P. G. Wodehouse: Uneasy Money

Chapter 1 (continued)

So Bill, being requested in a peevish voice to explain what he meant by saying, 'Oh, I don't know,' condoned the peevishness. He then bent his mind to the task of trying to ascertain what he had meant.

'Well,' he said, 'what I mean is, if you don't show up won't it be rather a jar for old friend Maginnis? Won't he be apt to foam at the mouth a bit and stop giving you parts in his companies?'

'I'm sick of trying to please Maginnis. What's the good? He never gives me a chance in London. I'm sick of being always on tour. I'm sick of everything.'

'It's the heat,' said Lord Dawlish, most injudiciously.

'It isn't the heat. It's you!'

'Me? What have I done?'

'It's what you've not done. Why can't you exert yourself and make some money?'

Lord Dawlish groaned a silent groan. By a devious route, but with unfailing precision, they had come homing back to the same old subject.

'We have been engaged for six months, and there seems about as much chance of our ever getting married as of--I can't think of anything unlikely enough. We shall go on like this till we're dead.'

'But, my dear girl!'

'I wish you wouldn't talk to me as if you were my grandfather. What were you going to say?'

'Only that we can get married this afternoon if you'll say the word.'

'Oh, don't let us go into all that again! I'm not going to marry on four hundred a year and spend the rest of my life in a pokey little flat on the edge of London. Why can't you make more money?'