The Politeness of Princes, and Other School StoriesWodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
General
The Politeness of Princes, and Other School Stories
Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
Schools -- Fiction
Mr. Montagu Watson presented his compliments, and was deeply grateful
for all the kind things Mrs. Foulke-Ponsonby had said about his work
in her letter of the 19th inst. He was, however, afraid that he
scarcely deserved them. Her opportunities of deriving consolation from
"The Soul of Anthony Carrington" had been limited by the fact that
that book had only been published ten days before: while, as for
"Pancakes," to which she had referred in such flattering terms, he
feared that another author must have the credit of any refreshment her
bereaved spirit might have extracted from that volume, for he had
written no work of such a name. His own "Pan Wakes" would, he hoped,
administer an equal quantity of balm.
Mr. Secretary Morrison had slept badly on the night before he wrote
this letter, and had expended some venom upon its composition.
"Sold again!" said Dunstable.
"You'd better chuck it now. It's no good," said Linton.
"I'll have another shot. Then I'll try and think of something else."
Two days later Mr. Morrison replied to Mr. Edgar Habbesham-Morley, of
3a, Green Street, Park Lane, to the effect that Mr. Montagu Watson was
deeply grateful for all the kind things, etc.----
3a, Green Street was Dunstable's home address.
At this juncture the Watson-Dunstable correspondence ceases, and the
relations become more personal.
On the afternoon of the twenty-third of the month, Mr. Watson, taking
a meditative stroll through the wood which formed part of his
property, was infuriated by the sight of a boy.
He was not a man who was fond of boys even in their proper place, and
the sight of one in the middle of his wood, prancing lightly about
among the nesting pheasants, stirred his never too placid mind to its
depths.
He shouted.
The apparition paused.
"Here! Hi! you boy!"
"Sir?" said the stripling, with a winning smile, lifting his cap with
the air of a D'Orsay.
"What business have you in my wood?"
"Not business," corrected the visitor, "pleasure."
"Come here!" shrilled the novelist.
The stranger receded coyly.
Mr. Watson advanced at the double.
His quarry dodged behind a tree.
For five minutes the great man devoted his powerful mind solely to the
task of catching his visitor.
The latter, however, proved as elusive as the point of a half-formed
epigram, and at the end of the five minutes he was no longer within
sight.
Mr. Watson went off and addressed his keeper in terms which made that
worthy envious for a week.
"It's eddication," he said subsequently to a friend at the "Cowslip
Inn." "You and me couldn't talk like that. It wants eddication."
For the next few days the keeper's existence was enlivened by visits
from what appeared to be a most enthusiastic bird's-nester. By no
other theory could he account for it. Only a boy with a collection to
support would run such risks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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