Psmith, JournalistWodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
General
Psmith, Journalist
Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
Humorous stories
The end of the week arrived, and Psmith and Billy, conducted by
Master Maloney, made their way to Pleasant Street. To get there it
was necessary to pass through a section of the enemy's country; but
the perilous passage was safely negotiated. The expedition reached
its unsavoury goal intact.
The wop kid, whose name, it appeared, was Giuseppe Orloni,
inhabited a small room at the very top of the building next to the
one Psmith and Mike had visited on their first appearance in
Pleasant Street. He was out when the party, led by Pugsy up dark
stairs, arrived; and, on returning, seemed both surprised and
alarmed to see visitors. Pugsy undertook to do the honours. Pugsy
as interpreter was energetic but not wholly successful. He appeared
to have a fixed idea that the Italian language was one easily
mastered by the simple method of saying "da" instead of "the," and
tacking on a final "a" to any word that seemed to him to need one.
"Say, kid," he began, "has da rent-a-man come yet-a?"
The black eyes of the wop kid clouded. He gesticulated, and said
something in his native language.
"He hasn't got next," reported Master Maloney. "He can't git on to
me curves. Dese wop kids is all boneheads. Say, kid, look-a here."
He walked out of the room and closed the door; then, rapping on it
smartly from the outside, re-entered and, assuming a look of
extreme ferocity, stretched out his hand and thundered: "Unbelt-a!
Slip-a me da stuff!"
The wop kid's puzzlement became pathetic.
"This," said Psmith, deeply interested, "is getting about as tense
as anything I ever struck. Don't give in, Comrade Maloney. Who
knows but that you may yet win through? I fancy the trouble is that
your too perfect Italian accent is making the youth home-sick. Once
more to the breach, Comrade Maloney."
Master Maloney made a gesture of disgust. "I'm t'roo. Dese Dagoes
makes me tired. Dey don't know enough to go upstairs to take de
Elevated. Beat it, you mutt," he observed with moody displeasure
to the wop kid, accompanying the words with a gesture which
conveyed its own meaning. The wop kid, plainly glad to get away,
slipped out of the door like a shadow.
Pugsy shrugged his shoulders.
"Gents," he said resignedly, "it's up to youse."
"I fancy," said Psmith, "that this is one of those moments when it
is necessary for me to unlimber my Sherlock Holmes system. As thus.
If the rent collector _had_ been here, it is certain, I think, that
Comrade Spaghetti, or whatever you said his name was, wouldn't have
been. That is to say, if the rent collector had called and found no
money waiting for him, surely Comrade Spaghetti would have been out
in the cold night instead of under his own roof-tree. Do you follow
me, Comrade Maloney?"
"That's right," said Billy Windsor. "Of course."
"Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary," murmured Psmith.
"So all we have to do is to sit here and wait."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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