P. G. Wodehouse: Uneasy Money

Chapter 1 (continued)

But Claire had made a difference. There was no question of that. In the first place, she resolutely declined to marry him on four hundred pounds a year. She scoffed at four hundred pounds a year. To hear her talk, you would have supposed that she had been brought up from the cradle to look on four hundred pounds a year as small change to be disposed of in tips and cab fares. That in itself would have been enough to sow doubts in Bill's mind as to whether he had really got all the money that a reasonable man needed; and Claire saw to it that these doubts sprouted, by confining her conversation on the occasions of their meeting almost entirely to the great theme of money, with its minor sub-divisions of How to get it, Why don't you get it? and I'm sick and tired of not having it.

She developed this theme to-day, not only on the stairs leading to the grillroom, but even after they had seated themselves at their table. It was a relief to Bill when the arrival of the waiter with food caused a break in the conversation and enabled him adroitly to change the subject.

'What have you been doing this morning?' he asked.

'I went to see Maginnis at the theatre.'

'Oh!'

'I had a wire from him asking me to call. They want me to call. They want me to take up Claudia Winslow's part in the number one company.'

'That's good.'

'Why?'

'Well--er--what I mean--well, isn't it? What I mean is, leading part, and so forth.'

'In a touring company?'

'Yes, I see what you mean,' said Lord Dawlish, who didn't at all. He thought rather highly of the number one companies that hailed from the theatre of which Mr Maginnis was proprietor.