Something New. P. G. Wodehouse

III

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      The Earl of Emsworth stood in the doorway of the Senior Conservative Club's vast diningroom, and beamed with a vague sweetness on the two hundred or so Senior Conservatives who, with much clattering of knives and forks, were keeping body and soul together by means of the coffee-room luncheon. He might have been posing for a statue of Amiability. His pale blue eyes shone with a friendly light through their protecting glasses; the smile of a man at peace with all men curved his weak mouth; his bald head, reflecting the sunlight, seemed almost to wear a halo.

      Nobody appeared to notice him. He so seldom came to London these days that he was practically a stranger in the club; and in any case your Senior Conservative, when at lunch, has little leisure for observing anything not immediately on the table in front of him. To attract attention in the dining-room of the Senior Conservative Club between the hours of one and two-thirty, you have to be a mutton chop—not an earl.

      It is possible that, lacking the initiative to make his way down the long aisle and find a table for himself, he might have stood there indefinitely, but for the restless activity of Adams, the head steward. It was Adams' mission in life to flit to and fro, hauling would-be lunchers to their destinations, as a St. Bernard dog hauls travelers out of Alpine snowdrifts. He sighted Lord Emsworth and secured him with a genteel pounce.

      "A table, your lordship? This way, your lordship." Adams remembered him, of course. Adams remembered everybody.

      Lord Emsworth followed him beamingly and presently came to anchor at a table in the farther end of the room. Adams handed him the bill of fare and stood brooding over him like a providence.

      "Don't often see your lordship in the club," he opened chattily.

      It was business to know the tastes and dispositions of all the five thousand or so members of the Senior Conservative Club and to suit his demeanor to them. To some he would hand the bill of fare swiftly, silently, almost brusquely, as one who realizes that there are moments in life too serious for talk. Others, he knew, liked conversation; and to those he introduced the subject of food almost as a sub-motive.

      Lord Emsworth, having examined the bill of fare with a mild curiosity, laid it down and became conversational.

      "No, Adams; I seldom visit London nowadays. London does not attract me. The country—the fields—the woods—the birds——"

      Something across the room seemed to attract his attention and his voice trailed off. He inspected this for some time with bland interest, then turned to Adams once more.

      "What was I saying, Adams?"

      "The birds, your lordship."

      "Birds! What birds? What about birds?"

      "You were speaking of the attractions of life in the country, your lordship. You included the birds in your remarks."

      "Oh, yes, yes, yes! Oh, yes, yes! Oh, yes—to be sure. Do you ever go to the country, Adams?"

      "Generally to the seashore, your lordship—when I take my annual vacation."

      Whatever was the attraction across the room once more exercised its spell. His lordship concentrated himself on it to the exclusion of all other mundane matters. Presently he came out of his trance again.

      "What were you saying, Adams?"

      "I said that I generally went to the seashore, your lordship."

      "Eh? When?"

      "For my annual vacation, your lordship."

      "Your what?"

      "My annual vacation, your lordship."

      "What about it?"

      Adams never smiled during business hours—unless professionally, as it were, when a member made a joke; but he was storing up in the recesses of his highly respectable body a large laugh, to be shared with his wife when he reached home that night. Mrs. Adams never wearied of hearing of the eccentricities of the members of the club. It occurred to Adams that he was in luck to-day. He was expecting a little party of friends to supper that night, and he was a man who loved an audience.

      You would never have thought it, to look at him when engaged in his professional duties, but Adams had built up a substantial reputation as a humorist in his circle by his imitations of certain members of the club; and it was a matter of regret to him that he got so few opportunities nowadays of studying the absent-minded Lord Emsworth. It was rare luck—his lordship coming in to-day, evidently in his best form.

      "Adams, who is the gentleman over by the window—the gentleman in the brown suit?"

      "That is Mr. Simmonds, your lordship. He joined us last year."

      "I never saw a man take such large mouthfuls. Did you ever see a man take such large mouthfuls, Adams?"

      Adams refrained from expressing an opinion, but inwardly he was thrilling with artistic fervor. Mr. Simmonds eating, was one of his best imitations, though Mrs. Adams was inclined to object to it on the score that it was a bad example for the children. To be privileged to witness Lord Emsworth watching and criticizing Mr. Simmonds was to collect material for a double-barreled character study that would assuredly make the hit of the evening.

      "That man," went on Lord Emsworth, "is digging his grave with his teeth. Digging his grave with his teeth, Adams! Do you take large mouthfuls, Adams?"

      "No, your lordship."

      "Quite right. Very sensible of you, Adams—very sensible of you.

       Very sen—— What was I saying, Adams?"

      "About my not taking large mouthfuls, your lordship."

      "Quite right—quite right! Never take large mouthfuls, Adams.

       Never gobble. Have you any children, Adams?"

      "Two, your lordship."

      "I hope you teach them not to gobble. They pay for it in later life. Americans gobble when young and ruin their digestions. My American friend, Mr. Peters, suffers terribly from indigestion."

      Adams lowered his voice to a confidential murmur: "If you will pardon the liberty, your lordship—I saw it in the paper—"

      "About Mr. Peters' indigestion?"

      "About Miss Peters, your lordship, and the Honorable Frederick.

       May I be permitted to offer my congratulations?"

      "Eh, Oh, yes—the engagement. Yes, yes, yes! Yes—to be sure. Yes; very satisfactory in every respect. High time he settled down and got a little sense. I put it to him straight. I cut off his allowance and made him stay at home. That made him think—lazy young devil!"

      Lord Emsworth had his lucid moments; and in the one that occurred now it came home to him that he was not talking to himself, as he had imagined, but confiding intimate family secrets to the head steward of his club's dining-room. He checked himself abruptly, and with a slight decrease of amiability fixed his gaze on the bill of fare and ordered cold beef. For an instant he felt resentful against Adams for luring him on to soliloquize; but the next moment his whole mind was gripped by the fascinating spectacle of Mr. Simmonds dealing with a wedge of Stilton cheese, and Adams was forgotten.

      The cold beef had the effect of restoring his lordship to complete amiability, and when Adams in the course of his wanderings again found himself at the table he was once more disposed for light conversation.

      "So you saw the news of the engagement in the paper, did you,

       Adams?"

      "Yes, your lordship, in the Mail. It had quite a long piece about it. And the Honorable Frederick's photograph and the young lady's were in the Mirror. Mrs. Adams clipped them out and put them in an album, knowing that your lordship was a member of ours. If I may