Ice in the Bedroom by P. G. Wodehouse Page B

to raise him to the heights and, as we say, bring him to the very brink of bursting into song.
    But in addition to this there was the uplifting reflection that he had in a drawer at Peacehaven script of the Silver River Oil and Refinery Corporation which he would shortly be selling for ten thousand pounds and, to set the seal on his happiness, someone at the office, just before he left, had dropped a heavy ledger on the foot of Mr. Jervis, the managing clerk, causing him a good deal of pain, for he suffered from corns. In the six months during which he had served under the Shoesmith banner Freddie had come to dislike Mr. Jervis with an intensity quite foreign to his normally genial nature, and he held very strongly the view that the more ledgers that were dropped on him, the better. His only regret was that it had not been a ton of bricks.
    All in all, then, conditions, where he was concerned, could scarcely have been improved on, and joy may be said to have reigned supreme.
    But the sudden discovery that his arms had become full of totally unforeseen blondes occasioned a sharp drop in his spirits. There had been a time when, if females of this colouring had fallen into his embrace, he would have clasped them to him and asked for more, but that had been in the pre-Sally days. Sally had changed his entire spiritual outlook. And, thinking of her, as he was now doing, he found himself entertaining a chilling speculation as to what she would say if she knew of these goings-on, to be succeeded by the more soothing thought that, being seven miles away in Valley Fields, she would not know of them. And when Dolly spoke and he realized that this was not some passing stranger who had taken a sudden fancy to him, but merely his next-door neighbour Mrs. Molloy, he was quite himself again. His acquaintance with Dolly was not an intimate one, but her husband had introduced them one afternoon and they had occasionally exchanged good-mornings across the fence, so if she had tripped over something and clutched at him for support, there was really nothing in the whole episode that even Emily Post could shake her head at.
    When, therefore, she said, 'Why, hullo, Mr. Widgeon,' it was with a completely restored equanimity that he replied:
    'Why, hullo, Mrs. Molloy. Fancy bumping into you.'
    'Bumping is right. Hope I didn't spoil the sit of your coat. I kind of twisted my ankle.'
    'Oh, really? Those high heels, what? Always beats me how women can navigate in them. You're all right?’
    'Oh, sure, thanks.'
    'Not feeling faint or anything?'
    'A bit sort of shaken up.'
    'You'd better have a drink.'
    'Now that's a thought. I could certainly use one.'
    'In here,' said Freddie, indicating the Bollinger bar, outside of which they happened to be standing. 'There's no better place, so the cognoscenti inform me.'
    If at the back of his mind, as they passed through the door, there lurked a shadow of regret that he had not steered his guest to one of the many Bond Street tea shoppes for a quick cup of coffee, instead of giving his patronage to an establishment where he knew they charged the earth for an eye-dropperful of alcoholic stimulant, he did not show it. The chivalry of the Widgeons would alone have been enough to keep him from doing that, and when the thought stole into his mind, it was immediately ejected by the reflection that it was to the husband of this woman that he owed the prosperity that in the near future would be his. If a man out of pure goodness of heart has put thousands of pounds in your pocket, the least you can do when you find his wife all shaken from a near-fall in Bond Street is to bring her back to mid-season form with a beaker of the right stuff, even if her taste inclines to champagne cocktails.
    Dolly's taste did, and he bore the blow to a purse ill adapted to the receipt of blows like a Widgeon and a gentleman, not even paling beneath his tan when she drained her first one at a gulp and asked for a refill. Nothing could have