“She’s a nice girl.”
“I quite agree with you.”
“Do you think you could really look after things here like Baxter?”
“I am convinced of it.”
“Then, my dear fellow—well, really I must say . . . I must say . . . well, I mean, why shouldn’t you?”
“Precisely,” said Psmith. “You have put in a nutshell the very thing I have been trying to express.”
“But have you had any experience as a secretary?”
“I must admit that I have not. You see, until recently I was more or less one of the idle rich. I toiled not, neither did I—except once, after a bump-supper at Cambridge—spin. My name, perhaps I ought to reveal to you, is Psmith—the p is silent—and until very recently I lived in affluence not far from the village of Much Middlefold in this county. My name is probably unfamiliar to you, but you may have heard of the house which was for many years the Psmith head-quarters—Corfby Hall.”
Lord Emsworth jerked his glasses off his nose.
“Corfby Hall! Are you the son of the Smith who used to own Corfby Hall? Why, bless my soul, I knew your father well.”