Death At The Excelsior
by
P. G. Wodehouse
Part 2 out of 3
"Don't you worry about her," he said. "She's not a bad sort really, but
about once every six months she needs a brotherly talking-to, or she
gets above herself. One is about due during the next few days."
He stroke her hand.
"Fasting," he said, thoughtfully, "clears and stimulates the brain. I
fancy I shall be able to think out some rather special things to say to
her this time."
JEEVES AND THE CHUMP CYRIL
You know, the longer I live, the more clearly I see that half the
trouble in this bally world is caused by the light-hearted and
thoughtless way in which chappies dash off letters of introduction and
hand them to other chappies to deliver to chappies of the third part.
It's one of those things that make you wish you were living in the
Stone Age. What I mean to say is, if a fellow in those days wanted to
give anyone a letter of introduction, he had to spend a month or so
carving it on a large-sized boulder, and the chances were that the
other chappie got so sick of lugging the thing round in the hot sun
that he dropped it after the first mile. But nowadays it's so easy to
write letters of introduction that everybody does it without a second
thought, with the result that some perfectly harmless cove like myself
gets in the soup.
Mark you, all the above is what you might call the result of my riper
experience. I don't mind admitting that in the first flush of the
thing, so to speak, when Jeeves told me--this would be about three
weeks after I'd landed in America--that a blighter called Cyril
Bassington-Bassington had arrived and I found that he had brought a
letter of introduction to me from Aunt Agatha ... where was I? Oh,
yes ... I don't mind admitting, I was saying, that just at first I was
rather bucked. You see, after the painful events which had resulted in
my leaving England I hadn't expected to get any sort of letter from
Aunt Agatha which would pass the censor, so to speak. And it was a
pleasant surprise to open this one and find it almost civil. Chilly,
perhaps, in parts, but on the whole quite tolerably polite. I looked on
the thing as a hopeful sign. Sort of olive-branch, you know. Or do I
mean orange blossom? What I'm getting at is that the fact that Aunt
Agatha was writing to me without calling me names seemed, more or less,
like a step in the direction of peace.
And I was all for peace, and that right speedily. I'm not saying a word
against New York, mind you. I liked the place, and was having quite a
ripe time there. But the fact remains that a fellow who's been used to
London all his life does get a trifle homesick on a foreign strand, and
I wanted to pop back to the cosy old flat in Berkeley Street--which
could only be done when Aunt Agatha had simmered down and got over the
Glossop episode. I know that London is a biggish city, but, believe me,
it isn't half big enough for any fellow to live in with Aunt Agatha
when she's after him with the old hatchet. And so I'm bound to say I
looked on this chump Bassington-Bassington, when he arrived, more or
less as a Dove of Peace, and was all for him.
He would seem from contemporary accounts to have blown in one morning
at seven-forty-five, that being the ghastly sort of hour they shoot you
off the liner in New York. He was given the respectful raspberry by
Jeeves, and told to try again about three hours later, when there would
be a sporting chance of my having sprung from my bed with a glad cry to
welcome another day and all that sort of thing. Which was rather decent
of Jeeves, by the way, for it so happened that there was a slight
estrangement, a touch of coldness, a bit of a row in other words,
between us at the moment because of some rather priceless purple socks
which I was wearing against his wishes: and a lesser man might easily
have snatched at the chance of getting back at me a bit by loosing
Cyril into my bedchamber at a moment when I couldn't have stood a
two-minutes' conversation with my dearest pal. For until I have had my
early cup of tea and have brooded on life for a bit absolutely
undisturbed, I'm not much of a lad for the merry chit-chat.
So Jeeves very sportingly shot Cyril out into the crisp morning air,
and didn't let me know of his existence till he brought his card in
with the Bohea.
"And what might all this be, Jeeves?" I said, giving the thing the
glassy gaze.
"The gentleman has arrived from England, I understand, sir. He called
to see you earlier in the day."
"Good Lord, Jeeves! You don't mean to say the day starts earlier than
this?"
"He desired me to say he would return later, sir."
"I've never heard of him. Have you ever heard of him, Jeeves?"
"I am familiar with the name Bassington-Bassington, sir. There are
three branches of the Bassington-Bassington family--the Shropshire
Bassington-Bassingtons, the Hampshire Bassington-Bassingtons, and the
Kent Bassington-Bassingtons."
"England seems pretty well stocked up with Bassington-Bassingtons."
"Tolerably so, sir."
"No chance of a sudden shortage, I mean, what?"
"Presumably not, sir."
"And what sort of a specimen is this one?"
"I could not say, sir, on such short acquaintance."
"Will you give me a sporting two to one, Jeeves, judging from what you
have seen of him, that this chappie is not a blighter or an
excrescence?"
"No, sir. I should not care to venture such liberal odds."
"I knew it. Well, the only thing that remains to be discovered is what
kind of a blighter he is."
"Time will tell, sir. The gentleman brought a letter for you, sir."
"Oh, he did, did he?" I said, and grasped the communication. And then I
recognised the handwriting. "I say, Jeeves, this is from my Aunt
Agatha!"
"Indeed, sir?"
"Don't dismiss it in that light way. Don't you see what this means? She
says she wants me to look after this excrescence while he's in New
York. By Jove, Jeeves, if I only fawn on him a bit, so that he sends
back a favourable report to head-quarters, I may yet be able to get
back to England in time for Goodwood. Now is certainly the time for all
good men to come to the aid of the party, Jeeves. We must rally round
and cosset this cove in no uncertain manner."
"Yes, sir."
"He isn't going to stay in New York long," I said, taking another look
at the letter. "He's headed for Washington. Going to give the nibs
there the once-over, apparently, before taking a whirl at the
Diplomatic Service. I should say that we can win this lad's esteem and
affection with a lunch and a couple of dinners, what?"
"I fancy that should be entirely adequate, sir."
"This is the jolliest thing that's happened since we left England. It
looks to me as if the sun were breaking through the clouds."
"Very possibly, sir."
He started to put out my things, and there was an awkward sort of
silence.
"Not those socks, Jeeves," I said, gulping a bit but having a dash at
the careless, off-hand tone. "Give me the purple ones."
"I beg your pardon, sir?"
"Those jolly purple ones."
"Very good, sir."
He lugged them out of the drawer as if he were a vegetarian fishing a
caterpillar out of the salad. You could see he was feeling deeply.
Deuced painful and all that, this sort of thing, but a chappie has got
to assert himself every now and then. Absolutely.
* * * * *
I was looking for Cyril to show up again any time after breakfast, but
he didn't appear: so towards one o'clock I trickled out to the Lambs
Club, where I had an appointment to feed the Wooster face with a cove
of the name of Caffyn I'd got pally with since my arrival--George
Caffyn, a fellow who wrote plays and what not. I'd made a lot of
friends during my stay in New York, the city being crammed with
bonhomous lads who one and all extended a welcoming hand to the
stranger in their midst.
Caffyn was a bit late, but bobbed up finally, saying that he had been
kept at a rehearsal of his new musical comedy, "Ask Dad"; and we
started in. We had just reached the coffee, when the waiter came up and
said that Jeeves wanted to see me.
Jeeves was in the waiting-room. He gave the socks one pained look as I
came in, then averted his eyes.
"Mr. Bassington-Bassington has just telephoned, sir."
"Oh?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where is he?"
"In prison, sir."
I reeled against the wallpaper. A nice thing to happen to Aunt Agatha's
nominee on his first morning under my wing, I did _not_ think!
"In prison!"
"Yes, sir. He said on the telephone that he had been arrested and would
be glad if you could step round and bail him out."
"Arrested! What for?"
"He did not favour me with his confidence in that respect, sir."
"This is a bit thick, Jeeves."
"Precisely, sir."
I collected old George, who very decently volunteered to stagger along
with me, and we hopped into a taxi. We sat around at the police-station
for a bit on a wooden bench in a sort of ante-room, and presently a
policeman appeared, leading in Cyril.
"Halloa! Halloa! Halloa!" I said. "What?"
My experience is that a fellow never really looks his best just after
he's come out of a cell. When I was up at Oxford, I used to have a
regular job bailing out a pal of mine who never failed to get pinched
every Boat-Race night, and he always looked like something that had
been dug up by the roots. Cyril was in pretty much the same sort of
shape. He had a black eye and a torn collar, and altogether was nothing
to write home about--especially if one was writing to Aunt Agatha. He
was a thin, tall chappie with a lot of light hair and pale-blue goggly
eyes which made him look like one of the rarer kinds of fish.
"I got your message," I said.
"Oh, are you Bertie Wooster?"
"Absolutely. And this is my pal George Caffyn. Writes plays and what
not, don't you know."
We all shook hands, and the policeman, having retrieved a piece of
chewing-gum from the underside of a chair, where he had parked it
against a rainy day, went off into a corner and began to contemplate
the infinite.
"This is a rotten country," said Cyril.
"Oh, I don't know, you know, don't you know!" I said.
"We do our best," said George.
"Old George is an American," I explained. "Writes plays, don't you
know, and what not."
"Of course, I didn't invent the country," said George. "That was
Columbus. But I shall be delighted to consider any improvements you may
suggest and lay them before the proper authorities."
"Well, why don't the policemen in New York dress properly?"
George took a look at the chewing officer across the room.
"I don't see anything missing," he said
"I mean to say, why don't they wear helmets like they do in London? Why
do they look like postmen? It isn't fair on a fellow. Makes it dashed
confusing. I was simply standing on the pavement, looking at things,
when a fellow who looked like a postman prodded me in the ribs with a
club. I didn't see why I should have postmen prodding me. Why the
dickens should a fellow come three thousand miles to be prodded by
postmen?"
"The point is well taken," said George. "What did you do?"
"I gave him a shove, you know. I've got a frightfully hasty temper, you
know. All the Bassington-Bassingtons have got frightfully hasty
tempers, don't you know! And then he biffed me in the eye and lugged me
off to this beastly place."
"I'll fix it, old son," I said. And I hauled out the bank-roll and went
off to open negotiations, leaving Cyril to talk to George. I don't mind
admitting that I was a bit perturbed. There were furrows in the old
brow, and I had a kind of foreboding feeling. As long as this chump
stayed in New York, I was responsible for him: and he didn't give me
the impression of being the species of cove a reasonable chappie would
care to be responsible for for more than about three minutes.
I mused with a considerable amount of tensity over Cyril that night,
when I had got home and Jeeves had brought me the final whisky. I
couldn't help feeling that this visit of his to America was going to be
one of those times that try men's souls and what not. I hauled out Aunt
Agatha's letter of introduction and re-read it, and there was no
getting away from the fact that she undoubtedly appeared to be somewhat
wrapped up in this blighter and to consider it my mission in life to
shield him from harm while on the premises. I was deuced thankful that
he had taken such a liking for George Caffyn, old George being a steady
sort of cove. After I had got him out of his dungeon-cell, he and old
George had gone off together, as chummy as brothers, to watch the
afternoon rehearsal of "Ask Dad." There was some talk, I gathered, of
their dining together. I felt pretty easy in my mind while George had
his eye on him.
I had got about as far as this in my meditations, when Jeeves came in
with a telegram. At least, it wasn't a telegram: it was a cable--from
Aunt Agatha--and this is what it said:----
Has Cyril Bassington-Bassington called yet? On no account introduce
him into theatrical circles. Vitally important. Letter follows.
I read it a couple of times.
"This is rummy, Jeeves!"
"Yes, sir."
"Very rummy and dashed disturbing!"
"Will there be anything further to-night, sir?"
Of course, if he was going to be as bally unsympathetic as that there
was nothing to be done. My idea had been to show him the cable and ask
his advice. But if he was letting those purple socks rankle to that
extent, the good old _noblesse oblige_ of the Woosters couldn't
lower itself to the extent of pleading with the man. Absolutely not. So
I gave it a miss.
"Nothing more, thanks."
"Good night, sir."
"Good night."
He floated away, and I sat down to think the thing over. I had been
directing the best efforts of the old bean to the problem for a matter
of half an hour, when there was a ring at the bell. I went to the door,
and there was Cyril, looking pretty festive.
"I'll come in for a bit if I may," he said. "Got something rather
priceless to tell you."
He curveted past me into the sitting-room, and when I got there after
shutting the front door I found him reading Aunt Agatha's cable and
giggling in a rummy sort of manner. "Oughtn't to have looked at this, I
suppose. Caught sight of my name and read it without thinking. I say,
Wooster, old friend of my youth, this is rather funny. Do you mind if I
have a drink? Thanks awfully and all that sort of rot. Yes, it's rather
funny, considering what I came to tell you. Jolly old Caffyn has given
me a small part in that musical comedy of his, 'Ask Dad.' Only a bit,
you know, but quite tolerably ripe. I'm feeling frightfully braced,
don't you know!"
He drank his drink, and went on. He didn't seem to notice that I wasn't
jumping about the room, yapping with joy.
"You know, I've always wanted to go on the stage, you know," he said.
"But my jolly old guv'nor wouldn't stick it at any price. Put the old
Waukeesi down with a bang, and turned bright purple whenever the
subject was mentioned. That's the real reason why I came over here, if
you want to know. I knew there wasn't a chance of my being able to work
this stage wheeze in London without somebody getting on to it and
tipping off the guv'nor, so I rather brainily sprang the scheme of
popping over to Washington to broaden my mind. There's nobody to
interfere on this side, you see, so I can go right ahead!"
I tried to reason with the poor chump.
"But your guv'nor will have to know some time."
"That'll be all right. I shall be the jolly old star by then, and he
won't have a leg to stand on."
"It seems to me he'll have one leg to stand on while he kicks me with
the other."
"Why, where do you come in? What have you got to do with it?"
"I introduced you to George Caffyn."
"So you did, old top, so you did. I'd quite forgotten. I ought to have
thanked you before. Well, so long. There's an early rehearsal of 'Ask
Dad' to-morrow morning, and I must be toddling. Rummy the thing should
be called 'Ask Dad,' when that's just what I'm not going to do. See
what I mean, what, what? Well, pip-pip!"
"Toodle-oo!" I said sadly, and the blighter scudded off. I dived for
the phone and called up George Caffyn.
"I say, George, what's all this about Cyril Bassington-Bassington?"
"What about him?"
"He tells me you've given him a part in your show."
"Oh, yes. Just a few lines."
"But I've just had fifty-seven cables from home telling me on no
account to let him go on the stage."
"I'm sorry. But Cyril is just the type I need for that part. He's
simply got to be himself."
"It's pretty tough on me, George, old man. My Aunt Agatha sent this
blighter over with a letter of introduction to me, and she will hold me
responsible."
"She'll cut you out of her will?"
"It isn't a question of money. But--of course, you've never met my Aunt
Agatha, so it's rather hard to explain. But she's a sort of human
vampire-bat, and she'll make things most fearfully unpleasant for me
when I go back to England. She's the kind of woman who comes and rags
you before breakfast, don't you know."
"Well, don't go back to England, then. Stick here and become
President."
"But, George, old top----!"
"Good night!"
"But, I say, George, old man!"
"You didn't get my last remark. It was 'Good night!' You Idle Rich may
not need any sleep, but I've got to be bright and fresh in the morning.
God bless you!"
I felt as if I hadn't a friend in the world. I was so jolly well worked
up that I went and banged on Jeeves's door. It wasn't a thing I'd have
cared to do as a rule, but it seemed to me that now was the time for
all good men to come to the aid of the party, so to speak, and that it
was up to Jeeves to rally round the young master, even if it broke up
his beauty-sleep.
Jeeves emerged in a brown dressing-gown.
"Sir?"
"Deuced sorry to wake you up, Jeeves, and what not, but all sorts of
dashed disturbing things have been happening."
"I was not asleep. It is my practice, on retiring, to read a few pages
of some instructive book."
"That's good! What I mean to say is, if you've just finished exercising
the old bean, it's probably in mid-season form for tackling problems.
Jeeves, Mr. Bassington-Bassington is going on the stage!"
"Indeed, sir?"
"Ah! The thing doesn't hit you! You don't get it properly! Here's the
point. All his family are most fearfully dead against his going on the
stage. There's going to be no end of trouble if he isn't headed off.
And, what's worse, my Aunt Agatha will blame me, you see."
"I see, sir."
"Well, can't you think of some way of stopping him?"
"Not, I confess, at the moment, sir."
"Well, have a stab at it."
"I will give the matter my best consideration, sir. Will there be
anything further to-night?"
"I hope not! I've had all I can stand already."
"Very good, sir."
He popped off.
* * * * *
The part which old George had written for the chump Cyril took up about
two pages of typescript; but it might have been Hamlet, the way that
poor, misguided pinhead worked himself to the bone over it. I suppose,
if I heard him his lines once, I did it a dozen times in the first
couple of days. He seemed to think that my only feeling about the whole
affair was one of enthusiastic admiration, and that he could rely on my
support and sympathy. What with trying to imagine how Aunt Agatha was
going to take this thing, and being woken up out of the dreamless in
the small hours every other night to give my opinion of some new bit of
business which Cyril had invented, I became more or less the good old
shadow. And all the time Jeeves remained still pretty cold and distant
about the purple socks. It's this sort of thing that ages a chappie,
don't you know, and makes his youthful _joie-de-vivre_ go a bit
groggy at the knees.
In the middle of it Aunt Agatha's letter arrived. It took her about six
pages to do justice to Cyril's father's feelings in regard to his going
on the stage and about six more to give me a kind of sketch of what she
would say, think, and do if I didn't keep him clear of injurious
influences while he was in America. The letter came by the afternoon
mail, and left me with a pretty firm conviction that it wasn't a thing
I ought to keep to myself. I didn't even wait to ring the bell: I
whizzed for the kitchen, bleating for Jeeves, and butted into the
middle of a regular tea-party of sorts. Seated at the table were a
depressed-looking cove who might have been a valet or something, and a
boy in a Norfolk suit. The valet-chappie was drinking a whisky and
soda, and the boy was being tolerably rough with some jam and cake.
"Oh, I say, Jeeves!" I said. "Sorry to interrupt the feast of reason
and flow of soul and so forth, but----"
At this juncture the small boy's eye hit me like a bullet and stopped
me in my tracks. It was one of those cold, clammy, accusing sort of
eyes--the kind that makes you reach up to see if your tie is straight:
and he looked at me as if I were some sort of unnecessary product which
Cuthbert the Cat had brought in after a ramble among the local ash-cans.
He was a stoutish infant with a lot of freckles and a good deal of jam
on his face.
"Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!" I said. "What?" There didn't seem much else to
say.
The stripling stared at me in a nasty sort of way through the jam. He
may have loved me at first sight, but the impression he gave me was
that he didn't think a lot of me and wasn't betting much that I would
improve a great deal on acquaintance. I had a kind of feeling that I
was about as popular with him as a cold Welsh rabbit.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"My name? Oh, Wooster, don't you know, and what not."
"My pop's richer than you are!"
That seemed to be all about me. The child having said his say, started
in on the jam again. I turned to Jeeves.
"I say, Jeeves, can you spare a moment? I want to show you something."
"Very good, sir." We toddled into the sitting-room.
"Who is your little friend, Sidney the Sunbeam, Jeeves?"
"The young gentleman, sir?"
"It's a loose way of describing him, but I know what you mean."
"I trust I was not taking a liberty in entertaining him, sir?"
"Not a bit. If that's your idea of a large afternoon, go ahead."
"I happened to meet the young gentleman taking a walk with his father's
valet, sir, whom I used to know somewhat intimately in London, and I
ventured to invite them both to join me here."
"Well, never mind about him, Jeeves. Read this letter."
He gave it the up-and-down.
"Very disturbing, sir!" was all he could find to say.
"What are we going to do about it?"
"Time may provide a solution, sir."
"On the other hand, it mayn't, what?"
"Extremely true, sir.".
We'd got as far as this, when there was a ring at the door. Jeeves
shimmered off, and Cyril blew in, full of good cheer and
blitheringness.
"I say, Wooster, old thing," he said, "I want your advice. You know
this jolly old part of mine. How ought I to dress it? What I mean is,
the first act scene is laid in an hotel of sorts, at about three in the
afternoon. What ought I to wear, do you think?"
I wasn't feeling fit for a discussion of gent's suitings.
"You'd better consult Jeeves," I said.
"A hot and by no means unripe idea! Where is he?"
"Gone back to the kitchen, I suppose."
"I'll smite the good old bell, shall I? Yes? No?"
"Right-o!"
Jeeves poured silently in.
"Oh, I say, Jeeves," began Cyril, "I just wanted to have a syllable or
two with you. It's this way--Hallo, who's this?"
I then perceived that the stout stripling had trickled into the room
after Jeeves. He was standing near the door looking at Cyril as if his
worst fears had been realised. There was a bit of a silence. The child
remained there, drinking Cyril in for about half a minute; then he gave
his verdict:
"Fish-face!"
"Eh? What?" said Cyril.
The child, who had evidently been taught at his mother's knee to speak
the truth, made his meaning a trifle clearer.
"You've a face like a fish!"
He spoke as if Cyril was more to be pitied than censured, which I am
bound to say I thought rather decent and broad-minded of him. I don't
mind admitting that, whenever I looked at Cyril's face, I always had a
feeling that he couldn't have got that way without its being mostly his
own fault. I found myself warming to this child. Absolutely, don't you
know. I liked his conversation.
It seemed to take Cyril a moment or two really to grasp the thing, and
then you could hear the blood of the Bassington-Bassingtons begin to
sizzle.
"Well, I'm dashed!" he said. "I'm dashed if I'm not!"
"I wouldn't have a face like that," proceeded the child, with a good
deal of earnestness, "not if you gave me a million dollars." He thought
for a moment, then corrected himself. "Two million dollars!" he added.
Just what occurred then I couldn't exactly say, but the next few
minutes were a bit exciting. I take it that Cyril must have made a dive
for the infant. Anyway, the air seemed pretty well congested with arms
and legs and things. Something bumped into the Wooster waistcoat just
around the third button, and I collapsed on to the settee and rather
lost interest in things for the moment. When I had unscrambled myself,
I found that Jeeves and the child had retired and Cyril was standing in
the middle of the room snorting a bit.
"Who's that frightful little brute, Wooster?"
"I don't know. I never saw him before to-day."
"I gave him a couple of tolerably juicy buffets before he legged it. I
say, Wooster, that kid said a dashed odd thing. He yelled out something
about Jeeves promising him a dollar if he called me--er--what he said."
It sounded pretty unlikely to me.
"What would Jeeves do that for?"
"It struck me as rummy, too."
"Where would be the sense of it?"
"That's what I can't see."
"I mean to say, it's nothing to Jeeves what sort of a face you have!"
"No!" said Cyril. He spoke a little coldly, I fancied. I don't know
why. "Well, I'll be popping. Toodle-oo!"
"Pip-pip!"
It must have been about a week after this rummy little episode that
George Caffyn called me up and asked me if I would care to go and see a
run-through of his show. "Ask Dad," it seemed, was to open out of town
in Schenectady on the following Monday, and this was to be a sort of
preliminary dress-rehearsal. A preliminary dress-rehearsal, old George
explained, was the same as a regular dress-rehearsal inasmuch as it was
apt to look like nothing on earth and last into the small hours, but
more exciting because they wouldn't be timing the piece and
consequently all the blighters who on these occasions let their angry
passions rise would have plenty of scope for interruptions, with the
result that a pleasant time would be had by all.
The thing was billed to start at eight o'clock, so I rolled up at
ten-fifteen, so as not to have too long to wait before they began. The
dress-parade was still going on. George was on the stage, talking to a
cove in shirt-sleeves and an absolutely round chappie with big
spectacles and a practically hairless dome. I had seen George with the
latter merchant once or twice at the club, and I knew that he was
Blumenfield, the manager. I waved to George, and slid into a seat at
the back of the house, so as to be out of the way when the fighting
started. Presently George hopped down off the stage and came and joined
me, and fairly soon after that the curtain went down. The chappie at
the piano whacked out a well-meant bar or two, and the curtain went up
again.
I can't quite recall what the plot of "Ask Dad" was about, but I do
know that it seemed able to jog along all right without much help from
Cyril. I was rather puzzled at first. What I mean is, through brooding
on Cyril and hearing him in his part and listening to his views on what
ought and what ought not to be done, I suppose I had got a sort of
impression rooted in the old bean that he was pretty well the backbone
of the show, and that the rest of the company didn't do much except go
on and fill in when he happened to be off the stage. I sat there for
nearly half an hour, waiting for him to make his entrance, until I
suddenly discovered he had been on from the start. He was, in fact, the
rummy-looking plug-ugly who was now leaning against a potted palm a
couple of feet from the O.P. side, trying to appear intelligent while
the heroine sang a song about Love being like something which for the
moment has slipped my memory. After the second refrain he began to
dance in company with a dozen other equally weird birds. A painful
spectacle for one who could see a vision of Aunt Agatha reaching for
the hatchet and old Bassington-Bassington senior putting on his
strongest pair of hob-nailed boots. Absolutely!
The dance had just finished, and Cyril and his pals had shuffled off
into the wings when a voice spoke from the darkness on my right.
"Pop!"
Old Blumenfield clapped his hands, and the hero, who had just been
about to get the next line off his diaphragm, cheesed it. I peered into
the shadows. Who should it be but Jeeves's little playmate with the
freckles! He was now strolling down the aisle with his hands in his
pockets as if the place belonged to him. An air of respectful attention
seemed to pervade the building.
"Pop," said the stripling, "that number's no good." Old Blumenfield
beamed over his shoulder.
"Don't you like it, darling?"
"It gives me a pain."
"You're dead right."
"You want something zippy there. Something with a bit of jazz to it!"
"Quite right, my boy. I'll make a note of it. All right. Go on!"
I turned to George, who was muttering to himself in rather an
overwrought way.
"I say, George, old man, who the dickens is that kid?"
Old George groaned a bit hollowly, as if things were a trifle thick.
"I didn't know he had crawled in! It's Blumenfield's son. Now we're
going to have a Hades of a time!"
"Does he always run things like this?"
"Always!"
"But why does old Blumenfield listen to him?"
"Nobody seems to know. It may be pure fatherly love, or he may regard
him as a mascot. My own idea is that he thinks the kid has exactly the
amount of intelligence of the average member of the audience, and that
what makes a hit with him will please the general public. While,
conversely, what he doesn't like will be too rotten for anyone. The kid
is a pest, a wart, and a pot of poison, and should be strangled!"
The rehearsal went on. The hero got off his line. There was a slight
outburst of frightfulness between the stage-manager and a Voice named
Bill that came from somewhere near the roof, the subject under
discussion being where the devil Bill's "ambers" were at that
particular juncture. Then things went on again until the moment arrived
for Cyril's big scene.
I was still a trifle hazy about the plot, but I had got on to the fact
that Cyril was some sort of an English peer who had come over to
America doubtless for the best reasons. So far he had only had two
lines to say. One was "Oh, I say!" and the other was "Yes, by Jove!";
but I seemed to recollect, from hearing him read his part, that pretty
soon he was due rather to spread himself. I sat back in my chair and
waited for him to bob up.
He bobbed up about five minutes later. Things had got a bit stormy by
that time. The Voice and the stage-director had had another of their
love-feasts--this time something to do with why Bill's "blues" weren't
on the job or something. And, almost as soon as that was over, there
was a bit of unpleasantness because a flower-pot fell off a
window-ledge and nearly brained the hero. The atmosphere was
consequently more or less hotted up when Cyril, who had been hanging
about at the back of the stage, breezed down centre and toed the mark
for his most substantial chunk of entertainment. The heroine had been
saying something--I forget what--and all the chorus, with Cyril at
their head, had begun to surge round her in the restless sort of way
those chappies always do when there's a number coming along.
Cyril's first line was, "Oh, I say, you know, you mustn't say that,
really!" and it seemed to me he passed it over the larynx with a
goodish deal of vim and _je-ne-sais-quoi._ But, by Jove, before
the heroine had time for the come-back, our little friend with the
freckles had risen to lodge a protest.
"Pop!"
"Yes, darling?"
"That one's no good!"
"Which one, darling?"
"The one with a face like a fish."
"But they all have faces like fish, darling."
The child seemed to see the justice of this objection. He became more
definite.
"The ugly one."
"Which ugly one? That one?" said old Blumenfield, pointing to Cyril.
"Yep! He's rotten!"
"I thought so myself."
"He's a pill!"
"You're dead right, my boy. I've noticed it for some time."
Cyril had been gaping a bit while these few remarks were in progress.
He now shot down to the footlights. Even from where I was sitting, I
could see that these harsh words had hit the old Bassington-Bassington
family pride a frightful wallop. He started to get pink in the ears,
and then in the nose, and then in the cheeks, till in about a quarter
of a minute he looked pretty much like an explosion in a tomato cannery
on a sunset evening.
"What the deuce do you mean?"
"What the deuce do you mean?" shouted old Blumenfield. "Don't yell at
me across the footlights!"
"I've a dashed good mind to come down and spank that little brute!"
"What!"
"A dashed good mind!"
Old Blumenfield swelled like a pumped-up tyre. He got rounder than
ever.
"See here, mister--I don't know your darn name----!"
"My name's Bassington-Bassington, and the jolly old
Bassington-Bassingtons--I mean the Bassington-Bassingtons aren't
accustomed----"
Old Blumenfield told him in a few brief words pretty much what he
thought of the Bassington-Bassingtons and what they weren't accustomed
to. The whole strength of the company rallied round to enjoy his
remarks. You could see them jutting out from the wings and protruding
from behind trees.
"You got to work good for my pop!" said the stout child, waggling his
head reprovingly at Cyril.
"I don't want any bally cheek from you!" said Cyril, gurgling a bit.
"What's that?" barked old Blumenfield. "Do you understand that this boy
is my son?"
"Yes, I do," said Cyril. "And you both have my sympathy!"
"You're fired!" bellowed old Blumenfield, swelling a good bit more.
"Get out of my theatre!"
* * * * *
About half-past ten next morning, just after I had finished lubricating
the good old interior with a soothing cup of Oolong, Jeeves filtered
into my bedroom, and said that Cyril was waiting to see me in the
sitting-room.
"How does he look, Jeeves?"
"Sir?"
"What does Mr. Bassington-Bassington look like?"
"It is hardly my place, sir, to criticise the facial peculiarities of
your friends."
"I don't mean that. I mean, does he appear peeved and what not?"
"Not noticeably, sir. His manner is tranquil."
"That's rum!"
"Sir?"
"Nothing. Show him in, will you?"
I'm bound to say I had expected to see Cyril showing a few more traces
of last night's battle. I was looking for a bit of the overwrought soul
and the quivering ganglions, if you know what I mean. He seemed pretty
ordinary and quite fairly cheerful.
"Hallo, Wooster, old thing!"
"Cheero!"
"I just looked in to say good-bye."
"Good-bye?"
"Yes. I'm off to Washington in an hour." He sat down on the bed. "You
know, Wooster, old top," he went on, "I've been thinking it all over,
and really it doesn't seem quite fair to the jolly old guv'nor, my
going on the stage and so forth. What do you think?"
"I see what you mean."
"I mean to say, he sent me over here to broaden my jolly old mind and
words to that effect, don't you know, and I can't help thinking it
would be a bit of a jar for the old boy if I gave him the bird and went
on the stage instead. I don't know if you understand me, but what I
mean to say is, it's a sort of question of conscience."
"Can you leave the show without upsetting everything?"
"Oh, that's all right. I've explained everything to old Blumenfield,
and he quite sees my position. Of course, he's sorry to lose me--said
he didn't see how he could fill my place and all that sort of
thing--but, after all, even if it does land him in a bit of a hole, I
think I'm right in resigning my part, don't you?"
"Oh, absolutely."
"I thought you'd agree with me. Well, I ought to be shifting. Awfully
glad to have seen something of you, and all that sort of rot. Pip-pip!"
"Toodle-oo!"
He sallied forth, having told all those bally lies with the clear,
blue, pop-eyed gaze of a young child. I rang for Jeeves. You know, ever
since last night I had been exercising the old bean to some extent, and
a good deal of light had dawned upon me.
"Jeeves!"
"Sir?"
"Did you put that pie-faced infant up to bally-ragging Mr.
Bassington-Bassington?"
"Sir?"
"Oh, you know what I mean. Did you tell him to get Mr.
Bassington-Bassington sacked from the 'Ask Dad' company?"
"I would not take such a liberty, sir." He started to put out my
clothes. "It is possible that young Master Blumenfield may have
gathered from casual remarks of mine that I did not consider the stage
altogether a suitable sphere for Mr. Bassington-Bassington."
"I say, Jeeves, you know, you're a bit of a marvel."
"I endeavour to give satisfaction, sir."
"And I'm frightfully obliged, if you know what I mean. Aunt Agatha
would have had sixteen or seventeen fits if you hadn't headed him off."
"I fancy there might have been some little friction and unpleasantness,
sir. I am laying out the blue suit with the thin red stripe, sir. I
fancy the effect will be pleasing."
* * * * *
It's a rummy thing, but I had finished breakfast and gone out and got
as far as the lift before I remembered what it was that I had meant to
do to reward Jeeves for his really sporting behaviour in this matter of
the chump Cyril. It cut me to the heart to do it, but I had decided to
give him his way and let those purple socks pass out of my life. After
all, there are times when a cove must make sacrifices. I was just going
to nip back and break the glad news to him, when the lift came up, so I
thought I would leave it till I got home.
The coloured chappie in charge of the lift looked at me, as I hopped
in, with a good deal of quiet devotion and what not.
"I wish to thank yo', suh," he said, "for yo' kindness."
"Eh? What?"
"Misto' Jeeves done give me them purple socks, as you told him. Thank
yo' very much, suh!"
I looked down. The blighter was a blaze of mauve from the ankle-bone
southward. I don't know when I've seen anything so dressy.
"Oh, ah! Not at all! Right-o! Glad you like them!" I said.
Well, I mean to say, what? Absolutely!
JEEVES IN THE SPRINGTIME
"'Morning, Jeeves," I said.
"Good morning, sir," said Jeeves.
He put the good old cup of tea softly on the table by my bed, and I
took a refreshing sip. Just right, as usual. Not too hot, not too
sweet, not too weak, not too strong, not too much milk, and not a drop
spilled in the saucer. A most amazing cove, Jeeves. So dashed competent
in every respect. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I mean to
say, take just one small instance. Every other valet I've ever had used
to barge into my room in the morning while I was still asleep, causing
much misery; but Jeeves seems to know when I'm awake by a sort of
telepathy. He always floats in with the cup exactly two minutes after I
come to life. Makes a deuce of a lot of difference to a fellow's day.
"How's the weather, Jeeves?"
"Exceptionally clement, sir."
"Anything in the papers?"
"Some slight friction threatening in the Balkans, sir. Otherwise,
nothing."
"I say, Jeeves, a man I met at the club last night told me to put my
shirt on Privateer for the two o'clock race this afternoon. How about
it?"
"I should not advocate it, sir. The stable is not sanguine."
That was enough for me. Jeeves knows. How, I couldn't say, but he
knows. There was a time when I would laugh lightly, and go ahead, and
lose my little all against his advice, but not now.
"Talking of shirts," I said, "have those mauve ones I ordered arrived
yet?"
"Yes, sir. I sent them back."
"Sent them back?"
"Yes, sir. They would not have become you."
Well, I must say I'd thought fairly highly of those shirtings, but I
bowed to superior knowledge. Weak? I don't know. Most fellows, no
doubt, are all for having their valets confine their activities to
creasing trousers and what not without trying to run the home; but it's
different with Jeeves. Right from the first day he came to me, I have
looked on him as a sort of guide, philosopher, and friend.
"Mr. Little rang up on the telephone a few moments ago, sir. I informed
him that you were not yet awake."
"Did he leave a message?"
"No, sir. He mentioned that he had a matter of importance to discuss
with you, but confided no details."
"Oh, well, I expect I shall be seeing him at the club."
"No doubt, sir."
I wasn't what you might call in a fever of impatience. Bingo Little is
a chap I was at school with, and we see a lot of each other still. He's
the nephew of old Mortimer Little, who retired from business recently
with a goodish pile. (You've probably heard of Little's Liniment--It
Limbers Up the Legs.) Bingo biffs about London on a pretty comfortable
allowance given him by his uncle, and leads on the whole a fairly
unclouded life. It wasn't likely that anything which he described as a
matter of importance would turn out to be really so frightfully
important. I took it that he had discovered some new brand of cigarette
which he wanted me to try, or something like that, and didn't spoil my
breakfast by worrying.
After breakfast I lit a cigarette and went to the open window to
inspect the day. It certainly was one of the best and brightest.
"Jeeves," I said.
"Sir?" said Jeeves. He had been clearing away the breakfast things, but
at the sound of the young master's voice cheesed it courteously.
"You were absolutely right about the weather. It is a juicy morning."
"Decidedly, sir."
"Spring and all that."
"Yes, sir."
"In the spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished
dove."
"So I have been informed, sir."
"Right ho! Then bring me my whangee, my yellowest shoes, and the old
green Homburg. I'm going into the Park to do pastoral dances."
I don't know if you know that sort of feeling you get on these days
round about the end of April and the beginning of May, when the sky's a
light blue, with cotton-wool clouds, and there's a bit of a breeze
blowing from the west? Kind of uplifted feeling. Romantic, if you know
what I mean. I'm not much of a ladies' man, but on this particular
morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted was some charming
girl to buzz up and ask me to save her from assassins or something. So
that it was a bit of an anti-climax when I merely ran into young Bingo
Little, looking perfectly foul in a crimson satin tie decorated with
horseshoes.
"Hallo, Bertie," said Bingo.
"My God, man!" I gargled. "The cravat! The gent's neckwear! Why? For
what reason?"
"Oh, the tie?" He blushed. "I--er--I was given it."
He seemed embarrassed, so I dropped the subject. We toddled along a
bit, and sat down on a couple of chairs by the Serpentine.
"Jeeves tells me you want to talk to me about something," I said.
"Eh?" said Bingo, with a start. "Oh yes, yes. Yes."
I waited for him to unleash the topic of the day, but he didn't seem to
want to get going. Conversation languished. He stared straight ahead of
him in a glassy sort of manner.
"I say, Bertie," he said, after a pause of about an hour and a quarter.
"Hallo!"
"Do you like the name Mabel?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"You don't think there's a kind of music in the word, like the wind
rustling gently through the tree-tops?"
"No."
He seemed disappointed for a moment; then cheered up.
"Of course, you wouldn't. You always were a fatheaded worm without any
soul, weren't you?"
"Just as you say. Who is she? Tell me all."
For I realised now that poor old Bingo was going through it once again.
Ever since I have known him--and we were at school together--he has
been perpetually falling in love with someone, generally in the spring,
which seems to act on him like magic. At school he had the finest
collection of actresses' photographs of anyone of his time; and at
Oxford his romantic nature was a byword.
"You'd better come along and meet her at lunch," he said, looking at
his watch.
"A ripe suggestion," I said. "Where are you meeting her? At the Ritz?"
"Near the Ritz."
He was geographically accurate. About fifty yards east of the Ritz
there is one of those blighted tea-and-bun shops you see dotted about
all over London, and into this, if you'll believe me, young Bingo dived
like a homing rabbit; and before I had time to say a word we were
wedged in at a table, on the brink of a silent pool of coffee left
there by an early luncher.
I'm bound to say I couldn't quite follow the development of the
scenario. Bingo, while not absolutely rolling in the stuff, has always
had a fair amount of the ready. Apart from what he got from his uncle,
I knew that he had finished up the jumping season well on the right
side of the ledger. Why, then, was he lunching the girl at this
God-forsaken eatery? It couldn't be because he was hard up.
Just then the waitress arrived. Rather a pretty girl.
"Aren't we going to wait----?" I started to say to Bingo, thinking it
somewhat thick that, in addition to asking a girl to lunch with him in
a place like this, he should fling himself on the foodstuffs before she
turned up, when I caught sight of his face, and stopped.
The man was goggling. His entire map was suffused with a rich blush. He
looked like the Soul's Awakening done in pink.
"Hallo, Mabel!" he said, with a sort of gulp.
"Hallo!" said the girl.
"Mabel," said Bingo, "this is Bertie Wooster, a pal of mine."
"Pleased to meet you," she said. "Nice morning."
"Fine," I said.
"You see I'm wearing the tie," said Bingo.
"It suits you beautiful," said the girl.
Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie like that suited me, I
should have risen and struck them on the mazzard, regardless of their
age and sex; but poor old Bingo simply got all flustered with
gratification, and smirked in the most gruesome manner.
"Well, what's it going to be to-day?" asked the girl, introducing the
business touch into the conversation.
Bingo studied the menu devoutly.
"I'll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruit cake,
and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie?"
I gazed at the man, revolted. That he could have been a pal of mine all
these years and think me capable of insulting the old turn with this
sort of stuff cut me to the quick.
"Or how about a bit of hot steak-pudding, with a sparkling limado to
wash it down?" said Bingo.
You know, the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to
contemplate. This chappie before me, who spoke in that absolutely
careless way of macaroons and limado, was the man I had seen in happier
days telling the head-waiter at Claridge's exactly how he wanted the
_chef_ to prepare the _sole frite au gourmet aux champignons_,
and saying he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn't just right.
Ghastly! Ghastly!
A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list
that hadn't been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of
the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I
chose them, and Mabel hopped it.
"Well?" said Bingo rapturously.
I took it that he wanted my opinion of the female poisoner who had just
left us.
"Very nice," I said.
He seemed dissatisfied.
"You don't think she's the most wonderful girl you ever saw?" he said
wistfully.
"Oh, absolutely!" I said, to appease the blighter. "Where did you meet
her?"
"At a subscription dance at Camberwell."
"What on earth were you doing at a subscription dance at Camberwell?"
"Your man Jeeves asked me if I would buy a couple of tickets. It was in
aid of some charity or other."
"Jeeves? I didn't know he went in for that sort of thing."
"Well, I suppose he has to relax a bit every now and then. Anyway, he
was there, swinging a dashed efficient shoe. I hadn't meant to go at
first, but I turned up for a lark. Oh, Bertie, think what I might have
missed!"
"What might you have missed?" I asked, the old lemon being slightly
clouded.
"Mabel, you chump. If I hadn't gone I shouldn't have met Mabel."
"Oh, ah!"
At this point Bingo fell into a species of trance, and only came out of
it to wrap himself round the pie and macaroon.
"Bertie," he said, "I want your advice."
"Carry on."
"At least, not your advice, because that wouldn't be much good to
anybody. I mean, you're a pretty consummate old ass, aren't you? Not
that I want to hurt your feelings, of course."
"No, no, I see that."
"What I wish you would do is to put the whole thing to that fellow
Jeeves of yours, and see what he suggests. You've often told me that he
has helped other pals of yours out of messes. From what you tell me,
he's by way of being the brains of the family."
"He's never let me down yet."
"Then put my case to him."
"What case?"
"My problem."
"What problem?"
"Why, you poor fish, my uncle, of course. What do you think my uncle's
going to say to all this? If I sprang it on him cold, he'd tie himself
in knots on the hearthrug."
"One of these emotional Johnnies, eh?"
"Somehow or other his mind has got to be prepared to receive the news.
But how?"
"Ah!"
"That's a lot of help, that 'ah'! You see, I'm pretty well dependent on
the old boy. If he cut off my allowance, I should be very much in the
soup. So you put the whole binge to Jeeves and see if he can't scare up
a happy ending somehow. Tell him my future is in his hands, and that,
if the wedding bells ring out, he can rely on me, even unto half my
kingdom. Well, call it ten quid. Jeeves would exert himself with ten
quid on the horizon, what?"
"Undoubtedly," I said.
I wasn't in the least surprised at Bingo wanting to lug Jeeves into his
private affairs like this. It was the first thing I would have thought
of doing myself if I had been in any hole of any description. As I have
frequently had occasion to observe, he is a bird of the ripest
intellect, full of bright ideas. If anybody could fix things for poor
old Bingo, he could.
I stated the case to him that night after dinner.
"Jeeves."
"Sir?"
"Are you busy just now?"
"No, sir."
"I mean, not doing anything in particular?"
"No, sir. It is my practice at this hour to read some improving book;
but, if you desire my services, this can easily be postponed, or,
indeed, abandoned altogether."
"Well, I want your advice. It's about Mr. Little."
"Young Mr. Little, sir, or the elder Mr. Little, his uncle, who lives
in Pounceby Gardens?"
Jeeves seemed to know everything. Most amazing thing. I'd been pally
with Bingo practically all my life, and yet I didn't remember ever
having heard that his uncle lived anywhere in particular.
"How did you know he lived in Pounceby Gardens?" I said.
"I am on terms of some intimacy with the elder Mr. Little's cook, sir.
In fact, there is an understanding."
I'm bound to say that this gave me a bit of a start. Somehow I'd never
thought of Jeeves going in for that sort of thing.
"Do you mean you're engaged?"
"It may be said to amount to that, sir."
"Well, well!"
"She is a remarkably excellent cook, sir," said Jeeves, as though he
felt called on to give some explanation. "What was it you wished to ask
me about Mr. Little?"
I sprang the details on him.
"And that's how the matter stands, Jeeves," I said. "I think we ought
to rally round a trifle and help poor old Bingo put the thing through.
Tell me about old Mr. Little. What sort of a chap is he?"
"A somewhat curious character, sir. Since retiring from business he has
become a great recluse, and now devotes himself almost entirely to the
pleasures of the table."
"Greedy hog, you mean?"
"I would not, perhaps, take the liberty of describing him in precisely
those terms, sir. He is what is usually called a gourmet. Very
particular about what he eats, and for that reason sets a high value on
Miss Watson's services."
"The cook?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, it looks to me as though our best plan would be to shoot young
Bingo in on him after dinner one night. Melting mood, I mean to say,
and all that."
"The difficulty is, sir, that at the moment Mr. Little is on a diet,
owing to an attack of gout."
"Things begin to look wobbly."
"No, sir, I fancy that the elder Mr. Little's misfortune may be turned
to the younger Mr. Little's advantage. I was speaking only the other
day to Mr. Little's valet, and he was telling me that it has become his
principal duty to read to Mr. Little in the evenings. If I were in your
place, sir, I should send young Mr. Little to read to his uncle."
"Nephew's devotion, you mean? Old man touched by kindly action, what?"
"Partly that, sir. But I would rely more on young Mr. Little's choice
of literature."
"That's no good. Jolly old Bingo has a kind face, but when it comes to
literature he stops at the _Sporting Times_."
"That difficulty may be overcome. I would be happy to select books for
Mr. Little to read. Perhaps I might explain my idea further?"
"I can't say I quite grasp it yet."
"The method which I advocate is what, I believe, the advertisers call
Direct Suggestion, sir, consisting as it does of driving an idea home
by constant repetition. You may have had experience of the system?"
"You mean they keep on telling you that some soap or other is the best,
and after a bit you come under the influence and charge round the
corner and buy a cake?"
"Exactly, sir. The same method was the basis of all the most valuable
propaganda during the recent war. I see no reason why it should not be
adopted to bring about the desired result with regard to the subject's
views on class distinctions. If young Mr. Little were to read day after
day to his uncle a series of narratives in which marriage with young
persons of an inferior social status was held up as both feasible and
admirable, I fancy it would prepare the elder Mr. Little's mind for the
reception of the information that his nephew wishes to marry a waitress
in a tea-shop."
"_Are_ there any books of that sort nowadays? The only ones I ever
see mentioned in the papers are about married couples who find life
grey, and can't stick each other at any price."
"Yes, sir, there are a great many, neglected by the reviewers but
widely read. You have never encountered 'All for Love," by Rosie M.
Banks?"
"No."
"Nor 'A Red, Red Summer Rose,' by the same author?"
"No."
"I have an aunt, sir, who owns an almost complete set of Rosie M.
Banks'. I could easily borrow as many volumes as young Mr. Little might
require. They make very light, attractive reading."
"Well, it's worth trying."
"I should certainly recommend the scheme, sir."
"All right, then. Toddle round to your aunt's to-morrow and grab a
couple of the fruitiest. We can but have a dash at it."
"Precisely, sir."
* * * * *
Bingo reported three days later that Rosie M. Banks was the goods and
beyond a question the stuff to give the troops. Old Little had jibbed
somewhat at first at the proposed change of literary diet, he not being
much of a lad for fiction and having stuck hitherto exclusively to the
heavier monthly reviews; but Bingo had got chapter one of "All for
Love" past his guard before he knew what was happening, and after that
there was nothing to it. Since then they had finished "A Red, Red
Summer Rose," "Madcap Myrtle" and "Only a Factory Girl," and were
halfway through "The Courtship of Lord Strathmorlick."
Bingo told me all this in a husky voice over an egg beaten up in
sherry. The only blot on the thing from his point of view was that it
wasn't doing a bit of good to the old vocal cords, which were beginning
to show signs of cracking under the strain. He had been looking his
symptoms up in a medical dictionary, and he thought he had got
"clergyman's throat." But against this you had to set the fact that he
was making an undoubted hit in the right quarter, and also that after
the evening's reading he always stayed on to dinner; and, from what he
told me, the dinners turned out by old Little's cook had to be tasted
to be believed. There were tears in the old blighter's eyes as he got
on the subject of the clear soup. I suppose to a fellow who for weeks
had been tackling macaroons and limado it must have been like Heaven.
Old Little wasn't able to give any practical assistance at these
banquets, but Bingo said that he came to the table and had his whack of
arrowroot, and sniffed the dishes, and told stories of _entrees_ he had
had in the past, and sketched out scenarios of what he was going to do
to the bill of fare in the future, when the doctor put him in shape; so
I suppose he enjoyed himself, too, in a way. Anyhow, things seemed to
be buzzing along quite satisfactorily, and Bingo said he had got an
idea which, he thought, was going to clinch the thing. He wouldn't tell
me what it was, but he said it was a pippin.
"We make progress, Jeeves," I said.
"That is very satisfactory, sir."
"Mr. Little tells me that when he came to the big scene in 'Only a
Factory Girl,' his uncle gulped like a stricken bull-pup."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Where Lord Claude takes the girl in his arms, you know, and says----"
"I am familiar with the passage, sir. It is distinctly moving. It was a
great favourite of my aunt's."
"I think we're on the right track."
"It would seem so, sir."
"In fact, this looks like being another of your successes. I've always
said, and I always shall say, that for sheer brain, Jeeves, you stand
alone. All the other great thinkers of the age are simply in the crowd,
watching you go by."
"Thank you very much, sir. I endeavour to give satisfaction."
About a week after this, Bingo blew in with the news that his uncle's
gout had ceased to trouble him, and that on the morrow he would be back
at the old stand working away with knife and fork as before.
"And, by the way," said Bingo, "he wants you to lunch with him
tomorrow."
"Me? Why me? He doesn't know I exist."
"Oh, yes, he does. I've told him about you."
"What have you told him?"
"Oh, various things. Anyhow, he wants to meet you. And take my tip,
laddie--you go! I should think lunch to-morrow would be something
special."
I don't know why it was, but even then it struck me that there was
something dashed odd--almost sinister, if you know what I mean--about
young Bingo's manner. The old egg had the air of one who has something
up his sleeve.
"There is more in this than meets the eye," I said. "Why should your
uncle ask a fellow to lunch whom he's never seen?"
"My dear old fathead, haven't I just said that I've been telling him
all about you--that you're my best pal--at school together, and all
that sort of thing?"
"But even then--and another thing. Why are you so dashed keen on my
going?"
Bingo hesitated for a moment.
"Well, I told you I'd got an idea. This is it. I want you to spring the
news on him. I haven't the nerve myself."
"What! I'm hanged if I do!"
"And you call yourself a pal of mine!"
"Yes, I know; but there are limits."
"Bertie," said Bingo reproachfully, "I saved your life once."
"When?"
"Didn't I? It must have been some other fellow, then. Well, anyway, we
were boys together and all that. You can't let me down."
"Oh, all right," I said. "But, when you say you haven't nerve enough
for any dashed thing in the world, you misjudge yourself. A fellow
who----"
"Cheerio!" said young Bingo. "One-thirty to-morrow. Don't be late."
* * * * *
I'm bound to say that the more I contemplated the binge, the less I
liked it. It was all very well for Bingo to say that I was slated for a
magnificent lunch; but what good is the best possible lunch to a fellow
if he is slung out into the street on his ear during the soup course?
However, the word of a Wooster is his bond and all that sort of rot, so
at one-thirty next day I tottered up the steps of No. 16, Pounceby
Gardens, and punched the bell. And half a minute later I was up in the
drawing-room, shaking hands with the fattest man I have ever seen in my
life.
The motto of the Little family was evidently "variety." Young Bingo is
long and thin and hasn't had a superfluous ounce on him since we first
met; but the uncle restored the average and a bit over. The hand which
grasped mine wrapped it round and enfolded it till I began to wonder if
I'd ever get it out without excavating machinery.
"Mr. Wooster, I am gratified--I am proud--I am honoured."
It seemed to me that young Bingo must have boosted me to some purpose.
"Oh, ah!" I said.
He stepped back a bit, still hanging on to the good right hand.
"You are very young to have accomplished so much!"
I couldn't follow the train of thought. The family, especially my Aunt
Agatha, who has savaged me incessantly from childhood up, have always
rather made a point of the fact that mine is a wasted life, and that,
since I won the prize at my first school for the best collection of
wild flowers made during the summer holidays, I haven't done a dam'
thing to land me on the nation's scroll of fame. I was wondering if he
couldn't have got me mixed up with someone else, when the
telephone-bell rang outside in the hall, and the maid came in to say
that I was wanted. I buzzed down, and found it was young Bingo.
"Hallo!" said young Bingo. "So you've got there? Good man! I knew I
could rely on you. I say, old crumpet, did my uncle seem pleased to see
you?"
"Absolutely all over me. I can't make it out."
"Oh, that's all right. I just rang up to explain. The fact is, old man,
I know you won't mind, but I told him that you were the author of those
books I've been reading to him."
"What!"
"Yes, I said that 'Rosie M. Banks' was your pen-name, and you didn't
want it generally known, because you were a modest, retiring sort of
chap. He'll listen to you now. Absolutely hang on your words. A
brightish idea, what? I doubt if Jeeves in person could have thought up
a better one than that. Well, pitch it strong, old lad, and keep
steadily before you the fact that I must have my allowance raised. I
can't possibly marry on what I've got now. If this film is to end with
the slow fade-out on the embrace, at least double is indicated. Well,
that's that. Cheerio!"
And he rang off. At that moment the gong sounded, and the genial host
came tumbling downstairs like the delivery of a ton of coals.
* * * * *
I always look back to that lunch with a sort of aching regret. It was
the lunch of a lifetime, and I wasn't in a fit state to appreciate it.
Subconsciously, if you know what I mean, I could see it was pretty
special, but I had got the wind up to such a frightful extent over the
ghastly situation in which young Bingo had landed me that its deeper
meaning never really penetrated. Most of the time I might have been
eating sawdust for all the good it did me.
Old Little struck the literary note right from the start.
"My nephew has probably told you that I have been making a close study
of your books of late?" he began.
"Yes. He did mention it. How--er--how did you like the bally things?"
He gazed reverently at me.
"Mr. Wooster, I am not ashamed to say that the tears came into my eyes
as I listened to them. It amazes me that a man as young as you can have
been able to plumb human nature so surely to its depths; to play with
so unerring a hand on the quivering heart-strings of your reader; to
write novels so true, so human, so moving, so vital!"
"Oh, it's just a knack," I said.
The good old persp. was bedewing my forehead by this time in a pretty
lavish manner. I don't know when I've been so rattled.
"Do you find the room a trifle warm?"
"Oh, no, no, rather not. Just right."
"Then it's the pepper. If my cook has a fault--which I am not prepared
to admit--it is that she is inclined to stress the pepper a trifle in
her made dishes. By the way, do you like her cooking?"
I was so relieved that we had got off the subject of my literary output
that I shouted approval in a ringing baritone.
"I am delighted to hear it, Mr. Wooster. I may be prejudiced, but to my
mind that woman is a genius."
"Absolutely!" I said.
"She has been with me seven years, and in all that time I have not
known her guilty of a single lapse from the highest standard. Except
once, in the winter of 1917, when a purist might have condemned a
certain mayonnaise of hers as lacking in creaminess. But one must make
allowances. There had been several air-raids about that time, and no
doubt the poor woman was shaken. But nothing is perfect in this world,
Mr. Wooster, and I have had my cross to bear. For seven years I have
lived in constant apprehension lest some evilly-disposed person might
lure her from my employment. To my certain knowledge she has received
offers, lucrative offers, to accept service elsewhere. You may judge of
my dismay, Mr. Wooster, when only this morning the bolt fell. She gave
notice!"
"Good Lord!"
"Your consternation does credit, if I may say so, to the heart of the
author of 'A Red, Red Summer Rose.' But I am thankful to say the worst
has not happened. The matter has been adjusted. Jane is not leaving
me."
"Good egg!"
"Good egg, indeed--though the expression is not familiar to me. I do
not remember having come across it in your books. And, speaking of your
books, may I say that what has impressed me about them even more than
the moving poignancy of the actual narrative, is your philosophy of
life. If there were more men like you, Mr. Wooster, London would be a
better place."
This was dead opposite to my Aunt Agatha's philosophy of life, she
having always rather given me to understand that it is the presence in
it of chappies like me that makes London more or less of a plague spot;
but I let it go.
"Let me tell you, Mr. Wooster, that I appreciate your splendid defiance
of the outworn fetishes of a purblind social system. I appreciate it!
You are big enough to see that rank is but the guinea stamp and that,
in the magnificent words of Lord Bletchmore in 'Only a Factory Girl,'
'Be her origin ne'er so humble, a good woman is the equal of the finest
lady on earth!'"
I sat up.
"I say! Do you think that?"
"I do, Mr. Wooster. I am ashamed to say that there was a time when I
was like other men, a slave to the idiotic convention which we call
Class Distinction. But, since I read your books----"
I might have known it. Jeeves had done it again.
"You think it's all right for a chappie in what you might call a
certain social position to marry a girl of what you might describe as
the lower classes?"
"Most assuredly I do, Mr. Wooster."
I took a deep breath, and slipped him the good news.
"Young Bingo--your nephew, you know--wants to marry a waitress," I
said.
"I honour him for it," said old Little.
"You don't object?"
"On the contrary."
I took another deep breath and shifted to the sordid side of the
business.
"I hope you won't think I'm butting in, don't you know," I said,
"but--er--well, how about it?"
"I fear I do not quite follow you."
"Well, I mean to say, his allowance and all that. The money you're good
enough to give him. He was rather hoping that you might see your way to
jerking up the total a bit."
Old Little shook his head regretfully.
"I fear that can hardly be managed. You see, a man in my position is
compelled to save every penny. I will gladly continue my nephew's
existing allowance, but beyond that I cannot go. It would not be fair
to my wife."
"What! But you're not married?"
"Not yet. But I propose to enter upon that holy state almost
immediately. The lady who for years has cooked so well for me honoured
me by accepting my hand this very morning." A cold gleam of triumph
came into his eye. "Now let 'em try to get her away from me!" he
muttered, defiantly.
* * * * *
"Young Mr. Little has been trying frequently during the afternoon to
reach you on the telephone, sir," said Jeeves that night, when I got
home.
"I'll bet he has," I said. I had sent poor old Bingo an outline of the
situation by messenger-boy shortly after lunch.
"He seemed a trifle agitated."
"I don't wonder. Jeeves," I said, "so brace up and bite the bullet. I'm
afraid I've bad news for you.
"That scheme of yours--reading those books to old Mr. Little and all
that--has blown out a fuse."
"They did not soften him?"
"They did. That's the whole bally trouble. Jeeves, I'm sorry to say
that _fiancee_ of yours--Miss Watson, you know--the cook, you
know--well, the long and the short of it is that she's chosen riches
instead of honest worth, if you know what I mean."
"Sir?"
"She's handed you the mitten and gone and got engaged to old Mr.
Little!"
"Indeed, sir?"
"You don't seem much upset."
"That fact is, sir, I had anticipated some such outcome."
I stared at him. "Then what on earth did you suggest the scheme for?"
"To tell you the truth, sir, I was not wholly averse from a severance
of my relations with Miss Watson. In fact, I greatly desired it. I
respect Miss Watson exceedingly, but I have seen for a long time that
we were not suited. Now, the _other_ young person with whom I have
an understanding----"
"Great Scott, Jeeves! There isn't another?"
"Yes, sir."
"How long has this been going on?"
"For some weeks, sir. I was greatly attracted by her when I first met
her at a subscription dance at Camberwell."
"My sainted aunt! Not----"
Jeeves inclined his head gravely.
"Yes, sir. By an odd coincidence it is the same young person that young
Mr. Little--I have placed the cigarettes on the small table. Good
night, sir."
CONCEALED ART
If a fellow has lots of money and lots of time and lots of curiosity
about other fellows' business, it is astonishing, don't you know, what
a lot of strange affairs he can get mixed up in. Now, I have money and
curiosity and all the time there is. My name's Pepper--Reggie Pepper.
My uncle was the colliery-owner chappie, and he left me the dickens of
a pile. And ever since the lawyer slipped the stuff into my hand,
whispering "It's yours!" life seems to have been one thing after
another.
For instance, the dashed rummy case of dear old Archie. I first ran
into old Archie when he was studying in Paris, and when he came back to
London he looked me up, and we celebrated. He always liked me because I
didn't mind listening to his theories of Art. For Archie, you must
know, was an artist. Not an ordinary artist either, but one of those
fellows you read about who are several years ahead of the times, and
paint the sort of thing that people will be educated up to by about
1999 or thereabouts.
Well, one day as I was sitting in the club watching the traffic coming
up one way and going down the other, and thinking nothing in
particular, in blew the old boy. He was looking rather worried.
"Reggie, I want your advice."
"You shall have it," I said. "State your point, old top."
"It's like this--I'm engaged to be married."
"My dear old scout, a million con----"
"Yes, I know. Thanks very much, and all that, but listen."
"What's the trouble? Don't you like her?"
A kind of rapt expression came over his face.
"Like her! Why, she's the only----"
He gibbered for a spell. When he had calmed down, I said, "Well then,
what's your trouble?"
"Reggie," he said, "do you think a man is bound to tell his wife all
about his past life?"
"Oh, well," I said, "of course, I suppose she's prepared to find that a
man has--er--sowed his wild oats, don't you know, and all that sort of
thing, and----"
He seemed quite irritated.
"Don't be a chump. It's nothing like that. Listen. When I came back to
London and started to try and make a living by painting, I found that
people simply wouldn't buy the sort of work I did at any price. Do you
know, Reggie, I've been at it three years now, and I haven't sold a
single picture."
I whooped in a sort of amazed way, but I should have been far more
startled if he'd told me he _had_ sold a picture. I've seen his
pictures, and they are like nothing on earth. So far as I can make out
what he says, they aren't supposed to be. There's one in particular,
called "The Coming of Summer," which I sometimes dream about when I've
been hitting it up a shade too vigorously. It's all dots and splashes,
with a great eye staring out of the middle of the mess. It looks as if
summer, just as it was on the way, had stubbed its toe on a bomb. He
tells me it's his masterpiece, and that he will never do anything like
it again. I should like to have that in writing.
"Well, artists eat, just the same as other people," he went on, "and
personally I like mine often and well cooked. Besides which, my sojourn
in Paris gave me a rather nice taste in light wines. The consequence
was that I came to the conclusion, after I had been back a few months,
that something had to be done. Reggie, do you by any remote chance read
a paper called _Funny Slices_?"
"Every week."
He gazed at me with a kind of wistful admiration.
"I envy you, Reggie. Fancy being able to make a statement like that
openly and without fear. Then I take it you know the Doughnut family?"
"I should say I did."
His voice sank almost to a whisper, and he looked over his shoulder
nervously.
"Reggie, I do them."
"You what?"
"I do them--draw them--paint them. I am the creator of the Doughnut
family."
I stared at him, absolutely astounded. I was simply dumb. It was the
biggest surprise of my life. Why, dash it, the Doughnut family was the
best thing in its line in London. There is Pa Doughnut, Ma Doughnut,
Aunt Bella, Cousin Joe, and Mabel, the daughter, and they have all
sorts of slapstick adventures. Pa, Ma and Aunt Bella are pure
gargoyles; Cousin Joe is a little more nearly semi-human, and Mabel is
a perfect darling. I had often wondered who did them, for they were
unsigned, and I had often thought what a deuced brainy fellow the chap
must be. And all the time it was old Archie. I stammered as I tried to
congratulate him.
He winced.
"Don't gargle, Reggie, there's a good fellow," he said. "My nerves are
all on edge. Well, as I say, I do the Doughnuts. It was that or
starvation. I got the idea one night when I had a toothache, and next
day I took some specimens round to an editor. He rolled in his chair,
and told me to start in and go on till further notice. Since then I
have done them without a break. Well, there's the position. I must go
on drawing these infernal things, or I shall be penniless. The question
is, am I to tell her?"
"Tell her? Of course you must tell her."
"Ah, but you don't know her, Reggie. Have you ever heard of Eunice
Nugent?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"As she doesn't sprint up and down the joyway at the Hippodrome, I
didn't suppose you would."
I thought this rather uncalled-for, seeing that, as a matter of fact, I
scarcely know a dozen of the Hippodrome chorus, but I made allowances
for his state of mind.
"She's a poetess," he went on, "and her work has appeared in lots of
good magazines. My idea is that she would be utterly horrified if she
knew, and could never be quite the same to me again. But I want you to
meet her and judge for yourself. It's just possible that I am taking
too morbid a view of the matter, and I want an unprejudiced outside
opinion. Come and lunch with us at the Piccadilly tomorrow, will you?"
* * * * *
He was absolutely right. One glance at Miss Nugent told me that the
poor old boy had got the correct idea. I hardly know how to describe
the impression she made on me. On the way to the Pic, Archie had told
me that what first attracted him to her was the fact that she was so
utterly unlike Mabel Doughnut; but that had not prepared me for what
she really was. She was kind of intense, if you know what I mean--kind
of spiritual. She was perfectly pleasant, and drew me out about golf
and all that sort of thing; but all the time I felt that she considered
me an earthy worm whose loftier soul-essence had been carelessly left
out of his composition at birth. She made me wish that I had never seen
a musical comedy or danced on a supper table on New Year's Eve. And if
that was the impression she made on me, you can understand why poor old
Archie jibbed at the idea of bringing her _Funny Slices_, and
pointing at the Doughnuts and saying, "Me--I did it!" The notion was
absolutely out of the question. The shot wasn't on the board. I told
Archie so directly we were alone.
"Old top," I said, "you must keep it dark."
I'm afraid so. But I hate the thought of deceiving her."
"You must get used to that now you're going to be a married man," I
said.
"The trouble is, how am I going to account for the fact that I can do
myself pretty well?"
"Why, tell her you have private means, of course. What's your money
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