Ice in the Bedroom by P. G. Wodehouse

Author:P. G. Wodehouse [Wodehouse, P. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, humor
ISBN: 9781590205129
Publisher: Overlook Press
Published: 2011-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

16

DOLLY’S premonition that her tale of failure would remove the sunshine from Soapy's life and cause him to feel that it was hopeless to struggle further was amply fulfilled. Melancholy marked him for its own not only over the pre-dinner cocktails but at the meal that followed them and next day's breakfast. A student of the Classics, watching him eat eggs and bacon, would have been reminded of Socrates drinking the hemlock, and though it meant a lonely morning for her, she experienced a sense of relief when he exchanged his bedroom slippers for a pair of serviceable shoes and announced that he was going to take a walk and think things over. She found the spectacle of his drawn face painful.

It was a considerable time before he returned, and when he did she was amazed to observe that his face, so far from being drawn, was split toward the middle by a smile so dazzling that she blinked at the sight of it. His opening remark, that everything was now as smooth as silk and that they were sitting pretty deepened her bewilderment. She loved him dearly and yielded to no one in her respect for his ability to sell worthless oil stock to the least promising of prospects, but, except for this one great gift of his, she had no illusions about his intelligence. She knew that she had taken for better or worse one who was practically solid concrete from the neck up, and she liked it. It was her view that brains only unsettle a husband, and she was comfortably conscious of herself possessing enough for the two of them.

'Sitting pretty?' she gasped. It seemed incredible to her that the briskest of walks could have given her loved one anything even remotely resembling an idea. 'How do you figure that out?'

Soapy sank into a chair and took off his left shoe. 'Got a blister,' he announced.

It was no time for wifely sympathy. When pain and anguish wring the left foot, a woman ought, of course, to be a ministering angel, but Dolly's impatience temporarily unfitted her for the role.

'How do you mean, we're sitting pretty?'

'Rustle up the lifesavers, and I'll tell you. The thing's in the bag.'

Dolly rustled up the lifesavers, and he became even brighter at the sight of them.

'Gee!' he said, regarding her fondly between sips. 'You look like a new red wagon, baby.'

'Never mind how I look,' said Dolly, though pleased by the compliment. 'What's happened?'

'You mean the blister? It came on when I'd been walking about half an hour,' said Soapy, massaging his foot, 'and I felt as if I'd a red-hot coal in my shoe. You ever had a blister?'

A dangerous look crept into Dolly's face.

'Get on,' she said. 'Tell me in a few simple words what's given you this idea that we're sitting pretty?'

She spoke quietly, but Soapy had been married long enough to know that a wife's quiet tones are best respected. He embarked on his narrative without further preamble.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.