“Goo!” observed Freddie. He removed the bag from his midriff and began to massage the stricken spot. Then suddenly perceiving that he was not alone he looked up and saw Psmith. “Goo!” said Freddie, and sat staring wildly.
Nobody is more alive than we are to the fact that the dialogue of Frederick Threepwood, recorded above, is not bright. Nevertheless, those were his opening remarks, and the excuse must be that he had passed through a trying time and had just received two shocks, one after the other. From the first of these, the physical impact of the suit-case, he was recovering; but the second had simply paralysed him. When, the mists of sleep having cleared away, he saw sitting but a few[p. 119] feet away from him on the train that was carrying him home the very man with whom he had plotted in the lobby of the Piccadilly Palace Hotel, a cold fear gripped Freddie’s very vitals.
Freddie’s troubles had begun when he just missed the twelve-fifty train. This disaster had perturbed him greatly, for he could not forget his father’s stern injunctions on the subject. But what had really upset him was the fact that he had come within an ace of missing the five o’clock train as well. He had spent the afternoon in a motion-picture palace, and the fascination of the film had caused him to lose all sense of time, so that only the slow fade-out on the embrace and the words “The End” reminded him to look at his watch. A mad rush had got him to Paddington just as the five o’clock express was leaving the station. Exhausted, he had fallen into a troubled sleep, from which he had been aroused by a violent blow in the waistcoat and the nightmare vision of Psmith in the seat across the compartment. One cannot wonder in these circumstances that Freddie did not immediately soar to the heights of eloquence.
The picture which the Hon. Frederick Threepwood had selected for his patronage that afternoon was the well-known super-super-film, “Fangs Of The Past,” featuring Bertha Blevitch and Maurice Heddlestone—which, as everybody knows, is all about blackmail. Green-walled by primeval hills, bathed in the golden sunshine of peace and happiness, the village of Honeydean slumbered in the clear morning air. But off the train from the city stepped A Stranger—(The Stranger—Maxwell Bannister). He inquired of a passing rustic—(The Passing Rustic—Claude Hepworth)—the way to the great house where Myrtle Dale, the Lady Bountiful of the village . . . well,[p. 120] anyway, it is all about blackmail, and it had affected Freddie profoundly. It still coloured his imagination, and the conclusion to which he came the moment he saw Psmith was that the latter had shadowed him and was following him home with the purpose of extracting hush-money.
While he was still gurgling wordlessly, Psmith opened the conversation.
“A delightful and unexpected pleasure, comrade. I thought you had left the Metropolis some hours since.”
As Freddie sat looking like a cornered dormouse a voice from the corridor spoke.
“Ah, there you are, my dear fellow!”
Lord Emsworth was beaming in the doorway. His slumbers, like those of Freddie, had not lasted long. He had been aroused only a few minutes after Psmith’s departure by the arrival of the retriever from the next compartment, which, bored by the society of its owner, had strolled off on a tour of investigation and, finding next door an old acquaintance in the person of his lordship, had jumped on the seat and licked his face with such hearty good will that further sleep was out of the question. Being awake, Lord Emsworth, as always when he was awake, had begun to potter.
When he saw Freddie his amiability suffered a shock.
“Frederick! I thought I told you to be sure to return on the twelve-fifty train!”
“Missed it, guv’nor,” mumbled Freddie thickly. “Not my fault.”
“H’mph!” His father seemed about to pursue the subject, but the fact that a stranger and one who was his guest was present apparently decided him to avoid anything in the shape of family wrangles. He peered from Freddie to Psmith and back again. “Do you two know each other?” he said.
[p. 121]“Not yet,” said Psmith. “We only met a moment ago.”
“My son Frederick,” said Lord Emsworth, rather in the voice with which he would have called attention to the presence of a slug among his flowers. “Frederick, this is Mr. McTodd, the poet, who is coming to stay at Blandings.”
Freddie started, and his mouth opened. But, meeting Psmith’s friendly gaze, he closed the orifice again without speaking. He licked his lips in an overwrought way.
“You’ll find me next door, if you want me,” said Lord Emsworth to Psmith. “Just discovered that George Willard, very old friend of mine, is in there. Never saw him get on the train. His dog came into my compartment and licked my face. One of my neighbours. A remarkable rose-grower. As you are so interested in flowers, I will take you over to his place some time. Why don’t you join us now?”
“I would prefer, if you do not mind,” said Psmith, “to remain here for the moment and foster what I feel sure is about to develop into a great and lasting friendship. I am convinced that your son and I will have much to talk about together.”
“Very well, my dear fellow. We will meet at dinner in the restaurant-car.”
Lord Emsworth pottered off, and Psmith rose and closed the door. He returned to his seat to find Freddie regarding him with a tortured expression in his rather prominent eyes. Freddie’s brain had had more exercise in the last few minutes than in years of his normal life, and he was feeling the strain.
“I say, what?” he observed feebly.
“If there is anything,” said Psmith kindly, “that[p. 122] I can do to clear up any little difficulty that is perplexing you, call on me. What is biting you?”
Freddie swallowed convulsively.
“I say, he said your name was McTodd!”
“Precisely.”
“But you said it was Psmith.”
“It is.”
“Then why did father call you McTodd?”
“He thinks I am. It is a harmless error, and I see no reason why it should be discouraged.”
“But why does he think you’re McTodd?”
“It is a long story, which you may find tedious. But, if you really wish to hear it . . .”
Nothing could have exceeded the raptness of Freddie’s attention as he listened to the tale of the encounter with Lord Emsworth at the Senior Conservative Club.
“Do you mean to say,” he demanded at its conclusion, “that you’re coming to Blandings pretending to be this poet blighter?”
“That is the scheme.”
“But why?”
“I have my reasons, Comrade—what is the name? Threepwood? I thank you. You will pardon me, Comrade Threepwood, if I do not go into them. And now,” said Psmith, “to resume our very interesting chat which wa............