A Man of Means

  Produced by The United States Members of the Blandings E-Group

  A MAN OF MEANS

  A SERIES OF SIX STORIES

  By Pelham Grenville Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

  From the _Pictorial Review_, May-October 1916

  CONTENTS

  THE EPISODE OF THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER

  THE EPISODE OF THE FINANCIAL NAPOLEON

  THE EPISODE OF THE THEATRICAL VENTURE

  THE EPISODE OF THE LIVE WEEKLY

  THE DIVERTING EPISODE OF THE EXILED MONARCH

  THE EPISODE OF THE HIRED PAST

  THE EPISODE OF THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER

  First of a Series of Six Stories [First published in _Pictorial Review_,May 1916]

  When a seed-merchant of cautious disposition and an eye to the mainchance receives from an eminent firm of jam-manufacturers an extremelylarge order for clover-seed, his emotions are mixed. Joy may be said topredominate, but with the joy comes also uncertainty. Are these people,he asks himself, proposing to set up as farmers of a large scale, or dothey merely want the seed to give verisimilitude to their otherwise baldand unconvincing raspberry jam? On the solution of this problemdepends the important matter of price, for, obviously, you can chargea fraudulent jam disseminator in a manner which an honest farmer wouldresent.

  This was the problem which was furrowing the brow of Mr. JulianFineberg, of Bury St. Edwards, one sunny morning when Roland Blekeknocked at his door; and such was its difficulty that only at thenineteenth knock did Mr. Fineberg raise his head.

  "Come in--that dashed woodpecker out there!" he shouted, for it was hishabit to express himself with a generous strength towards the juniormembers of his staff.

  The young man who entered looked exactly like a second clerk in aprovincial seed-merchant's office--which, strangely enough, he chancedto be. His chief characteristic was an intense ordinariness. He was ayoung man; and when you had said that of him you had said everything.There was nothing which you would have noticed about him, except thefact that there was nothing to notice. His age was twenty-two and hisname was Roland Bleke.

  "Please, sir, it's about my salary."

  Mr. Fineberg, at the word, drew himself together much as a Britishsquare at Waterloo must have drawn itself together at the sight of asquadron of cuirassiers.

  "Salary?" he cried. "What about it? What's the matter with it? You getit, don't you?"

  "Yes, sir, but----"

  "Well? Don't stand there like an idiot. What is it?"

  "It's too much."

  Mr. Fineberg's brain reeled. It was improbable that the millennium couldhave arrived with a jerk; on the other hand, he had distinctly heardone of his clerks complain that his salary was too large. He pinchedhimself.

  "Say that again," he said.

  "If you could see your way to reduce it, sir----"

  It occurred to Mr. Fineberg for one instant that his subordinate wasendeavoring to be humorous, but a glance at Roland's face dispelled thatidea.

  "Why do you want it reduced?"

  "Please, sir, I'm going to be married."

  "What the deuce do you mean?"

  "When my salary reaches a hundred and fifty, sir. And it's a hundred andforty now, so if you could see your way to knocking off ten pounds----"

  Mr. Fineberg saw light. He was a married man himself.

  "My boy," he said genially, "I quite understand. But I can do you betterthan that. It's no use doing this sort of thing in a small way. From nowon your salary is a hundred and ten. No, no, don't thank me. You're anexcellent clerk, and it's a pleasure to me to reward merit when I findit. Close the door after you."

  And Mr. Fineberg returned with a lighter heart to the great clover-seedproblem.

  The circumstances which had led Roland to approach his employer maybe briefly recounted. Since joining the staff of Mr. Fineberg, he hadlodged at the house of a Mr. Coppin, in honorable employment as porterat the local railway-station. The Coppin family, excluding domesticpets, consisted of Mr. Coppin, a kindly and garrulous gentleman ofsixty, Mrs. Coppin, a somewhat negative personality, most of whose lifewas devoted to cooking and washing up in her underground lair, BrothersFrank and Percy, gentleman of leisure, popularly supposed to be engagedin the mysterious occupation known as "lookin' about for somethin',"and, lastly, Muriel.

  For some months after his arrival, Muriel had been to Roland Blekea mere automaton, a something outside himself that was made only forneatly-laid breakfast tables and silent removal of plates at dinner.Gradually, however, when his natural shyness was soothed by usesufficiently to enable him to look at her when she came into the room,he discovered that she was a strikingly pretty girl, bounded to theNorth by a mass of auburn hair and to the South by small and shapelyfeet. She also possessed what, we are informed--we are children in thesematters ourselves--is known as the R. S. V. P. eye. This eye had metRoland's one evening, as he chumped his chop, and before he knew what hewas doing he had remarked that it had been a fine day.

  From that wonderful moment matters had developed at an incredible speed.Roland had a nice sense of the social proprieties, and he could notbring himself to ignore a girl with whom he had once exchanged easyconversation about the weather. Whenever she came to lay his table, hefelt bound to say something. Not being an experienced gagger, he foundit more and more difficult each evening to hit on something bright,until finally, from sheer lack of inspiration, he kissed her.

  If matters had progressed rapidly before, they went like lightning then.It was as if he had touched a spring or pressed a button, setting vastmachinery in motion. Even as he reeled back stunned at his audacity, theroom became suddenly full of Coppins of every variety known to science.Through a mist he was aware of Mrs. Coppin crying in a corner, ofMr. Coppin drinking his health in the remains of sparkling limado,of Brothers Frank and Percy, one on each side trying to borrowsimultaneously half-crowns, and of Muriel, flushed but demure, makingbread-pellets and throwing them in an abstracted way, one by one, at theCoppin cat, which had wandered in on the chance of fish.

  Out of the chaos, as he stood looking at them with his mouth open, camethe word "bans," and smote him like a blast of East wind.

  It is not necessary to trace in detail Roland's mental processes fromthat moment till the day when he applied to Mr. Fineberg for areduction of salary. It is enough to say that for quite a month he wasextraordinarily happy. To a man who has had nothing to do with women, tobe engaged is an intoxicating experience, and at first life was onelong golden glow to Roland. Secretly, like all mild men, he had alwaysnourished a desire to be esteemed a nut by his fellow men; and hisengagement satisfied that desire. It was pleasant to hear BrothersFrank and Percy cough knowingly when he came in. It was pleasant to walkabroad with a girl like Muriel in the capacity of the accepted wooer.Above all, it was pleasant to sit holding Muriel's hand and watching theill-concealed efforts of Mr. Albert Potter to hide his mortification.Albert was a mechanic in the motor-works round the corner, and hithertoRoland had always felt something of a worm in his presence. Albert wasso infernally strong and silent and efficient. He could dissect a carand put it together again. He could drive through the thickest traffic.He could sit silent in company without having his silence attributed toshyness or imbecility. But--he could not get engaged to Muriel Coppin.That was reserved for Roland Bleke, the nut, the dasher, the young manof affairs. It was all very well being able to tell a spark-plug from acommutator at sight, but when it came to a contest in an affair of theheart with a man like Roland, Albert was in his proper place, third atthe pole.

  Probably, if he could have gone on merely being engaged, Roland wouldnever have wearied of the experience. But the word marriage began tocreep more and more into the family conversation, and suddenly panicdescended upon Roland Bleke
.

  All his life he had had a horror of definite appointments. An invitationto tea a week ahead had been enough to poison life for him. He was oneof those young men whose souls revolt at the thought of planning out anydefinite step. He could do things on the spur of the moment, but plansmade him lose his nerve.

  By the end of the month his whole being was crying out to him inagonized tones: "Get me out of this. Do anything you like, but get meout of this frightful marriage business."

  If anything had been needed to emphasize his desire for freedom, theattitude of Frank and Percy would have supplied it. Every day they madeit clearer that the man who married Muriel would be no stranger to them.It would be his pleasing task to support them, too, in the style towhich they had become accustomed. They conveyed the idea that they wentwith Muriel as a sort of bonus.

  * * * * *

  The Coppin family were at high tea when Roland reached home. There wasa general stir of interest as he entered the room, for it was known thathe had left that morning with the intention of approaching Mr. Finebergon the important matter of a rise in salary. Mr. Coppin removed hissaucer of tea from his lips. Frank brushed the tail of a sardine fromthe corner of his mouth. Percy ate his haddock in an undertone. AlbertPotter, who was present, glowered silently.

  Roland shook his head with the nearest approach to gloom which hisrejoicing heart would permit.

  "I'm afraid I've bad news."

  Mrs. Coppin burst into tears, her invariable practise in any crisis.Albert Potter's face relaxed into something resembling a smile.

  "He won't give you your raise?"

  Roland sighed.

  "He's reduced me."

  "Reduced you!"

  "Yes. Times are bad just at present, so he has had to lower me to ahundred and ten."

  The collected jaws of the family fell as one jaw. Muriel herself seemedto be bearing the blow with fortitude, but the rest were stunned. Frankand Percy might have been posing for a picture of men who had lost theirfountain pens.

  Beneath the table the hand of Albert Potter found the hand of MurielCoppin, and held it; and Muriel, we regret to add, turned and bestowedupon Albert a half-smile of tender understanding.

  "I suppose," said Roland, "we couldn't get married on a hundred andten?"

  "No," said Percy.

  "No," said Frank.

  "No," said Albert Potter.

  They all spoke decidedly, but Albert the most decidedly of the three.

  "Then," said Roland regretfully, "I'm afraid we must wait."

  It seemed to be the general verdict that they must wait. Muriel said shethought they must wait. Albert Potter, whose opinion no one had asked,was quite certain that they must wait. Mrs. Coppin, between sobs, moanedthat it would be best to wait. Frank and Percy, morosely devouringbread and jam, said they supposed they would have to wait. And, to end apainful scene, Roland drifted silently from the room, and went up-stairsto his own quarters.

  There was a telegram on the mantel.

  "Some fellows," he soliloquized happily, as he opened it, "wouldn'thave been able to manage a little thing like that. They would have giventhemselves away. They would----"

  The contents of the telegram demanded his attention.

  For some time they conveyed nothing to him. The thing might have beenwritten in Hindustani.

  It would have been quite appropriate if it had been, for it was from thepromoters of the Calcutta Sweep, and it informed him that, as the holderof ticket number 108,694, he had drawn Gelatine, and in recognition ofthis fact a check for five hundred pounds would be forwarded to him indue course.

  * * * * *

  Roland's first feeling was one of pure bewilderment. As far as hecould recollect, he had never had any dealings whatsoever with theseopen-handed gentlemen. Then memory opened her flood-gates and swept himback to a morning ages ago, so it seemed to him, when Mr. Fineberg'seldest son Ralph, passing through the office on his way to borrow moneyfrom his father, had offered him for ten shillings down a piece ofcardboard, at the same time saying something about a sweep. Partlyfrom a vague desire to keep in with the Fineberg clan, but principallybecause it struck him as rather a doggish thing to do, Roland had passedover the ten shillings; and there, as far as he had known, the matterhad ended.

  And now, after all this time, that simple action had borne fruit in theshape of Gelatine and a check for five hundred pounds.

  Roland's next emotion was triumph. The sudden entry of checks for fivehundred pounds into a man's life is apt to produce this result.

  For the space of some minutes he gloated; and then reaction set in. Fivehundred pounds meant marriage with Muriel.

  His brain worked quickly. He must conceal this thing. With tremblingfingers he felt for his match-box, struck a match, and burnt thetelegram to ashes. Then, feeling a little better, he sat down to thinkthe whole matter over. His meditations brought a certain amount of balm.After all, he felt, the thing could quite easily be kept a secret. Hewould receive the check in due course, as stated, and he would bicycleover to the neighboring town of Lexingham and start a bank-account withit. Nobody would know, and life would go on as before.

  He went to bed, and slept peacefully.

  * * * * *

  It was about a week after this that he was roused out of a deep sleepat eight o'clock in the morning to find his room full of Coppins. Mr.Coppin was there in a nightshirt and his official trousers. Mrs.Coppin was there, weeping softly in a brown dressing-gown. Modesty hadapparently kept Muriel from the gathering, but brothers Frank and Percystood at his bedside, shaking him by the shoulders and shouting. Mr.Coppin thrust a newspaper at him, as he sat up blinking.

  These epic moments are best related swiftly. Roland took the paper, andthe first thing that met his sleepy eye and effectually drove the sleepfrom it was this head-line:

  ROMANCE OF THE CALCUTTA SWEEPSTAKES

  And beneath it another in type almost as large as the first:

  POOR CLERK WINS L40,000

  His own name leaped at him from the printed page, and with it that ofthe faithful Gelatine.

  Flight! That was the master-word which rang in Roland's brain as dayfollowed day. The wild desire of the trapped animal to be anywhereexcept just where he was had come upon him. He was past the stage whenconscience could have kept him to his obligations. He had ceased tothink of anything or any one but himself. All he asked of Fate was toremove him from Bury St. Edwards on any terms.

  It may be that some inkling of his state of mind was waftedtelepathically to Frank and Percy, for it can not be denied that theirbehavior at this juncture was more than a little reminiscent of thepolice force. Perhaps it was simply their natural anxiety to keep an eyeon what they already considered their own private gold-mine that madethem so adhesive. Certainly there was no hour of the day when one or theother was not in Roland's immediate neighborhood. Their vigilanceeven extended to the night hours, and once, when Roland, having tossedsleeplessly on his bed, got up at two in the morning, with the wild ideaof stealing out of the house and walking to London, a door opened as hereached the top of the stairs, and a voice asked him what he thought hewas doing. The statement that he was walking in his sleep was accepted,but coldly.

  It was shortly after this that, having by dint of extraordinary strategyeluded the brothers and reached the railway-station, Roland, with histicket to London in his pocket and the express already entering thestation, was engaged in conversation by old Mr. Coppin, who appearedfrom nowhere to denounce the high cost of living in a speech that lasteduntil the tail-lights of the train had vanished and Brothers Frank andPercy arrived, panting.

  A man has only a certain capacity for battling with Fate. After thislast episode Roland gave in. Not even the exquisite agony of hearinghimself described in church as a bachelor of this parish, with the grimaddition that this was for the second time of asking, could stir him toa fresh dash for liberty.

&n
bsp; Altho the shadow of the future occupied Roland's mind almost to theexclusion of everything else, he was still capable of suffering acertain amount of additional torment from the present; and one of thethings which made the present a source of misery to him was the factthat he was expected to behave more like a mad millionaire than a soberyoung man with a knowledge of the value of money. His mind, trained frominfancy to a decent respect for the pence, had not yet adjusted itselfto the possession of large means; and the open-handed role forced uponhim by the family appalled him.

  When the Coppins wanted anything, they asked for it; and it seemed toRoland that they wanted pretty nearly everything. If Mr. Coppin hadreached his present age without the assistance of a gold watch, he mightsurely have struggled along to the end on gun-metal. In any case, a manof his years should have been thinking of higher things than mere gaudsand trinkets. A like criticism applied to Mrs. Coppin's demand for asilk petticoat, which struck Roland as simply indecent. Frank and Percytook theirs mostly in specie. It was Muriel who struck the worst blow byinsisting on a hired motor-car.

  Roland hated motor-cars, especially when they were driven by AlbertPotter, as this one was. Albert, that strong, silent man, had but oneway of expressing his emotions, namely to open the throttle and shavethe paint off trolley-cars. Disappointed love was giving Albert a gooddeal of discomfort at this time, and he found it made him feel betterto go round corners on two wheels. As Muriel sat next to him on theseexpeditions, Roland squashing into the tonneau with Frank and Percy, historments were subtle. He was not given a chance to forget, and the onlyway in which he could obtain a momentary diminution of the agony was toincrease the speed to sixty miles an hour.

  It was in this fashion that they journeyed to the neighboring town ofLexingham to see M. Etienne Feriaud perform his feat of looping the loopin his aeroplane.

  It was Brother Frank's idea that they should make up a party to go andsee M. Feriaud. Frank's was one of those generous, unspoiled natureswhich never grow _blase_ at the sight of a fellow human taking asporting chance at hara-kiri. He was a well-known figure at every wildanimal exhibition within a radius of fifty miles, and M. Feriaud drewhim like a magnet.

  "The blighter goes up," he explained, as he conducted the party into thearena, "and then he stands on his head and goes round in circles. I'veseen pictures of it."

  It appeared that M. Feriaud did even more than this. Posters round theground advertised the fact that, on receipt of five pounds, he wouldtake up a passenger with him. To date, however, there appeared to havebeen no rush on the part of the canny inhabitants of Lexingham to availthemselves of this chance of a breath of fresh air. M. Feriaud, a smallman with a chubby and amiable face, wandered about signing picture cardsand smoking a lighted cigaret, looking a little disappointed.

  Albert Potter was scornful.

  "Lot of rabbits," he said. "Where's their pluck? And I suppose they callthemselves Englishmen. I'd go up precious quick if I had a five-poundnote. Disgrace, I call it, letting a Frenchman have the laugh of us."

  It was a long speech for Mr. Potter, and it drew a look of respectfultenderness from Muriel. "You're so brave, Mr. Potter," she said.

  Whether it was the slight emphasis which she put on the first word, orwhether it was sheer generosity that impelled him, one can not say; butRoland produced the required sum even while she spoke. He offered it tohis rival.

  Mr. Potter started, turned a little pale, then drew himself up and wavedthe note aside.

  "I take no favors," he said with dignity.

  There was a pause.

  "Why don't you do it." said Albert, nastily. "Five pounds is nothing toyou."

  "Why should I?"

  "Ah! Why should you?"

  It would be useless to assert that Mr. Potter's tone was friendly. Itstung Roland. It seemed to him that Muriel was looking at him in anunpleasantly contemptuous manner.

  In some curious fashion, without doing anything to merit it, he hadapparently become an object of scorn and derision to the party.

  "All right, then, I will," he said suddenly.

  "Easy enough to talk," said Albert.

  Roland strode with a pale but determined face to the spot where M.Feriaud, beaming politely, was signing a picture post-card.

  Some feeling of compunction appeared to come to Muriel at the eleventhhour.

  "Don't let him," she cried.

  But Brother Frank was made of sterner stuff. This was precisely the sortof thing which, in his opinion, made for a jolly afternoon.

  For years he had been waiting for something of this kind. He wasexperiencing that pleasant thrill which comes to a certain typeof person when the victim of a murder in the morning paper is anacquaintance of theirs.

  "What are you talking about?" he said. "There's no danger. At least, notmuch. He might easily come down all right. Besides, he wants to. What doyou want to go interfering for?"

  Roland returned. The negotiations with the bird-man had lasted a littlelonger than one would have expected. But then, of course, M. Feriaud wasa foreigner, and Roland's French was not fluent.

  He took Muriel's hand.

  "Good-by," he said.

  He shook hands with the rest of the party, even with Albert Potter. Itstruck Frank that he was making too much fuss over a trifle--and, worse,delaying the start of the proceedings.

  "What's it all about?" he demanded. "You go on as if we were never goingto see you again."

  "You never know."

  "It's as safe as being in bed."

  "But still, in case we never meet again----"

  "Oh, well," said Brother Frank, and took the outstretched hand.

  * * * * *

  The little party stood and watched as the aeroplane moved swiftly alongthe ground, rose, and soared into the air. Higher and higher it rose,till the features of the two occupants were almost invisible.

  "Now," said Brother Frank. "Now watch. Now he's going to loop the loop."

  But the wheels of the aeroplane still pointed to the ground. It grewsmaller and smaller. It was a mere speck.

  "What the dickens?"

  Far away to the West something showed up against the blue of thesky--something that might have been a bird, a toy kite, or an aeroplanetraveling rapidly into the sunset.

  Four pairs of eyes followed it in rapt silence.