Free Bachelors Anonymous by P.G. Wodehouse Page B

He sounds the very last man you ought to
have around you in your delicate condition. Putting ideas into your head.’
    ‘No,
there you are wrong, Eph. No danger of that. I told you I wasn’t worried about
myself. My anxiety is all for Pickering.’
    ‘Why?
Is he your illegitimate son or something? ‘
    ‘No,
he’s no relation, but I’m as fond of him as if he were. From our first meeting
we have got along together like ham and eggs, and I don’t want to see him
ruining himself at the very outset of his career. He ought not to be dreaming
of marriage at his age. He’s much too young.’
    ‘How
old is he?’
    ‘About
twenty-five.’
    ‘He’d
be much too young if he were sixty-five.’
    ‘So I
wish you would talk to him.’
    ‘I will.’
    ‘You’ve
had so much experience.’
    ‘More
than you could shake a stick at in a month of Sundays. We’re used to these
hot-headed young Romeos at Bachelors Anonymous. ‘
    ‘They
come to you, do they?’
    ‘No, we
generally go to them. Word reaches us that some young pipsqueak is
contemplating matrimony, and we look him up. We regard him as an out-patient.
And I may say that we are nearly always successful, though it sometimes
happens, of course, that the madness has spread too far. Is the name Otis
Bewstridge familiar to you?’
    ‘Never
heard it.’
    ‘Heir
to the Bewstridge Potato Chips millions. When we tried to dissuade him from
marrying his fourth show girl, he blacked the eye of one of our members who was
reasoning with him. But his was an exceptional case. Generally reasoning does
what we want. Tell me about this Pickering. Is his case a severe one?’
    ‘You
bet your bottom affidavit it’s a severe one. He raves about her eyes.’
    ‘That’s
bad.’
    ‘He
says her voice is like silver bells tinkling across a meadow in the moonlight.’
    ‘That’s
worse.’
    ‘He
also has much to say about the dimple in her left cheek.’
    ‘I
don’t like the sound of that at all. You say there is no danger of you imbibing
his views, but how are we to be certain? I shall take the earliest opportunity
of talking to him like a Dutch uncle. Is this he?’ asked Mr Trout as a fresh
young voice raised in joyous song made itself heard from beyond the door. Mr
Llewellyn said it was, and next moment Joe entered, looking like the jovial
innkeeper in Act One of an old-fashioned comic opera.
    Seeing
Mr Trout, he halted.
    ‘Oh,
sorry, I.L.,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were in conference.’
    ‘Just
chewing the fat,’ said Mr Llewellyn. ‘This is my old friend Trout.’
    In his
present mood any old friend of Mr Llewellyn was an old friend of Joe’s. Nothing
could have been more cordial than his manner.
    ‘How do
you do?’ he said. ‘How do you do, Mr Trout? What a beautiful world it is, is it
not?’
    Mr
Trout gave a short dry cough, as if to indicate that he had seen better in his
time, but Joe was not to be discouraged.
    ‘Full
of love and joy and laughter,’ he proceeded, flashing on the lawyer as sunny a
smile as had ever been seen in the S.W.7 postal division of London. ‘It makes
one want to sing and dance and turn hand-springs, doesn’t it?’
    Another
short cough seemed to suggest that Mr Trout was conscious of no urge in this
direction.
    ‘I’m
off to get my hair trimmed. Can’t take a girl to dinner looking like an English
sheepdog,’ said Joe, and with another smile as dazzling as its predecessor he
floated from the room.
    A
weighty silence followed his departure. Mr Llewellyn broke it.
    ‘See
what I mean?’
    Mr
Trout said he did indeed. His face was very grave.
    ‘Got it
right up his nose,’ said Mr Llewellyn.
    ‘I have
seldom seen a case where the symptoms were more clearly marked,’ said Mr Trout.
‘He is taking her to dinner.’
    ‘That’s
what he’s doing.’
    ‘And
getting his hair trimmed into the bargain.’
    ‘You
consider that bad?’
    ‘Don’t
you?’
    ‘I must
say it struck me as sinister.’
    ‘Nothing
could be more so.