Service with a Smile by P.G. Wodehouse

hundred pounds.’
    The
Duke’s moustache leaped into life. His eyes bulged. He had the air of one who
is running the gamut of the emotions.
    ‘Five… what?’
    ‘You
were thinking of some lesser fig-ah?’
    ‘I was
thinking of a tenner.’
    ‘Ten
pounds?’ Lavender Briggs smiled pityingly, as if some acquaintance of hers,
quoting Horace, had made a false quantity. ‘That would leave you with a nice
profit, would it not?’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘You
told Lady Constance that you had a friend who was prepared to pay you two
thousand pounds for the animal.’
    The
Duke chewed his moustache in silence for a moment, regretting that he had been
so explicit.
    ‘I was
pulling her leg,’ he said, doing his best.
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Harmless
little joke.’
    ‘Indeed?
I took it au pied de la lettre.’
    ‘Au
what de what?’ said the Duke, who was as shaky on French as he was on English
literature.
    ‘I
accepted the statement at its face value.’
    ‘Silly
of you. Thought you would have seen that I was just kidding her along and
making a good story out of it.’
    ‘That
was not the impression your words made on me. When’ — she consulted her
notebook — ‘when I heard you say “I know someone who’ll give me two thousand
for the animal”, I was quate convinced that you meant precisely what you said.
Unfortunately at that moment Lord Emsworth appeared and I was obliged to move
from the door, so did not ascertain the name of the friend to whom you
referred. Otherwise, I would be dealing with him directly and you would not
appear in the transaction at all. As matters stand, you will be receiving
fifteen hundred pounds for doing nothing — from your point of view, I should
have supposed, a very satisfactory state of aff-ay-ars.’
    She
became silent. She was thinking hard thoughts of Lord Emsworth and feeling how
like him it was to have intruded at such a vital moment. Had he postponed his
arrival for as little as half a minute, she would have learned the identity of
this lavish pig-lover and would have been able to dispense with the middle man.
A momentary picture rose before her eyes of herself, armed with a stout
umbrella, taking a full back swing and breaking it over her employer’s head.
Even though she recognized this as but an idle dream, it comforted her a
little.
    The
Duke sat chewing his cigar. There was, he had to admit, much in what she said.
The thought of parting with five hundred pounds chilled him to his
parsimonious marrow, but after all, as she had indicated, the remaining fifteen
hundred was nice money and would come under the general heading of velvet.
    ‘All
right,’ he said, though it hurt him to utter the words, and Lavender Briggs’
mouth twitched slightly on the left side, which was her way of smiling.
    ‘I was
sure you would be reasonable. Shall we have a written agreement?’
    ‘No,’
said the Duke, remembering that one of the few sensible remarks his late
father had ever made was ‘Alaric, my boy, never put anything in writing’. ‘No,
certainly not. Written agreement, indeed! Never heard a pottier suggestion in
my life.’
    ‘Then I
must ask you for a cheque.’
    As far
as it is possible for a seated man to do so, the Duke reeled.
    ‘What,
in advance?’
    ‘Quate.
Have you your cheque-book with you?’
    ‘No,’
said the Duke, brightening momentarily. For an instant it seemed to him that
this solved everything.
    ‘Then
you can give it me tonight,’ said Lavender Briggs. ‘And meanwhile repeat this
after me. I, Alaric, Duke of Dunstable, hereby make a solemn promise to you,
Lavender Briggs, that if you steal Lord Emsworth’s pig, Empress of Blandings,
and deliver it to my home in Wiltshire, I will pay you the sum of five hundred
pounds.’
    ‘Sounds
silly.’
    ‘Nevertheless,
I must insist on a formal agreement, even if only a verbal one.’
    ‘Oh,
all right.’
    The
Duke repeated the words, though still considering them silly. The woman had to
be humoured.
    ‘Thank
you,’ said