Service with a Smile Read Online Free PDF

he’s
an artist, and there’s something about artists that seems to act on the other
sex like catnip on cats. What’s more, I happen to know, because I met a fellow
who knows a chap who knows her, that Archie’s girl has just broken their
engagement.’
    ‘Indeed?’
    ‘A girl
called Millicent Rigby. Archie works on one of those papers Lord Tilbury runs
at the Mammoth Publishing Company, and she’s Tilbury’s secretary. This fellow
told me that the chap had told him that he had had it direct from the Rigby
wench that she had handed Archie the black spot. You see what that means?’
    ‘Not
altogether.’
    ‘Use
your bean, Uncle Fred. You know what you do when your girl gives you the push.
You dash off and propose to another girl, just to show her she isn’t the only
onion in the stew.’
    Lord
Ickenham nodded. It was many years since he had acted in the manner described,
but he, too, had lived in Arcady.
    ‘Ah,
youth, youth!’ he was saying to himself, and he shuddered a little as he
recalled the fearful female down Greenwich Village way, all beads and bangles
and matted hair, at whose sandaled feet he had laid his heart the second time Pongo’s
Aunt Jane had severed relations with him.
    ‘Yes, I
follow you now. This does make Archibald a menace, and one cannot but feel a
certain anxiety for Bill. Where can I find him, by the way?’
    ‘He’s
staying with me at my fiat. Why?’
    ‘I was
thinking I might look in on him from time to time and try to cheer him up. Take
him to the dog races, perhaps.’
    Pongo
quivered like an aspen. He always quivered like an aspen when reminded of the
afternoon when he had attended the dog races in Lord Ickenham’s company. Though
on that occasion, as his uncle had often pointed out, a wiser policeman would
have been content with a mere reprimand.
     
     
    2
     
    The canny peer of the
realm, when duty calls him to lend his presence to the ceremony of the Opening
of Parliament, hires his robes and coronet from. that indispensable clothing
firm, the Brothers Moss of Covent Garden, whose boast is that they can at any
time fit anyone out as anything and have him ready to go anywhere. Only they
can prevent him being caught short. It was to their emporium that, after
leaving his nephew, Lord Ickenham repaired, carrying a suitcase. And he had
returned the suitcase’s contents and paid his modest bill, when there entered,
also carrying a suitcase, a tall, limp, drooping figure, at the sight of which
he uttered a glad cry.
    ‘Emsworth!
My dear fellow, how nice to run into you again. So you too are bringing back
your sheaves?’
    ‘Eh?’
said Lord Emsworth, who always said ‘Eh?’ when anyone addressed him suddenly. ‘Oh,
hullo, Ickenham. Are you in London?’
    Lord
Ickenham assured him that he was, and Lord Emsworth said so was he. This
having been straightened out,
    ‘Were
you at that thing this morning? ‘he said.
    ‘I was
indeed,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘and looking magnificent. I don’t suppose there is
a peer in England who presents a posher appearance when wearing the
reach-me-downs and comic hat than I do. Just before the procession got under
way, I heard Rouge Croix whisper to Bluemantle “Don’t look now, but who’s that
chap over there? “, and Bluemantle whispered back, “I haven’t the foggiest, but
evidently some terrific swell.” But it’s nice to get out of the fancy dress,
isn’t it, and it’s wonderful seeing you, Emsworth. How’s the Empress?’
    ‘Eh?
Oh, capital, capital, capital. I left her in the care of my pigman Wellbeloved,
in whom I have every confidence.’
    ‘Splendid.
Well, let’s go and have a couple for the tonsils and a pleasant chat. I know a
little bar round the corner,’ said Lord Ickenham, who, wherever he was, always
knew a little bar round the corner. ‘You have rather a fatigued air, as if
putting on all that dog this morning had exhausted you. A whisky with a splash
of soda will soon bring back the sparkle to your