Three Men and a MaidWodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
General
Three Men and a Maid
Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
Humorous stories
Sam raced for his state-room. He bolted in and sank on the lounge. In
the lower berth Eustace Hignett was lying with closed eyes. He opened
them languidly--then stared.
"Hullo!" he said. "I say! You're wet."
* * * * *
Sam removed his clinging garments and hurried into a new suit. He was
in no mood for conversation, and Eustace Hignett's frank curiosity
jarred upon him. Happily, at this point, a sudden shivering of the
floor and a creaking of woodwork proclaimed the fact that the vessel
was under way again, and his cousin, turning pea-green, rolled over on
his side with a hollow moan. Sam finished buttoning his waistcoat and
went out.
He was passing the Enquiry Bureau on the C-Deck, striding along with
bent head and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to
look up, and the scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For
there stood the girl he had met on the dock. With her was a superfluous
young man who looked like a parrot.
"Oh, _how_ are you?" asked the girl breathlessly.
"Splendid, thanks," said Sam.
"Didn't you get very wet?"
"I did get a little damp."
"I thought you would," said the young man who looked like a parrot.
"Directly I saw you go over the side I said to myself: 'That fellow's
going to get wet!'"
There was a pause.
"Oh!" said the girl, "may I--Mr.--?"
"Marlowe."
"Mr. Marlowe. Mr. Bream Mortimer."
Sam smirked at the young man. The young man smirked at Sam.
"Nearly got left behind," said Bream Mortimer.
"Yes, nearly."
"No joke getting left behind."
"No."
"Have to take the next boat. Lose a lot of time," said Mr. Mortimer,
driving home his point.
The girl had listened to these intellectual exchanges with impatience.
She now spoke again.
"Oh, Bream!"
"Hello?"
"Do be a dear and run down to the saloon and see if it's all right
about our places for lunch."
"It is all right. The table steward said so."
"Yes, but go and make certain."
"All right."
He hopped away and the girl turned to Sam with shining eyes.
"Oh, Mr. Marlowe, you oughtn't to have done it! Really, you oughtn't!
You might have been drowned! But I never saw anything so wonderful. It
was like the stories of knights who used to jump into lions' dens after
gloves!"
"Yes?" said Sam, a little vaguely. The resemblance had not struck him.
It seemed a silly hobby and rough on the lions, too.
"It was the sort of thing Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad would have done!
But you shouldn't have bothered, really! It's all right now."
"Oh, it's all right now?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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