The small bachelor

by P. G. Wodehouse

"Good-bye. Thanks for being such a help."

"Not at all," said Hamilton Beamish. "Don't mention it. I am always delighted to be of any assistance, always."

He gave a last soulful glance at the photograph on the mantelpiece and left the room. Mr. Waddington could hear him singing an old French love-song as he waited for the elevator, and the sound seemed to set the seal upon his gloom and despair.

"You big stiff!" said Mr. Waddington morosely.

He flung himself into a chair and gave himself up to melancholy meditation. For a while, all he could think of was how much he disliked Hamilton Beamish. There was a man who went about the place pretending to be clever, and yet the moment you came to him with a childishly simple problem which he ought to have been able to solve in half a dozen different ways in five minutes, he could do nothing but say he was sorry and advise a fellow to stand in front of trains and shoot himself. What on earth was the use of trying to be optimistic about a world which contained people like Hamilton Beamish?

And that idiotic suggestion of his about stealing the necklace! How could he possibly...?

Sigsbee H. Waddington sat up in his chair. There was a gleam in his eyes. He snorted. Was it such an idiotic suggestion, after all?

He gazed into the future. At the moment the necklace was in safe custody at the bank, but, if Molly was going to marry this young Pinch, it would presumably be taken from there and placed on exhibition among the other wedding-presents. So that ere long there would undeniably be a time—say, the best part of a day—when a resolute man with a nimble set of fingers might....

Mr. Waddington sank back in his chair again. The light died out of his eyes. Philosophers tell us that no man really knows himself: but Sigsbee H. Waddington knew himself well enough to be aware that he fell short by several miles of the nerve necessary for such an action. Stealing necklaces is no job for an amateur. You cannot suddenly take to it in middle life without any previous preparation. Every successful stealer of necklaces has to undergo a rigorous and intensive training from early boyhood, starting with milk-cans and bags at railway-stations and working his way up. What was needed for this very delicate operation was a seasoned professional.

And there, felt Sigsbee H. Waddington bitterly, you had in a nutshell the thing that made life so difficult to live—the tragic problem of how to put your hand on the right specialist at the exact moment when you required him. All these reference-books like the Classified Telephone Directory omitted the vital trades,—the trades whose members were of assistance in the real crisis of life. They told you where to find a Glass Beveller, as if anyone knew what to do with a Glass Beveller when they had got him. They gave you the address of Yeast Producers and Designers of Quilts: but what was the good of a producer of yeast when you wanted some one who would produce a jemmy and break into a house or a designer of quilts when what you required was a man who could design a satisfactory scheme for stealing an imitation-pearl necklace?