The small bachelor

by P. G. Wodehouse

Officer Garroway was gazing at Mrs. Waddington with an eye from which one of New York's Bohemian evenings had wiped every trace of its customary mildness. So intense, indeed, was the malevolence of its gleam that, if there had been two such eyes boring into hers, it is probable that Mrs. Waddington would have swooned. Fortunately, the other was covered with a piece of raw steak and a bandage, and so was out of action.

"Ah!" said Officer Garroway.

There is little in the word "Ah!" when you write it down and take a look at it to suggest that under certain conditions it can be one of the most sinister words in the language. But hear it spoken by a policeman in whose face you have recently thrown pepper, and you will be surprised. To Mrs. Waddington, as she shrank back into the sleeping-porch, it seemed a sort of combination of an Indian war-whoop, the Last Trump, and the howl of a pursuing wolf-pack. Her knees weakened beneath her, and she collapsed on the bed.

"Copped you, have I?" proceeded the policeman.

The question was plainly a rhetorical one, for he did not pause for a reply. He adjusted the bandage that held the steak, and continued his remarks.

"You're pinched!"

It seemed to Lord Hunstanton that all this was very odd and irregular.

"I say, look here, you know, what I mean to say is...."

"So are you," said Officer Garroway. "You seem to be in it, too. You're both pinched. And start any funny business," concluded the constable, swinging his night-stick in a ham-like fist, "and I'll bend this over your nut. Get me?"

There followed one of those pauses which so often punctuate the conversation of comparative strangers. Officer Garroway seemed to have said his say. Mrs. Waddington had no observations to make. And, though Lord Hunstanton would have liked to put a question or two, the spectacle of that oscillating night-stick had the effect of driving the words out of his head. It was the sort of night-stick that gave one a throbbing feeling about the temples merely to look at it. He swallowed feebly, but made no remark.