The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Intrusion of Jimmy, by P.G. Wodehouse
THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY
BY
P.G. WODEHOUSE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. JIMMY MAKES A BET
II. PYRAMUS AND THISBE
III. MR. MCEACHERN
IV. MOLLY
V. A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
VI. AN EXHIBITION PERFORMANCE
VII. GETTING ACQUAINTED
VIII. AT DREEVER
IX. FRIENDS, NEW AND OLD
X. JIMMY ADOPTS A LAME DOG
XI. AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD
XII. MAKING A START
XIII. SPIKE'S VIEWS
XIV. CHECK AND A COUNTER MOVE
XV. MR. McEACHERN INTERVENES
XVI. A MARRIAGE ARRANGED
XVII. JIMMY REMEMBERS SOMETHING
XVIII. THE LOCHINVAR METHOD
XIX. ON THE LAKE
XX. A LESSON IN PICQUET
XXI. LOATHSOME GIFTS
XXII. TWO OF A TRADE DISAGREE
XXIII. FAMILY JARS
XXIV. THE TREASURE-SEEKER
XXV. EXPLANATIONS
XXVI. STIRRING TIMES FOR SIR THOMAS
XXVII. A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
XXVIII. SPENNIE'S HOUR OF CLEAR VISION
XXIX. THE LAST ROUND
XXX. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER I
JIMMY MAKES A BET
The main smoking-room of the Strollers' Club had been filling for
the last half-hour, and was now nearly full. In many ways, the
Strollers', though not the most magnificent, is the pleasantest club
in New York. Its ideals are comfort without pomp; and it is given
over after eleven o'clock at night mainly to the Stage. Everybody is
young, clean-shaven, and full of conversation: and the conversation
strikes a purely professional note.
Everybody in the room on this July night had come from the theater.
Most of those present had been acting, but a certain number had been
to the opening performance of the latest better-than-Raffles play.
There had been something of a boom that season in dramas whose
heroes appealed to the public more pleasantly across the footlights
than they might have done in real life. In the play that had opened
to-night, Arthur Mifflin, an exemplary young man off the stage, had
been warmly applauded for a series of actions which, performed
anywhere except in the theater, would certainly have debarred him
from remaining a member of the Strollers' or any other club. In
faultless evening dress, with a debonair smile on his face, he had
broken open a safe, stolen bonds and jewelry to a large amount, and
escaped without a blush of shame via the window. He had foiled a
detective through four acts, and held up a band of pursuers with a
revolver. A large audience had intimated complete approval
throughout.
"It's a hit all right," said somebody through the smoke.
"These near-'Raffles' plays always are," grumbled Willett, who
played bluff fathers in musical comedy. "A few years ago, they would
have been scared to death of putting on a show with a crook as hero.
Now, it seems to me the public doesn't want anything else. Not that
they know what they DO want," he concluded, mournfully.
"The Belle of Boulogne," in which Willett sustained the role of
Cyrus K. Higgs, a Chicago millionaire, was slowly fading away on a
diet of paper, and this possibly prejudiced him.
Raikes, the character actor, changed the subject. If Willett once
got started on the wrongs of the ill-fated "Belle," general
conversation would become impossible. Willett, denouncing the
stupidity of the public, as purely a monologue artiste.
"I saw Jimmy Pitt at the show," said Raikes. Everybody displayed
interest.
"Jimmy Pitt? When did he come back? I thought he was in Italy."
"He came on the Lusitania, I suppose. She docked this morning."
"Jimmy Pitt?" said Sutton, of the Majestic Theater. "How long has he
been away? Last I saw of him was at the opening of 'The Outsider' at
the Astor. That's a couple of months ago."
"He's been traveling in Europe, I believe," said Raikes. "Lucky
beggar to be able to. I wish I could."
Sutton knocked the ash off his cigar.
"I envy Jimmy," he said. "I don't know anyone I'd rather be. He's
got much more money than any man except a professional 'plute' has
any right to. He's as strong as an ox. I shouldn't say he'd ever had
anything worse than measles in his life. He's got no relations. And
he isn't married."
Sutton, who had been married three times, spoke with some feeling.
"He's a good chap, Jimmy," said Raikes.
"Yes," said Arthur Mifflin, "yes, Jimmy is a good chap. I've known
him for years. I was at college with him. He hasn't got my
brilliance of intellect; but he has some wonderfully fine qualities.
For one thing, I should say he had put more deadbeats on their legs
again than half the men in New York put together."
"Well," growled Willett, whom the misfortunes of the Belle had
soured, "what's there in that? It's mighty easy to do the
philanthropist act when you're next door to a millionaire."
"Yes," said Mifflin warmly, "but it's not so easy when you're
getting thirty dollars a week on a newspaper. When Jimmy was a
reporter on the News, there used to be a whole crowd of fellows just
living on him. Not borrowing an occasional dollar, mind you, but
living on him--sleeping on his sofa, and staying to breakfast. It
made me mad. I used to ask him why he stood for it. He said there
was nowhere else for them to go, and he thought he could see them
through all right--which he did, though I don't see how he managed
it on thirty a week."
"If a man's fool enough to be an easy mark--" began Willett.
"Oh, cut it out!" said Raikes. "We don't want anybody knocking Jimmy
here."
"All the same," said Sutton, "it seems to me that it was mighty
lucky that he came into that money. You can't keep open house for
ever on thirty a week. By the way, Arthur, how was that? I heard it
was his uncle."
"It wasn't his uncle," said Mifflin. "It was by way of being a
romance of sorts, I believe. Fellow who had been in love with
Jimmy's mother years ago went West, made a pile, and left it to Mrs.
Pitt or her children. She had been dead some time when that
happened. Jimmy, of course, hadn't a notion of what was coming to
him, when suddenly he got a solicitor's letter asking him to call.
He rolled round, and found that there was about five hundred
thousand dollars just waiting for him to spend it."
Jimmy Pitt had now definitely ousted "Love, the Cracksman" as a
topic of conversation. Everybody present knew him. Most of them had
known him in his newspaper days; and, though every man there would
have perished rather than admit it, they were grateful to Jimmy for
being exactly the same to them now that he could sign a check for
half a million as he had been on the old thirty-a-week basis.
Inherited wealth, of course, does not make a young man nobler or
more admirable; but the young man does not always know this.
"Jimmy's had a queer life," said Mifflin. "He's been pretty much
everything in his time. Did you know he was on the stage before he
took up newspaper-work? Only on the road, I believe. He got tired of
it, and cut it out. That's always been his trouble. He wouldn't
settle down to anything. He studied law at Yale, but he never kept
it up. After he left the stage, he moved all over the States,
without a cent, picking up any odd job he could get. He was a waiter
once for a couple of days, but they fired him for breaking plates.
Then, he got a job in a jeweler's shop. I believe he's a bit of an