Quick Service

by P. G. Wodehouse

  "There's a welter of new characters, a complex plot, and all the sparkle of the Master in this typical story.."

  So the Boston Transcript describes P. G. Wodehouse's hilarious novel QUICK SERVICE. The basis of its hilarity is the desperate necessity to swipe a certain aristocratic lady's portrait for the purpose of advertising ham!

  In this harebrained enterprise are united such different individuals as the brash American Joss Weatherby, the pretty and resourceful Sally, and the bashful meat-packing mogul James Duff. Their efforts to purloin the vital picture while guests in a stately country mansion jammed with week-ending visitors and highly suspicious servants embroil everyone in a side-splittingly funny tangle of confusions and contradictions.

  The Boston paper's review went on to remark, "You know when a plate is Wedgewood, and you know when a plot is Wodehouse. Both are superb."

  The New York Times called QUICK SERVICE "a jolly yarn which would please all but chronic dyspeptics."

  P. G. Wodehouse puts a kettle full of odd characters on to boil and comes up with bubbles bursting with laughter.

  Meet the Author:

  Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, whose name is a byword for rib-tickling humor and comically involved situations spoofing English society, is a shy, amiable, impractical Britisher who likes dogs, golf, swimming, and the United States where he spends so much of his time.

  He has written short stories, musical comedy, plays, and even a column for the London Globe, but his great achievement has been the creation, in his many novels, of a gallery of living characters whose very name brings a smile to the face. Jeeves, Bertie and others, are larger-than-life Englishmen whom one is not apt to find walking in Picadilly, but whose joys, fears and foibles belong to everyone.

  Sinclair Lewis spoke of the Wodehouse mastery of the ultimate and lordly deadpan" which figures so amusingly in QUICK SERVICE and his other novels.

  Beloved the world over for his deft, light-hearted stories, his craftsmanship as a writer has won praise from critics, and Oxford University has awarded him an ·honorary degree.

  OUICK SERVICE

  ACE BOOKS, INC.

  23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.

  Copyright, 1940, by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.

  All Rights Reserved

  Printed in U.S.A.

  Chapter I

  IN SPITE OF the invigorating scent of coffee which greeted him as he opened the door it was with drawn face and dull eye that the willowy young man with the butter-coloured hair and rather prominent Adam's apple entered the breakfast room of Claines Hall, the Tudor mansion in Sussex recently purchased by Mrs Howard Steptoe of Los Angeles. He yielded to no one in his appreciation of coffee, and a couple of cups would unquestionably go down all right, but nothing could alter the fact that on the previous evening he had got engaged to be married to a girl without a bean and was going to London this morning to break the news to his trustee. Even in the most favourable circumstances he did not enjoy meeting his trustee; and when compelled to vex and agitate that human snapping turtle, as he feared would be the case today, he always found himself regretting that his late father had not placed his financial affairs in the hands of some reasonably genial soul like Jack the Ripper.

  The breakfast room was bright and cheerful. Its french windows caught the morning sun. One of its walls displayed an old Flemish tapestry of boors revelling, another an old Flemish tapestry of boors taking it easy for a bit. Silver dishes warmed by little flames smiled from the sideboard, and beside them, as yet untouched by knife, the eye detected a large new ham. Over the fireplace there hung a striking portrait of a majestic woman in the early forties, who stared haughtily from the frame as if surprised and displeased by something she had seen in the middle distance. It was the work of a young artist named Jocelyn Weatherby, and its subject was Mrs Chavender, widow of Mrs Steptoe's brother Otis.

  Mrs Steptoe herself, a wiry little person with hard blue eyes, sat at the head of the table, instructing Sally Fairmile in her duties for the day. Sally was a poor relation, and as such always had plenty to occupy her time. When Mrs Steptoe gave the orphan daughters of distant cousins a home she liked them to earn their board and keep.

  "Good morning Lord Holbeton," she said absently.

  "Good morning," said Sally, giving him a quick smile. This was the first she had seen of him since last night, when they had become engaged.

  "Oh, good morning, good morning," said Lord Holbeton. "Good morning," he added, driving the thing home, and made for the sideboard in the hope of finding something there that would fortify the spirit.

  '' I'm sort of wondering," Mrs Steptoe went on as her guest seated himself after dishing out a moody portion of scrambled eggs, "how to fit everybody in today. About the cars, I mean.

  You're going to London, you told me."

  Lord Holbeton winced.

  "Yes," he said with a quiver in his voice. "Got to see a man about something."

  "And Beatrice has to go to Brighton to present those prizes.

  She will want the Rolls. And the Packard is having something done to it. You'll have to have the two-seater. It's kind of rattly, but it moves. Sally can drive you. She's going in to get another valet for Howard."

  Although he was aware that his hostess possessed the stuff in large quantities and denied her husband nothing, this surprised Lord Holbeton. It seemed to him to strike a note of almost wanton luxury, the sort of thing that causes French Revolutions and Declines and Falls of Roman Empires.

  "How many does he have?" he asked, startled.

  "Only one at a time," said Sally. "But he sort of runs through them.

  "They don't like his manner," explained Mrs Steptoe.

  Lord Holbeton could sympathize with the honest fellows. He did not like Mr Steptoe's manner himself. There had been something in the nature of an informal understanding, when he had come to stay at Claines Hall, that he should take his host in hand and give him a much-needed spot of polish. But so unpleasant had been the spirit in which the other had received his ministrations that he had soon abandoned this missionary work. Mr Steptoe, when you tried to set his feet on the path that led to elegance and refinement, had a way of narrowing his eyes and saying, "Ah, nerts!" out of the corner of his mouth, which would have discouraged Emily Post.

  "When that last fellow quit," said Mrs Steptoe, stirring her coffee grimly and looking a little like a rattlesnake, if one can imagine a rattlesnake stirring coffee, "he thought he had finally fought off the challenge. But he's living in a fool's paradise. As long as there's a valet left in England Howard gets him. I've been telling Sally to hire a real tough specimen this time, the sort that'll stand no nonsense. I intend to smarten him up, if it's the last thing I do.

  Mr Steptoe came in as she spoke, an enormous mass of a man with a squashed nose and ears like the handles of an old Greek vase. He had been in once before, as a matter of fact, but Mrs Steptoe had sent him out again to go and put a collar on. His air, which was sullen, made it plain that both in neck and spirit he was chafing under this treatment. Directing a lowering glance of dislike at Lord Holbeton, whom he considered a palooka of the first water and suspected of putting these ideas into his wife's head, he went to the sideboard and helped himself largely to fish.

  The only member of the party still absent was Mrs Chavender, the lady of the portrait. She entered a moment later, looking like Mrs Siddons in one of her more regal roles. She would have made a good subject for the brush of Sir Peter Lely or Sir Joshua Reynolds. Indeed, both Sir Joshua and Sir Peter would probably have made even a better job of her than Joss Weatherby had done—as Joss would have been the first to admit, for he was quite free from artistic jealousy.

  Sweeping into the room with an air, she got a big reception.
>
  "Good morning, Beatrice," said Mrs Steptoe, beaming.

  "Good morning, Mrs Chavender," said Sally.

  "Oh, hullo, hullo," said Lord Holbeton.

  Mr Steptoe said nothing. He had cocked an eye at the newcomer. That was as far as he was prepared to go. A simple child of nature, he believed, when at meals, in digging in and getting his. He reached out a hairy hand for the butter, and started lathering another slice of toast.

  Lord Holbeton had sprung to his feet, a thing Mr Steptoe would not have done in a million years, and was heading gallantly for the sideboard. It was those perfect manners of his, combined with his delicate good looks and the way he had of sitting down at the piano after dinner and singing such songs as "Trees" in a soft, quivery tenor voice, that had first attracted Sally Fairmile.

  "What can I get you, Mrs Chavender? Eggs? Fish? Ham?"

  It was a moment big with fate. On this woman's answer hung the destinies not only of all those present but in addition of J. B. Duff, managing director of the firm of Duff and Trotter, London's leading provision merchants; of Joss Weatherby, the artist; of Chibnall, Mrs Steptoe's butler; and of Vera Pym, barmaid at the Rose and Crown in the neighbouring town of Loose Chippings, Chibnall's fiancée.

  If she had said "Eggs," nothing would have happened. Had she replied "Fish," the foundations of this little world would have remained unrocked.

  "Ham," said Mrs Chavender.

  Lord Holbeton carved the ham with the polished elegance which marked all his actions, and silence fell upon the room, broken only by a crackling sound like a forest fire as Mr Steptoe champed his toast. This gorilla-jawed man could get a certain amount of noise-response even out of mashed potatoes, but it was when eating toast that you caught him at his best.

  The conversational ball was eventually set rolling again by Mrs Chavender. She had lowered her knife and fork, and was staring at her plate with a sort of queenly disgust, like Mrs Siddons inspecting a caterpillar in her salad.

  "This ham," she said," is uneatable."

  Mrs Steptoe looked up in quick concern. Wealthy though she was herself, the moods of this still more opulent sister-in-law were of urgent importance to her. Like Ben Bolt's Alice, she trembled with fear at her frown. Mrs Chavender was understood to have a weak heart, and Mrs Steptoe was her only relative.

  "Is there something wrong with it, Beatrice?"

  "Considering that I have just described it as uneatable, you may take it that it is not wholly without blemish."

  "You bought it, Sally," said Mrs Steptoe accusingly.

  Sally was unable to deny the charge.

  "I thought it was bound to be all right," she pleaded in defence.

  "It came from the best people in London."

  "The question of their morals," said Mrs Chavender, "does not arise. They may, as you say, be the best people in London, though that isn't saying much. My point is that they sell inferior ham. And let me tell you that I know ham. Before I married my late husband, I was engaged to a Ham King-though at that stage in his career I suppose one would have described him as a Ham Prince-and he talked of nothing else from morning till night. So I have had a thorough grounding. I shall go and see these crooks and lodge a strong complaint. Who are the swindling hounds?"

  "Duff and Trotter," said Sally. "They are supposed to be the absolute final word in breakfast foodings. I must say I'm surprised that they should have taken advantage of a young girl's inexperience."

  At the mention of that name a sharp exclamation had escaped Lord Holbeton. He was sitting staring, apparently aghast, the scrambled eggs frozen upon his lips.

  "Duff and Trotter?" he quavered.

  "Duff and Trotter?" echoed Mrs Chavender . . It seemed to Sally that there was elation and triumph in her handsome eyes. She was looking like a Roman matron who has unexpectedly backed the winning chariot at the Circus Maximus. "Are you telling me, my child, that this loathsome substance is one of Jimmy Duff's Paramount Hams?"

  "Yes, that's what they're called."

  Mrs Chavender drew a deep breath.

  "It's too good to be true," she said. " I didn't know that righteous retribution like this ever happened outside moral stories for children. Jimmy Duff is the man I was speaking of, Mabel-the one who sold hams and talked of nothing else. Words cannot describe the agonies of boredom he used to inflict on me. Jimmy Duff! James by golly Buchanan Duff! Well, well, well! I haven't seen Jimmy in fifteen years, and by the time I'm through with him he'll hope that our next get-together won't be for another thirty."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I propose to call on him this morning and let him know what a decent-minded woman thinks of his ghastly hams."

  "But you are going to Brighton."

  "I can take Jimmy en route."

  "Wouldn't it be better to write?"

  "Write? You don't seem to understand the position. Fifteen years ago, when I met Jimmy Duff and fell for his smooth city ways, I was a young, idealistic girl, all sentiment and romance.

  This sentiment and romance he blunted forever with these foul hams of his. He used to take me out in the moonlight and tell me what gave them that nutty flavour. He would wait till the band was playing 'Traumerei' and then describe the process of curing.

  And now, when after all these weary years I've a chance to get my own back, you tell me to write. Write indeed! I'm going to call at his office and look him in the eye and slap this ham down on his desk and watch him curl up at the edges. Ring for Chibnall."

  The butler entered. A lissom, athletic young butler of the modern type. Dignified but sinewy.

  "Chibnall, will you pack half a dozen slices of this ham in a cardboard box and put them in the car? And I'd better have the car a little earlier, if I'm to go to Brighton via London."

  "Tell Purkis, Sally," said Mrs Steptoe resignedly.

  Sally rose obligingly. It was not till she was halfway to the garage that a bleating noise behind her told her that she had been followed by her betrothed.

  "I say, Sally!"

  "Oh, hullo, George," she said, turning quickly, like a startled kitten. She was conscious of a certain embarrassment. They had not been alone together since the emotional scene on the previous night, and she was thinking that it might not be easy to strike exactly the right note.

  She need have had no concern. Lord Holbeton was far too agitated to be critical about right notes. His eye was wild; his mouth hung ajar; and his Adams' apple was gambolling like a lamb in springtime.

  "I say, Sally, this is absolutely frightful!"

  "What?"

  "This Chavender woman and the ham business."

  "I thought it rather funny."

  "Funny? Ha!" said Lord Holbeton, doing a bitter dance step.

  "You won't think it so bally funny when you hear the facts in the case." He paused for an instant to overcome his feelings.

  The position of affairs which he was about to outline was one that had frequently caused the iron to enter into his soul.

  "I didn't tell you last night, but my guv'nor, when he died, left me a pot of money."

  Sally was perplexed. She was not a mercenary girl, but she had served quite a long sentence as a Steptoe poor relation, and she could see nothing in this fact to depress the spirits.

  "Well, surely that's fine? I love the stuff."

  "Yes, but there's a catch. He left it in trust. Having got it into his head that I wasn't fit to have a pot of money-"

  "What made him think that?"

  Actually, what had given the first Baron this poor opinion of a once-adored son had been that unfortunate breach-of-promise case at Oxford, but Lord Holbeton felt that it might be injudicious to mention this.

  "Oh, I don't-know. Guv'nors get these ideas. Anyway, he left the stuff in trust. I can't finger a fiver except by showing good and substantial cause to my trustee. And do you know who he is--this blighted trustee? Old Duff. The fellow this woman's going to slap down slices of ham in front of."

  "But how does he com
e to be mixed up with you?"

  "My guv'nor was his partner. His name was Trotter before he

  ·got his title. He always thought a lot of old Duff, so he made him my trustee. And I was planning to tackle him this morning and tell him about us and try to get some cash out of him. And now this happens."

  "I see what you mean," said Sally thoughtfully. "You think he won't be in melting mood after Mrs Chavender's visit?"

  "Well, is it likely?"

  "I suppose it isn't."

  "If," said Lord Holbeton, "the old blister has consistently refused to cough u p hitherto, will he unbelt at a moment when his soul is all gashed by this frightful female's taunts and sneers?