The Prince and Betty

by P. G. Wodehouse

There was a moment's absolute silence.

"You!" cried Mr. Renshaw.

"You!" exclaimed Mr. Waterman, Mr. Asher, and the Reverend Edwin T. Philpotts.

"Sure thing," said John.

Mr. Renshaw groped for a chair, and sat down.

"Am I going mad?" he demanded feebly. "Do I understand you to say that you own this paper?"

"I do."

"Since when?"

"Roughly speaking, about three days."

Among his audience (still excepting Mr. Jarvis, who was tickling one of the cats and whistling a plaintive melody) there was a tendency toward awkward silence. To start assailing a seeming nonentity and then to discover he is the proprietor of the paper to which you wish to contribute is like kicking an apparently empty hat and finding your rich uncle inside it. Mr. Renshaw in particular was disturbed. Editorships of the kind to which he aspired are not easy to get. If he were to be removed from Peaceful Moments he would find it hard to place himself anywhere else. Editors, like manuscripts, are rejected from want of space.