Страница:
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.'
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.
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.
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
'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.'
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.
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.
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