P. G. Wodehouse: The Man with Two Left Feet

2. EXTRICATING YOUNG GUSSIE (continued)

'What were you cabling about?' asked Gussie, later.

'Oh just to say I had arrived safely, and all that sort of tosh,' I answered.

* * * * *

Gussie opened his vaudeville career on the following Monday at a rummy sort of place uptown where they had moving pictures some of the time and, in between, one or two vaudeville acts. It had taken a lot of careful handling to bring him up to scratch. He seemed to take my sympathy and assistance for granted, and I couldn't let him down. My only hope, which grew as I listened to him rehearsing, was that he would be such a frightful frost at his first appearance that he would never dare to perform again; and, as that would automatically squash the marriage, it seemed best to me to let the thing go on.

He wasn't taking any chances. On the Saturday and Sunday we practically lived in a beastly little music-room at the offices of the publishers whose songs he proposed to use. A little chappie with a hooked nose sucked a cigarette and played the piano all day. Nothing could tire that lad. He seemed to take a personal interest in the thing.

Gussie would cleat his throat and begin:

'There's a great big choo-choo waiting at the deepo.'

THE CHAPPIE (playing chords): 'Is that so? What's it waiting for?'

GUSSIE (rather rattled at the interruption): 'Waiting for me.'

THE CHAPPIE (surprised): For you?'

GUSSIE (sticking to it): 'Waiting for me-e-ee!'

THE CHAPPIE (sceptically): 'You don't say!'

GUSSIE: 'For I'm off to Tennessee.'

THE CHAPPIE (conceding a point): 'Now, I live at Yonkers.'