The Little Nugget

by P. G. Wodehouse

She shivered.

'I wish you would tell me about those years, Audrey,' I said.
'What were some of the things you did?'

She leaned back in her chair and shaded her face from the fire with a newspaper. Her eyes were in the shadow.

'Well, let me see. I was a nurse for some time at the Lafayette
Hospital in New York.'

'That's hard work?'

'Horribly hard. I had to give it up after a while. But—it teaches you…. You learn…. You learn—all sorts of things. Realities. How much of your own trouble is imagination. You get real trouble in a hospital. You get it thrown at you.'

I said nothing. I was feeling—I don't know why—a little uncomfortable, a little at a disadvantage, as one feels in the presence of some one bigger than oneself.

'Then I was a waitress.'

'A waitress?'

'I tell you I did everything. I was a waitress, and a very bad one. I broke plates. I muddled orders. Finally I was very rude to a customer and I went on to try something else. I forget what came next. I think it was the stage. I travelled for a year with a touring company. That was hard work, too, but I liked it. After that came dressmaking, which was harder and which I hated. And then I had my first stroke of real luck.'