Page:Leave it to Psmith.djvu/10

10 at his bank account, it had undeniably tended to diminish Freddie’s charm in his eyes.

"Hear you’ve lost your glasses, guv’nor."

"That is so."

"Nuisance, what?"

"Undeniably."

"Ought to have a spare pair."

"I have broken my spare pair."

"Tough luck! And lost the other?"

"And, as you say, lost the other."

"Have you looked for the bally things?"

"I have."

"Must be somewhere, I mean."

"Quite possibly."

"Where," asked Freddie, warming to his work, "did you see them last?"

"Go away!" said Lord Emsworth, on whom his child’s conversation had begun to exercise an oppressive effect.

"Eh?"

"Go away!"

"Go away?"

"Yes, go away!"

"Right ho!"

The door closed. His lordship returned to the window once more.

He had been standing there some few minutes when one of those miracles occurred which happen in libraries. Without sound or warning a section of books started to move away from the parent body and, swinging out in a solid chunk into the room, showed a glimpse of a small, study-like apartment. A young man in spectacles came noiselessly through and the books returned to their place.

The contrast between Lord Emsworth and the