"What are you doing here? What have you come for?"
"Work," said Psmith, with simple dignity. "I am now a member of the staff of this bank. Its interests are my interests. Psmith, the individual, ceases to exist, and there springs into being Psmith, the cog in the wheel of the New Asiatic Bank; Psmith, the link in the bank"s chain; Psmith, the Worker. I shall not spare myself," he proceeded earnestly. "I shall toil with all the acc.u.mulated energy of one who, up till now, has only known what work is like from hearsay.
Whose is that form sitting on the steps of the bank in the morning, waiting eagerly for the place to open? It is the form of Psmith, the Worker. Whose is that haggard, drawn face which bends over a ledger long after the other toilers have sped blithely westwards to dine at Lyons" Popular Cafe? It is the face of Psmith, the Worker."
"I--" began Mr Rossiter.
"I tell you," continued Psmith, waving aside the interruption and tapping the head of the department rhythmically in the region of the second waistcoat-b.u.t.ton with a long finger, "I tell _you_, Comrade Rossiter, that you have got hold of a good man. You and I together, not forgetting Comrade Jackson, the pet of the Smart Set, will toil early and late till we boost up this Postage Department into a shining model of what a Postage Department should be. What that is, at present, I do not exactly know. However. Excursion trains will be run from distant shires to see this Postage Department. American visitors to London will do it before going on to the Tower. And now," he broke off, with a crisp, businesslike intonation, "I must ask you to excuse me. Much as I have enjoyed this little chat, I fear it must now cease. The time has come to work. Our trade rivals are getting ahead of us. The whisper goes round, "Rossiter and Psmith are talking, not working," and other firms prepare to pinch our business. Let me Work."
Two minutes later, Mr Rossiter was sitting at his desk with a dazed expression, while Psmith, perched gracefully on a stool, entered figures in a ledger.
6. Psmith Explains
For the s.p.a.ce of about twenty-five minutes Psmith sat in silence, concentrated on his ledger, the picture of the model bank-clerk. Then he flung down his pen, slid from his stool with a satisfied sigh, and dusted his waistcoat. "A commercial crisis," he said, "has pa.s.sed. The job of work which Comrade Rossiter indicated for me has been completed with masterly skill. The period of anxiety is over. The bank ceases to totter. Are you busy, Comrade Jackson, or shall we chat awhile?"
Mike was not busy. He had worked off the last batch of letters, and there was nothing to do but to wait for the next, or--happy thought--to take the present batch down to the post, and so get out into the sunshine and fresh air for a short time. "I rather think I"ll nip down to the post-office," said he, "You couldn"t come too, I suppose?"
"On the contrary," said Psmith, "I could, and will. A stroll will just restore those tissues which the gruelling work of the last half-hour has wasted away. It is a fearful strain, this commercial toil. Let us trickle towards the post office. I will leave my hat and gloves as a guarantee of good faith. The cry will go round, "Psmith has gone! Some rival inst.i.tution has kidnapped him!" Then they will see my hat,"--he built up a foundation of ledgers, planted a long ruler in the middle, and hung his hat on it--"my gloves,"--he stuck two pens into the desk and hung a lavender glove on each--"and they will sink back swooning with relief. The awful suspense will be over. They will say, "No, he has not gone permanently. Psmith will return. When the fields are white with daisies he"ll return." And now, Comrade Jackson, lead me to this picturesque little post-office of yours of which I have heard so much."
Mike picked up the long basket into which he had thrown the letters after entering the addresses in his ledger, and they moved off down the aisle. No movement came from Mr Rossiter"s lair. Its energetic occupant was hard at work. They could just see part of his hunched-up back.
"I wish Comrade Downing could see us now," said Psmith. "He always set us down as mere idlers. Triflers. b.u.t.terflies. It would be a wholesome corrective for him to watch us perspiring like this in the cause of Commerce."
"You haven"t told me yet what on earth you"re doing here," said Mike.
"I thought you were going to the "Varsity. Why the d.i.c.kens are you in a bank? Your pater hasn"t lost his money, has he?"
"No. There is still a tolerable supply of doubloons in the old oak chest. Mine is a painful story."
"It always is," said Mike.
"You are very right, Comrade Jackson. I am the victim of Fate. Ah, so you put the little chaps in there, do you?" he said, as Mike, reaching the post-office, began to bundle the letters into the box. "You seem to have grasped your duties with admirable prompt.i.tude. It is the same with me. I fancy we are both born men of Commerce. In a few years we shall be pinching Comrade Bickersd.y.k.e"s job. And talking of Comrade B.
brings me back to my painful story. But I shall never have time to tell it to you during our walk back. Let us drift aside into this tea-shop.
We can order a buckwheat cake or a b.u.t.ter-nut, or something equally succulent, and carefully refraining from consuming these dainties, I will tell you all."
"Right O!" said Mike.
"When last I saw you," resumed Psmith, hanging Mike"s basket on the hat-stand and ordering two portions of porridge, "you may remember that a serious crisis in my affairs had arrived. My father inflamed with the idea of Commerce had invited Comrade Bickersd.y.k.e--"
"When did you know he was a manager here?" asked Mike.
"At an early date. I have my spies everywhere. However, my pater invited Comrade Bickersd.y.k.e to our house for the weekend. Things turned out rather unfortunately. Comrade B. resented my purely altruistic efforts to improve him mentally and morally. Indeed, on one occasion he went so far as to call me an impudent young cub, and to add that he wished he had me under him in his bank, where, he a.s.serted, he would knock some of the nonsense out of me. All very painful. I tell you, Comrade Jackson, for the moment it reduced my delicately vibrating ganglions to a mere frazzle. Recovering myself, I made a few blithe remarks, and we then parted. I cannot say that we parted friends, but at any rate I bore him no ill-will. I was still determined to make him a credit to me. My feelings towards him were those of some kindly father to his prodigal son. But he, if I may say so, was fairly on the hop. And when my pater, after dinner the same night, played into his hands by mentioning that he thought I ought to plunge into a career of commerce, Comrade B. was, I gather, all over him. Offered to make a vacancy for me in the bank, and to take me on at once. My pater, feeling that this was the real hustle which he admired so much, had me in, stated his case, and said, in effect, "How do we go?" I intimated that Comrade Bickersd.y.k.e was my greatest chum on earth. So the thing was fixed up and here I am. But you are not getting on with your porridge, Comrade Jackson. Perhaps you don"t care for porridge? Would you like a finnan haddock, instead? Or a piece of shortbread? You have only to say the word."
"It seems to me," said Mike gloomily, "that we are in for a pretty rotten time of it in this bally bank. If Bickersd.y.k.e"s got his knife into us, he can make it jolly warm for us. He"s got his knife into me all right about that walking-across-the-screen business."
"True," said Psmith, "to a certain extent. It is an undoubted fact that Comrade Bickersd.y.k.e will have a jolly good try at making life a nuisance to us; but, on the other hand, I propose, so far as in me lies, to make things moderately unrestful for him, here and there."
"But you can"t," objected Mike. "What I mean to say is, it isn"t like a school. If you wanted to score off a master at school, you could always rag and so on. But here you can"t. How can you rag a man who"s sitting all day in a room of his own while you"re sweating away at a desk at the other end of the building?"
"You put the case with admirable clearness, Comrade Jackson," said Psmith approvingly. "At the hard-headed, common-sense business you sneak the biscuit every time with ridiculous ease. But you do not know all. I do not propose to do a thing in the bank except work. I shall be a model as far as work goes. I shall be flawless. I shall bound to do Comrade Rossiter"s bidding like a highly trained performing dog. It is outside the bank, when I have staggered away dazed with toil, that I shall resume my attention to the education of Comrade Bickersd.y.k.e."
"But, dash it all, how can you? You won"t see him. He"ll go off home, or to his club, or--"
Psmith tapped him earnestly on the chest.
"There, Comrade Jackson," he said, "you have hit the bull"s-eye, rung the bell, and gathered in the cigar or cocoanut according to choice. He _will_ go off to his club. And I shall do precisely the same."
"How do you mean?"
"It is this way. My father, as you may have noticed during your stay at our stately home of England, is a man of a warm, impulsive character.
He does not always do things as other people would do them. He has his own methods. Thus, he has sent me into the City to do the hard-working, bank-clerk act, but at the same time he is allowing me just as large an allowance as he would have given me if I had gone to the "Varsity.
Moreover, while I was still at Eton he put my name up for his clubs, the Senior Conservative among others. My pater belongs to four clubs altogether, and in course of time, when my name comes up for election, I shall do the same. Meanwhile, I belong to one, the Senior Conservative. It is a bigger club than the others, and your name comes up for election sooner. About the middle of last month a great yell of joy made the West End of London shake like a jelly. The three thousand members of the Senior Conservative had just learned that I had been elected."
Psmith paused, and ate some porridge.
"I wonder why they call this porridge," he observed with mild interest.
"It would be far more manly and straightforward of them to give it its real name. To resume. I have gleaned, from casual chit-chat with my father, that Comrade Bickersd.y.k.e also infests the Senior Conservative.
You might think that that would make me, seeing how particular I am about whom I mix with, avoid the club. Error. I shall go there every day. If Comrade Bickersd.y.k.e wishes to emend any little traits in my character of which he may disapprove, he shall never say that I did not give him the opportunity. I shall mix freely with Comrade Bickersd.y.k.e at the Senior Conservative Club. I shall be his constant companion. I shall, in short, haunt the man. By these strenuous means I shall, as it were, get a bit of my own back. And now," said Psmith, rising, "it might be as well, perhaps, to return to the bank and resume our commercial duties. I don"t know how long you are supposed to be allowed for your little trips to and from the post-office, but, seeing that the distance is about thirty yards, I should say at a venture not more than half an hour. Which is exactly the s.p.a.ce of time which has flitted by since we started out on this important expedition. Your devotion to porridge, Comrade Jackson, has led to our spending about twenty-five minutes in this hostelry."
"Great Scott," said Mike, "there"ll be a row."
"Some slight temporary breeze, perhaps," said Psmith. "Annoying to men of culture and refinement, but not lasting. My only fear is lest we may have worried Comrade Rossiter at all. I regard Comrade Rossiter as an elder brother, and would not cause him a moment"s heart-burning for worlds. However, we shall soon know," he added, as they pa.s.sed into the bank and walked up the aisle, "for there is Comrade Rossiter waiting to receive us in person."
The little head of the Postage Department was moving restlessly about in the neighbourhood of Psmith"s and Mike"s desk.
"Am I mistaken," said Psmith to Mike, "or is there the merest suspicion of a worried look on our chief"s face? It seems to me that there is the slightest soupcon of shadow about that broad, calm brow."
7. Going into Winter Quarters
There was.
Mr Rossiter had discovered Psmith"s and Mike"s absence about five minutes after they had left the building. Ever since then, he had been popping out of his lair at intervals of three minutes, to see whether they had returned. Constant disappointment in this respect had rendered him decidedly jumpy. When Psmith and Mike reached the desk, he was a kind of human soda-water bottle. He fizzed over with questions, reproofs, and warnings.
"What does it mean? What does it mean?" he cried. "Where have you been?
Where have you been?"
"Poetry," said Psmith approvingly.
"You have been absent from your places for over half an hour. Why? Why?
Why? Where have you been? Where have you been? I cannot have this. It is preposterous. Where have you been? Suppose Mr Bickersd.y.k.e had happened to come round here. I should not have known what to say to him."
"Never an easy man to chat with, Comrade Bickersd.y.k.e," agreed Psmith.