Psmith, Journalist. P. G. Wodehouse

tion>

       P. G. Wodehouse

      Psmith, Journalist

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664189967

Table of Contents

       PREFACE

       CHAPTER I — "COSY MOMENTS"

       CHAPTER II — BILLY WINDSOR

       CHAPTER III — AT "THE GARDENIA"

       CHAPTER IV — BAT JARVIS

       CHAPTER V — PLANNING IMPROVEMENTS

       CHAPTER VI — THE TENEMENTS

       CHAPTER VII — VISITORS AT THE OFFICE

       CHAPTER VIII — THE HONEYED WORD

       CHAPTER IX — FULL STEAM AHEAD

       CHAPTER X — GOING SOME

       CHAPTER XI — THE MAN AT THE ASTOR

       CHAPTER XII — A RED TAXIMETER

       CHAPTER XIII — REVIEWING THE SITUATION

       CHAPTER XIV — THE HIGHFIELD

       CHAPTER XV — AN ADDITION TO THE STAFF

       CHAPTER XVI — THE FIRST BATTLE

       CHAPTER XVII — GUERILLA WARFARE

       CHAPTER XVIII — AN EPISODE BY THE WAY

       CHAPTER XIX — IN PLEASANT STREET

       CHAPTER XX — CORNERED

       CHAPTER XXI — THE BATTLE OF PLEASANT STREET

       CHAPTER XXII — CONCERNING MR. WARING

       CHAPTER XXIII — REDUCTIONS IN THE STAFF

       CHAPTER XXIV — A GATHERING OF CAT-SPECIALISTS

       CHAPTER XXV — TRAPPED

       CHAPTER XXVI — A FRIEND IN NEED

       CHAPTER XXVII — PSMITH CONCLUDES HIS RIDE

       CHAPTER XXVIII — STANDING ROOM ONLY

       CHAPTER XXIX — THE KNOCK-OUT FOR MR. WARING

       CONCLUSION

PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      THE conditions of life in New York are so different from those of London that a story of this kind calls for a little explanation. There are several million inhabitants of New York. Not all of them eke out a precarious livelihood by murdering one another, but there is a definite section of the population which murders—not casually, on the spur of the moment, but on definitely commercial lines at so many dollars per murder. The "gangs" of New York exist in fact. I have not invented them. Most of the incidents in this story are based on actual happenings. The Rosenthal case, where four men, headed by a genial individual calling himself "Gyp the Blood" shot a fellow-citizen in cold blood in a spot as public and fashionable as Piccadilly Circus and escaped in a motor-car, made such a stir a few years ago that the noise of it was heard all over the world and not, as is generally the case with the doings of the gangs, in New York only. Rosenthal cases on a smaller and less sensational scale are frequent occurrences on Manhattan Island. It was the prominence of the victim rather than the unusual nature of the occurrence that excited the New York press. Most gang victims get a quarter of a column in small type.

      P. G. WODEHOUSE New York, 1915

CHAPTER I—"COSY MOMENTS"

       Table of Contents

      The man in the street would not have known it, but a great crisis was imminent in New York journalism.

      Everything seemed much as usual in the city. The cars ran blithely on Broadway. Newsboys shouted "Wux-try!" into the ears of nervous pedestrians with their usual Caruso-like vim. Society passed up and down Fifth Avenue in its automobiles, and was there a furrow of anxiety upon Society's brow? None. At a thousand street corners a thousand policemen preserved their air of massive superiority to the things of this world. Not one of them showed the least sign of perturbation. Nevertheless, the crisis was at hand. Mr. J. Fillken Wilberfloss, editor-in-chief of Cosy Moments, was about to leave his post and start on a ten weeks' holiday.

      In New York one may find every class of paper which the imagination can conceive. Every grade of society is catered for. If an Esquimau came to New York, the first thing he would find on the bookstalls in all probability would be the Blubber Magazine, or some similar production written by Esquimaux for Esquimaux. Everybody reads in New York, and reads all the time. The New Yorker peruses his favourite paper while he is being jammed into a crowded compartment on the subway or leaping like an antelope into a moving Street car.