The small bachelor

by P. G. Wodehouse

Of the less important details of this affair she retained no recollection: but the one salient point in connection with it came back to her now with all the force of an inspiration from above. Cornered by an indignant householder, she recalled, the West Orange burglar had made his escape by the simple means of throwing about two ounces of pepper in the householder's face.

What this humble, probably uneducated man had been able to achieve was surely not beyond the powers of a woman like herself,—the honorary president of twenty-three charitable societies and a well-known lecturer on the upbringing of infants. Turning coyly sideways, she began to unscrew the top of the pot.

"You will understand," said the policeman deprecatingly, "that this is extremely unpleasant for me...."

He was perfectly right. Unpleasant, he realised a moment later, was the exact adjective which the most punctilious stylist would have chosen. For suddenly the universe seemed to dissolve in one great cloud-burst of pepper. Pepper tickled his mouth: pepper filled his nose: pepper strayed into his eyes and caressed his Adam's apple. For an instant he writhed blindly: then, clutching at the table for support, he began to sneeze.

With the sound of those titanic sneezes ringing in her ears, Mrs. Waddington bumped her way through the darkness till she came to the open window: then, galloping across the roof, hurled herself down the fire-escape.

5

The only thing in the nature of a policy or plan of action which Mrs. Waddington had had when making for the fire-escape had been a general desire to be as far away as possible from the representative of the Law when he stopped sneezing and opened his eyes and began to look around him for his assailant. But, as her feet touched the first rungs, more definite schemes began to shape themselves. Fire-escapes, she knew, led, if followed long enough, to the ground: and she decided to climb to safety down this one. It was only when she had descended as far as the ninth floor that, glancing below her, she discovered that this particular fire-escape terminated not, as she had supposed, in some back-alley, but in the gaily-lighted outdoor premises of a restaurant, half the tables of which were already filled.

This sight gave her pause. In fact, to be accurate, it froze her stiff. Nor was her agitation without reason. Those of the readers of this chronicle who have ever thrown pepper in a policeman's face, and skimmed away down a fire-escape are aware that fire-escapes, considered as a refuge, have the defect of being uncomfortably exposed to view. At any moment, felt Mrs. Waddington, the policeman might come to the edge of the roof and look down: and to deceive him into supposing that she was merely an ash-can or a milk-bottle was, she knew, beyond her histrionic powers.

The instinct for self-preservation not only sharpens the wits, but at the same time dulls the moral sensibility. It was so with Mrs. Waddington now. Her quickened intelligence perceived in a flash that if she climbed in through the window outside which she was now standing she would be safe from scrutiny: and her blunted moral sense refused to consider the fact that such an action—amounting, as it did, to what her policeman playmate had called breaking and entering—would be most reprehensible. Besides, she had broken and entered one apartment already that night, and the appetite grows by what it feeds on. Some ten seconds later, therefore, Mrs. Waddington was once more groping through the darkness of somebody else's dwelling-place.

A well-defined scent of grease, damp towels and old cabbages told her that the room through which she was creeping was a kitchen: but the blackness was so uniform that she could see nothing of her surroundings. The only thing she was able to say definitely of this kitchen at the moment was that it contained a broom. This she knew because she had just stepped on the end of it and the handle had shot up and struck her very painfully on the forehead.