Money for nothing

by P. G. Wodehouse

"Oh?" said Mr. Carmody, regarding this Human Sardine with as little open hostility and dislike as he could manage on the spur of the moment.

"Yes, sir," proceeded Mr. Molloy, still in lyrical vein, "I put my first thousand into Oil and I'll put my last thousand into Oil. Oil's been a good friend to me. There's money in Oil."

"There is money," urged Mr. Carmody, "in a cinema in Rudge High Street."

"Not the money there is in Oil."

"You are a stranger here," went on Mr. Carmody patiently, "so you have no doubt got a mistaken idea of the potentialities of Rudge. Rudge, you must remember, is a centre. Small though it is, never forget that it lies just off the main road in the heart of a prosperous county. Worcester is only seven miles away, Birmingham only eighteen. People would come in their motors...."

"I'm not stopping them," said Mr. Molloy generously. "All I'm saying is that my money stays in little old Oil."

"Or take Golf," said Mr. Carmody, side-stepping and attacking from another angle. "The only good golf course in Worcestershire at present is at Stourbridge. Worcestershire needs more golf courses. You know how popular Golf is nowadays."

"Not so popular as Oil. Oil," said Mr. Molloy, with the air of one making an epigram, "is Oil."

Mr. Carmody stopped himself just in time from saying what he thought of Oil. To relieve his feelings he ground his heel into the soft gravel of the path, and had but one regret, that Mr. Molloy's most sensitive toe was not under it. Half turning in the process of making this bitter gesture, he perceived that Providence, since the days of Job always curious to know just how much a good man can bear, had sent Ronald Overbury Fish to add to his troubles. Young Mr. Fish was sauntering up behind his customary eleven inches of cigarette holder, his pink face wearing that expression of good-natured superiority which, ever since their first meeting, had afflicted Mr. Carmody sorely.

From the list of Mr. Carmody's troubles, recently tabulated, Ronnie Fish was inadvertently omitted. Although to Lady Julia Fish, his mother, this young gentleman, no doubt, was all the world, Lester Carmody had found him nothing but a pain in the neck. Apart from the hideous expense of entertaining a man who took twice of nearly everything, and helped himself unblushingly to more port, he chafed beneath his guest's curiously patronizing manner. He objected to being treated as a junior—and, what was more, as a half-witted junior—by solemn young men with pink faces.