A Gentleman of Leisure

A Gentleman of Leisure - P. G. Wodehouse - Bachelor Jimmy Pitt falls in love aboard a transatlantic liner en route to New York City, befriends a small-time burglar, and breaks into a police captain's house as a result of a bet. Things go from bad to worse for the hapless Jimmy as he returns to England and stately Dreever Castle-which is overflowing with imposters, detectives, crooks, scheming lovers, and conniving aunts. A comic romance with mystery elements, in the classic Jeeves & Wooster tradition! Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years. They include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; the feeble-minded Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the loquacious Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and the equally loquacious Mr Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls. Although most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in England, he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. During and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, he wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies that were an important part of the development of the American musical. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his naïve revelations of incompetence and extravagance at Hollywood studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his literary career reached a new peak.

Échantillon de lecture

"I always t'inks it's best either late like dis or when de folks is in at supper," said Spike respectfully.

Jimmy smiled a faint, patronizing smile, and nodded.

"Well, and what would you do?"

"I'd rubber around some to see isn't dere a window open somewheres," said Spike diffidently.

"And if there wasn't?"

"I'd climb up de porch and into one of de bedrooms," said Spike, almost blushing. He felt like a boy reading his first attempts at original poetry to an established critic. What would this master cracksman, this polished wielder of the oxyacetylene blow-pipe, this expert in toxicology, microscopy, and physics, think of his callow outpourings?

"How would you get into the bedroom?"

Spike hung his head.

"Bust de catch wit me jemmy," he whispered shamefacedly.

"Burst the catch with your jemmy?"

"It's de only way I ever learned," pleaded Spike.

The expert was silent. He seemed to be thinking. The other watched his face humbly.

"How would youse do it, boss?" he ventured timidly, at last.

"Eh?"

"How would youse do it?"

"Why, I'm not sure," said the master graciously, "whether your way might not do in a case like that. It's crude, of course, but with a few changes it would do."

"Gee, boss! Is dat right?" queried the astonished disciple.

"It would do," said the master, frowning thoughtfully. "It would do quite well-quite well."

Spike drew a deep breath of joy and astonishment. That his methods should meet with approval from such a mind!

"Gee!" he whispered. As who should say, "I am Napoleon." 6
An Exhibition Performance

Cold reason may disapprove of wagers, but without a doubt there is something joyous and lovable in the type of mind which rushes at the least provocation into the making of them, something smacking of the spacious days of the Regency. Nowadays the spirit seems to have deserted England. When Mr. Lloyd George became Premier of Great Britain no earnest forms were to be observed rolling pea-nuts along the Strand with a toothpick. When Mr. George is dethroned it is improbable that any Briton will allow his beard to remain unshaved until his pet party returns to office. It is in the United States that the wager has found a home. It is characteristic of some minds to dash into a wager with the fearlessness of a soldier in a forlorn hope, and, once in, to regard it almost as a sacred trust. Some men never grow up out of the schoolboy spirit of "daring".

To this class Jimmy Pitt belonged. He was of the same type as the man in the comic opera who proposed to the lady because somebody bet him he wouldn't. There had never been a time when a challenge, a "dare", had not acted as a spur to him. In his newspaper days life had been one long series of challenges. They had been the essence of the business. A story had not been worth getting unless the getting were difficult.

With the conclusion of his newspaper life came a certain flatness into the scheme of things. There were times, many times, when Jimmy was bored. He hungered for excitement, and life appeared to have so little to offer. The path of the rich man was so smooth, and it seemed to lead nowhere. This task of burgling a house was like an unexpected treat to a child. With an intensity of purpose which should have touched his sense of humour, but which, as a matter of fact, did not appeal to him as ludicrous in any way, he addressed himself to the work. The truth was that Jimmy was one of those men who are charged to the brim with force. Somehow the force had to find an outlet. If he had undertaken to collect birds' eggs, he would have set about it with the same tense energy.

Spike was sitting on the edge of his chair, dazed but happy, his head still buzzing from the unhoped-for praise. Jimmy looked at his watch. It was nearly t