Пэлем Грэнвил Вудхауз. Премного обязан, Дживс (engl)

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     OCR: Rojer, 2002
     (more PGW titles to come, http://rojer.bdo.ru/PGW/) ? http://rojer.bdo.ru/PGW/
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        P.G.Wodehouse. Much obliged, Jeeves


        1
    As  I slid into my chair at the breakfast table and started  to
deal  with the toothsome eggs and bacon which Jeeves had  given  of
his  plenty, I was conscious of a strange exhilaration, if I've got
the  word right. Pretty good the set-up looked to me. Here  I  was,
back  in the old familiar headquarters, and the thought that I  had
seen  the  last of Totleigh Towers, of Sir Watkyn Bassett,  of  his
daughter Madeline and above all of the unspeakable Spode,  or  Lord
Sidcup as he now calls himself, was like the medium dose for adults
of one of those patent medicines which tone the system and impart a
gentle glow.
    'These eggs, Jeeves,' I said. 'Very good. Very tasty.'
    'Yes, sir?'
    'Laid,  no  doubt, by contented hens. And the coffee,  perfect.
Nor must I omit to give a word of praise to the bacon. I wonder  if
you notice anything about me this morning.'
    'You seem in good spirits, sir.'
    'Yes, Jeeves, I am happy today.'
    'I am very glad to hear it, sir.'
    'You  might say I'm sitting on top of the world with a  rainbow
round my shoulder.'
    'A most satisfactory state of affairs, sir.'
    'What's the word I've heard you use from time to time -  begins
with eu?'
    'Euphoria, sir?'
    'That's  the one. I've seldom had a sharper attack of euphoria.
I  feel  full to the brim of Vitamin B. Mind you, I don't know  how
long it will last. Too often it is when one feels fizziest that the
storm clouds begin doing their stuff.'
    'Very  true,  sir.  Full many a glorious morning  have  I  seen
flatter  the mountain tops with sovereign eye, kissing with  golden
face the meadows green, gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy,
Anon  permit  the  basest clouds to ride  with  ugly  rack  on  his
celestial face and from the forlorn world his visage hide, stealing
unseen to west with this disgrace.'
    'Exactly,'  I said. I couldn't have put it better myself.  'One
always has to budget for a change in the weather. Still, the  thing
to do is to keep on being happy while you can.'
    'Precisely, sir. Carpe diem, the Roman poet Horace advised. The
English poet Herrick expressed the same sentiment when he suggested
that  we should gather rosebuds while we may. Your elbow is in  the
butter, sir.'
    'Oh,  thank you, Jeeves.'Well, all right so far. Off to a  nice
start.  But  now  we  come to something which gives  me  pause.  In
recording  the  latest instalment of the Bertram Wooster  Story,  a
task at which I am about to have a pop, I don't see how I can avoid
delving  into the past a good deal, touching on events  which  took
place  in  previous instalments, and explaining who's who and  what
happened when and where and why, and this will make it heavy  going
for those who have been with me from the start. 'Old hat' they will
cry or, if French, 'Deja vu'.
   On  the  other hand, I must consider the new customers. I  can't
just  leave  the  poor perishers to try to puzzle  things  out  for
themselves. If I did, the exchanges in the present case  would  run
somewhat as follows.
   SELF:    The  relief  I  felt at having  escaped  from  Totleigh
Towers was stupendous.
   NEW C: What's Totleigh Towers?
   SELF:    For one thing it had looked odds on that I should  have
to marry Madeline.
   NEW C: Who's Madeline?
   SELF:  Gussie Fink-Nottle, you see, had eloped with the cook.
   NEW C: Who's Gussie Fink-Nottle?
   SELF:   But most fortunately Spode was in the offing and scooped
her up, saving me from the scaffold.
   NEW C: Who's Spode?
   You  see.  Hopeless. Confusion would be rife, as one  might  put
it. The only way out that I can think of is to ask the old gang  to
let  their  attention wander for a bit - there are heaps of  things
they  can be doing; washing the car, solving the crossword  puzzle,
taking  the  dog  for a run - while I place the  facts  before  the
newcomers.
   Briefly,  then,  owing  to  circumstances  I  needn't  go  into,
Madeline Bassett daughter of Sir Watkyn Bassett of Totleigh Towers,
Glos.  had long been under the impression that I was hopelessly  in
love  with  her and had given to understand that if  ever  she  had
occasion to return her betrothed, Gussie Fink-Nottle, to store, she
would marry me. Which wouldn't have fitted in with my plans at all,
she  though  physically  in the pin-up  class,  being  as  mushy  a
character as ever broke biscuit, convinced that the stars are God's
daisy  chain and that every time a fairy blows its wee nose a  baby
is  born.  The last thing, as you can well imagine, one would  want
about the home.
   So  when Gussie unexpectedly eloped with the cook, it looked  as
though Bertram was for it. If a girl thinks you're in love with her
and says she will marry you, you can't very well voice a preference
for  being  dead  in a ditch. Not, I mean, if you  want  to  regard
yourself  as  a  preux chevalier, as the expression  is,  which  is
always  my  aim.  But just as I was about to put in  my  order  for
sackcloth  and ashes, up, as I say, popped Spode, now  going  about
under  the alias of Lord Sidcup. He had loved her since she was  so
high but had never got around to mentioning it, and when he did  so
now,  they clicked immediately. And the thought that she was safely
out  of  circulation and no longer a menace was possibly the  prime
ingredient in my current euphoria.
   I   think   that   makes  everything  clear   to   the   meanest
intelligence, does it not? Right ho, so we can go ahead. Where were
we? Ah yes, I had just told Jeeves that I was sitting on top of the
world  with a rainbow round my shoulder, but expressing a doubt  as
to  whether  this state of things would last, and how  well-founded
that doubt proved to be; for scarcely a forkful of eggs and b later
it  was  borne in upon me that life was not the grand sweet song  I
had supposed it to be, but, as you might say, stern and earnest and
full of bumps.
   'Was I mistaken, Jeeves,' I said, making idle conversation as  I
sipped  my  coffee,  'or as the mists of sleep shredded  away  this
morning did I hear your typewriter going?'
   'Yes, sir. I was engaged in composition.'
   'A  dutiful letter to Charlie Silversmith?' I said, alluding  to
his  uncle who held the post of butler at Deverill Hall,  where  we
had once been pleasant visitors. 'Or possibly a lyric in the manner
of the bloke who advocates gathering rosebuds?'
   'Neither,  sir.  I  was  recording  the  recent  happenings   at
Totleigh Towers for the club book.'
   And  here, dash it, I must once more ask what I may call the old
sweats  to let their attention wander while I put the new  arrivals
abreast.
   Jeeves,  you  must  know  (I am addressing  the  new  arrivals),
belongs  to  a  club  for butlers and gentlemen's  gentlemen  round
Curzon  Street way, and one of the rules there is that every member
must  contribute to the club book the latest information concerning
the fellow he's working for, the idea being to inform those seeking
employment of the sort of thing they will be taking on. If a member
is  contemplating signing up with someone, he looks him up  in  the
club  book, and if he finds that he puts out crumbs for the birdies
every  morning  and  repeatedly saves golden-haired  children  from
being  run over by automobiles, he knows he is on a good thing  and
has  no hesitation in accepting office. Whereas if the book informs
him  that  the fellow habitually kicks starving dogs and  generally
begins  the day by throwing the breakfast porridge at his  personal
attendant, he is warned in time to steer clear of him.
   Which  is  all very well and one follows the train  of  thought,
but in my opinion such a book is pure dynamite and ought not to  be
permitted.  There are, Jeeves has informed me, eleven pages  in  it
about me; and what will the harvest be, I ask him, if it falls into
the  hands of my Aunt Agatha, with whom my standing is already low.
She  spoke her mind freely enough some years ago when - against  my
personal wishes - I was found with twenty-three cats in my  bedroom
and  again when I was accused - unjustly, I need hardly  say  -  of
having marooned A. B. Filmer, the Cabinet minister, on an island in
her  lake.  To  what heights of eloquence would she  not  soar,  if
informed  of  my  vicissitudes at Totleigh Towers? The  imagination
boggles, Jeeves, I tell him.
   To  which  he  replies that it won't fall into the hands  of  my
Aunt  Agatha,  she  not  being likely to  drop  in  at  the  Junior
Ganymede,  which is what his club is called, and there  the  matter
rests.  His reasoning is specious and he has more or less succeeded
in  soothing my tremors, but I still can't help feeling uneasy, and
my  manner, as I addressed him now, had quite a bit of agitation in
it.
   'Good  Lord!'  I ejaculated, if ejaculated is the word  I  want.
'Are you really writing up that Totleigh business?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'All  the  stuff  about my being supposed to  have  pinched  old
Bassett's amber statuette?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'And the night I spent in a prison cell? Is this necessary?  Why
not let the dead past bury its dead? Why not forget all about it?'
   'Impossible, sir.'
   'Why  impossible?  Don't tell me you can't  forget  things.  You
aren't an elephant.'
   I thought I had him there, but no.
   'It  is my membership in the Junior Ganymede which restrains  me
from  obliging you, sir. The rules with reference to the club  book
are  very strict and the penalty for omitting to contribute  to  it
severe. Actual expulsion has sometimes resulted.'
   'I  see,' I said. I could appreciate that this put him in  quite
a spot, the feudal spirit making him wish to do the square thing by
the  young master, while a natural disinclination to get bunged out
of  a  well-loved club urged him to let the young master  boil  his
head.  The  situation seemed to me to call for what is known  as  a
compromise.
   'Well, couldn't you water the thing down a bit? Omit one or  two
of the juiciest episodes?'
   'I  fear  not,  sir. The full facts are required. The  committee
insists on this.'
   I  suppose  I ought not at this point to have expressed  a  hope
that  his blasted committee would trip over banana skins and  break
their  ruddy necks, for I seemed to detect on his face a  momentary
look of pain. But he was broadminded and condoned it.
   'Your  chagrin  does  not surprise me, sir.  One  can,  however,
understand their point of view. The Junior Ganymede club book is  a
historic  document.  It  has  been in existence  more  than  eighty
years.'
   'It must be the size of a house.'
   'No,  sir,  the records are in several volumes. The present  one
dates back some twelve years. And one must remember that it is  not
every employer who demands a great deal of space.'
   'Demands!'
   'I  should have said "requires". As a rule, a few lines suffice.
Your eighteen pages are quite exceptional.'
   'Eighteen? I thought it was eleven.'
   'You  are omitting to take into your calculations the report  of
your   misadventures  at  Totleigh  Towers,  which  I  have  nearly
completed. I anticipate that this will run to approximately  seven.
If you will permit me, sir, I will pat your back.'
   He  made this kindly offer because I had choked on a swallow  of
coffee.  A few pats and I was myself again and more than  a  little
incensed,  as  always happens when we are discussing  his  literary
work.  Eighteen pages, I mean to say, and every page full of  stuff
calculated,  if thrown open to the public, to give my prestige  the
blackest  of  eyes.  Conscious  of a  strong  desire  to  kick  the
responsible  parties  in the seat of the  pants,  I  spoke  with  a
generous warmth.
   'Well,  I  call it monstrous. There's no other word for  it.  Do
you  know  what  that  blasted committee  of  yours  are  inviting?
Blackmail, that's what they're inviting. Let some man of  ill  will
get  his  hooks  on  that book, and what'll be  the  upshot?  Ruin,
Jeeves, that's what'll be the upshot.'
   I  don't  know if he drew himself to his full height, because  I
was  lighting a cigarette at the moment and wasn't looking,  but  I
think  he  must  have done, for his voice, when he spoke,  was  the
chilly voice of one who has drawn himself to his full height.
   'There are no men of ill will in the Junior Ganymede, sir.'
    I contested this statement hotly.
   That's  what you think. How about Brinkley?' I said, my allusion
being to a fellow the agency had sent me some years previously when
Jeeves and I had parted company temporarily because he didn't  like
me playing the banjolele. 'He's a member, isn't he?'
   'A  county member, sir. He rarely comes to the club. In passing,
sir, his name is not Brinkley, it is Bingley.'
   I  waved  an  impatient cigarette holder. I was in  no  mood  to
split straws. Or is it hairs?
   'His  name is not of the essence, Jeeves. What is of  the  e  is
that  he  went off on his afternoon out, came back in  an  advanced
state of intoxication, set the house on fire and tried to dismember
me with a carving knife.'
   'A most unpleasant experience, sir.'
   'Having  heard  noises down below, I emerged from  my  room  and
found  him  wrestling  with the grandfather clock,  with  which  he
appeared to have had a difference. He then knocked over a lamp  and
leaped  up the stairs at me, complete with cutlass. By a miracle  I
avoided  becoming the late Bertram Wooster, but only by a  miracle.
And  you  say  there are no men of ill will in the Junior  Ganymede
club.  Tchah!' I said. It is an expression I don't often  use,  but
the situation seemed to call for it.
   Things  had  become difficult. Angry passions  were  rising  and
dudgeon  bubbling up a bit. It was fortunate that at this  juncture
the telephone should have tootled, causing a diversion.
   'Mrs Travers, sir,' said Jeeves, having gone to the instrument.

        2
   I  had already divined who was at the other end of the wire,  my
good  and  deserving Aunt Dahlia having a habit of talking  on  the
telephone with the breezy vehemence of a hog-caller in the  western
states of America calling his hogs to come and get it. She got this
way  through  hunting a lot in her youth with  the  Quorn  and  the
Pytchley.  What  with people riding over hounds and  hounds  taking
time  off  to chase rabbits, a girl who hunts soon learns  to  make
herself  audible. I believe that she, when in good voice, could  be
heard in several adjoining counties.

   I  stepped  to the telephone, well pleased. There are few  males
or  females  whose society I enjoy more than that  of  this  genial
sister  of  my  late father, and it was quite a time since  we  had
foregathered.  She  lives  near the town  of  Market  Snodsbury  in
Worcestershire and sticks pretty closely to the rural  seat,  while
I,  as  Jeeves had just recorded in the club book, had had my  time
rather  full elsewhere of late. I was smiling sunnily as I took  up
the receiver. Not much good, of course, as she couldn't see me, but
it's the spirit that counts.
   'Hullo, aged relative.'
   'Hullo to you, you young blot. Are you sober?'
   I  felt  a  natural  resentment at being considered  capable  of
falling under the influence of the sauce at ten in the morning, but
I  reminded myself that aunts will be aunts. Show me an aunt,  I've
often said, and I will show you someone who doesn't give a hoot how
much  her obiter dicta may wound a nephew's sensibilities.  With  a
touch  of  hauteur I reassured her on the point she had raised  and
asked her in what way I could serve her.
   'How about lunch?'
   'I'm  not in London. I'm at home. And you can serve me,  as  you
call it, by coming here. Today, if possible.'
   'Your  words  are music to my ears, old ancestor. Nothing  could
tickle  me  pinker,'  I said, for I am always glad  to  accept  her
hospitality  and  to  renew  my acquaintance  with  the  unbeatable
eatables dished up by her superb French chef Anatole, God's gift to
the  gastric  juices. I have often regretted that I  have  but  one
stomach to put at his disposal. 'Staying how long?'
   'As  long  as you like, my beamish boy. I'll let you  know  when
the  time  comes to throw you out. The great thing is  to  get  you
here.'
   I  was touched, as who would not have been, by the eagerness she
showed  for my company. Too many of my circle are apt when inviting
me  to  their homes to stress the fact that they are only expecting
me  for  the week-end and to dwell with too much enthusiasm on  the
excellence of the earlier trains back to the metropolis  on  Monday
morning. The sunny smile widened an inch or two.
   'Awfully good of you to have me, old blood relation.'
   'It is, rather.'
   'I look forward to seeing you.'
   'Who wouldn't?'
   'Each  minute  will  seem  like an  hour  till  we  meet.  How's
Anatole?'
   'Greedy young pig, always thinking of Anatole.'
   'Difficult to help it. The taste lingers. How is his  art  these
days?'
   'At its peak.'
   'That's good.'
   'Ginger says his output has been a revelation to him.'
   I  asked her to repeat this. It had sounded to me just as if she
had said 'Ginger says his output has been a revelation to him', and
I  knew this couldn't be the case. It turned out, however, that  it
was.
   'Ginger?' I said, not abreast.
   'Harold  Winship.  He told me to call him Ginger.  He's  staying
here. He says he's a friend of yours, which he would scarcely admit
unless  he  knew it could be proved against him. You do  know  him,
don't you? He speaks of having been at Oxford with you.'
   I  uttered  a  joyful cry, and she said if I did it  again,  she
would  sue  me,  it  having nearly cracked her eardrum.  A  notable
instance of the pot calling the kettle black, as the old saying has
it,   she  having  been  cracking  mine  since  the  start  of  the
proceedings.
   'Know  him?'  I  said. 'You bet I know him.  We  were  like  ...
Jeeves!'
   'Sir?'
   'Who were those two fellows?'
   'Sir?'
   'Greek,  if  I  remember correctly. Always  mentioned  when  the
subject of bosom pals comes up.'
   'Would you be referring to Damon and Pythias, sir?'
   'That's  right.  We were like Damon and Pythias,  old  ancestor.
But  what's he doing chez you? I wasn't aware that you and  he  had
ever met.'
   'We hadn't. But his mother was an old school friend of mine.'
   'I see.'
   'And  when  I heard he was standing for Parliament  in  the  by-
election at Market Snodsbury, I wrote to him and told him  to  make
my house his base. Much more comfortable than dossing at a pub.'
   'Oh, you've got a by-election at Market Snodsbury, have you?'
   'Under full steam.'
   'And Ginger's one of the candidates?'
   'The Conservative one. You seem surprised.'
   'I  am.  You might say stunned. I wouldn't have thought  it  was
his dish at all. How's he doing?'
   'Difficult to say so far. Anyway, he needs all the help  he  can
get, so I want you to come and canvass for him.'
   This  made  me  chew  the lower lip for a  moment.  One  has  to
exercise caution at a time like this, or where is one?
   'What  does  it involve?' I asked guardedly. 'I shan't  have  to
kiss babies, shall I?'
   'Of course you won't, you abysmal chump.'
   'I've  always  heard  that kissing babies entered  largely  into
these things.'
   'Yes,  but  it's the candidate who does it, poor  blighter.  All
you have to do is go from house to house urging the inmates to vote
for Ginger.'
   'Then  rely on me. Such an assignment should be well  within  my
scope.  Old Ginger!' I said, feeling emotional. 'It will  warm  the
what-d'you-call-its of my heart to see him again.'
   'Well, you'll have the opportunity of hotting them up this  very
afternoon. He's gone to London for the day and wants you  to  lunch
with him.'
   'Does he, egad! That's fine. What time?'
   'One-thirty.'
   'At what spot?'
   'Barribault's grill-room.'
   'I'll  be  there.  Jeeves,' I said, hanging  up,  'You  remember
Ginger Winship, who used to play Damon to my Pythias?'
   'Yes, indeed, sir.'
   'They've  got  an  election  on at Market  Snodsbury,  and  he's
standing in the Conservative interest.'
   'So I understood Madam to say, sir.'
   'Oh, you caught her remarks?'
   'With  little  or  no difficulty, sir. Madam has  a  penetrating
voice.'
   'It  does  penetrate, doesn't it,' I said, massaging the  ear  I
had been holding to the receiver. 'Good lung power.'
   'Extremely, sir.'
   'I  wonder  whether she ever sang lullabies to me in my  cradle.
If  so,  it must have scared me cross-eyed, giving me the  illusion
that  the boiler had exploded. However, that is not germane to  the
issue, which is that we leave for her abode this afternoon. I shall
be  lunching  with  Ginger. In my absence, pack  a  few  socks  and
toothbrushes, will you.'
   'Very  good,  sir,'  he replied, and we did not  return  to  the
subject of the club book.


        3
   It  was with no little gusto and animation that some hours later
I  set out for the tryst. This Ginger was one of my oldest buddies,
not  quite  so  old as Kipper Herring or Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright,
with  whom  I  had plucked the gowans fine at prep  school,  public
school  and University, but definitely ancient. Our rooms at Oxford
had  been  adjacent, and it would not be too much to say that  from
the  moment he looked in to borrow a syphon of soda water we became
more  like  brothers than anything, and this state  of  things  had
continued after we had both left the seat of learning.

   For  quite a while he had been a prominent member of the  Drones
Club, widely known for his effervescence and vivacity, but all of a
sudden  he  had tendered his resignation and gone to  live  in  the
country, oddly enough at Steeple Bumpleigh in Essex, where my  Aunt
Agatha  has  her  lair. This, somebody told  me,  was  due  to  the
circumstance that he had got engaged to a girl of strong  character
who  disapproved of the Drones Club. You get girls like that  every
now and then, and in my opinion they are best avoided.
   Well,  naturally  this had parted us. He never came  to  London,
and I of course never went to Steeple Bumpleigh. You don't catch me
going  anywhere  near Aunt Agatha unless I have  to.  No  sense  in
sticking  one's neck out. But I had missed him sorely. Oh  for  the
touch of a vanished hand, is how you might put it.
   Arriving  at  Barribault's, I found him in the lobby  where  you
have  the  pre-luncheon gargle before proceeding to the grill-room,
and  after the initial What-ho-ing and What-a-time-since-we-met-ing
inevitable when two vanished hands who haven't seen each other  for
ages re-establish contact, he asked me if I would like one for  the
tonsils.
   'I won't join you,' he said. 'I'm not actually on the waggon,  I
have  a  little light wine at dinner now and then, but  my  fiancee
wants me to stay off cocktails. She says they harden the arteries.'
   If  you  are  about to ask me if this didn't make me  purse  the
lips a bit, I can assure you that it did. It seemed to point to his
having gone and got hitched up with a popsy totally lacking in  the
proper spirit, and it bore out what I had been told about her being
a girl of strong character. No one who wasn't could have dashed the
cup  from his lips in this manner. She had apparently made him like
it, too, for he had spoken of her not with the sullen bitterness of
one  crushed  beneath  the iron heel but  with  devotion  in  every
syllable.  Plainly he had got it up his nose and didn't  object  to
being bossed.
   How  different  from  me, I reflected,  that  time  when  I  was
engaged  to  my  Uncle Percy's bossy daughter  Florence  Craye.  It
didn't  last  long,  because  she gave  me  the  heave-ho  and  got
betrothed  to  a fellow called Gorringe who wrote vers  libre,  but
while it lasted I felt like one of those Ethiopian slaves Cleopatra
used  to  push  around,  and I chafed more than  somewhat.  Whereas
Ginger  obviously hadn't even started to chafe. It isn't  difficult
to  spot  when a fellow's chafing, and I could detect none  of  the
symptoms. He seemed to think that putting the presidential veto  on
cocktails  showed  what  an angel of mercy  the  girl  was,  always
working with his good at heart.
   The  Woosters  do not like drinking alone, particularly  with  a
critical  eye watching them to see if their arteries are hardening,
so I declined the proffered snort -reluctantly, for I was athirst -
and  came straight to the main item on the agenda paper. On my  way
to  Barribault's I had, as you may suppose, pondered deeply on this
business  of him standing for Parliament, and I wanted to know  the
motives behind the move. It looked cock-eyed to me.
   'Aunt  Dahlia tells me you are staying with her in order  to  be
handy  to Market Snodsbury while giving the electors there the  old
oil,' I said.
   'Yes,  she very decently invited me. She was at school  with  my
mother.'
   'So  she told me. I wonder if her face was as red in those days.
How do you like it there?'
   'It's a wonderful place.'
   'Grade  A.  Gravel  soil, main drainage, spreading  grounds  and
Company's own water. And, of course, Anatole's cooking.'
   'Ah!'  he  said, and I think he would have bared his head,  only
he hadn't a hat on. 'Very gifted, that man.'
   'A  wizard,'  I agreed. 'His dinners must fortify  you  for  the
tasks you have to face. How's the election coming along?'
   'All right.'
   'Kissed any babies lately?'
   'Ah!' he said again, this time with a shudder. I could see  that
I had touched an exposed nerve. 'What blighters babies are, Bertie,
dribbling, as they do, at the side of the mouth. Still, it  has  to
be  done. My agent tells me to leave no stone unturned if I want to
win the election.'
   'But  why do you want to win the election? I'd have thought  you
wouldn't have touched Parliament with a ten-foot pole,' I said, for
I knew the society there was very mixed. 'What made you commit this
rash act?'
   'My  fiancee wanted me to,' he said, and as his lips framed  the
word  'fiancee' his voice took on a sort of tremolo like that of  a
male  turtle  dove cooing to a female turtle dove. 'She  thought  I
ought to be carving out a career for myself.'
   'Do you want a career?'
   'Not much, but she insisted.'
   The  uneasiness I had felt when he told me the beasel  had  made
him  knock off cocktails deepened. His every utterance rendered  it
more apparent to an experienced man like myself that he had run  up
against something too hot to handle, and for a moment I thought  of
advising him to send her a telegram saying it was all off and, this
done, to pack a suitcase and catch the next boat to Australia.  But
feeling  that this might give offence I merely asked him  what  the
procedure  was when you stood for Parliament - or ran  for  it,  as
they  would say in America. Not that I particularly wanted to know,
but  it  was  something  to  talk about other  than  his  frightful
fiancee.
   A  cloud  passed over his face, which I ought to have  mentioned
earlier  was  well  worth looking at, the eyes  clear,  the  cheeks
tanned,  the  chin firm, the hair ginger and the nose  shapely.  It
topped  off,  moreover, a body which also repaid inspection,  being
muscular  and well knit. His general aspect, as a matter  of  fact,
was  rather  like that presented by Esmond Haddock, the  squire  of
Deverill  Hall, where Jeeves's Uncle Charlie Silversmith  drew  his
monthly envelope. He had the same poetic look, as if at any  moment
about  to rhyme June with moon, yet gave the impression, as  Esmond
did,  of  being able, if he cared to, to fell an ox with  a  single
blow.  I don't know if he had ever actually done this, for  one  so
seldom  meets  an ox, but in his undergraduate days he  had  felled
people  right  and left, having represented the University  in  the
ring as a heavyweight a matter of three years. He may have included
oxen among his victims.
   'You  go  through hell,' he said, the map still  clouded  as  he
recalled  the past. 'I had to sit in a room where you could  hardly
breathe because it was as crowded as the Black Hole of Calcutta and
listen  to  addresses of welcome till midnight. After that  I  went
about making speeches.'
   'Well,  why  aren't you down there, making speeches,  now?  Have
they given you a day off?'
   'I came up to get a secretary.'
   'Surely you didn't go there without one?'
   'No,  I  had one all right, but my fiancee fired her.  They  had
some sort of disagreement.'
   I  had  pursed the lips a goodish bit when he had told me  about
his fiancee and the cocktails, and I pursed them to an even greater
extent  now.  The more I heard of this girl he had got engaged  to,
the  less  I  liked the sound of her. I was thinking how  well  she
would  get  on with Florence Craye if they happened to  meet.  Twin
souls,  I  mean to say, each what a housemaid I used to know  would
have called an overbearing dishpot.
   I  didn't say so, of course. There is a time to call someone  an
overbearing  dishpot, and a time not to. Criticism of the  girl  he
loved  might  be taken in ill part, as the expression is,  and  you
don't want an ex-Oxford boxing Blue taking things in ill part  with
you.
   'Have you anyone in mind?' I asked. 'Or are you just going to  a
secretary bin, accepting what they have in stock?'
   'I'm  hoping to get hold of an American girl I saw something  of
before  I  left London. I was sharing a flat with Boko  Fittleworth
when he was writing a novel, and she came every day and worked with
him.  Boko  dictates  his stuff, and he said  she  was  tops  as  a
shorthand  typist. I have her address, but I don't  know  if  she's
still there. I'm going round there after lunch. Her name's Magnolia
Glendennon.'
   'It can't be.'
   'Why not?'
   'Nobody could have a name like Magnolia.'
   'They  could  if they came from South Carolina, as she  did.  In
the  southern  states of America you can't throw  a  brick  without
hitting  a  Magnolia. But I was telling you about this business  of
standing  for  Parliament. First, of course, you have  to  get  the
nomination.'
   'How did you manage that?'
   'My  fiancee  fixed it. She knows one of the Cabinet  ministers,
and he pulled strings. A man named Filmer.'
   'Not A. B. Filmer?'
   'That's right. Is he a friend of yours?'
   'I  wouldn't  say exactly a friend. I came to know him  slightly
owing  to being chased with him on to the roof of a sort of summer-
house by an angry swan. This drew us rather close together for  the
moment, but we never became really chummy.'
   'Where was this?'
   'On  an  island on the lake at my Aunt Agatha's place at Steeple
Bumpleigh.  Living  at  Steeple  Bumpleigh,  you've  probably  been
there.'
   He  looked  at  me with a wild surmise, much as  those  soldiers
Jeeves  has told me about looked on each other when on  a  peak  in
Darien, wherever that is.
   'Is Lady Worpledon your aunt?'
   'And how.'
   'She's never mentioned it.'
   'She wouldn't. Her impulse would be to hush it up.'
   'Then, good Lord, she must be your cousin.'
   'No, my aunt. You can't be both.'
   'I mean Florence. Florence Craye, my fiancee.'
   It  was a shock, I don't mind telling you, and if I hadn't  been
seated  I  would probably have reeled. Though I ought not  to  have
been  so surprised. Florence was one of those girls who are  always
getting   engaged  to  someone,  first  teaming  up  with   Stilton
Cheesewright,  then  me,  and  finally  Percy  Gorringe,  who   was
dramatizing her novel Spindrift. The play, by the way, had recently
been presented to the public at the Duke of York's theatre and  had
laid  an  instantaneous egg, coming off on the following  Saturday.
One  of  the  critics said he had perhaps seen it at a disadvantage
because  when he saw it the curtain was up. I had wondered  a  good
deal what effect this had had on Florence's haughty spirit.
   'You're  engaged to Florence?' I yipped, looking at him  with  a
wild surmise.
   'Yes. Didn't you know?'
   'Nobody  tells  me  anything. Engaged  to  Florence,  eh?  Well,
well.'
   A  less tactful man than Bertram Wooster might have gone  on  to
add 'Oh, tough luck!' or something along those lines, for there was
no  question  but that the unhappy man was properly up against  it,
but  if there's one thing the Woosters have in heaping measure,  it
is  tact. I merely gripped his hand, gave it a shake and wished him
happiness. He thanked me for this.
   'You're lucky,' I said, wearing the mask.
   'Don't I know it!'
   'She's a charming girl,' I said, still wearing as above.
   'That just describes her.'
   'Intellectual, too.'
   'Distinctly. Writes novels.'
   'Always at it.'
   'Did you read Spindrift?'
   'Couldn't put it down,' I said, cunningly not revealing  that  I
hadn't been able to take it up. 'Did you see the play?'
   'Twice.  Too  bad it didn't run. Gorringe's adaptation  was  the
work of an ass.'
   'I spotted him as an ass the first time I saw him.'
   'It's a pity Florence didn't.'
   'Yes.  By the way, what became of Gorringe? When last heard  of,
she was engaged to him.'
   'She broke it off.'
   'Very wise of her. He had long side-whiskers.'
   'She considered him responsible for the failure of the play  and
told him so.'
   'She would.'
   'What do you mean she would?'
   'Her nature is so frank, honest and forthright.'
   'It is, isn't it.'
   'She speaks her mind.'
   'Invariably.'
   'It's an admirable trait.'
   'Oh, most.'
   'You can't get away with much with a girl like Florence.'
   'No.'
   We  fell into a silence. He was twiddling his fingers and a sort
of  what-d'you-call-it had come into his manner, as if he wanted to
say  something  but  was  having  trouble  in  getting  it  out.  I
remembered  encountering a similar diffidence in the  Rev.  Stinker
Pinker  when he was trying to nerve himself to ask me  to  come  to
Totleigh Towers, and you find the same thing in dogs when they  put
a  paw  on  your knee and look up into your face but  don't  utter,
though  making it clear that there is a subject on which  they  are
anxious to touch.
   'Bertie,' he said at length.
   'Hullo?'
   'Bertie.'
   'Yes?'
   'Bertie.'
   'Still  here.  Excuse  me  asking,  but  have  you  any  cracked
gramophone  record blood in you? Perhaps your mother was frightened
by one?'
   And  then  it  all  came out in a rush as if  a  cork  had  been
pulled.
   'Bertie,  there's  something I must  tell  you  about  Florence,
though you probably know it already, being a cousin of hers.  She's
a  wonderful girl and practically perfect in every respect, but she
has  one  characteristic which makes it awkward for those who  love
her and are engaged to her. Don't think I'm criticizing her.'
   'No, no.'
   'I'm just mentioning it.'
   'Exactly.'
   'Well,  she has no use for a loser. To keep her esteem you  have
to  be  a  winner. She's like one of those princesses in the  fairy
tales  who set fellows some task to perform, as it might be scaling
a  mountain of glass or bringing her a hair from the beard  of  the
Great  Cham  of  Tartary,  and gave them the  brush-off  when  they
couldn't make the grade.'
   I  recalled  the princesses of whom he spoke, and I  had  always
thought  them  rather  fatheads.  I  mean  to  say,  what  sort  of
foundation  for  a  happy marriage is the bridegroom's  ability  to
scale  mountains of glass? A fellow probably wouldn't be called  on
to do it more than about once every ten years, if that.
   'Gorringe,'  said  Ginger, continuing, 'was a  loser,  and  that
dished  him.  And long ago, someone told me, she was engaged  to  a
gentleman jockey and she chucked him because he took a spill at the
canal  turn in the Grand National. She's a perfectionist. I  admire
her for it, of course.'
   'Of course.'
   'A girl like her is entitled to have high standards.'
   'Quite.'
   'But,  as  I  say, it makes it awkward for me. She has  set  her
heart  on  my winning this Market Snodsbury election, heaven  knows
why, for I never thought she had any interest in politics, and if I
lose it, I shall lose her, too. So ...'
   'Now  is  the time for all good men to come to the  aid  of  the
party?'
   'Exactly. You are going to canvass for me. Well, canvass like  a
ton  of bricks, and see that Jeeves does the same. I've simply  got
to win.'
   'You can rely on us.'
   'Thank  you,  Bertie, I knew I could. And now let's  go  in  and
have a bite of lunch.'


        4
   Having  restored  the  tissues with  the  excellent  nourishment
which  Barribault's hotel always provides and arranged that  Ginger
was  to pick me up in his car later in the afternoon, my own sports
model  being at the vet's with some nervous ailment, we parted,  he
to  go  in  search of Magnolia Glendennon, I to walk  back  to  the
Wooster GHQ.

   It  was,  as you may suppose, in thoughtful mood that I made  my
way  through  London's  thoroughfares. I was  reading  a  novel  of
suspense  the other day in which the heroine, having experienced  a
sock  in  the eye or two, was said to be lost in a maze of mumbling
thoughts, and that description would have fitted me like the  paper
on the wall.
   My  heart  was  heavy. When a man is an old  friend  and  pretty
bosom  at  that,  it  depresses you to hear that  he's  engaged  to
Florence Craye. I recalled my own emotions when I had found  myself
in that unpleasant position. I had felt like someone trapped in the
underground den of the Secret Nine.
   Though,  mark  you, there's nothing to beef about in  her  outer
crust.  At the time when she was engaged to Stilton Cheesewright  I
remember  recording in the archives that she was tall  and  willowy
with  a  terrific profile and luxuriant platinum-blonde  hair;  the
sort  of girl who might, as far as looks were concerned, have  been
the  star unit of the harem of one of the better-class Sultans; and
though  I hadn't seen her for quite a while, I presumed that  these
conditions still prevailed. The fact that Ginger, when speaking  of
her,  had gone so readily into his turtle dove impersonation seemed
to indicate as much.
   Looks,  however, aren't everything. Against this pin-up-ness  of
hers  you  had to put the bossiness which would lead her to  expect
the  bloke  she  married to behave like a Hollywood  Yes-man.  From
childhood up she had been ... I can't think of the word ...  begins
with an i... No, it's gone ... but I can give you the idea. When at
my private school I once won a prize for Scripture Knowledge, which
naturally involved a lot of researching into Holy Writ, and in  the
course of my researches I came upon the story of the military  chap
who  used to say 'Come' and they cometh and 'Go' and they goeth.  I
have always thought that that was Florence in a nutshell. She would
have  given short shrift, as the expression is, to anyone  who  had
gone when she said 'Come' or the other way round. Imperious, that's
the  word I was groping for. She was as imperious as a traffic cop.
Little  wonder  that  the  heart was heavy.  I  felt  that  Ginger,
mistaking  it  for a peach, had plucked a lemon in  the  garden  of
love.
   And  then  my  meditations took a less sombre turn.  This  often
happens  after a good lunch, even if you haven't had a cocktail.  I
reminded  myself that many married men positively enjoy being  kept
on their toes by the little woman, and possibly Ginger might be one
of them. He might take the view that when the little w made him sit
up  and  beg  and  snap  lumps of sugar off  his  nose,  it  was  a
compliment  really,  because  it showed  that  she  was  taking  an
interest.
   Feeling  a  bit  more cheerful, I reached for my cigarette  case
and was just going to open it, when like an ass I dropped it and it
fell  into the road. And as I stepped from the pavement to retrieve
it there was a sudden tooting in my rear, and whirling on my axis I
perceived that in about another two ticks I was going to be  rammed
amidships by a taxi.
   The  trouble  about whirling on your axis, in  case  you  didn't
know, is that you're liable, if not an adagio dancer, to trip  over
your  feet, and this was what I proceeded to do. My left  shoe  got
all  mixed up with my right ankle, I tottered, swayed, and after  a
brief  pause  came down like some noble tree beneath the  woodman's
axe,  and  I was sitting there lost in a maze of numbing  thoughts,
when an unseen hand attached itself to my arm and jerked me back to
safety. The taxi went on and turned the corner.
   Well,  of course the first thing the man of sensibility does  on
these  occasions is to thank his brave preserver. I  turned  to  do
this,  and  blow  me  tight if the b.p. wasn't Jeeves.  Came  as  a
complete  surprise. I couldn't think what he was doing  there,  and
for  an  instant  the idea occurred to me that this  might  be  his
astral body.
   'Jeeves!'  I  ejaculated.  I'm  pretty  sure  that's  the  word.
Anyway, I'll risk it.
   'Good afternoon, sir. I trust you are not too discommoded.  That
was a somewhat narrow squeak.'
   'It  was indeed. I don't say my whole life passed before me, but
a considerable chunk of it did. But for you -'
   'Not at all, sir.'
   'Yes,  you  and  you only saved me from appearing in  tomorrow's
obituary column.'
   'A pleasure, sir.'
   'It's  amazing  how  you always turn up at the  crucial  moment,
like  the United States Marines. I remember how you did when A.  B.
Filmer and I were having our altercation with that swan, and  there
were  other  occasions  too numerous to  mention.  Well,  you  will
certainly  get a rave notice in my prayers next time I  make  them.
But  how do you happen to be in these parts? Where are we,  by  the
way?'
   'This is Curzon Street, sir.'
   'Of course. I'd have known that if I hadn't been musing.'
   'You were musing, sir?'
   'Deeply.  I'll tell you about it later. This is where your  club
is, isn't it?'
   'Yes,  sir,  just round the corner. In your absence  and  having
completed the packing, I decided to lunch there.'
   'Thank  heaven you did. If you hadn't, I'd have been ...  what's
that gag of yours? Something about wheels.'
   'Less than the dust beneath thy chariot wheels, sir.'
   'Or, rather, the cabby's chariot wheels. Why are you looking  at
me with such a searching eye, Jeeves?'
   'I  was  thinking that your misadventure had left  you  somewhat
dishevelled,  sir. If I might suggest it, I think we should  repair
to the Junior Ganymede now.'
   'I see what you mean. You would give me a wash and brush-up?'
   'Just so, sir.'
   'And perhaps a whisky-and-soda?'
   'Certainly, sir.'
   'I  need  one  sorely. Ginger's practically on  the  waggon,  so
there  were  no  cocktails before lunch. And do you know  why  he's
practically  on  the waggon? Because the girl he's engaged  to  has
made  him take that foolish step. And do you know who the girl he's
engaged to is? My cousin Florence Craye.'
   'Indeed, sir?'
   Well,  I  hadn't expected him to roll his eyes and  leap  about,
because he never does no matter how sensational the news item,  but
I  could  see  by  the way one of his eyebrows  twitched  and  rose
perhaps  an eighth of an inch that I had interested him. And  there
was  what  is called a wealth of meaning in that 'Indeed, sir?'  He
was  conveying his opinion that this was a bit of luck for Bertram,
because  a  girl you have once been engaged to is always a  lurking
menace  till she gets engaged to someone else and so cannot  decide
at  any  moment  to  play  a return date. I  got  the  message  and
thoroughly agreed with him, though naturally I didn't say so.
   Jeeves, you see, is always getting me out of entanglements  with
the  opposite sex, and he knows all about the various  females  who
from  time  to time have come within an ace of hauling  me  to  the
altar  rails,  but of course we don't discuss them. To  do  so,  we
feel, would come under the head of bandying a woman's name, and the
Woosters do not bandy women's names. Nor do the Jeeveses.  I  can't
speak for his Uncle Charlie Silversmith, but I should imagine  that
he,  too,  has  his  code of ethics in this respect.  These  things
generally run in families.
   So  I  merely  filled him in about her making Ginger  stand  for
Parliament  and  the canvassing we were going to undertake,  urging
him  to  do  his utmost to make the electors think along the  right
lines,  and  he said 'Yes, sir' and 'Very good, sir' and  'I  quite
understand, sir', and we proceeded to the Junior Ganymede.
   An  extremely cosy club it proved to be. I didn't wonder that he
liked  to  spend  so  much  of his leisure  there.  It  lacked  the
sprightliness of the Drones. I shouldn't think there was much bread
and  sugar thrown about at lunch time, and you would hardly  expect
that  there  would  be  when  you  reflected  that  the  membership
consisted  of elderly butlers and gentlemen's gentlemen  of  fairly
ripe  years,  but  as regards comfort it couldn't be  faulted.  The
purler  I had taken had left me rather tender in the fleshy  parts,
and  it was a relief after I had been washed and brushed up and was
on  the spruce side once more to sink into a well-stuffed chair  in
the smoking-room.
   Sipping  my  whisky-and-s.,  I brought  the  conversation  round
again  to  Ginger and his election, which was naturally  the  front
page stuff of the day.
   'Do you think he has a chance, Jeeves?'
   He  weighed the question for a moment, as if dubious as to where
he would place his money.
   'It  is  difficult to say, sir. Market Snodsbury, like  so  many
English country towns, might be described as straitlaced. It sets a
high value on respectability.'
   'Well, Ginger's respectable enough.'
   'True, sir, but, as you are aware, he has had a Past.'
   'Not much of one.'
   'Sufficient,  however,  to prejudice  the  voters,  should  they
learn of it.'
   'Which  they can't possibly do. I suppose he's in the club  book
-'
   'Eleven pages, sir.'
   '  -  But you assure me that the contents of the club book  will
never be revealed.'
   'Never, sir. Mr Winship has nothing to fear from that quarter.'
   His words made me breathe more freely.
   'Jeeves,'  I said, 'your words make me breathe more  freely.  As
you  know, I am always a bit uneasy about the club book. Kept under
lock and key, is it?'
   'Not  actually  under  lock  and key,  sir,  but  it  is  safely
bestowed in the secretary's office.'
   'Then there's nothing to worry about.'
   'I  would not say that, sir. Mr Winship must have had companions
in  his escapades, and they might inadvertently make some reference
to them which would get into gossip columns in the Press and thence
into  the  Market Snodsbury journals. I believe there  are  two  of
these,  one rigidly opposed to the Conservative interest  which  Mr
Winship  is  representing.  It is always  a  possibility,  and  the
results  would  be  disastrous. I have no means at  the  moment  of
knowing the identity of Mr Winship's opponent, but he is sure to be
a  model  of  respectability  whose past  can  bear  the  strictest
investigation.'
   'You're   pretty  gloomy,  Jeeves.  Why  aren't  you   gathering
rosebuds? The poet Herrick would shake his head.'
   'I  am  sorry,  sir.  I did not know that  you  were  taking  Mr
Winship's  fortunes  so much to heart, or I would  have  been  more
guarded in my speech. Is victory in the election of such importance
to him?'
   'It's vital. Florence will hand him his hat if he doesn't win.'
   'Surely not, sir?'
   'That's  what  he says, and I think he's right. His observations
on  the subject were most convincing. He says she's a perfectionist
and  has no use for a loser. It is well established that she handed
Percy  Gorringe the pink slip because the play he made of her novel
only ran three nights.'
   'Indeed, sir?'
   'Well-documented fact.'
   'Then let us hope that what I fear will not happen, sir.'
   We  were  sitting  there hoping that what he  feared  would  not
happen,  when a shadow fell on my whisky-and-s. and I saw  that  we
had  been  joined  by  another member of  the  Junior  Ganymede,  a
smallish,  plumpish, Gawd-help-us-ish member wearing  clothes  more
suitable  for  the country than the town and a tie  that  suggested
that he belonged to the Brigade of Guards, though I doubted if this
was the case. As to his manner, I couldn't get a better word for it
at the moment than 'familiar', but I looked it up later in Jeeves's
Dictionary of Synonyms and found that it had been unduly  intimate,
too  free,  forward, lacking in proper reserve,  deficient  in  due
respect,  impudent, bold and intrusive. Well, when I tell you  that
the first thing he did was to prod Jeeves in the lower ribs with an
uncouth forefinger, you will get the idea.
   'Hullo,  Reggie,' he said, and I froze in my chair,  stunned  by
the  revelation that Jeeves's first name was Reginald. It had never
occurred  to  me before that he had a first name. I  couldn't  help
thinking  what embarrassment would have been caused if it had  been
Bertie.
   'Good  afternoon,' said Jeeves, and I could see  that  the  chap
was not one of his inner circle of friends. His voice was cold, and
anyone  less lacking in proper reserve and deficient in due respect
would have spotted this and recoiled.
   The  Gawd-help-us fellow appeared to notice nothing  amiss.  His
manner  continued  to be that of one who has  met  a  pal  of  long
standing.
   'How's yourself, Reggie?'
   'I am in tolerably good health, thank you.'
   'Lost  weight,  haven't you? You ought to live  in  the  country
like  me  and get good country butter.' He turned to me.  'And  you
ought to be more careful, cocky, dancing about in the middle of the
street like that. I was in that cab and I thought you were a goner.
You're Wooster, aren't you?'
   'Yes,'  I  said,  amazed. I hadn't known I  was  such  a  public
figure.
   'Thought  so.  I don't often forget a face. Well, I  can't  stay
chatting  with you. I've got to see the secretary about  something.
Nice to have seen you, Reggie.'
   'Goodbye.'
   'Nice to have seen you, Wooster, old man.'
   I  thanked  him, and he withdrew. I turned to Jeeves, that  wild
surmise  I  was  speaking about earlier functioning on  all  twelve
cylinders.
   'Who was that?'
   He  did  not reply immediately, plainly too ruffled for  speech.
He  had to take a sip of his liqueur brandy before he was master of
himself.  His manner, when he did speak, was that of one who  would
have preferred to let the whole thing drop.
   'The   person  you  mentioned  at  the  breakfast  table,   sir.
Bingley,' he said, pronouncing the name as if it soiled his lips.
   I  was  astounded.  You  could  have  knocked  me  down  with  a
toothpick.
   'Bingley?   I'd   never  have  recognized  him.   He's   changed
completely. He was quite thin when I knew him, and very gloomy, you
might  say sinister. Always seemed to be brooding silently  on  the
coming  revolution, when he would be at liberty to  chase  me  down
Park Lane with a dripping knife.'
   The  brandy  seemed to have restored Jeeves. He spoke  now  with
his customary calm.
   'I  believe his political views were very far to the left at the
time when he was in your employment. They changed when he became  a
man of property.'
   'A man of property, is he?'
   'An  uncle  of his in the grocery business died and left  him  a
house and a comfortable sum of money.'
   'I  suppose  it  often happens that the views  of  fellows  like
Bingley change when they come into money.'
   'Very  frequently.  They  regard the coming  revolution  from  a
different standpoint.'
   'I  see  what you mean. They don't want to be chased  down  Park
Lane  with  dripping knives themselves. Is he still  a  gentleman's
gentleman?'
   'He   has  retired.  He  lives  a  life  of  leisure  in  Market
Snodsbury.'
   'Market Snodsbury? That's funny.'
   'Sir?'
   'Odd, I mean, that he should live in Market Snodsbury.'
   'Many people do, sir.'
   'But  when that's just where we're going. Sort of a coincidence.
His uncle's house is there, I suppose.'
   'One presumes so.'
   'We may be seeing something of him.'
   'I  hope not, sir. I disapprove of Bingley. He is dishonest. Not
a man to be trusted.'
   'What makes you think so?'
   'It is merely a feeling.'
   Well,  it was no skin off my nose. A busy man like myself hasn't
time  to  go about trusting Bingley. All I demanded of Bingley  was
that  if our paths should cross he would remain sober and keep away
from  carving  knives. Live and let live is the  Wooster  motto.  I
finished my whisky-and-soda and rose.
   'Well,'   I  said,  'there's  one  thing.  Holding  the   strong
Conservative  views he does, it ought to be a snip to  get  him  to
vote  for  Ginger. And now we'd better be getting along. Ginger  is
driving  us down in his car, and I don't know when he'll be  coming
to fetch us. Thanks for your princely hospitality, Jeeves. You have
brought new life to the exhausted frame.'
   'Not at all, sir.'

        5
   Ginger  turned up in due course, and on going out to the  car  I
saw  that  he  had managed to get hold of Magnolia all  right,  for
there was a girl sitting in the back and when he introduced us  his
'Mr Wooster, Miss Glendennon' told the story.

   Nice  girl  she seemed to me and quite nice-looking. I  wouldn't
say  hers was the face that launched a thousand ships, to quote one
of  Jeeves's  gags,  and this was probably all  to  the  good,  for
Florence,  I  imagine, would have had a word to say if  Ginger  had
returned from his travels with something in tow calculated to bring
a  whistle to the lips of all beholders. A man in his position  has
to  exercise considerable care in his choice of secretaries, ruling
out  anything that might have done well in the latest Miss  America
contest.  But  you  could  certainly  describe  her  appearance  as
pleasant.  She gave me the impression of being one of those  quiet,
sympathetic  girls  whom you could tell your  troubles  to  in  the
certain  confidence of having your hand held and your head  patted.
The  sort  of  girl  you  could go to and say  'I  say,  I've  just
committed  a  murder and it's worrying me rather,'  and  she  would
reply,  'There, there, try not to think about it, it's the sort  of
thing  that might happen to anybody.' The little mother, in  short,
with the added attraction of being tops at shorthand and typing.  I
could have wished Ginger's affairs in no better hands.
   Jeeves  brought  out  the suitcases and stowed  them  away,  and
Ginger  asked me to do the driving, as he had a lot of business  to
go  into  with  his new secretary, giving her the low-down  on  her
duties,  I suppose. We set out, accordingly, with me and Jeeves  in
front,  and about the journey down there is nothing of interest  to
report. I was in merry mood throughout, as always when about to get
another  whack  at  Anatole's cooking. Jeeves presumably  felt  the
same,  for  he,  like  me, is one of that master  skillet-wielder's
warmest  admirers,  but whereas I sang a good  deal  as  we  buzzed
along,  he  maintained, as is his custom, the silent reserve  of  a
stuffed frog, never joining in the chorus, though cordially invited
to.
   Arriving at journey's end, we all separated. Jeeves attended  to
the luggage, Ginger took Magnolia Glendennon off to his office, and
I  made  my  way  to the drawing-room, which I found  empty.  There
seemed to be nobody about, as so often happens when you fetch up at
a  country house lateish in the afternoon. No sign of Aunt  Dahlia,
nor  of Uncle Tom, her mate. I toyed with the idea of going to  see
if  the latter was in the room where he keeps his collection of old
silver,  but  thought  better  not.  Uncle  Tom  is  one  of  those
enthusiastic collectors who, if in a position to grab  you,  detain
you for hours, talking about sconces, foliation, ribbon wreaths  in
high  relief and gadroon borders, and one wants as little  of  that
sort of thing as can be managed.
   I  might  have  gone  to pay my respects to Anatole,  but  there
again  I  thought  better not. He, too, is  inclined  to  the  long
monologue when he gets you in his power, his pet subject the  state
of  his  interior. He suffers from bouts of what he  calls  mal  au
foie,  and  his  conversation would be of  greater  interest  to  a
medical man than to a layman like myself. I don't know why  it  is,
but  when somebody starts talking to me about his liver I never can
listen with real enjoyment.
   On  the  whole, the thing to do seemed to be to go for a saunter
in the extensive grounds and messuages.
   It  was one of those heavy, sultry afternoons when Nature  seems
to  be saying to itself 'Now shall I or shall I not scare the pants
off these people with a hell of a thunderstorm?', but I decided  to
risk  it.  There's a small wooded bit not far from the house  which
I've  always been fond of, and thither I pushed along. This  wooded
bit contains one or two rustic benches for the convenience of those
who wish to sit and meditate, and as I hove alongside the first  of
these I saw that there was an expensive-looking camera on it.
   It  surprised  me somewhat, for I had no idea that  Aunt  Dahlia
had  taken to photography, but of course you never know what  aunts
will  be  up  to  next.  The thought that  occurred  to  me  almost
immediately  was  that if there was going to be a thunderstorm,  it
would  be accompanied by rain, and rain falling on a camera doesn't
do it any good. I picked the thing up, accordingly, and started off
with it to take it back to the house, feeling that the old relative
would  thank me for my thoughtfulness, possibly with tears  in  her
eyes, when there was a sudden bellow and an individual emerged from
behind  a  clump of bushes. Startled me considerably, I don't  mind
telling you.
   He  was an extremely stout individual with a large pink face and
a  Panama hat with a pink ribbon. A perfect stranger to me,  and  I
wondered  what he was doing here. He didn't look the sort of  crony
Aunt  Dahlia would have invited to stay, and still less Uncle  Tom,
who is so allergic to guests that when warned of their approach  he
generally makes a bolt for it and disappears, leaving not  a  wrack
behind as I have heard Jeeves put it. However, as I was saying, you
never  know what aunts will be up to next and no doubt the ancestor
had had some good reason for asking the chap to come and mix, so  I
beamed  civilly  and opened the conversation with a  genial  'Hullo
there'.
   'Nice  day,'  I said, continuing to beam civilly.  'Or,  rather,
not   so  frightfully  nice.  Looks  as  if  we  were  in   for   a
thunderstorm.'
   Something seemed to have annoyed him. The pink of his  face  had
deepened to about the colour of his Panama hat ribbon, and both his
chins trembled slightly.
   'Damn  thunderstorms!' he responded - curtly, I  suppose,  would
be  the  word - and I said I didn't like them myself.  It  was  the
lightning, I added, that I chiefly objected to.
   'They say it never strikes twice in the same place, but then  it
hasn't got to.'
   'Damn the lightning! What are you doing with my camera?'
   This naturally opened up a new line of thought.
   'Oh, is this your camera?'
   'Yes, it is.'
   'I was taking it to the house.'
   'You were, were you?'
   'I didn't want it to get wet.'
   'Oh? And who are you?'
   I  was  glad he had asked me that. His whole manner had made  it
plain  to  a  keen mind like mine that he was under the  impression
that  he  had caught me in the act of absconding with his property,
and   I  was  glad  to  have  the  opportunity  of  presenting   my
credentials. I could see that if we were ever to have a good  laugh
together over this amusing misunderstanding, there would have to be
a certain amount of preliminary spadework.
   'Wooster  is the name,' I said. 'I'm my aunt's nephew. I  mean,'
I went on, for those last words seemed to me not to have rung quite
right, 'Mrs Travers is my aunt.'
   'You are staying in the house?'
   'Yes. Just arrived.'
   'Oh?'  he  said again, but this time in what you  might  call  a
less hostile tone.
   'Yes,' I said, rubbing it in.
   There  followed a silence, presumably occupied by him in turning
things  over in his mind in the light of my statement and examining
them in depth and then he said 'Oh?' once more and stumped off.
   I  made  no move to accompany him. What little I had had of  his
society  had been ample. As we were staying in the same  house,  we
would no doubt meet occasionally, but not, I resolved, if I saw him
first. The whole episode reminded me of my first encounter with Sir
Watkyn  Bassett  and the misunderstanding about his umbrella.  That
had  left  me shaken, and so had this. I was glad to have a  rustic
bench handy, so that I could sit and try to bring my nervous system
back into shape. The sky had become more and more inky I suppose is
the  word I want and the odds on a thunderstorm shorter than  ever,
but  I  still  lingered. It was only when there came from  above  a
noise  like  fifty-seven trucks going over a wooden bridge  that  I
felt  that  an immediate move would be judicious. I rose  and  soon
gathered speed, and I had reached the French window of the drawing-
room  and  was  on the point of popping through, when  from  within
there  came  the sound of a human voice. On second thoughts  delete
the  word  'human', for it was the voice of my recent  acquaintance
with whom I had chatted about cameras.
   I  halted.  There was a song I used to sing in my  bath  at  one
time,  the  refrain  or burthen of which began with  the  words  'I
stopped and I looked and I listened', and this was what I did  now,
except  for  the  looking. It wasn't raining,  nor  was  there  any
repetition of the trucks-going-over-a-wooden-bridge noise.  It  was
as  though  Nature  had said to itself 'Oh to  hell  with  it'  and
decided  that it was too much trouble to have a thunderstorm  after
all.  So  I  wasn't getting struck by lightning or even wet,  which
enabled me to remain in status quo.
   The  camera  bloke  was speaking to some unseen  companion,  and
what he said was;
   'Wooster, his name is. Says he's Mrs Travers's nephew.'
   It   was  plain  that  I  had  arrived  in  the  middle   of   a
conversation.  The  words  must have  been  preceded  by  a  query,
possibly  'Oh,  by  the way, do you happen  to  know  who  a  tall,
slender, good-looking - I might almost say fascinating - young  man
I  was  talking  to  outside there would  be?',  though  of  course
possibly  not. That, at any rate, must have been the  gist,  and  I
suppose  the  party of the second part had replied  'No,  sorry,  I
can't  place  him', or words to that effect. Whereupon  the  camera
chap  had  spoken as above. And as he spoke as above a  snort  rang
through  the  quiet room; a voice, speaking with every evidence  of
horror and disgust, exclaimed 'Wooster!'; and I quivered from hair-
do  to shoe sole. I may even have gasped, but fortunately not  loud
enough to be audible beyond the French window.
   For  it  was  the voice of Lord Sidcup - or, as I  shall  always
think  of  him,  no matter how many titles he may  have  inherited,
Spode. Spode, mark you, whom I had thought and hoped I had seen the
last  of after dusting the dust of Totleigh Towers from the Wooster
feet;  Spode, who went about seeking whom he might devour and  from
early  boyhood  had  been a hissing and a  by-word  to  all  right-
thinking men. Little wonder that for a moment everything seemed  to
go  black  and I had to clutch at a passing rose bush to keep  from
falling.
   This Spode, I must explain for the benefit of the newcomers  who
have  not  read the earlier chapters of my memoirs, was a character
whose  path had crossed mine many a time and oft, as the expression
is,  and always with the most disturbing results. I have spoken  of
the  improbability of a beautiful friendship ever getting under way
between  me  and the camera chap, but the likelihood  of  any  such
fusion  of  souls, as I have heard Jeeves call it, between  me  and
Spode  was even more remote. Our views on each other were definite.
His was that what England needed if it was to become a land fit for
heroes to live in was fewer and better Woosters, while I had always
felt that there was nothing wrong with England that a ton of bricks
falling from a height on Spode's head wouldn't cure.
   'You know him?' said the camera chap.
   'I'm  sorry  to  say I do,' said Spode, speaking  like  Sherlock
Holmes asked if he knew Professor Moriarty. 'How did you happen  to
meet him?'
   'I found him making off with my camera.'
   'Ha!'
   'Naturally I thought he was stealing it. But if he's really  Mrs
Travers's nephew, I suppose I was mistaken.'
   Spode  would  have  none  of this reasoning,  though  it  seemed
pretty  sound to me. He snorted again with even more follow-through
than the first time.
   'Being  Mrs Travers's nephew means nothing. If he was the nephew
of  an  archbishop he would behave in a precisely  similar  manner.
Wooster would steal anything that was not nailed down, provided  he
could do it unobserved. He couldn't have known you were there?'
   'No. I was behind a bush.'
   'And your camera looks a good one.'
   'Cost me a lot of money.'
   'Then  of  course  he was intending to steal it.  He  must  have
thought  he  had dropped into a bit of good luck. Let me  tell  you
about  Wooster. The first time I met him was in an antique shop.  I
had gone there with Sir Watkyn Bassett, my future father-in-law. He
collects  old  silver. And Sir Watkyn had propped his  umbrella  up
against a piece of furniture. Wooster was there, but lurking, so we
didn't see him.'
   'In a dark corner, perhaps?'
   'Or  behind something. The first we saw of him, he was  sneaking
off with Sir Watkyn's umbrella.'
   'Pretty cool.'
   'Oh, he's cool all right. These fellows have to be.'
   'I suppose so. Must take a nerve of ice.'
   To  say that I boiled with justifiable indignation would not  be
putting it too strongly. As I have recorded elsewhere, there was  a
ready  explanation  of  my behaviour. I had  come  out  without  my
umbrella  that morning, and, completely forgetting that I had  done
so,  I  had  grasped  old Bassett's, obeying the primeval  instinct
which makes a man without an umbrella reach out for the nearest one
in  sight, like a flower groping towards the sun. Unconsciously, as
it were.
   Spode  resumed. They had taken a moment off, no doubt  in  order
to  brood on my delinquency. His voice now was that of one about to
come to the high spot in his narrative.
   'You'll  hardly believe this, but soon after that he  turned  up
at Totleigh Towers, Sir Watkyn's house in Gloucestershire.'
   'Incredible!'
   'I thought you'd think so.'
   'Disguised, of course? A wig? A false beard? His cheeks  stained
with walnut juice?'
   'No, he came quite openly, invited by my future wife. She has  a
sort of sentimental pity for him. I think she hopes to reform him.'
   'Girls will be girls.'
   'Yes, but I wish they wouldn't.'
   'Did you rebuke your future wife?'
   'I wasn't in a position to then.'
   'Probably  a  wise  thing, anyway. I once  rebuked  the  girl  I
wanted to marry, and she went off and teamed up with a stockbroker.
So what happened?'
   'He  stole  a  valuable piece of silver. A sort of silver  cream
jug. A cow-creamer, they call it.'
   'My doctor forbids me cream. You had him arrested, of course?'
   'We couldn't. No evidence.'
   'But you knew he had done it?'
   'We were certain.'
   'Well, that's how it goes. See any more of him after that?'
   'This you will not believe. He came to Totleigh Towers again!'
   'Impossible!'
   'Once more invited by my future wife.'
   'Would that be the Miss Bassett who arrived last night?'
   'Yes, that was Madeline.'
   'Lovely  girl.  I  met  her in the garden before  breakfast.  My
doctor  recommends a breath of fresh air in the early morning.  Did
you know she thinks those bits of mist you see on the grass are the
elves' bridal veils?'
   'She has a very whimsical fancy.'
   'And  nothing  to  be  done about it, I suppose.  But  you  were
telling me about this second visit of Wooster's to Totleigh Towers.
Did he steal anything this time?'
   'An amber statuette worth a thousand pounds.'
   'He  certainly  gets  around,' said  the  camera  chap  with,  I
thought,  a  sort  of  grudging admiration. 'I  hope  you  had  him
arrested?'
   'We  did. He spent the night in the local gaol. But next morning
Sir Watkyn weakened and let him off.'
   'Mistaken kindness.'
   'So I thought.'
   The  camera chap didn't comment further on this, though  he  was
probably thinking that of all the soppy families introduced to  his
notice the Bassetts took the biscuit.
   'Well,  I'm very much obliged to you,' he said, 'for telling  me
about  this man Wooster and putting me on my guard. I've brought  a
very valuable bit of old silver with me. I am hoping to sell it  to
Mr  Travers.  If  Wooster learns of this, he is  bound  to  try  to
purloin  it, and I can tell you, that if he does and I  catch  him,
there  will be none of this nonsense of a single night in gaol.  He
will  get  the stiffest sentence the law can provide. And now,  how
about a quick game of billiards before dinner? My doctor advises  a
little gentle exercise.'
   'I should enjoy it.'
   'Then let us be getting along.'
   Having given them time to remove themselves, I went in and  sank
down  on a sofa. I was profoundly stirred, for if you think fellows
enjoy  listening to the sort of thing Spode had been  saying  about
me,  you're  wrong. My pulse was rapid and my brow wet with  honest
sweat,  like  the  village blacksmith's. I was  badly  in  need  of
alcoholic refreshment, and just as my tongue was beginning to stick
out  and  blacken at the roots, shiver my timbers if Jeeves  didn't
enter  left  centre  with a tray containing  all  the  makings.  St
Bernard  dogs, you probably know, behave in a similar  way  in  the
Alps and are well thought of in consequence.
   Mingled  with the ecstasy which the sight of him aroused  in  my
bosom  was  a  certain surprise that he should be  acting  as  cup-
bearer.  It  was  a job that should rightly have  fallen  into  the
province of Seppings, Aunt Dahlia's butler.
   'Hullo, Jeeves!' I ejaculated.
   'Good  evening, sir. I have unpacked your effects.  Can  I  pour
you a whisky-and-soda?'
   'You  can  indeed.  But  what  are  you  doing,  buttling?  This
mystifies me greatly. Where's Seppings?'
   'He  has  retired  to  bed, sir, with an attack  of  indigestion
consequent  upon  a  too liberal indulgence in  Monsieur  Anatole's
cooking at lunch. I am undertaking his duties for the time being.'
   'Very  white  of you, and very white of you to pop  up  at  this
particular moment. I have had a shock, Jeeves.'
   'I am sorry to hear that, sir.'
   'Did you know Spode was here?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'And Miss Bassett?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'We might as well be at Totleigh Towers.'
   'I  can  appreciate  your dismay, sir,  but  fellow  guests  are
easily avoided.'
   'Yes,  and  if  you avoid them, what do they do? They  go  about
telling  men in Panama hats you're a sort of cross between  Raffles
and  one  of  those fellows who pinch bags at railway stations,'  I
said,  and  in  a  few crisp words I gave him a resume  of  Spode's
remarks.
   'Most disturbing, sir.'
   'Very.  You  know  and  I know how sound  my  motives  were  for
everything I did at Totleigh, but what if Spode tells Aunt Agatha?'
   'An unlikely contingency, sir.'
   'I suppose it is.'
   'But  I  know just how you feel, sir. Who steals my purse steals
trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'twas mine, 'tis his, and has  been
slave to thousands. But he who filches from me my good name robs me
of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.'
   'Neat, that. Your own?'
   'No, sir. Shakespeare's.'
   'Shakespeare said some rather good things.'
   'I  understand  that  he  has given uniform  satisfaction,  sir.
Shall I mix you another?'
   'Do just that thing, Jeeves, and with all convenient speed.'
   He  had  completed his St Bernard act and withdrawn, and  I  was
sipping my second rather more slowly than the first, when the  door
opened  and  Aunt  Dahlia  bounded  in,  all  joviality  and   rosy
complexion.


        6
   I  never  see this relative without thinking how odd it is  that
one  sister - call her Sister A - can be so unlike another  sister,
whom  we will call Sister B. My Aunt Agatha, for instance, is  tall
and  thin and looks rather like a vulture in the Gobi desert, while
Aunt  Dahlia is short and solid, like a scrum half in the  game  of
Rugby  football.  In  disposition, too, they  differ  widely.  Aunt
Agatha is cold and haughty, though presumably unbending a bit  when
conducting human sacrifices at the time of the full moon, as she is
widely rumoured to do, and her attitude towards me has always  been
that  of an austere governess, causing me to feel as if I were  six
years  old  and she had just caught me stealing jam  from  the  jam
cupboard;  whereas  Aunt Dahlia is as jovial  and  bonhomous  as  a
pantomime dame in a Christmas pantomime. Curious.

   I  welcomed her with a huge 'Hello', in both syllables of  which
a  nephew's love and esteem could be easily detected, and  went  so
far  as to imprint an affectionate kiss on her brow. Later I  would
take  her  roundly to task for filling the house  with  Spodes  and
Madeline  Bassetts and bulging bounders in Panama  hats,  but  that
could wait.
   She  returned my greeting with one of her uncouth hunting  cries
-  'Yoicks', if I remember correctly. Apparently, when you've  been
with  the  Quorn and the Pytchley for some time, you drop into  the
habit of departing from basic English.
   'So here you are, young Bertie.'
   'You  never spoke a truer word. Up and doing, with a  heart  for
any fate.'
   'As  thirsty  as  ever, I observe. I thought I  would  find  you
tucking into the drinks.'
   'Purely medicinal. I've had a shock.'
   'What gave you that?'
   'Suddenly becoming apprised of the fact that the blighter  Spode
was my fellow guest,' I said, feeling that I couldn't have a better
cue  for getting down to my recriminations. 'What on earth was  the
idea  of  inviting a fiend in human shape like that here?' I  said,
for  I  knew  she shared my opinion of the seventh Earl of  Sidcup.
'You have told me many a time and oft that you consider him one  of
Nature's gravest blunders. And yet you go out of your way to  court
his  society, if court his society is the expression  I  want.  You
must have been off your onion, old ancestor.'
   It  was  a  severe ticking-off, and you would have expected  the
blush of shame to have mantled her cheeks, not that you would  have
noticed  it much, her complexion being what it was after all  those
winters in the hunting field, but she was apparently imp-something,
impervious, that's the word, to remorse. She remained what  Anatole
would have called as cool as some cucumbers.
   'Ginger  asked me to. He wanted Spode to speak for him  at  this
election. He knows him slightly.'
   'Far the best way of knowing Spode.'
   'He  needs  all the help he can get, and Spode's  one  of  those
silver-tongued orators you read about. Extraordinary  gift  of  the
gab  he  has.  He  could get into Parliament  without  straining  a
sinew.'
   I  dare say she was right, but I resented any praise of Spode. I
made clear my displeasure by responding curtly:
   'Then why doesn't he?'
   'He can't, you poor chump. He's a lord.'
   'Don't they allow lords in?'
   'No, they don't.'
   'I  see,' I said, rather impressed by this proof that the  House
of  Commons drew the line somewhere. 'Well, I suppose you aren't so
much to blame as I had thought. How do you get on with him?'
   'I avoid him as much as possible.'
   'Very  shrewd.  I  shall do the same. We now  come  to  Madeline
Bassett. She's here, too. Why?'
   'Oh,  Madeline came along for the ride. She wanted  to  be  near
Spode.  An extraordinary thing to want, I agree. Morbid, you  might
call  it.  Florence  Craye, of course, has come  to  help  Ginger's
campaign.'
   I  started visibly. In fact, I jumped about six inches, as if  a
skewer or knitting-needle had come through the seat of my chair.
   'You don't mean Florence is here as well?'
   'With bells on. You seem perturbed.'
   'I'm  all of a twitter. It never occurred to me that when I came
here I would be getting into a sort of population explosion.'
   'Who ever told you about population explosions?'
   'Jeeves. They are rather a favourite subject of his. He says  if
something isn't done pretty soon -'
   'I'll  bet  he said, If steps are not taken shortly through  the
proper channels.'
   'He  did,  as  a matter of fact. He said, If steps aren't  taken
shortly  through the proper channels, half the world will  soon  be
standing on the other half's shoulders.'
   'All right if you're one of the top layer.'
   'Yes, there's that, of course.'
   'Though  even  then it would be uncomfortable.  Tricky  sort  of
balancing act.'
   'True.'
   'And  difficult to go for a stroll if you wanted to stretch  the
legs. And one wouldn't get much hunting.'
   'Not much.'
   We  mused  for  awhile on what lay before  us,  and  I  remember
thinking that present conditions, even with Spode and Madeline  and
Florence  on the premises, suited one better. From this to thinking
of  Uncle  Tom  was but a step. It seemed to me that the  poor  old
buster  must be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Even a  single
guest is sometimes too much for him.
   'How,' I asked, 'is Uncle Tom bearing up under this invasion  of
his cabin?'
   She stared incredibly or rather incredulously.
   'Did  you  expect to find him here playing his  banjo?  My  poor
halfwitted child, he was off to the south of France the  moment  he
learned  that danger threatened. I had a picture postcard from  him
yesterday. He's having a wonderful time and wishes I was there.'
   'And don't you mind all these blighters overrunning the place?'
   'I  would  prefer it if they went elsewhere, but  I  treat  them
with saintly forbearance because I feel it's all helping Ginger.'
   'How do things look in that direction?'
   'An  even  bet, I would say. The slightest thing might turn  the
scale. He and his opponent are having a debate in a day or two, and
a good deal, you might say everything, depends on that.'
   'Who's the opponent?'
   'Local talent. A barrister.'
   'Jeeves  says Market Snodsbury is very straitlaced, and  if  the
electors  found out about Ginger's past they would  heave  him  out
without even handing him his hat.'
   'Has he a past?'
   'I  wouldn't call it that. Pure routine, I'd describe it as.  In
the days before he fell under Florence's spell he was rather apt to
get slung out of restaurants for throwing eggs at the electric fan,
and  he  seldom  escaped unjugged on Boat Race night  for  pinching
policemen's helmets. Would that lose him votes?'
   'Lose  him  votes?  If  it  was brought  to  Market  Snodsbury's
attention, I doubt if he would get a single one. That sort of thing
might  be overlooked in the cities of the plain, but not in  Market
Snodsbury.  So  for  heaven's sake don't go babbling  about  it  to
everyone you meet.'
   'My dear old ancestor, am I likely to?'
   'Very likely, I should say. You know how fat your head is.'
   I   would   have  what-d'you-call-it-ed  this  slur,  and   with
vehemence, but the adjective she had used reminded me that  we  had
been  talking all this time and I hadn't enquired about the  camera
chap.
   'By the way,' I said, 'who would a fat fellow be?'
   'Someone  fond  of starchy foods who had omitted  to  watch  his
calories,  I  imagine. What on earth, if anything, are you  talking
about?'
   I  saw  that  my  question had been too abrupt.  I  hastened  to
clarify it.
   'Strolling  in the grounds and messuages just now I  encountered
an  obese  bird  in  a Panama hat with a pink  ribbon,  and  I  was
wondering who he was and how he came to be staying here. He  didn't
look  the sort of bloke for whom you would be putting out mats with
"Welcome" on them. He gave me the impression of being a thug of the
first order.'
   My  words  seemed  to have touched a chord. Rising  nimbly,  she
went  to  the  door  and opened it, then to the French  window  and
looked out, plainly in order to ascertain that nobody - except  me,
of course - was listening. Spies in spy stories do the same kind of
thing  when  about to make communications which are for  your  ears
only.
   'I suppose I'd better tell you about him,' she said.
   I intimated that I would be an attentive audience.
   'That's  L. P. Runkle, and I want you to exercise your charm  on
him, such as it is. He has to be conciliated and sucked up to.'
   'Why, is he someone special?'
   'You  bet  he's someone special. He's a big financier,  Runkle's
Enterprises. Loaded with money.'
   It   seemed  to  me  that  these  words  could  have   but   one
significance.
   'You're hoping to touch him?'
   'Such  is  indeed my aim. But not for myself. I want  to  get  a
round sum out of him for Tuppy Glossop.'
   Her  allusion  was  to the nephew of Sir Roderick  Glossop,  the
well-known  nerve  specialist and loony doctor, once  a  source  of
horror  and concern to Bertram but now one of my leading  pals.  He
calls  me  Bertie,  I call him Roddy. Tuppy,  too,  is  one  of  my
immediate  circle  of buddies, in spite of the fact  that  he  once
betted  me I couldn't swing myself from end to end of the  swimming
bath at the Drones, and when I came to the last ring I found he had
looped  it back, giving me no option but to drop into the water  in
faultless  evening dress. This had been like a dagger in the  bosom
for a considerable period, but eventually Time the great healer had
ironed things out and I had forgiven him. He has been betrothed  to
Aunt  Dahlia's daughter Angela for ages, and I had never been  able
to  understand  why they hadn't got around to letting  the  wedding
bells get cracking. I had been expecting every day for ever so long
to  be  called on to weigh in with the silver fish-slice,  but  the
summons never came.
   Naturally  I asked if Tuppy was hard up, and she said he  wasn't
begging  his  bread and nosing about in the gutters  for  cigarette
ends, but he hadn't enough to marry on.
   'Thanks to L. P. Runkle. I'll tell you the whole story.'
   'Do.'
   'Did you ever meet Tuppy's late father?'
   'Once.  I remember him as a dreamy old bird of the absent-minded
professor type.'
   'He  was  a  chemical  researcher  or  whatever  they  call  it,
employed by Runkle's Enterprises, one of those fellows you  see  in
the movies who go about in white coats peering into test tubes. And
one  day  he invented what were afterwards known as Runkle's  Magic
Midgets,  small  pills for curing headaches. You've  probably  come
across them.'
   'I  know  them  well. Excellent for a hangover,  though  not  of
course to be compared with Jeeves's patent pick-me-up. They're very
popular  at the Drones. I know a dozen fellows who swear  by  them.
There must be a fortune in them.'
   'There was. They sell like warm winter woollies in Iceland.'
   'Then why is Tuppy short of cash? Didn't he inherit them?'
   'Not by a jugful.'
   'I  don't get it. You speak in riddles, aged relative,' I  said,
and there was a touch of annoyance in my voice, for if there is one
thing that gives me the pip, it is an aunt speaking in riddles. 'If
these ruddy midget things belonged to Tuppy's father -'
   'L.  P.  Runkle claimed they didn't. Tuppy's father was  working
for  him on a salary, and the small print in the contract read that
all  inventions  made  on  Runkle's Enterprises'  time  became  the
property  of  Runkle's Enterprises. So when old  Glossop  died,  he
hadn't  much  to  leave  his  son,  while  L.  P.  Runkle  went  on
flourishing like a green bay tree.'
   I  had  never  seen  a green bay tree, but I gathered  what  she
meant.
   'Couldn't Tuppy sue?'
   'He would have been bound to lose. A contract is a contract.'
   I  saw what she meant. It was not unlike that time when she  was
running  that  weekly  paper  of  hers,  Milady's  Boudoir,  and  I
contributed  to it an article, or piece as it is sometimes  called,
on  What  The Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing. She gave me a packet  of
cigarettes  for  it,  and  it then became her  property.  I  didn't
actually get offers for it from France, Germany, Italy, Canada  and
the  United States, but if I had had I couldn't have accepted them.
My pal Boko Littleworth, who makes a living by his pen, tells me  I
ought  to have sold her only the first serial rights, but I  didn't
think  of it at the time. One makes these mistakes. What one needs,
of course, is an agent.
   All  the  same,  I considered that L. P. Runkle  ought  to  have
stretched a point and let Tuppy's father get something out of it. I
put this to the ancestor, and she agreed with me.
   'Of course he ought. Moral obligation.'
   'It confirms one's view that this Runkle is a stinker.'
   'The  stinker  supreme. And he tells me he has been  tipped  off
that he's going to get a knighthood in the New Year's Honours.'
   'How can they knight a chap like that?'
   'Just  the sort of chap they do knight. Prominent business  man.
Big deals. Services to Britain's export trade.'
   'But a stinker.'
   'Unquestionably a stinker.'
   'Then  what's he doing here? You usually don't go  out  of  your
way to entertain stinkers. Spode, yes. I can understand you letting
him  infest  the premises, much as I disapprove of it. He's  making
speeches  on Ginger's behalf, and according to you doing it  rather
well. But why Runkle?'
   She  said  'Ah!', and when I asked her reason for saying  'Ah!',
she replied that she was thinking of her subtle cunning, and when I
asked  what she meant by subtle cunning, she said 'Ah!'  again.  It
looked  as if we might go on like this indefinitely, but  a  moment
later,  having toddled to the door and opened it and to the  French
window and peered out, she explained.
   'Runkle came here hoping to sell Tom an old silver what not  for
his  collection, and as Tom had vanished and he had come a long way
I  had to put him up for the night, and at dinner I suddenly had an
inspiration.  I thought if I got him to stay on and plied  him  day
and night with Anatole's cooking, he might get into mellowed mood.'
   She had ceased to speak in riddles. This time I followed her.
   'So  that you would be able to talk him into slipping Tuppy some
of his ill-gotten gains?'
   'Exactly.  I'm  biding my time. When the moment comes,  I  shall
act  like lightning. I told him Tom would be back in a day or  two,
not  that he will, because he won't come within fifty miles of  the
place till I blow the All Clear, so Runkle consented to stay on.'
   'And how's it working out?'
   'The  prospects  look  good. He mellows more  with  every  meal.
Anatole gave us his Mignonette de poulet Petit Duc last night,  and
he  tucked into it like a tapeworm that's been on a diet for weeks.
There was no mistaking the gleam in his eyes as he downed the  last
mouthful. A few more dinners ought to do the trick.'
   She  left  me shortly after this to go and dress for dinner.  I,
strong in the knowledge that I could get into the soup-and-fish  in
ten minutes, lingered on, plunged in thought.
   Extraordinary  how I kept doing that as of even  date.  It  just
shows  what  life is like now. I don't suppose in the  old  days  I
would have been plunged in thought more than about once a month.

        7
   I  need scarcely say that Tuppy's hard case, as outlined by  the
old  blood relation, had got right in amongst me. You might suppose
that  a  fellow capable of betting you you couldn't swing  yourself
across  the Drones swimming-bath by the rings and looping the  last
ring back deserved no consideration, but as I say the agony of that
episode  had  long  since  abated  and  it  pained  me  deeply   to
contemplate  the  spot  he was in. For though  I  had  affected  to
consider  that the ancestor's scheme for melting L. P.  Runkle  was
the  goods,  I didn't really believe it would work. You  don't  get
anywhere  filling with rich foods a bloke who wears  a  Panama  hat
like his: the only way of inducing the L. P. Runkle type of man  to
part with cash is to kidnap him, take him to the cellar beneath the
lonely  mill and stick lighted matches between his toes.  And  even
then he would probably give you a dud cheque.
   The  revelation  of  Tuppy's hard-upness had  come  as  quite  a
surprise.  You  know how it is with fellows you're seeing  all  the
time;  if you think about their finances at all, you sort of assume
they  must  be  all right. It had never occurred to me  that  Tuppy
might be seriously short of doubloons, but I saw now why there  had
been  all this delay in assembling the bishop and assistant  clergy
and  getting the show on the road. I presumed Uncle Tom would brass
up  if  given  the  green light, he having  the  stuff  in  heaping
sackfuls, but Tuppy has his pride and would quite properly  jib  at
the idea of being supported by a father-in-law. Of course he really
oughtn't to have gone and signed Angela up with his bank balance in
such  a  rocky condition, but love is love. Conquers  all,  as  the
fellow said.
   Having  mused  on Tuppy for about five minutes, I changed  gears
and  started musing on Angela, for whom I had always had a cousinly
affection. A definitely nice young prune and just the sort to be  a
good wife, but of course the catch is that you can't be a good wife
if  the other half of the sketch hasn't enough money to marry  you.
Practically all you can do is hang around and twiddle your  fingers
and  hope  for the best. Weary waiting about sums it  up,  and  the
whole  lay-out, I felt, must be g. and wormwood for Angela, causing
her to bedew her pillow with many a salty tear.
   I  always  find when musing that the thing to do is to bury  the
face in the hands, because it seems to concentrate thought and keep
the  mind  from wandering off elsewhere. I did this  now,  and  was
getting along fairly well, when I suddenly had that uncanny feeling
that  I  was  not alone. I sensed a presence, if you  would  prefer
putting  it  that  way, and I had not been mistaken.  Removing  the
hands and looking up, I saw that Madeline Bassett was with me.
   It  was  a  nasty shock. I won't say she was the last  person  I
wanted to see, Spode of course heading the list of starters with L.
P. Runkle in close attendance, but I would willingly have dispensed
with  her  company. However, I rose courteously, and I don't  think
there  was anything in my manner to suggest that I would have liked
to  hit her with a brick, for I am pretty inscrutable at all times.
Nevertheless,  behind  my calm front there  lurked  the  uneasiness
which always grips me when we meet.
   Holding the mistaken view that I am hopelessly in love with  her
and  more  or  less pining away into a decline, this Bassett  never
fails  to  look at me, when our paths cross, with a sort of  tender
pity, and she was letting me have it now. So melting indeed was her
gaze  that  it  was only by reminding myself that  she  was  safely
engaged  to  Spode  that I was able to preserve my  equanimity  and
sangfroid.  When she had been betrothed to Gussie Fink-Nottle,  the
peril  of her making a switch had always been present, Gussie being
the  sort of spectacled newt-collecting freak a girl might  at  any
moment  get  second  thoughts about, but  there  was  something  so
reassuring  in  her being engaged to Spode. Because,  whatever  you
might  think of him, you couldn't get away from it that he was  the
seventh  Earl  of  Sidcup, and no girl who has managed  to  hook  a
seventh  Earl with a castle in Shropshire and an income  of  twenty
thousand pounds per annum is lightly going to change her mind about
him.
   Having  given  me the look, she spoke, and her  voice  was  like
treacle pouring out of a jug.
   'Oh, Bertie, how nice to see you again. How are you?'
   'I'm fine. How are you?'
   'I'm fine.'
   'That's fine. How's your father?'
   'He's fine.'
   I  was  sorry to hear this. My relations with Sir Watkyn Bassett
were such that a more welcome piece of news would have been that he
had contracted bubonic plague and wasn't expected to recover.
   'I heard you were here,' I said.
   'Yes, I'm here.'
   'So I heard. You're looking well.'
   'Oh, I'm very, very well, and oh so happy.'
   'That's good.'
   'I  wake  up each morning to the new day, and I know it's  going
to be the best day that ever was. Today I danced on the lawn before
breakfast, and then I went round the garden saying good morning  to
the  flowers.  There was a sweet black cat asleep  on  one  of  the
flower beds. I picked it up and danced with it.'
   I  didn't tell her so, but she couldn't have made a worse social
gaffe.  If  there  is  one thing Augustus,  the  cat  to  whom  she
referred,  hates,  it's having his sleep disturbed.  He  must  have
cursed freely, though probably in a drowsy undertone. I suppose she
thought he was purring.
   She  had paused, seeming to expect some comment on her fatheaded
behaviour, so I said:
   'Euphoria.'
   'I what?'
   'That's what it's called, Jeeves tells me, feeling like that.'
   'Oh, I see. I just call it being happy, happy, happy.'
   Having said which, she gave a start, quivered and put a hand  up
to  her face as if she were having a screen test and had been  told
to register remorse.
   'Oh, Bertie!'
   'Hullo?'
   'I'm so sorry.'
   'Eh?'
   'It  was so tactless of me to go on about my happiness. I should
have remembered how different it was for you. I saw your face twist
with pain as I came in and I can't tell you how sorry I am to think
that it is I who have caused it. Life is not easy, is it?'
   'Not very.'
   'Difficult.'
   'In spots.'
   'The only thing is to be brave.'
   'That's about it.'
   'You  must  not  lose  courage. Who knows?  Consolation  may  be
waiting for you somewhere. Some day you will meet someone who  will
make  you forget you ever loved me. No, not quite that. I  think  I
shall  always be a fragrant memory, always something deep  in  your
heart  that  will be with you like a gentle, tender  ghost  as  you
watch  the  sunset on summer evenings while the little  birds  sing
their off-to-bed songs in the shrubbery.'
   'I  wouldn't be surprised,' I said, for one simply  has  to  say
the  civil  thing.  'You look a bit damp,' I  added,  changing  the
subject. 'Was it raining when you were out?'
   'A  little,  but I didn't mind. I was saying good-night  to  the
flowers.'
   'Oh, you say good-night to them, too?'
   'Of  course. Their poor little feelings would be so  hurt  if  I
didn't.'
   'Wise of you to come in. Might have got lumbago.'
   'That  was not why I came in. I saw you through the window,  and
I had a question to ask you. A very, very serious question.'
   'Oh, yes?'
   'But  it's so difficult to know how to put it. I shall  have  to
ask it as they do in books. You know what they say in books.'
   'What who say in books?'
   'Detectives  and  people  like  that.  Bertie,  are  you   going
straight now?'
   'I beg your pardon?'
   'You know what I mean. Have you given up stealing things?'
   I laughed one of those gay debonair ones.
   'Oh, absolutely.'
   'I'm  so  glad.  You  don't  feel  the  urge  any  more?  You've
conquered the craving? I told Daddy it was just a kind of  illness.
I said you couldn't help yourself.'
   I  remembered her submitting this theory to him ... I was hiding
behind  a  sofa  at the time, a thing I have been compelled  to  do
rather oftener than I could wish ... and Sir Watkyn had replied  in
what  I  thought dubious taste that it was precisely  my  habit  of
helping  myself to everything I could lay my hands on that  he  was
criticizing.
   Another  girl  might have left it at that, but not  M.  Bassett.
She was all eager curiosity.
   'Did you have psychiatric treatment? Or was it will power?'
   'Just will power.'
   'How  splendid.  I'm  so  proud of you.  It  must  have  been  a
terrible struggle.'
   'Oh, so-so.'
   'I shall write to Daddy and tell him -'
   Here  she paused and put a hand to her left eye, and it was easy
for  a  man of my discernment to see what had happened. The  French
window  being open, gnats in fairly large numbers had  been  coming
through  and  flitting to and fro. It's a thing one always  has  to
budget  for  in  the  English countryside.  In  America  they  have
screens,   of  course,  which  make  flying  objects  feel   pretty
nonplussed, but these have never caught on in England and the gnats
have  it more or less their own way. They horse around and now  and
then get into people's eyes. One of these, it was evident, had  now
got into Madeline's.
   I  would  be  the  last  to deny that Bertram  Wooster  has  his
limitations, but in one field of endeavour I am pre-eminent. In the
matter of taking things out of eyes I yield to no one. I know  what
to say and what to do.
   Counselling her not to rub it, I advanced handkerchief in hand.
   I  remember going into the technique of operations of this  kind
with  Gussie Fink-Nottle at Totleigh when he had removed a fly from
the eye of Stephanie Byng, now the Reverend Mrs Stinker Pinker, and
we were in agreement that success could be achieved only by placing
a  hand under the patient's chin in order to steady the head.  Omit
this  preliminary  and your efforts are bootless.  My  first  move,
accordingly, was to do so and it was characteristic of  Spode  that
he  should have chosen this moment to join us, just when  we  twain
were in what you might call close juxtaposition.
   I  confess that there have been times when I have felt  more  at
my ease. Spode, in addition to being constructed on the lines of  a
rather  oversized gorilla, has a disposition like that of a  short-
tempered  tiger of the jungle and a nasty mind which leads  him  to
fall  a  ready prey to what I have heard Jeeves call the green-eyed
monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on - viz. jealousy.  Such
a  man,  finding you steadying the head of the girl  he  loves,  is
always extremely likely to start trying to ascertain the colour  of
your insides, and to avert this I greeted him with what nonchalance
I could muster.
   'Oh,  hullo, Spode old chap, I mean Lord Sidcup old  chap.  Here
we  all  are,  what. Jeeves told me you were here, and Aunt  Dahlia
says  you've  been knocking the voting public base over  apex  with
your oratory in the Conservative interest. Must be wonderful to  be
able  to  do  that.  It's a gift, of course.  Some  have  it,  some
haven't. I couldn't address a political meeting to please  a  dying
grandmother.  I  should stand there opening and shutting  my  mouth
like a goldfish. You, on the other hand, just clear your throat and
the  golden  words  come  pouring out  like  syrup.  I  admire  you
enormously.'
   Conciliatory,  I think you'll agree. I could hardly  have  given
him  the  old  salve with a more liberal hand, and one  might  have
expected  him to simper, shuffle his feet and mumble 'Awfully  nice
of you to say so' or something along those lines. Instead of which,
all  he did was come back at me with a guttural sound like an opera
basso choking on a fishbone, and I had to sustain the burden of the
conversation by myself.
   'I've just been taking a gnat out of Madeline's eye.'
   'Oh?'
   'Dangerous devils, these gnats. Require skilled handling.'
   'Oh?'
   'Everything's back to normal now, I think.'
   'Yes, thank you ever so much, Bertie.'
   It  was Madeline who said this, not Spode. He continued to  gaze
at me bleakly. She went on harping on the thing.
   'Bertie's so clever.'
   'Oh?'
   'I don't know what I would have done without him.'
   'Oh?'
   'He showed wonderful presence of mind.'
   'Oh?'
   'I feel so sorry, though, for the poor little gnat.'
   'It  asked  for  it,' I pointed out. 'It was unquestionably  the
aggressor.'
   'Yes,   I  suppose  that's  true,  but...'  The  clock  on   the
mantelpiece  caught  her now de-gnatted eye,  and  she  uttered  an
agitated squeak. 'Oh, my goodness, is that the time? I must rush.'
   She  buzzed off, and I was on the point of doing the same,  when
Spode detained me with a curt 'One moment'. There are all sorts  of
ways  of  saying  'One moment'. This was one of the  nastier  ones,
spoken with an unpleasant rasping note in the voice.
   'I want a word with you, Wooster.'
   I  am  never anxious to chat with Spode, but if I had been  sure
that  he  merely  wanted to go on saying 'Oh?', I would  have  been
willing  to listen. Something, however, seemed to tell me  that  he
was  about  to  give evidence of a wider vocabulary,  and  I  edged
towards the door.
   'Some other time, don't you think?'
   'Not some ruddy other time. Now.'
   'I shall be late for dinner.'
   'You  can't  be  too  late for me. And if  you  get  your  teeth
knocked  down  your  throat,  as  you  will  if  you  don't  listen
attentively  to what I have to say, you won't be able  to  eat  any
dinner.'
   This  seemed  plausible. I decided to lend him an  ear,  as  the
expression is. 'Say on,' I said, and he said on, lowering his voice
to  a  sort  of rumbling growl which made him difficult to  follow.
However, I caught the word 'read' and the word 'book' and perked up
a bit. If this was going to be a literary discussion, I didn't mind
exchanging views.
   'Book?' I said.
   'Book.'
   'You  want me to recommend you a good book? Well, of course,  it
depends  on  what you like. Jeeves, for instance,