Free Young Men in Spats by P. G. Wodehouse Page B

disgrace at the time, because I had set the dormitory on fire the night before.’
    Freddie blinked a bit.
    â€˜You set the dormitory on fire?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Any special reason, or just a passing whim?’
    â€˜I was playing Florence Nightingale.’
    â€˜Florence Nightingale?’
    â€˜The Lady with the Lamp. I dropped the lamp.’
    â€˜Tell me,’ said Freddie. ‘This Miss Maitland of yours. What colour is her hair?’
    â€˜Grey.’
    â€˜I thought as much. And now, if you don’t mind, switch off the childish prattle for the nonce. I feel a restful sleep creeping over me.’
    â€˜My Uncle Joe says that people who sleep after lunch have got fatty degeneration of the heart.’
    â€˜Your Uncle Joe is an ass,’ said Freddie.
    How long it was before Freddie awoke, he could not have said. But when he did the first thing that impressed itself upon him was that the kid was no longer in sight, and this worried him a bit. I mean to say, a child who, on her own showing, plugged pigs with arrows and set fire to dormitories was not a child hewas frightfully keen on having roaming about the countryside at a time when he was supposed to be more or less in charge of her. He got up, feeling somewhat perturbed, and started walking about and bellowing her name.
    Rather a chump it made him feel, he tells me, because a fellow all by himself on the bank of a river shouting ‘Prudence! Prudence!’ is apt to give a false impression to any passer-by who may hear him. However, he didn’t have to bother about that long, for at this point, happening to glance at the river, he saw her body floating in it.
    â€˜Oh, dash it!’ said Freddie.
    Well, I mean, you couldn’t say it was pleasant for him. It put him in what you might call an invidious position. Here he was, supposed to be looking after this kid, and when he got home April Carroway would ask him if he had had a jolly day and he would reply: ‘Topping, thanks, except that young Prudence went and got drowned, regretted by all except possibly Miss Maitland.’ It wouldn’t go well, and he could see it wouldn’t go well, so on the chance of a last-minute rescue he dived in. And he was considerably surprised, on arriving at what he had supposed to be a drowning child, to discover that it was merely the outer husk. In other words, what was floating there was not the kid in person but only her frock. And why a frock that had a kid in it should suddenly have become a kidless frock was a problem beyond him.
    Another problem, which presented itself as he sloshed ashore once more, was what the dickens he was going to do now. The sun had gone in and a nippy breeze was blowing, and it looked to him as if only a complete change of costume could save him from pneumonia. And as he stood there wondering where this change of costume was to come from he caught sight of that house through the trees.
    Now, in normal circs. Freddie would never dream of calling on a bird to whom he had never been introduced and touching him for a suit of clothes. He’s scrupulously rigid on points like that and has been known to go smokeless through an entire night at the theatre rather than ask a stranger for a match. But this was a special case. He didn’t hesitate. A quick burst across country, and he was at the front door, rapping the knocker and calling ‘I say!’ And when at the end of about three minutes nobody had appeared he came rather shrewdly to the conclusion that the place must be deserted.
    Well, this, of course, fitted in quite neatly with his plans. He much preferred to nip in and help himself rather than explain everything at length to someone who might very easily be one of those goops who are not quick at grasping situations. Observing that the door was not locked, accordingly he pushed in and toddled up the stairs to the bedroom on the first floor.
    Everything was fine. There was a cupboard by