Free Galahad at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse Page A

Chambers had stimulated him,
as conversations with Gally so often stimulated people. It had left him
convinced that he had only to meet Sandy and inaugurate a frank round-table
talk and all misunderstandings, if you could call what had passed between them
a misunderstanding, would be forgotten. He would say he was sorry he had called
her a ginger-haired little fathead, she would say she was sorry she had thrown
the ring at him, they would kiss again with tears as the late Alfred, Lord
Tennyson had so well put it and everything would be all right once more.
    There
was no possible doubt in his mind that Gally had been correct in describing the
thing as in the bag, and the world was looking good to him. He was loving
everyone he met. He had caught only a fleeting glimpse of the obese character
with whom he had collided in the doorway, but he was sure he was an awfully
nice obese character, once you got to know him. He liked the looks of Constable
Evans and also those of Marlene Wellbeloved, whom he now approached with a
charming smile and a request that she would let him have a stoup of the elixir
for which the Emsworth Arms was so justly famous.
    ‘Nice
day,’ said Marlene as she filled the order for she was a capital conversationalist.
A barmaid has to be as quick as lightning with these good things. They promote
a friendly atmosphere and stimulate trade.
    ‘Beautiful,’
said Sam with equal cordiality. ‘Hullo, has somebody been giving you a watch?
Your birthday is it, or something?’
    Marlene
giggled. A most musical sound, Sam thought it. In the mood he was in he would
have been equally appreciative of a squeaking slate pencil.
    ‘It’s
Old Fatty’s. He won it in the darts tournament.’
    ‘Old
Fatty? You mean the gentleman I was dancing the rumba with just now?’
    ‘My
Uncle George always calls him Old Fatty. Uncle George is terribly funny.’
    ‘I’ll
bet he keeps one and all in stitches. What’s it doing on the counter?’
    ‘He was
showing it to me. He went out because Constable Evans wanted to tell him a
dirty story.’
    ‘What
was the story? You don’t happen to know?’
    ‘No, I
don’t.’
    ‘I must
get him to tell it to me some time. Yes,’ said Sam, picking it up, ‘it’s
certainly a handsome watch. Well worth winning even at the expense of having to
play darts, which to my mind is about the lousiest pastime in the—’
    ‘World’
he would have concluded, but the word died on his lips. The door of the
Emsworth Arms bar faced the road and was always kept open in fine weather and
passing it, wheeling a bicycle, was a red-haired girl at the sight of whom all
thoughts of beer, watches and barmaids were wiped from his mind as with a
sponge. He bounded out, calling her name, and she looked round startled. Then
as she saw him her eyes widened and leaping on her bicycle she rode off,
gathering speed as she went. And Sam, breathing a soft expletive, ran after
her, though with little hope that anything constructive would result.
    As he
ran, he was dimly aware of a sound like a steam whistle in his rear, but he had
no leisure to give it his attention.
     
     
    II
     
    The steam-whistle-like
sound which had made so little impression on Sam had proceeded from the lips
of Marlene Well-beloved. It had taken her a few seconds to run to the door and
come on the air, for astonishment had held her momentarily paralysed. Hers
until now had been a placid existence, and nothing like this theft of valuable
watches beneath her very eyes had ever marred its even tenor. The bar of the
Emsworth Arms was not one of your Malemute saloons where anything may happen
when a bunch of the boys start whooping it up. Its clients were of the
respectable stamp of Beach the butler Jno. Robinson, proprietor of the station
taxi cab, and Percy Bulstrode the chemist. It was the first time that Dangerous
Dan McGrews like the customer who had just left had swum into her ken.
    She
was, accordingly, deprived of speech. Then, her vocal