P. G. Wodehouse: The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

10. THE MAN, THE MAID, AND THE MIASMA (continued)

He sighed.

'Please don't snort,' said a cold voice, from behind the back-hair.

There was a train-wreck in the Land of Yesterday. Mr Ferguson, the only survivor, limped back into the Present.

The Present had little charm, but at least it was better than the cakeless Future. He fixed his thoughts on it. He wondered how Master Bean was passing the time. Probably doing deep-breathing exercises, or reading a pocket Aristotle. The girl pushed back her chair and rose.

She went to a small cupboard in the corner of the room, and from it produced in instalments all that goes to make cake and cocoa. She did not speak. Presently, filling Space, there sprang into being an Odour; and as it reached him Mr Ferguson stiffened in his chair, bracing himself as for a fight to the death. It was more than an odour. It was the soul of the cocoa singing to him. His fingers gripped the arms of the chair. This was the test.

The girl separated a section of cake from the parent body. She caught his eye.

'You had better go,' she said. 'If you go now it's just possible that I may--but I forgot, you don't like cocoa.'

'No,' said he, resolutely, 'I don't.'

She seemed now in the mood for conversation.

'I wonder why you came up here at all,' she said.

'There's no reason why you shouldn't know. I came up here because my late office-boy is downstairs.'

'Why should that send you up?'

'You've never met him or you wouldn't ask. Have you ever had to face someone who is simply incarnate Saintliness and Disapproval, who--'

'Are you forgetting that I was engaged to you for several weeks?'