The waiter followed his glance.
“Don’t know who the young gentleman is, sir. Guest here, I fancy. The old gentleman is the Earl of Emsworth. Lives in the country and doesn’t often come to the club. Very absent-minded gentleman, they tell me. Potatoes, sir?”
“Thank you,” said Psmith.
The waiter drifted away, and returned.
“I have been looking at the guest-book, sir. The name of the gentleman lunching with Lord Emsworth is Mr. Ralston McTodd.”
“Thank you very much. I am sorry you had the trouble.”
“No trouble, sir.”
Psmith resumed his meal.
§ 4
The sullen demeanour of the young man who had accompanied Lord Emsworth through the coffee-room accurately reflected the emotions which were vexing his troubled soul. Ralston McTodd, the powerful young singer of Saskatoon (“Plumbs the depths of human emotion and strikes a new note”—Montreal Star. “Very readable”—Ipsilanti Herald), had not enjoyed his lunch. The pleasing sense of importance induced by the fact that for the first time in his life he was hob-nobbing with a genuine earl had given way after ten minutes of his host’s society to a mingled despair and irritation which had grown steadily deeper as the meal proceeded. It is not too much to say that by the time the fish course arrived it would have been a relief to Mr. McTodd’s feelings if he could have taken up the butter-dish and banged it down, butter and all, on his lordship’s bald head.