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

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

'Talking. I feel battered. He's like one of those awful encyclopedias that give you a sort of dull leaden feeling in your head directly you open them. Do you know how many tons of water go over Niagara Falls every year?'

'No.'

'He does.'

'I told you he had a fund of useful information. The Purpose and Tenacity books insist on it. That's how you Catch your Employer's Eye. One morning the boss suddenly wants to know how many horsehair sofas there are in Brixton, the number of pins that would reach from London Bridge to Waterloo. You tell him, and he takes you into partnership. Later you become a millionaire. But I haven't thanked you for the cocoa. It was fine.'

He waited for the retort, but it did not come. A pleased wonderment filled him. Could these things really be thus?

'And it isn't only what he says,' she went on. 'I know what you mean about him now. It's his accusing manner.'

'I've tried to analyse that manner. I believe it's the spectacles.'

'It's frightful when he looks at you; you think of all the wrong things you have ever done or ever wanted to do.'

'Does he have that effect on you?' he said, excitedly. 'Why, that exactly describes what I feel.'

The affinities looked at one another.

She was the first to speak.

'We always did think alike on most things, didn't we?' she said.

'Of course we did.'

He shifted his chair forward.

'It was all my fault,' he said. 'I mean, what happened.'