"I"ll tell you," he said. "I"ve thought the whole thing out. The right plan would be to put the complete kybosh (if I may use the expression) on your chances of becoming an alderman. On the other hand, I have been studying the papers of late, and it seems to me that it doesn"t much matter who gets elected. Of course the opposition papers may have allowed their zeal to run away with them, but even a.s.suming that to be the case, the other candidates appear to be a pretty fair contingent of blighters. If I were a native of New York, perhaps I might take a more fervid interest in the matter, but as I am merely pa.s.sing through your beautiful little city, it doesn"t seem to me to make any very substantial difference who gets in. To be absolutely candid, my view of the thing is this. If the People are chumps enough to elect you, then they deserve you. I hope I don"t hurt your feelings in any way. I am merely stating my own individual opinion."
Mr. Waring made no remark.
"The only thing that really interests me," resumed Psmith, "is the matter of these tenements. I shall shortly be leaving this country to resume the strangle-hold on Learning which I relinquished at the beginning of the Long Vacation. If I were to depart without bringing off improvements down Pleasant Street way, I shouldn"t be able to enjoy my meals. The startled cry would go round Cambridge: "Something is the matter with Psmith. He is off his feed. He should try Blenkinsop"s Balm for the Bilious." But no balm would do me any good. I should simply droop and fade slowly away like a neglected lily. And you wouldn"t like that, Comrade Wilberfloss, would you?"
Mr. Wilberfloss, thus suddenly pulled into the conversation, again leaped in his seat.
"What I propose to do," continued Psmith, without waiting for an answer, "is to touch you for the good round sum of five thousand and three dollars."
Mr. Waring half rose.
"Five thousand dollars!"
"Five thousand and three dollars," said Psmith. "It may possibly have escaped your memory, but a certain minion of yours, one J.
Repetto, utterly ruined a practically new hat of mine. If you think that I can afford to come to New York and scatter hats about as if they were mere dross, you are making the culminating error of a misspent life. Three dollars are what I need for a new one. The balance of your cheque, the five thousand, I propose to apply to making those tenements fit for a tolerably fastidious pig to live in."
"Five thousand!" cried Mr. Waring. "It"s monstrous."
"It isn"t," said Psmith. "It"s more or less of a minimum. I have made inquiries. So out with the good old cheque-book, and let"s all be jolly."
"I have no cheque-book with me."
"_I_ have," said Psmith, producing one from a drawer. "Cross out the name of my bank, subst.i.tute yours, and fate cannot touch us."
Mr. Waring hesitated for a moment, then capitulated. Psmith watched, as he wrote, with an indulgent and fatherly eye.
"Finished?" he said. "Comrade Maloney."
"Youse hollering fer me?" asked that youth, appearing at the door.
"Bet your life I am, Comrade Maloney. Have you ever seen an untamed mustang of the prairie?"
"Nope. But I"ve read about dem."
"Well, run like one down to Wall Street with this cheque, and pay it in to my account at the International Bank."
Pugsy disappeared.
"Cheques," said Psmith, "have been known to be stopped. Who knows but what, on reflection, you might not have changed your mind?"
"What guarantee have I," asked Mr. Waring, "that these attacks on me in your paper will stop?"
"If you like," said Psmith, "I will write you a note to that effect. But it will not be necessary. I propose, with Comrade Wilberfloss"s a.s.sistance, to restore _Cosy Moments_ to its old style.
Some days ago the editor of Comrade Windsor"s late daily paper called up on the telephone and asked to speak to him. I explained the painful circ.u.mstances, and, later, went round and hob-n.o.bbed with the great man. A very pleasant fellow. He asks to re-engage Comrade Windsor"s services at a pretty sizeable salary, so, as far as our prison expert is concerned, all may be said to be well. He has got where he wanted. _Cosy Moments_ may therefore ease up a bit.
If, at about the beginning of next month, you should hear a deafening squeal of joy ring through this city, it will be the infants of New York and their parents receiving the news that _Cosy Moments_ stands where it did. May I count on your services, Comrade Wilberfloss? Excellent. I see I may. Then perhaps you would not mind pa.s.sing the word round among Comrades Asher, Waterman, and the rest of the squad, and telling them to burnish their brains and be ready to wade in at a moment"s notice. I fear you will have a pretty tough job roping in the old subscribers again, but it can be done. I look to you, Comrade Wilberfloss. Are you on?"
Mr. Wilberfloss, wriggling in his chair, intimated that he was.
CONCLUSION
IT was a drizzly November evening. The streets of Cambridge were a compound of mud, mist, and melancholy. But in Psmith"s rooms the fire burned brightly, the kettle droned, and all, as the proprietor had just observed, was joy, jollity, and song. Psmith, in pyjamas and a college blazer, was lying on the sofa. Mike, who had been playing football, was reclining in a comatose state in an arm-chair by the fire.
"How pleasant it would be," said Psmith dreamily, "if all our friends on the other side of the Atlantic could share this very peaceful moment with us! Or perhaps not quite all. Let us say, Comrade Windsor in the chair over there, Comrades Brady and Maloney on the table, and our old pal Wilberfloss sharing the floor with B.
Henderson Asher, Bat Jarvis, and the cats. By the way, I think it would be a graceful act if you were to write to Comrade Jarvis from time to time telling him how your Angoras are getting on. He regards you as the World"s Most Prominent Citizen. A line from you every now and then would sweeten the lad"s existence."
Mike stirred sleepily in his chair.
"What?" he said drowsily.
"Never mind, Comrade Jackson. Let us pa.s.s lightly on. I am filled with a strange content to-night. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that all is singularly to de good, as Comrade Maloney would put it.
Advices from Comrade Windsor inform me that that prince of blighters, Waring, was rejected by an intelligent electorate. Those keen, clear-sighted citizens refused to vote for him to an extent that you could notice without a microscope. Still, he has one consolation. He owns what, when the improvements are completed, will be the finest and most commodious tenement houses in New York.
Millionaires will stop at them instead of going to the Plaza. Are you asleep, Comrade Jackson?"
"Um-m," said Mike.
"That is excellent. You could not be better employed. Keep listening. Comrade Windsor also stated--as indeed did the sporting papers--that Comrade Brady put it all over friend Eddie Wood, administering the sleep-producer in the eighth round. My authorities are silent as to whether or not the lethal blow was a half-scissor hook, but I presume such to have been the case. The Kid is now definitely matched against Comrade Garvin for the championship, and the experts seem to think that he should win. He is a stout fellow, is Comrade Brady, and I hope he wins through. He will probably come to England later on. When he does, we must show him round. I don"t think you ever met him, did you, Comrade Jackson?"
"Ur-r," said Mike.
"Say no more," said Psmith. "I take you."
He reached out for a cigarette.
"These," he said, comfortably, "are the moments in life to which we look back with that wistful pleasure. What of my boyhood at Eton?
Do I remember with the keenest joy the brain-tourneys in the old form-room, and the bally rot which used to take place on the Fourth of June? No. Burned deeply into my memory is a certain hot bath I took after one of the foulest cross-country runs that ever occurred outside Dante"s Inferno. So with the present moment. This peaceful scene, Comrade Jackson, will remain with me when I have forgotten that such a person as Comrade Repetto ever existed. These are the real _Cosy Moments_. And while on that subject you will be glad to hear that the little sheet is going strong. The man Wilberfloss is a marvel in his way. He appears to have gathered in the majority of the old subscribers again. Hopping mad but a brief while ago, they now eat out of his hand. You"ve really no notion what a feeling of quiet pride it gives you owning a paper. I try not to show it, but I seem to myself to be looking down on the world from some lofty peak. Yesterday night, when I was looking down from the peak without a cap and gown, a proctor slid up. To-day I had to dig down into my jeans for a matter of two plunks. But what of it? Life must inevitably be dotted with these minor tragedies. I do not repine. The whisper goes round, "Psmith bites the bullet, and wears a brave smile." Comrade Jackson--"
A snore came from the chair.
Psmith sighed. But he did not repine. He bit the bullet. His eyes closed.
Five minutes later a slight snore came from the sofa, too.
The man behind _Cosy Moments_ slept.