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

19. IN ALCALA (continued)

'"Enter Willie,"' he said. 'Am I Willie?'

'I hope so,' said Rutherford, with a smile. 'It's the star part.'

'H'm.'

He went on reading. Rutherford watched him with furtive keenness. There was a line coming at the bottom of the page which he was then reading which ought to hit him, an epigram on golf, a whimsical thought put almost exactly as he had put it himself five minutes back when telling his golf story.

The shot did not miss fire. The chuckle from the actor and the sigh of relief from Rutherford were almost simultaneous. Winfield Knight turned to him.

'That's a dandy line about golf,' said he.

Rutherford puffed complacently at his cigar.

'There's lots more of them in the piece,' he said.

'Bully for you,' said the actor. And went on reading.

Three-quarters of an hour passed before he spoke again. Then he looked up.

'It's me,' he said; 'it's me all the time. I wish I'd seen this before I put on the punk I'm doing now. This is me from the drive off the tee. It's great! Say, what'll you have?'

Rutherford leaned back in his chair, his mind in a whirl. He had arrived at last. His struggles were over. He would not admit of the possibility of the play being a failure. He was a made man. He could go where he pleased, and do as he pleased.

It gave him something of a shock to find how persistently his thoughts refused to remain in England. Try as he might to keep them there, they kept flitting back to Alcala.