Free Service with a Smile by P.G. Wodehouse Page B

this one aroused her scorn. She did
not actually call the Duke an ill-read old bohunkus, but this criticism was
implicit in the way she looked at him.
    ‘A
quotation. “Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul when hot for certainties in
this our life.” George Meredith, “Modem Love,” stanza forty-eight.’
    The
Duke’s head had begun to swim a little, but with the sensation of slight
giddiness had come an unwilling respect for this goggled girl. Superficially
all that stanza forty-eight stuff might seem merely another indication of the pottiness
which was so marked a feature of the other sex, but there was something in her
manner that suggested that she had more to say and that eventually something would
emerge that made sense. This feeling solidified as she proceeded.
    ‘If we
can came to some satisfactory business arrangement, I will abstract the pig
and see that it is delivered at your address.’
    The
Duke blinked. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not this. He looked at the
Empress, estimating her tonnage, then at Lavender Briggs, in comparison so
fragile.
    ‘You?
Don’t be an ass. You couldn’t steal a pig.’
    ‘I
should, of course, engage the service of an assistant to do the rough work.’
    ‘Who?
Not me.’
    ‘I was
not thinking of Your Grace.’
    ‘Then
who?’
    ‘I
would prefer not to specify with any greatah exactitude.’
    ‘See
what you mean. No names, no pack-drill?’
    ‘Quate.’
    A
thoughtful silence fell. Lavender Briggs stood looking like a spectacled
statue, while the Duke, who had lighted another cigar, puffed at it. And at
this moment Lord Emsworth appeared, walking across the meadow in that jerky way
of his which always reminded his friends and admirers of a mechanical toy which
had been insufficiently wound up.
    ‘Hell!’
said the Duke, ‘Here comes Emsworth.’
    ‘Quate,’
said Lavender Briggs. It was obvious to her that the conference must be
postponed to some more suitable time and place. Above all else, plotters
require privacy. ‘I suggest that Your Grace meet me later in my office.’
    ‘Where’s
that?’
    ‘Beach
will direct you.’
    The
secretary’s office, to which the butler some quarter of an hour later escorted
the Duke, was at the far end of a corridor, a small room looking out on the
Dutch garden. Like herself, it was tidy and austere, with no fripperies. There
was a desk with a typewriter on it, a table with a tape-recording machine on
it, filing cabinets against the walls, a chair behind the desk, another chair
in front of it, both hard and business-like, and —the sole concession to the
beautiful — a bowl of flowers by the window. As the Duke entered, she was
sitting in the chair behind the desk, and he, after eyeing it suspiciously as
if doubtful of its ability to support the largest trouser-seat in the peerage,
took the other chair.
    ‘Been
thinking over what you were saying just now,’ he said. ‘About stealing that pig
for me. This assistant you were speaking of. Sure you can get him?’
    ‘I am.
Actually, I shall requiah two assistants,’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘One to
push and one to pull. It is a very large pig.’
    ‘Oh,
yes, see what you mean. Yes, undoubtedly. As you say, very large pig. And you
can get this second chap?’
    ‘I can.’
    ‘Good.
Then that seems to be about it, what? Everything settled, I mean to say.’
    ‘Except
terms.’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘If you
will recall, I spoke of a satisfactory business arrangement? I naturally
expect to be compensated for my services. I am anxious to obtain capital with
which to start a typewriting bureau.’
    The
Duke, a prudent man who believed in watching the pennies, said, ‘A typewriting
bureau, eh? I know the sort of thing you mean. One of those places full of
machines and girls hammering away at them like a lot of dashed riveters. Well,
you don’t want much money for that,’ he said, and Lavender Briggs, correcting
this view, said she wanted as much as she could get.
    ‘I
would suggest five