The Girl on the BoatWodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
General
The Girl on the Boat
Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
Children of the rich -- Fiction; Golf stories; Humorous stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
Mrs. Hignett experienced no diminution of her annoyance. She had not
seen her nephew Sam for ten years, and would have been willing to
extend the period. She remembered him as an untidy small boy who once
or twice, during his school holidays, had disturbed the cloistral peace
of Windles with his beastly presence. However, blood being thicker than
water, and all that sort of thing, she supposed she would have to give
him five minutes. She went into the sitting-room, and found there a
young man who looked more or less like all other young men, though
perhaps rather fitter than most. He had grown a good deal since she had
last met him, as men so often do between the ages of fifteen and
twenty-five, and was now about six feet in height, about forty inches
round the chest, and in weight about thirteen stone. He had a brown and
amiable face, marred at the moment by an expression of discomfort
somewhat akin to that of a cat in a strange alley.
“Hullo, Aunt Adeline!” he said awkwardly.
“Well, Samuel!” said Mrs. Hignett.
There was a pause. Mrs. Hignett, who was not fond of young men and
disliked having her mornings broken into, was thinking that he had not
improved in the slightest degree since their last meeting; and Sam, who
imagined that he had long since grown to man’s estate and put off
childish things, was embarrassed to discover that his aunt still
affected him as of old. That is to say, she made him feel as if he had
omitted to shave and, in addition to that, had swallowed some drug
which had caused him to swell unpleasantly, particularly about the
hands and feet.
“Jolly morning,” said Sam, perseveringly.
“So I imagine. I have not yet been out.”
“Thought I’d look in and see how you were.”
“That was very kind of you. The morning is my busy time, but ... yes,
that was very kind of you!”
There was another pause.
“How do you like America?” said Sam.
“I dislike it exceedingly.”
“Yes? Well, of course, some people do. Prohibition and all that.
Personally, it doesn’t affect me. I can take it or leave it alone. I
like America myself,” said Sam. “I’ve had a wonderful time. Everybody’s
treated me like a rich uncle. I’ve been in Detroit, you know, and they
practically gave me the city and asked me if I’d like another to take
home in my pocket. Never saw anything like it. I might have been the
missing heir! I think America’s the greatest invention on record.”
“And what brought you to America?” said Mrs. Hignett, unmoved by this
rhapsody.
“Oh, I came over to play golf. In a tournament, you know.”
“Surely at your age,” said Mrs. Hignett, disapprovingly, “you could be
better occupied. Do you spend your whole time playing golf?”
“Oh, no! I play cricket a bit and shoot a bit and I swim a good lot and
I still play football occasionally.”
“I wonder your father does not insist on your doing some useful work.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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