Big Money

by P. G. Wodehouse

  '– You were sitting in the next room,' said Mr Frisby, sighing. 'I know. Get on. What is it?'

  'What is what?'

  Mr Frisby groaned quietly.

  'What is it you want to say?' he asked, casting his eyes up in the direction of a Heaven which, he seemed to be feeling, ought never to have dreamed of allowing a good man to be persecuted like this.

  Ann laughed happily.

  'Oh, nothing special,' she said. 'I just came for the ride, so to speak. I'm simply talking. This is a treat for me. I've never called anyone up on the trans-Atlantic 'phone before. Isn't it fascinating to think that this is costing Mother about ten dollars a syllable? Uncle Paterson!'

  'Ugh?'

  'How's your lumbago?'

  'Curse my lumbago!'

  'I suppose you do,' said his niece sympathetically. 'But how is it?'

  'Better.'

  'That's fine. Has Mother been speaking to you?'

  'Ugh.'

  'Golly! What a bill there's going to be! Did she tell you she was sending me over to London?'

  'Ugh.'

  'I'm sailing on the Mauretania on Friday.'

  'Ugh.'

  'What's it like in London?'

  'Punk.'

  'Why?'

  'Why not?'

  'Well, it's going to look to me like my blue heaven,' said Ann decidedly. 'I never seem to meet anyone over here whose father isn't a multi-millionaire, and, I don't know why it is, rich men's sons are always the worst lemons in creation. Stiffs, every one of them. Besides, I've known them all since we were children together. I don't see how you can expect a girl to get warm and confused about somebody she's seen grow up from a sticky-faced kid in a Lord Fauntleroy suit. I want to meet someone different. I want romance. There must be romance somewhere in the world. Don't you think so, Uncle Paterson?'

  'No!'

  'Well, I do. What I'm looking for is one of those men you read about in books who meet a girl for the first time and gaze into her eyes and cry "My mate!" and fold her in their arms. And I shan't care if he's a stevedore and hasn't a penny in the world. Oh, by the way, Uncle Paterson, Mother says that if I marry anyone unsuitable while I'm in England, she will hold you strictly responsible. I thought you'd like to know.'

  'Ring off !' cried Mr Frisby with extraordinary vehemence.

  He replaced the receiver with a bang, looked at his cuffs as if contemplating a short character-sketch of his niece, felt unequal to the effort, and took another pepsine tablet instead. He cupped his chin in his hands, and stared before him into a future that was now darker than ever.

  He remembered bitterly that when his sister had married he had been glad. He had put on an infernally uncomfortable suit of clothes and a stiff collar and had given her away at the altar. And he had been glad when the child Ann had been born. He had paid ungrudgingly for a silver christening-mug. And now the years had passed, and this had happened!

  He knew the interpretation his sister would place on those words 'strictly responsible' and 'unsuitable'. And he knew how her displeasure would manifest itself, should her daughter, while ostensibly in his charge, contract a matrimonial alliance of which she did not approve. She would rush over to London and cluck at him—

  Something went off in his ear like a bomb. The telephone had selected this most unsuitable moment to ring again. Mr Frisby shied like a startled horse, and came up from the depths.

  ''Lo?' he gasped.

  'Are you they-ah?' asked a voice. It was a female voice, and Mr Frisby, with some lingering remnants of chivalry, suppressed his customary answer to this question. Brought up in a land of civilized Hello's, he had never been able to take kindly to being asked if he was there.

  'Mr Frisby speaking,' he said curtly.

  'Oh?' said the voice. 'Good morning, sir. I wonder if you could tell me if Master Berry is wearing his warm woollies?'

  The financier gulped painfully.

  'Could I – what did you say?'

  'Isn't that Mr Frisby that Mr Conway works for?'

  'I have a secretary named Conway.'

  'Well, would it be troubling you too much to ask him if he is wearing his warm woollies. You see, there's quite a snap in the air for the time of year, and he was always so delicate as a child.'

  If the prophet Job had entered the room at that moment, T. Paterson Frisby would have shaken his hand and said, 'Old man, I know just how you must have felt.' A tortured frown darkened his brow. If there was one thing he disliked more than another in a world full of objectionable happenings, it was having his office staff get telephone calls on his personal wire. And when these calls had to do with the texture of their underclothing, the iron entered pretty deeply into his soul.

  'Hold the line,' he said, in a low, strained voice.

  He touched a button on the desk. This produced, first, a buzzing sound and, shortly afterwards, his private secretary, who advanced into the room, looking bronzed and fit.

  Few people would have taken Berry Conway for anyone's private secretary. He did not look the part. Of course, it is not easy to lay down hard and fast rules as to just what a secretary's appearance should be, but one may at least expect it to be – broadly – secretarial. An air of reserved intellectuality might be anticipated. A touch of pallor and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses would not come amiss.

  Berry Conway fell very short of the ideal. He was lean and athletic-looking. He had the appearance of a welterweight boxer who takes a cold bath every morning and sings in it. His face was clean-cut, and his figure slim and muscular. And Mr Frisby, even when not feeling as dyspeptic as he did at the present moment, had always in a nebulous sort of way resented this. It subconsciously offended him that anyone circling in his orbit should look so beastly strong and well. Berry was obviously hard stuff. He could have taken Mr Frisby up in one hand and eaten him at his leisure. And sometimes of an evening, when the day's work was over, he regretted not having done so, for Mr Frisby could make himself unpleasant.

  He made himself unpleasant now.

  'You!' he snapped. 'What do you mean, having your friends call you up here? Some female lunatic wants you on the 'phone. Answer it.'

  The conversation that ensued was not a long one. The unseen lunatic spoke – urgently, if the humming of the wire was any evidence – and Berry, a dusky red in the face, and a more vivid red about the ears, replied: 'Of course I'm not – It's quite a warm day – I'm all right – I'm all right, I tell you!' and put down the instrument. He looked at his employer with shame written on every feature.

  'I'm very sorry, sir,' he said. 'It was an old nurse of mine.'

  'Nurse?'

  'She used to be my nurse, and she has never been able to get it into her head that I'm not still a child.'

  Mr Frisby gulped.

  'She asked me – she asked me if you were wearing your warm woollies.'

  'I know.' Berry blushed hotly. 'It shan't occur again.'

  'Are you?' asked Mr Frisby, with pardonable curiosity.

  'No,' said Berry shortly.

  'Woof !' said Mr Frisby.

  'Sir?'

  'It's this darned indigestion,' explained the financier. 'Have you ever had indigestion?'

  'No, sir.'

  Mr Frisby eyed him malevolently.

  'Oh? You haven't, haven't you? Well, I hope you get it – you and your nurse, too. Take a note. Niece. Lady of title. Papers.'

  'I beg your pardon, sir?'

  'Can't you understand plain English?' said Mr Frisby. 'My niece is coming over from America for the London Season, and her mother wants me to put an advertisement in the papers for a lady of title to chaperon her. Can't see what's hard to grasp about that. Should have thought that would have been intelligible to anyone with an ounce of sense in his head. Put it in The Times and Morning Post and so on. Word it how you like.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Right. That's all.'

  Berry turned to the door. As he reached it, he paused. An idea had occurred to him. He was a kind-hear
ted young man, and liked, when possible, to do his daily Good Deed. It struck him that the opportunity had presented itself.

  'Might I make a suggestion, sir?'

  'No,' said Mr Frisby.

  Berry was not to be discouraged.

  'I only thought that what you require might be somebody like Lady Vera Mace.'

  'Who?'

  'Lady Vera Mace.'

  'Who's she?'

  'Lord Hoddesdon's sister. She married a man named Mace in the Coldstream Guards.'

  'How do you come to know anything about her?'

  'I was at school with her nephew, Lord Biskerton.'

  Mr Frisby regarded his employee curiously.

  'I don't understand you,' he said. 'You seem to mix with the Four Hundred, go to school with their nephews, and all that, and here you are working in my office on a—'

  'Ridiculously small salary, sir? Very true. It's rather a sad story. I was adopted by a rich aunt, and she suddenly turned into a poor aunt.'

  'Too bad,' said Mr Frisby, taking a pepsine tablet.

  'If,' suggested Berry, 'you would care to make some practical demonstration of your sympathy, a small rise—'

  'Changing the subject,' said Mr Frisby. 'Go to the devil.'

  'Very good, sir. And about Lady Vera Mace?'

  'Do you know her?'

  'I met her once. She came down to the school one Saturday and stood us a feed. Coffee, doughnuts, raspberry vinegar, two kinds of jam, two kinds of cake, ice-cream, and sausages and mashed potatoes,' said Berry, in whose memory the episode had never ceased to be green.

  It was not so green as Mr Frisby. His sensitive stomach had turned four powerful handsprings and come to rest, quivering.

  'Don't talk of such things,' he said, shuddering strongly. 'Don't mention them in my presence.'

  'Very good, sir. But shall I tell Lady Vera to apply?'

  'If you like. No harm in seeing her.'

  'Thank you very much, sir,' said Berry.

  He went immediately to the telephone in the passage, and rang up the Drones Club. As he had supposed, Lord Biskerton was still on the premises.

  'Hullo?' said the Biscuit.

  'This is Berry.'

  'Say on, old boy,' said the Biscuit, 'I'm with you. Talk quick, because you're interrupting a rather tense game of snooker. What's the trouble?'

  'Biscuit, I think I can put you in the way of making a bit of money.'

  The wire hummed emotionally.

  'You can!'

  'I think so.'

  The Biscuit seemed to ponder.

  'What do I have to do?' he asked. 'I'm not much good at murder, and I'm not sure if I can forge. I've never tried. But I'll do my best.'

  'Old Frisby's niece is coming over from America for the Season. He wants someone to chaperon her.'

  'Oh?' said the Biscuit disappointedly. 'And where do I come in? I suppose I apply for the job, cunningly disguised as a Dowager Duchess? I wish you wouldn't interrupt a busy man with this sort of drip, Berry. It isn't fair to raise a bloke's hopes, only to dash—'

  'You poor ass, I was thinking that this was just the sort of thing that would suit your aunt.'

  'Ah!' The Biscuit's tone changed. 'I begin to follow. I begin to see the idea. A job for Aunt Vera, eh? This sounds good. I take it there's money in this chaperoning, what?'

  'Of course there is. Pots of money.'

  'And she could do with it, poor, broken blossom!' said Lord Biskerton. 'It'll be like manna in the wilderness.'

  'Well, ring her up and tell her about it. If it comes off she may give you a bit of the proceeds.'

  'May?' said the Biscuit. 'How do you mean, may? I shall naturally insist on an exceedingly stiff commission, which you and I will, of course, split fifty-fifty – you having provided the commercial opening and I the aunt.'

  'Not me,' said Berry. 'I'm not in on this. I'm just Santa Claus.'

  Lord Biskerton seemed stunned.

  'Berry! This is noble. That's what it is. Noble. It's the sort of thing Boy Scouts do. What a pal! Tell me, how do the chances look of the relative landing this extraordinarily cushy job?'

  'Great, if she can apply early and get in ahead of the field.'

  'I'll have her panting on the mat in half an hour.'

  'Tell her to call at 6, Pudding Lane, and ask for Mr Frisby.'

  'I will. And may Heaven reward you, boy, for what you have done this day. It's the first bit of joss that's come the family's way for years and years and years. I shall celebrate this. Eggs for tea tonight, my bucko!'

  III

  If Mr Frisby had been the sort of man who observes shades of emotion in his employees, he might have noticed in the demeanour of his private secretary at their recent encounter a certain unwonted gaiety, a brightness that was almost effervescent. Berry's was a buoyant temperament, easily stimulated by the passing daydream, and the more he had examined the Biscuit's counsel, the better it looked to him. It amazed him that through all these years he had never once thought of raising a little money on the Dream Come True.

  Certainly, the thing had never produced enough copper to make a door-knob, but, as the Biscuit had so wisely pointed out, the world was full of mugs. The daily papers proved their existence every morning. They were all over the place, now purchasing a gold brick from some sympathetic stranger, anon rushing to give another stranger all their available assets to hold so that they might show their confidence in him.

  It would not be a bad idea, he reflected, to ask his employer's advice on the matter. T. Paterson was, he knew, mixed up in Copper – he was President of Horned Toad, Inc. – and there were moments, in between his dyspeptic twinges, when he frequently became quite genial. It would be simple for a man of discernment to note the approach of one of these moments and put the necessary questions before the milk of human kindness ebbed again.

  When he did find himself in Mr Frisby's presence again, however, it was to announce the arrival of Lady Vera Mace. The Biscuit's aunt was not the woman to dally when there was money in the air. She arrived at three-thirty sharp.

  'Lady Vera Mace is here, sir,' said Berry. 'Shall I show her in?'

  'Ugh.'

  'And might I have a word with you later on a personal matter?'

  'Ugh.'

  Berry returned to his little room, and resumed his daydreams. From time to time he wondered how the interview was coming along. He hoped that the Biscuit's aunt was clicking. She needed the money, and she had once been kind to him as a schoolboy. Besides, the Biscuit would touch his commission, which would mean happiness all round.

  She ought to get the job, he reflected. The passage of time, though it had prevented her recognizing him just now and resuming their ancient friendship, had been in other respects kind to Lady Vera Mace. She was still the rather formidably beautiful woman who had come down to the school years ago and stuffed him with food. Her voice was soft and silvery, her manner compelling. Unless he was greatly mistaken, she would rush T. Paterson off his feet and have him gasping for air in the first minute.

  The sound of the buzzer broke in on his meditations. Answering its summons, he found his employer alone. T. Paterson Frisby was leaning back in his swivel-chair, looking, as far as a great financier ever can do, rather fatuous. An unwonted smile was on his lips, and it was a foolish smile. Also, there was a rose in his buttonhole which had not been there before.

  'Eh?' he said, starting, as Berry entered.

  'Yes, sir.'

  'What do you want?'

  'What do you want, sir? You rang.'

  Mr Frisby seemed to come out of a trance.

  'Oh! Yes. Take a note.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Pim's, Friday.'

  'Sir?'

  'I'm giving Lady Vera Mace lunch at Pim's on Friday,' translated Mr Frisby. 'She wants to see the Stock Exchange.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'And those advertisements. Don't put 'em in. Not needed.'

  'No, sir.'

  'I have arranged with Lad
y Vera that she will chaperon my niece when she arrives.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  Mr Frisby seemed to return to his trance-like state. His eyes had half closed and he looked, though still pickled, almost human.

  'That's a remarkable woman,' he murmured. 'She's done my dyspepsia good.'

  'Yes, sir?'

  'She said it was mainly mental,' proceeded Mr Frisby. He gave the impression of one soliloquizing with no thought of an audience. 'She said drugs are no use. What one ought to do, she said, is think beautiful thoughts. Let sunshine into the soul, she said. She said, "Imagine that you are a little bird on a tree. What would you do? You would sing. So"—'

  He broke off. The shock of imagining himself a little bird on a tree appeared to have roused him to a sense of his position.

  'Well, she's a very remarkable woman,' he said, almost defiantly. He blinked at Berry. 'What was that you were saying just now? Something about wanting to see me about something? What is it?'

  Berry embarked upon his recital with some confidence. His employer's mood seemed to be admirably attuned to the giving of benevolent advice to his juniors. He had not seen him so gentle and amiable since the day Amalgamated Prunes had jumped twenty points at the opening of the market.

  'It's about a mine, sir. A mine in which I am interested.'

  'What sort of mine?'

  'A copper mine.'

  Mr Frisby's geniality became frosted over with a thin covering of ice.

  'Have you been taking a flyer in Copper?' he asked dangerously. 'Let me tell you here and now, young man, that I won't have my office staff playing the market.'

  Berry hastened to reassure him.

  'I haven't been speculating,' he said. 'This mine is mine. A mine of my own. My mine. It belongs to me. I own it.'

  'Don't be a damned fool,' said Mr Frisby severely. 'How the devil can you own a mine?'

  'My aunt left it to me.'

  For the second time that day, Berry sketched out his family history.

  'Oh, I see,' said Mr Frisby, enlightened. 'Where is this mine?'

  'Somewhere in Arizona.'

  'What's it called?'

  'The Dream Come True,' said Berry uncomfortably. He was wishing that its original owner, in christening his property, had selected a name less reminiscent of a Theme Song.