Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History The Girl on the BoatThe Project Gutenberg eBook of The Girl on the Boat This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The Girl on the Boat Author: P. G. Wodehouse Release date: March 1, 2007 [eBook #20717] Most recently updated: February 17, 2021 Language: English Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20717 Credits: Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT *** The Girl on the Boat BY P. G. WODEHOUSE HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED 3 YORK STREET LONDON S.W.1 A HERBERT JENKINS BOOK _Tenth printing, completing 95,781 copies_ Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT It was Sam Marlowe's fate to fall in love with a girl on the R.M.S. "Atlantic" (New York to Southampton) who had ideals. She was looking for a man just like Sir Galahad, and refused to be put off with any inferior substitute. A lucky accident on the first day of the voyage placed Sam for the moment in the Galahad class, but he could not stay the pace. He follows Billie Bennett "around," scheming, blundering and hoping, so does the parrot faced young man Bream Mortimer, Sam's rival. There is a somewhat hectic series of events at Windles, a country house in Hampshire, where Billie's ideals still block the way and Sam comes on in spite of everything. Then comes the moment when Billie.... It is a Wodehouse novel in every sense of the term. ONE MOMENT! Before my friend Mr. Jenkins-wait a minute, Herbert-before my friend Mr. Jenkins formally throws this book open to the public, I should like to say a few words. You, sir, and you, and you at the back, if you will kindly restrain your impatience.... There is no need to jostle. There will be copies for all. Thank you. I shall not detain you long. I wish to clear myself of a possible charge of plagiarism. You smile. Ah! but you don't know. You don't realise how careful even a splendid fellow like myself has to be. You wouldn't have me go down to posterity as Pelham the Pincher, would you? No! Very well, then. By the time this volume is in the hands of the customers, everybody will, of course, have read Mr. J. Storer Clouston's "The Lunatic at Large Again." (Those who are chumps enough to miss it deserve no consideration.) Well, both the hero of "The Lunatic" and my "Sam Marlowe" try to get out of a tight corner by hiding in a suit of armour in the hall of a country-house. Looks fishy, yes? And yet I call on Heaven to witness that I am innocent, innocent. And, if the word of Northumberland Avenue Wodehouse is not sufficient, let me point out that this story and Mr. Clouston's appeared simultaneously in serial form in their respective magazines. This proves, I think, that at these cross-roads, at any rate, there has been no dirty work. All right, Herb., you can let 'em in now. P. G. WODEHOUSE. Constitutional Club, Northumberland Avenue. Contents WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT ONE MOMENT! I. A DISTURBING MORNING II. GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN III. SAM PAVES THE WAY IV. SAM CLICKS V. PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE VI. SCENE AT A SHIP'S CONCERT VII. SUNDERED HEARTS VIII. SIR MALLABY OFFERS A SUGGESTION IX. ROUGH WORK AT A DINNER TABLE X. TROUBLE AT WINDLES XI. MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT XII. THE LURID PAST OF JOHN PETERS XIII. SHOCKS ALL ROUND XIV. STRONG REMARKS BY A FATHER XV. DRAMA AT A COUNTRY HOUSE XVI. WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED XVII. A CROWDED NIGHT The Girl on the Boat CHAPTER I. A DISTURBING MORNING Through the curtained windows of the furnished flat which Mrs. Horace Hignett had rented for her stay in New York, rays of golden sunlight peeped in like the foremost spies of some advancing army. It was a fine summer morning. The hands of the Dutch clock in the hall pointed to thirteen minutes past nine; those of the ormolu clock in the sitting-room to eleven minutes past ten; those of the carriage clock on the bookshelf to fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it was exactly eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by moving her head on the pillow, opening her eyes, and sitting up in bed. She always woke at eight precisely. Was this Mrs. Hignett _the_ Mrs. Hignett, the world-famous writer on Theosophy, the author of "The Spreading Light," "What of the Morrow," and all the rest of that well-known series? I'm glad you asked me. Yes, she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing tour. About this time there was a good deal of suffering in the United States, for nearly every boat that arrived from England was bringing a fresh swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists, poets, scientists, philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct seemed to affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of those great race movements of the Middle Ages. Men and women of widely differing views on religion, art, politics, and almost every other subject; on this one point the intellectuals of Great Britain were single-minded, that there was easy money to be picked up on the lecture-platforms of America, and that they might just as well grab it as the next person. Mrs. Hignett had come over with the first batch of immigrants; for, spiritual as her writings were, there was a solid streak of business sense in this woman, and she meant to get hers while the getting was good. She was half way across the Atlantic with a complete itinerary booked, before ninety per cent. of the poets and philosophers had finished sorting out their clean collars and getting their photographs taken for the passport. She had not left England without a pang, for departure had involved sacrifices. More than anything else in the world she loved her charming home, Windles, in the county of Hampshire, for so many years the seat of the Hignett family. Windles was as the breath of life to her. Its shady walks, its silver lake, its noble elms, the old grey stone of its walls-these were bound up with her very being. She felt that she belonged to Windles, and Windles to her. Unfortunately, as a matter of cold, legal accuracy, it did not. She did but hold it in trust for her son, Eustace, until such time as he should marry and take possession of it himself. There were times when the thought of Eustace marrying and bringing a strange woman to Windles chilled Mrs. Hignett to her very marrow. Happily, her firm policy of keeping her son permanently under her eye at home and never permitting him to have speech with a female below the age of fifty, had averted the peril up till now. Eustace had accompanied his mother to Ameri |