T HE five o’clock train, having given itself a spasmodic jerk, began to move slowly out of Paddington Station. The platform past which it was gliding was crowded with a number of the fauna always to be seen at railway stations at such moments, but in their ranks there was no sign of Mr. Ralston McTodd: and Psmith, as he sat opposite Lord Emsworth in a corner seat of a first-class compartment, felt that genial glow of satisfaction which comes to the man who has successfully taken a chance. Until now, he had been half afraid that McTodd, having changed his mind, might suddenly appear with bag and baggage—an event which must necessarily have caused confusion and discomfort. His mind was now tranquil. Concerning the future he declined to worry. It would, no doubt, contain its little difficulties, but he was prepared to meet them in the right spirit; and his only trouble in the world now was the difficulty he was experiencing in avoiding his lordship’s legs, which showed a disposition to pervade the compartment like the tentacles of an octopus. Lord Emsworth rather ran to leg, and his practice of reclining when at ease on the base of his spine was causing him to straddle, like Apollyon in Pilgrim’s Progress, “right across the way.” It became manifest that in a journey lasting[p. 113] several hours his society was likely to prove irksome. For the time being, however, he endured it, and listened with polite attention to his host’s remarks on the subject of the Blandings gardens. Lord Emsworth, in a train moving in the direction of home, was behaving like a horse heading for his stable. He snorted eagerly, and spoke at length and with emotion of roses and herbaceous borders.
“It will be dark, I suppose, by the time we arrive,” he said regretfully, “but the first thing to-morrow, my dear fellow, I must take you round and show you my gardens.”
“I shall look forward to it keenly,” said Psmith. “They are, I can readily imagine, distinctly oojah-cum-spiff.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Lord Emsworth with a start.
“Not at all,” said Psmith graciously.
“Er—what did you say?” asked his lordship after a slight pause.
“I was saying that, from all reports, you must have a very nifty display of garden-produce at your rural seat.”
“Oh, yes. Oh, most,” said his lordship, looking puzzled. He examined Psmith across the compartment with something of the peering curiosity which he would have bestowed upon a new and unclassified shrub. “Most extraordinary!” he murmured. “I trust, my dear fellow, you will not think me personal, but, do you know, nobody would imagine that you were a poet. You don’t look like a poet, and, dash it, you don’t talk like a poet.”
“How should a poet talk?”
“Well . . .” Lord Emsworth considered the point. “Well, Miss Peavey . . . But of course you don’t know Miss Peavey . . . Miss Peavey is a poetess, and[p. 114] she waylaid me the other morning while I was having a most important conference with McAllister on the subject of bulbs and asked me if I didn’t think that it was fairies’ tear-drops that made the dew. Did you ever hear such dashed nonsense?”
“Evidently an aggravated case. Is Miss Peavey staying at the castle?”
“My dear fellow, you couldn’t shift her with blasting-powder. Really this craze of my sister Constance for filling the house with these infernal literary people is getting on my nerves. I can’t stand these poets and what not. Never could.”
“We must always remember, however,” said Psmith gravely, “that poets are also God’s creatures.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed his lordship, aghast. “I had forgotten that you were one. What will you think of me, my dear fellow! But, of course, as I said a moment ago, you are different. I admit that when Constance told me that she had invited you to the house I was not cheered, but, now that I have had the pleasure of meeting you . . .”
The conversation had worked round to the very point to which Psmith had been wishing to direct it. He was keenly desirous of finding out why Mr. McTodd had been invited to Blandings and—a still more vital matter—of ascertaining whether, on his arrival there as Mr. McTodd’s understudy, he was going to meet people who knew the poet by sight. On this latter point, it seemed to him, hung the question of whether he was about to enjoy a delightful visit to a historic country house in the society of Eve Halliday—or leave the train at the next stop and omit to return to it.
“It was extremely kind of Lady Constance,” he hazarded, “to invite a perfect stranger to Blandings.”
“Oh, she’s always doing that sort of thing,” said[p. 115] his lordship. “It didn’t matter to her that she’d never seen you in her life. She had read your books, you know, and liked them: and when she heard that you were coming to England, she wrote to you.”
“I see,” said Psmith, relieved.
“Of course, it is all right as it has turned out,” said Lord Emsworth handsomely. “As I say, you’re different. And how you came to write that . . . that . . .”
“Bilge?” suggested Psmith.
“The very word I was about to employ, my dear fellow . . . No, no, I don’t mean that . . . I—I . . . Capital stuff, ............