“Er—what did you say?” asked his lordship after a slight pause.
“I was saying that, from all reports, you must have a very nifty display of garden-produce at your rural seat.”
“Oh, yes. Oh, most,” said his lordship, looking puzzled. He examined Psmith across the compartment with something of the peering curiosity which he would have bestowed upon a new and unclassified shrub. “Most extraordinary!” he murmured. “I trust, my dear fellow, you will not think me personal, but, do you know, nobody would imagine that you were a poet. You don’t look like a poet, and, dash it, you don’t talk like a poet.”
“How should a poet talk?”
“Well . . .” Lord Emsworth considered the point. “Well, Miss Peavey . . . But of course you don’t know Miss Peavey . . . Miss Peavey is a poetess, and she waylaid me the other morning while I was having a most important conference with McAllister on the subject of bulbs and asked me if I didn’t think that it was fairies’ tear-drops that made the dew. Did you ever hear such dashed nonsense?”
“Evidently an aggravated case. Is Miss Peavey staying at the castle?”
“My dear fellow, you couldn’t shift her with blasting-powder. Really this craze of my sister Constance for filling the house with these infernal literary people is getting on my nerves. I can’t stand these poets and what not. Never could.”
“We must always remember, however,” said Psmith gravely, “that poets are also God’s creatures.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed his lordship, aghast. “I had forgotten that you were one. What will you think of me, my dear fellow! But, of course, as I said a moment ago, you are different. I admit that when Constance told me that she had invited you to the house I was not cheered, but, now that I have had the pleasure of meeting you . . .”
The conversation had worked round to the very point to which Psmith had been wishing to direct it. He was keenly desirous of finding out why Mr. McTodd had been invited to Blandings and—a still more vital matter—of ascertaining whether, on his arrival there as Mr. McTodd’s understudy, he was going to meet people who knew the poet by sight. On this latter point, it seemed to him, hung the question of whether he was about to enjoy a delightful visit to a historic country house in the society of Eve Halliday—or leave the train at the next stop and omit to return to it.