Free Bachelors Anonymous by P.G. Wodehouse Page A

having
been informed on this point. ‘Did you happen to catch that little dimple in her
left cheek? Earth has not anything to show more fair, as the poet Wordsworth
said. You probably remember the passage from your school marm days.’
    He left
Mr Llewellyn looking as if he were taking a screen test and the director had
told him to register uneasiness. He had conceived a warm affection for Joe,
and it was impossible for one so imbued with the principles of Bachelors
Anonymous as himself not to feel concern at this talk of dimples and silver
bells tinkling in the moonlight.
    It was
precisely talk of this nature which would have made Ephraim Trout purse his
lips and his colleagues on Bachelors Anonymous purse theirs. Fervently he
wished that Mr Trout were here to advise him what steps to take in order to
save Joseph Pickering from the peril that confronted him, and at this moment
the telephone rang. He went to it, fortified by the reflection that if this
were Vera Dalrymple calling to inquire what the hell, he could always hang up.
    ‘Hello?’
he said.
    ‘Hello
there, I.L.,’ said a well-remembered voice. The voice of Ephraim Trout.
     
     
    2
     
    Mr Llewellyn quivered from
bald head to shoe sole. Direct answer to prayer frequently affects people in
this manner.
    ‘Eph,’
he cried. ‘Is that you?’
    ‘Who
else?’ said Mr Trout.
    ‘Where
are you?’
    ‘Here
in London at the Dorchester. I was called over unexpectedly on business, and of
course I got in touch with you right away. I naturally wanted to know how you
were making out. Did you go to Nichols, Erridge and Trubshaw as I advised?,’
    ‘Sure I
did, the first moment I got here,’ said Mr Llewellyn, feeling it unnecessary to
complicate things by mentioning his passade with Miss Vera Dalrymple.
‘I saw young Nichols, the junior partner.’
    ‘And he
provided a bodyguard?’
    ‘That’s
just what I want to talk to you about.’
    ‘We
must fix up a date.’
    ‘Fix up
a date nothing. Do it now.’
    ‘I was
going with a friend to that exhibition of first editions at Sotheby’s.’
    ‘Damn
your friends and blast first editions and curse Sotheby’s,’ said Mr Llewellyn,
who, when moved, always expressed himself forcibly. ‘If you aren’t here in
twenty minutes, I’ll take all my business away from you and give it to Jones,
Jukes, Jenkinson and Jerningham.’
    The
threat was one Mr Trout could not ignore. Mr Llewellyn’s business was extremely
valuable to him, and Jones, aided and abetted by Jukes, Jenkinson and
Jerningham, had been trying to get it away from him for years.
    ‘I’ll
be there, I.L.,’ he said, and in less than the specified time he was in a chair
at 8 Enniston Gardens, and Mr Llewellyn was saying ‘Listen’, preparatory to
cleansing his stuffed bosom of the perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart,
as Shakespeare and the Welsh school marm would have phrased it, though
Shakespeare ought to have known better than to put ‘stuff’ and ‘stuffed’ in the
same sentence like that.
    ‘Listen,’
said Mr Llewellyn. ‘I have a problem.’
    ‘You
aren’t engaged to be married?’ said Mr Trout in sudden alarm.
    ‘Of
course I’m not.’
    Mr
Trout could have criticised the use of the words ‘Of course’, but he refrained.
    ‘You
relieve my mind,’ he said. ‘I had a dream about you the other night.’
    ‘Never
mind your dreams.’
    ‘I
dreamed I saw you coming out of the church with your sixth wife under an arch
of crossed movie scripts, held by two rows of directors. But you say you aren’t
even engaged.’
    ‘It’s
not myself I’m worrying about, it’s Pickering.’
    ‘Who’s
Pickering?’
    ‘The
man those lawyers sent me.’
    ‘And
you’re worried about him? Don’t you like him?’
    ‘Yes,
very much.’
    ‘But
he’s no good for the job?’
    ‘He’s
excellent for the job. But a complication has arisen.’
    ‘Which
is?’
    ‘He’s gone
all haywire over a girl.’
    ‘I
don’t wonder that that worries you.