Laughing Gas by P. G. Wodehouse

at it, everything's jakesey-jooksey.'
    My annoyance increased. His airy nonchalance gave me the pip. The young blighter appeared to have no thought except for self.
    'Jakesey-jooksey, eh?'
    'Jakesey-jooksey is right.'
    'For you, yes.'
    'Well, it's me I'm thinking about.' 'Then think about me for a bit.' 'You?'
    'Yes, me. If you want to know my views, I'm extremely sick about the whole bally b usiness. I have a very definite feeling that I have been handed the sticky end of the deal. There I was, buzzing al ong perfectly happy as a member of the British peerage, eatin g well, sleeping well, nice in come from rents and so on, and just got my golf handicap down to single figures. An d what ensues? All of a sudden, without being consulte d, I'm changed into a child who has to look slippy in order not to be bathed by females and whose social position seems to be that of some male factor doing a five-year stretch at Dartmoor or somewhere. Ordered hither, ordere d thither ... lugged into cars, lugged out of them ... ha uled upstairs, bunged into bed rooms'
    He gave me an enquiring look. 'I see you've met the old girl.' 'I have.'
    'Did she get hold of your wrist and pull?' 'She did.'
    'She used to get hold of my wrist and pull. Full of energy, that dame. I think she eats a lot of yeast.' 'It isn't just energy. There was animus behind it.' 'Eh?'
    'I say her actions were inspired by animus. It is patent that she hates your gizzard.'
    'Well, yes, we've never been really buddies.' 'And why not?' 'I don't know.'
    'I do. Because you didn't conciliate her. Because you never bothered to exercise tact and suavity. A little more geniality on your part, a little more of the pull-together spirit, and she might have been a second mother to you. To take a simple instance, did you ever bring her a red apple?'
    'No.'
    'You see!'
    'What would I do that for?'
    'To conciliate her. It's a well-known method. Ask any of the nibs at the nearest kindergarten. It would have been the easiest of tasks to bring her a red apple. You could have done it on your head. Instead of which,' I said bitterly, 'you go about the place putting Mexican horned toads in her bed.'
    He blushed a little.
    'Why, yes.'
    'There you are.'
    'But that's nothing. What's a Mexican horned toad or so among friends?' 'Tchah!' 'I'm sorry.'
    'Too late to be sorry now. You've soured her nature.' 'Well, she soured mine. All those prunes and spinach.'
    'Tchah!' I said again. I was pretty shirty.
    We fell into another silence. He shuffled his feet. I stared bleakly before me.
    'Well, there it is,' he said, at length. He looked at my wrist watch. 'Say, I guess I'll have to be moving along in a minute. Before I go, let's get one or two things straightened out. Havershot you said your name was, didn't you?'
    'Yes.'
    'How do you spell it?'
    'You will find a card-case in that coat.'
    He fetched out the card-case.
    'Gee!' he said. 'Are you one of those English Oils?'
    'I am. Or, rather, I was.'
    'I always thought they were string-bean sort of guys without any chins. That's the way they are in the pictures.'
    'I used to go in for games, sports, and pastimes to a goodish extent, thus developing the thews and sinews.'
    'Kind of an athlete, eh?'
    'Precisely. And that's what makes me so particularly sick about all this. Look at that arm,' I said, exhibiting it. 'What's wrong with it?'
    'What's wrong with it! What future have I got with an arm like that? As far as boxing and football are concerned, it rules me out completely. While as for cricket, can I ever become a fast bowler again? I doubt if an arm like this will be capable of even slow, leg-theory stuff. It is the arm of one of Nature's long-stops. Its limit is a place somewhere down among the dregs of a house second eleven.'
    'I don't know what you're talking about.'
    'I'm talking about what's going to happen to me in a few years, when I go to school. Do you think I like the prospect of being a frightful little weed who will probably sing alto in the