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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-15 23:21:04 -0800 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-15 23:21:04 -0800 |
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diff --git a/old/10554-h/10554-h.htm b/old/10554-h/10554-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 9f53230..0000000 --- a/old/10554-h/10554-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10796 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" -"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> -<head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Right Ho, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse. - </title> - <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover" /> - <style type="text/css"> /*<![CDATA[ */ - - p { margin-top: .75em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .75em; - } - h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; - } - hr { width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - clear: both; - } - - body{margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; } - - /* ]]> */ </style> - </head> -<body> -<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10554 ***</div> - -<h1>RIGHT HO, JEEVES</h1> -<p> </p> - -<h3>By</h3> - -<h2>P. G. WODEHOUSE</h2> - -<p> </p> - -<hr style='width: 65%;' /> - - -<h4>To</h4> - -<h2>RAYMOND NEEDHAM, K.C.</h2> - -<h3>WITH AFFECTION AND ADMIRATION</h3> - - - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-1-</h2> - - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “may I speak frankly?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What I have to say may wound you.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then——”</p> - -<p>No—wait. Hold the line a minute. I’ve gone off the rails.</p> - -<hr style='width: 45%;' /> - -<p>I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always -come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult problem -of where to begin it. It’s a thing you don’t want to go wrong over, -because one false step and you’re sunk. I mean, if you fool about too -long at the start, trying to establish atmosphere, as they call it, and -all that sort of rot, you fail to grip and the customers walk out on you.</p> - -<p>Get off the mark, on the other hand, like a scalded cat, and your public -is at a loss. It simply raises its eyebrows, and can’t make out what -you’re talking about.</p> - -<p>And in opening my report of the complex case of Gussie Fink-Nottle, -Madeline Bassett, my Cousin Angela, my Aunt Dahlia, my Uncle Thomas, -young Tuppy Glossop and the cook, Anatole, with the above spot of -dialogue, I see that I have made the second of these two floaters.</p> - -<p>I shall have to hark back a bit. And taking it for all in all and -weighing this against that, I suppose the affair may be said to have had -its inception, if inception is the word I want, with that visit of mine -to Cannes. If I hadn’t gone to Cannes, I shouldn’t have met the Bassett -or bought that white mess jacket, and Angela wouldn’t have met her shark, -and Aunt Dahlia wouldn’t have played baccarat.</p> - -<p>Yes, most decidedly, Cannes was the <i>point d’appui</i>.</p> - -<p>Right ho, then. Let me marshal my facts.</p> - -<p>I went to Cannes—leaving Jeeves behind, he having intimated that he did -not wish to miss Ascot—round about the beginning of June. With me -travelled my Aunt Dahlia and her daughter Angela. Tuppy Glossop, Angela’s -betrothed, was to have been of the party, but at the last moment couldn’t -get away. Uncle Tom, Aunt Dahlia’s husband, remained at home, because he -can’t stick the South of France at any price.</p> - -<p>So there you have the layout—Aunt Dahlia, Cousin Angela and self off to -Cannes round about the beginning of June.</p> - -<p>All pretty clear so far, what?</p> - -<p>We stayed at Cannes about two months, and except for the fact that Aunt -Dahlia lost her shirt at baccarat and Angela nearly got inhaled by a -shark while aquaplaning, a pleasant time was had by all.</p> - -<p>On July the twenty-fifth, looking bronzed and fit, I accompanied aunt and -child back to London. At seven p.m. on July the twenty-sixth we alighted -at Victoria. And at seven-twenty or thereabouts we parted with mutual -expressions of esteem—they to shove off in Aunt Dahlia’s car to Brinkley -Court, her place in Worcestershire, where they were expecting to -entertain Tuppy in a day or two; I to go to the flat, drop my luggage, -clean up a bit, and put on the soup and fish preparatory to pushing round -to the Drones for a bite of dinner.</p> - -<p>And it was while I was at the flat, towelling the torso after a -much-needed rinse, that Jeeves, as we chatted of this and that—picking -up the threads, as it were—suddenly brought the name of Gussie -Fink-Nottle into the conversation.</p> - -<p>As I recall it, the dialogue ran something as follows:</p> - -<p>SELF: Well, Jeeves, here we are, what?</p> - -<p>JEEVES: Yes, sir.</p> - -<p>SELF: I mean to say, home again.</p> - -<p>JEEVES: Precisely, sir.</p> - -<p>SELF: Seems ages since I went away.</p> - -<p>JEEVES: Yes, sir.</p> - -<p>SELF: Have a good time at Ascot?</p> - -<p>JEEVES: Most agreeable, sir.</p> - -<p>SELF: Win anything?</p> - -<p>JEEVES: Quite a satisfactory sum, thank you, sir.</p> - -<p>SELF: Good. Well, Jeeves, what news on the Rialto? Anybody been phoning -or calling or anything during my abs.?</p> - -<p>JEEVES: Mr. Fink-Nottle, sir, has been a frequent caller.</p> - -<p>I stared. Indeed, it would not be too much to say that I gaped.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fink-Nottle?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean Mr. Fink-Nottle?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But Mr. Fink-Nottle’s not in London?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m blowed.”</p> - -<p>And I’ll tell you why I was blowed. I found it scarcely possible to give -credence to his statement. This Fink-Nottle, you see, was one of those -freaks you come across from time to time during life’s journey who can’t -stand London. He lived year in and year out, covered with moss, in a -remote village down in Lincolnshire, never coming up even for the Eton -and Harrow match. And when I asked him once if he didn’t find the time -hang a bit heavy on his hands, he said, no, because he had a pond in his -garden and studied the habits of newts.</p> - -<p>I couldn’t imagine what could have brought the chap up to the great city. -I would have been prepared to bet that as long as the supply of newts -didn’t give out, nothing could have shifted him from that village of his.</p> - -<p>“Are you sure?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You got the name correctly? Fink-Nottle?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s the most extraordinary thing. It must be five years since he -was in London. He makes no secret of the fact that the place gives him -the pip. Until now, he has always stayed glued to the country, completely -surrounded by newts.”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“Newts, Jeeves. Mr. Fink-Nottle has a strong newt complex. You must have -heard of newts. Those little sort of lizard things that charge about in -ponds.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, sir. The aquatic members of the family Salamandridae which -constitute the genus Molge.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right. Well, Gussie has always been a slave to them. He used to -keep them at school.”</p> - -<p>“I believe young gentlemen frequently do, sir.”</p> - -<p>“He kept them in his study in a kind of glass-tank arrangement, and -pretty niffy the whole thing was, I recall. I suppose one ought to have -been able to see what the end would be even then, but you know what boys -are. Careless, heedless, busy about our own affairs, we scarcely gave -this kink in Gussie’s character a thought. We may have exchanged an -occasional remark about it taking all sorts to make a world, but nothing -more. You can guess the sequel. The trouble spread.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely, Jeeves. The craving grew upon him. The newts got him. -Arrived at man’s estate, he retired to the depths of the country and gave -his life up to these dumb chums. I suppose he used to tell himself that -he could take them or leave them alone, and then found—too late—that he -couldn’t.”</p> - -<p>“It is often the way, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Too true, Jeeves. At any rate, for the last five years he has been -living at this place of his down in Lincolnshire, as confirmed a -species-shunning hermit as ever put fresh water in the tank every second -day and refused to see a soul. That’s why I was so amazed when you told -me he had suddenly risen to the surface like this. I still can’t believe -it. I am inclined to think that there must be some mistake, and that -this bird who has been calling here is some different variety of -Fink-Nottle. The chap I know wears horn-rimmed spectacles and has a face -like a fish. How does that check up with your data?”</p> - -<p>“The gentleman who came to the flat wore horn-rimmed spectacles, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And looked like something on a slab?”</p> - -<p>“Possibly there was a certain suggestion of the piscine, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Then it must be Gussie, I suppose. But what on earth can have brought -him up to London?”</p> - -<p>“I am in a position to explain that, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle confided to me -his motive in visiting the metropolis. He came because the young lady is -here.”</p> - -<p>“Young lady?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean he’s in love?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m dashed. I’m really dashed. I positively am dashed, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>And I was too. I mean to say, a joke’s a joke, but there are limits.</p> - -<p>Then I found my mind turning to another aspect of this rummy affair. -Conceding the fact that Gussie Fink-Nottle, against all the ruling of the -form book, might have fallen in love, why should he have been haunting my -flat like this? No doubt the occasion was one of those when a fellow -needs a friend, but I couldn’t see what had made him pick on me.</p> - -<p>It wasn’t as if he and I were in any way bosom. We had seen a lot of each -other at one time, of course, but in the last two years I hadn’t had so -much as a post card from him.</p> - -<p>I put all this to Jeeves:</p> - -<p>“Odd, his coming to me. Still, if he did, he did. No argument about that. -It must have been a nasty jar for the poor perisher when he found I -wasn’t here.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle did not call to see you, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Pull yourself together, Jeeves. You’ve just told me that this is what he -has been doing, and assiduously, at that.”</p> - -<p>“It was I with whom he was desirous of establishing communication, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You? But I didn’t know you had ever met him.”</p> - -<p>“I had not had that pleasure until he called here, sir. But it appears -that Mr. Sipperley, a fellow student with whom Mr. Fink-Nottle had been at -the university, recommended him to place his affairs in my hands.”</p> - -<p>The mystery had conked. I saw all. As I dare say you know, Jeeves’s -reputation as a counsellor has long been established among the -cognoscenti, and the first move of any of my little circle on discovering -themselves in any form of soup is always to roll round and put the thing -up to him. And when he’s got A out of a bad spot, A puts B on to him. And -then, when he has fixed up B, B sends C along. And so on, if you get my -drift, and so forth.</p> - -<p>That’s how these big consulting practices like Jeeves’s grow. Old Sippy, -I knew, had been deeply impressed by the man’s efforts on his behalf at -the time when he was trying to get engaged to Elizabeth Moon, so it was -not to be wondered at that he should have advised Gussie to apply. Pure -routine, you might say.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re acting for him, are you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Now I follow. Now I understand. And what is Gussie’s trouble?”</p> - -<p>“Oddly enough, sir, precisely the same as that of Mr. Sipperley when I -was enabled to be of assistance to him. No doubt you recall Mr. -Sipperley’s predicament, sir. Deeply attached to Miss Moon, he suffered -from a rooted diffidence which made it impossible for him to speak.”</p> - -<p>I nodded.</p> - -<p>“I remember. Yes, I recall the Sipperley case. He couldn’t bring himself -to the scratch. A marked coldness of the feet, was there not? I recollect -you saying he was letting—what was it?—letting something do something. -Cats entered into it, if I am not mistaken.”</p> - -<p>“Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’, sir.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right. But how about the cats?”</p> - -<p>“Like the poor cat i’ the adage, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. It beats me how you think up these things. And Gussie, you say, -is in the same posish?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. Each time he endeavours to formulate a proposal of marriage, -his courage fails him.”</p> - -<p>“And yet, if he wants this female to be his wife, he’s got to say so, -what? I mean, only civil to mention it.”</p> - -<p>“Precisely, sir.”</p> - -<p>I mused.</p> - -<p>“Well, I suppose this was inevitable, Jeeves. I wouldn’t have thought -that this Fink-Nottle would ever have fallen a victim to the divine <i>p</i>, -but, if he has, no wonder he finds the going sticky.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Look at the life he’s led.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose he has spoken to a girl for years. What a lesson this is -to us, Jeeves, not to shut ourselves up in country houses and stare into -glass tanks. You can’t be the dominant male if you do that sort of thing. -In this life, you can choose between two courses. You can either shut -yourself up in a country house and stare into tanks, or you can be a -dasher with the sex. You can’t do both.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>I mused once more. Gussie and I, as I say, had rather lost touch, but all -the same I was exercised about the poor fish, as I am about all my pals, -close or distant, who find themselves treading upon Life’s banana skins. -It seemed to me that he was up against it.</p> - -<p>I threw my mind back to the last time I had seen him. About two years -ago, it had been. I had looked in at his place while on a motor trip, and -he had put me right off my feed by bringing a couple of green things with -legs to the luncheon table, crooning over them like a young mother and -eventually losing one of them in the salad. That picture, rising before -my eyes, didn’t give me much confidence in the unfortunate goof’s ability -to woo and win, I must say. Especially if the girl he had earmarked was -one of these tough modern thugs, all lipstick and cool, hard, sardonic -eyes, as she probably was.</p> - -<p>“Tell me, Jeeves,” I said, wishing to know the worst, “what sort of a -girl is this girl of Gussie’s?”</p> - -<p>“I have not met the young lady, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle speaks highly of her -attractions.”</p> - -<p>“Seemed to like her, did he?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Did he mention her name? Perhaps I know her.”</p> - -<p>“She is a Miss Bassett, sir. Miss Madeline Bassett.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>I was deeply intrigued.</p> - -<p>“Egad, Jeeves! Fancy that. It’s a small world, isn’t it, what?”</p> - -<p>“The young lady is an acquaintance of yours, sir?”</p> - -<p>“I know her well. Your news has relieved my mind, Jeeves. It makes the -whole thing begin to seem far more like a practical working proposition.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely. I confess that until you supplied this information I was -feeling profoundly dubious about poor old Gussie’s chances of inducing -any spinster of any parish to join him in the saunter down the aisle. You -will agree with me that he is not everybody’s money.”</p> - -<p>“There may be something in what you say, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Cleopatra wouldn’t have liked him.”</p> - -<p>“Possibly not, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And I doubt if he would go any too well with Tallulah Bankhead.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But when you tell me that the object of his affections is Miss Bassett, -why, then, Jeeves, hope begins to dawn a bit. He’s just the sort of chap -a girl like Madeline Bassett might scoop in with relish.”</p> - -<p>This Bassett, I must explain, had been a fellow visitor of ours at -Cannes; and as she and Angela had struck up one of those effervescent -friendships which girls do strike up, I had seen quite a bit of her. -Indeed, in my moodier moments it sometimes seemed to me that I could not -move a step without stubbing my toe on the woman.</p> - -<p>And what made it all so painful and distressing was that the more we met, -the less did I seem able to find to say to her.</p> - -<p>You know how it is with some girls. They seem to take the stuffing right -out of you. I mean to say, there is something about their personality -that paralyses the vocal cords and reduces the contents of the brain to -cauliflower. It was like that with this Bassett and me; so much so that I -have known occasions when for minutes at a stretch Bertram Wooster might -have been observed fumbling with the tie, shuffling the feet, and -behaving in all other respects in her presence like the complete dumb -brick. When, therefore, she took her departure some two weeks before we -did, you may readily imagine that, in Bertram’s opinion, it was not a day -too soon.</p> - -<p>It was not her beauty, mark you, that thus numbed me. She was a pretty -enough girl in a droopy, blonde, saucer-eyed way, but not the sort of -breath-taker that takes the breath.</p> - -<p>No, what caused this disintegration in a usually fairly fluent prattler -with the sex was her whole mental attitude. I don’t want to wrong -anybody, so I won’t go so far as to say that she actually wrote poetry, -but her conversation, to my mind, was of a nature calculated to excite -the liveliest suspicions. Well, I mean to say, when a girl suddenly asks -you out of a blue sky if you don’t sometimes feel that the stars are -God’s daisy-chain, you begin to think a bit.</p> - -<p>As regards the fusing of her soul and mine, therefore, there was nothing -doing. But with Gussie, the posish was entirely different. The thing that -had stymied me—viz. that this girl was obviously all loaded down with -ideals and sentiment and what not—was quite in order as far as he was -concerned.</p> - -<p>Gussie had always been one of those dreamy, soulful birds—you can’t shut -yourself up in the country and live only for newts, if you’re not—and I -could see no reason why, if he could somehow be induced to get the low, -burning words off his chest, he and the Bassett shouldn’t hit it off like -ham and eggs.</p> - -<p>“She’s just the type for him,” I said.</p> - -<p>“I am most gratified to hear it, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And he’s just the type for her. In fine, a good thing and one to be -pushed along with the utmost energy. Strain every nerve, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir,” replied the honest fellow. “I will attend to the matter -at once.”</p> - -<p>Now up to this point, as you will doubtless agree, what you might call a -perfect harmony had prevailed. Friendly gossip between employer and -employed, and everything as sweet as a nut. But at this juncture, I -regret to say, there was an unpleasant switch. The atmosphere suddenly -changed, the storm clouds began to gather, and before we knew where we -were, the jarring note had come bounding on the scene. I have known this -to happen before in the Wooster home.</p> - -<p>The first intimation I had that things were about to hot up was a pained -and disapproving cough from the neighbourhood of the carpet. For, during -the above exchanges, I should explain, while I, having dried the frame, -had been dressing in a leisurely manner, donning here a sock, there a -shoe, and gradually climbing into the vest, the shirt, the tie, and the -knee-length, Jeeves had been down on the lower level, unpacking my -effects.</p> - -<p>He now rose, holding a white object. And at the sight of it, I realized -that another of our domestic crises had arrived, another of those -unfortunate clashes of will between two strong men, and that Bertram, -unless he remembered his fighting ancestors and stood up for his rights, -was about to be put upon.</p> - -<p>I don’t know if you were at Cannes this summer. If you were, you will -recall that anybody with any pretensions to being the life and soul of -the party was accustomed to attend binges at the Casino in the ordinary -evening-wear trouserings topped to the north by a white mess-jacket with -brass buttons. And ever since I had stepped aboard the Blue Train at -Cannes station, I had been wondering on and off how mine would go with -Jeeves.</p> - -<p>In the matter of evening costume, you see, Jeeves is hidebound and -reactionary. I had had trouble with him before about soft-bosomed -shirts. And while these mess-jackets had, as I say, been all the -rage—<i>tout ce qu’il y a de chic</i>—on the Côte d’Azur, I had never -concealed it from myself, even when treading the measure at the Palm -Beach Casino in the one I had hastened to buy, that there might be -something of an upheaval about it on my return.</p> - -<p>I prepared to be firm.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Jeeves?” I said. And though my voice was suave, a close observer in -a position to watch my eyes would have noticed a steely glint. Nobody has -a greater respect for Jeeves’s intellect than I have, but this -disposition of his to dictate to the hand that fed him had got, I felt, -to be checked. This mess-jacket was very near to my heart, and I jolly -well intended to fight for it with all the vim of grand old Sieur de -Wooster at the Battle of Agincourt.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Jeeves?” I said. “Something on your mind, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“I fear that you inadvertently left Cannes in the possession of a coat -belonging to some other gentleman, sir.”</p> - -<p>I switched on the steely a bit more.</p> - -<p>“No, Jeeves,” I said, in a level tone, “the object under advisement is -mine. I bought it out there.”</p> - -<p>“You wore it, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Every night.”</p> - -<p>“But surely you are not proposing to wear it in England, sir?”</p> - -<p>I saw that we had arrived at the nub.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“But, sir——”</p> - -<p>“You were saying, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“It is quite unsuitable, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I do not agree with you, Jeeves. I anticipate a great popular success -for this jacket. It is my intention to spring it on the public tomorrow -at Pongo Twistleton’s birthday party, where I confidently expect it to be -one long scream from start to finish. No argument, Jeeves. No discussion. -Whatever fantastic objection you may have taken to it, I wear this -jacket.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>He went on with his unpacking. I said no more on the subject. I had won -the victory, and we Woosters do not triumph over a beaten foe. Presently, -having completed my toilet, I bade the man a cheery farewell and in -generous mood suggested that, as I was dining out, why didn’t he take the -evening off and go to some improving picture or something. Sort of olive -branch, if you see what I mean.</p> - -<p>He didn’t seem to think much of it.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, sir, I will remain in.”</p> - -<p>I surveyed him narrowly.</p> - -<p>“Is this dudgeon, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir, I am obliged to remain on the premises. Mr. Fink-Nottle -informed me he would be calling to see me this evening.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Gussie’s coming, is he? Well, give him my love.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And a whisky and soda, and so forth.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>I then set off for the Drones.</p> - -<p>At the Drones I ran into Pongo Twistleton, and he talked so much about -this forthcoming merry-making of his, of which good reports had already -reached me through my correspondents, that it was nearing eleven when I -got home again.</p> - -<p>And scarcely had I opened the door when I heard voices in the -sitting-room, and scarcely had I entered the sitting-room when I found -that these proceeded from Jeeves and what appeared at first sight to be -the Devil.</p> - -<p>A closer scrutiny informed me that it was Gussie Fink-Nottle, dressed as -Mephistopheles.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-2-</h2> - - -<p>“What-ho, Gussie,” I said.</p> - -<p>You couldn’t have told it from my manner, but I was feeling more than a -bit nonplussed. The spectacle before me was enough to nonplus anyone. I -mean to say, this Fink-Nottle, as I remembered him, was the sort of shy, -shrinking goop who might have been expected to shake like an aspen if -invited to so much as a social Saturday afternoon at the vicarage. And -yet here he was, if one could credit one’s senses, about to take part in -a fancy-dress ball, a form of entertainment notoriously a testing -experience for the toughest.</p> - -<p>And he was attending that fancy-dress ball, mark you—not, like every -other well-bred Englishman, as a Pierrot, but as Mephistopheles—this -involving, as I need scarcely stress, not only scarlet tights but a -pretty frightful false beard.</p> - -<p>Rummy, you’ll admit. However, one masks one’s feelings. I betrayed no -vulgar astonishment, but, as I say, what-hoed with civil nonchalance.</p> - -<p>He grinned through the fungus—rather sheepishly, I thought.</p> - -<p>“Oh, hullo, Bertie.”</p> - -<p>“Long time since I saw you. Have a spot?”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks. I must be off in a minute. I just came round to ask Jeeves -how he thought I looked. How do you think I look, Bertie?”</p> - -<p>Well, the answer to that, of course, was “perfectly foul”. But we -Woosters are men of tact and have a nice sense of the obligations of a -host. We do not tell old friends beneath our roof-tree that they are an -offence to the eyesight. I evaded the question.</p> - -<p>“I hear you’re in London,” I said carelessly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes.”</p> - -<p>“Must be years since you came up.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes.”</p> - -<p>“And now you’re off for an evening’s pleasure.”</p> - -<p>He shuddered a bit. He had, I noticed, a hunted air.</p> - -<p>“Pleasure!”</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you looking forward to this rout or revel?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I suppose it’ll be all right,” he said, in a toneless voice. -“Anyway, I ought to be off, I suppose. The thing starts round about -eleven. I told my cab to wait.... Will you see if it’s there, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>There was something of a pause after the door had closed. A certain -constraint. I mixed myself a beaker, while Gussie, a glutton for -punishment, stared at himself in the mirror. Finally I decided that it -would be best to let him know that I was abreast of his affairs. It might -be that it would ease his mind to confide in a sympathetic man of -experience. I have generally found, with those under the influence, that -what they want more than anything is the listening ear.</p> - -<p>“Well, Gussie, old leper,” I said, “I’ve been hearing all about you.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“This little trouble of yours. Jeeves has told me everything.”</p> - -<p>He didn’t seem any too braced. It’s always difficult to be sure, of -course, when a chap has dug himself in behind a Mephistopheles beard, but -I fancy he flushed a trifle.</p> - -<p>“I wish Jeeves wouldn’t go gassing all over the place. It was supposed to -be confidential.”</p> - -<p>I could not permit this tone.</p> - -<p>“Dishing up the dirt to the young master can scarcely be described as -gassing all over the place,” I said, with a touch of rebuke. “Anyway, -there it is. I know all. And I should like to begin,” I said, sinking my -personal opinion that the female in question was a sloppy pest in my -desire to buck and encourage, “by saying that Madeline Bassett is a -charming girl. A winner, and just the sort for you.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know her?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I know her. What beats me is how you ever got in touch. Where -did you meet?”</p> - -<p>“She was staying at a place near mine in Lincolnshire the week before -last.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but even so. I didn’t know you called on the neighbours.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t. I met her out for a walk with her dog. The dog had got a thorn -in its foot, and when she tried to take it out, it snapped at her. So, of -course, I had to rally round.”</p> - -<p>“You extracted the thorn?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“And fell in love at first sight?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Well, dash it, with a thing like that to give you a send-off, why didn’t -you cash in immediately?”</p> - -<p>“I hadn’t the nerve.”</p> - -<p>“What happened?”</p> - -<p>“We talked for a bit.”</p> - -<p>“What about?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, birds.”</p> - -<p>“Birds? What birds?”</p> - -<p>“The birds that happened to be hanging round. And the scenery, and all -that sort of thing. And she said she was going to London, and asked me -to look her up if I was ever there.”</p> - -<p>“And even after that you didn’t so much as press her hand?”</p> - -<p>“Of course not.”</p> - -<p>Well, I mean, it looked as though there was no more to be said. If a chap -is such a rabbit that he can’t get action when he’s handed the thing on a -plate, his case would appear to be pretty hopeless. Nevertheless, I -reminded myself that this non-starter and I had been at school together. -One must make an effort for an old school friend.</p> - -<p>“Ah, well,” I said, “we must see what can be done. Things may brighten. -At any rate, you will be glad to learn that I am behind you in this -enterprise. You have Bertram Wooster in your corner, Gussie.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks, old man. And Jeeves, of course, which is the thing that really -matters.”</p> - -<p>I don’t mind admitting that I winced. He meant no harm, I suppose, but -I’m bound to say that this tactless speech nettled me not a little. -People are always nettling me like that. Giving me to understand, I mean -to say, that in their opinion Bertram Wooster is a mere cipher and that -the only member of the household with brains and resources is Jeeves.</p> - -<p>It jars on me.</p> - -<p>And tonight it jarred on me more than usual, because I was feeling pretty -dashed fed with Jeeves. Over that matter of the mess jacket, I mean. -True, I had forced him to climb down, quelling him, as described, with -the quiet strength of my personality, but I was still a trifle shirty at -his having brought the thing up at all. It seemed to me that what Jeeves -wanted was the iron hand.</p> - -<p>“And what is he doing about it?” I inquired stiffly.</p> - -<p>“He’s been giving the position of affairs a lot of thought.”</p> - -<p>“He has, has he?”</p> - -<p>“It’s on his advice that I’m going to this dance.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“She is going to be there. In fact, it was she who sent me the ticket of -invitation. And Jeeves considered——”</p> - -<p>“And why not as a Pierrot?” I said, taking up the point which had struck -me before. “Why this break with a grand old tradition?”</p> - -<p>“He particularly wanted me to go as Mephistopheles.”</p> - -<p>I started.</p> - -<p>“He did, did he? He specifically recommended that definite costume?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Ha!”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing. Just ‘Ha!’”</p> - -<p>And I’ll tell you why I said “Ha!” Here was Jeeves making heavy weather -about me wearing a perfectly ordinary white mess jacket, a garment not -only <i>tout ce qu’il y a de chic</i>, but absolutely <i>de rigueur</i>, and in the -same breath, as you might say, inciting Gussie Fink-Nottle to be a blot -on the London scene in scarlet tights. Ironical, what? One looks askance -at this sort of in-and-out running.</p> - -<p>“What has he got against Pierrots?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think he objects to Pierrots as Pierrots. But in my case he -thought a Pierrot wouldn’t be adequate.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t follow that.”</p> - -<p>“He said that the costume of Pierrot, while pleasing to the eye, lacked -the authority of the Mephistopheles costume.”</p> - -<p>“I still don’t get it.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s a matter of psychology, he said.”</p> - -<p>There was a time when a remark like that would have had me snookered. But -long association with Jeeves has developed the Wooster vocabulary -considerably. Jeeves has always been a whale for the psychology of the -individual, and I now follow him like a bloodhound when he snaps it out -of the bag.</p> - -<p>“Oh, psychology?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Jeeves is a great believer in the moral effect of clothes. He -thinks I might be emboldened in a striking costume like this. He said a -Pirate Chief would be just as good. In fact, a Pirate Chief was his first -suggestion, but I objected to the boots.”</p> - -<p>I saw his point. There is enough sadness in life without having fellows -like Gussie Fink-Nottle going about in sea boots.</p> - -<p>“And are you emboldened?”</p> - -<p>“Well, to be absolutely accurate, Bertie, old man, no.”</p> - -<p>A gust of compassion shook me. After all, though we had lost touch a bit -of recent years, this man and I had once thrown inked darts at each -other.</p> - -<p>“Gussie,” I said, “take an old friend’s advice, and don’t go within a -mile of this binge.”</p> - -<p>“But it’s my last chance of seeing her. She’s off tomorrow to stay with -some people in the country. Besides, you don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t know what?”</p> - -<p>“That this idea of Jeeves’s won’t work. I feel a most frightful chump -now, yes, but who can say whether that will not pass off when I get into -a mob of other people in fancy dress. I had the same experience as a -child, one year during the Christmas festivities. They dressed me up as a -rabbit, and the shame was indescribable. Yet when I got to the party and -found myself surrounded by scores of other children, many in costumes -even ghastlier than my own, I perked up amazingly, joined freely in the -revels, and was able to eat so hearty a supper that I was sick twice in -the cab coming home. What I mean is, you can’t tell in cold blood.”</p> - -<p>I weighed this. It was specious, of course.</p> - -<p>“And you can’t get away from it that, fundamentally, Jeeves’s idea is -sound. In a striking costume like Mephistopheles, I might quite easily -pull off something pretty impressive. Colour does make a difference. Look -at newts. During the courting season the male newt is brilliantly -coloured. It helps him a lot.”</p> - -<p>“But you aren’t a male newt.”</p> - -<p>“I wish I were. Do you know how a male newt proposes, Bertie? He just -stands in front of the female newt vibrating his tail and bending his -body in a semi-circle. I could do that on my head. No, you wouldn’t find -me grousing if I were a male newt.”</p> - -<p>“But if you were a male newt, Madeline Bassett wouldn’t look at you. Not -with the eye of love, I mean.”</p> - -<p>“She would, if she were a female newt.”</p> - -<p>“But she isn’t a female newt.”</p> - -<p>“No, but suppose she was.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if she was, you wouldn’t be in love with her.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I would, if I were a male newt.”</p> - -<p>A slight throbbing about the temples told me that this discussion had -reached saturation point.</p> - -<p>“Well, anyway,” I said, “coming down to hard facts and cutting out all -this visionary stuff about vibrating tails and what not, the salient -point that emerges is that you are booked to appear at a fancy-dress -ball. And I tell you out of my riper knowledge of fancy-dress balls, -Gussie, that you won’t enjoy yourself.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t a question of enjoying yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t go.”</p> - -<p>“I must go. I keep telling you she’s off to the country tomorrow.”</p> - -<p>I gave it up.</p> - -<p>“So be it,” I said. “Have it your own way.... Yes, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fink-Nottle’s cab, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Ah? The cab, eh?... Your cab, Gussie.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the cab? Oh, right. Of course, yes, rather.... Thanks, Jeeves ... -Well, so long, Bertie.”</p> - -<p>And giving me the sort of weak smile Roman gladiators used to give the -Emperor before entering the arena, Gussie trickled off. And I turned to -Jeeves. The moment had arrived for putting him in his place, and I was -all for it.</p> - -<p>It was a little difficult to know how to begin, of course. I mean to say, -while firmly resolved to tick him off, I didn’t want to gash his feelings -too deeply. Even when displaying the iron hand, we Woosters like to keep -the thing fairly matey.</p> - -<p>However, on consideration, I saw that there was nothing to be gained by -trying to lead up to it gently. It is never any use beating about the b.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “may I speak frankly?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What I have to say may wound you.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, I have been having a chat with Mr. Fink-Nottle, and he has -been telling me about this Mephistopheles scheme of yours.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Now let me get it straight. If I follow your reasoning correctly, you -think that, stimulated by being upholstered throughout in scarlet tights, -Mr. Fink-Nottle, on encountering the adored object, will vibrate his tail -and generally let himself go with a whoop.”</p> - -<p>“I am of opinion that he will lose much of his normal diffidence, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t agree with you, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir?”</p> - -<p>“No. In fact, not to put too fine a point upon it, I consider that of all -the dashed silly, drivelling ideas I ever heard in my puff this is the -most blithering and futile. It won’t work. Not a chance. All you have -done is to subject Mr. Fink-Nottle to the nameless horrors of a -fancy-dress ball for nothing. And this is not the first time this sort -of thing has happened. To be quite candid, Jeeves, I have frequently -noticed before now a tendency or disposition on your part to -become—what’s the word?”</p> - -<p>“I could not say, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Eloquent? No, it’s not eloquent. Elusive? No, it’s not elusive. It’s on -the tip of my tongue. Begins with an ‘e’ and means being a jolly sight -too clever.”</p> - -<p>“Elaborate, sir?”</p> - -<p>“That is the exact word I was after. Too elaborate, Jeeves—that is what -you are frequently prone to become. Your methods are not simple, not -straightforward. You cloud the issue with a lot of fancy stuff that is -not of the essence. All that Gussie needs is the elder-brotherly advice -of a seasoned man of the world. So what I suggest is that from now onward -you leave this case to me.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You lay off and devote yourself to your duties about the home.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I shall no doubt think of something quite simple and straightforward yet -perfectly effective ere long. I will make a point of seeing Gussie -tomorrow.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>But on the morrow all those telegrams started coming in, and I confess -that for twenty-four hours I didn’t give the poor chap a thought, having -problems of my own to contend with.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-3-</h2> - - -<p>The first of the telegrams arrived shortly after noon, and Jeeves brought -it in with the before-luncheon snifter. It was from my Aunt Dahlia, -operating from Market Snodsbury, a small town of sorts a mile or two -along the main road as you leave her country seat.</p> - -<p>It ran as follows:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Come at once. Travers.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>And when I say it puzzled me like the dickens, I am understating it; if -anything. As mysterious a communication, I considered, as was ever -flashed over the wires. I studied it in a profound reverie for the best -part of two dry Martinis and a dividend. I read it backwards. I read it -forwards. As a matter of fact, I have a sort of recollection of even -smelling it. But it still baffled me.</p> - -<p>Consider the facts, I mean. It was only a few hours since this aunt and I -had parted, after being in constant association for nearly two months. -And yet here she was—with my farewell kiss still lingering on her cheek, -so to speak—pleading for another reunion. Bertram Wooster is not -accustomed to this gluttonous appetite for his society. Ask anyone who -knows me, and they will tell you that after two months of my company, -what the normal person feels is that that will about do for the present. -Indeed, I have known people who couldn’t stick it out for more than a few -days.</p> - -<p>Before sitting down to the well-cooked, therefore, I sent this reply:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Perplexed. Explain. Bertie.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>To this I received an answer during the after-luncheon sleep:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>What on earth is there to be perplexed about, ass? Come at once. -Travers.</i> </p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Three cigarettes and a couple of turns about the room, and I had my -response ready:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>How do you mean come at once? Regards. Bertie.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>I append the comeback:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>I mean come at once, you maddening half-wit. What did you think I meant? -Come at once or expect an aunt’s curse first post tomorrow. Love. -Travers.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>I then dispatched the following message, wishing to get everything quite -clear:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>When you say “Come” do you mean “Come to Brinkley Court”? And when you -say “At once” do you mean “At once”? Fogged. At a loss. All the best. -Bertie.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>I sent this one off on my way to the Drones, where I spent a restful -afternoon throwing cards into a top-hat with some of the better element. -Returning in the evening hush, I found the answer waiting for me:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It doesn’t matter whether you -understand or not. You just come at once, as I tell you, and for heaven’s -sake stop this back-chat. Do you think I am made of money that I can -afford to send you telegrams every ten minutes. Stop being a fathead and -come immediately. Love. Travers.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>It was at this point that I felt the need of getting a second opinion. I -pressed the bell.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “a V-shaped rumminess has manifested itself from the -direction of Worcestershire. Read these,” I said, handing him the papers -in the case.</p> - -<p>He scanned them.</p> - -<p>“What do you make of it, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“I think Mrs. Travers wishes you to come at once, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You gather that too, do you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I put the same construction on the thing. But why, Jeeves? Dash it all, -she’s just had nearly two months of me.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And many people consider the medium dose for an adult two days.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. I appreciate the point you raise. Nevertheless, Mrs. Travers -appears very insistent. I think it would be well to acquiesce in her -wishes.”</p> - -<p>“Pop down, you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I certainly can’t go at once. I’ve an important conference on at -the Drones tonight. Pongo Twistleton’s birthday party, you remember.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>There was a slight pause. We were both recalling the little -unpleasantness that had arisen. I felt obliged to allude to it.</p> - -<p>“You’re all wrong about that mess jacket, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“These things are matters of opinion, sir.”</p> - -<p>“When I wore it at the Casino at Cannes, beautiful women nudged one -another and whispered: ‘Who is he?’”</p> - -<p>“The code at Continental casinos is notoriously lax, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And when I described it to Pongo last night, he was fascinated.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“So were all the rest of those present. One and all admitted that I had -got hold of a good thing. Not a dissentient voice.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“I am convinced that you will eventually learn to love this mess-jacket, -Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“I fear not, sir.”</p> - -<p>I gave it up. It is never any use trying to reason with Jeeves on these -occasions. “Pig-headed” is the word that springs to the lips. One sighs -and passes on.</p> - -<p>“Well, anyway, returning to the agenda, I can’t go down to Brinkley Court -or anywhere else yet awhile. That’s final. I’ll tell you what, Jeeves. -Give me form and pencil, and I’ll wire her that I’ll be with her some -time next week or the week after. Dash it all, she ought to be able to -hold out without me for a few days. It only requires will power.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, then. I’ll wire ‘Expect me tomorrow fortnight’ or words to -some such effect. That ought to meet the case. Then if you will toddle -round the corner and send it off, that will be that.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>And so the long day wore on till it was time for me to dress for Pongo’s -party.</p> - -<p>Pongo had assured me, while chatting of the affair on the previous night, -that this birthday binge of his was to be on a scale calculated to -stagger humanity, and I must say I have participated in less fruity -functions. It was well after four when I got home, and by that time I was -about ready to turn in. I can just remember groping for the bed and -crawling into it, and it seemed to me that the lemon had scarcely touched -the pillow before I was aroused by the sound of the door opening.</p> - -<p>I was barely ticking over, but I contrived to raise an eyelid.</p> - -<p>“Is that my tea, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. It is Mrs. Travers.”</p> - -<p>And a moment later there was a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and the -relative had crossed the threshold at fifty m.p.h. under her own steam.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-4-</h2> - - -<p>It has been well said of Bertram Wooster that, while no one views his -flesh and blood with a keener and more remorselessly critical eye, he is -nevertheless a man who delights in giving credit where credit is due. And -if you have followed these memoirs of mine with the proper care, you will -be aware that I have frequently had occasion to emphasise the fact that -Aunt Dahlia is all right.</p> - -<p>She is the one, if you remember, who married old Tom Travers <i>en secondes -noces</i>, as I believe the expression is, the year Bluebottle won the -Cambridgeshire, and once induced me to write an article on What the -Well-Dressed Man is Wearing for that paper she runs—<i>Milady’s Boudoir</i>. -She is a large, genial soul, with whom it is a pleasure to hob-nob. In her -spiritual make-up there is none of that subtle gosh-awfulness which -renders such an exhibit as, say, my Aunt Agatha the curse of the Home -Counties and a menace to one and all. I have the highest esteem for Aunt -Dahlia, and have never wavered in my cordial appreciation of her -humanity, sporting qualities and general good-eggishness.</p> - -<p>This being so, you may conceive of my astonishment at finding her at my -bedside at such an hour. I mean to say, I’ve stayed at her place many a -time and oft, and she knows my habits. She is well aware that until I -have had my cup of tea in the morning, I do not receive. This crashing in -at a moment when she knew that solitude and repose were of the essence -was scarcely, I could not but feel, the good old form.</p> - -<p>Besides, what business had she being in London at all? That was what I -asked myself. When a conscientious housewife has returned to her home -after an absence of seven weeks, one does not expect her to start racing -off again the day after her arrival. One feels that she ought to be -sticking round, ministering to her husband, conferring with the cook, -feeding the cat, combing and brushing the Pomeranian—in a word, staying -put. I was more than a little bleary-eyed, but I endeavoured, as far as -the fact that my eyelids were more or less glued together would permit, -to give her an austere and censorious look.</p> - -<p>She didn’t seem to get it.</p> - -<p>“Wake up, Bertie, you old ass!” she cried, in a voice that hit me between -the eyebrows and went out at the back of my head.</p> - -<p>If Aunt Dahlia has a fault, it is that she is apt to address a <i>vis-à-vis</i> -as if he were somebody half a mile away whom she had observed riding -over hounds. A throwback, no doubt, to the time when she counted the day -lost that was not spent in chivvying some unfortunate fox over the -countryside.</p> - -<p>I gave her another of the austere and censorious, and this time it -registered. All the effect it had, however, was to cause her to descend -to personalities.</p> - -<p>“Don’t blink at me in that obscene way,” she said. “I wonder, Bertie,” -she proceeded, gazing at me as I should imagine Gussie would have gazed -at some newt that was not up to sample, “if you have the faintest -conception how perfectly loathsome you look? A cross between an orgy -scene in the movies and some low form of pond life. I suppose you were -out on the tiles last night?”</p> - -<p>“I attended a social function, yes,” I said coldly. “Pongo Twistleton’s -birthday party. I couldn’t let Pongo down. <i>Noblesse oblige</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Well, get up and dress.”</p> - -<p>I felt I could not have heard her aright.</p> - -<p>“Get up and dress?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>I turned on the pillow with a little moan, and at this juncture Jeeves -entered with the vital oolong. I clutched at it like a drowning man at a -straw hat. A deep sip or two, and I felt—I won’t say restored, because a -birthday party like Pongo Twistleton’s isn’t a thing you get restored -after with a mere mouthful of tea, but sufficiently the old Bertram to be -able to bend the mind on this awful thing which had come upon me.</p> - -<p>And the more I bent same, the less could I grasp the trend of the -scenario.</p> - -<p>“What is this, Aunt Dahlia?” I inquired.</p> - -<p>“It looks to me like tea,” was her response. “But you know best. You’re -drinking it.”</p> - -<p>If I hadn’t been afraid of spilling the healing brew, I have little doubt -that I should have given an impatient gesture. I know I felt like it.</p> - -<p>“Not the contents of this cup. All this. Your barging in and telling me -to get up and dress, and all that rot.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve barged in, as you call it, because my telegrams seemed to produce -no effect. And I told you to get up and dress because I want you to get -up and dress. I’ve come to take you back with me. I like your crust, -wiring that you would come next year or whenever it was. You’re coming -now. I’ve got a job for you.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t want a job.”</p> - -<p>“What you want, my lad, and what you’re going to get are two very -different things. There is man’s work for you to do at Brinkley Court. Be -ready to the last button in twenty minutes.”</p> - -<p>“But I can’t possibly be ready to any buttons in twenty minutes. I’m -feeling awful.”</p> - -<p>She seemed to consider.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said. “I suppose it’s only humane to give you a day or two to -recover. All right, then, I shall expect you on the thirtieth at the -latest.”</p> - -<p>“But, dash it, what is all this? How do you mean, a job? Why a job? What -sort of a job?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you if you’ll only stop talking for a minute. It’s quite an -easy, pleasant job. You will enjoy it. Have you ever heard of Market -Snodsbury Grammar School?”</p> - -<p>“Never.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a grammar school at Market Snodsbury.”</p> - -<p>I told her a little frigidly that I had divined as much.</p> - -<p>“Well, how was I to know that a man with a mind like yours would grasp it -so quickly?” she protested. “All right, then. Market Snodsbury Grammar -School is, as you have guessed, the grammar school at Market Snodsbury. -I’m one of the governors.”</p> - -<p>“You mean one of the governesses.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean one of the governesses. Listen, ass. There was a board of -governors at Eton, wasn’t there? Very well. So there is at Market -Snodsbury Grammar School, and I’m a member of it. And they left the -arrangements for the summer prize-giving to me. This prize-giving takes -place on the last—or thirty-first—day of this month. Have you got that -clear?”</p> - -<p>I took another oz. of the life-saving and inclined my head. Even after a -Pongo Twistleton birthday party, I was capable of grasping simple facts -like these.</p> - -<p>“I follow you, yes. I see the point you are trying to make, certainly. -Market ... Snodsbury ... Grammar School ... Board of governors ... -Prize-giving.... Quite. But what’s it got to do with me?”</p> - -<p>“You’re going to give away the prizes.”</p> - -<p>I goggled. Her words did not appear to make sense. They seemed the mere -aimless vapouring of an aunt who has been sitting out in the sun without -a hat.</p> - -<p>“Me?”</p> - -<p>“You.”</p> - -<p>I goggled again.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean me?”</p> - -<p>“I mean you in person.”</p> - -<p>I goggled a third time.</p> - -<p>“You’re pulling my leg.”</p> - -<p>“I am not pulling your leg. Nothing would induce me to touch your beastly -leg. The vicar was to have officiated, but when I got home I found a -letter from him saying that he had strained a fetlock and must scratch -his nomination. You can imagine the state I was in. I telephoned all over -the place. Nobody would take it on. And then suddenly I thought of you.”</p> - -<p>I decided to check all this rot at the outset. Nobody is more eager to -oblige deserving aunts than Bertram Wooster, but there are limits, and -sharply defined limits, at that.</p> - -<p>“So you think I’m going to strew prizes at this bally Dotheboys Hall of -yours?”</p> - -<p>“I do.”</p> - -<p>“And make a speech?”</p> - -<p>“Exactly.”</p> - -<p>I laughed derisively.</p> - -<p>“For goodness’ sake, don’t start gargling now. This is serious.”</p> - -<p>“I was laughing.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, were you? Well, I’m glad to see you taking it in this merry spirit.”</p> - -<p>“Derisively,” I explained. “I won’t do it. That’s final. I simply will -not do it.”</p> - -<p>“You will do it, young Bertie, or never darken my doors again. And you -know what that means. No more of Anatole’s dinners for you.”</p> - -<p>A strong shudder shook me. She was alluding to her <i>chef</i>, that superb -artist. A monarch of his profession, unsurpassed—nay, unequalled—at -dishing up the raw material so that it melted in the mouth of the -ultimate consumer, Anatole had always been a magnet that drew me to -Brinkley Court with my tongue hanging out. Many of my happiest moments -had been those which I had spent champing this great man’s roasts and -ragouts, and the prospect of being barred from digging into them in the -future was a numbing one.</p> - -<p>“No, I say, dash it!”</p> - -<p>“I thought that would rattle you. Greedy young pig.”</p> - -<p>“Greedy young pigs have nothing to do with it,” I said with a touch of -hauteur. “One is not a greedy young pig because one appreciates the -cooking of a genius.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I will say I like it myself,” conceded the relative. “But not -another bite of it do you get, if you refuse to do this simple, easy, -pleasant job. No, not so much as another sniff. So put that in your -twelve-inch cigarette-holder and smoke it.”</p> - -<p>I began to feel like some wild thing caught in a snare.</p> - -<p>“But why do you want me? I mean, what am I? Ask yourself that.”</p> - -<p>“I often have.”</p> - -<p>“I mean to say, I’m not the type. You have to have some terrific nib to -give away prizes. I seem to remember, when I was at school, it was -generally a prime minister or somebody.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but that was at Eton. At Market Snodsbury we aren’t nearly so -choosy. Anybody in spats impresses us.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you get Uncle Tom?”</p> - -<p>“Uncle Tom!”</p> - -<p>“Well, why not? He’s got spats.”</p> - -<p>“Bertie,” she said, “I will tell you why not Uncle Tom. You remember me -losing all that money at baccarat at Cannes? Well, very shortly I shall -have to sidle up to Tom and break the news to him. If, right after that, -I ask him to put on lavender gloves and a topper and distribute the -prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School, there will be a divorce in the -family. He would pin a note to the pincushion and be off like a rabbit. -No, my lad, you’re for it, so you may as well make the best of it.”</p> - -<p>“But, Aunt Dahlia, listen to reason. I assure you, you’ve got hold of the -wrong man. I’m hopeless at a game like that. Ask Jeeves about the time I -got lugged in to address a girls’ school. I made the most colossal ass of -myself.”</p> - -<p>“And I confidently anticipate that you will make an equally colossal ass -of yourself on the thirty-first of this month. That’s why I want you. The -way I look at it is that, as the thing is bound to be a frost, anyway, -one may as well get a hearty laugh out of it. I shall enjoy seeing you -distribute those prizes, Bertie. Well, I won’t keep you, as, no doubt, -you want to do your Swedish exercises. I shall expect you in a day or -two.”</p> - -<p>And with these heartless words she beetled off, leaving me a prey to the -gloomiest emotions. What with the natural reaction after Pongo’s party -and this stunning blow, it is not too much to say that the soul was -seared.</p> - -<p>And I was still writhing in the depths, when the door opened and Jeeves -appeared.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fink-Nottle to see you, sir,” he announced.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-5-</h2> - - -<p>I gave him one of my looks.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “I had scarcely expected this of you. You are aware -that I was up to an advanced hour last night. You know that I have barely -had my tea. You cannot be ignorant of the effect of that hearty voice of -Aunt Dahlia’s on a man with a headache. And yet you come bringing me -Fink-Nottles. Is this a time for Fink or any other kind of Nottle?”</p> - -<p>“But did you not give me to understand, sir, that you wished to see Mr. -Fink-Nottle to advise him on his affairs?”</p> - -<p>This, I admit, opened up a new line of thought. In the stress of my -emotions, I had clean forgotten about having taken Gussie’s interests in -hand. It altered things. One can’t give the raspberry to a client. I -mean, you didn’t find Sherlock Holmes refusing to see clients just -because he had been out late the night before at Doctor Watson’s birthday -party. I could have wished that the man had selected some more suitable -hour for approaching me, but as he appeared to be a sort of human lark, -leaving his watery nest at daybreak, I supposed I had better give him an -audience.</p> - -<p>“True,” I said. “All right. Bung him in.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But before doing so, bring me one of those pick-me-ups of yours.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>And presently he returned with the vital essence.</p> - -<p>I have had occasion, I fancy, to speak before now of these pick-me-ups of -Jeeves’s and their effect on a fellow who is hanging to life by a thread -on the morning after. What they consist of, I couldn’t tell you. He says -some kind of sauce, the yolk of a raw egg and a dash of red pepper, but -nothing will convince me that the thing doesn’t go much deeper than that. -Be that as it may, however, the results of swallowing one are amazing.</p> - -<p>For perhaps the split part of a second nothing happens. It is as though -all Nature waited breathless. Then, suddenly, it is as if the Last Trump -had sounded and Judgment Day set in with unusual severity.</p> - -<p>Bonfires burst out in all in parts of the frame. The abdomen becomes heavily -charged with molten lava. A great wind seems to blow through the world, -and the subject is aware of something resembling a steam hammer striking -the back of the head. During this phase, the ears ring loudly, the -eyeballs rotate and there is a tingling about the brow.</p> - -<p>And then, just as you are feeling that you ought to ring up your lawyer -and see that your affairs are in order before it is too late, the whole -situation seems to clarify. The wind drops. The ears cease to ring. Birds -twitter. Brass bands start playing. The sun comes up over the horizon -with a jerk.</p> - -<p>And a moment later all you are conscious of is a great peace.</p> - -<p>As I drained the glass now, new life seemed to burgeon within me. I -remember Jeeves, who, however much he may go off the rails at times in -the matter of dress clothes and in his advice to those in love, has -always had a neat turn of phrase, once speaking of someone rising on -stepping-stones of his dead self to higher things. It was that way with -me now. I felt that the Bertram Wooster who lay propped up against the -pillows had become a better, stronger, finer Bertram.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Jeeves,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Not at all, sir.”</p> - -<p>“That touched the exact spot. I am now able to cope with life’s -problems.”</p> - -<p>“I am gratified to hear it, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What madness not to have had one of those before tackling Aunt Dahlia! -However, too late to worry about that now. Tell me of Gussie. How did he -make out at the fancy-dress ball?”</p> - -<p>“He did not arrive at the fancy-dress ball, sir.”</p> - -<p>I looked at him a bit austerely.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “I admit that after that pick-me-up of yours I feel -better, but don’t try me too high. Don’t stand by my sick bed talking -absolute rot. We shot Gussie into a cab and he started forth, headed for -wherever this fancy-dress ball was. He must have arrived.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. As I gather from Mr. Fink-Nottle, he entered the cab convinced -in his mind that the entertainment to which he had been invited was to be -held at No. 17, Suffolk Square, whereas the actual rendezvous was No. 71, -Norfolk Terrace. These aberrations of memory are not uncommon with those -who, like Mr. Fink-Nottle, belong essentially to what one might call the -dreamer-type.”</p> - -<p>“One might also call it the fatheaded type.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“On reaching No. 17, Suffolk Square, Mr. Fink-Nottle endeavoured to -produce money to pay the fare.”</p> - -<p>“What stopped him?”</p> - -<p>“The fact that he had no money, sir. He discovered that he had left it, -together with his ticket of invitation, on the mantelpiece of his -bedchamber in the house of his uncle, where he was residing. Bidding the -cabman to wait, accordingly, he rang the door-bell, and when the butler -appeared, requested him to pay the cab, adding that it was all right, as -he was one of the guests invited to the dance. The butler then disclaimed -all knowledge of a dance on the premises.”</p> - -<p>“And declined to unbelt?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Upon which——”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fink-Nottle directed the cabman to drive him back to his uncle’s -residence.”</p> - -<p>“Well, why wasn’t that the happy ending? All he had to do was go in, -collect cash and ticket, and there he would have been, on velvet.”</p> - -<p>“I should have mentioned, sir, that Mr. Fink-Nottle had also left his -latchkey on the mantelpiece of his bedchamber.”</p> - -<p>“He could have rung the bell.”</p> - -<p>“He did ring the bell, sir, for some fifteen minutes. At the expiration -of that period he recalled that he had given permission to the -caretaker—the house was officially closed and all the staff on -holiday—to visit his sailor son at Portsmouth.”</p> - -<p>“Golly, Jeeves!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“These dreamer types do live, don’t they?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What happened then?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fink-Nottle appears to have realized at this point that his position -as regards the cabman had become equivocal. The figures on the clock had -already reached a substantial sum, and he was not in a position to meet -his obligations.”</p> - -<p>“He could have explained.”</p> - -<p>“You cannot explain to cabmen, sir. On endeavouring to do so, he found -the fellow sceptical of his bona fides.”</p> - -<p>“I should have legged it.”</p> - -<p>“That is the policy which appears to have commended itself to Mr. -Fink-Nottle. He darted rapidly away, and the cabman, endeavouring to detain -him, snatched at his overcoat. Mr. Fink-Nottle contrived to extricate -himself from the coat, and it would seem that his appearance in the -masquerade costume beneath it came as something of a shock to the cabman. -Mr. Fink-Nottle informs me that he heard a species of whistling gasp, -and, looking round, observed the man crouching against the railings with -his hands over his face. Mr. Fink-Nottle thinks he was praying. No doubt -an uneducated, superstitious fellow, sir. Possibly a drinker.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if he hadn’t been one before, I’ll bet he started being one -shortly afterwards. I expect he could scarcely wait for the pubs to -open.”</p> - -<p>“Very possibly, in the circumstances he might have found a restorative -agreeable, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And so, in the circumstances, might Gussie too, I should think. What on -earth did he do after that? London late at night—or even in the daytime, -for that matter—is no place for a man in scarlet tights.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“He invites comment.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I can see the poor old bird ducking down side-streets, skulking in -alley-ways, diving into dust-bins.”</p> - -<p>“I gathered from Mr. Fink-Nottle’s remarks, sir, that something very much -on those lines was what occurred. Eventually, after a trying night, he -found his way to Mr. Sipperley’s residence, where he was able to secure -lodging and a change of costume in the morning.”</p> - -<p>I nestled against the pillows, the brow a bit drawn. It is all very well -to try to do old school friends a spot of good, but I could not but feel -that in espousing the cause of a lunkhead capable of mucking things up as -Gussie had done, I had taken on a contract almost too big for human -consumption. It seemed to me that what Gussie needed was not so much the -advice of a seasoned man of the world as a padded cell in Colney Hatch -and a couple of good keepers to see that he did not set the place on -fire.</p> - -<p>Indeed, for an instant I had half a mind to withdraw from the case and -hand it back to Jeeves. But the pride of the Woosters restrained me. When -we Woosters put our hands to the plough, we do not readily sheathe the -sword. Besides, after that business of the mess-jacket, anything -resembling weakness would have been fatal.</p> - -<p>“I suppose you realize, Jeeves,” I said, for though one dislikes to rub -it in, these things have to be pointed out, “that all this was your -fault?”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“It’s no good saying ‘Sir?’ You know it was. If you had not insisted on -his going to that dance—a mad project, as I spotted from the first—this -would not have happened.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir, but I confess I did not anticipate——”</p> - -<p>“Always anticipate everything, Jeeves,” I said, a little sternly. “It is -the only way. Even if you had allowed him to wear a Pierrot costume, -things would not have panned out as they did. A Pierrot costume has -pockets. However,” I went on more kindly, “we need not go into that now. -If all this has shown you what comes of going about the place in scarlet -tights, that is something gained. Gussie waits without, you say?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Then shoot him in, and I will see what I can do for him.”</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-6-</h2> - - -<p>Gussie, on arrival, proved to be still showing traces of his grim -experience. The face was pale, the eyes gooseberry-like, the ears -drooping, and the whole aspect that of a man who has passed through the -furnace and been caught in the machinery. I hitched myself up a bit -higher on the pillows and gazed at him narrowly. It was a moment, I could -see, when first aid was required, and I prepared to get down to cases.</p> - -<p>“Well, Gussie.”</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Bertie.”</p> - -<p>“What ho.”</p> - -<p>“What ho.”</p> - -<p>These civilities concluded, I felt that the moment had come to touch -delicately on the past.</p> - -<p>“I hear you’ve been through it a bit.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks to Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t Jeeves’s fault.”</p> - -<p>“Entirely Jeeves’s fault.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see that. I forgot my money and latchkey——”</p> - -<p>“And now you’d better forget Jeeves. For you will be interested to hear, -Gussie,” I said, deeming it best to put him in touch with the position of -affairs right away, “that he is no longer handling your little problem.”</p> - -<p>This seemed to slip it across him properly. The jaws fell, the ears -drooped more limply. He had been looking like a dead fish. He now looked -like a deader fish, one of last year’s, cast up on some lonely beach and -left there at the mercy of the wind and tides.</p> - -<p>“What!”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean that Jeeves isn’t going to——”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“But, dash it——”</p> - -<p>I was kind, but firm.</p> - -<p>“You will be much better off without him. Surely your terrible -experiences of that awful night have told you that Jeeves needs a rest. -The keenest of thinkers strikes a bad patch occasionally. That is what -has happened to Jeeves. I have seen it coming on for some time. He has -lost his form. He wants his plugs decarbonized. No doubt this is a shock -to you. I suppose you came here this morning to seek his advice?”</p> - -<p>“Of course I did.”</p> - -<p>“On what point?”</p> - -<p>“Madeline Bassett has gone to stay with these people in the country, and -I want to know what he thinks I ought to do.”</p> - -<p>“Well, as I say, Jeeves is off the case.”</p> - -<p>“But, Bertie, dash it——”</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said with a certain asperity, “is no longer on the case. I am -now in sole charge.”</p> - -<p>“But what on earth can you do?”</p> - -<p>I curbed my resentment. We Woosters are fair-minded. We can make -allowances for men who have been parading London all night in scarlet -tights.</p> - -<p>“That,” I said quietly, “we shall see. Sit down and let us confer. I am -bound to say the thing seems quite simple to me. You say this girl has -gone to visit friends in the country. It would appear obvious that you -must go there too, and flock round her like a poultice. Elementary.”</p> - -<p>“But I can’t plant myself on a lot of perfect strangers.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you know these people?”</p> - -<p>“Of course I don’t. I don’t know anybody.”</p> - -<p>I pursed the lips. This did seem to complicate matters somewhat.</p> - -<p>“All that I know is that their name is Travers, and it’s a place called -Brinkley Court down in Worcestershire.”</p> - -<p>I unpursed my lips.</p> - -<p>“Gussie,” I said, smiling paternally, “it was a lucky day for you when -Bertram Wooster interested himself in your affairs. As I foresaw from the -start, I can fix everything. This afternoon you shall go to Brinkley -Court, an honoured guest.”</p> - -<p>He quivered like a <i>mousse</i>. I suppose it must always be rather a -thrilling experience for the novice to watch me taking hold.</p> - -<p>“But, Bertie, you don’t mean you know these Traverses?”</p> - -<p>“They are my Aunt Dahlia.”</p> - -<p>“My gosh!”</p> - -<p>“You see now,” I pointed out, “how lucky you were to get me behind you. -You go to Jeeves, and what does he do? He dresses you up in scarlet -tights and one of the foulest false beards of my experience, and sends -you off to fancy-dress balls. Result, agony of spirit and no progress. I -then take over and put you on the right lines. Could Jeeves have got you -into Brinkley Court? Not a chance. Aunt Dahlia isn’t his aunt. I merely -mention these things.”</p> - -<p>“By Jove, Bertie, I don’t know how to thank you.”</p> - -<p>“My dear chap!”</p> - -<p>“But, I say.”</p> - -<p>“Now what?”</p> - -<p>“What do I do when I get there?”</p> - -<p>“If you knew Brinkley Court, you would not ask that question. In those -romantic surroundings you can’t miss. Great lovers through the ages have -fixed up the preliminary formalities at Brinkley. The place is simply ill -with atmosphere. You will stroll with the girl in the shady walks. You -will sit with her on the shady lawns. You will row on the lake with her. -And gradually you will find yourself working up to a point where——”</p> - -<p>“By Jove, I believe you’re right.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, I’m right. I’ve got engaged three times at Brinkley. No -business resulted, but the fact remains. And I went there without the -foggiest idea of indulging in the tender pash. I hadn’t the slightest -intention of proposing to anybody. Yet no sooner had I entered those -romantic grounds than I found myself reaching out for the nearest girl in -sight and slapping my soul down in front of her. It’s something in the -air.”</p> - -<p>“I see exactly what you mean. That’s just what I want to be able to -do—work up to it. And in London—curse the place—everything’s in such a -rush that you don’t get a chance.”</p> - -<p>“Quite. You see a girl alone for about five minutes a day, and if you -want to ask her to be your wife, you’ve got to charge into it as if you -were trying to grab the gold ring on a merry-go-round.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right. London rattles one. I shall be a different man altogether -in the country. What a bit of luck this Travers woman turning out to be -your aunt.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you mean, turning out to be my aunt. She has been my -aunt all along.”</p> - -<p>“I mean, how extraordinary that it should be your aunt that Madeline’s -going to stay with.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all. She and my Cousin Angela are close friends. At Cannes she -was with us all the time.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you met Madeline at Cannes, did you? By Jove, Bertie,” said the poor -lizard devoutly, “I wish I could have seen her at Cannes. How wonderful -she must have looked in beach pyjamas! Oh, Bertie——”</p> - -<p>“Quite,” I said, a little distantly. Even when restored by one of -Jeeves’s depth bombs, one doesn’t want this sort of thing after a hard -night. I touched the bell and, when Jeeves appeared, requested him to -bring me telegraph form and pencil. I then wrote a well-worded -communication to Aunt Dahlia, informing her that I was sending my friend, -Augustus Fink-Nottle, down to Brinkley today to enjoy her hospitality, -and handed it to Gussie.</p> - -<p>“Push that in at the first post office you pass,” I said. “She will find -it waiting for her on her return.”</p> - -<p>Gussie popped along, flapping the telegram and looking like a close-up of -Joan Crawford, and I turned to Jeeves and gave him a précis of my -operations.</p> - -<p>“Simple, you observe, Jeeves. Nothing elaborate.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing far-fetched. Nothing strained or bizarre. Just Nature’s remedy.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“This is the attack as it should have been delivered. What do you call it -when two people of opposite sexes are bunged together in close -association in a secluded spot, meeting each other every day and seeing a -lot of each other?”</p> - -<p>“Is ‘propinquity’ the word you wish, sir?”</p> - -<p>“It is. I stake everything on propinquity, Jeeves. Propinquity, in my -opinion, is what will do the trick. At the moment, as you are aware, -Gussie is a mere jelly when in the presence. But ask yourself how he will -feel in a week or so, after he and she have been helping themselves to -sausages out of the same dish day after day at the breakfast sideboard. -Cutting the same ham, ladling out communal kidneys and bacon—why——”</p> - -<p>I broke off abruptly. I had had one of my ideas.</p> - -<p>“Golly, Jeeves!”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“Here’s an instance of how you have to think of everything. You heard me -mention sausages, kidneys and bacon and ham.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, there must be nothing of that. Fatal. The wrong note entirely. -Give me that telegraph form and pencil. I must warn Gussie without delay. -What he’s got to do is to create in this girl’s mind the impression that -he is pining away for love of her. This cannot be done by wolfing -sausages.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, then.”</p> - -<p>And, taking form and <i>p.</i>, I drafted the following:</p> - -<div><i><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fink-Nottle</span><br /> - <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Brinkley Court,</span><br /> - <span style="margin-left: 3em;">Market Snodsbury</span><br /> - <span style="margin-left: 4em;">Worcestershire</span><br /> - <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lay off the sausages. Avoid the ham.</span><br /> - <span style="margin-left: 17em;">Bertie.</span></i></div> - -<p>“Send that off, Jeeves, instanter.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>I sank back on the pillows.</p> - -<p>“Well, Jeeves,” I said, “you see how I am taking hold. You notice the -grip I am getting on this case. No doubt you realize now that it would -pay you to study my methods.”</p> - -<p>“No doubt, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And even now you aren’t on to the full depths of the extraordinary -sagacity I’ve shown. Do you know what brought Aunt Dahlia up here this -morning? She came to tell me I’d got to distribute the prizes at some -beastly seminary she’s a governor of down at Market Snodsbury.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir? I fear you will scarcely find that a congenial task.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but I’m not going to do it. I’m going to shove it off on to Gussie.”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“I propose, Jeeves, to wire to Aunt Dahlia saying that I can’t get down, -and suggesting that she unleashes him on these young Borstal inmates of -hers in my stead.”</p> - -<p>“But if Mr. Fink-Nottle should decline, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Decline? Can you see him declining? Just conjure up the picture in your -mind, Jeeves. Scene, the drawing-room at Brinkley; Gussie wedged into a -corner, with Aunt Dahlia standing over him making hunting noises. I put -it to you, Jeeves, can you see him declining?”</p> - -<p>“Not readily, sir. I agree. Mrs. Travers is a forceful personality.”</p> - -<p>“He won’t have a hope of declining. His only way out would be to slide -off. And he can’t slide off, because he wants to be with Miss Bassett. -No, Gussie will have to toe the line, and I shall be saved from a job at -which I confess the soul shuddered. Getting up on a platform and -delivering a short, manly speech to a lot of foul school-kids! Golly, -Jeeves. I’ve been through that sort of thing once, what? You remember -that time at the girls’ school?”</p> - -<p>“Very vividly, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What an ass I made of myself!”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I have seen you to better advantage, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I think you might bring me just one more of those dynamite specials of -yours, Jeeves. This narrow squeak has made me come over all faint.”</p> - -<p>I suppose it must have taken Aunt Dahlia three hours or so to get back to -Brinkley, because it wasn’t till well after lunch that her telegram -arrived. It read like a telegram that had been dispatched in a white-hot -surge of emotion some two minutes after she had read mine.</p> - -<p>As follows:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Am taking legal advice to ascertain whether strangling an idiot nephew -counts as murder. If it doesn’t look out for yourself. Consider your -conduct frozen limit. What do you mean by planting your loathsome friends -on me like this? Do you think Brinkley Court is a leper colony or what is -it? Who is this Spink-Bottle? Love. Travers.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>I had expected some such initial reaction. I replied in temperate vein:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Not Bottle. Nottle. Regards. Bertie.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Almost immediately after she had dispatched the above heart cry, Gussie -must have arrived, for it wasn’t twenty minutes later when I received the -following:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Cipher telegram signed by you has reached me here. Runs “Lay off the -sausages. Avoid the ham.” Wire key immediately. Fink-Nottle.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>I replied:</p> - -<blockquote><p><i>Also kidneys. Cheerio. Bertie.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p>I had staked all on Gussie making a favourable impression on his hostess, -basing my confidence on the fact that he was one of those timid, -obsequious, teacup-passing, thin-bread-and-butter-offering yes-men whom -women of my Aunt Dahlia’s type nearly always like at first sight. That I -had not overrated my acumen was proved by her next in order, which, I was -pleased to note, assayed a markedly larger percentage of the milk of -human kindness.</p> - -<p>As follows:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Well, this friend of yours has got here, and I must say that for a -friend of yours he seems less sub-human than I had expected. A bit of a -pop-eyed bleater, but on the whole clean and civil, and certainly most -informative about newts. Am considering arranging series of lectures for -him in neighbourhood. All the same I like your nerve using my house as a -summer-hotel resort and shall have much to say to you on subject when you -come down. Expect you thirtieth. Bring spats. Love. Travers.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>To this I riposted:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>On consulting engagement book find impossible come Brinkley Court. -Deeply regret. Toodle-oo. Bertie.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Hers in reply stuck a sinister note:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Oh, so it’s like that, is it? You and your engagement book, indeed. -Deeply regret my foot. Let me tell you, my lad, that you will regret it a -jolly sight more deeply if you don’t come down. If you imagine for one -moment that you are going to get out of distributing those prizes, you -are very much mistaken. Deeply regret Brinkley Court hundred miles from -London, as unable hit you with a brick. Love. Travers.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>I then put my fortune to the test, to win or lose it all. It was not a -moment for petty economies. I let myself go regardless of expense:</p> - -<p><i>No, but dash it, listen. Honestly, you don’t want me. Get Fink-Nottle -distribute prizes. A born distributor, who will do you credit. -Confidently anticipate Augustus Fink-Nottle as Master of Revels on -thirty-first inst. would make genuine sensation. Do not miss this great -chance, which may never occur again. Tinkerty-tonk. Bertie.</i></p> - -<p>There was an hour of breathless suspense, and then the joyful tidings -arrived:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Well, all right. Something in what you say, I suppose. Consider you -treacherous worm and contemptible, spineless cowardly custard, but have -booked Spink-Bottle. Stay where you are, then, and I hope you get run -over by an omnibus. Love. Travers.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p>The relief, as you may well imagine, was stupendous. A great weight -seemed to have rolled off my mind. It was as if somebody had been pouring -Jeeves’s pick-me-ups into me through a funnel. I sang as I dressed for -dinner that night. At the Drones I was so gay and cheery that there were -several complaints. And when I got home and turned into the old bed, I -fell asleep like a little child within five minutes of inserting the -person between the sheets. It seemed to me that the whole distressing -affair might now be considered definitely closed.</p> - -<p>Conceive my astonishment, therefore, when waking on the morrow and -sitting up to dig into the morning tea-cup, I beheld on the tray another -telegram.</p> - -<p>My heart sank. Could Aunt Dahlia have slept on it and changed her mind? -Could Gussie, unable to face the ordeal confronting him, have legged it -during the night down a water-pipe? With these speculations racing -through the bean, I tore open the envelope And as I noted contents I -uttered a startled yip.</p> - -<p>“Sir?” said Jeeves, pausing at the door.</p> - -<p>I read the thing again. Yes, I had got the gist all right. No, I had not -been deceived in the substance.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “do you know what?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You know my cousin Angela?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You know young Tuppy Glossop?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“They’ve broken off their engagement.”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry to hear that, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I have here a communication from Aunt Dahlia, specifically stating this. -I wonder what the row was about.”</p> - -<p>“I could not say, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you couldn’t. Don’t be an ass, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>I brooded. I was deeply moved.</p> - -<p>“Well, this means that we shall have to go down to Brinkley today. Aunt -Dahlia is obviously all of a twitter, and my place is by her side. You -had better pack this morning, and catch that 12.45 train with the -luggage. I have a lunch engagement, so will follow in the car.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>I brooded some more.</p> - -<p>“I must say this has come as a great shock to me, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“No doubt, sir.”</p> - -<p>“A very great shock. Angela and Tuppy.... Tut, tut! Why, they seemed like -the paper on the wall. Life is full of sadness, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Still, there it is.”</p> - -<p>“Undoubtedly, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, then. Switch on the bath.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-7-</h2> - - -<p>I meditated pretty freely as I drove down to Brinkley in the old -two-seater that afternoon. The news of this rift or rupture of Angela’s -and Tuppy’s had disturbed me greatly.</p> - -<p>The projected match, you see, was one on which I had always looked with -kindly approval. Too often, when a chap of your acquaintance is planning -to marry a girl you know, you find yourself knitting the brow a bit and -chewing the lower lip dubiously, feeling that he or she, or both, should -be warned while there is yet time.</p> - -<p>But I have never felt anything of this nature about Tuppy and Angela. -Tuppy, when not making an ass of himself, is a soundish sort of egg. So -is Angela a soundish sort of egg. And, as far as being in love was -concerned, it had always seemed to me that you wouldn’t have been far out -in describing them as two hearts that beat as one.</p> - -<p>True, they had had their little tiffs, notably on the occasion when -Tuppy—with what he said was fearless honesty and I considered thorough -goofiness—had told Angela that her new hat made her look like a -Pekingese. But in every romance you have to budget for the occasional -dust-up, and after that incident I had supposed that he had learned his -lesson and that from then on life would be one grand, sweet song.</p> - -<p>And now this wholly unforeseen severing of diplomatic relations had -popped up through a trap.</p> - -<p>I gave the thing the cream of the Wooster brain all the way down, but it -continued to beat me what could have caused the outbreak of hostilities, -and I bunged my foot sedulously on the accelerator in order to get to -Aunt Dahlia with the greatest possible speed and learn the inside history -straight from the horse’s mouth. And what with all six cylinders hitting -nicely, I made good time and found myself closeted with the relative -shortly before the hour of the evening cocktail.</p> - -<p>She seemed glad to see me. In fact, she actually said she was glad to see -me—a statement no other aunt on the list would have committed herself -to, the customary reaction of these near and dear ones to the spectacle -of Bertram arriving for a visit being a sort of sick horror.</p> - -<p>“Decent of you to rally round, Bertie,” she said.</p> - -<p>“My place was by your side, Aunt Dahlia,” I responded.</p> - -<p>I could see at a g. that the unfortunate affair had got in amongst her in -no uncertain manner. Her usually cheerful map was clouded, and the genial -smile conspic. by its a. I pressed her hand sympathetically, to indicate -that my heart bled for her.</p> - -<p>“Bad show this, my dear old flesh and blood,” I said. “I’m afraid you’ve -been having a sticky time. You must be worried.”</p> - -<p>She snorted emotionally. She looked like an aunt who has just bitten into -a bad oyster.</p> - -<p>“Worried is right. I haven’t had a peaceful moment since I got back from -Cannes. Ever since I put my foot across this blasted threshold,” said -Aunt Dahlia, returning for the nonce to the hearty <i>argot</i> of the hunting -field, “everything’s been at sixes and sevens. First there was that mix-up -about the prize-giving.”</p> - -<p>She paused at this point and gave me a look. “I had been meaning to speak -freely to you about your behaviour in that matter, Bertie,” she said. “I -had some good things all stored up. But, as you’ve rallied round like -this, I suppose I shall have to let you off. And, anyway, it is probably -all for the best that you evaded your obligations in that sickeningly -craven way. I have an idea that this Spink-Bottle of yours is going to be -good. If only he can keep off newts.”</p> - -<p>“Has he been talking about newts?”</p> - -<p>“He has. Fixing me with a glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner. But -if that was the worst I had to bear, I wouldn’t mind. What I’m worrying -about is what Tom says when he starts talking.”</p> - -<p>“Uncle Tom?”</p> - -<p>“I wish there was something else you could call him except ‘Uncle Tom’,” -said Aunt Dahlia a little testily. “Every time you do it, I expect to see -him turn black and start playing the banjo. Yes, Uncle Tom, if you must -have it. I shall have to tell him soon about losing all that money at -baccarat, and, when I do, he will go up like a rocket.”</p> - -<p>“Still, no doubt Time, the great healer——”</p> - -<p>“Time, the great healer, be blowed. I’ve got to get a cheque for five -hundred pounds out of him for <i>Milady’s Boudoir</i> by August the third at -the latest.”</p> - -<p>I was concerned. Apart from a nephew’s natural interest in an aunt’s -refined weekly paper, I had always had a soft spot in my heart for -<i>Milady’s Boudoir</i> ever since I contributed that article to it on What -the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing. Sentimental, possibly, but we old -journalists do have these feelings.</p> - -<p>“Is the <i>Boudoir</i> on the rocks?”</p> - -<p>“It will be if Tom doesn’t cough up. It needs help till it has turned the -corner.”</p> - -<p>“But wasn’t it turning the corner two years ago?”</p> - -<p>“It was. And it’s still at it. Till you’ve run a weekly paper for women, -you don’t know what corners are.”</p> - -<p>“And you think the chances of getting into uncle—into my uncle by -marriage’s ribs are slight?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you, Bertie. Up till now, when these subsidies were required, -I have always been able to come to Tom in the gay, confident spirit of an -only child touching an indulgent father for chocolate cream. But he’s -just had a demand from the income-tax people for an additional fifty-eight -pounds, one and threepence, and all he’s been talking about since I got -back has been ruin and the sinister trend of socialistic legislation and -what will become of us all.”</p> - -<p>I could readily believe it. This Tom has a peculiarity I’ve noticed in -other very oofy men. Nick him for the paltriest sum, and he lets out a -squawk you can hear at Land’s End. He has the stuff in gobs, but he hates -giving up.</p> - -<p>“If it wasn’t for Anatole’s cooking, I doubt if he would bother to carry -on. Thank God for Anatole, I say.”</p> - -<p>I bowed my head reverently.</p> - -<p>“Good old Anatole,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Amen,” said Aunt Dahlia.</p> - -<p>Then the look of holy ecstasy, which is always the result of letting the -mind dwell, however briefly, on Anatole’s cooking, died out of her face.</p> - -<p>“But don’t let me wander from the subject,” she resumed. “I was telling -you of the way hell’s foundations have been quivering since I got home. -First the prize-giving, then Tom, and now, on top of everything else, -this infernal quarrel between Angela and young Glossop.”</p> - -<p>I nodded gravely. “I was frightfully sorry to hear of that. Terrible -shock. What was the row about?”</p> - -<p>“Sharks.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“Sharks. Or, rather, one individual shark. The brute that went for the -poor child when she was aquaplaning at Cannes. You remember Angela’s -shark?”</p> - -<p>Certainly I remembered Angela’s shark. A man of sensibility does not -forget about a cousin nearly being chewed by monsters of the deep. The -episode was still green in my memory.</p> - -<p>In a nutshell, what had occurred was this: You know how you aquaplane. A -motor-boat nips on ahead, trailing a rope. You stand on a board, holding -the rope, and the boat tows you along. And every now and then you lose -your grip on the rope and plunge into the sea and have to swim to your -board again.</p> - -<p>A silly process it has always seemed to me, though many find it -diverting.</p> - -<p>Well, on the occasion referred to, Angela had just regained her board -after taking a toss, when a great beastly shark came along and cannoned -into it, flinging her into the salty once more. It took her quite a bit -of time to get on again and make the motor-boat chap realize what was up -and haul her to safety, and during that interval you can readily picture -her embarrassment.</p> - -<p>According to Angela, the finny denizen kept snapping at her ankles -virtually without cessation, so that by the time help arrived, she was -feeling more like a salted almond at a public dinner than anything human. -Very shaken the poor child had been, I recall, and had talked of nothing -else for weeks.</p> - -<p>“I remember the whole incident vividly,” I said. “But how did that start -the trouble?”</p> - -<p>“She was telling him the story last night.”</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“Her eyes shining and her little hands clasped in girlish excitement.”</p> - -<p>“No doubt.”</p> - -<p>“And instead of giving her the understanding and sympathy to which she -was entitled, what do you think this blasted Glossop did? He sat -listening like a lump of dough, as if she had been talking about the -weather, and when she had finished, he took his cigarette holder out of -his mouth and said, ‘I expect it was only a floating log’!”</p> - -<p>“He didn’t!”</p> - -<p>“He did. And when Angela described how the thing had jumped and snapped -at her, he took his cigarette holder out of his mouth again, and said, -‘Ah! Probably a flatfish. Quite harmless. No doubt it was just trying to -play.’ Well, I mean! What would you have done if you had been Angela? She -has pride, sensibility, all the natural feelings of a good woman. She -told him he was an ass and a fool and an idiot, and didn’t know what he -was talking about.”</p> - -<p>I must say I saw the girl’s viewpoint. It’s only about once in a lifetime -that anything sensational ever happens to one, and when it does, you -don’t want people taking all the colour out of it. I remember at school -having to read that stuff where that chap, Othello, tells the girl what a -hell of a time he’d been having among the cannibals and what not. Well, -imagine his feelings if, after he had described some particularly sticky -passage with a cannibal chief and was waiting for the awestruck “Oh-h! -Not really?”, she had said that the whole thing had no doubt been greatly -exaggerated and that the man had probably really been a prominent local -vegetarian.</p> - -<p>Yes, I saw Angela’s point of view.</p> - -<p>“But don’t tell me that when he saw how shirty she was about it, the -chump didn’t back down?”</p> - -<p>“He didn’t. He argued. And one thing led to another until, by easy -stages, they had arrived at the point where she was saying that she -didn’t know if he was aware of it, but if he didn’t knock off starchy -foods and do exercises every morning, he would be getting as fat as a -pig, and he was talking about this modern habit of girls putting make-up -on their faces, of which he had always disapproved. This continued for a -while, and then there was a loud pop and the air was full of mangled -fragments of their engagement. I’m distracted about it. Thank goodness -you’ve come, Bertie.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing could have kept me away,” I replied, touched. “I felt you needed -me.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Quite.”</p> - -<p>“Or, rather,” she said, “not you, of course, but Jeeves. The minute all -this happened, I thought of him. The situation obviously cries out for -Jeeves. If ever in the whole history of human affairs there was a moment -when that lofty brain was required about the home, this is it.”</p> - -<p>I think, if I had been standing up, I would have staggered. In fact, I’m -pretty sure I would. But it isn’t so dashed easy to stagger when you’re -sitting in an arm-chair. Only my face, therefore, showed how deeply I had -been stung by these words.</p> - -<p>Until she spoke them, I had been all sweetness and light—the sympathetic -nephew prepared to strain every nerve to do his bit. I now froze, and the -face became hard and set.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves!” I said, between clenched teeth.</p> - -<p>“Oom beroofen,” said Aunt Dahlia.</p> - -<p>I saw that she had got the wrong angle.</p> - -<p>“I was not sneezing. I was saying ‘Jeeves!’”</p> - -<p>“And well you may. What a man! I’m going to put the whole thing up to -him. There’s nobody like Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>My frigidity became more marked.</p> - -<p>“I venture to take issue with you, Aunt Dahlia.”</p> - -<p>“You take what?”</p> - -<p>“Issue.”</p> - -<p>“You do, do you?”</p> - -<p>“I emphatically do. Jeeves is hopeless.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Quite hopeless. He has lost his grip completely. Only a couple of days -ago I was compelled to take him off a case because his handling of it was -so footling. And, anyway, I resent this assumption, if assumption is the -word I want, that Jeeves is the only fellow with brain. I object to the -way everybody puts things up to him without consulting me and letting me -have a stab at them first.”</p> - -<p>She seemed about to speak, but I checked her with a gesture.</p> - -<p>“It is true that in the past I have sometimes seen fit to seek Jeeves’s -advice. It is possible that in the future I may seek it again. But I -claim the right to have a pop at these problems, as they arise, in -person, without having everybody behave as if Jeeves was the only onion -in the hash. I sometimes feel that Jeeves, though admittedly not -unsuccessful in the past, has been lucky rather than gifted.”</p> - -<p>“Have you and Jeeves had a row?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing of the kind.”</p> - -<p>“You seem to have it in for him.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all.”</p> - -<p>And yet I must admit that there was a modicum of truth in what she said. -I had been feeling pretty austere about the man all day, and I’ll tell -you why.</p> - -<p>You remember that he caught that 12.45 train with the luggage, while I -remained on in order to keep a luncheon engagement. Well, just before I -started out to the tryst, I was pottering about the flat, and suddenly—I -don’t know what put the suspicion into my head, possibly the fellow’s -manner had been furtive—something seemed to whisper to me to go and have -a look in the wardrobe.</p> - -<p>And it was as I had suspected. There was the mess-jacket still on its -hanger. The hound hadn’t packed it.</p> - -<p>Well, as anybody at the Drones will tell you, Bertram Wooster is a pretty -hard chap to outgeneral. I shoved the thing in a brown-paper parcel and -put it in the back of the car, and it was on a chair in the hall now. But -that didn’t alter the fact that Jeeves had attempted to do the dirty on -me, and I suppose a certain what-d’you-call-it had crept into my manner -during the above remarks.</p> - -<p>“There has been no breach,” I said. “You might describe it as a passing -coolness, but no more. We did not happen to see eye to eye with regard to -my white mess-jacket with the brass buttons and I was compelled to assert -my personality. But——”</p> - -<p>“Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway. The thing that matters is that you are -talking piffle, you poor fish. Jeeves lost his grip? Absurd. Why, I saw -him for a moment when he arrived, and his eyes were absolutely glittering -with intelligence. I said to myself ‘Trust Jeeves,’ and I intend to.”</p> - -<p>“You would be far better advised to let me see what I can accomplish, -Aunt Dahlia.”</p> - -<p>“For heaven’s sake, don’t you start butting in. You’ll only make matters -worse.”</p> - -<p>“On the contrary, it may interest you to know that while driving here I -concentrated deeply on this trouble of Angela’s and was successful in -formulating a plan, based on the psychology of the individual, which I am -proposing to put into effect at an early moment.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my God!”</p> - -<p>“My knowledge of human nature tells me it will work.”</p> - -<p>“Bertie,” said Aunt Dahlia, and her manner struck me as febrile, “lay -off, lay off! For pity’s sake, lay off. I know these plans of yours. I -suppose you want to shove Angela into the lake and push young Glossop in -after her to save her life, or something like that.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing of the kind.”</p> - -<p>“It’s the sort of thing you would do.”</p> - -<p>“My scheme is far more subtle. Let me outline it for you.”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks.”</p> - -<p>“I say to myself——”</p> - -<p>“But not to me.”</p> - -<p>“Do listen for a second.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t.”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, then. I am dumb.”</p> - -<p>“And have been from a child.”</p> - -<p>I perceived that little good could result from continuing the discussion. -I waved a hand and shrugged a shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Very well, Aunt Dahlia,” I said, with dignity, “if you don’t want to be -in on the ground floor, that is your affair. But you are missing an -intellectual treat. And, anyway, no matter how much you may behave like -the deaf adder of Scripture which, as you are doubtless aware, the more -one piped, the less it danced, or words to that effect, I shall carry on -as planned. I am extremely fond of Angela, and I shall spare no effort to -bring the sunshine back into her heart.”</p> - -<p>“Bertie, you abysmal chump, I appeal to you once more. Will you please -lay off? You’ll only make things ten times as bad as they are already.”</p> - -<p>I remember reading in one of those historical novels once about a chap—a -buck he would have been, no doubt, or a macaroni or some such bird as -that—who, when people said the wrong thing, merely laughed down from -lazy eyelids and flicked a speck of dust from the irreproachable Mechlin -lace at his wrists. This was practically what I did now. At least, I -straightened my tie and smiled one of those inscrutable smiles of mine. I -then withdrew and went out for a saunter in the garden.</p> - -<p>And the first chap I ran into was young Tuppy. His brow was furrowed, and -he was moodily bunging stones at a flowerpot.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-8-</h2> - - -<p>I think I have told you before about young Tuppy Glossop. He was the -fellow, if you remember, who, callously ignoring the fact that we had -been friends since boyhood, betted me one night at the Drones that I -could swing myself across the swimming bath by the rings—a childish feat -for one of my lissomeness—and then, having seen me well on the way, -looped back the last ring, thus rendering it necessary for me to drop -into the deep end in formal evening costume.</p> - -<p>To say that I had not resented this foul deed, which seemed to me -deserving of the title of the crime of the century, would be paltering -with the truth. I had resented it profoundly, chafing not a little at the -time and continuing to chafe for some weeks.</p> - -<p>But you know how it is with these things. The wound heals. The agony -abates.</p> - -<p>I am not saying, mind you, that had the opportunity presented itself of -dropping a wet sponge on Tuppy from some high spot or of putting an eel -in his bed or finding some other form of self-expression of a like -nature, I would not have embraced it eagerly; but that let me out. I mean -to say, grievously injured though I had been, it gave me no pleasure to -feel that the fellow’s bally life was being ruined by the loss of a girl -whom, despite all that had passed, I was convinced he still loved like -the dickens.</p> - -<p>On the contrary, I was heart and soul in favour of healing the breach and -rendering everything hotsy-totsy once more between these two young -sundered blighters. You will have gleaned that from my remarks to Aunt -Dahlia, and if you had been present at this moment and had seen the -kindly commiserating look I gave Tuppy, you would have gleaned it still -more.</p> - -<p>It was one of those searching, melting looks, and was accompanied by the -hearty clasp of the right hand and the gentle laying of the left on the -collar-bone.</p> - -<p>“Well, Tuppy, old man,” I said. “How are you, old man?”</p> - -<p>My commiseration deepened as I spoke the words, for there had been no -lighting up of the eye, no answering pressure of the palm, no sign -whatever, in short, of any disposition on his part to do Spring dances at -the sight of an old friend. The man seemed sandbagged. Melancholy, as I -remember Jeeves saying once about Pongo Twistleton when he was trying to -knock off smoking, had marked him for her own. Not that I was surprised, -of course. In the circs., no doubt, a certain moodiness was only natural.</p> - -<p>I released the hand, ceased to knead the shoulder, and, producing the old -case, offered him a cigarette.</p> - -<p>He took it dully.</p> - -<p>“Are you here, Bertie?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’m here.”</p> - -<p>“Just passing through, or come to stay?”</p> - -<p>I thought for a moment. I might have told him that I had arrived at -Brinkley Court with the express intention of bringing Angela and himself -together once more, of knitting up the severed threads, and so on and so -forth; and for perhaps half the time required for the lighting of a -gasper I had almost decided to do so. Then, I reflected, better, on the -whole, perhaps not. To broadcast the fact that I proposed to take him and -Angela and play on them as on a couple of stringed instruments might have -been injudicious. Chaps don’t always like being played on as on a -stringed instrument.</p> - -<p>“It all depends,” I said. “I may remain. I may push on. My plans are -uncertain.”</p> - -<p>He nodded listlessly, rather in the manner of a man who did not give a -damn what I did, and stood gazing out over the sunlit garden. In build -and appearance, Tuppy somewhat resembles a bulldog, and his aspect now -was that of one of these fine animals who has just been refused a slice -of cake. It was not difficult for a man of my discernment to read what -was in his mind, and it occasioned me no surprise, therefore, when his -next words had to do with the subject marked with a cross on the agenda -paper.</p> - -<p>“You’ve heard of this business of mine, I suppose? Me and Angela?”</p> - -<p>“I have, indeed, Tuppy, old man.”</p> - -<p>“We’ve bust up.”</p> - -<p>“I know. Some little friction, I gather, <i>in re</i> Angela’s shark.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I said it must have been a flatfish.”</p> - -<p>“So my informant told me.”</p> - -<p>“Who did you hear it from?”</p> - -<p>“Aunt Dahlia.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose she cursed me properly?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no.”</p> - -<p>“Beyond referring to you in one passage as ‘this blasted Glossop’, she -was, I thought, singularly temperate in her language for a woman who at -one time hunted regularly with the Quorn. All the same, I could see, if -you don’t mind me saying so, old man, that she felt you might have -behaved with a little more tact.”</p> - -<p>“Tact!”</p> - -<p>“And I must admit I rather agreed with her. Was it nice, Tuppy, was it -quite kind to take the bloom off Angela’s shark like that? You must -remember that Angela’s shark is very dear to her. Could you not see what -a sock on the jaw it would be for the poor child to hear it described by -the man to whom she had given her heart as a flatfish?”</p> - -<p>I saw that he was struggling with some powerful emotion.</p> - -<p>“And what about my side of the thing?” he demanded, in a voice choked -with feeling.</p> - -<p>“Your side?”</p> - -<p>“You don’t suppose,” said Tuppy, with rising vehemence, “that I would -have exposed this dashed synthetic shark for the flatfish it undoubtedly -was if there had not been causes that led up to it. What induced me to -speak as I did was the fact that Angela, the little squirt, had just been -most offensive, and I seized the opportunity to get a bit of my own -back.”</p> - -<p>“Offensive?”</p> - -<p>“Exceedingly offensive. Purely on the strength of my having let fall some -casual remark—simply by way of saying something and keeping the -conversation going—to the effect that I wondered what Anatole was going -to give us for dinner, she said that I was too material and ought not -always to be thinking of food. Material, my elbow! As a matter of fact, -I’m particularly spiritual.”</p> - -<p>“Quite.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see any harm in wondering what Anatole was going to give us for -dinner. Do you?”</p> - -<p>“Of course not. A mere ordinary tribute of respect to a great artist.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly.”</p> - -<p>“All the same——”</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“I was only going to say that it seems a pity that the frail craft of -love should come a stinker like this when a few manly words of -contrition——”</p> - -<p>He stared at me.</p> - -<p>“You aren’t suggesting that I should climb down?”</p> - -<p>“It would be the fine, big thing, old egg.”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t dream of climbing down.”</p> - -<p>“But, Tuppy——”</p> - -<p>“No. I wouldn’t do it.”</p> - -<p>“But you love her, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>This touched the spot. He quivered noticeably, and his mouth twisted. -Quite the tortured soul.</p> - -<p>“I’m not saying I don’t love the little blighter,” he said, obviously -moved. “I love her passionately. But that doesn’t alter the fact that I -consider that what she needs most in this world is a swift kick in the -pants.”</p> - -<p>A Wooster could scarcely pass this. “Tuppy, old man!”</p> - -<p>“It’s no good saying ‘Tuppy, old man’.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I do say ‘Tuppy, old man’. Your tone shocks me. One raises the -eyebrows. Where is the fine, old, chivalrous spirit of the Glossops.”</p> - -<p>“That’s all right about the fine, old, chivalrous spirit of the Glossops. -Where is the sweet, gentle, womanly spirit of the Angelas? Telling a -fellow he was getting a double chin!”</p> - -<p>“Did she do that?”</p> - -<p>“She did.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, girls will be girls. Forget it, Tuppy. Go to her and make it -up.”</p> - -<p>He shook his head.</p> - -<p>“No. It is too late. Remarks have been passed about my tummy which it is -impossible to overlook.”</p> - -<p>“But, Tummy—Tuppy, I mean—be fair. You once told her her new hat made -her look like a Pekingese.”</p> - -<p>“It did make her look like a Pekingese. That was not vulgar abuse. It was -sound, constructive criticism, with no motive behind it but the kindly -desire to keep her from making an exhibition of herself in public. -Wantonly to accuse a man of puffing when he goes up a flight of stairs -is something very different.”</p> - -<p>I began to see that the situation would require all my address and -ingenuity. If the wedding bells were ever to ring out in the little -church of Market Snodsbury, Bertram had plainly got to put in some -shrewdish work. I had gathered, during my conversation with Aunt Dahlia, -that there had been a certain amount of frank speech between the two -contracting parties, but I had not realized till now that matters had -gone so far.</p> - -<p>The pathos of the thing gave me the pip. Tuppy had admitted in so many -words that love still animated the Glossop bosom, and I was convinced -that, even after all that occurred, Angela had not ceased to love him. At -the moment, no doubt, she might be wishing that she could hit him with a -bottle, but deep down in her I was prepared to bet that there still -lingered all the old affection and tenderness. Only injured pride was -keeping these two apart, and I felt that if Tuppy would make the first -move, all would be well.</p> - -<p>I had another whack at it.</p> - -<p>“She’s broken-hearted about this rift, Tuppy.”</p> - -<p>“How do you know? Have you seen her?”</p> - -<p>“No, but I’ll bet she is.”</p> - -<p>“She doesn’t look it.”</p> - -<p>“Wearing the mask, no doubt. Jeeves does that when I assert my -authority.”</p> - -<p>“She wrinkles her nose at me as if I were a drain that had got out of -order.”</p> - -<p>“Merely the mask. I feel convinced she loves you still, and that a kindly -word from you is all that is required.”</p> - -<p>I could see that this had moved him. He plainly wavered. He did a sort of -twiddly on the turf with his foot. And, when he spoke, one spotted the -tremolo in the voice:</p> - -<p>“You really think that?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely.”</p> - -<p>“H’m.”</p> - -<p>“If you were to go to her——”</p> - -<p>He shook his head.</p> - -<p>“I can’t do that. It would be fatal. Bing, instantly, would go my -prestige. I know girls. Grovel, and the best of them get uppish.” He -mused. “The only way to work the thing would be by tipping her off in -some indirect way that I am prepared to open negotiations. Should I sigh -a bit when we meet, do you think?”</p> - -<p>“She would think you were puffing.”</p> - -<p>“That’s true.”</p> - -<p>I lit another cigarette and gave my mind to the matter. And first crack -out of the box, as is so often the way with the Woosters, I got an idea. -I remembered the counsel I had given Gussie in the matter of the sausages -and ham.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got it, Tuppy. There is one infallible method of indicating to a -girl that you love her, and it works just as well when you’ve had a row -and want to make it up. Don’t eat any dinner tonight. You can see how -impressive that would be. She knows how devoted you are to food.”</p> - -<p>He started violently.</p> - -<p>“I am not devoted to food!”</p> - -<p>“No, no.”</p> - -<p>“I am not devoted to food at all.”</p> - -<p>“Quite. All I meant——”</p> - -<p>“This rot about me being devoted to food,” said Tuppy warmly, “has got to -stop. I am young and healthy and have a good appetite, but that’s not the -same as being devoted to food. I admire Anatole as a master of his craft, -and am always willing to consider anything he may put before me, but when -you say I am devoted to food——”</p> - -<p>“Quite, quite. All I meant was that if she sees you push away your dinner -untasted, she will realize that your heart is aching, and will probably -be the first to suggest blowing the all clear.”</p> - -<p>Tuppy was frowning thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>“Push my dinner away, eh?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Push away a dinner cooked by Anatole?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Push it away untasted?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Let us get this straight. Tonight, at dinner, when the butler offers me -a <i>ris de veau à la financiere</i>, or whatever it may be, hot from -Anatole’s hands, you wish me to push it away untasted?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>He chewed his lip. One could sense the struggle going on within. And then -suddenly a sort of glow came into his face. The old martyrs probably used -to look like that.</p> - -<p>“All right.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll do it?”</p> - -<p>“I will.”</p> - -<p>“Fine.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, it will be agony.”</p> - -<p>I pointed out the silver lining.</p> - -<p>“Only for the moment. You could slip down tonight, after everyone is in -bed, and raid the larder.”</p> - -<p>He brightened.</p> - -<p>“That’s right. I could, couldn’t I?”</p> - -<p>“I expect there would be something cold there.”</p> - -<p>“There is something cold there,” said Tuppy, with growing cheerfulness. “A -steak-and-kidney pie. We had it for lunch today. One of Anatole’s ripest. -The thing I admire about that man,” said Tuppy reverently, “the thing -that I admire so enormously about Anatole is that, though a Frenchman, he -does not, like so many of these <i>chefs</i>, confine himself exclusively to -French dishes, but is always willing and ready to weigh in with some good -old simple English fare such as this steak-and-kidney pie to which I have -alluded. A masterly pie, Bertie, and it wasn’t more than half finished. -It will do me nicely.”</p> - -<p>“And at dinner you will push, as arranged?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely as arranged.”</p> - -<p>“Fine.”</p> - -<p>“It’s an excellent idea. One of Jeeves’s best. You can tell him from me, -when you see him, that I’m much obliged.”</p> - -<p>The cigarette fell from my fingers. It was as though somebody had slapped -Bertram Wooster across the face with a wet dish-rag.</p> - -<p>“You aren’t suggesting that you think this scheme I have been sketching -out is Jeeves’s?”</p> - -<p>“Of course it is. It’s no good trying to kid me, Bertie. You wouldn’t -have thought of a wheeze like that in a million years.”</p> - -<p>There was a pause. I drew myself up to my full height; then, seeing that -he wasn’t looking at me, lowered myself again.</p> - -<p>“Come, Glossop,” I said coldly, “we had better be going. It is time we -were dressing for dinner.”</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-9-</h2> - - -<p>Tuppy’s fatheaded words were still rankling in my bosom as I went up to -my room. They continued rankling as I shed the form-fitting, and had not -ceased to rankle when, clad in the old dressing-gown, I made my way along -the corridor to the <i>salle de bain</i>.</p> - -<p>It is not too much to say that I was piqued to the tonsils.</p> - -<p>I mean to say, one does not court praise. The adulation of the multitude -means very little to one. But, all the same, when one has taken the -trouble to whack out a highly juicy scheme to benefit an in-the-soup -friend in his hour of travail, it’s pretty foul to find him giving the -credit to one’s personal attendant, particularly if that personal -attendant is a man who goes about the place not packing mess-jackets.</p> - -<p>But after I had been splashing about in the porcelain for a bit, -composure began to return. I have always found that in moments of -heart-bowed-downness there is nothing that calms the bruised spirit like -a good go at the soap and water. I don’t say I actually sang in the tub, -but there were times when it was a mere spin of the coin whether I would -do so or not.</p> - -<p>The spiritual anguish induced by that tactless speech had become -noticeably lessened.</p> - -<p>The discovery of a toy duck in the soap dish, presumably the property of -some former juvenile visitor, contributed not a little to this new and -happier frame of mind. What with one thing and another, I hadn’t played -with toy ducks in my bath for years, and I found the novel experience -most invigorating. For the benefit of those interested, I may mention -that if you shove the thing under the surface with the sponge and then -let it go, it shoots out of the water in a manner calculated to divert -the most careworn. Ten minutes of this and I was enabled to return to the -bedchamber much more the old merry Bertram.</p> - -<p>Jeeves was there, laying out the dinner disguise. He greeted the young -master with his customary suavity.</p> - -<p>“Good evening, sir.”</p> - -<p>I responded in the same affable key.</p> - -<p>“Good evening, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“I trust you had a pleasant drive, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Very pleasant, thank you, Jeeves. Hand me a sock or two, will you?”</p> - -<p>He did so, and I commenced to don.</p> - -<p>“Well, Jeeves,” I said, reaching for the underlinen, “here we are again -at Brinkley Court in the county of Worcestershire.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“A nice mess things seem to have gone and got themselves into in this -rustic joint.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“The rift between Tuppy Glossop and my cousin Angela would appear to be -serious.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. Opinion in the servants’ hall is inclined to take a grave view -of the situation.”</p> - -<p>“And the thought that springs to your mind, no doubt, is that I shall -have my work cut out to fix things up?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You are wrong, Jeeves. I have the thing well in hand.”</p> - -<p>“You surprise me, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I thought I should. Yes, Jeeves, I pondered on the matter most of the -way down here, and with the happiest results. I have just been in -conference with Mr. Glossop, and everything is taped out.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir? Might I inquire——”</p> - -<p>“You know my methods, Jeeves. Apply them. Have you,” I asked, slipping -into the shirt and starting to adjust the cravat, “been gnawing on the -thing at all?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, sir. I have always been much attached to Miss Angela, and I -felt that it would afford me great pleasure were I to be able to be of -service to her.”</p> - -<p>“A laudable sentiment. But I suppose you drew blank?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. I was rewarded with an idea.”</p> - -<p>“What was it?”</p> - -<p>“It occurred to me that a reconciliation might be effected between Mr. -Glossop and Miss Angela by appealing to that instinct which prompts -gentlemen in time of peril to hasten to the rescue of——”</p> - -<p>I had to let go of the cravat in order to raise a hand. I was shocked.</p> - -<p>“Don’t tell me you were contemplating descending to that old -he-saved-her-from-drowning gag? I am surprised, Jeeves. Surprised and -pained. When I was discussing the matter with Aunt Dahlia on my arrival, -she said in a sniffy sort of way that she supposed I was going to shove -my Cousin Angela into the lake and push Tuppy in to haul her out, and I -let her see pretty clearly that I considered the suggestion an insult to -my intelligence. And now, if your words have the meaning I read into them, -you are mooting precisely the same drivelling scheme. Really, Jeeves!”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. Not that. But the thought did cross my mind, as I walked in the -grounds and passed the building where the fire-bell hangs, that a sudden -alarm of fire in the night might result in Mr. Glossop endeavouring to -assist Miss Angela to safety.”</p> - -<p>I shivered.</p> - -<p>“Rotten, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Well, sir——”</p> - -<p>“No good. Not a bit like it.”</p> - -<p>“I fancy, sir——”</p> - -<p>“No, Jeeves. No more. Enough has been said. Let us drop the subj.”</p> - -<p>I finished tying the tie in silence. My emotions were too deep for -speech. I knew, of course, that this man had for the time being lost his -grip, but I had never suspected that he had gone absolutely to pieces -like this. Remembering some of the swift ones he had pulled in the past, -I shrank with horror from the spectacle of his present ineptitude. Or is -it ineptness? I mean this frightful disposition of his to stick straws in -his hair and talk like a perfect ass. It was the old, old story, I -supposed. A man’s brain whizzes along for years exceeding the speed -limit, and something suddenly goes wrong with the steering-gear and it -skids and comes a smeller in the ditch.</p> - -<p>“A bit elaborate,” I said, trying to put the thing in as kindly a light -as possible. “Your old failing. You can see that it’s a bit elaborate?”</p> - -<p>“Possibly the plan I suggested might be considered open to that -criticism, sir, but <i>faute de mieux</i>——”</p> - -<p>“I don’t get you, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“A French expression, sir, signifying ‘for want of anything better’.”</p> - -<p>A moment before, I had been feeling for this wreck of a once fine thinker -nothing but a gentle pity. These words jarred the Wooster pride, inducing -asperity.</p> - -<p>“I understand perfectly well what <i>faute de mieux</i> means, Jeeves. I did -not recently spend two months among our Gallic neighbours for nothing. -Besides, I remember that one from school. What caused my bewilderment was -that you should be employing the expression, well knowing that there is -no bally <i>faute de mieux</i> about it at all. Where do you get that -<i>faute-de-mieux</i> stuff? Didn’t I tell you I had everything taped out?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir, but——”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean—but?”</p> - -<p>“Well, sir——”</p> - -<p>“Push on, Jeeves. I am ready, even anxious, to hear your views.”</p> - -<p>“Well, sir, if I may take the liberty of reminding you of it, your plans -in the past have not always been uniformly successful.”</p> - -<p>There was a silence—rather a throbbing one—during which I put on my -waistcoat in a marked manner. Not till I had got the buckle at the back -satisfactorily adjusted did I speak.</p> - -<p>“It is true, Jeeves,” I said formally, “that once or twice in the past I -may have missed the bus. This, however, I attribute purely to bad luck.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“On the present occasion I shall not fail, and I’ll tell you why I shall -not fail. Because my scheme is rooted in human nature.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“It is simple. Not elaborate. And, furthermore, based on the psychology -of the individual.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “don’t keep saying ‘Indeed, sir?’ No doubt nothing is -further from your mind than to convey such a suggestion, but you have a -way of stressing the ‘in’ and then coming down with a thud on the ‘deed’ -which makes it virtually tantamount to ‘Oh, yeah?’ Correct this, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I tell you I have everything nicely lined up. Would you care to hear -what steps I have taken?”</p> - -<p>“Very much, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Then listen. Tonight at dinner I have recommended Tuppy to lay off the -food.”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“Tut, Jeeves, surely you can follow the idea, even though it is one that -would never have occurred to yourself. Have you forgotten that telegram I -sent to Gussie Fink-Nottle, steering him away from the sausages and ham? -This is the same thing. Pushing the food away untasted is a universally -recognized sign of love. It cannot fail to bring home the gravy. You must -see that?”</p> - -<p>“Well, sir——”</p> - -<p>I frowned.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to seem always to be criticizing your methods of voice -production, Jeeves,” I said, “but I must inform you that that ‘Well, sir’ -of yours is in many respects fully as unpleasant as your ‘Indeed, sir?’ -Like the latter, it seems to be tinged with a definite scepticism. It -suggests a lack of faith in my vision. The impression I retain after -hearing you shoot it at me a couple of times is that you consider me to -be talking through the back of my neck, and that only a feudal sense of -what is fitting restrains you from substituting for it the words ‘Says -you!’”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s what it sounds like. Why don’t you think this scheme will -work?”</p> - -<p>“I fear Miss Angela will merely attribute Mr. Glossop’s abstinence to -indigestion, sir.”</p> - -<p>I hadn’t thought of that, and I must confess it shook me for a moment. -Then I recovered myself. I saw what was at the bottom of all this. -Mortified by the consciousness of his own ineptness—or ineptitude—the -fellow was simply trying to hamper and obstruct. I decided to knock the -stuffing out of him without further preamble.</p> - -<p>“Oh?” I said. “You do, do you? Well, be that as it may, it doesn’t alter -the fact that you’ve put out the wrong coat. Be so good, Jeeves,” I said, -indicating with a gesture the gent’s ordinary dinner jacket or <i>smoking</i>, -as we call it on the Côte d’Azur, which was suspended from the hanger on -the knob of the wardrobe, “as to shove that bally black thing in the -cupboard and bring out my white mess-jacket with the brass buttons.”</p> - -<p>He looked at me in a meaning manner. And when I say a meaning manner, I -mean there was a respectful but at the same time uppish glint in his eye -and a sort of muscular spasm flickered across his face which wasn’t quite -a quiet smile and yet wasn’t quite not a quiet smile. Also the soft -cough.</p> - -<p>“I regret to say, sir, that I inadvertently omitted to pack the garment -to which you refer.”</p> - -<p>The vision of that parcel in the hall seemed to rise before my eyes, and -I exchanged a merry wink with it. I may even have hummed a bar or two. -I’m not quite sure.</p> - -<p>“I know you did, Jeeves,” I said, laughing down from lazy eyelids and -nicking a speck of dust from the irreproachable Mechlin lace at my -wrists. “But I didn’t. You will find it on a chair in the hall in a -brown-paper parcel.”</p> - -<p>The information that his low manoeuvres had been rendered null and void -and that the thing was on the strength after all, must have been the -nastiest of jars, but there was no play of expression on his finely -chiselled to indicate it. There very seldom is on Jeeves’s f-c. In -moments of discomfort, as I had told Tuppy, he wears a mask, preserving -throughout the quiet stolidity of a stuffed moose.</p> - -<p>“You might just slide down and fetch it, will you?”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>And presently I was sauntering towards the drawing-room with the good old -j. nestling snugly abaft the shoulder blades.</p> - -<p>And Dahlia was in the drawing-room. She glanced up at my entrance.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, eyesore,” she said. “What do you think you’re made up as?”</p> - -<p>I did not get the purport.</p> - -<p>“The jacket, you mean?” I queried, groping.</p> - -<p>“I do. You look like one of the chorus of male guests at Abernethy Towers -in Act 2 of a touring musical comedy.”</p> - -<p>“You do not admire this jacket?”</p> - -<p>“I do not.”</p> - -<p>“You did at Cannes.”</p> - -<p>“Well, this isn’t Cannes.”</p> - -<p>“But, dash it——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, never mind. Let it go. If you want to give my butler a laugh, what -does it matter? What does anything matter now?”</p> - -<p>There was a death-where-is-thy-sting-fullness about her manner which I -found distasteful. It isn’t often that I score off Jeeves in the -devastating fashion just described, and when I do I like to see happy, -smiling faces about me.</p> - -<p>“Tails up, Aunt Dahlia,” I urged buoyantly.</p> - -<p>“Tails up be dashed,” was her sombre response. “I’ve just been talking to -Tom.”</p> - -<p>“Telling him?”</p> - -<p>“No, listening to him. I haven’t had the nerve to tell him yet.”</p> - -<p>“Is he still upset about that income-tax money?”</p> - -<p>“Upset is right. He says that Civilisation is in the melting-pot and that -all thinking men can read the writing on the wall.”</p> - -<p>“What wall?”</p> - -<p>“Old Testament, ass. Belshazzar’s feast.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that, yes. I’ve often wondered how that gag was worked. With -mirrors, I expect.”</p> - -<p>“I wish I could use mirrors to break it to Tom about this baccarat -business.”</p> - -<p>I had a word of comfort to offer here. I had been turning the thing over -in my mind since our last meeting, and I thought I saw where she had got -twisted. Where she made her error, it seemed to me, was in feeling she -had got to tell Uncle Tom. To my way of thinking, the matter was one on -which it would be better to continue to exercise a quiet reserve.</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why you need mention that you lost that money at baccarat.”</p> - -<p>“What do you suggest, then? Letting <i>Milady’s Boudoir</i> join Civilisation -in the melting-pot. Because that is what it will infallibly do unless I -get a cheque by next week. The printers have been showing a nasty spirit -for months.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t follow. Listen. It’s an understood thing, I take it, that -Uncle Tom foots the <i>Boudoir</i> bills. If the bally sheet has been turning -the corner for two years, he must have got used to forking out by this -time. Well, simply ask him for the money to pay the printers.”</p> - -<p>“I did. Just before I went to Cannes.”</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t he give it to you?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly he gave it to me. He brassed up like an officer and a -gentleman. That was the money I lost at baccarat.”</p> - -<p>“Oh? I didn’t know that.”</p> - -<p>“There isn’t much you do know.”</p> - -<p>A nephew’s love made me overlook the slur.</p> - -<p>“Tut!” I said.</p> - -<p>“What did you say?”</p> - -<p>“I said ‘Tut!’”</p> - -<p>“Say it once again, and I’ll biff you where you stand. I’ve enough to -endure without being tutted at.”</p> - -<p>“Quite.”</p> - -<p>“Any tutting that’s required, I’ll attend to myself. And the same applies -to clicking the tongue, if you were thinking of doing that.”</p> - -<p>“Far from it.”</p> - -<p>“Good.”</p> - -<p>I stood awhile in thought. I was concerned to the core. My heart, if you -remember, had already bled once for Aunt Dahlia this evening. It now bled -again. I knew how deeply attached she was to this paper of hers. Seeing -it go down the drain would be for her like watching a loved child sink -for the third time in some pond or mere.</p> - -<p>And there was no question that, unless carefully prepared for the touch, -Uncle Tom would see a hundred <i>Milady’s Boudoirs</i> go phut rather than -take the rap.</p> - -<p>Then I saw how the thing could be handled. This aunt, I perceived, must -fall into line with my other clients. Tuppy Glossop was knocking off -dinner to melt Angela. Gussie Fink-Nottle was knocking off dinner to -impress the Bassett. Aunt Dahlia must knock off dinner to soften Uncle -Tom. For the beauty of this scheme of mine was that there was no limit to -the number of entrants. Come one, come all, the more the merrier, and -satisfaction guaranteed in every case.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got it,” I said. “There is only one course to pursue. Eat less -meat.”</p> - -<p>She looked at me in a pleading sort of way. I wouldn’t swear that her -eyes were wet with unshed tears, but I rather think they were, certainly -she clasped her hands in piteous appeal.</p> - -<p>“Must you drivel, Bertie? Won’t you stop it just this once? Just for -tonight, to please Aunt Dahlia?”</p> - -<p>“I’m not drivelling.”</p> - -<p>“I dare say that to a man of your high standards it doesn’t come under -the head of drivel, but——”</p> - -<p>I saw what had happened. I hadn’t made myself quite clear.</p> - -<p>“It’s all right,” I said. “Have no misgivings. This is the real Tabasco. -When I said ‘Eat less meat’, what I meant was that you must refuse your -oats at dinner tonight. Just sit there, looking blistered, and wave away -each course as it comes with a weary gesture of resignation. You see what -will happen. Uncle Tom will notice your loss of appetite, and I am -prepared to bet that at the conclusion of the meal he will come to you -and say ‘Dahlia, darling’—I take it he calls you ‘Dahlia’—‘Dahlia -darling,’ he will say, ‘I noticed at dinner tonight that you were a bit -off your feed. Is anything the matter, Dahlia, darling?’ ‘Why, yes, Tom, -darling,’ you will reply. ‘It is kind of you to ask, darling. The fact -is, darling, I am terribly worried.’ ‘My darling,’ he will say——”</p> - -<p>Aunt Dahlia interrupted at this point to observe that these Traverses -seemed to be a pretty soppy couple of blighters, to judge by their -dialogue. She also wished to know when I was going to get to the point.</p> - -<p>I gave her a look.</p> - -<p>“‘My darling,’ he will say tenderly, ‘is there anything I can do?’ To -which your reply will be that there jolly well is—viz. reach for his -cheque-book and start writing.”</p> - -<p>I was watching her closely as I spoke, and was pleased to note respect -suddenly dawn in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“But, Bertie, this is positively bright.”</p> - -<p>“I told you Jeeves wasn’t the only fellow with brain.”</p> - -<p>“I believe it would work.”</p> - -<p>“It’s bound to work. I’ve recommended it to Tuppy.”</p> - -<p>“Young Glossop?”</p> - -<p>“In order to soften Angela.”</p> - -<p>“Splendid!”</p> - -<p>“And to Gussie Fink-Nottle, who wants to make a hit with the Bassett.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well, well! What a busy little brain it is.”</p> - -<p>“Always working, Aunt Dahlia, always working.”</p> - -<p>“You’re not the chump I took you for, Bertie.”</p> - -<p>“When did you ever take me for a chump?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, some time last summer. I forget what gave me the idea. Yes, Bertie, -this scheme is bright. I suppose, as a matter of fact, Jeeves suggested -it.”</p> - -<p>“Jeeves did not suggest it. I resent these implications. Jeeves had -nothing to do with it whatsoever.”</p> - -<p>“Well, all right, no need to get excited about it. Yes, I think it will -work. Tom’s devoted to me.”</p> - -<p>“Who wouldn’t be?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll do it.”</p> - -<p>And then the rest of the party trickled in, and we toddled down to -dinner.</p> - -<p>Conditions being as they were at Brinkley Court—I mean to say, the place -being loaded down above the Plimsoll mark with aching hearts and standing -room only as regarded tortured souls—I hadn’t expected the evening meal -to be particularly effervescent. Nor was it. Silent. Sombre. The whole -thing more than a bit like Christmas dinner on Devil’s Island.</p> - -<p>I was glad when it was over.</p> - -<p>What with having, on top of her other troubles, to rein herself back from -the trough, Aunt Dahlia was a total loss as far as anything in the shape -of brilliant badinage was concerned. The fact that he was fifty quid in -the red and expecting Civilisation to take a toss at any moment had -caused Uncle Tom, who always looked a bit like a pterodactyl with a -secret sorrow, to take on a deeper melancholy. The Bassett was a silent -bread crumbler. Angela might have been hewn from the living rock. Tuppy -had the air of a condemned murderer refusing to make the usual hearty -breakfast before tooling off to the execution shed.</p> - -<p>And as for Gussie Fink-Nottle, many an experienced undertaker would have -been deceived by his appearance and started embalming him on sight.</p> - -<p>This was the first glimpse I had had of Gussie since we parted at my -flat, and I must say his demeanour disappointed me. I had been expecting -something a great deal more sparkling.</p> - -<p>At my flat, on the occasion alluded to, he had, if you recall, -practically given me a signed guarantee that all he needed to touch him -off was a rural setting. Yet in this aspect now I could detect no -indication whatsoever that he was about to round into mid-season form. He -still looked like a cat in an adage, and it did not take me long to -realise that my very first act on escaping from this morgue must be to -draw him aside and give him a pep talk.</p> - -<p>If ever a chap wanted the clarion note, it looked as if it was this -Fink-Nottle.</p> - -<p>In the general exodus of mourners, however, I lost sight of him, and, -owing to the fact that Aunt Dahlia roped me in for a game of backgammon, -it was not immediately that I was able to institute a search. But after -we had been playing for a while, the butler came in and asked her if she -would speak to Anatole, so I managed to get away. And some ten minutes -later, having failed to find scent in the house, I started to throw out -the drag-net through the grounds, and flushed him in the rose garden.</p> - -<p>He was smelling a rose at the moment in a limp sort of way, but removed -the beak as I approached.</p> - -<p>“Well, Gussie,” I said.</p> - -<p>I had beamed genially upon him as I spoke, such being my customary policy -on meeting an old pal; but instead of beaming back genially, he gave me a -most unpleasant look. His attitude perplexed me. It was as if he were not -glad to see Bertram. For a moment he stood letting this unpleasant look -play upon me, as it were, and then he spoke.</p> - -<p>“You and your ‘Well, Gussie’!”</p> - -<p>He said this between clenched teeth, always an unmatey thing to do, and I -found myself more fogged than ever.</p> - -<p>“How do you mean—me and my ‘Well, Gussie’?”</p> - -<p>“I like your nerve, coming bounding about the place, saying ‘Well, -Gussie.’ That’s about all the ‘Well, Gussie’ I shall require from you, -Wooster. And it’s no good looking like that. You know what I mean. That -damned prize-giving! It was a dastardly act to crawl out as you did and -shove it off on to me. I will not mince my words. It was the act of a -hound and a stinker.”</p> - -<p>Now, though, as I have shown, I had devoted most of the time on the -journey down to meditating upon the case of Angela and Tuppy, I had not -neglected to give a thought or two to what I was going to say when I -encountered Gussie. I had foreseen that there might be some little -temporary unpleasantness when we met, and when a difficult interview is -in the offing Bertram Wooster likes to have his story ready.</p> - -<p>So now I was able to reply with a manly, disarming frankness. The sudden -introduction of the topic had given me a bit of a jolt, it is true, for -in the stress of recent happenings I had rather let that prize-giving -business slide to the back of my mind; but I had speedily recovered and, -as I say, was able to reply with a manly d.f.</p> - -<p>“But, my dear chap,” I said, “I took it for granted that you would -understand that that was all part of my schemes.”</p> - -<p>He said something about my schemes which I did not catch.</p> - -<p>“Absolutely. ‘Crawling out’ is entirely the wrong way to put it. You -don’t suppose I didn’t want to distribute those prizes, do you? Left to -myself, there is nothing I would find a greater treat. But I saw that the -square, generous thing to do was to step aside and let you take it on, so -I did so. I felt that your need was greater than mine. You don’t mean to -say you aren’t looking forward to it?”</p> - -<p>He uttered a coarse expression which I wouldn’t have thought he would -have known. It just shows that you can bury yourself in the country and -still somehow acquire a vocabulary. No doubt one picks up things from the -neighbours—the vicar, the local doctor, the man who brings the milk, and -so on.</p> - -<p>“But, dash it,” I said, “can’t you see what this is going to do for you? -It will send your stock up with a jump. There you will be, up on that -platform, a romantic, impressive figure, the star of the whole -proceedings, the what-d’you-call-it of all eyes. Madeline Bassett will be -all over you. She will see you in a totally new light.”</p> - -<p>“She will, will she?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly she will. Augustus Fink-Nottle, the newts’ friend, she knows. -She is acquainted with Augustus Fink-Nottle, the dogs’ chiropodist. But -Augustus Fink-Nottle, the orator—that’ll knock her sideways, or I know -nothing of the female heart. Girls go potty over a public man. If ever -anyone did anyone else a kindness, it was I when I gave this -extraordinary attractive assignment to you.”</p> - -<p>He seemed impressed by my eloquence. Couldn’t have helped himself, of -course. The fire faded from behind his horn-rimmed spectacles, and in its -place appeared the old fish-like goggle.</p> - -<p>“’Myes,” he said meditatively. “Have you ever made a speech, Bertie?”</p> - -<p>“Dozens of times. It’s pie. Nothing to it. Why, I once addressed a girls’ -school.”</p> - -<p>“You weren’t nervous?”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit.”</p> - -<p>“How did you go?”</p> - -<p>“They hung on my lips. I held them in the hollow of my hand.”</p> - -<p>“They didn’t throw eggs, or anything?”</p> - -<p>“Not a thing.”</p> - -<p>He expelled a deep breath, and for a space stood staring in silence at a -passing slug.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said, at length, “it may be all right. Possibly I am letting -the thing prey on my mind too much. I may be wrong in supposing it the -fate that is worse than death. But I’ll tell you this much: the prospect -of that prize-giving on the thirty-first of this month has been turning -my existence into a nightmare. I haven’t been able to sleep or think or -eat ... By the way, that reminds me. You never explained that cipher -telegram about the sausages and ham.”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t a cipher telegram. I wanted you to go light on the food, so -that she would realize you were in love.”</p> - -<p>He laughed hollowly.</p> - -<p>“I see. Well, I’ve been doing that, all right.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I was noticing at dinner. Splendid.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see what’s splendid about it. It’s not going to get me anywhere. -I shall never be able to ask her to marry me. I couldn’t find nerve to do -that if I lived on wafer biscuits for the rest of my life.”</p> - -<p>“But, dash it, Gussie. In these romantic surroundings. I should have -thought the whispering trees alone——”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care what you would have thought. I can’t do it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, come!”</p> - -<p>“I can’t. She seems so aloof, so remote.”</p> - -<p>“She doesn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she does. Especially when you see her sideways. Have you seen her -sideways, Bertie? That cold, pure profile. It just takes all the heart -out of one.”</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t.”</p> - -<p>“I tell you it does. I catch sight of it, and the words freeze on my -lips.”</p> - -<p>He spoke with a sort of dull despair, and so manifest was his lack of -ginger and the spirit that wins to success that for an instant, I -confess, I felt a bit stymied. It seemed hopeless to go on trying to -steam up such a human jellyfish. Then I saw the way. With that -extraordinary quickness of mine, I realized exactly what must be done if -this Fink-Nottle was to be enabled to push his nose past the judges’ box.</p> - -<p>“She must be softened up,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Be what?”</p> - -<p>“Softened up. Sweetened. Worked on. Preliminary spadework must be put in. -Here, Gussie, is the procedure I propose to adopt: I shall now return to -the house and lug this Bassett out for a stroll. I shall talk to her of -hearts that yearn, intimating that there is one actually on the premises. -I shall pitch it strong, sparing no effort. You, meanwhile, will lurk on -the outskirts, and in about a quarter of an hour you will come along and -carry on from there. By that time, her emotions having been stirred, you -ought to be able to do the rest on your head. It will be like leaping on -to a moving bus.”</p> - -<p>I remember when I was a kid at school having to learn a poem of sorts -about a fellow named Pig-something—a sculptor he would have been, no -doubt—who made a statue of a girl, and what should happen one morning -but that the bally thing suddenly came to life. A pretty nasty shock for -the chap, of course, but the point I’m working round to is that there -were a couple of lines that went, if I remember correctly:</p> - -<blockquote> -<div><i>She starts. She moves. She seems to feel<br /> -The stir of life along her keel.</i></div> -</blockquote> - -<p>And what I’m driving at is that you couldn’t get a better description of -what happened to Gussie as I spoke these heartening words. His brow -cleared, his eyes brightened, he lost that fishy look, and he gazed at -the slug, which was still on the long, long trail with something -approaching bonhomie. A marked improvement.</p> - -<p>“I see what you mean. You will sort of pave the way, as it were.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right. Spadework.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a terrific idea, Bertie. It will make all the difference.”</p> - -<p>“Quite. But don’t forget that after that it will be up to you. You will -have to haul up your slacks and give her the old oil, or my efforts will -have been in vain.”</p> - -<p>Something of his former Gawd-help-us-ness seemed to return to him. He -gasped a bit.</p> - -<p>“That’s true. What the dickens shall I say?”</p> - -<p>I restrained my impatience with an effort. The man had been at school -with me.</p> - -<p>“Dash it, there are hundreds of things you can say. Talk about the -sunset.”</p> - -<p>“The sunset?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly. Half the married men you meet began by talking about the -sunset.”</p> - -<p>“But what can I say about the sunset?”</p> - -<p>“Well, Jeeves got off a good one the other day. I met him airing the dog -in the park one evening, and he said, ‘Now fades the glimmering landscape -on the sight, sir, and all the air a solemn stillness holds.’ You might -use that.”</p> - -<p>“What sort of landscape?”</p> - -<p>“Glimmering. <i>G</i> for ‘gastritis,’ <i>l</i> for ‘lizard’——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, glimmering? Yes, that’s not bad. Glimmering landscape ... solemn -stillness.... Yes, I call that pretty good.”</p> - -<p>“You could then say that you have often thought that the stars are God’s -daisy chain.”</p> - -<p>“But I haven’t.”</p> - -<p>“I dare say not. But she has. Hand her that one, and I don’t see how she -can help feeling that you’re a twin soul.”</p> - -<p>“God’s daisy chain?”</p> - -<p>“God’s daisy chain. And then you go on about how twilight always makes -you sad. I know you’re going to say it doesn’t, but on this occasion it -has jolly well got to.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“That’s just what she will ask, and you will then have got her going. -Because you will reply that it is because yours is such a lonely life. It -wouldn’t be a bad idea to give her a brief description of a typical home -evening at your Lincolnshire residence, showing how you pace the meadows -with a heavy tread.”</p> - -<p>“I generally sit indoors and listen to the wireless.”</p> - -<p>“No, you don’t. You pace the meadows with a heavy tread, wishing that you -had someone to love you. And then you speak of the day when she came into -your life.”</p> - -<p>“Like a fairy princess.”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely,” I said with approval. I hadn’t expected such a hot one from -such a quarter. “Like a fairy princess. Nice work, Gussie.”</p> - -<p>“And then?”</p> - -<p>“Well, after that it’s easy. You say you have something you want to say -to her, and then you snap into it. I don’t see how it can fail. If I were -you, I should do it in this rose garden. It is well established that -there is no sounder move than to steer the adored object into rose -gardens in the gloaming. And you had better have a couple of quick ones -first.”</p> - -<p>“Quick ones?”</p> - -<p>“Snifters.”</p> - -<p>“Drinks, do you mean? But I don’t drink.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve never touched a drop in my life.”</p> - -<p>This made me a bit dubious, I must confess. On these occasions it is -generally conceded that a moderate skinful is of the essence.</p> - -<p>However, if the facts were as he had stated, I supposed there was nothing -to be done about it.</p> - -<p>“Well, you’ll have to make out as best you can on ginger pop.”</p> - -<p>“I always drink orange juice.”</p> - -<p>“Orange juice, then. Tell me, Gussie, to settle a bet, do you really like -that muck?”</p> - -<p>“Very much.”</p> - -<p>“Then there is no more to be said. Now, let’s just have a run through, to -see that you’ve got the lay-out straight. Start off with the glimmering -landscape.”</p> - -<p>“Stars God’s daisy chain.”</p> - -<p>“Twilight makes you feel sad.”</p> - -<p>“Because mine lonely life.”</p> - -<p>“Describe life.”</p> - -<p>“Talk about the day I met her.”</p> - -<p>“Add fairy-princess gag. Say there’s something you want to say to her. -Heave a couple of sighs. Grab her hand. And give her the works. Right.”</p> - -<p>And confident that he had grasped the scenario and that everything might -now be expected to proceed through the proper channels, I picked up the -feet and hastened back to the house.</p> - -<p>It was not until I had reached the drawing-room and was enabled to take a -square look at the Bassett that I found the debonair gaiety with which I -had embarked on this affair beginning to wane a trifle. Beholding her at -close range like this, I suddenly became cognisant of what I was in for. -The thought of strolling with this rummy specimen undeniably gave me a -most unpleasant sinking feeling. I could not but remember how often, when -in her company at Cannes, I had gazed dumbly at her, wishing that some -kindly motorist in a racing car would ease the situation by coming along -and ramming her amidships. As I have already made abundantly clear, this -girl was not one of my most congenial buddies.</p> - -<p>However, a Wooster’s word is his bond. Woosters may quail, but they do -not edge out. Only the keenest ear could have detected the tremor in the -voice as I asked her if she would care to come out for half an hour.</p> - -<p>“Lovely evening,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, lovely, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Lovely. Reminds me of Cannes.”</p> - -<p>“How lovely the evenings were there!”</p> - -<p>“Lovely,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Lovely,” said the Bassett.</p> - -<p>“Lovely,” I agreed.</p> - -<p>That completed the weather and news bulletin for the French Riviera. -Another minute, and we were out in the great open spaces, she cooing a -bit about the scenery, and self replying, “Oh, rather, quite,” and -wondering how best to approach the matter in hand.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-10-</h2> - - -<p>How different it all would have been, I could not but reflect, if this -girl had been the sort of girl one chirrups cheerily to over the -telephone and takes for spins in the old two-seater. In that case, I -would simply have said, “Listen,” and she would have said, “What?” and I -would have said, “You know Gussie Fink-Nottle,” and she would have said, -“Yes,” and I would have said, “He loves you,” and she would have said -either, “What, that mutt? Well, thank heaven for one good laugh today,” -or else, in more passionate vein, “Hot dog! Tell me more.”</p> - -<p>I mean to say, in either event the whole thing over and done with in -under a minute.</p> - -<p>But with the Bassett something less snappy and a good deal more glutinous -was obviously indicated. What with all this daylight-saving stuff, we had -hit the great open spaces at a moment when twilight had not yet begun to -cheese it in favour of the shades of night. There was a fag-end of sunset -still functioning. Stars were beginning to peep out, bats were fooling -round, the garden was full of the aroma of those niffy white flowers -which only start to put in their heavy work at the end of the day—in -short, the glimmering landscape was fading on the sight and all the air -held a solemn stillness, and it was plain that this was having the worst -effect on her. Her eyes were enlarged, and her whole map a good deal too -suggestive of the soul’s awakening for comfort.</p> - -<p>Her aspect was that of a girl who was expecting something fairly fruity -from Bertram.</p> - -<p>In these circs., conversation inevitably flagged a bit. I am never at my -best when the situation seems to call for a certain soupiness, and I’ve -heard other members of the Drones say the same thing about themselves. I -remember Pongo Twistleton telling me that he was out in a gondola with a -girl by moonlight once, and the only time he spoke was to tell her that -old story about the chap who was so good at swimming that they made him a -traffic cop in Venice.</p> - -<p>Fell rather flat, he assured me, and it wasn’t much later when the girl -said she thought it was getting a little chilly and how about pushing -back to the hotel.</p> - -<p>So now, as I say, the talk rather hung fire. It had been all very well -for me to promise Gussie that I would cut loose to this girl about aching -hearts, but you want a cue for that sort of thing. And when, toddling -along, we reached the edge of the lake and she finally spoke, conceive my -chagrin when I discovered that what she was talking about was stars.</p> - -<p>Not a bit of good to me.</p> - -<p>“Oh, look,” she said. She was a confirmed Oh-looker. I had noticed this -at Cannes, where she had drawn my attention in this manner on various -occasions to such diverse objects as a French actress, a Provençal -filling station, the sunset over the Estorels, Michael Arlen, a man -selling coloured spectacles, the deep velvet blue of the Mediterranean, -and the late mayor of New York in a striped one-piece bathing suit. “Oh, -look at that sweet little star up there all by itself.”</p> - -<p>I saw the one she meant, a little chap operating in a detached sort of -way above a spinney.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I said.</p> - -<p>“I wonder if it feels lonely.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I shouldn’t think so.”</p> - -<p>“A fairy must have been crying.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you remember? ‘Every time a fairy sheds a tear, a wee bit star is -born in the Milky Way.’ Have you ever thought that, Mr. Wooster?”</p> - -<p>I never had. Most improbable, I considered, and it didn’t seem to me to -check up with her statement that the stars were God’s daisy chain. I -mean, you can’t have it both ways.</p> - -<p>However, I was in no mood to dissect and criticize. I saw that I had been -wrong in supposing that the stars were not germane to the issue. Quite a -decent cue they had provided, and I leaped on it Promptly: “Talking of -shedding tears——”</p> - -<p>But she was now on the subject of rabbits, several of which were messing -about in the park to our right.</p> - -<p>“Oh, look. The little bunnies!”</p> - -<p>“Talking of shedding tears——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you love this time of the evening, Mr. Wooster, when the sun has -gone to bed and all the bunnies come out to have their little suppers? -When I was a child, I used to think that rabbits were gnomes, and that if -I held my breath and stayed quite still, I should see the fairy queen.”</p> - -<p>Indicating with a reserved gesture that this was just the sort of loony -thing I should have expected her to think as a child, I returned to the -point.</p> - -<p>“Talking of shedding tears,” I said firmly, “it may interest you to know -that there is an aching heart in Brinkley Court.”</p> - -<p>This held her. She cheesed the rabbit theme. Her face, which had been -aglow with what I supposed was a pretty animation, clouded. She unshipped -a sigh that sounded like the wind going out of a rubber duck.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes. Life is very sad, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“It is for some people. This aching heart, for instance.”</p> - -<p>“Those wistful eyes of hers! Drenched irises. And they used to dance like -elves of delight. And all through a foolish misunderstanding about a -shark. What a tragedy misunderstandings are. That pretty romance broken -and over just because Mr. Glossop would insist that it was a flatfish.”</p> - -<p>I saw that she had got the wires crossed.</p> - -<p>“I’m not talking about Angela.”</p> - -<p>“But her heart is aching.”</p> - -<p>“I know it’s aching. But so is somebody else’s.”</p> - -<p>She looked at me, perplexed.</p> - -<p>“Somebody else? Mr. Glossop’s, you mean?”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t.”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Travers’s?”</p> - -<p>The exquisite code of politeness of the Woosters prevented me clipping -her one on the ear-hole, but I would have given a shilling to be able to -do it. There seemed to me something deliberately fat-headed in the way -she persisted in missing the gist.</p> - -<p>“No, not Aunt Dahlia’s, either.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure she is dreadfully upset.”</p> - -<p>“Quite. But this heart I’m talking about isn’t aching because of Tuppy’s -row with Angela. It’s aching for a different reason altogether. I mean to -say—dash it, you know why hearts ache!”</p> - -<p>She seemed to shimmy a bit. Her voice, when she spoke, was whispery: “You -mean—for love?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely. Right on the bull’s-eye. For love.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Wooster!”</p> - -<p>“I take it you believe in love at first sight?”</p> - -<p>“I do, indeed.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s what happened to this aching heart. It fell in love at -first sight, and ever since it’s been eating itself out, as I believe the -expression is.”</p> - -<p>There was a silence. She had turned away and was watching a duck out on -the lake. It was tucking into weeds, a thing I’ve never been able to -understand anyone wanting to do. Though I suppose, if you face it -squarely, they’re no worse than spinach. She stood drinking it in for a -bit, and then it suddenly stood on its head and disappeared, and this -seemed to break the spell.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Wooster!” she said again, and from the tone of her voice, I -could see that I had got her going.</p> - -<p>“For you, I mean to say,” I proceeded, starting to put in the fancy -touches. I dare say you have noticed on these occasions that the -difficulty is to plant the main idea, to get the general outline of the -thing well fixed. The rest is mere detail work. I don’t say I became glib -at this juncture, but I certainly became a dashed glibber than I had -been.</p> - -<p>“It’s having the dickens of a time. Can’t eat, can’t sleep—all for love -of you. And what makes it all so particularly rotten is that it—this -aching heart—can’t bring itself up to the scratch and tell you the -position of affairs, because your profile has gone and given it cold -feet. Just as it is about to speak, it catches sight of you sideways, and -words fail it. Silly, of course, but there it is.”</p> - -<p>I heard her give a gulp, and I saw that her eyes had become moistish. -Drenched irises, if you care to put it that way.</p> - -<p>“Lend you a handkerchief?”</p> - -<p>“No, thank you. I’m quite all right.”</p> - -<p>It was more than I could say for myself. My efforts had left me weak. I -don’t know if you suffer in the same way, but with me the act of talking -anything in the nature of real mashed potatoes always induces a sort of -prickly sensation and a hideous feeling of shame, together with a marked -starting of the pores.</p> - -<p>I remember at my Aunt Agatha’s place in Hertfordshire once being put on -the spot and forced to enact the role of King Edward III saying goodbye -to that girl of his, Fair Rosamund, at some sort of pageant in aid of the -Distressed Daughters of the Clergy. It involved some rather warmish -medieval dialogue, I recall, racy of the days when they called a spade a -spade, and by the time the whistle blew, I’ll bet no Daughter of the -Clergy was half as distressed as I was. Not a dry stitch.</p> - -<p>My reaction now was very similar. It was a highly liquid Bertram who, -hearing his <i>vis-à-vis</i> give a couple of hiccups and start to speak bent -an attentive ear.</p> - -<p>“Please don’t say any more, Mr. Wooster.”</p> - -<p>Well, I wasn’t going to, of course.</p> - -<p>“I understand.”</p> - -<p>I was glad to hear this.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I understand. I won’t be so silly as to pretend not to know what -you mean. I suspected this at Cannes, when you used to stand and stare at -me without speaking a word, but with whole volumes in your eyes.”</p> - -<p>If Angela’s shark had bitten me in the leg, I couldn’t have leaped more -convulsively. So tensely had I been concentrating on Gussie’s interests -that it hadn’t so much as crossed my mind that another and an unfortunate -construction could be placed on those words of mine. The persp., already -bedewing my brow, became a regular Niagara.</p> - -<p>My whole fate hung upon a woman’s word. I mean to say, I couldn’t back -out. If a girl thinks a man is proposing to her, and on that -understanding books him up, he can’t explain to her that she has got hold -of entirely the wrong end of the stick and that he hadn’t the smallest -intention of suggesting anything of the kind. He must simply let it ride. -And the thought of being engaged to a girl who talked openly about -fairies being born because stars blew their noses, or whatever it was, -frankly appalled me.</p> - -<p>She was carrying on with her remarks, and as I listened I clenched my -fists till I shouldn’t wonder if the knuckles didn’t stand out white -under the strain. It seemed as if she would never get to the nub.</p> - -<p>“Yes, all through those days at Cannes I could see what you were trying -to say. A girl always knows. And then you followed me down here, and -there was that same dumb, yearning look in your eyes when we met this -evening. And then you were so insistent that I should come out and walk -with you in the twilight. And now you stammer out those halting words. -No, this does not come as a surprise. But I am sorry——”</p> - -<p>The word was like one of Jeeves’s pick-me-ups. Just as if a glassful of -meat sauce, red pepper, and the yolk of an egg—though, as I say, I am -convinced that these are not the sole ingredients—had been shot into me, -I expanded like some lovely flower blossoming in the sunshine. It was all -right, after all. My guardian angel had not been asleep at the switch.</p> - -<p>“—but I am afraid it is impossible.”</p> - -<p>She paused.</p> - -<p>“Impossible,” she repeated.</p> - -<p>I had been so busy feeling saved from the scaffold that I didn’t get on -to it for a moment that an early reply was desired.</p> - -<p>“Oh, right ho,” I said hastily.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry.”</p> - -<p>“Quite all right.”</p> - -<p>“Sorrier than I can say.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t give it another thought.”</p> - -<p>“We can still be friends.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, rather.”</p> - -<p>“Then shall we just say no more about it; keep what has happened as a -tender little secret between ourselves?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely.”</p> - -<p>“We will. Like something lovely and fragrant laid away in lavender.”</p> - -<p>“In lavender—right.”</p> - -<p>There was a longish pause. She was gazing at me in a divinely pitying -sort of way, much as if I had been a snail she had happened accidentally -to bring her short French vamp down on, and I longed to tell her that it -was all right, and that Bertram, so far from being the victim of despair, -had never felt fizzier in his life. But, of course, one can’t do that -sort of thing. I simply said nothing, and stood there looking brave.</p> - -<p>“I wish I could,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>“Could?” I said, for my attensh had been wandering.</p> - -<p>“Feel towards you as you would like me to feel.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, ah.”</p> - -<p>“But I can’t. I’m sorry.”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely O.K. Faults on both sides, no doubt.”</p> - -<p>“Because I am fond of you, Mr.—no, I think I must call you Bertie. May -I?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, rather.”</p> - -<p>“Because we are real friends.”</p> - -<p>“Quite.”</p> - -<p>“I do like you, Bertie. And if things were different—I wonder——”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“After all, we are real friends.... We have this common memory.... You -have a right to know.... I don’t want you to think——Life is such a -muddle, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>To many men, no doubt, these broken utterances would have appeared mere -drooling and would have been dismissed as such. But the Woosters are -quicker-witted than the ordinary and can read between the lines. I -suddenly divined what it was that she was trying to get off the chest.</p> - -<p>“You mean there’s someone else?”</p> - -<p>She nodded.</p> - -<p>“You’re in love with some other bloke?”</p> - -<p>She nodded.</p> - -<p>“Engaged, what?”</p> - -<p>This time she shook the pumpkin.</p> - -<p>“No, not engaged.”</p> - -<p>Well, that was something, of course. Nevertheless, from the way she -spoke, it certainly looked as if poor old Gussie might as well scratch -his name off the entry list, and I didn’t at all like the prospect of -having to break the bad news to him. I had studied the man closely, and -it was my conviction that this would about be his finish.</p> - -<p>Gussie, you see, wasn’t like some of my pals—the name of Bingo Little is -one that springs to the lips—who, if turned down by a girl, would simply -say, “Well, bung-oh!” and toddle off quite happily to find another. He -was so manifestly a bird who, having failed to score in the first -chukker, would turn the thing up and spend the rest of his life brooding -over his newts and growing long grey whiskers, like one of those chaps -you read about in novels, who live in the great white house you can just -see over there through the trees and shut themselves off from the world -and have pained faces.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid he doesn’t care for me in that way. At least, he has said -nothing. You understand that I am only telling you this because——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, rather.”</p> - -<p>“It’s odd that you should have asked me if I believed in love at first -sight.” She half closed her eyes. “‘Who ever loved that loved not at -first sight?’” she said in a rummy voice that brought back to me—I don’t -know why—the picture of my Aunt Agatha, as Boadicea, reciting at that -pageant I was speaking of. “It’s a silly little story. I was staying with -some friends in the country, and I had gone for a walk with my dog, and -the poor wee mite got a nasty thorn in his little foot and I didn’t know -what to do. And then suddenly this man came along——”</p> - -<p>Harking back once again to that pageant, in sketching out for you my -emotions on that occasion, I showed you only the darker side of the -picture. There was, I should now mention, a splendid aftermath when, -having climbed out of my suit of chain mail and sneaked off to the local -pub, I entered the saloon bar and requested mine host to start pouring. A -moment later, a tankard of their special home-brewed was in my hand, and -the ecstasy of that first gollup is still green in my memory. The -recollection of the agony through which I had passed was just what was -needed to make it perfect.</p> - -<p>It was the same now. When I realized, listening to her words, that she -must be referring to Gussie—I mean to say, there couldn’t have been a -whole platoon of men taking thorns out of her dog that day; the animal -wasn’t a pin-cushion—and became aware that Gussie, who an instant before -had, to all appearances, gone so far back in the betting as not to be -worth a quotation, was the big winner after all, a positive thrill -permeated the frame and there escaped my lips a “Wow!” so crisp and -hearty that the Bassett leaped a liberal inch and a half from terra -firma.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon?” she said.</p> - -<p>I waved a jaunty hand.</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing. Just remembered there’s a letter I have to -write tonight without fail. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll be going in. -Here,” I said, “comes Gussie Fink-Nottle. He will look after you.”</p> - -<p>And, as I spoke, Gussie came sidling out from behind a tree.</p> - -<p>I passed away and left them to it. As regards these two, everything was -beyond a question absolutely in order. All Gussie had to do was keep his -head down and not press. Already, I felt, as I legged it back to the -house, the happy ending must have begun to function. I mean to say, when -you leave a girl and a man, each of whom has admitted in set terms that -she and he loves him and her, in close juxtaposition in the twilight, -there doesn’t seem much more to do but start pricing fish slices.</p> - -<p>Something attempted, something done, seemed to me to have earned -two-penn’orth of wassail in the smoking-room.</p> - -<p>I proceeded thither.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-11-</h2> - - -<p>The makings were neatly laid out on a side-table, and to pour into a -glass an inch or so of the raw spirit and shoosh some soda-water on top -of it was with me the work of a moment. This done, I retired to an -arm-chair and put my feet up, sipping the mixture with carefree enjoyment, -rather like Caesar having one in his tent the day he overcame the Nervii.</p> - -<p>As I let the mind dwell on what must even now be taking place in that -peaceful garden, I felt bucked and uplifted. Though never for an instant -faltering in my opinion that Augustus Fink-Nottle was Nature’s final word -in cloth-headed guffins, I liked the man, wished him well, and could not -have felt more deeply involved in the success of his wooing if I, and not -he, had been under the ether.</p> - -<p>The thought that by this time he might quite easily have completed the -preliminary <i>pourparlers</i> and be deep in an informal discussion of -honeymoon plans was very pleasant to me.</p> - -<p>Of course, considering the sort of girl Madeline Bassett was—stars and -rabbits and all that, I mean—you might say that a sober sadness would -have been more fitting. But in these matters you have got to realize that -tastes differ. The impulse of right-thinking men might be to run a mile -when they saw the Bassett, but for some reason she appealed to the deeps -in Gussie, so that was that.</p> - -<p>I had reached this point in my meditations, when I was aroused by the -sound of the door opening. Somebody came in and started moving like a -leopard toward the side-table and, lowering the feet, I perceived that it -was Tuppy Glossop.</p> - -<p>The sight of him gave me a momentary twinge of remorse, reminding me, as -it did, that in the excitement of getting Gussie fixed up I had rather -forgotten about this other client. It is often that way when you’re -trying to run two cases at once.</p> - -<p>However, Gussie now being off my mind, I was prepared to devote my whole -attention to the Glossop problem.</p> - -<p>I had been much pleased by the way he had carried out the task assigned -him at the dinner-table. No easy one, I can assure you, for the browsing -and sluicing had been of the highest quality, and there had been one dish -in particular—I allude to the <i>nonnettes de poulet Agnès Sorel</i>—which -might well have broken down the most iron resolution. But he had passed -it up like a professional fasting man, and I was proud of him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, hullo, Tuppy,” I said, “I wanted to see you.”</p> - -<p>He turned, snifter in hand, and it was easy to see that his privations -had tried him sorely. He was looking like a wolf on the steppes of Russia -which has seen its peasant shin up a high tree.</p> - -<p>“Yes?” he said, rather unpleasantly. “Well, here I am.”</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“How do you mean——well?”</p> - -<p>“Make your report.”</p> - -<p>“What report?”</p> - -<p>“Have you nothing to tell me about Angela?”</p> - -<p>“Only that she’s a blister.”</p> - -<p>I was concerned.</p> - -<p>“Hasn’t she come clustering round you yet?”</p> - -<p>“She has not.”</p> - -<p>“Very odd.”</p> - -<p>“Why odd?”</p> - -<p>“She must have noted your lack of appetite.”</p> - -<p>He barked raspingly, as if he were having trouble with the tonsils of the -soul.</p> - -<p>“Lack of appetite! I’m as hollow as the Grand Canyon.”</p> - -<p>“Courage, Tuppy! Think of Gandhi.”</p> - -<p>“What about Gandhi?”</p> - -<p>“He hasn’t had a square meal for years.”</p> - -<p>“Nor have I. Or I could swear I hadn’t. Gandhi, my left foot.”</p> - -<p>I saw that it might be best to let the Gandhi <i>motif</i> slide. I went back -to where we had started.</p> - -<p>“She’s probably looking for you now.”</p> - -<p>“Who is? Angela?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. She must have noticed your supreme sacrifice.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose she noticed it at all, the little fathead. I’ll bet it -didn’t register in any way whatsoever.”</p> - -<p>“Come, Tuppy,” I urged, “this is morbid. Don’t take this gloomy view. She -must at least have spotted that you refused those <i>nonnettes de poulet -Agnès Sorel</i>. It was a sensational renunciation and stuck out like a sore -thumb. And the <i>cèpes à la Rossini</i>——”</p> - -<p>A hoarse cry broke from his twisted lips:</p> - -<p>“Will you stop it, Bertie! Do you think I am made of marble? Isn’t it bad -enough to have sat watching one of Anatole’s supremest dinners flit by, -course after course, without having you making a song about it? Don’t -remind me of those <i>nonnettes</i>. I can’t stand it.”</p> - -<p>I endeavoured to hearten and console.</p> - -<p>“Be brave, Tuppy. Fix your thoughts on that cold steak-and-kidney pie in -the larder. As the Good Book says, it cometh in the morning.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, in the morning. And it’s now about half-past nine at night. You -would bring that pie up, wouldn’t you? Just when I was trying to keep my -mind off it.”</p> - -<p>I saw what he meant. Hours must pass before he could dig into that pie. -I dropped the subject, and we sat for a pretty good time in silence. Then -he rose and began to pace the room in an overwrought sort of way, like a -zoo lion who has heard the dinner-gong go and is hoping the keeper won’t -forget him in the general distribution. I averted my gaze tactfully, but -I could hear him kicking chairs and things. It was plain that the man’s -soul was in travail and his blood pressure high.</p> - -<p>Presently he returned to his seat, and I saw that he was looking at me -intently. There was that about his demeanour that led me to think that he -had something to communicate.</p> - -<p>Nor was I wrong. He tapped me significantly on the knee and spoke:</p> - -<p>“Bertie.”</p> - -<p>“Hullo?”</p> - -<p>“Shall I tell you something?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, old bird,” I said cordially. “I was just beginning to feel -that the scene could do with a bit more dialogue.”</p> - -<p>“This business of Angela and me.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve been putting in a lot of solid thinking about it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes?”</p> - -<p>“I have analysed the situation pitilessly, and one thing stands out as -clear as dammit. There has been dirty work afoot.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t get you.”</p> - -<p>“All right. Let me review the facts. Up to the time she went to Cannes -Angela loved me. She was all over me. I was the blue-eyed boy in every -sense of the term. You’ll admit that?”</p> - -<p>“Indisputably.”</p> - -<p>“And directly she came back we had this bust-up.”</p> - -<p>“Quite.”</p> - -<p>“About nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, dash it, old man, nothing? You were a bit tactless, what, about her -shark.”</p> - -<p>“I was frank and candid about her shark. And that’s my point. Do you -seriously believe that a trifling disagreement about sharks would make a -girl hand a man his hat, if her heart were really his?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly.”</p> - -<p>It beats me why he couldn’t see it. But then poor old Tuppy has never -been very hot on the finer shades. He’s one of those large, tough, -football-playing blokes who lack the more delicate sensibilities, as I’ve -heard Jeeves call them. Excellent at blocking a punt or walking across an -opponent’s face in cleated boots, but not so good when it comes to -understanding the highly-strung female temperament. It simply wouldn’t -occur to him that a girl might be prepared to give up her life’s -happiness rather than waive her shark.</p> - -<p>“Rot! It was just a pretext.”</p> - -<p>“What was?”</p> - -<p>“This shark business. She wanted to get rid of me, and grabbed at the -first excuse.”</p> - -<p>“No, no.”</p> - -<p>“I tell you she did.”</p> - -<p>“But what on earth would she want to get rid of you for?”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. That’s the very question I asked myself. And here’s the answer: -Because she has fallen in love with somebody else. It sticks out a mile. -There’s no other possible solution. She goes to Cannes all for me, she -comes back all off me. Obviously during those two months, she must have -transferred her affections to some foul blister she met out there.”</p> - -<p>“No, no.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t keep saying ‘No, no’. She must have done. Well, I’ll tell you one -thing, and you can take this as official. If ever I find this slimy, -slithery snake in the grass, he had better make all the necessary -arrangements at his favourite nursing-home without delay, because I am -going to be very rough with him. I propose, if and when found, to take -him by his beastly neck, shake him till he froths, and pull him inside -out and make him swallow himself.”</p> - -<p>With which words he biffed off; and I, having given him a minute or two -to get out of the way, rose and made for the drawing-room. The tendency -of females to roost in drawing-rooms after dinner being well marked, I -expected to find Angela there. It was my intention to have a word with -Angela.</p> - -<p>To Tuppy’s theory that some insinuating bird had stolen the girl’s heart -from him at Cannes I had given, as I have indicated, little credence, -considering it the mere unbalanced apple sauce of a bereaved man. It was, -of course, the shark, and nothing but the shark, that had caused love’s -young dream to go temporarily off the boil, and I was convinced that a -word or two with the cousin at this juncture would set everything right.</p> - -<p>For, frankly, I thought it incredible that a girl of her natural -sweetness and tender-heartedness should not have been moved to her -foundations by what she had seen at dinner that night. Even Seppings, -Aunt Dahlia’s butler, a cold, unemotional man, had gasped and practically -reeled when Tuppy waved aside those <i>nonnettes de poulet Agnès Sorel</i>, -while the footman, standing by with the potatoes, had stared like one -seeing a vision. I simply refused to consider the possibility of the -significance of the thing having been lost on a nice girl like Angela. I -fully expected to find her in the drawing-room with her heart bleeding -freely, all ripe for an immediate reconciliation.</p> - -<p>In the drawing-room, however, when I entered, only Aunt Dahlia met the -eye. It seemed to me that she gave me rather a jaundiced look as I hove -in sight, but this, having so recently beheld Tuppy in his agony, I -attributed to the fact that she, like him, had been going light on the -menu. You can’t expect an empty aunt to beam like a full aunt.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s you, is it?” she said.</p> - -<p>Well, it was, of course.</p> - -<p>“Where’s Angela?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Gone to bed.”</p> - -<p>“Already?”</p> - -<p>“She said she had a headache.”</p> - -<p>“H’m.”</p> - -<p>I wasn’t so sure that I liked the sound of that so much. A girl who has -observed the sundered lover sensationally off his feed does not go to bed -with headaches if love has been reborn in her heart. She sticks around -and gives him the swift, remorseful glance from beneath the drooping -eyelashes and generally endeavours to convey to him that, if he wants to -get together across a round table and try to find a formula, she is all -for it too. Yes, I am bound to say I found that going-to-bed stuff a bit -disquieting.</p> - -<p>“Gone to bed, eh?” I murmured musingly.</p> - -<p>“What did you want her for?”</p> - -<p>“I thought she might like a stroll and a chat.”</p> - -<p>“Are you going for a stroll?” said Aunt Dahlia, with a sudden show of -interest. “Where?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, hither and thither.”</p> - -<p>“Then I wonder if you would mind doing something for me.”</p> - -<p>“Give it a name.”</p> - -<p>“It won’t take you long. You know that path that runs past the -greenhouses into the kitchen garden. If you go along it, you come to a -pond.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right.”</p> - -<p>“Well, will you get a good, stout piece of rope or cord and go down that -path till you come to the pond——”</p> - -<p>“To the pond. Right.”</p> - -<p>“—and look about you till you find a nice, heavy stone. Or a fairly -large brick would do.”</p> - -<p>“I see,” I said, though I didn’t, being still fogged. “Stone or brick. -Yes. And then?”</p> - -<p>“Then,” said the relative, “I want you, like a good boy, to fasten the -rope to the brick and tie it around your damned neck and jump into the -pond and drown yourself. In a few days I will send and have you fished up -and buried because I shall need to dance on your grave.”</p> - -<p>I was more fogged than ever. And not only fogged—wounded and resentful. -I remember reading a book where a girl “suddenly fled from the room, -afraid to stay for fear dreadful things would come tumbling from her -lips; determined that she would not remain another day in this house to -be insulted and misunderstood.” I felt much about the same.</p> - -<p>Then I reminded myself that one has got to make allowances for a woman -with only about half a spoonful of soup inside her, and I checked the -red-hot crack that rose to the lips.</p> - -<p>“What,” I said gently, “is this all about? You seem pipped with Bertram.”</p> - -<p>“Pipped!”</p> - -<p>“Noticeably pipped. Why this ill-concealed animus?”</p> - -<p>A sudden flame shot from her eyes, singeing my hair.</p> - -<p>“Who was the ass, who was the chump, who was the dithering idiot who -talked me, against my better judgment, into going without my dinner? I -might have guessed——”</p> - -<p>I saw that I had divined correctly the cause of her strange mood.</p> - -<p>“It’s all right, Aunt Dahlia. I know just how you’re feeling. A bit on -the hollow side, what? But the agony will pass. If I were you, I’d sneak -down and raid the larder after the household have gone to bed. I am told -there’s a pretty good steak-and-kidney pie there which will repay -inspection. Have faith, Aunt Dahlia,” I urged. “Pretty soon Uncle Tom -will be along, full of sympathy and anxious inquiries.”</p> - -<p>“Will he? Do you know where he is now?”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t seen him.”</p> - -<p>“He is in the study with his face buried in his hands, muttering about -civilization and melting pots.”</p> - -<p>“Eh? Why?”</p> - -<p>“Because it has just been my painful duty to inform him that Anatole has -given notice.”</p> - -<p>I own that I reeled.</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Given notice. As the result of that drivelling scheme of yours. What did -you expect a sensitive, temperamental French cook to do, if you went -about urging everybody to refuse all food? I hear that when the first two -courses came back to the kitchen practically untouched, his feelings were -so hurt that he cried like a child. And when the rest of the dinner -followed, he came to the conclusion that the whole thing was a studied -and calculated insult, and decided to hand in his portfolio.”</p> - -<p>“Golly!”</p> - -<p>“You may well say ‘Golly!’ Anatole, God’s gift to the gastric juices, -gone like the dew off the petal of a rose, all through your idiocy. -Perhaps you understand now why I want you to go and jump in that pond. I -might have known that some hideous disaster would strike this house like -a thunderbolt if once you wriggled your way into it and started trying to -be clever.”</p> - -<p>Harsh words, of course, as from aunt to nephew, but I bore her no -resentment. No doubt, if you looked at it from a certain angle, Bertram -might be considered to have made something of a floater.</p> - -<p>“I am sorry.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the good of being sorry?”</p> - -<p>“I acted for what I deemed the best.”</p> - -<p>“Another time try acting for the worst. Then we may possibly escape with -a mere flesh wound.”</p> - -<p>“Uncle Tom’s not feeling too bucked about it all, you say?”</p> - -<p>“He’s groaning like a lost soul. And any chance I ever had of getting -that money out of him has gone.”</p> - -<p>I stroked the chin thoughtfully. There was, I had to admit, reason in -what she said. None knew better than I how terrible a blow the passing of -Anatole would be to Uncle Tom.</p> - -<p>I have stated earlier in this chronicle that this curious object of the -seashore with whom Aunt Dahlia has linked her lot is a bloke who -habitually looks like a pterodactyl that has suffered, and the reason he -does so is that all those years he spent in making millions in the Far -East put his digestion on the blink, and the only cook that has ever been -discovered capable of pushing food into him without starting something -like Old Home Week in Moscow under the third waistcoat button is this -uniquely gifted Anatole. Deprived of Anatole’s services, all he was -likely to give the wife of his b. was a dirty look. Yes, unquestionably, -things seemed to have struck a somewhat rocky patch, and I must admit -that I found myself, at moment of going to press, a little destitute of -constructive ideas.</p> - -<p>Confident, however, that these would come ere long, I kept the stiff -upper lip.</p> - -<p>“Bad,” I conceded. “Quite bad, beyond a doubt. Certainly a nasty jar for -one and all. But have no fear, Aunt Dahlia, I will fix everything.”</p> - -<p>I have alluded earlier to the difficulty of staggering when you’re -sitting down, showing that it is a feat of which I, personally, am not -capable. Aunt Dahlia, to my amazement, now did it apparently without an -effort. She was well wedged into a deep arm-chair, but, nevertheless, she -staggered like billy-o. A sort of spasm of horror and apprehension -contorted her face.</p> - -<p>“If you dare to try any more of your lunatic schemes——”</p> - -<p>I saw that it would be fruitless to try to reason with her. Quite -plainly, she was not in the vein. Contenting myself, accordingly, with a -gesture of loving sympathy, I left the room. Whether she did or did not -throw a handsomely bound volume of the Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, at -me, I am not in a position to say. I had seen it lying on the table -beside her, and as I closed the door I remember receiving the impression -that some blunt instrument had crashed against the woodwork, but I was -feeling too pre-occupied to note and observe.</p> - -<p>I blame myself for not having taken into consideration the possible -effects of a sudden abstinence on the part of virtually the whole -strength of the company on one of Anatole’s impulsive Provençal -temperament. These Gauls, I should have remembered, can’t take it. Their -tendency to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation is well -known. No doubt the man had put his whole soul into those <i>nonnettes de -poulet</i>, and to see them come homing back to him must have gashed him -like a knife.</p> - -<p>However, spilt milk blows nobody any good, and it is useless to dwell -upon it. The task now confronting Bertram was to put matters right, and I -was pacing the lawn, pondering to this end, when I suddenly heard a groan -so lost-soulish that I thought it must have proceeded from Uncle Tom, -escaped from captivity and come to groan in the garden.</p> - -<p>Looking about me, however, I could discern no uncles. Puzzled, I was -about to resume my meditations, when the sound came again. And peering -into the shadows I observed a dim form seated on one of the rustic -benches which so liberally dotted this pleasance and another dim form -standing beside same. A second and more penetrating glance and I had -assembled the facts.</p> - -<p>These dim forms were, in the order named, Gussie Fink-Nottle and Jeeves. -And what Gussie was doing, groaning all over the place like this, was -more than I could understand.</p> - -<p>Because, I mean to say, there was no possibility of error. He wasn’t -singing. As I approached, he gave an encore, and it was beyond question a -groan. Moreover, I could now see him clearly, and his whole aspect was -definitely sand-bagged.</p> - -<p>“Good evening, sir,” said Jeeves. “Mr. Fink-Nottle is not feeling well.”</p> - -<p>Nor was I. Gussie had begun to make a low, bubbling noise, and I could no -longer disguise it from myself that something must have gone seriously -wrong with the works. I mean, I know marriage is a pretty solemn business -and the realization that he is in for it frequently churns a chap up a -bit, but I had never come across a case of a newly-engaged man taking it -on the chin so completely as this.</p> - -<p>Gussie looked up. His eye was dull. He clutched the thatch.</p> - -<p>“Goodbye, Bertie,” he said, rising.</p> - -<p>I seemed to spot an error.</p> - -<p>“You mean ‘Hullo,’ don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t. I mean goodbye. I’m off.”</p> - -<p>“Off where?”</p> - -<p>“To the kitchen garden. To drown myself.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be an ass.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not an ass.... Am I an ass, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“Possibly a little injudicious, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Drowning myself, you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You think, on the whole, not drown myself?”</p> - -<p>“I should not advocate it, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, Jeeves. I accept your ruling. After all, it would be -unpleasant for Mrs. Travers to find a swollen body floating in her pond.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And she has been very kind to me.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And you have been very kind to me, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, sir.”</p> - -<p>“So have you, Bertie. Very kind. Everybody has been very kind to me. -Very, very kind. Very kind indeed. I have no complaints to make. All -right, I’ll go for a walk instead.”</p> - -<p>I followed him with bulging eyes as he tottered off into the dark.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, and I am free to admit that in my emotion I bleated -like a lamb drawing itself to the attention of the parent sheep, “what -the dickens is all this?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fink-Nottle is not quite himself, sir. He has passed through a -trying experience.”</p> - -<p>I endeavoured to put together a brief synopsis of previous events.</p> - -<p>“I left him out here with Miss Bassett.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I had softened her up.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“He knew exactly what he had to do. I had coached him thoroughly in lines -and business.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. So Mr. Fink-Nottle informed me.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then——”</p> - -<p>“I regret to say, sir, that there was a slight hitch.”</p> - -<p>“You mean, something went wrong?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>I could not fathom. The brain seemed to be tottering on its throne.</p> - -<p>“But how could anything go wrong? She loves him, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“She definitely told me so. All he had to do was propose.”</p> - -<p>“Yes sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, didn’t he?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Then what the dickens did he talk about?”</p> - -<p>“Newts, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Newts?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Newts?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But why did he want to talk about newts?”</p> - -<p>“He did not want to talk about newts, sir. As I gather from Mr. -Fink-Nottle, nothing could have been more alien to his plans.”</p> - -<p>I simply couldn’t grasp the trend.</p> - -<p>“But you can’t force a man to talk about newts.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Fink-Nottle was the victim of a sudden unfortunate spasm of -nervousness, sir. Upon finding himself alone with the young lady, he -admits to having lost his morale. In such circumstances, gentlemen -frequently talk at random, saying the first thing that chances to enter -their heads. This, in Mr. Fink-Nottle’s case, would seem to have been the -newt, its treatment in sickness and in health.”</p> - -<p>The scales fell from my eyes. I understood. I had had the same sort of -thing happen to me in moments of crisis. I remember once detaining a -dentist with the drill at one of my lower bicuspids and holding him up -for nearly ten minutes with a story about a Scotchman, an Irishman, and a -Jew. Purely automatic. The more he tried to jab, the more I said “Hoots, -mon,” “Begorrah,” and “Oy, oy”. When one loses one’s nerve, one simply -babbles.</p> - -<p>I could put myself in Gussie’s place. I could envisage the scene. There -he and the Bassett were, alone together in the evening stillness. No -doubt, as I had advised, he had shot the works about sunsets and fairy -princesses, and so forth, and then had arrived at the point where he had -to say that bit about having something to say to her. At this, I take it, -she lowered her eyes and said, “Oh, yes?”</p> - -<p>He then, I should imagine, said it was something very important; to which -her response would, one assumes, have been something on the lines of -“Really?” or “Indeed?” or possibly just the sharp intake of the breath. -And then their eyes met, just as mine met the dentist’s, and something -suddenly seemed to catch him in the pit of the stomach and everything -went black and he heard his voice starting to drool about newts. Yes, I -could follow the psychology.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, I found myself blaming Gussie. On discovering that he was -stressing the newt note in this manner, he ought, of course, to have -tuned out, even if it had meant sitting there saying nothing. No matter -how much of a twitter he was in, he should have had sense enough to see -that he was throwing a spanner into the works. No girl, when she has been -led to expect that a man is about to pour forth his soul in a fervour of -passion, likes to find him suddenly shelving the whole topic in favour of -an address on aquatic Salamandridae.</p> - -<p>“Bad, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And how long did this nuisance continue?”</p> - -<p>“For some not inconsiderable time, I gather, sir. According to Mr. -Fink-Nottle, he supplied Miss Bassett with very full and complete -information not only with respect to the common newt, but also the -crested and palmated varieties. He described to her how newts, during -the breeding season, live in the water, subsisting upon tadpoles, insect -larvae, and crustaceans; how, later, they make their way to the land and -eat slugs and worms; and how the newly born newt has three pairs of long, -plumlike, external gills. And he was just observing that newts differ -from salamanders in the shape of the tail, which is compressed, and that -a marked sexual dimorphism prevails in most species, when the young lady -rose and said that she thought she would go back to the house.”</p> - -<p>“And then——”</p> - -<p>“She went, sir.”</p> - -<p>I stood musing. More and more, it was beginning to be borne in upon me -what a particularly difficult chap Gussie was to help. He seemed to so -marked an extent to lack snap and finish. With infinite toil, you -manoeuvred him into a position where all he had to do was charge ahead, -and he didn’t charge ahead, but went off sideways, missing the objective -completely.</p> - -<p>“Difficult, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>In happier circs., of course, I would have canvassed his views on the -matter. But after what had occurred in connection with that mess-jacket, -my lips were sealed.</p> - -<p>“Well, I must think it over.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Burnish the brain a bit and endeavour to find the way out.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, good night, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Good night, sir.”</p> - -<p>He shimmered off, leaving a pensive Bertram Wooster standing motionless -in the shadows. It seemed to me that it was hard to know what to do for -the best.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-12-</h2> - - -<p>I don’t know if it has happened to you at all, but a thing I’ve noticed -with myself is that, when I’m confronted by a problem which seems for the -moment to stump and baffle, a good sleep will often bring the solution in -the morning.</p> - -<p>It was so on the present occasion.</p> - -<p>The nibs who study these matters claim, I believe, that this has got -something to do with the subconscious mind, and very possibly they may be -right. I wouldn’t have said off-hand that I had a subconscious mind, but -I suppose I must without knowing it, and no doubt it was there, sweating -away diligently at the old stand, all the while the corporeal Wooster was -getting his eight hours.</p> - -<p>For directly I opened my eyes on the morrow, I saw daylight. Well, I -don’t mean that exactly, because naturally I did. What I mean is that I -found I had the thing all mapped out. The good old subconscious m. had -delivered the goods, and I perceived exactly what steps must be taken in -order to put Augustus Fink-Nottle among the practising Romeos.</p> - -<p>I should like you, if you can spare me a moment of your valuable time, to -throw your mind back to that conversation he and I had had in the garden -on the previous evening. Not the glimmering landscape bit, I don’t mean -that, but the concluding passages of it. Having done so, you will recall -that when he informed me that he never touched alcoholic liquor, I shook -the head a bit, feeling that this must inevitably weaken him as a force -where proposing to girls was concerned.</p> - -<p>And events had shown that my fears were well founded.</p> - -<p>Put to the test, with nothing but orange juice inside him, he had proved -a complete bust. In a situation calling for words of molten passion of a -nature calculated to go through Madeline Bassett like a red-hot gimlet -through half a pound of butter, he had said not a syllable that could -bring a blush to the cheek of modesty, merely delivering a well-phrased -but, in the circumstances, quite misplaced lecture on newts.</p> - -<p>A romantic girl is not to be won by such tactics. Obviously, before -attempting to proceed further, Augustus Fink-Nottle must be induced to -throw off the shackling inhibitions of the past and fuel up. It must be a -primed, confident Fink-Nottle who squared up to the Bassett for Round No. -2.</p> - -<p>Only so could the <i>Morning Post</i> make its ten bob, or whatever it is, for -printing the announcement of the forthcoming nuptials.</p> - -<p>Having arrived at this conclusion I found the rest easy, and by the time -Jeeves brought me my tea I had evolved a plan complete in every detail. -This I was about to place before him—indeed, I had got as far as the -preliminary “I say, Jeeves”—when we were interrupted by the arrival of -Tuppy.</p> - -<p>He came listlessly into the room, and I was pained to observe that a -night’s rest had effected no improvement in the unhappy wreck’s -appearance. Indeed, I should have said, if anything, that he was looking -rather more moth-eaten than when I had seen him last. If you can -visualize a bulldog which has just been kicked in the ribs and had its -dinner sneaked by the cat, you will have Hildebrand Glossop as he now -stood before me.</p> - -<p>“Stap my vitals, Tuppy, old corpse,” I said, concerned, “you’re looking -pretty blue round the rims.”</p> - -<p>Jeeves slid from the presence in that tactful, eel-like way of his, and I -motioned the remains to take a seat.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter?” I said.</p> - -<p>He came to anchor on the bed, and for awhile sat picking at the coverlet -in silence.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been through hell, Bertie.”</p> - -<p>“Through where?”</p> - -<p>“Hell.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, hell? And what took you there?”</p> - -<p>Once more he became silent, staring before him with sombre eyes. -Following his gaze, I saw that he was looking at an enlarged photograph -of my Uncle Tom in some sort of Masonic uniform which stood on the -mantelpiece. I’ve tried to reason with Aunt Dahlia about this photograph -for years, placing before her two alternative suggestions: (a) To burn -the beastly thing; or (b) if she must preserve it, to shove me in -another room when I come to stay. But she declines to accede. She says -it’s good for me. A useful discipline, she maintains, teaching me that -there is a darker side to life and that we were not put into this world -for pleasure only.</p> - -<p>“Turn it to the wall, if it hurts you, Tuppy,” I said gently.</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“That photograph of Uncle Tom as the bandmaster.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t come here to talk about photographs. I came for sympathy.”</p> - -<p>“And you shall have it. What’s the trouble? Worrying about Angela, I -suppose? Well, have no fear. I have another well-laid plan for -encompassing that young shrimp. I’ll guarantee that she will be weeping -on your neck before yonder sun has set.”</p> - -<p>He barked sharply.</p> - -<p>“A fat chance!”</p> - -<p>“Tup, Tushy!”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“I mean ‘Tush, Tuppy.’ I tell you I will do it. I was just going to -describe this plan of mine to Jeeves when you came in. Care to hear it?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to hear any of your beastly plans. Plans are no good. She’s -gone and fallen in love with this other bloke, and now hates my gizzard.”</p> - -<p>“Rot.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t rot.”</p> - -<p>“I tell you, Tuppy, as one who can read the female heart, that this -Angela loves you still.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it didn’t look much like it in the larder last night.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you went to the larder last night?”</p> - -<p>“I did.”</p> - -<p>“And Angela was there?”</p> - -<p>“She was. And your aunt. Also your uncle.”</p> - -<p>I saw that I should require foot-notes. All this was new stuff to me. I -had stayed at Brinkley Court quite a lot in my time, but I had no idea -the larder was such a social vortex. More like a snack bar on a -race-course than anything else, it seemed to have become.</p> - -<p>“Tell me the whole story in your own words,” I said, “omitting no detail, -however apparently slight, for one never knows how important the most -trivial detail may be.”</p> - -<p>He inspected the photograph for a moment with growing gloom.</p> - -<p>“All right,” he said. “This is what happened. You know my views about -that steak-and-kidney pie.”</p> - -<p>“Quite.”</p> - -<p>“Well, round about one a.m. I thought the time was ripe. I stole from my -room and went downstairs. The pie seemed to beckon me.”</p> - -<p>I nodded. I knew how pies do.</p> - -<p>“I got to the larder. I fished it out. I set it on the table. I found -knife and fork. I collected salt, mustard, and pepper. There were some -cold potatoes. I added those. And I was about to pitch in when I heard a -sound behind me, and there was your aunt at the door. In a blue-and-yellow -dressing gown.”</p> - -<p>“Embarrassing.”</p> - -<p>“Most.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose you didn’t know where to look.”</p> - -<p>“I looked at Angela.”</p> - -<p>“She came in with my aunt?”</p> - -<p>“No. With your uncle, a minute or two later. He was wearing mauve pyjamas -and carried a pistol. Have you ever seen your uncle in pyjamas and a -pistol?”</p> - -<p>“Never.”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t missed much.”</p> - -<p>“Tell me, Tuppy,” I asked, for I was anxious to ascertain this, “about -Angela. Was there any momentary softening in her gaze as she fixed it on -you?”</p> - -<p>“She didn’t fix it on me. She fixed it on the pie.”</p> - -<p>“Did she say anything?”</p> - -<p>“Not right away. Your uncle was the first to speak. He said to your aunt, -‘God bless my soul, Dahlia, what are you doing here?’ To which she -replied, ‘Well, if it comes to that, my merry somnambulist, what are -you?’ Your uncle then said that he thought there must be burglars in the -house, as he had heard noises.”</p> - -<p>I nodded again. I could follow the trend. Ever since the scullery window -was found open the year Shining Light was disqualified in the Cesarewitch -for boring, Uncle Tom has had a marked complex about burglars. I can -still recall my emotions when, paying my first visit after he had bars -put on all the windows and attempting to thrust the head out in order to -get a sniff of country air, I nearly fractured my skull on a sort of iron -grille, as worn by the tougher kinds of mediaeval prison.</p> - -<p>“‘What sort of noises?’ said your aunt. ‘Funny noises,’ said your uncle. -Whereupon Angela—with a nasty, steely tinkle in her voice, the little -buzzard—observed, ‘I expect it was Mr. Glossop eating.’ And then she did -give me a look. It was the sort of wondering, revolted look a very -spiritual woman would give a fat man gulping soup in a restaurant. The -kind of look that makes a fellow feel he’s forty-six round the waist and -has great rolls of superfluous flesh pouring down over the back of his -collar. And, still speaking in the same unpleasant tone, she added, ‘I -ought to have told you, father, that Mr. Glossop always likes to have a -good meal three or four times during the night. It helps to keep him -going till breakfast. He has the most amazing appetite. See, he has -practically finished a large steak-and-kidney pie already’.”</p> - -<p>As he spoke these words, a feverish animation swept over Tuppy. His eyes -glittered with a strange light, and he thumped the bed violently with his -fist, nearly catching me a juicy one on the leg.</p> - -<p>“That was what hurt, Bertie. That was what stung. I hadn’t so much as -started on that pie. But that’s a woman all over.”</p> - -<p>“The eternal feminine.”</p> - -<p>“She continued her remarks. ‘You’ve no idea,’ she said, ‘how Mr. Glossop -loves food. He just lives for it. He always eats six or seven meals a -day, and then starts in again after bedtime. I think it’s rather -wonderful.’ Your aunt seemed interested, and said it reminded her of a -boa constrictor. Angela said, didn’t she mean a python? And then they -argued as to which of the two it was. Your uncle, meanwhile, poking about -with that damned pistol of his till human life wasn’t safe in the -vicinity. And the pie lying there on the table, and me unable to touch -it. You begin to understand why I said I had been through hell.”</p> - -<p>“Quite. Can’t have been at all pleasant.”</p> - -<p>“Presently your aunt and Angela settled their discussion, deciding that -Angela was right and that it was a python that I reminded them of. And -shortly after that we all pushed back to bed, Angela warning me in a -motherly voice not to take the stairs too quickly. After seven or eight -solid meals, she said, a man of my build ought to be very careful, -because of the danger of apoplectic fits. She said it was the same with -dogs. When they became very fat and overfed, you had to see that they -didn’t hurry upstairs, as it made them puff and pant, and that was bad -for their hearts. She asked your aunt if she remembered the late spaniel, -Ambrose; and your aunt said, ‘Poor old Ambrose, you couldn’t keep him -away from the garbage pail’; and Angela said, ‘Exactly, so do please be -careful, Mr. Glossop.’ And you tell me she loves me still!”</p> - -<p>I did my best to encourage.</p> - -<p>“Girlish banter, what?”</p> - -<p>“Girlish banter be dashed. She’s right off me. Once her ideal, I am now -less than the dust beneath her chariot wheels. She became infatuated with -this chap, whoever he was, at Cannes, and now she can’t stand the sight -of me.”</p> - -<p>I raised my eyebrows.</p> - -<p>“My dear Tuppy, you are not showing your usual good sense in this -Angela-chap-at-Cannes matter. If you will forgive me saying so, you have -got an <i>idée fixe</i>.”</p> - -<p>“A what?”</p> - -<p>“An <i>idée fixe</i>. You know. One of those things fellows get. Like Uncle -Tom’s delusion that everybody who is known even slightly to the police is -lurking in the garden, waiting for a chance to break into the house. You -keep talking about this chap at Cannes, and there never was a chap at -Cannes, and I’ll tell you why I’m so sure about this. During those two -months on the Riviera, it so happens that Angela and I were practically -inseparable. If there had been somebody nosing round her, I should have -spotted it in a second.”</p> - -<p>He started. I could see that this had impressed him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, she was with you all the time at Cannes, was she?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose she said two words to anybody else, except, of course, -idle conv. at the crowded dinner table or a chance remark in a throng at -the Casino.”</p> - -<p>“I see. You mean that anything in the shape of mixed bathing and -moonlight strolls she conducted solely in your company?”</p> - -<p>“That’s right. It was quite a joke in the hotel.”</p> - -<p>“You must have enjoyed that.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, rather. I’ve always been devoted to Angela.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes?”</p> - -<p>“When we were kids, she used to call herself my little sweetheart.”</p> - -<p>“She did?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely.”</p> - -<p>“I see.”</p> - -<p>He sat plunged in thought, while I, glad to have set his mind at rest, -proceeded with my tea. And presently there came the banging of a gong -from the hall below, and he started like a war horse at the sound of the -bugle.</p> - -<p>“Breakfast!” he said, and was off to a flying start, leaving me to brood -and ponder. And the more I brooded and pondered, the more did it seem to -me that everything now looked pretty smooth. Tuppy, I could see, despite -that painful scene in the larder, still loved Angela with all the old -fervour.</p> - -<p>This meant that I could rely on that plan to which I had referred to -bring home the bacon. And as I had found the way to straighten out the -Gussie-Bassett difficulty, there seemed nothing more to worry about.</p> - -<p>It was with an uplifted heart that I addressed Jeeves as he came in to -remove the tea tray.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-13-</h2> - - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve just been having a chat with young Tuppy, Jeeves. Did you -happen to notice that he wasn’t looking very roguish this morning?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. It seemed to me that Mr. Glossop’s face was sicklied o’er with -the pale cast of thought.”</p> - -<p>“Quite. He met my cousin Angela in the larder last night, and a rather -painful interview ensued.”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Not half so sorry as he was. She found him closeted with a -steak-and-kidney pie, and appears to have been a bit caustic about fat -men who lived for food alone.”</p> - -<p>“Most disturbing, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Very. In fact, many people would say that things had gone so far between -these two nothing now could bridge the chasm. A girl who could make -cracks about human pythons who ate nine or ten meals a day and ought to -be careful not to hurry upstairs because of the danger of apoplectic fits -is a girl, many people would say, in whose heart love is dead. Wouldn’t -people say that, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“Undeniably, sir.”</p> - -<p>“They would be wrong.”</p> - -<p>“You think so, sir?”</p> - -<p>“I am convinced of it. I know these females. You can’t go by what they -say.”</p> - -<p>“You feel that Miss Angela’s strictures should not be taken too much -<i>au pied de la lettre</i>, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“In English, we should say ‘literally’.”</p> - -<p>“Literally. That’s exactly what I mean. You know what girls are. A tiff -occurs, and they shoot their heads off. But underneath it all the old -love still remains. Am I correct?”</p> - -<p>“Quite correct, sir. The poet Scott——”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And in order to bring that old love whizzing to the surface once more, -all that is required is the proper treatment.”</p> - -<p>“By ‘proper treatment,’ sir, you mean——”</p> - -<p>“Clever handling, Jeeves. A spot of the good old snaky work. I see what -must be done to jerk my Cousin Angela back to normalcy. I’ll tell you, -shall I?”</p> - -<p>“If you would be so kind, sir.”</p> - -<p>I lit a cigarette, and eyed him keenly through the smoke. He waited -respectfully for me to unleash the words of wisdom. I must say for Jeeves -that—till, as he is so apt to do, he starts shoving his oar in and -cavilling and obstructing—he makes a very good audience. I don’t know if -he is actually agog, but he looks agog, and that’s the great thing.</p> - -<p>“Suppose you were strolling through the illimitable jungle, Jeeves, and -happened to meet a tiger cub.”</p> - -<p>“The contingency is a remote one, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Never mind. Let us suppose it.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Let us now suppose that you sloshed that tiger cub, and let us suppose -further that word reached its mother that it was being put upon. What -would you expect the attitude of that mother to be? In what frame of mind -do you consider that that tigress would approach you?”</p> - -<p>“I should anticipate a certain show of annoyance, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And rightly. Due to what is known as the maternal instinct, what?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, Jeeves. We will now suppose that there has recently been some -little coolness between this tiger cub and this tigress. For some days, -let us say, they have not been on speaking terms. Do you think that that -would make any difference to the vim with which the latter would leap to -the former’s aid?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. Here, then, in brief, is my plan, Jeeves. I am going to draw my -Cousin Angela aside to a secluded spot and roast Tuppy properly.”</p> - -<p>“Roast, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Knock. Slam. Tick-off. Abuse. Denounce. I shall be very terse about -Tuppy, giving it as my opinion that in all essentials he is more like a -wart hog than an ex-member of a fine old English public school. What will -ensue? Hearing him attacked, my Cousin Angela’s womanly heart will be as -sick as mud. The maternal tigress in her will awake. No matter what -differences they may have had, she will remember only that he is the man -she loves, and will leap to his defence. And from that to falling into -his arms and burying the dead past will be but a step. How do you react -to that?”</p> - -<p>“The idea is an ingenious one, sir.”</p> - -<p>“We Woosters are ingenious, Jeeves, exceedingly ingenious.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“As a matter of fact, I am not speaking without a knowledge of the form -book. I have tested this theory.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, in person. And it works. I was standing on the Eden rock at Antibes -last month, idly watching the bathers disport themselves in the water, -and a girl I knew slightly pointed at a male diver and asked me if I -didn’t think his legs were about the silliest-looking pair of props ever -issued to human being. I replied that I did, indeed, and for the space of -perhaps two minutes was extraordinarily witty and satirical about this -bird’s underpinning. At the end of that period, I suddenly felt as if I -had been caught up in the tail of a cyclone.</p> - -<p>“Beginning with a <i>critique</i> of my own limbs, which she said, justly -enough, were nothing to write home about, this girl went on to dissect my -manners, morals, intellect, general physique, and method of eating -asparagus with such acerbity that by the time she had finished the best -you could say of Bertram was that, so far as was known, he had never -actually committed murder or set fire to an orphan asylum. Subsequent -investigation proved that she was engaged to the fellow with the legs and -had had a slight disagreement with him the evening before on the subject -of whether she should or should not have made an original call of two -spades, having seven, but without the ace. That night I saw them dining -together with every indication of relish, their differences made up and -the lovelight once more in their eyes. That shows you, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I expect precisely similar results from my Cousin Angela when I start -roasting Tuppy. By lunchtime, I should imagine, the engagement will be on -again and the diamond-and-platinum ring glittering as of yore on her -third finger. Or is it the fourth?”</p> - -<p>“Scarcely by luncheon time, sir. Miss Angela’s maid informs me that Miss -Angela drove off in her car early this morning with the intention of -spending the day with friends in the vicinity.”</p> - -<p>“Well, within half an hour of whatever time she comes back, then. These -are mere straws, Jeeves. Do not let us chop them.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“The point is that, as far as Tuppy and Angela are concerned, we may say -with confidence that everything will shortly be hotsy-totsy once more. -And what an agreeable thought that is, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Very true, sir.”</p> - -<p>“If there is one thing that gives me the pip, it is two loving hearts -being estranged.”</p> - -<p>“I can readily appreciate the fact, sir.”</p> - -<p>I placed the stub of my gasper in the ash tray and lit another, to -indicate that that completed Chap. I.</p> - -<p>“Right ho, then. So much for the western front. We now turn to the -eastern.”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“I speak in parables, Jeeves. What I mean is, we now approach the matter -of Gussie and Miss Bassett.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Here, Jeeves, more direct methods are required. In handling the case of -Augustus Fink-Nottle, we must keep always in mind the fact that we are -dealing with a poop.”</p> - -<p>“A sensitive plant would, perhaps, be a kinder expression, sir.”</p> - -<p>“No, Jeeves, a poop. And with poops one has to employ the strong, -forceful, straightforward policy. Psychology doesn’t get you anywhere. -You, if I may remind you without wounding your feelings, fell into the -error of mucking about with psychology in connection with this Fink-Nottle, -and the result was a wash-out. You attempted to push him over the line by -rigging him out in a Mephistopheles costume and sending him off to a -fancy-dress ball, your view being that scarlet tights would embolden -him. Futile.”</p> - -<p>“The matter was never actually put to the test, sir.”</p> - -<p>“No. Because he didn’t get to the ball. And that strengthens my argument. -A man who can set out in a cab for a fancy-dress ball and not get there -is manifestly a poop of no common order. I don’t think I have ever known -anybody else who was such a dashed silly ass that he couldn’t even get to -a fancy-dress ball. Have you, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But don’t forget this, because it is the point I wish, above all, to -make: Even if Gussie had got to that ball; even if those scarlet tights, -taken in conjunction with his horn-rimmed spectacles, hadn’t given the -girl a fit of some kind; even if she had rallied from the shock and he -had been able to dance and generally hobnob with her; even then your -efforts would have been fruitless, because, Mephistopheles costume or no -Mephistopheles costume, Augustus Fink-Nottle would never have been able -to summon up the courage to ask her to be his. All that would have -resulted would have been that she would have got that lecture on newts a -few days earlier. And why, Jeeves? Shall I tell you why?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Because he would have been attempting the hopeless task of trying to do -the thing on orange juice.”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“Gussie is an orange-juice addict. He drinks nothing else.”</p> - -<p>“I was not aware of that, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I have it from his own lips. Whether from some hereditary taint, or -because he promised his mother he wouldn’t, or simply because he doesn’t -like the taste of the stuff, Gussie Fink-Nottle has never in the whole -course of his career pushed so much as the simplest gin and tonic over -the larynx. And he expects—this poop expects, Jeeves—this wabbling, -shrinking, diffident rabbit in human shape expects under these conditions -to propose to the girl he loves. One hardly knows whether to smile or -weep, what?”</p> - -<p>“You consider total abstinence a handicap to a gentleman who wishes to -make a proposal of marriage, sir?”</p> - -<p>The question amazed me.</p> - -<p>“Why, dash it,” I said, astounded, “you must know it is. Use your -intelligence, Jeeves. Reflect what proposing means. It means that a -decent, self-respecting chap has got to listen to himself saying things -which, if spoken on the silver screen, would cause him to dash to the -box-office and demand his money back. Let him attempt to do it on orange -juice, and what ensues? Shame seals his lips, or, if it doesn’t do that, -makes him lose his morale and start to babble. Gussie, for example, as we -have seen, babbles of syncopated newts.”</p> - -<p>“Palmated newts, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Palmated or syncopated, it doesn’t matter which. The point is that he -babbles and is going to babble again, if he has another try at it. -Unless—and this is where I want you to follow me very closely, -Jeeves—unless steps are taken at once through the proper channels. Only -active measures, promptly applied, can provide this poor, pusillanimous -poop with the proper pep. And that is why, Jeeves, I intend tomorrow to -secure a bottle of gin and lace his luncheon orange juice with -it liberally.”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>I clicked the tongue.</p> - -<p>“I have already had occasion, Jeeves,” I said rebukingly, “to comment on -the way you say ‘Well, sir’ and ‘Indeed, sir?’ I take this opportunity of -informing you that I object equally strongly to your ‘Sir?’ pure and -simple. The word seems to suggest that in your opinion I have made a -statement or mooted a scheme so bizarre that your brain reels at it. In -the present instance, there is absolutely nothing to say ‘Sir?’ about. -The plan I have put forward is entirely reasonable and icily logical, and -should excite no sirring whatsoever. Or don’t you think so?”</p> - -<p>“Well, sir——”</p> - -<p>“Jeeves!”</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, sir. The expression escaped me inadvertently. What I -intended to say, since you press me, was that the action which you -propose does seem to me somewhat injudicious.”</p> - -<p>“Injudicious? I don’t follow you, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“A certain amount of risk would enter into it, in my opinion, sir. It is -not always a simple matter to gauge the effect of alcohol on a subject -unaccustomed to such stimulant. I have known it to have distressing -results in the case of parrots.”</p> - -<p>“Parrots?”</p> - -<p>“I was thinking of an incident of my earlier life, sir, before I entered -your employment. I was in the service of the late Lord Brancaster at the -time, a gentleman who owned a parrot to which he was greatly devoted, and -one day the bird chanced to be lethargic, and his lordship, with the -kindly intention of restoring it to its customary animation, offered it a -portion of seed cake steeped in the ’84 port. The bird accepted the -morsel gratefully and consumed it with every indication of satisfaction. -Almost immediately afterwards, however, its manner became markedly -feverish. Having bitten his lordship in the thumb and sung part of a -sea-chanty, it fell to the bottom of the cage and remained there for a -considerable period of time with its legs in the air, unable to move. I -merely mention this, sir, in order to——”</p> - -<p>I put my finger on the flaw. I had spotted it all along.</p> - -<p>“But Gussie isn’t a parrot.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir, but——”</p> - -<p>“It is high time, in my opinion, that this question of what young Gussie -really is was threshed out and cleared up. He seems to think he is a male -newt, and you now appear to suggest that he is a parrot. The truth of the -matter being that he is just a plain, ordinary poop and needs a snootful -as badly as ever man did. So no more discussion, Jeeves. My mind is made -up. There is only one way of handling this difficult case, and that is -the way I have outlined.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, Jeeves. So much for that, then. Now here’s something else: You -noticed that I said I was going to put this project through tomorrow, and -no doubt you wondered why I said tomorrow. Why did I, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“Because you feel that if it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well -it were done quickly, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Partly, Jeeves, but not altogether. My chief reason for fixing the date -as specified is that tomorrow, though you have doubtless forgotten, is -the day of the distribution of prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School, -at which, as you know, Gussie is to be the male star and master of the -revels. So you see we shall, by lacing that juice, not only embolden him -to propose to Miss Bassett, but also put him so into shape that he will -hold that Market Snodsbury audience spellbound.”</p> - -<p>“In fact, you will be killing two birds with one stone, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. A very neat way of putting it. And now here is a minor point. -On second thoughts, I think the best plan will be for you, not me, to -lace the juice.”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“Jeeves!”</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And I’ll tell you why that will be the best plan. Because you are in a -position to obtain ready access to the stuff. It is served to Gussie -daily, I have noticed, in an individual jug. This jug will presumably be -lying about the kitchen or somewhere before lunch tomorrow. It will be -the simplest of tasks for you to slip a few fingers of gin in it.”</p> - -<p>“No doubt, sir, but——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say ‘but,’ Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“I fear, sir——”</p> - -<p>“‘I fear, sir’ is just as bad.”</p> - -<p>“What I am endeavouring to say, sir, is that I am sorry, but I am afraid -I must enter an unequivocal <i>nolle prosequi</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Do what?”</p> - -<p>“The expression is a legal one, sir, signifying the resolve not to -proceed with a matter. In other words, eager though I am to carry out -your instructions, sir, as a general rule, on this occasion I must -respectfully decline to co-operate.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t do it, you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Precisely, sir.”</p> - -<p>I was stunned. I began to understand how a general must feel when he has -ordered a regiment to charge and has been told that it isn’t in the -mood.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “I had not expected this of you.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir?”</p> - -<p>“No, indeed. Naturally, I realize that lacing Gussie’s orange juice is -not one of those regular duties for which you receive the monthly -stipend, and if you care to stand on the strict letter of the contract, I -suppose there is nothing to be done about it. But you will permit me to -observe that this is scarcely the feudal spirit.”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry, sir.”</p> - -<p>“It is quite all right, Jeeves, quite all right. I am not angry, only a -little hurt.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, Jeeves.”</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-14-</h2> - - -<p>Investigation proved that the friends Angela had gone to spend the day -with were some stately-home owners of the name of Stretchley-Budd, -hanging out in a joint called Kingham Manor, about eight miles distant in -the direction of Pershore. I didn’t know these birds, but their -fascination must have been considerable, for she tore herself away from -them only just in time to get back and dress for dinner. It was, -accordingly, not until coffee had been consumed that I was able to get -matters moving. I found her in the drawing-room and at once proceeded to -put things in train.</p> - -<p>It was with very different feelings from those which had animated the -bosom when approaching the Bassett twenty-four hours before in the same -manner in this same drawing-room that I headed for where she sat. As I -had told Tuppy, I have always been devoted to Angela, and there is -nothing I like better than a ramble in her company.</p> - -<p>And I could see by the look of her now how sorely in need she was of my -aid and comfort.</p> - -<p>Frankly, I was shocked by the unfortunate young prune’s appearance. At -Cannes she had been a happy, smiling English girl of the best type, full -of beans and buck. Her face now was pale and drawn, like that of a hockey -centre-forward at a girls’ school who, in addition to getting a fruity -one on the shin, has just been penalized for “sticks”. In any normal -gathering, her demeanour would have excited instant remark, but the -standard of gloom at Brinkley Court had become so high that it passed -unnoticed. Indeed, I shouldn’t wonder if Uncle Tom, crouched in his -corner waiting for the end, didn’t think she was looking indecently -cheerful.</p> - -<p>I got down to the agenda in my debonair way.</p> - -<p>“What ho, Angela, old girl.”</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Bertie, darling.”</p> - -<p>“Glad you’re back at last. I missed you.”</p> - -<p>“Did you, darling?”</p> - -<p>“I did, indeed. Care to come for a saunter?”</p> - -<p>“I’d love it.”</p> - -<p>“Fine. I have much to say to you that is not for the public ear.”</p> - -<p>I think at this moment poor old Tuppy must have got a sudden touch of -cramp. He had been sitting hard by, staring at the ceiling, and he now -gave a sharp leap like a gaffed salmon and upset a small table containing -a vase, a bowl of potpourri, two china dogs, and a copy of Omar Khayyám -bound in limp leather.</p> - -<p>Aunt Dahlia uttered a startled hunting cry. Uncle Tom, who probably -imagined from the noise that this was civilization crashing at last, -helped things along by breaking a coffee-cup.</p> - -<p>Tuppy said he was sorry. Aunt Dahlia, with a deathbed groan, said it -didn’t matter. And Angela, having stared haughtily for a moment like a -princess of the old régime confronted by some notable example of -gaucherie on the part of some particularly foul member of the underworld, -accompanied me across the threshold. And presently I had deposited her -and self on one of the rustic benches in the garden, and was ready to -snap into the business of the evening.</p> - -<p>I considered it best, however, before doing so, to ease things along with -a little informal chitchat. You don’t want to rush a delicate job like -the one I had in hand. And so for a while we spoke of neutral topics. She -said that what had kept her so long at the Stretchley-Budds was that -Hilda Stretchley-Budd had made her stop on and help with the arrangements -for their servants’ ball tomorrow night, a task which she couldn’t very -well decline, as all the Brinkley Court domestic staff were to be -present. I said that a jolly night’s revelry might be just what was -needed to cheer Anatole up and take his mind off things. To which she -replied that Anatole wasn’t going. On being urged to do so by Aunt -Dahlia, she said, he had merely shaken his head sadly and gone on talking -of returning to Provence, where he was appreciated.</p> - -<p>It was after the sombre silence induced by this statement that Angela -said the grass was wet and she thought she would go in.</p> - -<p>This, of course, was entirely foreign to my policy.</p> - -<p>“No, don’t do that. I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since you -arrived.”</p> - -<p>“I shall ruin my shoes.”</p> - -<p>“Put your feet up on my lap.”</p> - -<p>“All right. And you can tickle my ankles.”</p> - -<p>“Quite.”</p> - -<p>Matters were accordingly arranged on these lines, and for some minutes we -continued chatting in desultory fashion. Then the conversation petered -out. I made a few observations <i>in re</i> the scenic effects, featuring the -twilight hush, the peeping stars, and the soft glimmer of the waters of -the lake, and she said yes. Something rustled in the bushes in front of -us, and I advanced the theory that it was possibly a weasel, and she said -it might be. But it was plain that the girl was distraite, and I -considered it best to waste no more time.</p> - -<p>“Well, old thing,” I said, “I’ve heard all about your little dust-up. So -those wedding bells are not going to ring out, what?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Definitely over, is it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if you want my opinion, I think that’s a bit of goose for you, -Angela, old girl. I think you’re extremely well out of it. It’s a mystery -to me how you stood this Glossop so long. Take him for all in all, he -ranks very low down among the wines and spirits. A washout, I should -describe him as. A frightful oik, and a mass of side to boot. I’d pity -the girl who was linked for life to a bargee like Tuppy Glossop.”</p> - -<p>And I emitted a hard laugh—one of the sneering kind.</p> - -<p>“I always thought you were such friends,” said Angela.</p> - -<p>I let go another hard one, with a bit more top spin on it than the first -time:</p> - -<p>“Friends? Absolutely not. One was civil, of course, when one met the -fellow, but it would be absurd to say one was a friend of his. A club -acquaintance, and a mere one at that. And then one was at school with the -man.”</p> - -<p>“At Eton?”</p> - -<p>“Good heavens, no. We wouldn’t have a fellow like that at Eton. At a -kid’s school before I went there. A grubby little brute he was, I -recollect. Covered with ink and mire generally, washing only on alternate -Thursdays. In short, a notable outsider, shunned by all.”</p> - -<p>I paused. I was more than a bit perturbed. Apart from the agony of having -to talk in this fashion of one who, except when he was looping back rings -and causing me to plunge into swimming baths in correct evening costume, -had always been a very dear and esteemed crony, I didn’t seem to be -getting anywhere. Business was not resulting. Staring into the bushes -without a yip, she appeared to be bearing these slurs and innuendos of -mine with an easy calm.</p> - -<p>I had another pop at it:</p> - -<p>“‘Uncouth’ about sums it up. I doubt if I’ve ever seen an uncouther kid -than this Glossop. Ask anyone who knew him in those days to describe him -in a word, and the word they will use is ‘uncouth’. And he’s just the -same today. It’s the old story. The boy is the father of the man.”</p> - -<p>She appeared not to have heard.</p> - -<p>“The boy,” I repeated, not wishing her to miss that one, “is the father -of the man.”</p> - -<p>“What are you talking about?”</p> - -<p>“I’m talking about this Glossop.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you said something about somebody’s father.”</p> - -<p>“I said the boy was the father of the man.”</p> - -<p>“What boy?”</p> - -<p>“The boy Glossop.”</p> - -<p>“He hasn’t got a father.”</p> - -<p>“I never said he had. I said he was the father of the boy—or, rather, of -the man.”</p> - -<p>“What man?”</p> - -<p>I saw that the conversation had reached a point where, unless care was -taken, we should be muddled.</p> - -<p>“The point I am trying to make,” I said, “is that the boy Glossop is the -father of the man Glossop. In other words, each loathsome fault and -blemish that led the boy Glossop to be frowned upon by his fellows is -present in the man Glossop, and causes him—I am speaking now of the man -Glossop—to be a hissing and a byword at places like the Drones, where a -certain standard of decency is demanded from the inmates. Ask anyone at -the Drones, and they will tell you that it was a black day for the dear -old club when this chap Glossop somehow wriggled into the list of -members. Here you will find a man who dislikes his face; there one who -could stand his face if it wasn’t for his habits. But the universal -consensus of opinion is that the fellow is a bounder and a tick, and that -the moment he showed signs of wanting to get into the place he should -have been met with a firm <i>nolle prosequi</i> and heartily blackballed.”</p> - -<p>I had to pause again here, partly in order to take in a spot of breath, -and partly to wrestle with the almost physical torture of saying these -frightful things about poor old Tuppy.</p> - -<p>“There are some chaps,” I resumed, forcing myself once more to the -nauseous task, “who, in spite of looking as if they had slept in their -clothes, can get by quite nicely because they are amiable and suave. -There are others who, for all that they excite adverse comment by being -fat and uncouth, find themselves on the credit side of the ledger owing -to their wit and sparkling humour. But this Glossop, I regret to say, -falls into neither class. In addition to looking like one of those things -that come out of hollow trees, he is universally admitted to be a dumb -brick of the first water. No soul. No conversation. In short, any girl -who, having been rash enough to get engaged to him, has managed at the -eleventh hour to slide out is justly entitled to consider herself dashed -lucky.”</p> - -<p>I paused once more, and cocked an eye at Angela to see how the treatment -was taking. All the while I had been speaking, she had sat gazing -silently into the bushes, but it seemed to me incredible that she should -not now turn on me like a tigress, according to specifications. It beat -me why she hadn’t done it already. It seemed to me that a mere tithe of -what I had said, if said to a tigress about a tiger of which she was -fond, would have made her—the tigress, I mean—hit the ceiling.</p> - -<p>And the next moment you could have knocked me down with a toothpick.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, nodding thoughtfully, “you’re quite right.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking myself.”</p> - -<p>“What!”</p> - -<p>“‘Dumb brick.’ It just describes him. One of the six silliest asses in -England, I should think he must be.”</p> - -<p>I did not speak. I was endeavouring to adjust the faculties, which were -in urgent need of a bit of first-aid treatment.</p> - -<p>I mean to say, all this had come as a complete surprise. In formulating -the well-laid plan which I had just been putting into effect, the one -contingency I had not budgeted for was that she might adhere to the -sentiments which I expressed. I had braced myself for a gush of stormy -emotion. I was expecting the tearful ticking off, the girlish -recriminations and all the rest of the bag of tricks along those lines.</p> - -<p>But this cordial agreement with my remarks I had not foreseen, and it -gave me what you might call pause for thought.</p> - -<p>She proceeded to develop her theme, speaking in ringing, enthusiastic -tones, as if she loved the topic. Jeeves could tell you the word I want. -I think it’s “ecstatic”, unless that’s the sort of rash you get on your -face and have to use ointment for. But if that is the right word, then -that’s what her manner was as she ventilated the subject of poor old -Tuppy. If you had been able to go simply by the sound of her voice, she -might have been a court poet cutting loose about an Oriental monarch, or -Gussie Fink-Nottle describing his last consignment of newts.</p> - -<p>“It’s so nice, Bertie, talking to somebody who really takes a sensible -view about this man Glossop. Mother says he’s a good chap, which is -simply absurd. Anybody can see that he’s absolutely impossible. He’s -conceited and opinionative and argues all the time, even when he knows -perfectly well that he’s talking through his hat, and he smokes too much -and eats too much and drinks too much, and I don’t like the colour of his -hair. Not that he’ll have any hair in a year or two, because he’s pretty -thin on the top already, and before he knows where he is he’ll be as bald -as an egg, and he’s the last man who can afford to go bald. And I think -it’s simply disgusting, the way he gorges all the time. Do you know, I -found him in the larder at one o’clock this morning, absolutely wallowing -in a steak-and-kidney pie? There was hardly any of it left. And you -remember what an enormous dinner he had. Quite disgusting, I call it. But -I can’t stop out here all night, talking about men who aren’t worth -wasting a word on and haven’t even enough sense to tell sharks from -flatfish. I’m going in.”</p> - -<p>And gathering about her slim shoulders the shawl which she had put on as -a protection against the evening dew, she buzzed off, leaving me alone in -the silent night.</p> - -<p>Well, as a matter of fact, not absolutely alone, because a few moments -later there was a sort of upheaval in the bushes in front of me, and -Tuppy emerged.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-15-</h2> - - -<p>I gave him the eye. The evening had begun to draw in a bit by now and the -visibility, in consequence, was not so hot, but there still remained -ample light to enable me to see him clearly. And what I saw convinced me -that I should be a lot easier in my mind with a stout rustic bench -between us. I rose, accordingly, modelling my style on that of a -rocketing pheasant, and proceeded to deposit myself on the other side of -the object named.</p> - -<p>My prompt agility was not without its effect. He seemed somewhat taken -aback. He came to a halt, and, for about the space of time required to -allow a bead of persp. to trickle from the top of the brow to the tip of -the nose, stood gazing at me in silence.</p> - -<p>“So!” he said at length, and it came as a complete surprise to me that -fellows ever really do say “So!” I had always thought it was just a thing -you read in books. Like “Quotha!” I mean to say, or “Odds bodikins!” or -even “Eh, ba goom!”</p> - -<p>Still, there it was. Quaint or not quaint, bizarre or not bizarre, he had -said “So!” and it was up to me to cope with the situation on those lines.</p> - -<p>It would have been a duller man than Bertram Wooster who had failed to -note that the dear old chap was a bit steamed up. Whether his eyes were -actually shooting forth flame, I couldn’t tell you, but there appeared to -me to be a distinct incandescence. For the rest, his fists were clenched, -his ears quivering, and the muscles of his jaw rotating rhythmically, as -if he were making an early supper off something.</p> - -<p>His hair was full of twigs, and there was a beetle hanging to the side of -his head which would have interested Gussie Fink-Nottle. To this, -however, I paid scant attention. There is a time for studying beetles and -a time for not studying beetles.</p> - -<p>“So!” he said again.</p> - -<p>Now, those who know Bertram Wooster best will tell you that he is always -at his shrewdest and most level-headed in moments of peril. Who was it -who, when gripped by the arm of the law on boat-race night not so many -years ago and hauled off to Vine Street police station, assumed in a -flash the identity of Eustace H. Plimsoll, of The Laburnums, Alleyn Road, -West Dulwich, thus saving the grand old name of Wooster from being -dragged in the mire and avoiding wide publicity of the wrong sort? Who -was it ...</p> - -<p>But I need not labour the point. My record speaks for itself. Three times -pinched, but never once sentenced under the correct label. Ask anyone at -the Drones about this.</p> - -<p>So now, in a situation threatening to become every moment more scaly, I -did not lose my head. I preserved the old sang-froid. Smiling a genial -and affectionate smile, and hoping that it wasn’t too dark for it to -register, I spoke with a jolly cordiality:</p> - -<p>“Why, hallo, Tuppy. You here?”</p> - -<p>He said, yes, he was here.</p> - -<p>“Been here long?”</p> - -<p>“I have.”</p> - -<p>“Fine. I wanted to see you.”</p> - -<p>“Well, here I am. Come out from behind that bench.”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks, old man. I like leaning on it. It seems to rest the spine.”</p> - -<p>“In about two seconds,” said Tuppy, “I’m going to kick your spine up -through the top of your head.”</p> - -<p>I raised the eyebrows. Not much good, of course, in that light, but it -seemed to help the general composition.</p> - -<p>“Is this Hildebrand Glossop speaking?” I said.</p> - -<p>He replied that it was, adding that if I wanted to make sure I might move -a few feet over in his direction. He also called me an opprobrious name.</p> - -<p>I raised the eyebrows again.</p> - -<p>“Come, come, Tuppy, don’t let us let this little chat become acrid. Is -‘acrid’ the word I want?”</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t say,” he replied, beginning to sidle round the bench.</p> - -<p>I saw that anything I might wish to say must be said quickly. Already he -had sidled some six feet. And though, by dint of sidling, too, I had -managed to keep the bench between us, who could predict how long this -happy state of affairs would last?</p> - -<p>I came to the point, therefore.</p> - -<p>“I think I know what’s on your mind, Tuppy,” I said. “If you were in -those bushes during my conversation with the recent Angela, I dare say -you heard what I was saying about you.”</p> - -<p>“I did.”</p> - -<p>“I see. Well, we won’t go into the ethics of the thing. Eavesdropping, -some people might call it, and I can imagine stern critics drawing in the -breath to some extent. Considering it—I don’t want to hurt your -feelings, Tuppy—but considering it un-English. A bit un-English, Tuppy, -old man, you must admit.”</p> - -<p>“I’m Scotch.”</p> - -<p>“Really?” I said. “I never knew that before. Rummy how you don’t suspect -a man of being Scotch unless he’s Mac-something and says ‘Och, aye’ and -things like that. I wonder,” I went on, feeling that an academic -discussion on some neutral topic might ease the tension, “if you can tell -me something that has puzzled me a good deal. What exactly is it that -they put into haggis? I’ve often wondered about that.”</p> - -<p>From the fact that his only response to the question was to leap over the -bench and make a grab at me, I gathered that his mind was not on haggis.</p> - -<p>“However,” I said, leaping over the bench in my turn, “that is a side -issue. If, to come back to it, you were in those bushes and heard what I -was saying about you——”</p> - -<p>He began to move round the bench in a nor’-nor’-easterly direction. I -followed his example, setting a course sou’-sou’-west.</p> - -<p>“No doubt you were surprised at the way I was talking.”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit.”</p> - -<p>“What? Did nothing strike you as odd in the tone of my remarks?”</p> - -<p>“It was just the sort of stuff I should have expected a treacherous, -sneaking hound like you to say.”</p> - -<p>“My dear chap,” I protested, “this is not your usual form. A bit slow in -the uptake, surely? I should have thought you would have spotted right -away that it was all part of a well-laid plan.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll get you in a jiffy,” said Tuppy, recovering his balance after a -swift clutch at my neck. And so probable did this seem that I delayed no -longer, but hastened to place all the facts before him.</p> - -<p>Speaking rapidly and keeping moving, I related my emotions on receipt of -Aunt Dahlia’s telegram, my instant rush to the scene of the disaster, my -meditations in the car, and the eventual framing of this well-laid plan -of mine. I spoke clearly and well, and it was with considerable concern, -consequently, that I heard him observe—between clenched teeth, which -made it worse—that he didn’t believe a damned word of it.</p> - -<p>“But, Tuppy,” I said, “why not? To me the thing rings true to the last -drop. What makes you sceptical? Confide in me, Tuppy.”</p> - -<p>He halted and stood taking a breather. Tuppy, pungently though Angela -might have argued to the contrary, isn’t really fat. During the winter -months you will find him constantly booting the football with merry -shouts, and in the summer the tennis racket is seldom out of his hand.</p> - -<p>But at the recently concluded evening meal, feeling, no doubt, that after -that painful scene in the larder there was nothing to be gained by -further abstinence, he had rather let himself go and, as it were, made up -leeway; and after really immersing himself in one of Anatole’s dinners, a -man of his sturdy build tends to lose elasticity a bit. During the -exposition of my plans for his happiness a certain animation had crept -into this round-and-round-the mulberry-bush jamboree of ours—so much so, -indeed, that for the last few minutes we might have been a rather -oversized greyhound and a somewhat slimmer electric hare doing their -stuff on a circular track for the entertainment of the many-headed.</p> - -<p>This, it appeared, had taken it out of him a bit, and I was not -displeased. I was feeling the strain myself, and welcomed a lull.</p> - -<p>“It absolutely beats me why you don’t believe it,” I said. “You know -we’ve been pals for years. You must be aware that, except at the moment -when you caused me to do a nose dive into the Drones’ swimming bath, an -incident which I long since decided to put out of my mind and let the -dead past bury its dead about, if you follow what I mean—except on that -one occasion, as I say, I have always regarded you with the utmost -esteem. Why, then, if not for the motives I have outlined, should I knock -you to Angela? Answer me that. Be very careful.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean, be very careful?”</p> - -<p>Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t quite know myself. It was what the -magistrate had said to me on the occasion when I stood in the dock as -Eustace Plimsoll, of The Laburnums: and as it had impressed me a good -deal at the time, I just bunged it in now by way of giving the -conversation a tone.</p> - -<p>“All right. Never mind about being careful, then. Just answer me that -question. Why, if I had not your interests sincerely at heart, should I -have ticked you off, as stated?”</p> - -<p>A sharp spasm shook him from base to apex. The beetle, which, during the -recent exchanges, had been clinging to his head, hoping for the best, -gave it up at this and resigned office. It shot off and was swallowed in -the night.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” I said. “Your beetle,” I explained. “No doubt you were unaware of -it, but all this while there has been a beetle of sorts parked on the -side of your head. You have now dislodged it.”</p> - -<p>He snorted.</p> - -<p>“Beetles!”</p> - -<p>“Not beetles. One beetle only.”</p> - -<p>“I like your crust!” cried Tuppy, vibrating like one of Gussie’s newts -during the courting season. “Talking of beetles, when all the time you -know you’re a treacherous, sneaking hound.”</p> - -<p>It was a debatable point, of course, why treacherous, sneaking hounds -should be considered ineligible to talk about beetles, and I dare say a -good cross-examining counsel would have made quite a lot of it.</p> - -<p>But I let it go.</p> - -<p>“That’s the second time you’ve called me that. And,” I said firmly, “I -insist on an explanation. I have told you that I acted throughout from -the best and kindliest motives in roasting you to Angela. It cut me to -the quick to have to speak like that, and only the recollection of our -lifelong friendship would have made me do it. And now you say you don’t -believe me and call me names for which I am not sure I couldn’t have you -up before a beak and jury and mulct you in very substantial damages. I -should have to consult my solicitor, of course, but it would surprise me -very much if an action did not lie. Be reasonable, Tuppy. Suggest another -motive I could have had. Just one.”</p> - -<p>“I will. Do you think I don’t know? You’re in love with Angela yourself.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“And you knocked me in order to poison her mind against me and finally -remove me from your path.”</p> - -<p>I had never heard anything so absolutely loopy in my life. Why, dash it, -I’ve known Angela since she was so high. You don’t fall in love with -close relations you’ve known since they were so high. Besides, isn’t -there something in the book of rules about a man may not marry his -cousin? Or am I thinking of grandmothers?</p> - -<p>“Tuppy, my dear old ass,” I cried, “this is pure banana oil! You’ve come -unscrewed.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes?”</p> - -<p>“Me in love with Angela? Ha-ha!”</p> - -<p>“You can’t get out of it with ha-ha’s. She called you ‘darling’.”</p> - -<p>“I know. And I disapproved. This habit of the younger g. of scattering -‘darlings’ about like birdseed is one that I deprecate. Lax, is how I -should describe it.”</p> - -<p>“You tickled her ankles.”</p> - -<p>“In a purely cousinly spirit. It didn’t mean a thing. Why, dash it, you -must know that in the deeper and truer sense I wouldn’t touch Angela with -a barge pole.”</p> - -<p>“Oh? And why not? Not good enough for you?”</p> - -<p>“You misunderstand me,” I hastened to reply. “When I say I wouldn’t touch -Angela with a barge pole, I intend merely to convey that my feelings -towards her are those of distant, though cordial, esteem. In other words, -you may rest assured that between this young prune and myself there never -has been and never could be any sentiment warmer and stronger than that -of ordinary friendship.”</p> - -<p>“I believe it was you who tipped her off that I was in the larder last -night, so that she could find me there with that pie, thus damaging my -prestige.”</p> - -<p>“My dear Tuppy! A Wooster?” I was shocked. “You think a Wooster would do -that?”</p> - -<p>He breathed heavily.</p> - -<p>“Listen,” he said. “It’s no good your standing there arguing. You can’t -get away from the facts. Somebody stole her from me at Cannes. You told -me yourself that she was with you all the time at Cannes and hardly saw -anybody else. You gloated over the mixed bathing, and those moonlight -walks you had together——”</p> - -<p>“Not gloated. Just mentioned them.”</p> - -<p>“So now you understand why, as soon as I can get you clear of this damned -bench, I am going to tear you limb from limb. Why they have these bally -benches in gardens,” said Tuppy discontentedly, “is more than I can see. -They only get in the way.”</p> - -<p>He ceased, and, grabbing out, missed me by a hair’s breadth.</p> - -<p>It was a moment for swift thinking, and it is at such moments, as I have -already indicated, that Bertram Wooster is at his best. I suddenly -remembered the recent misunderstanding with the Bassett, and with a flash -of clear vision saw that this was where it was going to come in handy.</p> - -<p>“You’ve got it all wrong, Tuppy,” I said, moving to the left. “True, I -saw a lot of Angela, but my dealings with her were on a basis from start -to finish of the purest and most wholesome camaraderie. I can prove it. -During that sojourn in Cannes my affections were engaged elsewhere.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Engaged elsewhere. My affections. During that sojourn.”</p> - -<p>I had struck the right note. He stopped sidling. His clutching hand fell -to his side.</p> - -<p>“Is that true?”</p> - -<p>“Quite official.”</p> - -<p>“Who was she?”</p> - -<p>“My dear Tuppy, does one bandy a woman’s name?”</p> - -<p>“One does if one doesn’t want one’s ruddy head pulled off.”</p> - -<p>I saw that it was a special case.</p> - -<p>“Madeline Bassett,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Who?”</p> - -<p>“Madeline Bassett.”</p> - -<p>He seemed stunned.</p> - -<p>“You stand there and tell me you were in love with that Bassett -disaster?”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t call her ‘that Bassett disaster’, Tuppy. Not respectful.”</p> - -<p>“Dash being respectful. I want the facts. You deliberately assert that -you loved that weird Gawd-help-us?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why you should call her a weird Gawd-help-us, either. A very -charming and beautiful girl. Odd in some of her views perhaps—one does -not quite see eye to eye with her in the matter of stars and rabbits—but -not a weird Gawd-help-us.”</p> - -<p>“Anyway, you stick to it that you were in love with her?”</p> - -<p>“I do.”</p> - -<p>“It sounds thin to me, Wooster, very thin.”</p> - -<p>I saw that it would be necessary to apply the finishing touch.</p> - -<p>“I must ask you to treat this as entirely confidential, Glossop, but I -may as well inform you that it is not twenty-four hours since she turned -me down.”</p> - -<p>“Turned you down?”</p> - -<p>“Like a bedspread. In this very garden.”</p> - -<p>“Twenty-four hours?”</p> - -<p>“Call it twenty-five. So you will readily see that I can’t be the chap, -if any, who stole Angela from you at Cannes.”</p> - -<p>And I was on the brink of adding that I wouldn’t touch Angela with a -barge pole, when I remembered I had said it already and it hadn’t gone -frightfully well. I desisted, therefore.</p> - -<p>My manly frankness seemed to be producing good results. The homicidal -glare was dying out of Tuppy’s eyes. He had the aspect of a hired -assassin who had paused to think things over.</p> - -<p>“I see,” he said, at length. “All right, then. Sorry you were troubled.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t mention it, old man,” I responded courteously.</p> - -<p>For the first time since the bushes had begun to pour forth Glossops, -Bertram Wooster could be said to have breathed freely. I don’t say I -actually came out from behind the bench, but I did let go of it, and with -something of the relief which those three chaps in the Old Testament must -have experienced after sliding out of the burning fiery furnace, I even -groped tentatively for my cigarette case.</p> - -<p>The next moment a sudden snort made me take my fingers off it as if it -had bitten me. I was distressed to note in the old friend a return of the -recent frenzy.</p> - -<p>“What the hell did you mean by telling her that I used to be covered with -ink when I was a kid?”</p> - -<p>“My dear Tuppy——”</p> - -<p>“I was almost finickingly careful about my personal cleanliness as a boy. -You could have eaten your dinner off me.”</p> - -<p>“Quite. But——”</p> - -<p>“And all that stuff about having no soul. I’m crawling with soul. And -being looked on as an outsider at the Drones——”</p> - -<p>“But, my dear old chap, I explained that. It was all part of my ruse or -scheme.”</p> - -<p>“It was, was it? Well, in future do me a favour and leave me out of your -foul ruses.”</p> - -<p>“Just as you say, old boy.”</p> - -<p>“All right, then. That’s understood.”</p> - -<p>He relapsed into silence, standing with folded arms, staring before him -rather like a strong, silent man in a novel when he’s just been given the -bird by the girl and is thinking of looking in at the Rocky Mountains and -bumping off a few bears. His manifest pippedness excited my compash, and -I ventured a kindly word.</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose you know what <i>au pied de la lettre</i> means, Tuppy, but -that’s how I don’t think you ought to take all that stuff Angela was -saying just now too much.”</p> - -<p>He seemed interested.</p> - -<p>“What the devil,” he asked, “are you talking about?”</p> - -<p>I saw that I should have to make myself clearer.</p> - -<p>“Don’t take all that guff of hers too literally, old man. You know what -girls are like.”</p> - -<p>“I do,” he said, with another snort that came straight up from his -insteps. “And I wish I’d never met one.”</p> - -<p>“I mean to say, it’s obvious that she must have spotted you in those -bushes and was simply talking to score off you. There you were, I mean, -if you follow the psychology, and she saw you, and in that impulsive way -girls have, she seized the opportunity of ribbing you a bit—just told -you a few home truths, I mean to say.”</p> - -<p>“Home truths?”</p> - -<p>“That’s right.”</p> - -<p>He snorted once more, causing me to feel rather like royalty receiving a -twenty-one gun salute from the fleet. I can’t remember ever having met a -better right-and-left-hand snorter.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean, ‘home truths’? I’m not fat.”</p> - -<p>“No, no.”</p> - -<p>“And what’s wrong with the colour of my hair?”</p> - -<p>“Quite in order, Tuppy, old man. The hair, I mean.”</p> - -<p>“And I’m not a bit thin on the top.... What the dickens are you grinning -about?”</p> - -<p>“Not grinning. Just smiling slightly. I was conjuring up a sort of -vision, if you know what I mean, of you as seen through Angela’s eyes. -Fat in the middle and thin on the top. Rather funny.”</p> - -<p>“You think it funny, do you?”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit.”</p> - -<p>“You’d better not.”</p> - -<p>“Quite.”</p> - -<p>It seemed to me that the conversation was becoming difficult again. I -wished it could be terminated. And so it was. For at this moment -something came shimmering through the laurels in the quiet evenfall, and -I perceived that it was Angela.</p> - -<p>She was looking sweet and saintlike, and she had a plate of sandwiches in -her hand. Ham, I was to discover later.</p> - -<p>“If you see Mr. Glossop anywhere, Bertie,” she said, her eyes resting -dreamily on Tuppy’s facade, “I wish you would give him these. I’m so -afraid he may be hungry, poor fellow. It’s nearly ten o’clock, and he -hasn’t eaten a morsel since dinner. I’ll just leave them on this bench.”</p> - -<p>She pushed off, and it seemed to me that I might as well go with her. -Nothing to keep me here, I mean. We moved towards the house, and -presently from behind us there sounded in the night the splintering crash -of a well-kicked plate of ham sandwiches, accompanied by the muffled -oaths of a strong man in his wrath.</p> - -<p>“How still and peaceful everything is,” said Angela.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-16-</h2> - - -<p>Sunshine was gilding the grounds of Brinkley Court and the ear detected a -marked twittering of birds in the ivy outside the window when I woke next -morning to a new day. But there was no corresponding sunshine in Bertram -Wooster’s soul and no answering twitter in his heart as he sat up in bed, -sipping his cup of strengthening tea. It could not be denied that to -Bertram, reviewing the happenings of the previous night, the Tuppy-Angela -situation seemed more or less to have slipped a cog. With every desire to -look for the silver lining, I could not but feel that the rift between -these two haughty spirits had now reached such impressive proportions -that the task of bridging same would be beyond even my powers.</p> - -<p>I am a shrewd observer, and there had been something in Tuppy’s manner as -he booted that plate of ham sandwiches that seemed to tell me that he -would not lightly forgive.</p> - -<p>In these circs., I deemed it best to shelve their problem for the nonce -and turn the mind to the matter of Gussie, which presented a brighter -picture.</p> - -<p>With regard to Gussie, everything was in train. Jeeves’s morbid scruples -about lacing the chap’s orange juice had put me to a good deal of -trouble, but I had surmounted every obstacle in the old Wooster way. I -had secured an abundance of the necessary spirit, and it was now lying in -its flask in the drawer of the dressing-table. I had also ascertained -that the jug, duly filled, would be standing on a shelf in the butler’s -pantry round about the hour of one. To remove it from that shelf, sneak -it up to my room, and return it, laced, in good time for the midday meal -would be a task calling, no doubt, for address, but in no sense an -exacting one.</p> - -<p>It was with something of the emotions of one preparing a treat for a -deserving child that I finished my tea and rolled over for that extra -spot of sleep which just makes all the difference when there is man’s -work to be done and the brain must be kept clear for it.</p> - -<p>And when I came downstairs an hour or so later, I knew how right I had -been to formulate this scheme for Gussie’s bucking up. I ran into him on -the lawn, and I could see at a glance that if ever there was a man who -needed a snappy stimulant, it was he. All nature, as I have indicated, -was smiling, but not Augustus Fink-Nottle. He was walking round in -circles, muttering something about not proposing to detain us long, but -on this auspicious occasion feeling compelled to say a few words.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Gussie,” I said, arresting him as he was about to start another lap. -“A lovely morning, is it not?”</p> - -<p>Even if I had not been aware of it already, I could have divined from the -abruptness with which he damned the lovely morning that he was not in -merry mood. I addressed myself to the task of bringing the roses back to -his cheeks.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got good news for you, Gussie.”</p> - -<p>He looked at me with a sudden sharp interest.</p> - -<p>“Has Market Snodsbury Grammar School burned down?”</p> - -<p>“Not that I know of.”</p> - -<p>“Have mumps broken out? Is the place closed on account of measles?”</p> - -<p>“No, no.”</p> - -<p>“Then what do you mean you’ve got good news?”</p> - -<p>I endeavoured to soothe.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t take it so hard, Gussie. Why worry about a laughably simple -job like distributing prizes at a school?”</p> - -<p>“Laughably simple, eh? Do you realize I’ve been sweating for days and -haven’t been able to think of a thing to say yet, except that I won’t -detain them long. You bet I won’t detain them long. I’ve been timing my -speech, and it lasts five seconds. What the devil am I to say, Bertie? -What do you say when you’re distributing prizes?”</p> - -<p>I considered. Once, at my private school, I had won a prize for Scripture -knowledge, so I suppose I ought to have been full of inside stuff. But -memory eluded me.</p> - -<p>Then something emerged from the mists.</p> - -<p>“You say the race is not always to the swift.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s a good gag. It generally gets a hand.”</p> - -<p>“I mean, why isn’t it? Why isn’t the race to the swift?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, there you have me. But the nibs say it isn’t.”</p> - -<p>“But what does it mean?”</p> - -<p>“I take it it’s supposed to console the chaps who haven’t won prizes.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the good of that to me? I’m not worrying about them. It’s the -ones that have won prizes that I’m worrying about, the little blighters -who will come up on the platform. Suppose they make faces at me.”</p> - -<p>“They won’t.”</p> - -<p>“How do you know they won’t? It’s probably the first thing they’ll think -of. And even if they don’t—Bertie, shall I tell you something?”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve a good mind to take that tip of yours and have a drink.”</p> - -<p>I smiled. He little knew, about summed up what I was thinking.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’ll be all right,” I said.</p> - -<p>He became fevered again.</p> - -<p>“How do you know I’ll be all right? I’m sure to blow up in my lines.”</p> - -<p>“Tush!”</p> - -<p>“Or drop a prize.”</p> - -<p>“Tut!”</p> - -<p>“Or something. I can feel it in my bones. As sure as I’m standing here, -something is going to happen this afternoon which will make everybody -laugh themselves sick at me. I can hear them now. Like hyenas.... -Bertie!”</p> - -<p>“Hullo?”</p> - -<p>“Do you remember that kids’ school we went to before Eton?”</p> - -<p>“Quite. It was there I won my Scripture prize.”</p> - -<p>“Never mind about your Scripture prize. I’m not talking about your -Scripture prize. Do you recollect the Bosher incident?”</p> - -<p>I did, indeed. It was one of the high spots of my youth.</p> - -<p>“Major-General Sir Wilfred Bosher came to distribute the prizes at that -school,” proceeded Gussie in a dull, toneless voice. “He dropped a book. -He stooped to pick it up. And, as he stooped, his trousers split up the -back.”</p> - -<p>“How we roared!”</p> - -<p>Gussie’s face twisted.</p> - -<p>“We did, little swine that we were. Instead of remaining silent and -exhibiting a decent sympathy for a gallant officer at a peculiarly -embarrassing moment, we howled and yelled with mirth. I loudest of any. -That is what will happen to me this afternoon, Bertie. It will be a -judgment on me for laughing like that at Major-General Sir Wilfred -Bosher.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, Gussie, old man. Your trousers won’t split.”</p> - -<p>“How do you know they won’t? Better men than I have split their trousers. -General Bosher was a D.S.O., with a fine record of service on the -north-western frontier of India, and his trousers split. I shall be a -mockery and a scorn. I know it. And you, fully cognizant of what I am in -for, come babbling about good news. What news could possibly be good to me -at this moment except the information that bubonic plague had broken out -among the scholars of Market Snodsbury Grammar School, and that they were -all confined to their beds with spots?”</p> - -<p>The moment had come for me to speak. I laid a hand gently on his -shoulder. He brushed it off. I laid it on again. He brushed it off once -more. I was endeavouring to lay it on for the third time, when he moved -aside and desired, with a certain petulance, to be informed if I thought -I was a ruddy osteopath.</p> - -<p>I found his manner trying, but one has to make allowances. I was telling -myself that I should be seeing a very different Gussie after lunch.</p> - -<p>“When I said I had good news, old man, I meant about Madeline Bassett.”</p> - -<p>The febrile gleam died out of his eyes, to be replaced by a look of -infinite sadness.</p> - -<p>“You can’t have good news about her. I’ve dished myself there completely.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all. I am convinced that if you take another whack at her, all -will be well.”</p> - -<p>And, keeping it snappy, I related what had passed between the Bassett and -myself on the previous night.</p> - -<p>“So all you have to do is play a return date, and you cannot fail to -swing the voting. You are her dream man.”</p> - -<p>He shook his head.</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“No use.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit of good trying.”</p> - -<p>“But I tell you she said in so many words——”</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t make any difference. She may have loved me once. Last night -will have killed all that.”</p> - -<p>“Of course it won’t.”</p> - -<p>“It will. She despises me now.”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit of it. She knows you simply got cold feet.”</p> - -<p>“And I should get cold feet if I tried again. It’s no good, Bertie. I’m -hopeless, and there’s an end of it. Fate made me the sort of chap who -can’t say ‘bo’ to a goose.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t a question of saying ‘bo’ to a goose. The point doesn’t arise -at all. It is simply a matter of——”</p> - -<p>“I know, I know. But it’s no good. I can’t do it. The whole thing is off. -I am not going to risk a repetition of last night’s fiasco. You talk in a -light way of taking another whack at her, but you don’t know what it -means. You have not been through the experience of starting to ask the -girl you love to marry you and then suddenly finding yourself talking -about the plumlike external gills of the newly-born newt. It’s not a -thing you can do twice. No, I accept my destiny. It’s all over. And now, -Bertie, like a good chap, shove off. I want to compose my speech. I can’t -compose my speech with you mucking around. If you are going to continue -to muck around, at least give me a couple of stories. The little hell -hounds are sure to expect a story or two.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know the one about——”</p> - -<p>“No good. I don’t want any of your off-colour stuff from the Drones’ -smoking-room. I need something clean. Something that will be a help to -them in their after lives. Not that I care a damn about their after -lives, except that I hope they’ll all choke.”</p> - -<p>“I heard a story the other day. I can’t quite remember it, but it was -about a chap who snored and disturbed the neighbours, and it ended, ‘It -was his adenoids that adenoid them.’”</p> - -<p>He made a weary gesture.</p> - -<p>“You expect me to work that in, do you, into a speech to be delivered to -an audience of boys, every one of whom is probably riddled with adenoids? -Damn it, they’d rush the platform. Leave me, Bertie. Push off. That’s all -I ask you to do. Push off.... Ladies and gentlemen,” said Gussie, in a -low, soliloquizing sort of way, “I do not propose to detain this -auspicious occasion long——”</p> - -<p>It was a thoughtful Wooster who walked away and left him at it. More than -ever I was congratulating myself on having had the sterling good sense to -make all my arrangements so that I could press a button and set things -moving at an instant’s notice.</p> - -<p>Until now, you see, I had rather entertained a sort of hope that when I -had revealed to him the Bassett’s mental attitude, Nature would have done -the rest, bracing him up to such an extent that artificial stimulants -would not be required. Because, naturally, a chap doesn’t want to have to -sprint about country houses lugging jugs of orange juice, unless it is -absolutely essential.</p> - -<p>But now I saw that I must carry on as planned. The total absence of pep, -ginger, and the right spirit which the man had displayed during these -conversational exchanges convinced me that the strongest measures would -be necessary. Immediately upon leaving him, therefore, I proceeded to the -pantry, waited till the butler had removed himself elsewhere, and nipped -in and secured the vital jug. A few moments later, after a wary passage -of the stairs, I was in my room. And the first thing I saw there was -Jeeves, fooling about with trousers.</p> - -<p>He gave the jug a look which—wrongly, as it was to turn out—I diagnosed -as censorious. I drew myself up a bit. I intended to have no rot from the -fellow.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“You have the air of one about to make a remark, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, sir. I note that you are in possession of Mr. Fink-Nottle’s -orange juice. I was merely about to observe that in my opinion it would -be injudicious to add spirit to it.”</p> - -<p>“That is a remark, Jeeves, and it is precisely——”</p> - -<p>“Because I have already attended to the matter, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. I decided, after all, to acquiesce in your wishes.”</p> - -<p>I stared at the man, astounded. I was deeply moved. Well, I mean, -wouldn’t any chap who had been going about thinking that the old feudal -spirit was dead and then suddenly found it wasn’t have been deeply moved?</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “I am touched.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Touched and gratified.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you very much, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But what caused this change of heart?”</p> - -<p>“I chanced to encounter Mr. Fink-Nottle in the garden, sir, while you -were still in bed, and we had a brief conversation.”</p> - -<p>“And you came away feeling that he needed a bracer?”</p> - -<p>“Very much so, sir. His attitude struck me as defeatist.”</p> - -<p>I nodded.</p> - -<p>“I felt the same. ‘Defeatist’ sums it up to a nicety. Did you tell him -his attitude struck you as defeatist?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But it didn’t do any good?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, then, Jeeves. We must act. How much gin did you put in the -jug?”</p> - -<p>“A liberal tumblerful, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Would that be a normal dose for an adult defeatist, do you think?”</p> - -<p>“I fancy it should prove adequate, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder. We must not spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar. I think I’ll -add just another fluid ounce or so.”</p> - -<p>“I would not advocate it, sir. In the case of Lord Brancaster’s -parrot——”</p> - -<p>“You are falling into your old error, Jeeves, of thinking that Gussie is -a parrot. Fight against this. I shall add the oz.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And, by the way, Jeeves, Mr. Fink-Nottle is in the market for bright, -clean stories to use in his speech. Do you know any?”</p> - -<p>“I know a story about two Irishmen, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Pat and Mike?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Who were walking along Broadway?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Just what he wants. Any more?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, every little helps. You had better go and tell it to him.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>He passed from the room, and I unscrewed the flask and tilted into the -jug a generous modicum of its contents. And scarcely had I done so, when -there came to my ears the sound of footsteps without. I had only just -time to shove the jug behind the photograph of Uncle Tom on the -mantelpiece before the door opened and in came Gussie, curveting like a -circus horse.</p> - -<p>“What-ho, Bertie,” he said. “What-ho, what-ho, what-ho, and again -what-ho. What a beautiful world this is, Bertie. One of the nicest I -ever met.”</p> - -<p>I stared at him, speechless. We Woosters are as quick as lightning, and I -saw at once that something had happened.</p> - -<p>I mean to say, I told you about him walking round in circles. I recorded -what passed between us on the lawn. And if I portrayed the scene with -anything like adequate skill, the picture you will have retained of this -Fink-Nottle will have been that of a nervous wreck, sagging at the knees, -green about the gills, and picking feverishly at the lapels of his coat -in an ecstasy of craven fear. In a word, defeatist. Gussie, during that -interview, had, in fine, exhibited all the earmarks of one licked to a -custard.</p> - -<p>Vastly different was the Gussie who stood before me now. Self-confidence -seemed to ooze from the fellow’s every pore. His face was flushed, there -was a jovial light in his eyes, the lips were parted in a swashbuckling -smile. And when with a genial hand he sloshed me on the back before I -could sidestep, it was as if I had been kicked by a mule.</p> - -<p>“Well, Bertie,” he proceeded, as blithely as a linnet without a thing on -his mind, “you will be glad to hear that you were right. Your theory has -been tested and proved correct. I feel like a fighting cock.”</p> - -<p>My brain ceased to reel. I saw all.</p> - -<p>“Have you been having a drink?”</p> - -<p>“I have. As you advised. Unpleasant stuff. Like medicine. Burns your -throat, too, and makes one as thirsty as the dickens. How anyone can mop -it up, as you do, for pleasure, beats me. Still, I would be the last to -deny that it tunes up the system. I could bite a tiger.”</p> - -<p>“What did you have?”</p> - -<p>“Whisky. At least, that was the label on the decanter, and I have no -reason to suppose that a woman like your aunt—staunch, true-blue, -British—would deliberately deceive the public. If she labels her -decanters Whisky, then I consider that we know where we are.”</p> - -<p>“A whisky and soda, eh? You couldn’t have done better.”</p> - -<p>“Soda?” said Gussie thoughtfully. “I knew there was something I had -forgotten.”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you put any soda in it?”</p> - -<p>“It never occurred to me. I just nipped into the dining-room and drank -out of the decanter.”</p> - -<p>“How much?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, about ten swallows. Twelve, maybe. Or fourteen. Say sixteen -medium-sized gulps. Gosh, I’m thirsty.”</p> - -<p>He moved over to the wash-stand and drank deeply out of the water bottle. -I cast a covert glance at Uncle Tom’s photograph behind his back. For the -first time since it had come into my life, I was glad that it was so -large. It hid its secret well. If Gussie had caught sight of that jug of -orange juice, he would unquestionably have been on to it like a knife.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling braced,” I said.</p> - -<p>He moved buoyantly from the wash-hand stand, and endeavoured to slosh me -on the back again. Foiled by my nimble footwork, he staggered to the bed -and sat down upon it.</p> - -<p>“Braced? Did I say I could bite a tiger?”</p> - -<p>“You did.”</p> - -<p>“Make it two tigers. I could chew holes in a steel door. What an ass you -must have thought me out there in the garden. I see now you were laughing -in your sleeve.”</p> - -<p>“No, no.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” insisted Gussie. “That very sleeve,” he said, pointing. “And I -don’t blame you. I can’t imagine why I made all that fuss about a potty -job like distributing prizes at a rotten little country grammar school. -Can you imagine, Bertie?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. Nor can I imagine. There’s simply nothing to it. I just shin up -on the platform, drop a few gracious words, hand the little blighters -their prizes, and hop down again, admired by all. Not a suggestion of -split trousers from start to finish. I mean, why should anybody split his -trousers? I can’t imagine. Can you imagine?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Nor can I imagine. I shall be a riot. I know just the sort of stuff -that’s needed—simple, manly, optimistic stuff straight from the -shoulder. This shoulder,” said Gussie, tapping. “Why I was so nervous -this morning I can’t imagine. For anything simpler than distributing a -few footling books to a bunch of grimy-faced kids I can’t imagine. Still, -for some reason I can’t imagine, I was feeling a little nervous, but now -I feel fine, Bertie—fine, fine, fine—and I say this to you as an old -friend. Because that’s what you are, old man, when all the smoke has -cleared away—an old friend. I don’t think I’ve ever met an older friend. -How long have you been an old friend of mine, Bertie?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, years and years.”</p> - -<p>“Imagine! Though, of course, there must have been a time when you were a -new friend.... Hullo, the luncheon gong. Come on, old friend.”</p> - -<p>And, rising from the bed like a performing flea, he made for the door.</p> - -<p>I followed rather pensively. What had occurred was, of course, so much -velvet, as you might say. I mean, I had wanted a braced Fink-Nottle— -indeed, all my plans had had a braced Fink-Nottle as their end and aim -—but I found myself wondering a little whether the Fink-Nottle now -sliding down the banister wasn’t, perhaps, a shade too braced. His -demeanour seemed to me that of a man who might quite easily throw bread -about at lunch.</p> - -<p>Fortunately, however, the settled gloom of those round him exercised a -restraining effect upon him at the table. It would have needed a far more -plastered man to have been rollicking at such a gathering. I had told the -Bassett that there were aching hearts in Brinkley Court, and it now -looked probable that there would shortly be aching tummies. Anatole, I -learned, had retired to his bed with a fit of the vapours, and the meal -now before us had been cooked by the kitchen maid—as C3 a performer as -ever wielded a skillet.</p> - -<p>This, coming on top of their other troubles, induced in the company a -pretty unanimous silence—a solemn stillness, as you might say—which -even Gussie did not seem prepared to break. Except, therefore, for one -short snatch of song on his part, nothing untoward marked the occasion, -and presently we rose, with instructions from Aunt Dahlia to put on -festal raiment and be at Market Snodsbury not later than 3.30. This -leaving me ample time to smoke a gasper or two in a shady bower beside -the lake, I did so, repairing to my room round about the hour of three.</p> - -<p>Jeeves was on the job, adding the final polish to the old topper, and I -was about to apprise him of the latest developments in the matter of -Gussie, when he forestalled me by observing that the latter had only just -concluded an agreeable visit to the Wooster bedchamber.</p> - -<p>“I found Mr. Fink-Nottle seated here when I arrived to lay out your -clothes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, Jeeves? Gussie was in here, was he?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. He left only a few moments ago. He is driving to the school -with Mr. and Mrs. Travers in the large car.”</p> - -<p>“Did you give him your story of the two Irishmen?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. He laughed heartily.”</p> - -<p>“Good. Had you any other contributions for him?”</p> - -<p>“I ventured to suggest that he might mention to the young gentlemen that -education is a drawing out, not a putting in. The late Lord Brancaster -was much addicted to presenting prizes at schools, and he invariably -employed this dictum.”</p> - -<p>“And how did he react to that?”</p> - -<p>“He laughed heartily, sir.”</p> - -<p>“This surprised you, no doubt? This practically incessant merriment, I -mean.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You thought it odd in one who, when you last saw him, was well up in -Group A of the defeatists.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“There is a ready explanation, Jeeves. Since you last saw him, Gussie has -been on a bender. He’s as tight as an owl.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely. His nerve cracked under the strain, and he sneaked into the -dining-room and started mopping the stuff up like a vacuum cleaner. -Whisky would seem to be what he filled the radiator with. I gather that -he used up most of the decanter. Golly, Jeeves, it’s lucky he didn’t get -at that laced orange juice on top of that, what?”</p> - -<p>“Extremely, sir.”</p> - -<p>I eyed the jug. Uncle Tom’s photograph had fallen into the fender, and it -was standing there right out in the open, where Gussie couldn’t have -helped seeing it. Mercifully, it was empty now.</p> - -<p>“It was a most prudent act on your part, if I may say so, sir, to dispose -of the orange juice.”</p> - -<p>I stared at the man.</p> - -<p>“What? Didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Jeeves, let us get this clear. Was it not you who threw away that o.j.?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. I assumed, when I entered the room and found the pitcher empty, -that you had done so.”</p> - -<p>We looked at each other, awed. Two minds with but a single thought.</p> - -<p>“I very much fear, sir——”</p> - -<p>“So do I, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“It would seem almost certain——”</p> - -<p>“Quite certain. Weigh the facts. Sift the evidence. The jug was standing -on the mantelpiece, for all eyes to behold. Gussie had been complaining -of thirst. You found him in here, laughing heartily. I think that there -can be little doubt, Jeeves, that the entire contents of that jug are at -this moment reposing on top of the existing cargo in that already -brilliantly lit man’s interior. Disturbing, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Most disturbing, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Let us face the position, forcing ourselves to be calm. You inserted in -that jug—shall we say a tumblerful of the right stuff?”</p> - -<p>“Fully a tumblerful, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And I added of my plenty about the same amount.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And in two shakes of a duck’s tail Gussie, with all that lapping about -inside him, will be distributing the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar -School before an audience of all that is fairest and most refined in the -county.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“It seems to me, Jeeves, that the ceremony may be one fraught with -considerable interest.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What, in your opinion, will the harvest be?”</p> - -<p>“One finds it difficult to hazard a conjecture, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You mean imagination boggles?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>I inspected my imagination. He was right. It boggled.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-17-</h2> - - -<p>“And yet, Jeeves,” I said, twiddling a thoughtful steering wheel, “there -is always the bright side.”</p> - -<p>Some twenty minutes had elapsed, and having picked the honest fellow up -outside the front door, I was driving in the two-seater to the -picturesque town of Market Snodsbury. Since we had parted—he to go to -his lair and fetch his hat, I to remain in my room and complete the -formal costume—I had been doing some close thinking.</p> - -<p>The results of this I now proceeded to hand on to him.</p> - -<p>“However dark the prospect may be, Jeeves, however murkily the storm -clouds may seem to gather, a keen eye can usually discern the blue bird. -It is bad, no doubt, that Gussie should be going, some ten minutes from -now, to distribute prizes in a state of advanced intoxication, but we -must never forget that these things cut both ways.”</p> - -<p>“You imply, sir——”</p> - -<p>“Precisely. I am thinking of him in his capacity of wooer. All this ought -to have put him in rare shape for offering his hand in marriage. I shall -be vastly surprised if it won’t turn him into a sort of caveman. Have you -ever seen James Cagney in the movies?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Something on those lines.”</p> - -<p>I heard him cough, and sniped him with a sideways glance. He was wearing -that informative look of his.</p> - -<p>“Then you have not heard, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“You are not aware that a marriage has been arranged and will shortly -take place between Mr. Fink-Nottle and Miss Bassett?”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“When did this happen?”</p> - -<p>“Shortly after Mr. Fink-Nottle had left your room, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! In the post-orange-juice era?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But are you sure of your facts? How do you know?”</p> - -<p>“My informant was Mr. Fink-Nottle himself, sir. He appeared anxious to -confide in me. His story was somewhat incoherent, but I had no difficulty -in apprehending its substance. Prefacing his remarks with the statement -that this was a beautiful world, he laughed heartily and said that he had -become formally engaged.”</p> - -<p>“No details?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But one can picture the scene.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I mean, imagination doesn’t boggle.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>And it didn’t. I could see exactly what must have happened. Insert a -liberal dose of mixed spirits in a normally abstemious man, and he -becomes a force. He does not stand around, twiddling his fingers and -stammering. He acts. I had no doubt that Gussie must have reached for the -Bassett and clasped her to him like a stevedore handling a sack of coals. -And one could readily envisage the effect of that sort of thing on a girl -of romantic mind.</p> - -<p>“Well, well, well, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“This is splendid news.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You see now how right I was.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“It must have been rather an eye-opener for you, watching me handle this -case.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“The simple, direct method never fails.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Whereas the elaborate does.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>We had arrived at the main entrance of Market Snodsbury Grammar School. I -parked the car, and went in, well content. True, the Tuppy-Angela problem -still remained unsolved and Aunt Dahlia’s five hundred quid seemed as far -off as ever, but it was gratifying to feel that good old Gussie’s -troubles were over, at any rate.</p> - -<p>The Grammar School at Market Snodsbury had, I understood, been built -somewhere in the year 1416, and, as with so many of these ancient -foundations, there still seemed to brood over its Great Hall, where the -afternoon’s festivities were to take place, not a little of the fug of -the centuries. It was the hottest day of the summer, and though somebody -had opened a tentative window or two, the atmosphere remained distinctive -and individual.</p> - -<p>In this hall the youth of Market Snodsbury had been eating its daily -lunch for a matter of five hundred years, and the flavour lingered. The -air was sort of heavy and languorous, if you know what I mean, with the -scent of Young England and boiled beef and carrots.</p> - -<p>Aunt Dahlia, who was sitting with a bevy of the local nibs in the second -row, sighted me as I entered and waved to me to join her, but I was too -smart for that. I wedged myself in among the standees at the back, -leaning up against a chap who, from the aroma, might have been a corn -chandler or something on that order. The essence of strategy on these -occasions is to be as near the door as possible.</p> - -<p>The hall was gaily decorated with flags and coloured paper, and the eye -was further refreshed by the spectacle of a mixed drove of boys, parents, -and what not, the former running a good deal to shiny faces and Eton -collars, the latter stressing the black-satin note rather when female, -and looking as if their coats were too tight, if male. And presently -there was some applause—sporadic, Jeeves has since told me it was—and I -saw Gussie being steered by a bearded bloke in a gown to a seat in the -middle of the platform.</p> - -<p>And I confess that as I beheld him and felt that there but for the grace -of God went Bertram Wooster, a shudder ran through the frame. It all -reminded me so vividly of the time I had addressed that girls’ school.</p> - -<p>Of course, looking at it dispassionately, you may say that for horror and -peril there is no comparison between an almost human audience like the -one before me and a mob of small girls with pigtails down their backs, -and this, I concede, is true. Nevertheless, the spectacle was enough to -make me feel like a fellow watching a pal going over Niagara Falls in a -barrel, and the thought of what I had escaped caused everything for a -moment to go black and swim before my eyes.</p> - -<p>When I was able to see clearly once more, I perceived that Gussie was now -seated. He had his hands on his knees, with his elbows out at right -angles, like a nigger minstrel of the old school about to ask Mr. Bones -why a chicken crosses the road, and he was staring before him with a -smile so fixed and pebble-beached that I should have thought that anybody -could have guessed that there sat one in whom the old familiar juice was -plashing up against the back of the front teeth.</p> - -<p>In fact, I saw Aunt Dahlia, who, having assisted at so many hunting -dinners in her time, is second to none as a judge of the symptoms, give a -start and gaze long and earnestly. And she was just saying something to -Uncle Tom on her left when the bearded bloke stepped to the footlights -and started making a speech. From the fact that he spoke as if he had a -hot potato in his mouth without getting the raspberry from the lads in -the ringside seats, I deduced that he must be the head master.</p> - -<p>With his arrival in the spotlight, a sort of perspiring resignation -seemed to settle on the audience. Personally, I snuggled up against the -chandler and let my attention wander. The speech was on the subject of -the doings of the school during the past term, and this part of a -prize-giving is always apt rather to fail to grip the visiting stranger. -I mean, you know how it is. You’re told that J.B. Brewster has won an -Exhibition for Classics at Cat’s, Cambridge, and you feel that it’s one -of those stories where you can’t see how funny it is unless you really -know the fellow. And the same applies to G. Bullett being awarded the -Lady Jane Wix Scholarship at the Birmingham College of Veterinary -Science.</p> - -<p>In fact, I and the corn chandler, who was looking a bit fagged I thought, -as if he had had a hard morning chandling the corn, were beginning to -doze lightly when things suddenly brisked up, bringing Gussie into the -picture for the first time.</p> - -<p>“Today,” said the bearded bloke, “we are all happy to welcome as the -guest of the afternoon Mr. Fitz-Wattle——”</p> - -<p>At the beginning of the address, Gussie had subsided into a sort of -daydream, with his mouth hanging open. About half-way through, faint -signs of life had begun to show. And for the last few minutes he had been -trying to cross one leg over the other and failing and having another -shot and failing again. But only now did he exhibit any real animation. -He sat up with a jerk.</p> - -<p>“Fink-Nottle,” he said, opening his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Fitz-Nottle.”</p> - -<p>“Fink-Nottle.”</p> - -<p>“I should say Fink-Nottle.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you should, you silly ass,” said Gussie genially. “All right, -get on with it.”</p> - -<p>And closing his eyes, he began trying to cross his legs again.</p> - -<p>I could see that this little spot of friction had rattled the bearded -bloke a bit. He stood for a moment fumbling at the fungus with a -hesitating hand. But they make these head masters of tough stuff. The -weakness passed. He came back nicely and carried on.</p> - -<p>“We are all happy, I say, to welcome as the guest of the afternoon Mr. -Fink-Nottle, who has kindly consented to award the prizes. This task, as -you know, is one that should have devolved upon that well-beloved and -vigorous member of our board of governors, the Rev. William Plomer, and -we are all, I am sure, very sorry that illness at the last moment should -have prevented him from being here today. But, if I may borrow a familiar -metaphor from the—if I may employ a homely metaphor familiar to you -all—what we lose on the swings we gain on the roundabouts.”</p> - -<p>He paused, and beamed rather freely, to show that this was comedy. I -could have told the man it was no use. Not a ripple. The corn chandler -leaned against me and muttered “Whoddidesay?” but that was all.</p> - -<p>It’s always a nasty jar to wait for the laugh and find that the gag -hasn’t got across. The bearded bloke was visibly discomposed. At that, -however, I think he would have got by, had he not, at this juncture, -unfortunately stirred Gussie up again.</p> - -<p>“In other words, though deprived of Mr. Plomer, we have with us this -afternoon Mr. Fink-Nottle. I am sure that Mr. Fink-Nottle’s name is one -that needs no introduction to you. It is, I venture to assert, a name -that is familiar to us all.”</p> - -<p>“Not to you,” said Gussie.</p> - -<p>And the next moment I saw what Jeeves had meant when he had described him -as laughing heartily. “Heartily” was absolutely the <i>mot juste</i>. It -sounded like a gas explosion.</p> - -<p>“You didn’t seem to know it so dashed well, what, what?” said Gussie. -And, reminded apparently by the word “what” of the word “Wattle,” he -repeated the latter some sixteen times with a rising inflection.</p> - -<p>“Wattle, Wattle, Wattle,” he concluded. “Right-ho. Push on.”</p> - -<p>But the bearded bloke had shot his bolt. He stood there, licked at last; -and, watching him closely, I could see that he was now at the crossroads. -I could spot what he was thinking as clearly as if he had confided it to -my personal ear. He wanted to sit down and call it a day, I mean, but the -thought that gave him pause was that, if he did, he must then either -uncork Gussie or take the Fink-Nottle speech as read and get straight on -to the actual prize-giving.</p> - -<p>It was a dashed tricky thing, of course, to have to decide on the spur of -the moment. I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds -who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven’t the -foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the -other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel, -no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up -in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.</p> - -<p>So with the bearded bloke. Whether he was abreast of the inside facts in -Gussie’s case, I don’t know, but it was obvious to him by this time that -he had run into something pretty hot. Trial gallops had shown that Gussie -had his own way of doing things. Those interruptions had been enough to -prove to the perspicacious that here, seated on the platform at the big -binge of the season, was one who, if pushed forward to make a speech, -might let himself go in a rather epoch-making manner.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, chain him up and put a green-baize cloth over him, and -where were you? The proceeding would be over about half an hour too soon.</p> - -<p>It was, as I say, a difficult problem to have to solve, and, left to -himself, I don’t know what conclusion he would have come to. Personally, -I think he would have played it safe. As it happened, however, the thing -was taken out of his hands, for at this moment, Gussie, having stretched -his arms and yawned a bit, switched on that pebble-beached smile again -and tacked down to the edge of the platform.</p> - -<p>“Speech,” he said affably.</p> - -<p>He then stood with his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, waiting -for the applause to die down.</p> - -<p>It was some time before this happened, for he had got a very fine hand -indeed. I suppose it wasn’t often that the boys of Market Snodsbury -Grammar School came across a man public-spirited enough to call their -head master a silly ass, and they showed their appreciation in no -uncertain manner. Gussie may have been one over the eight, but as far as -the majority of those present were concerned he was sitting on top of the -world.</p> - -<p>“Boys,” said Gussie, “I mean ladies and gentlemen and boys, I do not -detain you long, but I suppose on this occasion to feel compelled to say -a few auspicious words; Ladies—and boys and gentlemen—we have all -listened with interest to the remarks of our friend here who forgot to -shave this morning—I don’t know his name, but then he didn’t know -mine—Fitz-Wattle, I mean, absolutely absurd—which squares things up a -bit—and we are all sorry that the Reverend What-ever-he-was-called should -be dying of adenoids, but after all, here today, gone tomorrow, and all -flesh is as grass, and what not, but that wasn’t what I wanted to say. -What I wanted to say was this—and I say it confidently—without fear of -contradiction—I say, in short, I am happy to be here on this auspicious -occasion and I take much pleasure in kindly awarding the prizes, -consisting of the handsome books you see laid out on that table. As -Shakespeare says, there are sermons in books, stones in the running -brooks, or, rather, the other way about, and there you have it in a -nutshell.”</p> - -<p>It went well, and I wasn’t surprised. I couldn’t quite follow some of it, -but anybody could see that it was real ripe stuff, and I was amazed that -even the course of treatment he had been taking could have rendered so -normally tongue-tied a dumb brick as Gussie capable of it.</p> - -<p>It just shows, what any member of Parliament will tell you, that if you -want real oratory, the preliminary noggin is essential. Unless pie-eyed, -you cannot hope to grip.</p> - -<p>“Gentlemen,” said Gussie, “I mean ladies and gentlemen and, of course, -boys, what a beautiful world this is. A beautiful world, full of -happiness on every side. Let me tell you a little story. Two Irishmen, -Pat and Mike, were walking along Broadway, and one said to the other, -‘Begorrah, the race is not always to the swift,’ and the other replied, -‘Faith and begob, education is a drawing out, not a putting in.’”</p> - -<p>I must say it seemed to me the rottenest story I had ever heard, and I -was surprised that Jeeves should have considered it worth while shoving -into a speech. However, when I taxed him with this later, he said that -Gussie had altered the plot a good deal, and I dare say that accounts for -it.</p> - -<p>At any rate, that was the <i>conte</i> as Gussie told it, and when I say that -it got a very fair laugh, you will understand what a popular favourite he -had become with the multitude. There might be a bearded bloke or so on -the platform and a small section in the second row who were wishing the -speaker would conclude his remarks and resume his seat, but the audience -as a whole was for him solidly.</p> - -<p>There was applause, and a voice cried: “Hear, hear!”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Gussie, “it is a beautiful world. The sky is blue, the birds -are singing, there is optimism everywhere. And why not, boys and ladies -and gentlemen? I’m happy, you’re happy, we’re all happy, even the meanest -Irishman that walks along Broadway. Though, as I say, there were two of -them—Pat and Mike, one drawing out, the other putting in. I should like -you boys, taking the time from me, to give three cheers for this -beautiful world. All together now.”</p> - -<p>Presently the dust settled down and the plaster stopped falling from the -ceiling, and he went on.</p> - -<p>“People who say it isn’t a beautiful world don’t know what they are -talking about. Driving here in the car today to award the kind prizes, I -was reluctantly compelled to tick off my host on this very point. Old Tom -Travers. You will see him sitting there in the second row next to the -large lady in beige.”</p> - -<p>He pointed helpfully, and the hundred or so Market Snods-buryians who -craned their necks in the direction indicated were able to observe Uncle -Tom blushing prettily.</p> - -<p>“I ticked him off properly, the poor fish. He expressed the opinion that -the world was in a deplorable state. I said, ‘Don’t talk rot, old Tom -Travers.’ ‘I am not accustomed to talk rot,’ he said. ‘Then, for a -beginner,’ I said, ‘you do it dashed well.’ And I think you will admit, -boys and ladies and gentlemen, that that was telling him.”</p> - -<p>The audience seemed to agree with him. The point went big. The voice that -had said, “Hear, hear” said “Hear, hear” again, and my corn chandler -hammered the floor vigorously with a large-size walking stick.</p> - -<p>“Well, boys,” resumed Gussie, having shot his cuffs and smirked horribly, -“this is the end of the summer term, and many of you, no doubt, are -leaving the school. And I don’t blame you, because there’s a froust in -here you could cut with a knife. You are going out into the great world. -Soon many of you will be walking along Broadway. And what I want to -impress upon you is that, however much you may suffer from adenoids, you -must all use every effort to prevent yourselves becoming pessimists and -talking rot like old Tom Travers. There in the second row. The fellow -with a face rather like a walnut.”</p> - -<p>He paused to allow those wishing to do so to refresh themselves with -another look at Uncle Tom, and I found myself musing in some little -perplexity. Long association with the members of the Drones has put me -pretty well in touch with the various ways in which an overdose of the -blushful Hippocrene can take the individual, but I had never seen anyone -react quite as Gussie was doing.</p> - -<p>There was a snap about his work which I had never witnessed before, even -in Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps on New Year’s Eve.</p> - -<p>Jeeves, when I discussed the matter with him later, said it was something -to do with inhibitions, if I caught the word correctly, and the -suppression of, I think he said, the ego. What he meant, I gathered, was -that, owing to the fact that Gussie had just completed a five years’ -stretch of blameless seclusion among the newts, all the goofiness which -ought to have been spread out thin over those five years and had been -bottled up during that period came to the surface on this occasion in a -lump—or, if you prefer to put it that way, like a tidal wave.</p> - -<p>There may be something in this. Jeeves generally knows.</p> - -<p>Anyway, be that as it may, I was dashed glad I had had the shrewdness to -keep out of that second row. It might be unworthy of the prestige of a -Wooster to squash in among the proletariat in the standing-room-only -section, but at least, I felt, I was out of the danger zone. So -thoroughly had Gussie got it up his nose by now that it seemed to me that -had he sighted me he might have become personal about even an old school -friend.</p> - -<p>“If there’s one thing in the world I can’t stand,” proceeded Gussie, -“it’s a pessimist. Be optimists, boys. You all know the difference -between an optimist and a pessimist. An optimist is a man who—well, take -the case of two Irishmen walking along Broadway. One is an optimist and -one is a pessimist, just as one’s name is Pat and the other’s Mike.... -Why, hullo, Bertie; I didn’t know you were here.”</p> - -<p>Too late, I endeavoured to go to earth behind the chandler, only to -discover that there was no chandler there. Some appointment, suddenly -remembered—possibly a promise to his wife that he would be home to -tea—had caused him to ooze away while my attention was elsewhere, -leaving me right out in the open.</p> - -<p>Between me and Gussie, who was now pointing in an offensive manner, there -was nothing but a sea of interested faces looking up at me.</p> - -<p>“Now, there,” boomed Gussie, continuing to point, “is an instance of what -I mean. Boys and ladies and gentlemen, take a good look at that object -standing up there at the back—morning coat, trousers as worn, quiet grey -tie, and carnation in buttonhole—you can’t miss him. Bertie Wooster, -that is, and as foul a pessimist as ever bit a tiger. I tell you I -despise that man. And why do I despise him? Because, boys and ladies and -gentlemen, he is a pessimist. His attitude is defeatist. When I told him -I was going to address you this afternoon, he tried to dissuade me. And -do you know why he tried to dissuade me? Because he said my trousers -would split up the back.”</p> - -<p>The cheers that greeted this were the loudest yet. Anything about -splitting trousers went straight to the simple hearts of the young -scholars of Market Snodsbury Grammar School. Two in the row in front of -me turned purple, and a small lad with freckles seated beside them asked -me for my autograph.</p> - -<p>“Let me tell you a story about Bertie Wooster.”</p> - -<p>A Wooster can stand a good deal, but he cannot stand having his name -bandied in a public place. Picking my feet up softly, I was in the very -process of executing a quiet sneak for the door, when I perceived that -the bearded bloke had at last decided to apply the closure.</p> - -<p>Why he hadn’t done so before is beyond me. Spell-bound, I take it. And, -of course, when a chap is going like a breeze with the public, as Gussie -had been, it’s not so dashed easy to chip in. However, the prospect of -hearing another of Gussie’s anecdotes seemed to have done the trick. -Rising rather as I had risen from my bench at the beginning of that -painful scene with Tuppy in the twilight, he made a leap for the table, -snatched up a book and came bearing down on the speaker.</p> - -<p>He touched Gussie on the arm, and Gussie, turning sharply and seeing a -large bloke with a beard apparently about to bean him with a book, sprang -back in an attitude of self-defence.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps, as time is getting on, Mr. Fink-Nottle, we had better——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, ah,” said Gussie, getting the trend. He relaxed. “The prizes, eh? Of -course, yes. Right-ho. Yes, might as well be shoving along with it. -What’s this one?”</p> - -<p>“Spelling and dictation—P.K. Purvis,” announced the bearded bloke.</p> - -<p>“Spelling and dictation—P.K. Purvis,” echoed Gussie, as if he were -calling coals. “Forward, P.K. Purvis.”</p> - -<p>Now that the whistle had been blown on his speech, it seemed to me that -there was no longer any need for the strategic retreat which I had been -planning. I had no wish to tear myself away unless I had to. I mean, I -had told Jeeves that this binge would be fraught with interest, and it -was fraught with interest. There was a fascination about Gussie’s methods -which gripped and made one reluctant to pass the thing up provided -personal innuendoes were steered clear of. I decided, accordingly, to -remain, and presently there was a musical squeaking and P.K. Purvis -climbed the platform.</p> - -<p>The spelling-and-dictation champ was about three foot six in his -squeaking shoes, with a pink face and sandy hair. Gussie patted his hair. -He seemed to have taken an immediate fancy to the lad.</p> - -<p>“You P.K. Purvis?”</p> - -<p>“Sir, yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a beautiful world, P.K. Purvis.”</p> - -<p>“Sir, yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, you’ve noticed it, have you? Good. You married, by any chance?”</p> - -<p>“Sir, no, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Get married, P.K. Purvis,” said Gussie earnestly. “It’s the only life -... Well, here’s your book. Looks rather bilge to me from a glance at -the title page, but, such as it is, here you are.”</p> - -<p>P.K. Purvis squeaked off amidst sporadic applause, but one could not fail -to note that the sporadic was followed by a rather strained silence. It -was evident that Gussie was striking something of a new note in Market -Snodsbury scholastic circles. Looks were exchanged between parent and -parent. The bearded bloke had the air of one who has drained the bitter -cup. As for Aunt Dahlia, her demeanour now told only too clearly that her -last doubts had been resolved and her verdict was in. I saw her whisper -to the Bassett, who sat on her right, and the Bassett nodded sadly and -looked like a fairy about to shed a tear and add another star to the -Milky Way.</p> - -<p>Gussie, after the departure of P.K. Purvis, had fallen into a sort of -daydream and was standing with his mouth open and his hands in his -pockets. Becoming abruptly aware that a fat kid in knickerbockers was at -his elbow, he started violently.</p> - -<p>“Hullo!” he said, visibly shaken. “Who are you?”</p> - -<p>“This,” said the bearded bloke, “is R.V. Smethurst.”</p> - -<p>“What’s he doing here?” asked Gussie suspiciously.</p> - -<p>“You are presenting him with the drawing prize, Mr. Fink-Nottle.”</p> - -<p>This apparently struck Gussie as a reasonable explanation. His face -cleared.</p> - -<p>“That’s right, too,” he said.... “Well, here it is, cocky. You off?” he -said, as the kid prepared to withdraw.</p> - -<p>“Sir, yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Wait, R.V. Smethurst. Not so fast. Before you go, there is a question I -wish to ask you.”</p> - -<p>But the beard bloke’s aim now seemed to be to rush the ceremonies a bit. -He hustled R.V. Smethurst off stage rather like a chucker-out in a pub -regretfully ejecting an old and respected customer, and starting paging -G.G. Simmons. A moment later the latter was up and coming, and conceive -my emotion when it was announced that the subject on which he had clicked -was Scripture knowledge. One of us, I mean to say.</p> - -<p>G.G. Simmons was an unpleasant, perky-looking stripling, mostly front -teeth and spectacles, but I gave him a big hand. We Scripture-knowledge -sharks stick together.</p> - -<p>Gussie, I was sorry to see, didn’t like him. There was in his manner, as -he regarded G.G. Simmons, none of the chumminess which had marked it -during his interview with P.K. Purvis or, in a somewhat lesser degree, -with R.V. Smethurst. He was cold and distant.</p> - -<p>“Well, G.G. Simmons.”</p> - -<p>“Sir, yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean—sir, yes, sir? Dashed silly thing to say. So you’ve -won the Scripture-knowledge prize, have you?”</p> - -<p>“Sir, yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Gussie, “you look just the sort of little tick who would. And -yet,” he said, pausing and eyeing the child keenly, “how are we to know -that this has all been open and above board? Let me test you, G.G. -Simmons. What was What’s-His-Name—the chap who begat Thingummy? Can you -answer me that, Simmons?”</p> - -<p>“Sir, no, sir.”</p> - -<p>Gussie turned to the bearded bloke.</p> - -<p>“Fishy,” he said. “Very fishy. This boy appears to be totally lacking in -Scripture knowledge.”</p> - -<p>The bearded bloke passed a hand across his forehead.</p> - -<p>“I can assure you, Mr. Fink-Nottle, that every care was taken to ensure a -correct marking and that Simmons outdistanced his competitors by a wide -margin.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if you say so,” said Gussie doubtfully. “All right, G.G. Simmons, -take your prize.”</p> - -<p>“Sir, thank you, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But let me tell you that there’s nothing to stick on side about in -winning a prize for Scripture knowledge. Bertie Wooster——”</p> - -<p>I don’t know when I’ve had a nastier shock. I had been going on the -assumption that, now that they had stopped him making his speech, -Gussie’s fangs had been drawn, as you might say. To duck my head down and -resume my edging toward the door was with me the work of a moment.</p> - -<p>“Bertie Wooster won the Scripture-knowledge prize at a kids’ school we -were at together, and you know what he’s like. But, of course, Bertie -frankly cheated. He succeeded in scrounging that Scripture-knowledge -trophy over the heads of better men by means of some of the rawest and -most brazen swindling methods ever witnessed even at a school where such -things were common. If that man’s pockets, as he entered the -examination-room, were not stuffed to bursting-point with lists of the -kings of Judah——”</p> - -<p>I heard no more. A moment later I was out in God’s air, fumbling with a -fevered foot at the self-starter of the old car.</p> - -<p>The engine raced. The clutch slid into position. I tooted and drove off.</p> - -<p>My ganglions were still vibrating as I ran the car into the stables of -Brinkley Court, and it was a much shaken Bertram who tottered up to his -room to change into something loose. Having donned flannels, I lay down -on the bed for a bit, and I suppose I must have dozed off, for the next -thing I remember is finding Jeeves at my side.</p> - -<p>I sat up. “My tea, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. It is nearly dinner-time.”</p> - -<p>The mists cleared away.</p> - -<p>“I must have been asleep.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Nature taking its toll of the exhausted frame.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And enough to make it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And now it’s nearly dinner-time, you say? All right. I am in no mood for -dinner, but I suppose you had better lay out the clothes.”</p> - -<p>“It will not be necessary, sir. The company will not be dressing tonight. -A cold collation has been set out in the dining-room.”</p> - -<p>“Why’s that?”</p> - -<p>“It was Mrs. Travers’s wish that this should be done in order to minimize -the work for the staff, who are attending a dance at Sir Percival -Stretchley-Budd’s residence tonight.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, yes. I remember. My Cousin Angela told me. Tonight’s the -night, what? You going, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. I am not very fond of this form of entertainment in the rural -districts, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I know what you mean. These country binges are all the same. A piano, -one fiddle, and a floor like sandpaper. Is Anatole going? Angela hinted -not.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Angela was correct, sir. Monsieur Anatole is in bed.”</p> - -<p>“Temperamental blighters, these Frenchmen.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>There was a pause.</p> - -<p>“Well, Jeeves,” I said, “it was certainly one of those afternoons, what?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot recall one more packed with incident. And I left before the -finish.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. I observed your departure.”</p> - -<p>“You couldn’t blame me for withdrawing.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle had undoubtedly become embarrassingly -personal.”</p> - -<p>“Was there much more of it after I went?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. The proceedings terminated very shortly. Mr. Fink-Nottle’s -remarks with reference to Master G.G. Simmons brought about an early -closure.”</p> - -<p>“But he had finished his remarks about G.G. Simmons.”</p> - -<p>“Only temporarily, sir. He resumed them immediately after your departure. -If you recollect, sir, he had already proclaimed himself suspicious of -Master Simmons’s bona fides, and he now proceeded to deliver a violent -verbal attack upon the young gentleman, asserting that it was impossible -for him to have won the Scripture-knowledge prize without systematic -cheating on an impressive scale. He went so far as to suggest that Master -Simmons was well known to the police.”</p> - -<p>“Golly, Jeeves!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. The words did create a considerable sensation. The reaction of -those present to this accusation I should describe as mixed. The young -students appeared pleased and applauded vigorously, but Master Simmons’s -mother rose from her seat and addressed Mr. Fink-Nottle in terms of -strong protest.”</p> - -<p>“Did Gussie seem taken aback? Did he recede from his position?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. He said that he could see it all now, and hinted at a guilty -liaison between Master Simmons’s mother and the head master, accusing the -latter of having cooked the marks, as his expression was, in order to -gain favour with the former.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Egad, Jeeves! And then——”</p> - -<p>“They sang the national anthem, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Surely not?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“At a moment like that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you were there and you know, of course, but I should have thought -the last thing Gussie and this woman would have done in the circs. would -have been to start singing duets.”</p> - -<p>“You misunderstand me, sir. It was the entire company who sang. The head -master turned to the organist and said something to him in a low tone. -Upon which the latter began to play the national anthem, and the -proceedings terminated.”</p> - -<p>“I see. About time, too.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. Mrs. Simmons’s attitude had become unquestionably menacing.”</p> - -<p>I pondered. What I had heard was, of course, of a nature to excite pity -and terror, not to mention alarm and despondency, and it would be -paltering with the truth to say that I was pleased about it. On the other -hand, it was all over now, and it seemed to me that the thing to do was -not to mourn over the past but to fix the mind on the bright future. I -mean to say, Gussie might have lowered the existing Worcestershire record -for goofiness and definitely forfeited all chance of becoming Market -Snodsbury’s favourite son, but you couldn’t get away from the fact that -he had proposed to Madeline Bassett, and you had to admit that she had -accepted him.</p> - -<p>I put this to Jeeves.</p> - -<p>“A frightful exhibition,” I said, “and one which will very possibly ring -down history’s pages. But we must not forget, Jeeves, that Gussie, though -now doubtless looked upon in the neighbourhood as the world’s worst -freak, is all right otherwise.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>I did not get quite this.</p> - -<p>“When you say ‘No, sir,’ do you mean ‘Yes, sir’?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. I mean ‘No, sir.’”</p> - -<p>“He is not all right otherwise?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But he’s betrothed.”</p> - -<p>“No longer, sir. Miss Bassett has severed the engagement.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>I wonder if you have noticed a rather peculiar thing about this -chronicle. I allude to the fact that at one time or another practically -everybody playing a part in it has had occasion to bury his or her face -in his or her hands. I have participated in some pretty glutinous affairs -in my time, but I think that never before or since have I been mixed up -with such a solid body of brow clutchers.</p> - -<p>Uncle Tom did it, if you remember. So did Gussie. So did Tuppy. So, -probably, though I have no data, did Anatole, and I wouldn’t put it past -the Bassett. And Aunt Dahlia, I have no doubt, would have done it, too, -but for the risk of disarranging the carefully fixed coiffure.</p> - -<p>Well, what I am trying to say is that at this juncture I did it myself. -Up went the hands and down went the head, and in another jiffy I was -clutching as energetically as the best of them.</p> - -<p>And it was while I was still massaging the coconut and wondering what the -next move was that something barged up against the door like the delivery -of a ton of coals.</p> - -<p>“I think this may very possibly be Mr. Fink-Nottle himself, sir,” said -Jeeves.</p> - -<p>His intuition, however, had led him astray. It was not Gussie but Tuppy. -He came in and stood breathing asthmatically. It was plain that he was -deeply stirred.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-18-</h2> - - -<p>I eyed him narrowly. I didn’t like his looks. Mark you, I don’t say I -ever had, much, because Nature, when planning this sterling fellow, -shoved in a lot more lower jaw than was absolutely necessary and made the -eyes a bit too keen and piercing for one who was neither an Empire -builder nor a traffic policeman. But on the present occasion, in addition -to offending the aesthetic sense, this Glossop seemed to me to be wearing -a distinct air of menace, and I found myself wishing that Jeeves wasn’t -always so dashed tactful. I mean, it’s all very well to remove yourself -like an eel sliding into mud when the employer has a visitor, but there -are moments—and it looked to me as if this was going to be one of -them—when the truer tact is to stick round and stand ready to lend a -hand in the free-for-all.</p> - -<p>For Jeeves was no longer with us. I hadn’t seen him go, and I hadn’t -heard him go, but he had gone. As far as the eye could reach, one noted -nobody but Tuppy. And in Tuppy’s demeanour, as I say, there was a certain -something that tended to disquiet. He looked to me very much like a man -who had come to reopen that matter of my tickling Angela’s ankles.</p> - -<p>However, his opening remark told me that I had been alarming myself -unduly. It was of a pacific nature, and came as a great relief.</p> - -<p>“Bertie,” he said, “I owe you an apology. I have come to make it.”</p> - -<p>My relief on hearing these words, containing as they did no reference of -any sort to tickled ankles, was, as I say, great. But I don’t think it -was any greater than my surprise. Months had passed since that painful -episode at the Drones, and until now he hadn’t given a sign of remorse -and contrition. Indeed, word had reached me through private sources that -he frequently told the story at dinners and other gatherings and, when -doing so, laughed his silly head off.</p> - -<p>I found it hard to understand, accordingly, what could have caused him to -abase himself at this later date. Presumably he had been given the elbow -by his better self, but why?</p> - -<p>Still, there it was.</p> - -<p>“My dear chap,” I said, gentlemanly to the gills, “don’t mention it.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the sense of saying, ‘Don’t mention it’? I have mentioned it.”</p> - -<p>“I mean, don’t mention it any more. Don’t give the matter another -thought. We all of us forget ourselves sometimes and do things which, in -our calmer moments, we regret. No doubt you were a bit tight at the -time.”</p> - -<p>“What the devil do you think you’re talking about?”</p> - -<p>I didn’t like his tone. Brusque.</p> - -<p>“Correct me if I am wrong,” I said, with a certain stiffness, “but I -assumed that you were apologizing for your foul conduct in looping back -the last ring that night in the Drones, causing me to plunge into the -swimming b. in the full soup and fish.”</p> - -<p>“Ass! Not that, at all.”</p> - -<p>“Then what?”</p> - -<p>“This Bassett business.”</p> - -<p>“What Bassett business?”</p> - -<p>“Bertie,” said Tuppy, “when you told me last night that you were in love -with Madeline Bassett, I gave you the impression that I believed you, but -I didn’t. The thing seemed too incredible. However, since then I have -made inquiries, and the facts appear to square with your statement. I -have now come to apologize for doubting you.”</p> - -<p>“Made inquiries?”</p> - -<p>“I asked her if you had proposed to her, and she said, yes, you had.”</p> - -<p>“Tuppy! You didn’t?”</p> - -<p>“I did.”</p> - -<p>“Have you no delicacy, no proper feeling?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Oh? Well, right-ho, of course, but I think you ought to have.”</p> - -<p>“Delicacy be dashed. I wanted to be certain that it was not you who stole -Angela from me. I now know it wasn’t.”</p> - -<p>So long as he knew that, I didn’t so much mind him having no delicacy.</p> - -<p>“Ah,” I said. “Well, that’s fine. Hold that thought.”</p> - -<p>“I have found out who it was.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>He stood brooding for a moment. His eyes were smouldering with a dull -fire. His jaw stuck out like the back of Jeeves’s head.</p> - -<p>“Bertie,” he said, “do you remember what I swore I would do to the chap -who stole Angela from me?”</p> - -<p>“As nearly as I recall, you planned to pull him inside out——”</p> - -<p>“—and make him swallow himself. Correct. The programme still holds -good.”</p> - -<p>“But, Tuppy, I keep assuring you, as a competent eyewitness, that nobody -snitched Angela from you during that Cannes trip.”</p> - -<p>“No. But they did after she got back.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t keep saying, ‘What?’ You heard.”</p> - -<p>“But she hasn’t seen anybody since she got back.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no? How about that newt bloke?”</p> - -<p>“Gussie?”</p> - -<p>“Precisely. The serpent Fink-Nottle.”</p> - -<p>This seemed to me absolute gibbering.</p> - -<p>“But Gussie loves the Bassett.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t all love this blighted Bassett. What astonishes me is that -anyone can do it. He loves Angela, I tell you. And she loves him.”</p> - -<p>“But Angela handed you your hat before Gussie ever got here.”</p> - -<p>“No, she didn’t. Couple of hours after.”</p> - -<p>“He couldn’t have fallen in love with her in a couple of hours.”</p> - -<p>“Why not? I fell in love with her in a couple of minutes. I worshipped -her immediately we met, the popeyed little excrescence.”</p> - -<p>“But, dash it——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t argue, Bertie. The facts are all docketed. She loves this -newt-nuzzling blister.”</p> - -<p>“Quite absurd, laddie—quite absurd.”</p> - -<p>“Oh?” He ground a heel into the carpet—a thing I’ve often read about, -but had never seen done before. “Then perhaps you will explain how it is -that she happens to come to be engaged to him?”</p> - -<p>You could have knocked me down with a f.</p> - -<p>“Engaged to him?”</p> - -<p>“She told me herself.”</p> - -<p>“She was kidding you.”</p> - -<p>“She was not kidding me. Shortly after the conclusion of this afternoon’s -binge at Market Snodsbury Grammar School he asked her to marry him, and -she appears to have right-hoed without a murmur.”</p> - -<p>“There must be some mistake.”</p> - -<p>“There was. The snake Fink-Nottle made it, and by now I bet he realizes -it. I’ve been chasing him since 5.30.”</p> - -<p>“Chasing him?”</p> - -<p>“All over the place. I want to pull his head off.”</p> - -<p>“I see. Quite.”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t seen him, by any chance?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if you do, say goodbye to him quickly and put in your order for -lilies.... Oh, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>I hadn’t heard the door open, but the man was on the spot once more. My -private belief, as I think I have mentioned before, is that Jeeves -doesn’t have to open doors. He’s like one of those birds in India who -bung their astral bodies about—the chaps, I mean, who having gone into -thin air in Bombay, reassemble the parts and appear two minutes later in -Calcutta. Only some such theory will account for the fact that he’s not -there one moment and is there the next. He just seems to float from Spot -A to Spot B like some form of gas.</p> - -<p>“Have you seen Mr. Fink-Nottle, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to murder him.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>Tuppy withdrew, banging the door behind him, and I put Jeeves abreast.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “do you know what? Mr. Fink-Nottle is engaged to my -Cousin Angela.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Well, how about it? Do you grasp the psychology? Does it make sense? -Only a few hours ago he was engaged to Miss Bassett.”</p> - -<p>“Gentlemen who have been discarded by one young lady are often apt to -attach themselves without delay to another, sir. It is what is known as a -gesture.”</p> - -<p>I began to grasp.</p> - -<p>“I see what you mean. Defiant stuff.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“A sort of ‘Oh, right-ho, please yourself, but if you don’t want me, -there are plenty who do.’”</p> - -<p>“Precisely, sir. My Cousin George——”</p> - -<p>“Never mind about your Cousin George, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Keep him for the long winter evenings, what?”</p> - -<p>“Just as you wish, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And, anyway, I bet your Cousin George wasn’t a shrinking, -non-goose-bo-ing jellyfish like Gussie. That is what astounds me, -Jeeves—that it should be Gussie who has been putting in all this heavy -gesture-making stuff.”</p> - -<p>“You must remember, sir, that Mr. Fink-Nottle is in a somewhat inflamed -cerebral condition.”</p> - -<p>“That’s true. A bit above par at the moment, as it were?”</p> - -<p>“Exactly, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ll tell you one thing—he’ll be in a jolly sight more inflamed -cerebral condition if Tuppy gets hold of him.... What’s the time?”</p> - -<p>“Just on eight o’clock, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Then Tuppy has been chasing him for two hours and a half. We must save -the unfortunate blighter, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“A human life is a human life, what?”</p> - -<p>“Exceedingly true, sir.”</p> - -<p>“The first thing, then, is to find him. After that we can discuss plans -and schemes. Go forth, Jeeves, and scour the neighbourhood.”</p> - -<p>“It will not be necessary, sir. If you will glance behind you, you will -see Mr. Fink-Nottle coming out from beneath your bed.”</p> - -<p>And, by Jove, he was absolutely right.</p> - -<p>There was Gussie, emerging as stated. He was covered with fluff and -looked like a tortoise popping forth for a bit of a breather.</p> - -<p>“Gussie!” I said.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” said Gussie.</p> - -<p>“Sir?” said Jeeves.</p> - -<p>“Is that door locked, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir, but I will attend to the matter immediately.”</p> - -<p>Gussie sat down on the bed, and I thought for a moment that he was going -to be in the mode by burying his face in his hands. However, he merely -brushed a dead spider from his brow.</p> - -<p>“Have you locked the door, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Because you can never tell that that ghastly Glossop may not take it -into his head to come——”</p> - -<p>The word “back” froze on his lips. He hadn’t got any further than -a <i>b</i>-ish sound, when the handle of the door began to twist and rattle. -He sprang from the bed, and for an instant stood looking exactly like a -picture my Aunt Agatha has in her dining-room—The Stag at Bay—Landseer. -Then he made a dive for the cupboard and was inside it before one really -got on to it that he had started leaping. I have seen fellows late for -the 9.15 move less nippily.</p> - -<p>I shot a glance at Jeeves. He allowed his right eyebrow to flicker -slightly, which is as near as he ever gets to a display of the emotions.</p> - -<p>“Hullo?” I yipped.</p> - -<p>“Let me in, blast you!” responded Tuppy’s voice from without. “Who locked -this door?”</p> - -<p>I consulted Jeeves once more in the language of the eyebrow. He raised -one of his. I raised one of mine. He raised his other. I raised my other. -Then we both raised both. Finally, there seeming no other policy to -pursue, I flung wide the gates and Tuppy came shooting in.</p> - -<p>“Now what?” I said, as nonchalantly as I could manage.</p> - -<p>“Why was the door locked?” demanded Tuppy.</p> - -<p>I was in pretty good eyebrow-raising form by now, so I gave him a touch -of it.</p> - -<p>“Is one to have no privacy, Glossop?” I said coldly. “I instructed Jeeves -to lock the door because I was about to disrobe.”</p> - -<p>“A likely story!” said Tuppy, and I’m not sure he didn’t add “Forsooth!” -“You needn’t try to make me believe that you’re afraid people are going -to run excursion trains to see you in your underwear. You locked that -door because you’ve got the snake Fink-Nottle concealed in here. I -suspected it the moment I’d left, and I decided to come back and -investigate. I’m going to search this room from end to end. I believe -he’s in that cupboard.... What’s in this cupboard?”</p> - -<p>“Just clothes,” I said, having another stab at the nonchalant, though -extremely dubious as to whether it would come off. “The usual wardrobe of -the English gentleman paying a country-house visit.”</p> - -<p>“You’re lying!”</p> - -<p>Well, I wouldn’t have been if he had only waited a minute before -speaking, because the words were hardly out of his mouth before Gussie -was out of the cupboard. I have commented on the speed with which he had -gone in. It was as nothing to the speed with which he emerged. There was -a sort of whir and blur, and he was no longer with us.</p> - -<p>I think Tuppy was surprised. In fact, I’m sure he was. Despite the -confidence with which he had stated his view that the cupboard contained -Fink-Nottles, it plainly disconcerted him to have the chap fizzing out at -him like this. He gargled sharply, and jumped back about five feet. The -next moment, however, he had recovered his poise and was galloping down -the corridor in pursuit. It only needed Aunt Dahlia after them, shouting -“Yoicks!” or whatever is customary on these occasions, to complete the -resemblance to a brisk run with the Quorn.</p> - -<p>I sank into a handy chair. I am not a man whom it is easy to discourage, -but it seemed to me that things had at last begun to get too complex for -Bertram.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “all this is a bit thick.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“The head rather swims.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I think you had better leave me, Jeeves. I shall need to devote the very -closest thought to the situation which has arisen.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>The door closed. I lit a cigarette and began to ponder.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-19-</h2> - - -<p>Most chaps in my position, I imagine, would have pondered all the rest of -the evening without getting a bite, but we Woosters have an uncanny knack -of going straight to the heart of things, and I don’t suppose it was much -more than ten minutes after I had started pondering before I saw what had -to be done.</p> - -<p>What was needed to straighten matters out, I perceived, was a heart-to- -heart talk with Angela. She had caused all the trouble by her mutton- -headed behaviour in saying “Yes” instead of “No” when Gussie, in the -grip of mixed drinks and cerebral excitement, had suggested teaming up. -She must obviously be properly ticked off and made to return him to store. -A quarter of an hour later, I had tracked her down to the summer-house in -which she was taking a cooler and was seating myself by her side.</p> - -<p>“Angela,” I said, and if my voice was stern, well, whose wouldn’t have -been, “this is all perfect drivel.”</p> - -<p>She seemed to come out of a reverie. She looked at me inquiringly.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry, Bertie, I didn’t hear. What were you talking drivel about?”</p> - -<p>“I was not talking drivel.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, sorry, I thought you said you were.”</p> - -<p>“Is it likely that I would come out here in order to talk drivel?”</p> - -<p>“Very likely.”</p> - -<p>I thought it best to haul off and approach the matter from another angle.</p> - -<p>“I’ve just been seeing Tuppy.”</p> - -<p>“Oh?”</p> - -<p>“And Gussie Fink-Nottle.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes?”</p> - -<p>“It appears that you have gone and got engaged to the latter.”</p> - -<p>“Quite right.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s what I meant when I said it was all perfect drivel. You -can’t possibly love a chap like Gussie.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“You simply can’t.”</p> - -<p>Well, I mean to say, of course she couldn’t. Nobody could love a freak -like Gussie except a similar freak like the Bassett. The shot wasn’t on -the board. A splendid chap, of course, in many ways—courteous, amiable, -and just the fellow to tell you what to do till the doctor came, if you -had a sick newt on your hands—but quite obviously not of Mendelssohn’s -March timber. I have no doubt that you could have flung bricks by the -hour in England’s most densely populated districts without endangering -the safety of a single girl capable of becoming Mrs. Augustus Fink-Nottle -without an anaesthetic.</p> - -<p>I put this to her, and she was forced to admit the justice of it.</p> - -<p>“All right, then. Perhaps I don’t.”</p> - -<p>“Then what,” I said keenly, “did you want to go and get engaged to him -for, you unreasonable young fathead?”</p> - -<p>“I thought it would be fun.”</p> - -<p>“Fun!”</p> - -<p>“And so it has been. I’ve had a lot of fun out of it. You should have -seen Tuppy’s face when I told him.”</p> - -<p>A sudden bright light shone upon me.</p> - -<p>“Ha! A gesture!”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“You got engaged to Gussie just to score off Tuppy?”</p> - -<p>“I did.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, that was what I was saying. It was a gesture.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I suppose you could call it that.”</p> - -<p>“And I’ll tell you something else I’ll call it—viz. a dashed low trick. -I’m surprised at you, young Angela.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why.”</p> - -<p>I curled the lip about half an inch. “Being a female, you wouldn’t. You -gentler sexes are like that. You pull off the rawest stuff without a -pang. You pride yourselves on it. Look at Jael, the wife of Heber.”</p> - -<p>“Where did you ever hear of Jael, the wife of Heber?”</p> - -<p>“Possibly you are not aware that I once won a Scripture-knowledge prize -at school?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes. I remember Augustus mentioning it in his speech.”</p> - -<p>“Quite,” I said, a little hurriedly. I had no wish to be reminded of -Augustus’s speech. “Well, as I say, look at Jael, the wife of Heber. Dug -spikes into the guest’s coconut while he was asleep, and then went -swanking about the place like a Girl Guide. No wonder they say, ‘Oh, -woman, woman!’”</p> - -<p>“Who?”</p> - -<p>“The chaps who do. Coo, what a sex! But you aren’t proposing to keep this -up, of course?”</p> - -<p>“Keep what up?”</p> - -<p>“This rot of being engaged to Gussie.”</p> - -<p>“I certainly am.”</p> - -<p>“Just to make Tuppy look silly.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think he looks silly?”</p> - -<p>“I do.”</p> - -<p>“So he ought to.”</p> - -<p>I began to get the idea that I wasn’t making real headway. I remember -when I won that Scripture-knowledge prize, having to go into the facts -about Balaam’s ass. I can’t quite recall what they were, but I still -retain a sort of general impression of something digging its feet in and -putting its ears back and refusing to co-operate; and it seemed to me -that this was what Angela was doing now. She and Balaam’s ass were, so to -speak, sisters under the skin. There’s a word beginning with r——“re” -something——“recal” something—No, it’s gone. But what I am driving at is -that is what this Angela was showing herself.</p> - -<p>“Silly young geezer,” I said.</p> - -<p>She pinkened.</p> - -<p>“I’m not a silly young geezer.”</p> - -<p>“You are a silly young geezer. And, what’s more, you know it.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know anything of the kind.”</p> - -<p>“Here you are, wrecking Tuppy’s life, wrecking Gussie’s life, all for the -sake of a cheap score.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s no business of yours.”</p> - -<p>I sat on this promptly:</p> - -<p>“No business of mine when I see two lives I used to go to school with -wrecked? Ha! Besides, you know you’re potty about Tuppy.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not!”</p> - -<p>“Is that so? If I had a quid for every time I’ve seen you gaze at him -with the lovelight in your eyes——”</p> - -<p>She gazed at me, but without the lovelight.</p> - -<p>“Oh, for goodness sake, go away and boil your head, Bertie!”</p> - -<p>I drew myself up.</p> - -<p>“That,” I replied, with dignity, “is just what I am going to go away and -boil. At least, I mean, I shall now leave you. I have said my say.”</p> - -<p>“Good.”</p> - -<p>“But permit me to add——”</p> - -<p>“I won’t.”</p> - -<p>“Very good,” I said coldly. “In that case, tinkerty tonk.”</p> - -<p>And I meant it to sting.</p> - -<p>“Moody” and “discouraged” were about the two adjectives you would have -selected to describe me as I left the summer-house. It would be idle to -deny that I had expected better results from this little chat.</p> - -<p>I was surprised at Angela. Odd how you never realize that every girl is -at heart a vicious specimen until something goes wrong with her love -affair. This cousin and I had been meeting freely since the days when I -wore sailor suits and she hadn’t any front teeth, yet only now was I -beginning to get on to her hidden depths. A simple, jolly, kindly young -pimple she had always struck me as—the sort you could more or less rely -on not to hurt a fly. But here she was now laughing heartlessly—at -least, I seemed to remember hearing her laugh heartlessly—like something -cold and callous out of a sophisticated talkie, and fairly spitting on -her hands in her determination to bring Tuppy’s grey hairs in sorrow to -the grave.</p> - -<p>I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—girls are rummy. Old Pop -Kipling never said a truer word than when he made that crack about the f. -of the s. being more d. than the m.</p> - -<p>It seemed to me in the circs. that there was but one thing to do—that is -head for the dining-room and take a slash at the cold collation of which -Jeeves had spoken. I felt in urgent need of sustenance, for the recent -interview had pulled me down a bit. There is no gainsaying the fact that -this naked-emotion stuff reduces a chap’s vitality and puts him in the -vein for a good whack at the beef and ham.</p> - -<p>To the dining-room, accordingly, I repaired, and had barely crossed the -threshold when I perceived Aunt Dahlia at the sideboard, tucking into -salmon mayonnaise.</p> - -<p>The spectacle drew from me a quick “Oh, ah,” for I was somewhat -embarrassed. The last time this relative and I had enjoyed a -<i>tête-à-tête</i>, it will be remembered, she had sketched out plans for -drowning me in the kitchen-garden pond, and I was not quite sure what -my present standing with her was.</p> - -<p>I was relieved to find her in genial mood. Nothing could have exceeded -the cordiality with which she waved her fork.</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Bertie, you old ass,” was her very matey greeting. “I thought I -shouldn’t find you far away from the food. Try some of this salmon. -Excellent.”</p> - -<p>“Anatole’s?” I queried.</p> - -<p>“No. He’s still in bed. But the kitchen maid has struck an inspired -streak. It suddenly seems to have come home to her that she isn’t -catering for a covey of buzzards in the Sahara Desert, and she has put -out something quite fit for human consumption. There is good in the girl, -after all, and I hope she enjoys herself at the dance.”</p> - -<p>I ladled out a portion of salmon, and we fell into pleasant conversation, -chatting of this servants’ ball at the Stretchley-Budds and speculating -idly, I recall, as to what Seppings, the butler, would look like, doing -the rumba.</p> - -<p>It was not till I had cleaned up the first platter and was embarking on a -second that the subject of Gussie came up. Considering what had passed at -Market Snodsbury that afternoon, it was one which I had been expecting -her to touch on earlier. When she did touch on it, I could see that she -had not yet been informed of Angela’s engagement.</p> - -<p>“I say, Bertie,” she said, meditatively chewing fruit salad. “This -Spink-Bottle.”</p> - -<p>“Nottle.”</p> - -<p>“Bottle,” insisted the aunt firmly. “After that exhibition of his this -afternoon, Bottle, and nothing but Bottle, is how I shall always think of -him. However, what I was going to say was that, if you see him, I wish -you would tell him that he has made an old woman very, very happy. Except -for the time when the curate tripped over a loose shoelace and fell down -the pulpit steps, I don’t think I have ever had a more wonderful moment -than when good old Bottle suddenly started ticking Tom off from the -platform. In fact, I thought his whole performance in the most perfect -taste.”</p> - -<p>I could not but demur.</p> - -<p>“Those references to myself——”</p> - -<p>“Those were what I liked next best. I thought they were fine. Is it true -that you cheated when you won that Scripture-knowledge prize?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly not. My victory was the outcome of the most strenuous and -unremitting efforts.”</p> - -<p>“And how about this pessimism we hear of? Are you a pessimist, Bertie?”</p> - -<p>I could have told her that what was occurring in this house was rapidly -making me one, but I said no, I wasn’t.</p> - -<p>“That’s right. Never be a pessimist. Everything is for the best in this -best of all possible worlds. It’s a long lane that has no turning. It’s -always darkest before the dawn. Have patience and all will come right. -The sun will shine, although the day’s a grey one.... Try some of this -salad.”</p> - -<p>I followed her advice, but even as I plied the spoon my thoughts were -elsewhere. I was perplexed. It may have been the fact that I had recently -been hobnobbing with so many bowed-down hearts that made this cheeriness -of hers seem so bizarre, but bizarre was certainly what I found it.</p> - -<p>“I thought you might have been a trifle peeved,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Peeved?”</p> - -<p>“By Gussie’s manoeuvres on the platform this afternoon. I confess that I -had rather expected the tapping foot and the drawn brow.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense. What was there to be peeved about? I took the whole thing as a -great compliment, proud to feel that any drink from my cellars could have -produced such a majestic jag. It restores one’s faith in post-war whisky. -Besides, I couldn’t be peeved at anything tonight. I am like a little -child clapping its hands and dancing in the sunshine. For though it has -been some time getting a move on, Bertie, the sun has at last broken -through the clouds. Ring out those joy bells. Anatole has withdrawn his -notice.”</p> - -<p>“What? Oh, very hearty congratulations.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks. Yes, I worked on him like a beaver after I got back this -afternoon, and finally, vowing he would ne’er consent, he consented. He -stays on, praises be, and the way I look at it now is that God’s in His -heaven and all’s right with——”</p> - -<p>She broke off. The door had opened, and we were plus a butler.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Seppings,” said Aunt Dahlia. “I thought you had gone.”</p> - -<p>“Not yet, madam.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I hope you will all have a good time.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, madam.”</p> - -<p>“Was there something you wanted to see me about?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, madam. It is with reference to Monsieur Anatole. Is it by your -wish, madam, that Mr. Fink-Nottle is making faces at Monsieur Anatole -through the skylight of his bedroom?”</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-20-</h2> - - -<p>There was one of those long silences. Pregnant, I believe, is what -they’re generally called. Aunt looked at butler. Butler looked at aunt. I -looked at both of them. An eerie stillness seemed to envelop the room -like a linseed poultice. I happened to be biting on a slice of apple in my -fruit salad at the moment, and it sounded as if Carnera had jumped off -the top of the Eiffel Tower on to a cucumber frame.</p> - -<p>Aunt Dahlia steadied herself against the sideboard, and spoke in a low, -husky voice:</p> - -<p>“Faces?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, madam.”</p> - -<p>“Through the skylight?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, madam.”</p> - -<p>“You mean he’s sitting on the roof?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, madam. It has upset Monsieur Anatole very much.”</p> - -<p>I suppose it was that word “upset” that touched Aunt Dahlia off. -Experience had taught her what happened when Anatole got upset. I had -always known her as a woman who was quite active on her pins, but I had -never suspected her of being capable of the magnificent burst of speed -which she now showed. Pausing merely to get a rich hunting-field -expletive off her chest, she was out of the room and making for the -stairs before I could swallow a sliver of—I think—banana. And feeling, -as I had felt when I got that telegram of hers about Angela and Tuppy, -that my place was by her side, I put down my plate and hastened after -her, Seppings following at a loping gallop.</p> - -<p>I say that my place was by her side, but it was not so dashed easy to get -there, for she was setting a cracking pace. At the top of the first -flight she must have led by a matter of half a dozen lengths, and was -still shaking off my challenge when she rounded into the second. At the -next landing, however, the gruelling going appeared to tell on her, for -she slackened off a trifle and showed symptoms of roaring, and by the -time we were in the straight we were running practically neck and neck. -Our entry into Anatole’s room was as close a finish as you could have -wished to see.</p> - -<p>Result:</p> -<ol> -<li><i>Aunt Dahlia.</i></li> -<li><i>Bertram.</i></li> -<li><i>Seppings.</i></li> -</ol> - -<p><i>Won by a short head. Half a staircase separated second and third.</i></p> - -<p>The first thing that met the eye on entering was Anatole. This wizard of -the cooking-stove is a tubby little man with a moustache of the outsize -or soup-strainer type, and you can generally take a line through it as to -the state of his emotions. When all is well, it turns up at the ends like -a sergeant-major’s. When the soul is bruised, it droops.</p> - -<p>It was drooping now, striking a sinister note. And if any shadow of doubt -had remained as to how he was feeling, the way he was carrying on would -have dispelled it. He was standing by the bed in pink pyjamas, waving his -fists at the skylight. Through the glass, Gussie was staring down. His -eyes were bulging and his mouth was open, giving him so striking a -resemblance to some rare fish in an aquarium that one’s primary impulse -was to offer him an ant’s egg.</p> - -<p>Watching this fist-waving cook and this goggling guest, I must say that -my sympathies were completely with the former. I considered him -thoroughly justified in waving all the fists he wanted to.</p> - -<p>Review the facts, I mean to say. There he had been, lying in bed, -thinking idly of whatever French cooks do think about when in bed, and he -had suddenly become aware of that frightful face at the window. A thing -to jar the most phlegmatic. I know I should hate to be lying in bed and -have Gussie popping up like that. A chap’s bedroom—you can’t get away -from it—is his castle, and he has every right to look askance if -gargoyles come glaring in at him.</p> - -<p>While I stood musing thus, Aunt Dahlia, in her practical way, was coming -straight to the point:</p> - -<p>“What’s all this?”</p> - -<p>Anatole did a sort of Swedish exercise, starting at the base of the -spine, carrying on through the shoulder-blades and finishing up among the -back hair.</p> - -<p>Then he told her.</p> - -<p>In the chats I have had with this wonder man, I have always found his -English fluent, but a bit on the mixed side. If you remember, he was with -Mrs. Bingo Little for a time before coming to Brinkley, and no doubt he -picked up a good deal from Bingo. Before that, he had been a couple of -years with an American family at Nice and had studied under their -chauffeur, one of the Maloneys of Brooklyn. So, what with Bingo and what -with Maloney, he is, as I say, fluent but a bit mixed.</p> - -<p>He spoke, in part, as follows:</p> - -<p>“Hot dog! You ask me what is it? Listen. Make some attention a little. -Me, I have hit the hay, but I do not sleep so good, and presently I wake -and up I look, and there is one who make faces against me through the -dashed window. Is that a pretty affair? Is that convenient? If you think -I like it, you jolly well mistake yourself. I am so mad as a wet hen. And -why not? I am somebody, isn’t it? This is a bedroom, what-what, not a -house for some apes? Then for what do blighters sit on my window so cool -as a few cucumbers, making some faces?”</p> - -<p>“Quite,” I said. Dashed reasonable, was my verdict.</p> - -<p>He threw another look up at Gussie, and did Exercise 2—the one where you -clutch the moustache, give it a tug and then start catching flies.</p> - -<p>“Wait yet a little. I am not finish. I say I see this type on my window, -making a few faces. But what then? Does he buzz off when I shout a cry, -and leave me peaceable? Not on your life. He remain planted there, not -giving any damns, and sit regarding me like a cat watching a duck. He -make faces against me and again he make faces against me, and the more I -command that he should get to hell out of here, the more he do not get to -hell out of here. He cry something towards me, and I demand what is his -desire, but he do not explain. Oh, no, that arrives never. He does but -shrug his head. What damn silliness! Is this amusing for me? You think I -like it? I am not content with such folly. I think the poor mutt’s loony. -<i>Je me fiche de ce type infect. C’est idiot de faire comme ça -l’oiseau.... Allez-vous-en, louffier</i>.... Tell the boob to go away. He is -mad as some March hatters.”</p> - -<p>I must say I thought he was making out a jolly good case, and evidently -Aunt Dahlia felt the same. She laid a quivering hand on his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“I will, Monsieur Anatole, I will,” she said, and I couldn’t have -believed that robust voice capable of sinking to such an absolute coo. -More like a turtle dove calling to its mate than anything else. “It’s -quite all right.”</p> - -<p>She had said the wrong thing. He did Exercise 3.</p> - -<p>“All right? <i>Nom d’un nom d’un nom</i>! The hell you say it’s all right! Of -what use to pull stuff like that? Wait one half-moment. Not yet quite so -quick, my old sport. It is by no means all right. See yet again a little. -It is some very different dishes of fish. I can take a few smooths with a -rough, it is true, but I do not find it agreeable when one play larks -against me on my windows. That cannot do. A nice thing, no. I am a -serious man. I do not wish a few larks on my windows. I enjoy larks on my -windows worse as any. It is very little all right. If such rannygazoo is -to arrive, I do not remain any longer in this house no more. I buzz off -and do not stay planted.”</p> - -<p>Sinister words, I had to admit, and I was not surprised that Aunt Dahlia, -hearing them, should have uttered a cry like the wail of a master of -hounds seeing a fox shot. Anatole had begun to wave his fists again at -Gussie, and she now joined him. Seppings, who was puffing respectfully in -the background, didn’t actually wave his fists, but he gave Gussie a -pretty austere look. It was plain to the thoughtful observer that this -Fink-Nottle, in getting on to that skylight, had done a mistaken thing. -He couldn’t have been more unpopular in the home of G.G. Simmons.</p> - -<p>“Go away, you crazy loon!” cried Aunt Dahlia, in that ringing voice of -hers which had once caused nervous members of the Quorn to lose stirrups -and take tosses from the saddle.</p> - -<p>Gussie’s reply was to waggle his eyebrows. I could read the message he -was trying to convey.</p> - -<p>“I think he means,” I said—reasonable old Bertram, always trying to -throw oil on the troubled w’s——“that if he does he will fall down the -side of the house and break his neck.”</p> - -<p>“Well, why not?” said Aunt Dahlia.</p> - -<p>I could see her point, of course, but it seemed to me that there might be -a nearer solution. This skylight happened to be the only window in the -house which Uncle Tom had not festooned with his bally bars. I suppose he -felt that if a burglar had the nerve to climb up as far as this, he -deserved what was coming to him.</p> - -<p>“If you opened the skylight, he could jump in.”</p> - -<p>The idea got across.</p> - -<p>“Seppings, how does this skylight open?”</p> - -<p>“With a pole, madam.”</p> - -<p>“Then get a pole. Get two poles. Ten.”</p> - -<p>And presently Gussie was mixing with the company, Like one of those chaps -you read about in the papers, the wretched man seemed deeply conscious of -his position.</p> - -<p>I must say Aunt Dahlia’s bearing and demeanour did nothing to assist -toward a restored composure. Of the amiability which she had exhibited -when discussing this unhappy chump’s activities with me over the fruit -salad, no trace remained, and I was not surprised that speech more or -less froze on the Fink-Nottle lips. It isn’t often that Aunt Dahlia, -normally as genial a bird as ever encouraged a gaggle of hounds to get -their noses down to it, lets her angry passions rise, but when she does, -strong men climb trees and pull them up after them.</p> - -<p>“Well?” she said.</p> - -<p>In answer to this, all that Gussie could produce was a sort of strangled -hiccough.</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>Aunt Dahlia’s face grew darker. Hunting, if indulged in regularly over a -period of years, is a pastime that seldom fails to lend a fairly deepish -tinge to the patient’s complexion, and her best friends could not have -denied that even at normal times the relative’s map tended a little -toward the crushed strawberry. But never had I seen it take on so -pronounced a richness as now. She looked like a tomato struggling for -self-expression.</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>Gussie tried hard. And for a moment it seemed as if something was going -to come through. But in the end it turned out nothing more than a sort of -death-rattle.</p> - -<p>“Oh, take him away, Bertie, and put ice on his head,” said Aunt Dahlia, -giving the thing up. And she turned to tackle what looked like the rather -man’s size job of soothing Anatole, who was now carrying on a muttered -conversation with himself in a rapid sort of way.</p> - -<p>Seeming to feel that the situation was one to which he could not do -justice in Bingo-cum-Maloney Anglo-American, he had fallen back on his -native tongue. Words like “<i>marmiton de Domange,” “pignouf,” -“hurluberlu</i>” and “<i>roustisseur</i>” were fluttering from him like bats out -of a barn. Lost on me, of course, because, though I sweated a bit at the -Gallic language during that Cannes visit, I’m still more or less in the -Esker-vous-avez stage. I regretted this, for they sounded good.</p> - -<p>I assisted Gussie down the stairs. A cooler thinker than Aunt Dahlia, I -had already guessed the hidden springs and motives which had led him to -the roof. Where she had seen only a cockeyed reveller indulging himself -in a drunken prank or whimsy, I had spotted the hunted fawn.</p> - -<p>“Was Tuppy after you?” I asked sympathetically.</p> - -<p>What I believe is called a <i>frisson</i> shook him.</p> - -<p>“He nearly got me on the top landing. I shinned out through a passage -window and scrambled along a sort of ledge.”</p> - -<p>“That baffled him, what?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. But then I found I had stuck. The roof sloped down in all -directions. I couldn’t go back. I had to go on, crawling along this -ledge. And then I found myself looking down the skylight. Who was that -chap?”</p> - -<p>“That was Anatole, Aunt Dahlia’s chef.”</p> - -<p>“French?”</p> - -<p>“To the core.”</p> - -<p>“That explains why I couldn’t make him understand. What asses these -Frenchmen are. They don’t seem able to grasp the simplest thing. You’d -have thought if a chap saw a chap on a skylight, the chap would realize -the chap wanted to be let in. But no, he just stood there.”</p> - -<p>“Waving a few fists.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Silly idiot. Still, here I am.”</p> - -<p>“Here you are, yes—for the moment.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“I was thinking that Tuppy is probably lurking somewhere.”</p> - -<p>He leaped like a lamb in springtime.</p> - -<p>“What shall I do?”</p> - -<p>I considered this.</p> - -<p>“Sneak back to your room and barricade the door. That is the manly -policy.”</p> - -<p>“Suppose that’s where he’s lurking?”</p> - -<p>“In that case, move elsewhere.”</p> - -<p>But on arrival at the room, it transpired that Tuppy, if anywhere, was -infesting some other portion of the house. Gussie shot in, and I heard -the key turn. And feeling that there was no more that I could do in that -quarter, I returned to the dining-room for further fruit salad and a -quiet think. And I had barely filled my plate when the door opened and -Aunt Dahlia came in. She sank into a chair, looking a bit shopworn.</p> - -<p>“Give me a drink, Bertie.”</p> - -<p>“What sort?”</p> - -<p>“Any sort, so long as it’s strong.”</p> - -<p>Approach Bertram Wooster along these lines, and you catch him at his -best. St. Bernard dogs doing the square thing by Alpine travellers could -not have bustled about more assiduously. I filled the order, and for some -moments nothing was to be heard but the sloshing sound of an aunt -restoring her tissues.</p> - -<p>“Shove it down, Aunt Dahlia,” I said sympathetically. “These things take -it out of one, don’t they? You’ve had a toughish time, no doubt, soothing -Anatole,” I proceeded, helping myself to anchovy paste on toast. -“Everything pretty smooth now, I trust?”</p> - -<p>She gazed at me in a long, lingering sort of way, her brow wrinkled as if -in thought.</p> - -<p>“Attila,” she said at length. “That’s the name. Attila, the Hun.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>“I was trying to think who you reminded me of. Somebody who went about -strewing ruin and desolation and breaking up homes which, until he came -along, had been happy and peaceful. Attila is the man. It’s amazing.” she -said, drinking me in once more. “To look at you, one would think you were -just an ordinary sort of amiable idiot—certifiable, perhaps, but quite -harmless. Yet, in reality, you are worse a scourge than the Black Death. -I tell you, Bertie, when I contemplate you I seem to come up against all -the underlying sorrow and horror of life with such a thud that I feel as -if I had walked into a lamp post.”</p> - -<p>Pained and surprised, I would have spoken, but the stuff I had thought -was anchovy paste had turned out to be something far more gooey and -adhesive. It seemed to wrap itself round the tongue and impede utterance -like a gag. And while I was still endeavouring to clear the vocal cords -for action, she went on:</p> - -<p>“Do you realize what you started when you sent that Spink-Bottle man down -here? As regards his getting blotto and turning the prize-giving -ceremonies at Market Snodsbury Grammar School into a sort of two-reel -comic film, I will say nothing, for frankly I enjoyed it. But when he -comes leering at Anatole through skylights, just after I had with -infinite pains and tact induced him to withdraw his notice, and makes him -so temperamental that he won’t hear of staying on after tomorrow——”</p> - -<p>The paste stuff gave way. I was able to speak:</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Anatole goes tomorrow, and I suppose poor old Tom will have -indigestion for the rest of his life. And that is not all. I have just -seen Angela, and she tells me she is engaged to this Bottle.”</p> - -<p>“Temporarily, yes,” I had to admit.</p> - -<p>“Temporarily be blowed. She’s definitely engaged to him and talks with a -sort of hideous coolness of getting married in October. So there it is. -If the prophet Job were to walk into the room at this moment, I could sit -swapping hard-luck stories with him till bedtime. Not that Job was in my -class.”</p> - -<p>“He had boils.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what are boils?”</p> - -<p>“Dashed painful, I understand.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense. I’d take all the boils on the market in exchange for my -troubles. Can’t you realize the position? I’ve lost the best cook to -England. My husband, poor soul, will probably die of dyspepsia. And my -only daughter, for whom I had dreamed such a wonderful future, is engaged -to be married to an inebriated newt fancier. And you talk about boils!”</p> - -<p>I corrected her on a small point:</p> - -<p>“I don’t absolutely talk about boils. I merely mentioned that Job had -them. Yes, I agree with you, Aunt Dahlia, that things are not looking too -oojah-cum-spiff at the moment, but be of good cheer. A Wooster is seldom -baffled for more than the nonce.”</p> - -<p>“You rather expect to be coming along shortly with another of your -schemes?”</p> - -<p>“At any minute.”</p> - -<p>She sighed resignedly.</p> - -<p>“I thought as much. Well, it needed but this. I don’t see how things -could possibly be worse than they are, but no doubt you will succeed in -making them so. Your genius and insight will find the way. Carry on, -Bertie. Yes, carry on. I am past caring now. I shall even find a faint -interest in seeing into what darker and profounder abysses of hell you -can plunge this home. Go to it, lad.... What’s that stuff you’re eating?”</p> - -<p>“I find it a little difficult to classify. Some sort of paste on toast. -Rather like glue flavoured with beef extract.”</p> - -<p>“Gimme,” said Aunt Dahlia listlessly.</p> - -<p>“Be careful how you chew,” I advised. “It sticketh closer than a -brother.... Yes, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>The man had materialized on the carpet. Absolutely noiseless, as usual.</p> - -<p>“A note for you, sir.”</p> - -<p>“A note for me, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“A note for you, sir.”</p> - -<p>“From whom, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“From Miss Bassett, sir.”</p> - -<p>“From whom, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“From Miss Bassett, sir.”</p> - -<p>“From Miss Bassett, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“From Miss Bassett, sir.”</p> - -<p>At this point, Aunt Dahlia, who had taken one nibble at her -whatever-it-was-on-toast and laid it down, begged us—a little fretfully, -I thought—for heaven’s sake to cut out the cross-talk vaudeville stuff, -as she had enough to bear already without having to listen to us doing -our imitation of the Two Macs. Always willing to oblige, I dismissed -Jeeves with a nod, and he flickered for a moment and was gone. Many a -spectre would have been less slippy.</p> - -<p>“But what,” I mused, toying with the envelope, “can this female be -writing to me about?”</p> - -<p>“Why not open the damn thing and see?”</p> - -<p>“A very excellent idea,” I said, and did so.</p> - -<p>“And if you are interested in my movements,” proceeded Aunt Dahlia, -heading for the door, “I propose to go to my room, do some Yogi deep -breathing, and try to forget.”</p> - -<p>“Quite,” I said absently, skimming p. l. And then, as I turned over, a -sharp howl broke from my lips, causing Aunt Dahlia to shy like a startled -mustang.</p> - -<p>“Don’t do it!” she exclaimed, quivering in every limb.</p> - -<p>“Yes, but dash it——”</p> - -<p>“What a pest you are, you miserable object,” she sighed. “I remember -years ago, when you were in your cradle, being left alone with you one -day and you nearly swallowed your rubber comforter and started turning -purple. And I, ass that I was, took it out and saved your life. Let me -tell you, young Bertie, it will go very hard with you if you ever swallow -a rubber comforter again when only I am by to aid.”</p> - -<p>“But, dash it!” I cried. “Do you know what’s happened? Madeline Bassett -says she’s going to marry me!”</p> - -<p>“I hope it keeps fine for you,” said the relative, and passed from the -room looking like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-21-</h2> - - -<p>I don’t suppose I was looking so dashed unlike something out of an Edgar -Allan Poe story myself, for, as you can readily imagine, the news item -which I have just recorded had got in amongst me properly. If the -Bassett, in the belief that the Wooster heart had long been hers and was -waiting ready to be scooped in on demand, had decided to take up her -option, I should, as a man of honour and sensibility, have no choice but -to come across and kick in. The matter was obviously not one that could -be straightened out with a curt <i>nolle prosequi</i>. All the evidence, -therefore, seemed to point to the fact that the doom had come upon me -and, what was more, had come to stay.</p> - -<p>And yet, though it would be idle to pretend that my grip on the situation -was quite the grip I would have liked it to be, I did not despair of -arriving at a solution. A lesser man, caught in this awful snare, would -no doubt have thrown in the towel at once and ceased to struggle; but the -whole point about the Woosters is that they are not lesser men.</p> - -<p>By way of a start, I read the note again. Not that I had any hope that a -second perusal would enable me to place a different construction on its -contents, but it helped to fill in while the brain was limbering up. I -then, to assist thought, had another go at the fruit salad, and in -addition ate a slice of sponge cake. And it was as I passed on to the -cheese that the machinery started working. I saw what had to be done.</p> - -<p>To the question which had been exercising the mind—viz., can Bertram -cope?—I was now able to reply with a confident “Absolutely.”</p> - -<p>The great wheeze on these occasions of dirty work at the crossroads is -not to lose your head but to keep cool and try to find the ringleaders. -Once find the ringleaders, and you know where you are.</p> - -<p>The ringleader here was plainly the Bassett. It was she who had started -the whole imbroglio by chucking Gussie, and it was clear that before -anything could be done to solve and clarify, she must be induced to -revise her views and take him on again. This would put Angela back into -circulation, and that would cause Tuppy to simmer down a bit, and then we -could begin to get somewhere.</p> - -<p>I decided that as soon as I had had another morsel of cheese I would seek -this Bassett out and be pretty eloquent.</p> - -<p>And at this moment in she came. I might have foreseen that she would be -turning up shortly. I mean to say, hearts may ache, but if they know that -there is a cold collation set out in the dining-room, they are pretty -sure to come popping in sooner or later.</p> - -<p>Her eyes, as she entered the room, were fixed on the salmon mayonnaise, -and she would no doubt have made a bee-line for it and started getting -hers, had I not, in the emotion of seeing her, dropped a glass of the -best with which I was endeavouring to bring about a calmer frame of mind. -The noise caused her to turn, and for an instant embarrassment -supervened. A slight flush mantled the cheek, and the eyes popped a bit.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” she said.</p> - -<p>I have always found that there is nothing that helps to ease you over one -of these awkward moments like a spot of stage business. Find something to -do with your hands, and it’s half the battle. I grabbed a plate and -hastened forward.</p> - -<p>“A touch of salmon?”</p> - -<p>“Thank you.”</p> - -<p>“With a suspicion of salad?”</p> - -<p>“If you please.”</p> - -<p>“And to drink? Name the poison.”</p> - -<p>“I think I would like a little orange juice.”</p> - -<p>She gave a gulp. Not at the orange juice, I don’t mean, because she -hadn’t got it yet, but at all the tender associations those two words -provoked. It was as if someone had mentioned spaghetti to the relict of -an Italian organ-grinder. Her face flushed a deeper shade, she registered -anguish, and I saw that it was no longer within the sphere of practical -politics to try to confine the conversation to neutral topics like cold -boiled salmon.</p> - -<p>So did she, I imagine, for when I, as a preliminary to getting down to -brass tacks, said “Er,” she said “Er,” too, simultaneously, the brace of -“Ers” clashing in mid-air.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry.”</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon.”</p> - -<p>“You were saying——”</p> - -<p>“You were saying——”</p> - -<p>“No, please go on.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, right-ho.”</p> - -<p>I straightened the tie, my habit when in this girl’s society, and had at -it:</p> - -<p>“With reference to yours of even date——”</p> - -<p>She flushed again, and took a rather strained forkful of salmon.</p> - -<p>“You got my note?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I got your note.”</p> - -<p>“I gave it to Jeeves to give it to you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, he gave it to me. That’s how I got it.”</p> - -<p>There was another silence. And as she was plainly shrinking from talking -turkey, I was reluctantly compelled to do so. I mean, somebody had got -to. Too dashed silly, a male and female in our position simply standing -eating salmon and cheese at one another without a word.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I got it all right.”</p> - -<p>“I see. You got it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I got it. I’ve just been reading it. And what I was rather wanting -to ask you, if we happened to run into each other, was—well, what about -it?”</p> - -<p>“What about it?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I say: What about it?”</p> - -<p>“But it was quite clear.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, quite. Perfectly clear. Very well expressed and all that. But—I -mean—Well, I mean, deeply sensible of the honour, and so forth—but—— -Well, dash it!”</p> - -<p>She had polished off her salmon, and now put the plate down.</p> - -<p>“Fruit salad?”</p> - -<p>“No, thank you.”</p> - -<p>“Spot of pie?”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks.”</p> - -<p>“One of those glue things on toast?”</p> - -<p>“No, thank you.”</p> - -<p>She took a cheese straw. I found a cold egg which I had overlooked. Then -I said “I mean to say” just as she said “I think I know”, and there was -another collision.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry.”</p> - -<p>“Do go on.”</p> - -<p>“No, you go on.”</p> - -<p>I waved my cold egg courteously, to indicate that she had the floor, and -she started again:</p> - -<p>“I think I know what you are trying to say. You are surprised.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“You are thinking of——”</p> - -<p>“Exactly.”</p> - -<p>“—Mr. Fink-Nottle.”</p> - -<p>“The very man.”</p> - -<p>“You find what I have done hard to understand.”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t wonder.”</p> - -<p>“I do.”</p> - -<p>“And yet it is quite simple.”</p> - -<p>She took another cheese straw. She seemed to like cheese straws.</p> - -<p>“Quite simple, really. I want to make you happy.”</p> - -<p>“Dashed decent of you.”</p> - -<p>“I am going to devote the rest of my life to making you happy.”</p> - -<p>“A very matey scheme.”</p> - -<p>“I can at least do that. But—may I be quite frank with you, Bertie?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, rather.”</p> - -<p>“Then I must tell you this. I am fond of you. I will marry you. I will do -my best to make you a good wife. But my affection for you can never be -the flamelike passion I felt for Augustus.”</p> - -<p>“Just the very point I was working round to. There, as you say, is the -snag. Why not chuck the whole idea of hitching up with me? Wash it out -altogether. I mean, if you love old Gussie——”</p> - -<p>“No longer.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, come.”</p> - -<p>“No. What happened this afternoon has killed my love. A smear of ugliness -has been drawn across a thing of beauty, and I can never feel towards him -as I did.”</p> - -<p>I saw what she meant, of course. Gussie had bunged his heart at her feet; -she had picked it up, and, almost immediately after doing so, had -discovered that he had been stewed to the eyebrows all the time. The -shock must have been severe. No girl likes to feel that a chap has got to -be thoroughly plastered before he can ask her to marry him. It wounds the -pride.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, I persevered.</p> - -<p>“But have you considered,” I said, “that you may have got a wrong line on -Gussie’s performance this afternoon? Admitted that all the evidence -points to a more sinister theory, what price him simply having got a -touch of the sun? Chaps do get touches of the sun, you know, especially -when the weather’s hot.”</p> - -<p>She looked at me, and I saw that she was putting in a bit of the old -drenched-irises stuff.</p> - -<p>“It was like you to say that, Bertie. I respect you for it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. You have a splendid, chivalrous soul.”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you have. You remind me of Cyrano.”</p> - -<p>“Who?”</p> - -<p>“Cyrano de Bergerac.”</p> - -<p>“The chap with the nose?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>I can’t say I was any too pleased. I felt the old beak furtively. It was -a bit on the prominent side, perhaps, but, dash it, not in the Cyrano -class. It began to look as if the next thing this girl would do would be -to compare me to Schnozzle Durante.</p> - -<p>“He loved, but pleaded another’s cause.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I see what you mean now.”</p> - -<p>“I like you for that, Bertie. It was fine of you—fine and big. But it is -no use. There are things which kill love. I can never forget Augustus, -but my love for him is dead. I will be your wife.”</p> - -<p>Well, one has to be civil.</p> - -<p>“Right ho,” I said. “Thanks awfully.”</p> - -<p>Then the dialogue sort of poofed out once more, and we stood eating -cheese straws and cold eggs respectively in silence. There seemed to -exist some little uncertainty as to what the next move was.</p> - -<p>Fortunately, before embarrassment could do much more supervening, Angela -came in, and this broke up the meeting. Then Bassett announced our -engagement, and Angela kissed her and said she hoped she would be very, -very happy, and the Bassett kissed her and said she hoped she would be -very, very happy with Gussie, and Angela said she was sure she would, -because Augustus was such a dear, and the Bassett kissed her again, and -Angela kissed her again and, in a word, the whole thing got so bally -feminine that I was glad to edge away.</p> - -<p>I would have been glad to do so, of course, in any case, for if ever -there was a moment when it was up to Bertram to think, and think hard, -this moment was that moment.</p> - -<p>It was, it seemed to me, the end. Not even on the occasion, some years -earlier, when I had inadvertently become betrothed to Tuppy’s frightful -Cousin Honoria, had I experienced a deeper sense of being waist high in -the gumbo and about to sink without trace. I wandered out into the -garden, smoking a tortured gasper, with the iron well embedded in the -soul. And I had fallen into a sort of trance, trying to picture what it -would be like having the Bassett on the premises for the rest of my life -and at the same time, if you follow me, trying not to picture what it -would be like, when I charged into something which might have been a -tree, but was not—being, in point of fact, Jeeves.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I should have moved to one side.”</p> - -<p>I did not reply. I stood looking at him in silence. For the sight of him -had opened up a new line of thought.</p> - -<p>This Jeeves, now, I reflected. I had formed the opinion that he had lost -his grip and was no longer the force he had been, but was it not -possible, I asked myself, that I might be mistaken? Start him off -exploring avenues and might he not discover one through which I would be -enabled to sneak off to safety, leaving no hard feelings behind? I found -myself answering that it was quite on the cards that he might.</p> - -<p>After all, his head still bulged out at the back as of old. One noted in -the eyes the same intelligent glitter.</p> - -<p>Mind you, after what had passed between us in the matter of that white -mess-jacket with the brass buttons, I was not prepared absolutely to hand -over to the man. I would, of course, merely take him into consultation. -But, recalling some of his earlier triumphs—the Sipperley Case, the -Episode of My Aunt Agatha and the Dog McIntosh, and the smoothly handled -Affair of Uncle George and The Barmaid’s Niece were a few that sprang to -my mind—I felt justified at least in offering him the opportunity of -coming to the aid of the young master in his hour of peril.</p> - -<p>But before proceeding further, there was one thing that had got to be -understood between us, and understood clearly.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” I said, “a word with you.”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“I am up against it a bit, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry to hear that, sir. Can I be of any assistance?”</p> - -<p>“Quite possibly you can, if you have not lost your grip. Tell me frankly, -Jeeves, are you in pretty good shape mentally?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Still eating plenty of fish?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Then it may be all right. But there is just one point before I begin. In -the past, when you have contrived to extricate self or some pal from some -little difficulty, you have frequently shown a disposition to take -advantage of my gratitude to gain some private end. Those purple socks, -for instance. Also the plus fours and the Old Etonian spats. Choosing -your moment with subtle cunning, you came to me when I was weakened by -relief and got me to get rid of them. And what I am saying now is that if -you are successful on the present occasion there must be no rot of that -description about that mess-jacket of mine.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You will not come to me when all is over and ask me to jettison the -jacket?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly not, sir.”</p> - -<p>“On that understanding then, I will carry on. Jeeves, I’m engaged.”</p> - -<p>“I hope you will be very happy, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be an ass. I’m engaged to Miss Bassett.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, sir? I was not aware——”</p> - -<p>“Nor was I. It came as a complete surprise. However, there it is. The -official intimation was in that note you brought me.”</p> - -<p>“Odd, sir.”</p> - -<p>“What is?”</p> - -<p>“Odd, sir, that the contents of that note should have been as you -describe. It seemed to me that Miss Bassett, when she handed me the -communication, was far from being in a happy frame of mind.”</p> - -<p>“She is far from being in a happy frame of mind. You don’t suppose she -really wants to marry me, do you? Pshaw, Jeeves! Can’t you see that this -is simply another of those bally gestures which are rapidly rendering -Brinkley Court a hell for man and beast? Dash all gestures, is my view.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what’s to be done?”</p> - -<p>“You feel that Miss Bassett, despite what has occurred, still retains a -fondness for Mr. Fink-Nottle, sir?”</p> - -<p>“She’s pining for him.”</p> - -<p>“In that case, sir, surely the best plan would be to bring about a -reconciliation between them.”</p> - -<p>“How? You see. You stand silent and twiddle the fingers. You are -stumped.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. If I twiddled my fingers, it was merely to assist thought.”</p> - -<p>“Then continue twiddling.”</p> - -<p>“It will not be necessary, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean you’ve got a bite already?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You astound me, Jeeves. Let’s have it.”</p> - -<p>“The device which I have in mind is one that I have already mentioned to -you, sir.”</p> - -<p>“When did you ever mention any device to me?”</p> - -<p>“If you will throw your mind back to the evening of our arrival, sir. You -were good enough to inquire of me if I had any plan to put forward with a -view to bringing Miss Angela and Mr. Glossop together, and I ventured to -suggest——”</p> - -<p>“Good Lord! Not the old fire-alarm thing?”</p> - -<p>“Precisely, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You’re still sticking to that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>It shows how much the ghastly blow I had received had shaken me when I -say that, instead of dismissing the proposal with a curt “Tchah!” or -anything like that, I found myself speculating as to whether there might -not be something in it, after all.</p> - -<p>When he had first mooted this fire-alarm scheme of his, I had sat upon -it, if you remember, with the maximum of promptitude and vigour. “Rotten” -was the adjective I had employed to describe it, and you may recall that -I mused a bit sadly, considering the idea conclusive proof of the general -breakdown of a once fine mind. But now it somehow began to look as if it -might have possibilities. The fact of the matter was that I had about -reached the stage where I was prepared to try anything once, however -goofy.</p> - -<p>“Just run through that wheeze again, Jeeves,” I said thoughtfully. “I -remember thinking it cuckoo, but it may be that I missed some of the -finer shades.”</p> - -<p>“Your criticism of it at the time, sir, was that it was too elaborate, -but I do not think it is so in reality. As I see it, sir, the occupants -of the house, hearing the fire bell ring, will suppose that a -conflagration has broken out.”</p> - -<p>I nodded. One could follow the train of thought.</p> - -<p>“Yes, that seems reasonable.”</p> - -<p>“Whereupon Mr. Glossop will hasten to save Miss Angela, while Mr. -Fink-Nottle performs the same office for Miss Bassett.”</p> - -<p>“Is that based on psychology?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. Possibly you may recollect that it was an axiom of the late -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, that the -instinct of everyone, upon an alarm of fire, is to save the object -dearest to them.”</p> - -<p>“It seems to me that there is a grave danger of seeing Tuppy come out -carrying a steak-and-kidney pie, but resume, Jeeves, resume. You think -that this would clean everything up?”</p> - -<p>“The relations of the two young couples could scarcely continue distant -after such an occurrence, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you’re right. But, dash it, if we go ringing fire bells in the -night watches, shan’t we scare half the domestic staff into fits? There -is one of the housemaids—Jane, I believe—who already skips like the -high hills if I so much as come on her unexpectedly round a corner.”</p> - -<p>“A neurotic girl, sir, I agree. I have noticed her. But by acting -promptly we should avoid such a contingency. The entire staff, with the -exception of Monsieur Anatole, will be at the ball at Kingham Manor -tonight.”</p> - -<p>“Of course. That just shows the condition this thing has reduced me to. -Forget my own name next. Well, then, let’s just try to envisage. Bong -goes the bell. Gussie rushes and grabs the Bassett.... Wait. Why -shouldn’t she simply walk downstairs?”</p> - -<p>“You are overlooking the effect of sudden alarm on the feminine -temperament, sir.”</p> - -<p>“That’s true.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Bassett’s impulse, I would imagine, sir, would be to leap from her -window.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s worse. We don’t want her spread out in a sort of <i>purée</i> on -the lawn. It seems to me that the flaw in this scheme of yours, Jeeves, -is that it’s going to litter the garden with mangled corpses.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. You will recall that Mr. Travers’s fear of burglars has caused -him to have stout bars fixed to all the windows.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, yes. Well, it sounds all right,” I said, though still a bit -doubtfully. “Quite possibly it may come off. But I have a feeling that it -will slip up somewhere. However, I am in no position to cavil at even a -100 to 1 shot. I will adopt this policy of yours, Jeeves, though, as I -say, with misgivings. At what hour would you suggest bonging the bell?”</p> - -<p>“Not before midnight, sir.”</p> - -<p>“That is to say, some time after midnight.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Right-ho, then. At 12.30 on the dot, I will bong.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-22-</h2> - - -<p>I don’t know why it is, but there’s something about the rural districts -after dark that always has a rummy effect on me. In London I can stay out -till all hours and come home with the milk without a tremor, but put me -in the garden of a country house after the strength of the company has -gone to roost and the place is shut up, and a sort of goose-fleshy -feeling steals over me. The night wind stirs the tree-tops, twigs crack, -bushes rustle, and before I know where I am, the morale has gone phut and -I’m expecting the family ghost to come sneaking up behind me, making -groaning noises. Dashed unpleasant, the whole thing, and if you think it -improves matters to know that you are shortly about to ring the loudest -fire bell in England and start an all-hands-to-the-pumps panic in that -quiet, darkened house, you err.</p> - -<p>I knew all about the Brinkley Court fire bell. The dickens of a row it -makes. Uncle Tom, in addition to not liking burglars, is a bloke who has -always objected to the idea of being cooked in his sleep, so when he -bought the place he saw to it that the fire bell should be something that -might give you heart failure, but which you couldn’t possibly mistake for -the drowsy chirping of a sparrow in the ivy.</p> - -<p>When I was a kid and spent my holidays at Brinkley, we used to have fire -drills after closing time, and many is the night I’ve had it jerk me out -of the dreamless like the Last Trump.</p> - -<p>I confess that the recollection of what this bell could do when it -buckled down to it gave me pause as I stood that night at 12.30 p.m. -prompt beside the outhouse where it was located. The sight of the rope -against the whitewashed wall and the thought of the bloodsome uproar -which was about to smash the peace of the night into hash served to -deepen that rummy feeling to which I have alluded.</p> - -<p>Moreover, now that I had had time to meditate upon it, I was more than -ever defeatist about this scheme of Jeeves’s.</p> - -<p>Jeeves seemed to take it for granted that Gussie and Tuppy, faced with a -hideous fate, would have no thought beyond saving the Bassett and Angela.</p> - -<p>I could not bring myself to share his sunny confidence.</p> - -<p>I mean to say, I know how moments when they’re faced with a hideous fate -affect chaps. I remember Freddie Widgeon, one of the most chivalrous -birds in the Drones, telling me how there was an alarm of fire once at a -seaside hotel where he was staying and, so far from rushing about saving -women, he was down the escape within ten seconds of the kick-off, his -mind concerned with but one thing—viz., the personal well-being of -F. Widgeon.</p> - -<p>As far as any idea of doing the delicately nurtured a bit of good went, -he tells me, he was prepared to stand underneath and catch them in -blankets, but no more.</p> - -<p>Why, then, should this not be so with Augustus Fink-Nottle and Hildebrand -Glossop?</p> - -<p>Such were my thoughts as I stood toying with the rope, and I believe I -should have turned the whole thing up, had it not been that at this -juncture there floated into my mind a picture of the Bassett hearing that -bell for the first time. Coming as a wholly new experience, it would -probably startle her into a decline.</p> - -<p>And so agreeable was this reflection that I waited no longer, but seized -the rope, braced the feet and snapped into it.</p> - -<p>Well, as I say, I hadn’t been expecting that bell to hush things up to -any great extent. Nor did it. The last time I had heard it, I had been in -my room on the other side of the house, and even so it had hoiked me out -of bed as if something had exploded under me. Standing close to it like -this, I got the full force and meaning of the thing, and I’ve never heard -anything like it in my puff.</p> - -<p>I rather enjoy a bit of noise, as a general rule. I remember Cats-meat -Potter-Pirbright bringing a police rattle into the Drones one night and -loosing it off behind my chair, and I just lay back and closed my eyes -with a pleasant smile, like someone in a box at the opera. And the same -applies to the time when my Aunt Agatha’s son, young Thos., put a match -to the parcel of Guy Fawkes Day fireworks to see what would happen.</p> - -<p>But the Brinkley Court fire bell was too much for me. I gave about half a -dozen tugs, and then, feeling that enough was enough, sauntered round to -the front lawn to ascertain what solid results had been achieved.</p> - -<p>Brinkley Court had given of its best. A glance told me that we were -playing to capacity. The eye, roving to and fro, noted here Uncle Tom in -a purple dressing gown, there Aunt Dahlia in the old blue and yellow. It -also fell upon Anatole, Tuppy, Gussie, Angela, the Bassett and Jeeves, in -the order named. There they all were, present and correct.</p> - -<p>But—and this was what caused me immediate concern—I could detect no -sign whatever that there had been any rescue work going on.</p> - -<p>What I had been hoping, of course, was to see Tuppy bending solicitously -over Angela in one corner, while Gussie fanned the Bassett with a towel -in the other. Instead of which, the Bassett was one of the group which -included Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Tom and seemed to be busy trying to make -Anatole see the bright side, while Angela and Gussie were, respectively, -leaning against the sundial with a peeved look and sitting on the grass -rubbing a barked shin. Tuppy was walking up and down the path, all by -himself.</p> - -<p>A disturbing picture, you will admit. It was with a rather imperious -gesture that I summoned Jeeves to my side.</p> - -<p>“Well, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>I eyed him sternly. “Sir?” forsooth!</p> - -<p>“It’s no good saying ‘Sir?’ Jeeves. Look round you. See for yourself. -Your scheme has proved a bust.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly it would appear that matters have not arranged themselves -quite as we anticipated, sir.”</p> - -<p>“We?”</p> - -<p>“As I had anticipated, sir.”</p> - -<p>“That’s more like it. Didn’t I tell you it would be a flop?”</p> - -<p>“I remember that you did seem dubious, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Dubious is no word for it, Jeeves. I hadn’t a scrap of faith in the idea -from the start. When you first mooted it, I said it was rotten, and I was -right. I’m not blaming you, Jeeves. It is not your fault that you have -sprained your brain. But after this—forgive me if I hurt your feelings, -Jeeves——I shall know better than to allow you to handle any but the -simplest and most elementary problems. It is best to be candid about -this, don’t you think? Kindest to be frank and straightforward?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I mean, the surgeon’s knife, what?”</p> - -<p>“Precisely, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I consider——”</p> - -<p>“If you will pardon me for interrupting you, sir, I fancy Mrs. Travers is -endeavouring to attract your attention.”</p> - -<p>And at this moment a ringing “Hoy!” which could have proceeded only from -the relative in question, assured me that his view was correct.</p> - -<p>“Just step this way a moment, Attila, if you don’t mind,” boomed that -well-known—and under certain conditions, well-loved—voice, and I moved -over.</p> - -<p>I was not feeling unmixedly at my ease. For the first time it was -beginning to steal upon me that I had not prepared a really good story in -support of my questionable behaviour in ringing fire bells at such an -hour, and I have known Aunt Dahlia to express herself with a hearty -freedom upon far smaller provocation.</p> - -<p>She exhibited, however, no signs of violence. More a sort of frozen calm, -if you know what I mean. You could see that she was a woman who had -suffered.</p> - -<p>“Well, Bertie, dear,” she said, “here we all are.”</p> - -<p>“Quite,” I replied guardedly.</p> - -<p>“Nobody missing, is there?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think so.”</p> - -<p>“Splendid. So much healthier for us out in the open like this than -frowsting in bed. I had just dropped off when you did your bell-ringing -act. For it was you, my sweet child, who rang that bell, was it not?”</p> - -<p>“I did ring the bell, yes.”</p> - -<p>“Any particular reason, or just a whim?”</p> - -<p>“I thought there was a fire.”</p> - -<p>“What gave you that impression, dear?”</p> - -<p>“I thought I saw flames.”</p> - -<p>“Where, darling? Tell Aunt Dahlia.”</p> - -<p>“In one of the windows.”</p> - -<p>“I see. So we have all been dragged out of bed and scared rigid because -you have been seeing things.”</p> - -<p>Here Uncle Tom made a noise like a cork coming out of a bottle, and -Anatole, whose moustache had hit a new low, said something about “some -apes” and, if I am not mistaken, a “<i>rogommier</i>”—whatever that is.</p> - -<p>“I admit I was mistaken. I am sorry.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t apologize, ducky. Can’t you see how pleased we all are? What were -you doing out here, anyway?”</p> - -<p>“Just taking a stroll.”</p> - -<p>“I see. And are you proposing to continue your stroll?”</p> - -<p>“No, I think I’ll go in now.”</p> - -<p>“That’s fine. Because I was thinking of going in, too, and I don’t -believe I could sleep knowing you were out here giving rein to that -powerful imagination of yours. The next thing that would happen would be -that you would think you saw a pink elephant sitting on the drawing-room -window-sill and start throwing bricks at it.... Well, come on, Tom, the -entertainment seems to be over.... But wait. The newt king wishes a word -with us.... Yes, Mr. Fink-Nottle?”</p> - -<p>Gussie, as he joined our little group, seemed upset about something.</p> - -<p>“I say!”</p> - -<p>“Say on, Augustus.”</p> - -<p>“I say, what are we going to do?”</p> - -<p>“Speaking for myself, I intend to return to bed.”</p> - -<p>“But the door’s shut.”</p> - -<p>“What door?”</p> - -<p>“The front door. Somebody must have shut it.”</p> - -<p>“Then I shall open it.”</p> - -<p>“But it won’t open.”</p> - -<p>“Then I shall try another door.”</p> - -<p>“But all the other doors are shut.”</p> - -<p>“What? Who shut them?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>I advanced a theory!</p> - -<p>“The wind?”</p> - -<p>Aunt Dahlia’s eyes met mine.</p> - -<p>“Don’t try me too high,” she begged. “Not now, precious.” And, indeed, -even as I spoke, it did strike me that the night was pretty still.</p> - -<p>Uncle Tom said we must get in through a window. Aunt Dahlia sighed a bit.</p> - -<p>“How? Could Lloyd George do it, could Winston do it, could Baldwin do it? -No. Not since you had those bars of yours put on.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well, well. God bless my soul, ring the bell, then.”</p> - -<p>“The fire bell?”</p> - -<p>“The door bell.”</p> - -<p>“To what end, Thomas? There’s nobody in the house. The servants are all -at Kingham.”</p> - -<p>“But, confound it all, we can’t stop out here all night.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t we? You just watch us. There is nothing—literally nothing—which -a country house party can’t do with Attila here operating on the -premises. Seppings presumably took the back-door key with him. We must -just amuse ourselves till he comes back.”</p> - -<p>Tuppy made a suggestion:</p> - -<p>“Why not take out one of the cars and drive over to Kingham and get the -key from Seppings?”</p> - -<p>It went well. No question about that. For the first time, a smile lit up -Aunt Dahlia’s drawn face. Uncle Tom grunted approvingly. Anatole said -something in Provençal that sounded complimentary. And I thought I -detected even on Angela’s map a slight softening.</p> - -<p>“A very excellent idea,” said Aunt Dahlia. “One of the best. Nip round to -the garage at once.”</p> - -<p>After Tuppy had gone, some extremely flattering things were said about -his intelligence and resource, and there was a disposition to draw rather -invidious comparisons between him and Bertram. Painful for me, of course, -but the ordeal didn’t last long, for it couldn’t have been more than five -minutes before he was with us again.</p> - -<p>Tuppy seemed perturbed.</p> - -<p>“I say, it’s all off.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“The garage is locked.”</p> - -<p>“Unlock it.”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t the key.”</p> - -<p>“Shout, then, and wake Waterbury.”</p> - -<p>“Who’s Waterbury?”</p> - -<p>“The chauffeur, ass. He sleeps over the garage.”</p> - -<p>“But he’s gone to the dance at Kingham.”</p> - -<p>It was the final wallop. Until this moment, Aunt Dahlia had been able to -preserve her frozen calm. The dam now burst. The years rolled away from -her, and she was once more the Dahlia Wooster of the old yoicks-and-tantivy -days—the emotional, free-speaking girl who had so often risen in -her stirrups to yell derogatory personalities at people who were heading -hounds.</p> - -<p>“Curse all dancing chauffeurs! What on earth does a chauffeur want to -dance for? I mistrusted that man from the start. Something told me he was -a dancer. Well, this finishes it. We’re out here till breakfast-time. If -those blasted servants come back before eight o’clock, I shall be vastly -surprised. You won’t get Seppings away from a dance till you throw him -out. I know him. The jazz’ll go to his head, and he’ll stand clapping and -demanding encores till his hands blister. Damn all dancing butlers! What -is Brinkley Court? A respectable English country house or a crimson -dancing school? One might as well be living in the middle of the Russian -Ballet. Well, all right. If we must stay out here, we must. We shall all -be frozen stiff, except”—here she directed at me not one of her -friendliest glances——“except dear old Attila, who is, I observe, well and -warmly clad. We will resign ourselves to the prospect of freezing to -death like the Babes in the Wood, merely expressing a dying wish that our -old pal Attila will see that we are covered with leaves. No doubt he will -also toll that fire bell of his as a mark of respect—And what might you -want, my good man?”</p> - -<p>She broke off, and stood glaring at Jeeves. During the latter portion of -her address, he had been standing by in a respectful manner, endeavouring -to catch the speaker’s eye.</p> - -<p>“If I might make a suggestion, madam.”</p> - -<p>I am not saying that in the course of our long association I have always -found myself able to view Jeeves with approval. There are aspects of his -character which have frequently caused coldnesses to arise between us. He -is one of those fellows who, if you give them a thingummy, take a -what-d’you-call-it. His work is often raw, and he has been known to allude -to me as “mentally negligible”. More than once, as I have shown, it has -been my painful task to squelch in him a tendency to get uppish and treat -the young master as a serf or peon.</p> - -<p>These are grave defects.</p> - -<p>But one thing I have never failed to hand the man. He is magnetic. There -is about him something that seems to soothe and hypnotize. To the best of -my knowledge, he has never encountered a charging rhinoceros, but should -this contingency occur, I have no doubt that the animal, meeting his eye, -would check itself in mid-stride, roll over and lie purring with its legs -in the air.</p> - -<p>At any rate he calmed down Aunt Dahlia, the nearest thing to a charging -rhinoceros, in under five seconds. He just stood there looking -respectful, and though I didn’t time the thing—not having a stop-watch -on me—I should say it wasn’t more than three seconds and a quarter -before her whole manner underwent an astounding change for the better. -She melted before one’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves! You haven’t got an idea?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, madam.”</p> - -<p>“That great brain of yours has really clicked as ever in the hour of -need?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, madam.”</p> - -<p>“Jeeves,” said Aunt Dahlia in a shaking voice, “I am sorry I spoke so -abruptly. I was not myself. I might have known that you would not come -simply trying to make conversation. Tell us this idea of yours, Jeeves. -Join our little group of thinkers and let us hear what you have to say. -Make yourself at home, Jeeves, and give us the good word. Can you really -get us out of this mess?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, madam, if one of the gentlemen would be willing to ride a bicycle.”</p> - -<p>“A bicycle?”</p> - -<p>“There is a bicycle in the gardener’s shed in the kitchen garden, madam. -Possibly one of the gentlemen might feel disposed to ride over to Kingham -Manor and procure the back-door key from Mr. Seppings.”</p> - -<p>“Splendid, Jeeves!”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, madam.”</p> - -<p>“Wonderful!”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, madam.”</p> - -<p>“Attila!” said Aunt Dahlia, turning and speaking in a quiet, -authoritative manner.</p> - -<p>I had been expecting it. From the very moment those ill-judged words had -passed the fellow’s lips, I had had a presentiment that a determined -effort would be made to elect me as the goat, and I braced myself to -resist and obstruct.</p> - -<p>And as I was about to do so, while I was in the very act of summoning up -all my eloquence to protest that I didn’t know how to ride a bike and -couldn’t possibly learn in the brief time at my disposal, I’m dashed if -the man didn’t go and nip me in the bud.</p> - -<p>“Yes, madam, Mr. Wooster would perform the task admirably. He is an -expert cyclist. He has often boasted to me of his triumphs on the wheel.”</p> - -<p>I hadn’t. I hadn’t done anything of the sort. It’s simply monstrous how -one’s words get twisted. All I had ever done was to mention to -him—casually, just as an interesting item of information, one day in New -York when we were watching the six-day bicycle race—that at the age of -fourteen, while spending my holidays with a vicar of sorts who had been -told off to teach me Latin, I had won the Choir Boys’ Handicap at the -local school treat.</p> - -<p>A different thing from boasting of one’s triumphs on the wheel.</p> - -<p>I mean, he was a man of the world and must have known that the form of -school treats is never of the hottest. And, if I’m not mistaken, I had -specifically told him that on the occasion referred to I had received -half a lap start and that Willie Punting, the odds-on favourite to whom -the race was expected to be a gift, had been forced to retire, owing to -having pinched his elder brother’s machine without asking the elder -brother, and the elder brother coming along just as the pistol went and -giving him one on the side of the head and taking it away from him, thus -rendering him a scratched-at-the-post non-starter. Yet, from the way he -talked, you would have thought I was one of those chaps in sweaters with -medals all over them, whose photographs bob up from time to time in the -illustrated press on the occasion of their having ridden from Hyde Park -Corner to Glasgow in three seconds under the hour, or whatever it is.</p> - -<p>And as if this were not bad enough, Tuppy had to shove his oar in.</p> - -<p>“That’s right,” said Tuppy. “Bertie has always been a great cyclist. I -remember at Oxford he used to take all his clothes off on bump-supper -nights and ride around the quad, singing comic songs. Jolly fast he used -to go too.”</p> - -<p>“Then he can go jolly fast now,” said Aunt Dahlia with animation. “He -can’t go too fast for me. He may also sing comic songs, if he likes.... -And if you wish to take your clothes off, Bertie, my lamb, by all means -do so. But whether clothed or in the nude, whether singing comic songs or -not singing comic songs, get a move on.”</p> - -<p>I found speech:</p> - -<p>“But I haven’t ridden for years.”</p> - -<p>“Then it’s high time you began again.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve probably forgotten how to ride.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll soon get the knack after you’ve taken a toss or two. Trial and -error. The only way.”</p> - -<p>“But it’s miles to Kingham.”</p> - -<p>“So the sooner you’re off, the better.”</p> - -<p>“But——”</p> - -<p>“Bertie, dear.”</p> - -<p>“But, dash it——”</p> - -<p>“Bertie, darling.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but dash it——”</p> - -<p>“Bertie, my sweet.”</p> - -<p>And so it was arranged. Presently I was moving sombrely off through the -darkness, Jeeves at my side, Aunt Dahlia calling after me something about -trying to imagine myself the man who brought the good news from Ghent to -Aix. The first I had heard of the chap.</p> - -<p>“So, Jeeves,” I said, as we reached the shed, and my voice was cold and -bitter, “this is what your great scheme has accomplished! Tuppy, Angela, -Gussie and the Bassett not on speaking terms, and self faced with an -eight-mile ride——”</p> - -<p>“Nine, I believe, sir.”</p> - -<p>“—a nine-mile ride, and another nine-mile ride back.”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry, sir.”</p> - -<p>“No good being sorry now. Where is this foul bone-shaker?”</p> - -<p>“I will bring it out, sir.”</p> - -<p>He did so. I eyed it sourly.</p> - -<p>“Where’s the lamp?”</p> - -<p>“I fear there is no lamp, sir.”</p> - -<p>“No lamp?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But I may come a fearful stinker without a lamp. Suppose I barge into -something.”</p> - -<p>I broke off and eyed him frigidly.</p> - -<p>“You smile, Jeeves. The thought amuses you?”</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, sir. I was thinking of a tale my Uncle Cyril used to -tell me as a child. An absurd little story, sir, though I confess that I -have always found it droll. According to my Uncle Cyril, two men named -Nicholls and Jackson set out to ride to Brighton on a tandem bicycle, and -were so unfortunate as to come into collision with a brewer’s van. And -when the rescue party arrived on the scene of the accident, it was -discovered that they had been hurled together with such force that it was -impossible to sort them out at all adequately. The keenest eye could not -discern which portion of the fragments was Nicholls and which Jackson. So -they collected as much as they could, and called it Nixon. I remember -laughing very much at that story when I was a child, sir.”</p> - -<p>I had to pause a moment to master my feelings.</p> - -<p>“You did, eh?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You thought it funny?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“And your Uncle Cyril thought it funny?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Golly, what a family! Next time you meet your Uncle Cyril, Jeeves, you -can tell him from me that his sense of humour is morbid and unpleasant.”</p> - -<p>“He is dead, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Thank heaven for that.... Well, give me the blasted machine.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Are the tyres inflated?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“The nuts firm, the brakes in order, the sprockets running true with the -differential gear?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Right ho, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>In Tuppy’s statement that, when at the University of Oxford, I had been -known to ride a bicycle in the nude about the quadrangle of our mutual -college, there had been, I cannot deny, a certain amount of substance. -Correct, however, though his facts were, so far as they went, he had not -told all. What he had omitted to mention was that I had invariably been -well oiled at the time, and when in that condition a chap is capable of -feats at which in cooler moments his reason would rebel.</p> - -<p>Stimulated by the juice, I believe, men have even been known to ride -alligators.</p> - -<p>As I started now to pedal out into the great world, I was icily sober, -and the old skill, in consequence, had deserted me entirely. I found -myself wobbling badly, and all the stories I had ever heard of nasty -bicycle accidents came back to me with a rush, headed by Jeeves’s Uncle -Cyril’s cheery little anecdote about Nicholls and Jackson.</p> - -<p>Pounding wearily through the darkness, I found myself at a loss to fathom -the mentality of men like Jeeves’s Uncle Cyril. What on earth he could -see funny in a disaster which had apparently involved the complete -extinction of a human creature—or, at any rate, of half a human creature -and half another human creature—was more than I could understand. To me, -the thing was one of the most poignant tragedies that had ever been -brought to my attention, and I have no doubt that I should have continued -to brood over it for quite a time, had my thoughts not been diverted by -the sudden necessity of zigzagging sharply in order to avoid a pig in the -fairway.</p> - -<p>For a moment it looked like being real Nicholls-and-Jackson stuff, but, -fortunately, a quick zig on my part, coinciding with an adroit zag on the -part of the pig, enabled me to win through, and I continued my ride safe, -but with the heart fluttering like a captive bird.</p> - -<p>The effect of this narrow squeak upon me was to shake the nerve to the -utmost. The fact that pigs were abroad in the night seemed to bring home -to me the perilous nature of my enterprise. It set me thinking of all the -other things that could happen to a man out and about on a velocipede -without a lamp after lighting-up time. In particular, I recalled the -statement of a pal of mine that in certain sections of the rural -districts goats were accustomed to stray across the road to the extent of -their chains, thereby forming about as sound a booby trap as one could -well wish.</p> - -<p>He mentioned, I remember, the case of a friend of his whose machine got -entangled with a goat chain and who was dragged seven miles—like -skijoring in Switzerland—so that he was never the same man again. And -there was one chap who ran into an elephant, left over from a travelling -circus.</p> - -<p>Indeed, taking it for all in all, it seemed to me that, with the possible -exception of being bitten by sharks, there was virtually no front-page -disaster that could not happen to a fellow, once he had allowed his dear -ones to override his better judgment and shove him out into the great -unknown on a push-bike, and I am not ashamed to confess that, taking it -by and large, the amount of quailing I did from this point on was pretty -considerable.</p> - -<p>However, in respect to goats and elephants, I must say things panned out -unexpectedly well.</p> - -<p>Oddly enough, I encountered neither. But when you have said that you have -said everything, for in every other way the conditions could scarcely -have been fouler.</p> - -<p>Apart from the ceaseless anxiety of having to keep an eye skinned for -elephants, I found myself much depressed by barking dogs, and once I -received a most unpleasant shock when, alighting to consult a signpost, I -saw sitting on top of it an owl that looked exactly like my Aunt Agatha. -So agitated, indeed, had my frame of mind become by this time that I -thought at first it was Aunt Agatha, and only when reason and reflection -told me how alien to her habits it would be to climb signposts and sit on -them, could I pull myself together and overcome the weakness.</p> - -<p>In short, what with all this mental disturbance added to the more purely -physical anguish in the billowy portions and the calves and ankles, the -Bertram Wooster who eventually toppled off at the door of Kingham Manor -was a very different Bertram from the gay and insouciant <i>boulevardier</i> -of Bond Street and Piccadilly.</p> - -<p>Even to one unaware of the inside facts, it would have been evident that -Kingham Manor was throwing its weight about a bit tonight. Lights shone -in the windows, music was in the air, and as I drew nearer my ear -detected the sibilant shuffling of the feet of butlers, footmen, -chauffeurs, parlourmaids, housemaids, tweenies and, I have no doubt, -cooks, who were busily treading the measure. I suppose you couldn’t sum -it up much better than by saying that there was a sound of revelry by -night.</p> - -<p>The orgy was taking place in one of the ground-floor rooms which had -French windows opening on to the drive, and it was to these French -windows that I now made my way. An orchestra was playing something with a -good deal of zip to it, and under happier conditions I dare say my feet -would have started twitching in time to the melody. But I had sterner -work before me than to stand hoofing it by myself on gravel drives.</p> - -<p>I wanted that back-door key, and I wanted it instanter.</p> - -<p>Scanning the throng within, I found it difficult for a while to spot -Seppings. Presently, however, he hove in view, doing fearfully lissom -things in mid-floor. I “Hi-Seppings!”-ed a couple of times, but his mind -was too much on his job to be diverted, and it was only when the swirl of -the dance had brought him within prodding distance of my forefinger that -a quick one to the lower ribs enabled me to claim his attention.</p> - -<p>The unexpected buffet caused him to trip over his partner’s feet, and it -was with marked austerity that he turned. As he recognized Bertram, -however, coldness melted, to be replaced by astonishment.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Wooster!”</p> - -<p>I was in no mood for bandying words.</p> - -<p>“Less of the ‘Mr. Wooster’ and more back-door keys,” I said curtly. “Give -me the key of the back door, Seppings.”</p> - -<p>He did not seem to grasp the gist.</p> - -<p>“The key of the back door, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Precisely. The Brinkley Court back-door key.”</p> - -<p>“But it is at the Court, sir.”</p> - -<p>I clicked the tongue, annoyed.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be frivolous, my dear old butler,” I said. “I haven’t ridden nine -miles on a push-bike to listen to you trying to be funny. You’ve got it -in your trousers pocket.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. I left it with Mr. Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“You did—what?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. Before I came away. Mr. Jeeves said that he wished to walk in -the garden before retiring for the night. He was to place the key on the -kitchen window-sill.”</p> - -<p>I stared at the man dumbly. His eye was clear, his hand steady. He had -none of the appearance of a butler who has had a couple.</p> - -<p>“You mean that all this while the key has been in Jeeves’s possession?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>I could speak no more. Emotion had overmastered my voice. I was at a loss -and not abreast; but of one thing, it seemed to me, there could be no -doubt. For some reason, not to be fathomed now, but most certainly to be -gone well into as soon as I had pushed this infernal sewing-machine of -mine over those nine miles of lonely, country road and got within -striking distance of him, Jeeves had been doing the dirty. Knowing that -at any given moment he could have solved the whole situation, he had kept -Aunt Dahlia and others roosting out on the front lawn <i>en déshabille</i> -and, worse still, had stood calmly by and watched his young employer set -out on a wholly unnecessary eighteen-mile bicycle ride.</p> - -<p>I could scarcely believe such a thing of him. Of his Uncle Cyril, yes. -With that distorted sense of humour of his, Uncle Cyril might quite -conceivably have been capable of such conduct. But that it should be -Jeeves—</p> - -<p>I leaped into the saddle and, stifling the cry of agony which rose to the -lips as the bruised person touched the hard leather, set out on the -homeward journey.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>-23-</h2> - - -<p>I remember Jeeves saying on one occasion—I forgot how the subject had -arisen—he may simply have thrown the observation out, as he does -sometimes, for me to take or leave—that hell hath no fury like a woman -scorned. And until tonight I had always felt that there was a lot in it. -I had never scorned a woman myself, but Pongo Twistleton once scorned an -aunt of his, flatly refusing to meet her son Gerald at Paddington and -give him lunch and see him off to school at Waterloo, and he never heard -the end of it. Letters were written, he tells me, which had to be seen to -be believed. Also two very strong telegrams and a bitter picture post -card with a view of the Little Chilbury War Memorial on it.</p> - -<p>Until tonight, therefore, as I say, I had never questioned the accuracy -of the statement. Scorned women first and the rest nowhere, was how it -had always seemed to me.</p> - -<p>But tonight I revised my views. If you want to know what hell can really -do in the way of furies, look for the chap who has been hornswoggled into -taking a long and unnecessary bicycle ride in the dark without a lamp.</p> - -<p>Mark that word “unnecessary”. That was the part of it that really jabbed -the iron into the soul. I mean, if it was a case of riding to the -doctor’s to save the child with croup, or going off to the local pub to -fetch supplies in the event of the cellar having run dry, no one would -leap to the handlebars more readily than I. Young Lochinvar, absolutely. -But this business of being put through it merely to gratify one’s -personal attendant’s diseased sense of the amusing was a bit too thick, -and I chafed from start to finish.</p> - -<p>So, what I mean to say, although the providence which watches over good -men saw to it that I was enabled to complete the homeward journey -unscathed except in the billowy portions, removing from my path all -goats, elephants, and even owls that looked like my Aunt Agatha, it was -a frowning and jaundiced Bertram who finally came to anchor at the -Brinkley Court front door. And when I saw a dark figure emerging from -the porch to meet me, I prepared to let myself go and uncork all that was -fizzing in the mind.</p> - -<p>“Jeeves!” I said.</p> - -<p>“It is I, Bertie.”</p> - -<p>The voice which spoke sounded like warm treacle, and even if I had not -recognized it immediately as that of the Bassett, I should have known -that it did not proceed from the man I was yearning to confront. For this -figure before me was wearing a simple tweed dress and had employed my -first name in its remarks. And Jeeves, whatever his moral defects, would -never go about in skirts calling me Bertie.</p> - -<p>The last person, of course, whom I would have wished to meet after a long -evening in the saddle, but I vouchsafed a courteous “What ho!”</p> - -<p>There was a pause, during which I massaged the calves. Mine, of course, I -mean.</p> - -<p>“You got in, then?” I said, in allusion to the change of costume.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes. About a quarter of an hour after you left Jeeves went searching -about and found the back-door key on the kitchen window-sill.”</p> - -<p>“Ha!”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you said something.”</p> - -<p>“No, nothing.”</p> - -<p>And I continued to do so. For at this juncture, as had so often happened -when this girl and I were closeted, the conversation once more went blue -on us. The night breeze whispered, but not the Bassett. A bird twittered, -but not so much as a chirp escaped Bertram. It was perfectly amazing, the -way her mere presence seemed to wipe speech from my lips—and mine, for -that matter, from hers. It began to look as if our married life together -would be rather like twenty years among the Trappist monks.</p> - -<p>“Seen Jeeves anywhere?” I asked, eventually coming through.</p> - -<p>“Yes, in the dining-room.”</p> - -<p>“The dining-room?”</p> - -<p>“Waiting on everybody. They are having eggs and bacon and champagne.... -What did you say?”</p> - -<p>I had said nothing—merely snorted. There was something about the thought -of these people carelessly revelling at a time when, for all they knew, I -was probably being dragged about the countryside by goats or chewed by -elephants, that struck home at me like a poisoned dart. It was the sort -of thing you read about as having happened just before the French -Revolution—the haughty nobles in their castles callously digging in and -quaffing while the unfortunate blighters outside were suffering frightful -privations.</p> - -<p>The voice of the Bassett cut in on these mordant reflections:</p> - -<p>“Bertie.”</p> - -<p>“Hullo!”</p> - -<p>Silence.</p> - -<p>“Hullo!” I said again.</p> - -<p>No response. Whole thing rather like one of those telephone conversations -where you sit at your end of the wire saying: “Hullo! Hullo!” unaware -that the party of the second part has gone off to tea.</p> - -<p>Eventually, however, she came to the surface again:</p> - -<p>“Bertie, I have something to say to you.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“I have something to say to you.”</p> - -<p>“I know. I said ‘What?’”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I thought you didn’t hear what I said.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I heard what you said, all right, but not what you were going to -say.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I see.”</p> - -<p>“Right-ho.”</p> - -<p>So that was straightened out. Nevertheless, instead of proceeding she -took time off once more. She stood twisting the fingers and scratching -the gravel with her foot. When finally she spoke, it was to deliver an -impressive boost:</p> - -<p>“Bertie, do you read Tennyson?”</p> - -<p>“Not if I can help.”</p> - -<p>“You remind me so much of those Knights of the Round Table in the ‘Idylls -of the King’.”</p> - -<p>Of course I had heard of them—Lancelot, Galahad and all that lot, but I -didn’t see where the resemblance came in. It seemed to me that she must -be thinking of a couple of other fellows.</p> - -<p>“How do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“You have such a great heart, such a fine soul. You are so generous, so -unselfish, so chivalrous. I have always felt that about you—that you are -one of the few really chivalrous men I have ever met.”</p> - -<p>Well, dashed difficult, of course, to know what to say when someone is -giving you the old oil on a scale like that. I muttered an “Oh, yes?” or -something on those lines, and rubbed the billowy portions in some -embarrassment. And there was another silence, broken only by a sharp howl -as I rubbed a bit too hard.</p> - -<p>“Bertie.”</p> - -<p>“Hullo?”</p> - -<p>I heard her give a sort of gulp.</p> - -<p>“Bertie, will you be chivalrous now?”</p> - -<p>“Rather. Only too pleased. How do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“I am going to try you to the utmost. I am going to test you as few men -have ever been tested. I am going——”</p> - -<p>I didn’t like the sound of this.</p> - -<p>“Well,” I said doubtfully, “always glad to oblige, you know, but I’ve -just had the dickens of a bicycle ride, and I’m a bit stiff and sore, -especially in the—as I say, a bit stiff and sore. If it’s anything to be -fetched from upstairs——”</p> - -<p>“No, no, you don’t understand.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t, quite, no.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s so difficult.... How can I say it?... Can’t you guess?”</p> - -<p>“No. I’m dashed if I can.”</p> - -<p>“Bertie—let me go!”</p> - -<p>“But I haven’t got hold of you.”</p> - -<p>“Release me!”</p> - -<p>“Re——”</p> - -<p>And then I suddenly got it. I suppose it was fatigue that had made me so -slow to apprehend the nub.</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>I staggered, and the left pedal came up and caught me on the shin. But -such was the ecstasy in the soul that I didn’t utter a cry.</p> - -<p>“Release you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>I didn’t want any confusion on the point.</p> - -<p>“You mean you want to call it all off? You’re going to hitch up with -Gussie, after all?”</p> - -<p>“Only if you are fine and big enough to consent.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am.”</p> - -<p>“I gave you my promise.”</p> - -<p>“Dash promises.”</p> - -<p>“Then you really——”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Bertie!”</p> - -<p>She seemed to sway like a sapling. It is saplings that sway, I believe.</p> - -<p>“A very parfait knight!” I heard her murmur, and there not being much to -say after that, I excused myself on the ground that I had got about two -pecks of dust down my back and would like to go and get my maid to put me -into something loose.</p> - -<p>“You go back to Gussie,” I said, “and tell him that all is well.”</p> - -<p>She gave a sort of hiccup and, darting forward, kissed me on the -forehead. Unpleasant, of course, but, as Anatole would say, I can take a -few smooths with a rough. The next moment she was legging it for the -dining-room, while I, having bunged the bicycle into a bush, made for the -stairs.</p> - -<p>I need not dwell upon my buckedness. It can be readily imagined. Talk -about chaps with the noose round their necks and the hangman about to let -her go and somebody galloping up on a foaming horse, waving the -reprieve—not in it. Absolutely not in it at all. I don’t know that I -can give you a better idea of the state of my feelings than by saying -that as I started to cross the hall I was conscious of so profound a -benevolence toward all created things that I found myself thinking kindly -thoughts even of Jeeves.</p> - -<p>I was about to mount the stairs when a sudden “What ho!” from my rear -caused me to turn. Tuppy was standing in the hall. He had apparently been -down to the cellar for reinforcements, for there were a couple of bottles -under his arm.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, Bertie,” he said. “You back?” He laughed amusedly. “You look like -the Wreck of the Hesperus. Get run over by a steam-roller or something?”</p> - -<p>At any other time I might have found his coarse badinage hard to bear. -But such was my uplifted mood that I waved it aside and slipped him the -good news.</p> - -<p>“Tuppy, old man, the Bassett’s going to marry Gussie Fink-Nottle.”</p> - -<p>“Tough luck on both of them, what?”</p> - -<p>“But don’t you understand? Don’t you see what this means? It means that -Angela is once more out of pawn, and you have only to play your cards -properly——”</p> - -<p>He bellowed rollickingly. I saw now that he was in the pink. As a matter -of fact, I had noticed something of the sort directly I met him, but had -attributed it to alcoholic stimulant.</p> - -<p>“Good Lord! You’re right behind the times, Bertie. Only to be expected, -of course, if you will go riding bicycles half the night. Angela and I -made it up hours ago.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly. Nothing but a passing tiff. All you need in these matters is -a little give and take, a bit of reasonableness on both sides. We got -together and talked things over. She withdrew my double chin. I conceded -her shark. Perfectly simple. All done in a couple of minutes.”</p> - -<p>“But——”</p> - -<p>“Sorry, Bertie. Can’t stop chatting with you all night. There is a rather -impressive beano in progress in the dining-room, and they are waiting for -supplies.”</p> - -<p>Endorsement was given to this statement by a sudden shout from the -apartment named. I recognized—as who would not—Aunt Dahlia’s voice:</p> - -<p>“Glossop!”</p> - -<p>“Hullo?”</p> - -<p>“Hurry up with that stuff.”</p> - -<p>“Coming, coming.”</p> - -<p>“Well, come, then. Yoicks! Hard for-rard!”</p> - -<p>“Tallyho, not to mention tantivy. Your aunt,” said Tuppy, “is a bit above -herself. I don’t know all the facts of the case, but it appears that -Anatole gave notice and has now consented to stay on, and also your uncle -has given her a cheque for that paper of hers. I didn’t get the details, -but she is much braced. See you later. I must rush.”</p> - -<p>To say that Bertram was now definitely nonplussed would be but to state -the simple truth. I could make nothing of this. I had left Brinkley Court -a stricken home, with hearts bleeding wherever you looked, and I had -returned to find it a sort of earthly paradise. It baffled me.</p> - -<p>I bathed bewilderedly. The toy duck was still in the soap-dish, but I was -too preoccupied to give it a thought. Still at a loss, I returned to my -room, and there was Jeeves. And it is proof of my fogged condish that my -first words to him were words not of reproach and stern recrimination but -of inquiry:</p> - -<p>“I say, Jeeves!”</p> - -<p>“Good evening, sir. I was informed that you had returned. I trust you had -an enjoyable ride.”</p> - -<p>At any other moment, a crack like that would have woken the fiend in -Bertram Wooster. I barely noticed it. I was intent on getting to the -bottom of this mystery.</p> - -<p>“But I say, Jeeves, what?”</p> - -<p>“Sir?”</p> - -<p>“What does all this mean?”</p> - -<p>“You refer, sir——”</p> - -<p>“Of course I refer. You know what I’m talking about. What has been -happening here since I left? The place is positively stiff with happy -endings.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. I am glad to say that my efforts have been rewarded.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean, your efforts? You aren’t going to try to make out that -that rotten fire bell scheme of yours had anything to do with it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be an ass, Jeeves. It flopped.”</p> - -<p>“Not altogether, sir. I fear, sir, that I was not entirely frank with -regard to my suggestion of ringing the fire bell. I had not really -anticipated that it would in itself produce the desired results. I had -intended it merely as a preliminary to what I might describe as the real -business of the evening.”</p> - -<p>“You gibber, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. It was essential that the ladies and gentlemen should be -brought from the house, in order that, once out of doors, I could ensure -that they remained there for the necessary period of time.”</p> - -<p>“How do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“My plan was based on psychology, sir.”</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p>“It is a recognized fact, sir, that there is nothing that so -satisfactorily unites individuals who have been so unfortunate as to -quarrel amongst themselves as a strong mutual dislike for some definite -person. In my own family, if I may give a homely illustration, it was a -generally accepted axiom that in times of domestic disagreement it was -necessary only to invite my Aunt Annie for a visit to heal all breaches -between the other members of the household. In the mutual animosity -excited by Aunt Annie, those who had become estranged were reconciled -almost immediately. Remembering this, it occurred to me that were you, -sir, to be established as the person responsible for the ladies and -gentlemen being forced to spend the night in the garden, everybody would -take so strong a dislike to you that in this common sympathy they would -sooner or later come together.”</p> - -<p>I would have spoken, but he continued:</p> - -<p>“And such proved to be the case. All, as you see, sir, is now well. After -your departure on the bicycle, the various estranged parties agreed so -heartily in their abuse of you that the ice, if I may use the expression, -was broken, and it was not long before Mr. Glossop was walking beneath -the trees with Miss Angela, telling her anecdotes of your career at the -university in exchange for hers regarding your childhood; while Mr. -Fink-Nottle, leaning against the sundial, held Miss Bassett enthralled -with stories of your schooldays. Mrs. Travers, meanwhile, was telling -Monsieur Anatole——”</p> - -<p>I found speech.</p> - -<p>“Oh?” I said. “I see. And now, I suppose, as the result of this dashed -psychology of yours, Aunt Dahlia is so sore with me that it will be years -before I can dare to show my face here again—years, Jeeves, during -which, night after night, Anatole will be cooking those dinners of -his——”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. It was to prevent any such contingency that I suggested that -you should bicycle to Kingham Manor. When I informed the ladies and -gentlemen that I had found the key, and it was borne in upon them that -you were having that long ride for nothing, their animosity vanished -immediately, to be replaced by cordial amusement. There was much -laughter.”</p> - -<p>“There was, eh?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. I fear you may possibly have to submit to a certain amount of -good-natured chaff, but nothing more. All, if I may say so, is forgiven, -sir.”</p> - -<p>“Oh?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>I mused awhile.</p> - -<p>“You certainly seem to have fixed things.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Tuppy and Angela are once more betrothed. Also Gussie and the Bassett; -Uncle Tom appears to have coughed up that money for <i>Milady’s Boudoir</i>. -And Anatole is staying on.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose you might say that all’s well that ends well.”</p> - -<p>“Very apt, sir.”</p> - -<p>I mused again.</p> - -<p>“All the same, your methods are a bit rough, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, sir.”</p> - -<p>I started.</p> - -<p>“Omelette! Do you think you could get me one?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Together with half a bot. of something?”</p> - -<p>“Undoubtedly, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Do so, Jeeves, and with all speed.”</p> - -<p>I climbed into bed and sank back against the pillows. I must say that my -generous wrath had ebbed a bit. I was aching the whole length of my body, -particularly toward the middle, but against this you had to set the fact -that I was no longer engaged to Madeline Bassett. In a good cause one is -prepared to suffer. Yes, looking at the thing from every angle, I saw -that Jeeves had done well, and it was with an approving beam that I -welcomed him as he returned with the needful.</p> - -<p>He did not check up with this beam. A bit grave, he seemed to me to be -looking, and I probed the matter with a kindly query:</p> - -<p>“Something on your mind, Jeeves?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir. I should have mentioned it earlier, but in the evening’s -disturbance it escaped my memory, I fear I have been remiss, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Jeeves?” I said, champing contentedly.</p> - -<p>“In the matter of your mess-jacket, sir.”</p> - -<p>A nameless fear shot through me, causing me to swallow a mouthful of -omelette the wrong way.</p> - -<p>“I am sorry to say, sir, that while I was ironing it this afternoon I was -careless enough to leave the hot instrument upon it. I very much fear -that it will be impossible for you to wear it again, sir.”</p> - -<p>One of those old pregnant silences filled the room.</p> - -<p>“I am extremely sorry, sir.”</p> - -<p>For a moment, I confess, that generous wrath of mine came bounding back, -hitching up its muscles and snorting a bit through the nose, but, as we -say on the Riviera, <i>à quoi sert-il</i>? There was nothing to be gained by -g.w. now.</p> - -<p>We Woosters can bite the bullet. I nodded moodily and speared another -slab of omelette.</p> - -<p>“Right ho, Jeeves.”</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir.”</p> - -<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10554 ***</div> -</body> -</html> - |