Piccadilly Jim

Mr. Pett was looking at him in a meditative way. Jimmy caught his eye.

"You're registering something, uncle Pete, and I don't know what it is. Why the glance?"

"I was just thinking of something."

"Jimmy," prompted his nephew.

"Eh?"

"Add the word Jimmy to your remarks. It will help me to feel at home and enable me to overcome my shyness."

Mr. Pett chuckled.

"Shyness! If I had your nerve—!" He broke off with a sigh and looked at Jimmy affectionately. "What I was thinking was that you're a good boy. At least, you're not, but you're different from that gang of—of—that crowd up-town."

"What crowd?"

"Your aunt is literary, you know. She's filled the house with poets and that sort of thing. It will be a treat having you around. You're human! I don't see that we're going to make much of you now that you're here, but I'm darned glad you've come, Jimmy!"

"Put it there, uncle Pete!" said Jimmy. "You're all right. You're the finest Captain of Industry I ever met!"

CHAPTER XIII SLIGHT COMPLICATIONS

They left the subway at Ninety-sixth Street and walked up the Drive. Jimmy, like every one else who saw it for the first time, experienced a slight shock at the sight of the Pett mansion, but, rallying, followed his uncle up the flagged path to the front door.

"Your aunt will be in the drawing-room, I guess," said Mr. Pett, opening the door with his key.

Jimmy was looking round him appreciatively. Mr. Pett's house might be an eyesore from without, but inside it had had the benefit of the skill of the best interior decorator in New York.

"A man could be very happy in a house like this, if he didn't have to poison his days with work," said Jimmy.

Mr. Pett looked alarmed.

"Don't go saying anything like that to your aunt!" he urged. "She thinks you have come to settle down."

"So I have. I'm going to settle down like a limpet. I hope I shall be living in luxury on you twenty years from now. Is this the room?"

Mr. Pett opened the drawing-room door. A small hairy object sprang from a basket and stood yapping in the middle of the room. This was Aida, Mrs. Pett's Pomeranian. Mr. Pett, avoiding the animal coldly, for he disliked it, ushered Jimmy into the room.

"Here's Jimmy Crocker, Nesta."

Jimmy was aware of a handsome woman of middle age, so like his step-mother that for an instant his self-possession left him and he stammered.

"How—how do you do?"

His demeanour made a favourable impression on Mrs. Pett. She took it for the decent confusion of remorse.

"I was very surprised when your uncle telephoned me," she said. "I had not the slightest idea that you were coming over. I am very glad to see you."

"Thank you."

"This is your cousin, Ogden."

Jimmy perceived a fat boy lying on a settee. He had not risen on Jimmy's entrance, and he did not rise now. He did not even lower the book he was reading.

"Hello," he said.

Jimmy crossed over to the settee, and looked down on him. He had got over his momentary embarrassment, and, as usual with him, the reaction led to a fatal breeziness. He prodded Ogden in his well-covered ribs, producing a yelp of protest from that astounded youth.

"So this is Ogden! Well, well, well! You don't grow up, Ogden, but you do grow out. What are you—a perfect sixty-six?"

The favourable impression which Mrs. Pett had formed of her nephew waned. She was shocked by this disrespectful attitude towards the child she worshipped.

"Please do not disturb Ogden, James," she said stiffly. "He is not feeling very well to-day. His stomach is weak."

"Been eating too much?" said Jimmy cheerfully.

"I was just the same at his age. What he wants is half rations and plenty of exercise."

"Say!" protested Ogden.

"Just look at this," proceeded Jimmy, grasping a handful of superfluous tissue around the boy's ribs. "All that ought to come off. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll buy a pair of flannel trousers and a sweater and some sneakers, and I'll take him for a run up Riverside Drive this evening. Do him no end of good. And a good skipping-rope, too. Nothing like it. In a couple of weeks I'll have him as fit as a—"

"Ogden's case," said Mrs. Pett coldly, "which is very complicated, is in the hands of Doctor Briginshaw, in whom we have every confidence."

There was a silence, the paralysing effects of which Mr. Pett vainly tried to mitigate by shuffling his feet and coughing. Mrs. Pett spoke.

"I hope that, now that you are here, James, you intend to settle down and work hard."

"Indubitably. Like a beaver," said Jimmy, mindful of Mr. Pett's recent warning. "The only trouble is that there seems to be a little uncertainty as to what I am best fitted for. We talked it over in uncle Pete's office and arrived at no conclusion."

"Can't you think of anything?" said Mr. Pett.

"I looked right through the telephone classified directory the other day—"

"The other day? But you only landed this morning."