



Produced by Jim Tinsley









Psmith, Journalist

by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse




PREFACE


THE conditions of life in New York are so different from those of
London that a story of this kind calls for a little explanation.
There are several million inhabitants of New York. Not all of them
eke out a precarious livelihood by murdering one another, but there
is a definite section of the population which murders--not
casually, on the spur of the moment, but on definitely commercial
lines at so many dollars per murder. The "gangs" of New York exist
in fact. I have not invented them. Most of the incidents in this
story are based on actual happenings. The Rosenthal case, where
four men, headed by a genial individual calling himself "Gyp the
Blood" shot a fellow-citizen in cold blood in a spot as public and
fashionable as Piccadilly Circus and escaped in a motor-car, made
such a stir a few years ago that the noise of it was heard all over
the world and not, as is generally the case with the doings of the
gangs, in New York only. Rosenthal cases on a smaller and less
sensational scale are frequent occurrences on Manhattan Island. It
was the prominence of the victim rather than the unusual nature of
the occurrence that excited the New York press. Most gang victims
get a quarter of a column in small type.

P. G. WODEHOUSE
New York, 1915




CHAPTER I

"COSY MOMENTS"

The man in the street would not have known it, but a great crisis
was imminent in New York journalism.

Everything seemed much as usual in the city. The cars ran blithely
on Broadway. Newsboys shouted "Wux-try!" into the ears of nervous
pedestrians with their usual Caruso-like vim. Society passed up and
down Fifth Avenue in its automobiles, and was there a furrow of
anxiety upon Society's brow? None. At a thousand street corners a
thousand policemen preserved their air of massive superiority to
the things of this world. Not one of them showed the least sign of
perturbation. Nevertheless, the crisis was at hand. Mr. J. Fillken
Wilberfloss, editor-in-chief of _Cosy Moments_, was about to leave
his post and start on a ten weeks' holiday.

In New York one may find every class of paper which the imagination
can conceive. Every grade of society is catered for. If an Esquimau
came to New York, the first thing he would find on the bookstalls
in all probability would be the _Blubber Magazine_, or some similar
production written by Esquimaux for Esquimaux. Everybody reads in
New York, and reads all the time. The New Yorker peruses his
favourite paper while he is being jammed into a crowded compartment
on the subway or leaping like an antelope into a moving Street car.

There was thus a public for _Cosy Moments_. _Cosy Moments_, as its
name (an inspiration of Mr. Wilberfloss's own) is designed to
imply, is a journal for the home. It is the sort of paper which the
father of the family is expected to take home with him from his
office and read aloud to the chicks before bed-time. It was founded
by its proprietor, Mr. Benjamin White, as an antidote to yellow
journalism. One is forced to admit that up to the present yellow
journalism seems to be competing against it with a certain measure
of success. Headlines are still of as generous a size as
heretofore, and there is no tendency on the part of editors to
scamp the details of the last murder-case.

Nevertheless, _Cosy Moments_ thrives. It has its public.

Its contents are mildly interesting, if you like that sort of
thing. There is a "Moments in the Nursery" page, conducted by
Luella Granville Waterman, to which parents are invited to
contribute the bright speeches of their offspring, and which
bristles with little stories about the nursery canary, by Jane
(aged six), and other works of rising young authors. There is a
"Moments of Meditation" page, conducted by the Reverend Edwin T.
Philpotts; a "Moments Among the Masters" page, consisting of
assorted chunks looted from the literature of the past, when
foreheads were bulgy and thoughts profound, by Mr. Wilberfloss
himself; one or two other pages; a short story; answers to
correspondents on domestic matters; and a "Moments of Mirth" page,
conducted by an alleged humorist of the name of B. Henderson Asher,
which is about the most painful production ever served up to a
confiding public.

The guiding spirit of _Cosy Moments_ was Mr. Wilberfloss.
Circumstances had left the development of the paper mainly to him.
For the past twelve months the proprietor had been away in Europe,
taking the waters at Carlsbad, and the sole control of _