Psmith in the City by P. G. Wodehouse (world of reading txt) 📕

as an imposition, reminded him that Shakespeare had once said something about there being a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, etc., Psmith had acknowledged with an easy grace that possibly Shakespeare had got on to it first, and that it was but one more proof of how often great minds thought alike.

Though waiving his claim to the copyright of the maxim, he nevertheless had a high opinion of it, and frequently acted upon it in the conduct of his own life.

Thus, when approaching the Senior Conservative Club at five o’clock with the idea of finding Mr. Bickersdyke there, he observed his quarry entering the Turkish Baths which stand some twenty yards from the club’s front door, he acted on his maxim, and decided, instead of waiting for the manager to finish his bath before approaching him on the subject of Mike, to corner him in the Baths themselves.

He gave Mr. Bickersdyke five minutes’ start. Then, reckoning that by that time he would probably have settled down, he pushed open the door and went in himself. And, having paid his money, and left his boots with the boy at the threshold, he was rewarded by the sight of the manager emerging from a box at the far end of the room, clad in the mottled towels which the bather, irrespective of his personal taste in dress, is obliged to wear in a Turkish bath.

Psmith made for the same box. Mr. Bickersdyke’s clothes lay at the head of one of the sofas, but nobody else had staked out a claim. Psmith took possession of the sofa next to the manager’s. Then, humming lightly, he undressed, and made his way downstairs to the Hot Rooms. He rather fancied himself in towels. There was something about them which seemed to suit his figure. They gave him, he though, rather a debonnaire look. He paused for a moment before the looking-glass to examine himself, with approval, then pushed open the door of the Hot Rooms and went in.

XXIII Mr. Bickersdyke Makes a Concession

Mr. Bickersdyke was reclining in an easy chair in the first room, staring before him in the boiled-fish manner customary in a Turkish Bath. Psmith dropped into the next seat with a cheery “Good evening.” The manager started as if some firm hand had driven a bradawl into him. He looked at Psmith with what was intended to be a dignified stare. But dignity is hard to achieve in a couple of particoloured towels. The stare did not differ to any great extent from the conventional boiled-fish look, alluded to above.

Psmith settled himself comfortably in his chair. “Fancy finding you here,” he said pleasantly. “We seem always to be meeting. To me,” he added, with a reassuring smile, “it is a great pleasure. A very great pleasure indeed. We see too little of each other during office hours. Not that one must grumble at that. Work before everything. You have your duties, I mine. It is merely unfortunate that those duties are not such as to enable us to toil side by side, encouraging each other with word and gesture. However, it is idle to repine. We must make the most of these chance meetings when the work of the day is over.”

Mr. Bickersdyke heaved himself up from his chair and took another at the opposite end of the room. Psmith joined him.

“There’s something pleasantly mysterious, to my mind,” said he chattily, “in a Turkish Bath. It seems to take one out of the hurry and bustle of the everyday world. It is a quiet backwater in the rushing river of Life. I like to sit and think in a Turkish Bath. Except, of course, when I have a congenial companion to talk to. As now. To me⁠—”

Mr. Bickersdyke rose, and went into the next room.

“To me,” continued Psmith, again following, and seating himself beside the manager, “there is, too, something eerie in these places. There is a certain sinister air about the attendants. They glide rather than walk. They say little. Who knows what they may be planning and plotting? That drip-drip again. It may be merely water, but how are we to know that it is not blood? It would be so easy to do away with a man in a Turkish Bath. Nobody has seen him come in. Nobody can trace him if he disappears. These are uncomfortable thoughts, Mr. Bickersdyke.”

Mr. Bickersdyke seemed to think them so. He rose again, and returned to the first room.

“I have made you restless,” said Psmith, in a voice of self-reproach, when he had settled himself once more by the manager’s side. “I am sorry. I will not pursue the subject. Indeed, I believe that my fears are unnecessary. Statistics show, I understand, that large numbers of men emerge in safety every year from Turkish Baths. There was another matter of which I wished to speak to you. It is a somewhat delicate matter, and I am only encouraged to mention it to you by the fact that you are so close a friend of my father’s.”

Mr. Bickersdyke had picked up an early edition of an evening paper, left on the table at his side by a previous bather, and was to all appearances engrossed in it. Psmith, however, not discouraged, proceeded to touch upon the matter of Mike.

“There was,” he said, “some little friction, I hear, in the office today in connection with a cheque.” The evening paper hid the manager’s expressive face, but from the fact that the hands holding it tightened their grip Psmith deduced that Mr. Bickersdyke’s attention was not wholly concentrated on the City news. Moreover, his toes wriggled. And when a man’s toes wriggle, he is interested in what you are saying.

“All these petty breezes,” continued Psmith sympathetically, “must be very trying to a man in your position, a man who wishes to be left alone in order to devote his entire thought to the niceties of the higher Finance. It is as if Napoleon,