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