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

12. POTS O'MONEY (continued)

'Mrs Dorman said you would be,' said Owen. 'Don't you remember?'

Mr Prosser looked keenly at him.

'Why, I've seen you before,' he said. 'You're the young turnip-headed scallywag at the farm.'

'That's right,' said Owen.

'I've been wanting to meet you again. I thought the whole thing over, and it struck me,' said Mr Prosser, handsomely, 'that I may have seemed a little abrupt at our last meeting.'

'No, no.'

'The fact is, I was in the middle of an infernally difficult passage of my book that morning, and when you began--'

'It was my fault entirely. I quite understand.'

Mr Prosser produced a card-case.

'We must see more of each other,' he said. 'Come and have a bit of dinner some night. Come tonight.'

'I'm very sorry. I have to go to the theatre tonight.'

'Then come and have a bit of supper afterwards. Excellent. Meet me at the Savoy at eleven-fifteen. I'm glad I didn't hit you with that loaf. Abruptness has been my failing through life. My father was just the same. Eleven-fifteen at the Savoy, then.'

The manager, who had been listening with some restlessness to the conversation, now intervened. He was a man with a sense of fitness of things, and he objected to having his private room made the scene of what appeared to be a reunion of old college chums. He hinted as much.

'Ha! Prrumph!' he observed, disapprovingly. 'Er--Mr Bentley, that is all. You may return to your work--ah'mmm! Kindly be more careful another time in stamping the letters.'