"Sure. He's got twenty-t'ree of dem, and dey all has dose collars." "Are you on speaking terms with the gentleman?" "Huh?" "Do you know Bat Jarvis to speak to?" "Sure. He's me cousin." "Well, tell him I've got the cat, and that if he wants it he'd better come round to my place. You know where I live?" "Sure." "Fancy you being a cousin of Bat's, Pugsy. Why did you never tell us? Are you going to join the gang some day?" "Nope. Nothin' doin'. I'm goin' to be a cow-boy." "Good for you. Well, you tell him when you see him. And now, my lad, out you get, because if I'm interrupted any more I shan't get through to-night." "Sure," said Master Maloney, retiring. "Oh, and Pugsy . . ." "Huh?" "Go out and get a good big basket. I shall want one to carry this animal home in." "Sure," said Master Maloney. CHAPTER III AT "THE GARDENIA" "It would ill beseem me, Comrade Jackson," said Psmith, thoughtfully sipping his coffee, "to run down the metropolis of a great and friendly nation, but candour compels me to state that New York is in some respects a singularly blighted town." "What's the matter with it?" asked Mike. "Too decorous, Comrade Jackson. I came over here principally, it is true, to be at your side, should you be in any way persecuted by scoundrels. But at the same time I confess that at the back of my mind there lurked a hope that stirring adventures might come my way. I had heard so much of the place. Report had it that an earnest seeker after amusement might have a tolerably spacious rag in this modern Byzantium. I thought that a few weeks here might restore that keen edge to my nervous system which the languor of the past term had in a measure blunted. I wished my visit to be a tonic rather than a sedative. I anticipated that on my return the cry would go round Cambridge, 'Psmith has been to New York. He is full of oats. For he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise. He is hot stuff. Rah!' But what do we find?" He paused, and lit a cigarette. "What do we find?" he asked again. "I don't know," said Mike. "What?" "A very judicious query, Comrade Jackson. What, indeed? We find a town very like London. A quiet, self-respecting town, admirable to the apostle of social reform, but disappointing to one who, like myself, arrives with a brush and a little bucket of red paint, all eager for a treat. I have been here a week, and I have not seen a single citizen clubbed by a policeman. No negroes dance cake-walks in the street. No cow-boy has let off his revolver at random in Broadway. The cables flash the message across the ocean, 'Psmith is losing his illusions.'"