Piccadilly Jim | Page 4

and wilder spots of the world and paid only infrequent visits to
New York, had left her almost entirely in Mr. Pett's care, and all her
pleasantest memories were associated with him. Mr. Chester's was in
many ways an admirable character, but not a domestic one; and his
relations with his daughter were confined for the most part to letters
and presents. In the past few years she had come almost to regard Mr.
Pett in the light of a father. Hers was a nature swiftly responsive to
kindness; and because Mr. Pett besides being kind was also pathetic she
pitied as well as loved him. There was a lingering boyishness in the
financier, the boyishness of the boy who muddles along in an
unsympathetic world and can never do anything right: and this quality
called aloud to the youth in her. She was at the valiant age when we
burn to right wrongs and succour the oppressed, and wild rebel
schemes for the reformation of her small world came readily to her.
From the first she had been a smouldering spectator of the trials of her
uncle's married life, and if Mr. Pett had ever asked her advice and
bound himself to act on it he would have solved his domestic troubles
in explosive fashion. For Ann in her moments of maiden meditation
had frequently devised schemes to that end which would have made his
grey hair stand erect with horror.
"I've seen a good many boys," she said, "but Ogden is in a class by
himself. He ought to be sent to a strict boarding-school, of course."
"He ought to be sent to Sing-Sing," amended Mr. Pett.
"Why don't you send him to school?"
"Your aunt wouldn't hear of it. She's afraid of his being kidnapped. It
happened last time he went to school. You can't blame her for wanting
to keep her eye on him after that."
Ann ran her fingers meditatively over the keys.
"I've sometimes thought . . ."
"Yes?"

"Oh, nothing. I must get on with this thing for aunt Nesta."
Mr. Pett placed the bulk of the Sunday paper on the floor beside him,
and began to run an appreciative eye over the comic supplement. That
lingering boyishness in him which endeared him to Ann always led him
to open his Sabbath reading in this fashion. Grey-headed though he was,
he still retained both in art and in real life a taste for the slapstick. No
one had ever known the pure pleasure it had given him when Raymond
Green, his wife's novelist protege, had tripped over a loose stair-rod
one morning and fallen an entire flight.
From some point farther down the corridor came a muffled thudding.
Ann stopped her work to listen.
"There's Jerry Mitchell punching the bag."
"Eh?" said Mr. Pett.
"I only said I could hear Jerry Mitchell in the gymnasium."
"Yes, he's there."
Ann looked out of the window thoughtfully for a moment. Then she
swung round in her swivel-chair.
"Uncle Peter."
Mr. Pett emerged slowly from the comic supplement.
"Eh?"
"Did Jerry Mitchell ever tell you about that friend of his who keeps a
dogs' hospital down on Long Island somewhere? I forget his name.
Smithers or Smethurst or something. People--old ladies, you know, and
people--bring him their dogs to be cured when they get sick. He has an
infallible remedy, Jerry tells me. He makes a lot of money at it."
"Money?" Pett, the student, became Pett, the financier, at the magic
word. "There might be something in that if one got behind it. Dogs are

fashionable. There would be a market for a really good medicine."
"I'm afraid you couldn't put Mr. Smethurst's remedy on the market. It
only works when the dog has been overeating himself and not taking
any exercise."
"Well, that's all these fancy dogs ever have the matter with them. It
looks to me as if I might do business with this man. I'll get his address
from Mitchell."
"It's no use thinking of it, uncle Peter. You couldn't do business with
him--in that way. All Mr. Smethurst does when any one brings him a
fat, unhealthy dog is to feed it next to nothing--just the simplest kind of
food, you know--and make it run about a lot. And in about a week the
dog's as well and happy and nice as he can possibly be."
"Oh," said Mr. Pett, disappointed.
Ann touched the keys of her machine softly.
"Why I mentioned Mr. Smethurst," she said, "it was because we had
been talking of Ogden. Don't you think his treatment would be just
what Ogden needs?"
Mr. Pett's eyes gleamed.
"It's a shame he can't have a week or two of it!"
Ann played a little tune with her finger-tips on the desk.