Free Leave it to Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse Page B

eventually work my way to the position of a Whitebait Wizard. Alas! he was too sanguine. It was not to be,’ said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like gaze on Miss Clarkson through his eyeglass.
    ‘No?’ said Miss Clarkson.
    ‘No. Last night I was obliged to inform him that the fish business was all right, but it wouldn’t do, and that I proposed to sever my connection with the firm for ever. I may say at once that there ensued something in the nature of a family earthquake. Hard words,’ sighed Psmith. ‘Black looks. Unseemly wrangle. And the upshot of it all was that my uncle washed his hands of me and drove me forth into the great world. Hence my anxiety to find employment. My uncle has definitely withdrawn his countenance from me, Miss Clarkson.’
    ‘Dear, dear!’ murmured the proprietress sympathetically.
    ‘Yes. He is a hard man, and he judges his fellows solely by their devotion to fish. I never in my life met a man so wrapped up in a subject. For years he has been practically a monomaniac on the subject offish. So much so that he actually looks like one. It is as if he had taken one of those auto-suggestion courses and had kept saying to himself, “Every day, in everyway, I grow more and more like a fish.” His closest friends can hardly tell now whether he more nearly resembles a halibut or a cod. . . . But I am boring you again with this family gossip?’
    He eyed Miss Clarkson with such a sudden and penetrating glance that she started nervously.
    ‘No, no,’ she exclaimed.
    ‘You relieve my apprehensions. I am only too well aware that, when fairly launched on the topic offish, I am more than apt to weary my audience. I cannot understand this enthusiasm for fish. My uncle used to talk about an unusually large catch of pilchards in Cornwall in much the same awed way as a right-minded curate would talk about the spiritual excellence of his bishop. To me, Miss Clarkson, from the very start, the fish business was what I can only describe as awash-out. It nauseated my finer feelings. It got right in amongst my fibres. I had to rise and partake of a simple breakfast at about four in the morning, after which I would make my way to Billingsgate Market and stand for some hours knee-deep in dead fish of every description. A jolly life for a cat, no doubt, but a bit too thick for a Shropshire Psmith. Mine, Miss Clarkson, is a refined and poetic nature. I like to be surrounded by joy and life, and I know nothing more joyless and deader than a dead fish. Multiply that dead fish by a million, and you have an environment which only a Dante could contemplate with equanimity. My uncle used to tell me that the way to ascertain whether a fish was fresh was to peer into its eyes. Could I spend the springtime of life staring into the eyes of dead fish? No!’ He rose. ‘Well, I will not detain you any longer. Thank you for the unfailing courtesy and attention with which you have listened to me. You can understand now why my talents are on the market and why I am compelled to state specifically that no employment can be considered which has anything to do with fish. I am convinced that you will shortly have something particularly good to offer me.’
    ‘I don’t know that I can say that, Mr Psmith.’
    ‘The p is silent, as in pshrimp,’ he reminded her. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, pausing at the door, ‘there is one other thing before I go. While I was waiting for you to be disengaged, I chanced on an instalment of a serial story in The Girl’s Pet for January, 1919. My search for the remaining issues proved fruitless. The title was “Her Honour at Stake”, by Jane Emmeline Moss. You don’t happen to know how it all came out in the end, do you? Did Lord Eustace ever learn that, when he found Clarice in Sir Jasper’s rooms at midnight, she had only gone there to recover some compromising letters for a girl friend? You don’t know? I feared as much. Well, good morning, Miss Clarkson, good morning. I leave