Lucky Jim Chapter 9 Summary

  • Jim's sitting in his cramped little office. Someone comes to the door looking for Professor Welch.
  • It turns out that someone is on the telephone, and the university porter asks him if he could take the call in Welch's place.
  • Jim sighs and gets up to go take the call.
  • When he gets on the phone, though, he realizes that the person on the other end is none other than Christine Callaghan.
  • He immediately gets nervous, and is thankful that he doesn't have to talk to her in person.
  • Basically, Christine just wants to know the answer to one question: is Bertrand coming to the university Ball?
  • Jim already knows that he is, and that Bertrand's bringing Carol Goldsmith instead of Christine. Christine doesn't seem to know any of this though, and Jim doesn't want to come out and straight up tell her (he also neglects to tell her that he saw Bertrand and Carol kissing at the Welches' house).
  • Trying to be helpful, Jim takes down Christine's number and tells her he'll have Professor Welch call her.
  • She thanks him, but before she hangs up, Jim shares a few details with her about how he hates going to these university things.
  • On his way out of the telephone room, Jim passes Johns and brushes past him rudely. There's definitely no love lost between those two guys.
  • Just when he starts to feel happy, Jim runs into Michie, the eager student. Michie asks Jim to go for a stroll while they discuss school stuff, and Jim has no choice but to agree.
  • Michie is there to tell Jim that the three pretty girls he'd hoped to attract to his special subject class aren't really interested.
  • The only one who seems to care about the class is Michie. Sigh.
  • Jim heads back to the university telephone and rings up the Welches' house.
  • Mrs. Welch picks up and he asks for Professor Welch. Unfortunately, Mrs. Welch recognizes his voice and asks him about what he did to her bed sheets.
  • Jim has totally forgotten about the bed sheets, and now needs to think of a way out of this confrontation with Mrs. Welch.
  • He glances at a nearby copy of the local paper, and tells Mrs. Welch he's actually a reporter calling from the newspaper office.
  • He tells Mrs. Welch he's actually looking for Bertrand.
  • When Bertrand comes on the line, Jim lies and tells Bertrand that he wants to write a little article for the paper about Bertrand's art. Bertrand is pleased to get the publicity.
  • During this conversation, Jim is able to confirm for Christine that Bertrand is coming to the university Summer Ball.
  • But now he's dragged Christine into the newspaper story.
  • He told Bertrand that he got his name from Christine, who suggested he do the story about him.
  • So he has to tell Christine about it so they can get their stories straight.