had seen for that brief moment at Paddington Station. He was an old dear, and she thoroughly approved of this latest manifestation of his supposed pride in his offspring.