Produced by Jim Tinsley
by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
The sunshine of a fair Spring morning fell graciously on Londontown. Out in Piccadilly its heartening warmth seemed to infuseinto traffic and pedestrians alike a novel jauntiness, so thatbus drivers jested and even the lips of chauffeurs uncurled intonot unkindly smiles. Policemen whistled at their posts—clerks,on their way to work; beggars approached the task of trying topersuade perfect strangers to bear the burden of theirmaintenance with that optimistic vim which makes all thedifference. It was one of those happy mornings.
At nine o'clock precisely the door of Number Seven Arundell
Street, Leicester Square, opened and a young man stepped out.
Of all the spots in London which may fairly be described asbackwaters there is none that answers so completely to thedescription as Arundell Street, Leicester Square. Passing alongthe north sidewalk of the square, just where it joins Piccadilly,you hardly notice the bottleneck opening of the tiny cul-de-sac.Day and night the human flood roars past, ignoring it. ArundellStreet is less than forty yards in length; and, though there aretwo hotels in it, they are not fashionable hotels. It is just abackwater.
In shape Arundell Street is exactly like one of those flat stonejars in which Italian wine of the cheaper sort is stored. Thenarrow neck that leads off Leicester Square opens abruptly into asmall court. Hotels occupy two sides of this; the third is atpresent given up to rooming houses for the impecunious. These arealways just going to be pulled down in the name of progress tomake room for another hotel, but they never do meet with thatfate; and as they stand now so will they in all probability standfor generations to come.
They provide single rooms of moderate size, the bed modestlyhidden during the day behind a battered screen. The rooms containa table, an easy-chair, a hard chair, a bureau, and a round tinbath, which, like the bed, goes into hiding after its useful workis performed. And you may rent one of these rooms, with breakfastthrown in, for five dollars a week.
Ashe Marson had done so. He had rented the second-floor front of
Number Seven.
Twenty-six years before this story opens there had been born toJoseph Marson, minister, and Sarah his wife, of Hayling,Massachusetts, in the United States of America, a son. This son,christened Ashe after a wealthy uncle who subsequentlydouble-crossed them by leaving his money to charities, in duecourse proceeded to Harvard to study for the ministry. So far ascan be ascertained from contemporary records, he did not study agreat deal for the ministry; but he did succeed in running themile in four minutes and a half and the half mile at acorrespondingly rapid speed, and his researches in the art oflong jumping won him the respect of all.
That he should be awarded, at the conclusion of his Harvardcareer, one of those scholarships at Oxford University institutedby the late Cecil Rhodes for the encouragement of the liberalarts, was a natural sequence of events.
That was how Ashe came to be in England.
The rest of Ashe's history follows almost automatically. He wonhis blue for athletics at Oxford, and gladdened thousands bywinning the mile and the half mile two years in successionagainst Cambridge at Queen's Club. But owing to the pressure ofother engagements he unfortunately omitted to do any studying,and when the hour of parting arrived he was peculiarly unfittedfo