Free Young Men in Spats by P. G. Wodehouse

now.’
    Brave words, of course, but he watched his visitor depart with emotions that were not too fearfully bright. In fact, he tells me, he actually toyed for a moment with the thought that there might be a lot to be said for that twelve-fifteen train.
    It was but a passing weakness. The thought of April Carroway soon strengthened him once more. He had invited her to this picnic, and he intended to keep the tryst even if it meant having to run like a rabbit every time Captain Bradbury hove in sight. After all, he reflected, it was most improbable that a big heavy fellow like that would be able to catch him.
    His frame of mind, in short, was precisely that of the old Crusading Widgeons when they heard that the Paynim had been sighted in the offing.
    The next day, accordingly, found Freddie seated in a hired row-boat at the landing-stage by the Town Bridge. It was a lovely summer morning with all the fixings, such as blue skies, silver wavelets, birds, bees, gentle breezes and what not. He had stowed the luncheon basket in the stern, and was whiling away the time of waiting by brushing up his ‘Lady of Shalott’, when a voice spoke from the steps. He looked up and perceived the kid Prudence gazing down at him with her grave, green eyes.
    â€˜Oh, hullo,’ he said.
    â€˜Hullo,’ said the child.
    Since his entry to Tudsleigh Court, Prudence Carroway had meant little or nothing in Freddie’s life. He had seen her around, of course, and had beamed at her in a benevolent sort of way, it being his invariable policy to beam benevolently at all relatives and connections of the adored object, but he had scarcely given her a thought. As always on these occasions, his whole attention had been earmarked for the adored one. So now his attitude was rather that of a bloke who wonders to what he is indebted for the honour of this visit.
    â€˜Nice day,’ he said, tentatively.
    â€˜Yes,’ said the kid. ‘I came to tell you that April can’t come.’
    The sun, which had been shining with exceptional brilliance, seemed to Freddie to slip out of sight like a diving duck.
    â€˜You don’t mean that!’
    â€˜Yes, I do.’
    â€˜Can’t come?’
    â€˜No. She told me to tell you she’s awfully sorry, but some friends of Mother’s have phoned that they are passing throughand would like lunch, so she’s got to stay on and help cope with them.’
    â€˜Oh, gosh!’
    â€˜So she wants you to take me instead, and she’s going to try to come on afterwards. I told her we would lunch near Griggs’s Ferry.’
    Something of the inky blackness seemed to Freddie to pass from the sky. It was ajar, of course, but still, if the girl was going to join him later . . . And, as for having this kid along, well, even that had its bright side. He could see that it would be by no means a bad move to play the hearty host to the young blighter. Reports of the lavishness of his hospitality and the suavity of his demeanour would get round to April and might do him quite a bit of good. It is a recognized fact that a lover is never wasting his time when he lushes up the little sister.
    â€˜All right,’ he said. ‘Hop in.’
    So the kid hopped, and they shoved off. There wasn’t anything much in the nature of intellectual conversation for the first ten minutes or so, because there was a fairish amount of traffic on the river at this point and the kid, who had established herself at the steering apparatus, seemed to have a rather sketchy notion of the procedure. As she explained to Freddie after they had gone about half-way through a passing barge, she always forgot which of the ropes it was that you pulled when you wanted to go to the right. However, the luck of the Widgeons saw them through and eventually they came, still afloat, to the unfrequented upper portions of the stream. Here in some mysterious way the rudder fell off, and after that it was all much