Piccadilly Jim | Page 2

in any form or
shape. To Mr. Pett, never at his ease with boys, Ogden Ford was a
constant irritant. He disliked his stepson's personality, and he more than
suspected him of stealing his cigarettes. It was an additional annoyance
that he was fully aware of the impossibility of ever catching him at it.
Mr. Pett resumed his journey. He had interrupted it for a moment to
listen at the door of the morning-room, but, a remark in a high tenor
voice about the essential Christianity of the poet Shelley filtering
through the oak, he had moved on.
Silence from behind another door farther down the passage encouraged
him to place his fingers on the handle, but a crashing chord from an
unseen piano made him remove them swiftly. He roamed on, and a few
minutes later the process of elimination had brought him to what was
technically his own private library--a large, soothing room full of old
books, of which his father had been a great collector. Mr. Pett did not
read old books himself, but he liked to be among them, and it is proof
of his pessimism that he had not tried the library first. To his depressed
mind it had seemed hardly possible that there could be nobody there.
He stood outside the door, listening tensely. He could hear nothing. He
went in, and for an instant experienced that ecstatic thrill which only
comes to elderly gentlemen of solitary habit who in a house full of their
juniors find themselves alone at last. Then a voice spoke, shattering his
dream of solitude.
"Hello, pop!"
Ogden Ford was sprawling in a deep chair in the shadows.
"Come in, pop, come in. Lots of room."
Mr. Pett stood in the doorway, regarding his step-son with a sombre
eye. He resented the boy's tone of easy patronage, all the harder to
endure with philosophic calm at the present moment from the fact that
the latter was lounging in his favourite chair. Even from an aesthetic

point of view the sight of the bulging child offended him. Ogden Ford
was round and blobby and looked overfed. He had the plethoric habit of
one to whom wholesome exercise is a stranger and the sallow
complexion of the confirmed candy-fiend. Even now, a bare half hour
after breakfast, his jaws were moving with a rhythmical, champing
motion.
"What are you eating, boy?" demanded Mr. Pett, his disappointment
turning to irritability.
"Candy."
"I wish you would not eat candy all day."
"Mother gave it to me," said Ogden simply. As he had anticipated, the
shot silenced the enemy's battery. Mr. Pett grunted, but made no verbal
comment. Ogden celebrated his victory by putting another piece of
candy in his mouth.
"Got a grouch this morning, haven't you, pop?"
"I will not be spoken to like that!"
"I thought you had," said his step-son complacently. "I can always tell.
I don't see why you want to come picking on me, though. I've done
nothing."
Mr. Pett was sniffing suspiciously.
"You've been smoking."
"Me!!"
"Smoking cigarettes."
"No, sir!"
"There are two butts in the ash-tray."

"I didn't put them there."
"One of them is warm."
"It's a warm day."
"You dropped it there when you heard me come in."
"No, sir! I've only been here a few minutes. I guess one of the fellows
was in here before me. They're always swiping your coffin-nails. You
ought to do something about it, pop. You ought to assert yourself."
A sense of helplessness came upon Mr. Pett. For the thousandth time he
felt himself baffled by this calm, goggle-eyed boy who treated him with
such supercilious coolness.
"You ought to be out in the open air this lovely morning," he said
feebly.
"All right. Let's go for a walk. I will if you will."
"I--I have other things to do," said Mr. Pett, recoiling from the
prospect.
"Well, this fresh-air stuff is overrated anyway. Where's the sense of
having a home if you don't stop in it?"
"When I was your age, I would have been out on a morning like
this--er--bowling my hoop."
"And look at you now!"
"What do you mean?"
"Martyr to lumbago."
"I am not a martyr to lumbago," said Mr. Pett, who was touchy on the
subject.

"Have it your own way. All I know is--"
"Never mind!"
"I'm only saying what mother . . ."
"Be quiet!"
Ogden made further researches in the candy box.
"Have some, pop?"
"No."
"Quite right. Got to be careful at your age."
"What do you mean?"
"Getting on, you know. Not so young as you used to be. Come in, pop,
if you're coming in. There's a draft from that door."
Mr. Pett retired, fermenting. He wondered how another man would
have handled this situation. The ridiculous inconsistency