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horse race where you get tips from the stable cat. I don't say it
may not be a close thing, but Ginger ought to win all right. He has
a secret weapon.'
'Repeat that, if you wouldn't mind. I don't think I got it.'
'Ginger defies competition because he has a secret weapon.'
'Which is?'
'Spode.'
'Spode?'
'My lord Sidcup. Have you ever heard him speak?'
'I did just now.'
'In public, fool.'
'Oh, in public. No, I haven't.'
'He's a terrific orator, as I told you, only you've probably
forgotten.'
This seemed likely enough to me. Spode at one time had been one
of those Dictators, going about at the head of a band of supporters
in footer shorts shouting 'Heil Spode', and to succeed in that line
you have to be able to make speeches.
'You aren't fond of him, nor am I, but nobody can deny that
he's eloquent. Audiences hang on his every word, and when he's
finished cheer him to the echo.'
I nodded. I had had the same experience myself when singing
'The Yeoman's Wedding Song' at village concerts. Two or three
encores sometimes, even when I blew up in the words and had to fill
in with 'Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, I hurry along'. I began
to feel easier in my mind. I told her this, and she said 'Your
what?'
'You have put new heart into me, old blood relation,' I said,
ignoring the crack. 'You see, it means everything to him to win
this election.'
'Is he so bent on representing Market Snodsbury in the
Westminster menagerie?'
'It isn't that so much. Left to himself, I imagine he could
take Parliament or leave it alone. But he thinks Florence will give
him the bum's rush if he loses.'
'He's probably right. She can't stand a loser.'
'So he told me. Remember what happened to Percy Gorringe.'
'And others. England is strewn with ex-fiances whom she bounced
because they didn't come up to her specifications. Dozens of them.
I believe they form clubs and societies.'
'Perhaps calling themselves the Old Florentians.'
'And having an annual dinner!'
We mused on Florence for awhile; then she said she ought to be
going to confer with Anatole about dinner tonight, urging him to
dish up something special. It was vital, she said, that he should
excel his always high standard.
'I was speaking, just now, when you interrupted me and turned
my thoughts to the name Wilberforce, of L. P. Runkle.'
'You said you had an idea he might be going to cooperate.'
'Exactly. Have you ever seen a python after a series of hearty
meals?'
'Not to my knowledge.'
'It gets all softened up. It becomes a kindlier, gentler, more
lovable python. And if I am not greatly mistaken, the same thing is
happening to L. P. Runkle as the result of Anatole's cooking. You
saw him at dinner last night.'
'Sorry, no, I wasn't looking. Every fibre of my being was
concentrated on the foodstuffs. He would have repaid inspection,
would he? Worth seeing, eh?'
'He was positively beaming. He was too busy to utter, but it
was plain that he had become all amiability and benevolence. He had
the air of a man who would start scattering largesse if given a
word of encouragement. It is for Anatole to see to it that this
Christmas spirit does not evaporate but comes more and more to the
boil. And I know that I can rely on him.'
'Good old Anatole,' I said, lighting a cigarette.
'Amen,' said the ancestor reverently; then, touching on another
subject, 'Take that foul cigarette outside, you young hellhound. It
smells like an escape of sewer gas.'
Always glad to indulge her lightest whim, I passed through the
French window, in a far different mood from that in which I had
entered the room. Optimism now reigned in the Wooster bosom.
Ginger, I told myself, was going to be all right, Tuppy was going
to be all right, and it would not be long before the laughing love
god straightened things out between Madeline and Spode, even if he
had talked out of turn about stars and daisy chains.
Having finished the gasper, I was about to return and resume
conversation with the aged relative, when from within there came
the voice of Seppings, now apparently restored to health, and what
he was saying froze me in every limb. I couldn't have become
stiffer if I had been Lot's wife, whose painful story I had had to
read up when I won that Scripture Knowledge prize.
What he was saying ran as follows:
'Mrs McCorkadale, madam.'
Leaning against the side of the house, I breathed rather in the
manner copyrighted by the hart which pants for cooling streams when
heated in the chase. The realization of how narrowly I had missed
having to mingle again with this blockbusting female barrister kept
me Lot's-wifed for what seemed an hour or so, though I suppose it
can't have been more than a few seconds. Then gradually I ceased to
be a pillar of salt and was able to concentrate on finding out what
on earth Ma McCorkadale's motive was in paying us this visit. The
last place, I mean to say, where you would have expected to find
her. Considering how she stood in regard to Ginger, it was as if
Napoleon had dropped in for a chat with Wellington on the eve of
Waterloo.
I have had occasion to mention earlier the advantages as a
listening-post afforded by the just-outside-the-French-window spot
where I was standing. Invisible to those within, I could take in
all they were saying, as I had done with Spode and L. P. Runkle.
Both had come through loud and clear, and neither had had a notion
that Bertram Wooster was on the outskirts, hearing all.
As I could hardly step in and ask her to repeat any of her
remarks which I didn't quite catch, it was fortunate that the
McCorkadale's voice was so robust, while Aunt Dahlia's, of course,
would be audible if you were at Hyde Park Corner and she in
Piccadilly Circus. I have often thought that the deaf adder I read
about when I won my Scripture Knowledge prize would have got the
message right enough if the aged relative had been one of the
charmers. I was able to continue leaning against the side of the
house in full confidence that I shouldn't miss a syllable of either
protagonist's words.
The proceedings started with a couple of Good mornings, Aunt
Dahlia's the equivalent of 'What the hell?', and then the
McCorkadale, as if aware that it was up to her to offer a word of
explanation, said she had called to see Mr Winship on a matter of
great importance.
'Is he in?'
Here was a chance for the ancestor to get one up by retorting
that he jolly well would be after the votes had been counted, but
she let it go, merely saying No, he had gone out, and the
McCorkadale said she was sorry.
'I would have preferred to see him in person, but you, I take
it, are his hostess, so I can tell you and you will tell him.'
This seemed fair enough to me, and I remember thinking that
these barristers put things well, but it appeared to annoy the aged
relative.
'I am afraid I do not understand you,' she said, and I knew she
was getting steamed up, for if she had been her calm self, she
would have said 'Sorry, I don't get you.'
'If you will allow me to explain. I can do so in a few simple
words. I have just had a visit from a slimy slinking slug.'
I drew myself up haughtily. Not much good, of course, in the
circs, but the gesture seemed called for. One does not object to
fair criticism, but this was mere abuse. I could think of nothing
in our relations which justified such a description of me. My views
on barristers and their way of putting things changed sharply.
Whether or not Aunt Dahlia bridled, as the expression is, I
couldn't say, but I think she must have done, for her next words
were straight from the deep freeze.
'Are you referring to my nephew Bertram Wooster?'
The McCorkadale did much to remove the bad impression her
previous words had made on me. She said her caller had not given
his name, but she was sure he could not have been Mrs Travers's
nephew.
'He was a very common man,' she said, and with the quickness
which is so characteristic of me I suddenly got on to it that she
must be alluding to Bingley, who had been ushered into her presence
immediately after I had left. I could understand her applying those
derogatory adjectives to Bingley. And the noun slug, just right.
Once again I found myself thinking how well barristers put things.
The old ancestor, too, appeared - what's the word beginning
with m and meaning less hot under the collar? Mollified, that's it.
The suggestion that she could not have a nephew capable of being
described as a common man mollified her. I don't say that even now
she would have asked Ma McCorkadale to come on a long walking tour
with her, but her voice was definitely matier.
'Why do you call him a slug?' she asked, and the McCorkadale
had her answer to that.
'For the same reason that I call a spade a spade, because it is
the best way of conveying a verbal image of him. He made me a
disgraceful proposition.'
'WHAT?' said Aunt Dahlia rather tactlessly.
I could understand her being surprised. It was difficult to
envisage a man so eager to collect girl friends as to make
disgraceful propositions to Mrs McCorkadale. It amazed me that
Bingley could have done it. I had never liked him, but I must
confess to a certain admiration for his temerity. Our humble
heroes, I felt.
'You're pulling my leg,' said the aged relative.
The McCorkadale came back at her briskly.
'I am doing nothing of the kind. I am telling you precisely
what occurred. I was in my drawing-room going over the speech I
have prepared for the debate tomorrow, when I was interrupted by
the incursion of this man. Naturally annoyed, I asked him what his
business was, and he said with a most offensive leer that he was
Father Christmas bringing me manna in the wilderness and tidings of
great joy. I was about to ring the bell to have him shown out, for
of course I assumed that he was intoxicated, when he made me this
extraordinary proposition. He had contrived to obtain information
to the detriment of my opponent, and this he wished to sell to me.
He said it would make my victory in the election certain. It would,
as he phrased it, 'be a snip'.
I stirred on my base. If I hadn't been afraid I might be
overheard, I would have said 'Aha!' Had circs been other than they
were, I would have stepped into the room, tapped the ancestor on
the shoulder and said 'Didn't I tell you Bingley had information?
Perhaps another time you'll believe me'. But as this would have
involved renewing my acquaintance with a woman of whom I had
already seen sufficient to last a lifetime, it was not within the
sphere of practical politics. I remained, accordingly, where I was,
merely hitching my ears up another couple of notches in order not
to miss the rest of the dialogue.
After the ancestor had said 'For heaven's sake!' or 'Gorblimey'
or whatever it was, indicating that her visitor's story interested
her strongly, the McCorkadale resumed. And what she resumed about
unquestionably put the frosting on the cake. Words of doom is the
only way I can think of to describe the words she spoke as.
'The man, it appeared, was a retired valet, and he belonged to
a club for butlers and valets in London, one of the rules of which
was that all members were obliged to record in the club book
information about their employers. My visitor explained that he had
been at one time in the employment of Mr Winship and had duly
recorded a number of the latter's escapades which if made public,
would be certain to make the worst impression on the voters of
Market Snodsbury.'
This surprised me. I hadn't had a notion that Bingley had ever
worked for Ginger. It just shows the truth of the old saying that
half the world doesn't know how the other three-quarters live.
'He then told me without a blush of shame that on his latest
visit to London he had purloined this book and now had it in his
possession.'
I gasped with horror. I don't know why, but the thought that
Bingley must have been pinching the thing at the very moment when
Jeeves and I were sipping our snootfuls in the next room seemed to
make it so particularly poignant. Not that it wouldn't have been
pretty poignant anyway. For years I had been haunted by the fear
that the Junior Ganymede club book, with all the dynamite it
contained, would get into the wrong hands, and the hands it had got
into couldn't have been more the sort of hands you would have
wished it hadn't. I don't know if I make myself clear, but what I'm
driving at is that if I had been picking a degraded character to
get away with that book, Bingley was the last character I would
have picked. I remember Jeeves speaking of someone who was fit for
treasons, stratagems and spoils, and that was Bingley all over. The
man was wholly without finer feelings, and when you come up against
someone without finer feelings, you've had it.
The aged relative was not blind to the drama of the situation.
She uttered an awed 'Lord love a duck!', and the McCorkadale said
she might well say 'Lord love a duck', though it was not an
expression she would have used herself.
'What did you do?' the ancestor asked, all agog, and the
McCorkadale gave that sniffing snort of hers. It was partly like an
escape of steam and partly like two or three cats unexpectedly
encountering two or three dogs, with just a suggestion of a cobra
waking up cross in the morning. I wondered how it had affected the
late Mr McCorkadale. Probably made him feel that there are worse
things than being run over by a municipal tram.
'I sent him away with a flea in his ear. I pride myself on
being a fair fighter, and his proposition revolted me. If you want
to have him arrested, though I am afraid I cannot see how it can be
done, he lives at 5 Ormond Crescent. He appears to have asked my
maid to look in and see his etchings on her afternoon off, and he
gave her his address. But, as I say, there would seem not to be
sufficient evidence for an arrest. Our conversation was without
witnesses, and he would simply have to deny possession of the book.
A pity. I would have enjoyed seeing a man like that hanged, drawn
and quartered.'
She snorted again, and the ancestor, who always knows what the
book of etiquette would advise, came across with the soothing
syrup. She said Ma McCorkadale deserved a medal.
'Not at all.'
'It was splendid of you to turn the man down.'
'As I said, I am a fair fighter.'
'Apart from your revulsion at his proposition, it must have
been very annoying for you to be interrupted when you were working
on your speech.'
'Especially as a few moments before this person appeared I had
been interrupted by an extraordinary young man who gave me the
impression of being half-witted.'
'That would have been my nephew, Bertram Wooster.'
'Oh, I beg your pardon.'
'Quite all right.'
'I may have formed a wrong estimate of his mentality. Our
interview was very brief. I just thought it odd that he should be
trying to persuade me to vote for my opponent.'
'It's the sort of thing that would seem a bright idea to
Bertie. He's like that. Whimsical. Moving in a mysterious way his
wonders to perform. But he ought not to have butted in when you
were busy with your speech. Is it coming out well?'
'I am satisfied with it.'
'Good for you. I suppose you're looking forward to the debate?'
'Very keenly. I am greatly in favour of it. It simplifies
things so much if the two opponents face one another on the same
platform and give the voters a chance to compare their views.
Provided, of course, that both observe the decencies of debate. But
I really must be getting back to my work.'
'Just a moment.' No doubt it was the word 'observe' that had
rung a bell with the ancestor. 'Do you do the Observer crossword
puzzle by any chance?'
'I solve it at breakfast on Sunday mornings.'
'Not the whole lot?'
'Oh yes.'
'Every clue?'
'I have never failed yet. I find it ridiculously simple.'
'Then what's all that song and dance about the measured tread
of saints round St Paul's?'
'Oh, I guessed that immediately. The answer, of course, is
pedometer. You measure tread with a pedometer. Dome, meaning St
Paul's, comes in the middle and Peter, for St Peter, round it. Very
simple.'
'Oh, very. Well, thank you. You have taken a great weight off
my mind,' said Aunt Dahlia, and they parted in complete amity, a
thing I wouldn't have thought possible when Ma McCorkadale was one
of the parters.
For perhaps a quarter of a minute after I had rejoined the
human herd, as represented by my late father's sister Dahlia, I
wasn't able to get a word in, the old ancestor being fully occupied
with saying what she thought of the compiler of the Observer
crossword puzzle, with particular reference to domes and
pedometers. And when she had said her say on that subject she
embarked on a rueful tribute to the McCorkadale, giving it as her
opinion that against a woman with a brain like that Ginger hadn't
the meagre chance of a toupee in a high wind. Though, she added in
more hopeful vein, now that the menace of the Ganymede Club book
had been squashed there was just a possibility that the eloquence
of Spode might get his nose in front.
All this while I had been trying to cut in with my opening
remark, which was to the effect that the current situation was a
bit above the odds, but it was only when I had repeated this for
the third time that I succeeded in obtaining her attention.
'This is a bit thick, what,' I said, varying my approach
slightly.
She seemed surprised as if the idea had not occurred to her.
'Thick?'
'Well, isn't it?'
'Why? If you were listening, you heard her say that, being a
fair fighter, she had scorned the tempter and sent him away with a
flea in his ear, which must be a most uncomfortable thing to have.
Bingley was baffled.'
'Only for the nonce.'
'Nonsense.'
'Not nonsense, nonce, which isn't at all the same thing. I feel
that Bingley, though crushed to earth, will rise again. How about
if he sells that book with all its ghastly contents to the Market
Snodsbury Argus-Reminder?'
I was alluding to the powerful bi-weekly sheet which falls over
itself in its efforts to do down the Conservative cause, omitting
no word or act to make anyone with Conservative leanings feel like
a piece of cheese. Coming out every Wednesday and Saturday with
proofs of Ginger's past, I did not see how it could fail to give
his candidature the sleeve across the windpipe.
I put this to the old blood relation in no uncertain terms. I
might have added that that would wipe the silly smile off her face,
but there was no necessity. She saw at once that I spoke sooth, and
a crisp hunting-field expletive escaped her. She goggled at me with
all the open dismay of an aunt who has inadvertently bitten into a
bad oyster.
'I never thought of that!'
'Give it your attention now.'
'Those Argus-Reminder hounds stick at nothing.'
'The sky is notoriously their limit.'
'Did you tell me Ginger had done time?'
'I said he was always in the hands of the police on Boat Race
night. And, of course, on Rugger night.'
'What's Rugger night?'
'The night of the annual Rugby football encounter between the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Many blithe spirits get even
more effervescent then than when celebrating the Boat Race. Ginger
was one of them.'
'He really got jugged?'
'Invariably. His practice of pinching policemen's helmets
ensured this. Released next morning on payment of a fine, but
definitely after spending the night in a dungeon cell.'
There was no doubt that I had impressed on her the gravity of
the situation. She gave a sharp cry like that of a stepped-on
dachshund, and her face took on the purple tinge it always assumes
in moments of strong emotion.
'This does it!'
'Fairly serious, I agree.'
'Fairly serious! The merest whisper of such goings-on will be
enough to alienate every voter in the town. Ginger's done for.'
'You don't think they might excuse him because his blood was
young at the time?'
'Not a hope. They won't be worrying about his ruddy blood. You
don't know what these blighters here are like. Most of them are
chapel folk with a moral code that would have struck Torquemada as
too rigid.'
'Torquemada?'
'The Spanish Inquisition man.'
'Oh, that Torquemada.'
'How many Torquemadas did you think there were?'
I admitted that it was not a common name, and she carried on.
'We must act!'
'But how?'
'Or, rather, you must act. You must go to this man and reason
with him.'
I h'med a bit at this. I doubted whether a fellow with
Bingley's lust for gold would listen to reason.
'What shall I say?'
'You'll know what to say.'
'Oh, shall I?'
'Appeal to his better instincts.'
'He hasn't got any.'
'Now don't make difficulties, Bertie. That's your besetting
sin, always arguing. You want to help Ginger, don't you?'
'Of course I do.'
'Very well, then.'
When an aunt has set her mind on a thing, it's no use trying to
put in a nolle prosequi. I turned to the door.
Half-way there a thought occurred to me. I said:
'How about Jeeves?'
'What about him?'
'We ought to spare his feelings as far as possible. I
repeatedly warned him that that club book was high-level explosive
and ought not to be in existence. What if it fell into the wrong
hands, I said, and he said it couldn't possibly fall into the wrong
hands. And now it has fallen into about the wrongest hands it could
have fallen into. I haven't the heart to say "I told you so" and
watch him writhe with shame and confusion. You see, up till now
Jeeves has always been right. His agony on finding that he has at
last made a floater will be frightful. I shouldn't wonder if he
might not swoon. I can't face him. You'll have to tell him.'
'Yes, I'll do it.'
'Try to break it gently.'
'I will. When you were listening outside, did you get this man
Bingley's address?'
'I got it.'
'Then off you go.'
So off I went.
Considering how shaky was his moral outlook and how marked his
tendency to weave low plots at the drop of a hat, you would have
expected Bingley's headquarters to have been one of those sinister
underground dens lit by stumps of candles stuck in the mouths of
empty beer bottles such as abound, I believe, in places like
Whitechapel and Limehouse. But no. Number 5 Ormond Crescent turned
out to be quite an expensive-looking joint with a nice little bit
of garden in front of it well supplied with geraniums, bird baths
and terracotta gnomes, the sort of establishment that might have
belonged to a blameless retired Colonel or a saintly stockbroker.
Evidently his late uncle hadn't been just an ordinary small town
grocer, weighing out potted meats and raisins to a public that had
to watch the pennies, but something on a much more impressive
scale. I learned later that he had owned a chain of shops, one of
them as far afield as Birmingham, and why the ass had gone and left
his money to a chap like Bingley is more than I can tell you,
though the probability is that Bingley, before bumping him off with
some little-known Asiatic poison, had taken the precaution of
forging the will.
On the threshold I paused. I remember in my early days at the
private school where I won my Scripture Knowledge prize, Arnold
Abney MA, the headmaster, would sometimes announce that he wished
to see Wooster in his study after morning prayers, and I always
halted at the study door, a prey to uneasiness and apprehension,
not liking the shape of things to come. It was much the same now. I
shrank from the impending interview. But whereas in the case of A.
Abney my disinclination to get things moving had been due to the
fear that the proceedings were going to lead up to six of the best
from a cane that stung like an adder, with Bingley it was a natural
reluctance to ask a favour of a fellow I couldn't stand the sight
of. I wouldn't say the Woosters were particularly proud, but we do
rather jib at having to grovel to the scum of the earth.
However, it had to be done, and, as I heard Jeeves say once, if
it were done, then 'twere well 'twere done quickly. Stiffening the
sinews and summoning up the blood, to quote another his gags, I
pressed the bell.
If I had any doubts as to Bingley now being in the chips, the
sight of the butler who opened the door would have dispelled them.
In assembling his domestic staff, Bingley had done himself proud,
sparing no expense. I don't say his butler was quite in the class
of Jeeves's Uncle Charlie Silversmith, but he came so near it that
the breath was taken. And like Uncle Charlie he believed in pomp
and ceremony when buttling. I asked him if I could see Mr Bingley,
and he said coldly that the master was not receiving.
'I think he'll see me. I'm an old friend of his.'
'I will enquire. Your name, sir?'
'Mr Wooster.'
He pushed off, to return some moments later to say that Mr
Bingley would be glad if I would join him in the library. Speaking
in what seemed to me a disapproving voice, as though to suggest
that, while he was compelled to carry out the master's orders
however eccentric, he would never have admitted a chap like me if
it had been left to him.
'If you would step this way, sir,' he said haughtily.
What with one thing and another I had rather got out of touch
lately with that If-you-would-step-this-way-sir stuff, and it was
in a somewhat rattled frame of mind that I entered the library and
found Bingley in an armchair with his feet up on an occasional
table. He greeted me cordially enough, but with that touch of the
patronizing so noticeable at our two previous meetings.
'Ah, Wooster, my dear fellow, come in. I told Bastable to tell
everyone I was not at home, but of course you're different. Always
glad to see an old pal. And what can I do for you, Wooster?'
I had to say for him that he had made it easy for me to
introduce the subject I was anxious to discuss. I was about to get
going, when he asked me if I would like a drink. I said No, thanks,
and he said in an insufferably smug way that I was probably wise.
'I often thought, when I was staying with you at Chuffnell
Regis, that you drank too much, Wooster. Remember how you burned
that cottage down? A sober man wouldn't have done that. You must
have been stewed to the eyebrows, cocky.'
A hot denial trembled on my lips. I mean to say, it's a bit
thick to be chided for burning cottages down by the very chap who
put them to the flames. But I restrained myself. The man, I
reminded myself, had to be kept in with. If that was how he
remembered that night of terror at Chuffnell Regis, it was not for
me to destroy his illusions. I refrained from comment, and he asked
me if I would like a cigar. When I said I wouldn't, he nodded like
a father pleased with a favourite son.
'I am glad to see this improvement in you, Wooster. I always
thought you smoked too much. Moderation, moderation in all things,
that's the only way. But you were going to tell me why you came
here. Just for a chat about old times, was it?'
'It's with ref to that book you pinched from the Junior
Ganymede.'
He had been drinking a whisky-and-soda as I spoke, and he
drained his glass before replying.
'I wish you wouldn't use that word "pinch",' he said, looking
puff-faced. It was plain that I had given offence.
'I simply borrowed it because I needed it in my business.
They'll get it back all right.'
'Mrs McCorkadale told my aunt you tried to sell it to her.'
His annoyance increased. His air was that of a man compelled to
listen to a tactless oaf who persisted in saying the wrong thing.
'Not sell. I would have had a clause in the agreement saying
that she was to return it when she had done with it. The idea I had
in mind was that she would have photostatic copies made of the
pages dealing with young Winship without the book going out of my
possession. But the deal didn't come off. She wouldn't cooperate.
Fortunately I have other markets. It's the sort of property
there'll be a lot of people bidding for. But why are you so
interested, old man? Nothing to do with you, is it?'
'I'm a pal of Ginger Winship's.'
'And I've no objection to him myself. Nice enough young fellow
he always seemed to me, though the wrong size.'
'Wrong size?' I said, not getting this.
'His shirts didn't fit me. Not that I hold that against him.
These things are all a matter of luck. Don't run away with the idea
that I'm a man with a grievance, trying to get back at him for
something he did to me when I was staying at his place. Our
relations were very pleasant. I quite liked him, and if it didn't
matter to me one way or the other who won this election, I'd just
as soon he came out on top. But business is business. After
studying form I did some pretty heavy betting on McCorkadale, and
I've got to protect my investments, old man. That's only common
sense, isn't it?'
He paused, apparently expecting a round of applause for his
prudence. When I remained sotto voce and the silent tomb, he
proceeded.
'If you want to get along in this world, Wooster old chap,
you've got to grasp your opportunities. That's what I do. I examine
each situation that crops up, and I ask myself "What is there in
this for me? How," I ask myself, "can I handle this situation so as
to do Rupert Bingley a bit of good?", and it's not often I don't
find a way. This time I didn't even have to think. There was young
Winship trying to get into Parliament, and here was I standing to
win something like a couple of hundred quid if he lost the
election, and there was the club book with all the stuff in it
which would make it certain he did lose. I recognized it at once as
money for jam. The only problem was how to get the book, and I soon
solved that. I don't know if you noticed, that day we met at the
Junior Ganymede, that I had a large briefcase with me? And that I
said I'd got to see the secretary about something? Well, what I
wanted to see him about was borrowing the book. And I wouldn't have
to find some clever way of getting him looking the other way while
I did it, because I knew he'd be out to lunch. So I popped in,
popped the book in the briefcase and popped off. Nobody saw me go
in. Nobody saw me come out. The whole operation was like taking
candy from a kid.'
There are some stories which fill the man of sensibility with
horror, repugnance, abhorrence and disgust. I don't mean anecdotes
like the one Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright told me at the Drones, I am
referring to loathsome revelations such as the bit of autobiography
to which I had just been listening. To say that I felt as if the
Wooster soul had been spattered with mud by a passing car would not
be putting it at all too strongly. I also felt that nothing was to
be gained by continuing this distasteful interview. I had had some
idea of going into the possibility of Aunt Agatha reading the
contents of the club book and touching on the doom, desolation and
despair which must inevitably be my portion if she did, but I saw
that it would be fruitless or bootless. The man was without
something and pity ... ruth, would it be? I know it begins with r
... and would simply have given me the horse's laugh. I was now
quite certain that he had murdered his uncle and forged the will.
Such a performance to such a man would have been mere routine.
I turned, accordingly, to the door, but before I got there he
stopped me, wanting to know if when coming to stay with Aunt Dahlia
I had brought Reggie Jeeves with me. I said I had, and he said he
would like to see old Reggie again.
'What a cough drop!' he said mirthfully. The word was strange
to me, but weighing it and deciding that it was intended to be a
compliment and a tribute to his many gifts, I agreed that Jeeves
was in the deepest and truest sense a cough drop.
'Tell Bastable as you go out that if Reggie calls to send him
up. But nobody else.'
'Right ho.'
'Good man, Bastable. He places my bets for me. Which reminds
me. Have you done as I advised and put a bit on Ma McCorkadale for
the Market Snodsbury stakes? No? Do it without fail, Wooster old
man. You'll never regret it. It'll be like finding money in the
street.'
I wasn't feeling any too good as I drove away. I have described
my heart-bowed-down-ness on approaching the Arnold Abney study door
after morning prayers in the days when I was in statu pupillari, as
the expression is, and I was equally apprehensive now as I faced
the prospect of telling the old ancestor of my failure to deliver
the goods in the matter of Bingley. I didn't suppose that she would
give me six of the best, as A. Abney was so prone to do, but she
would certainly not hesitate to let me know she was displeased.
Aunts as a class are like Napoleon, if it was Napoleon; they expect
their orders to be carried out without a hitch and don't listen to
excuses.
Nor was I mistaken. After lunching at a pub in order to
postpone the meeting as long as possible, I returned to the old
homestead and made my report, and was unfortunate enough to make it
while she was engaged in reading a Rex Stout - in the hard cover,
not a paperback. When she threw this at me with the accurate aim
which years of practice have given her, its sharp edge took me on
the tip of the nose, making me blink not a little.
'I might have known you would mess the whole thing up,' she
boomed.
'Not my fault, aged relative,' I said. 'I did my best. Than
which,' I added, 'no man can do more.'
I thought I had her there, but I was wrong. It was the sort of
line which can generally be counted on to soothe the savage breast,
but this time it laid an egg. She snorted. Her snorts are not the
sniffing snorts snorted by Ma McCorkadale, they resemble more an
explosion in the larger type of ammunition dump and send strong men
rocking back on their heels as if struck by lightning.
'How do you mean you did your best? You don't seem to me to
have done anything. Did you threaten to have him arrested?'
'No, I didn't do that.'
'Did you grasp him by the throat and shake him like a rat?'
I admitted that that had not occurred to me.
'In other words, you did absolutely nothing,' she said, and
thinking it over I had to own that she was perfectly right. It's
funny how one doesn't notice these things at the time. It was only
now that I realized that I had let Bingley do all the talking, self
offering practically nil in the way of a come-back. I could hardly
have made less of a contribution to our conversation if I had been
the deaf adder I mentioned earlier.
She heaved herself up from the chaise longue on which she was
reclining. Her manner was peevish. In time, of course, she would
get over her chagrin and start loving her Bertram again as of yore,
but there was no getting away from it that an aunt's affection was,
as of even date, at its lowest ebb. She said gloomily:
'I'll have to do it myself.'
'Are you going to see Bingley?'
'I am going to see Bingley, and I am going to talk to Bingley,
and I am going, if necessary, to take Bingley by the throat and
shake him -'
'Like a rat?'
'Yes, like a rat,' she said with the quiet confidence of a
woman who had been shaking rats by the throat since she was a slip
of a girl. 'Five Ormond Crescent, here I come!'
It shows to what an extent happenings in and about Market
Snodsbury had affected my mental processes that she had been gone
at least ten minutes before the thought of Bastable floated into my
mind, and I wished I had been able to give her a word of warning.
That zealous employee of Rupert Bingley had been instructed to see
to it that no callers were admitted to the presence, and I saw no
reason to suppose that he would fail in his duty when the old
ancestor showed up. He would not use physical violence - indeed,
with a woman of her physique he would be unwise to attempt it - but
it would be the work of an instant with him not to ask her to step
this way, thus ensuring her departure with what Ma McCorkadale
would call a flea in her ear. I could see her returning in, say,
about a quarter of an hour a baffled and defeated woman.
I was right. It was some twenty minutes later, as I sat reading
the Rex Stout which she had used as a guided missile, that heavy
breathing became audible without and shortly afterwards she became
visible within, walking with the measured tread of a saint going
round St Paul's. A far less discerning eye than mine could have
spotted that she had been having Bastable trouble.
It would have been kinder, perhaps, not to have spoken, but it
was one of those occasions when you feel you have to say something.
'Any luck?' I enquired.
She sank on to the chaise longue, simmering gently. She punched
a cushion, and I could see she was wishing it could have been
Bastable. He was essentially the sort of man who asks, nay
clamours, to be treated in this manner.
'No,' she said. 'I couldn't get in.'
'Why was that?' I asked, wearing the mask.
'A beefy butler sort of bird slammed the door in my face.'
'Too bad.'
'And I was just too late to get my foot in.'
'Always necessary to work quick on these occasions. The most
precise timing is called for. Odd that he should have admitted me.
I suppose my air of quiet distinction was what turned the scale.
What did you do?'
'I came away. What else could I have done?'
'No, I can see how difficult it must have been.'
'The maddening part of it is that I was all set to try to get
that money out of L. P. Runkle this afternoon. I felt that today
was the day. But if my luck's out, as it seems to be, perhaps I had
better postpone it.'
'Not strike while the iron is hot?'
'It may not be hot enough.'
'Well, you're the judge. You know,' I said, getting back to the
main issue, 'the ambassador to conduct the negotiations with
Bingley is really Jeeves. It is he who should have been given the
assignment. Where I am speechless in Bingley's presence and you
can't even get into the house, he would be inside and talking a
blue streak before you could say What ho. And he has the added
advantage that Bingley seems fond of him. He thinks he's a cough
drop.'
'What on earth's a cough drop?'
'I don't know, but it's something Bingley admires. When he
spoke of him as one, it was with a genuine ring of enthusiasm in
his voice. Did you tell Jeeves about Bingley having the book?'
'Yes, I told him.'
'How did he take it?'
'You know how Jeeves takes things. One of his eyebrows rose a
little and he said he was shocked and astounded.'
'That's strong stuff for him. "Most disturbing" is as far as he
goes usually.'
'It's a curious thing,' said the aged relative thoughtfully.
'As I was driving off in the car I thought I saw Jeeves coming away
from Bingley's place. Though I couldn't be sure it was him.'
'It must have been. His first move on getting the low-down from
you about the book would be to go and see Bingley. I wonder if he's
back yet.'
'Not likely. I was driving, he was walking. There wouldn't be
time.'
'I'll ring for Seppings and ask. Oh, Seppings,' I said, when he
answered the bell, 'Is Jeeves downstairs?'
'No, sir. He went out and has not yet returned.'
'When he does, tell him to come and see me, will you.'
'Very good, sir.'
I thought of asking if Jeeves, when he left, had had the air of
a man going to no. 5 Ormond Crescent, but decided that this might
be trying Seppings too high, so let it go. He withdrew, and we sat
for some time talking about Jeeves. Then, feeling that this wasn't
going to get us anywhere and that nothing constructive could be
accomplished till he returned, we took up again the matter of L. P.
Runkle. At least, the aged relative took it up, and I put the
question I had been wanting to put at an earlier stage.
'You say,' I said, 'that you felt today was the day for
approaching him. What gave you that idea?'
'The way he tucked into his lunch and the way he talked about
it afterwards. Lyrical was the only word for it, and I wasn't
surprised. Anatole had surpassed himself.'
'The Supreme de Foie Gras au Champagne?'
'And the Neige aux Perles des Alpes.'
I heaved a silent sigh, thinking of what might have been. The
garbage I had had to insult the Wooster stomach with at the pub had
been of a particularly lethal nature. Generally these rural pubs
are all right in the matter of browsing, but I had been so
unfortunate as to pick one run by a branch of the Borgia family.
The thought occurred to me as I ate that if Bingley had given his
uncle lunch there one day, he wouldn't have had to go to all the
bother and expense of buying little-known Asiatic poisons.
I would have told the old relative this, hoping for sympathy,
but at this moment the door opened, and in came Jeeves. Opening the
conversation with that gentle cough of his that sounds like a very
old sheep clearing its throat on a misty mountain top, he said:
'You wished to see me, sir?'
He couldn't have had a warmer welcome if he had been the
prodigal son whose life story I had had to bone up when I won that
Scripture Knowledge prize. The welkin, what there was of it in the
drawing-room, rang with our excited yappings.
'Come in, Jeeves,' bellowed the aged relative.
'Yes, come in, Jeeves, come in,' I cried. 'We were waiting for
you with ... with what?'
'Bated breath,' said the ancestor.
'That's right. With bated breath and -'
'Tense, quivering nerves. Not to mention twitching muscles and
bitten finger nails. Tell me, Jeeves, was that you I saw coming
away from 5 Ormond Crescent about an hour ago?'
'Yes, madam.'
'You had been seeing Bingley?'
'Yes, madam.'
'About the book?'
'Yes, madam.'
'Did you tell him he had jolly well got to return it?'
'No, madam.'
'Then why on earth did you go to see him?'
'To obtain the book, madam.'
'But you said you didn't tell him -'
'There was no necessity to broach the subject, madam. He had
not yet recovered consciousness. If I might explain. On my arrival
at his residence he offered me a drink, which I accepted. He took
one himself. We talked for awhile of this and that. Then I
succeeded in diverting his attention for a moment, and while his
scrutiny was elsewhere I was able to insert a chemical substance in
his beverage which had the effect of rendering him temporarily
insensible. I thus had ample time to make a search of the room. I
had assumed that he would be keeping the book there, and I had not
been in error. It was in a lower drawer of the desk. I secured it,
and took my departure.'
Stunned by this latest revelation of his efficiency and do-it-
yourself-ness, I was unable to utter, but the old ancestor gave the
sort of cry or yowl which must have rung over many a hunting field,
causing members of the Quorn and the Pytchley to leap in their
saddles like Mexican jumping beans.
'You mean you slipped him a Mickey Finn?'
'I believe that is what they are termed in the argot, madam.'
'Do you always carry them about with you?'
'I am seldom without a small supply, madam.'
'Never know when they won't come in handy, eh?'
'Precisely, madam. Opportunities for their use are constantly
arising.'
'Well, I can only say thank you. You have snatched victory from
the jaws of defeat.'
'It is kind of you to say so, madam.'
'Much obliged, Jeeves.'
'Not at all, madam.'
I was expecting the aged relative to turn to me at this point
and tick me off for not having had the sense to give Bingley a
Mickey Finn myself, and I knew, for you cannot reason with aunts,
that it would be no use pleading that I hadn't got any; but her
jocund mood caused her to abstain. Returning to the subject of L.
P. Runkle, she said this had made her realize that her luck was in,
after all, and she was going to press it.
'I'll go and see him now,' she yipped, 'and I confidently
expect to play on him as on a stringed instrument. Out of my way,
young Bertie,' she cried, heading for the door, 'or I'll trample
you to the dust. Yoicks!' she added, reverting to the patois of the
old hunting days. 'Tally ho! Gone away! Hark forrard!'
Or words to that effect.
Her departure - at, I should estimate, some sixty m.p.h. - left
behind it the sort of quivering stillness you get during hurricane
may not be a close thing, but Ginger ought to win all right. He has
a secret weapon.'
'Repeat that, if you wouldn't mind. I don't think I got it.'
'Ginger defies competition because he has a secret weapon.'
'Which is?'
'Spode.'
'Spode?'
'My lord Sidcup. Have you ever heard him speak?'
'I did just now.'
'In public, fool.'
'Oh, in public. No, I haven't.'
'He's a terrific orator, as I told you, only you've probably
forgotten.'
This seemed likely enough to me. Spode at one time had been one
of those Dictators, going about at the head of a band of supporters
in footer shorts shouting 'Heil Spode', and to succeed in that line
you have to be able to make speeches.
'You aren't fond of him, nor am I, but nobody can deny that
he's eloquent. Audiences hang on his every word, and when he's
finished cheer him to the echo.'
I nodded. I had had the same experience myself when singing
'The Yeoman's Wedding Song' at village concerts. Two or three
encores sometimes, even when I blew up in the words and had to fill
in with 'Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, I hurry along'. I began
to feel easier in my mind. I told her this, and she said 'Your
what?'
'You have put new heart into me, old blood relation,' I said,
ignoring the crack. 'You see, it means everything to him to win
this election.'
'Is he so bent on representing Market Snodsbury in the
Westminster menagerie?'
'It isn't that so much. Left to himself, I imagine he could
take Parliament or leave it alone. But he thinks Florence will give
him the bum's rush if he loses.'
'He's probably right. She can't stand a loser.'
'So he told me. Remember what happened to Percy Gorringe.'
'And others. England is strewn with ex-fiances whom she bounced
because they didn't come up to her specifications. Dozens of them.
I believe they form clubs and societies.'
'Perhaps calling themselves the Old Florentians.'
'And having an annual dinner!'
We mused on Florence for awhile; then she said she ought to be
going to confer with Anatole about dinner tonight, urging him to
dish up something special. It was vital, she said, that he should
excel his always high standard.
'I was speaking, just now, when you interrupted me and turned
my thoughts to the name Wilberforce, of L. P. Runkle.'
'You said you had an idea he might be going to cooperate.'
'Exactly. Have you ever seen a python after a series of hearty
meals?'
'Not to my knowledge.'
'It gets all softened up. It becomes a kindlier, gentler, more
lovable python. And if I am not greatly mistaken, the same thing is
happening to L. P. Runkle as the result of Anatole's cooking. You
saw him at dinner last night.'
'Sorry, no, I wasn't looking. Every fibre of my being was
concentrated on the foodstuffs. He would have repaid inspection,
would he? Worth seeing, eh?'
'He was positively beaming. He was too busy to utter, but it
was plain that he had become all amiability and benevolence. He had
the air of a man who would start scattering largesse if given a
word of encouragement. It is for Anatole to see to it that this
Christmas spirit does not evaporate but comes more and more to the
boil. And I know that I can rely on him.'
'Good old Anatole,' I said, lighting a cigarette.
'Amen,' said the ancestor reverently; then, touching on another
subject, 'Take that foul cigarette outside, you young hellhound. It
smells like an escape of sewer gas.'
Always glad to indulge her lightest whim, I passed through the
French window, in a far different mood from that in which I had
entered the room. Optimism now reigned in the Wooster bosom.
Ginger, I told myself, was going to be all right, Tuppy was going
to be all right, and it would not be long before the laughing love
god straightened things out between Madeline and Spode, even if he
had talked out of turn about stars and daisy chains.
Having finished the gasper, I was about to return and resume
conversation with the aged relative, when from within there came
the voice of Seppings, now apparently restored to health, and what
he was saying froze me in every limb. I couldn't have become
stiffer if I had been Lot's wife, whose painful story I had had to
read up when I won that Scripture Knowledge prize.
What he was saying ran as follows:
'Mrs McCorkadale, madam.'
Leaning against the side of the house, I breathed rather in the
manner copyrighted by the hart which pants for cooling streams when
heated in the chase. The realization of how narrowly I had missed
having to mingle again with this blockbusting female barrister kept
me Lot's-wifed for what seemed an hour or so, though I suppose it
can't have been more than a few seconds. Then gradually I ceased to
be a pillar of salt and was able to concentrate on finding out what
on earth Ma McCorkadale's motive was in paying us this visit. The
last place, I mean to say, where you would have expected to find
her. Considering how she stood in regard to Ginger, it was as if
Napoleon had dropped in for a chat with Wellington on the eve of
Waterloo.
I have had occasion to mention earlier the advantages as a
listening-post afforded by the just-outside-the-French-window spot
where I was standing. Invisible to those within, I could take in
all they were saying, as I had done with Spode and L. P. Runkle.
Both had come through loud and clear, and neither had had a notion
that Bertram Wooster was on the outskirts, hearing all.
As I could hardly step in and ask her to repeat any of her
remarks which I didn't quite catch, it was fortunate that the
McCorkadale's voice was so robust, while Aunt Dahlia's, of course,
would be audible if you were at Hyde Park Corner and she in
Piccadilly Circus. I have often thought that the deaf adder I read
about when I won my Scripture Knowledge prize would have got the
message right enough if the aged relative had been one of the
charmers. I was able to continue leaning against the side of the
house in full confidence that I shouldn't miss a syllable of either
protagonist's words.
The proceedings started with a couple of Good mornings, Aunt
Dahlia's the equivalent of 'What the hell?', and then the
McCorkadale, as if aware that it was up to her to offer a word of
explanation, said she had called to see Mr Winship on a matter of
great importance.
'Is he in?'
Here was a chance for the ancestor to get one up by retorting
that he jolly well would be after the votes had been counted, but
she let it go, merely saying No, he had gone out, and the
McCorkadale said she was sorry.
'I would have preferred to see him in person, but you, I take
it, are his hostess, so I can tell you and you will tell him.'
This seemed fair enough to me, and I remember thinking that
these barristers put things well, but it appeared to annoy the aged
relative.
'I am afraid I do not understand you,' she said, and I knew she
was getting steamed up, for if she had been her calm self, she
would have said 'Sorry, I don't get you.'
'If you will allow me to explain. I can do so in a few simple
words. I have just had a visit from a slimy slinking slug.'
I drew myself up haughtily. Not much good, of course, in the
circs, but the gesture seemed called for. One does not object to
fair criticism, but this was mere abuse. I could think of nothing
in our relations which justified such a description of me. My views
on barristers and their way of putting things changed sharply.
Whether or not Aunt Dahlia bridled, as the expression is, I
couldn't say, but I think she must have done, for her next words
were straight from the deep freeze.
'Are you referring to my nephew Bertram Wooster?'
The McCorkadale did much to remove the bad impression her
previous words had made on me. She said her caller had not given
his name, but she was sure he could not have been Mrs Travers's
nephew.
'He was a very common man,' she said, and with the quickness
which is so characteristic of me I suddenly got on to it that she
must be alluding to Bingley, who had been ushered into her presence
immediately after I had left. I could understand her applying those
derogatory adjectives to Bingley. And the noun slug, just right.
Once again I found myself thinking how well barristers put things.
The old ancestor, too, appeared - what's the word beginning
with m and meaning less hot under the collar? Mollified, that's it.
The suggestion that she could not have a nephew capable of being
described as a common man mollified her. I don't say that even now
she would have asked Ma McCorkadale to come on a long walking tour
with her, but her voice was definitely matier.
'Why do you call him a slug?' she asked, and the McCorkadale
had her answer to that.
'For the same reason that I call a spade a spade, because it is
the best way of conveying a verbal image of him. He made me a
disgraceful proposition.'
'WHAT?' said Aunt Dahlia rather tactlessly.
I could understand her being surprised. It was difficult to
envisage a man so eager to collect girl friends as to make
disgraceful propositions to Mrs McCorkadale. It amazed me that
Bingley could have done it. I had never liked him, but I must
confess to a certain admiration for his temerity. Our humble
heroes, I felt.
'You're pulling my leg,' said the aged relative.
The McCorkadale came back at her briskly.
'I am doing nothing of the kind. I am telling you precisely
what occurred. I was in my drawing-room going over the speech I
have prepared for the debate tomorrow, when I was interrupted by
the incursion of this man. Naturally annoyed, I asked him what his
business was, and he said with a most offensive leer that he was
Father Christmas bringing me manna in the wilderness and tidings of
great joy. I was about to ring the bell to have him shown out, for
of course I assumed that he was intoxicated, when he made me this
extraordinary proposition. He had contrived to obtain information
to the detriment of my opponent, and this he wished to sell to me.
He said it would make my victory in the election certain. It would,
as he phrased it, 'be a snip'.
I stirred on my base. If I hadn't been afraid I might be
overheard, I would have said 'Aha!' Had circs been other than they
were, I would have stepped into the room, tapped the ancestor on
the shoulder and said 'Didn't I tell you Bingley had information?
Perhaps another time you'll believe me'. But as this would have
involved renewing my acquaintance with a woman of whom I had
already seen sufficient to last a lifetime, it was not within the
sphere of practical politics. I remained, accordingly, where I was,
merely hitching my ears up another couple of notches in order not
to miss the rest of the dialogue.
After the ancestor had said 'For heaven's sake!' or 'Gorblimey'
or whatever it was, indicating that her visitor's story interested
her strongly, the McCorkadale resumed. And what she resumed about
unquestionably put the frosting on the cake. Words of doom is the
only way I can think of to describe the words she spoke as.
'The man, it appeared, was a retired valet, and he belonged to
a club for butlers and valets in London, one of the rules of which
was that all members were obliged to record in the club book
information about their employers. My visitor explained that he had
been at one time in the employment of Mr Winship and had duly
recorded a number of the latter's escapades which if made public,
would be certain to make the worst impression on the voters of
Market Snodsbury.'
This surprised me. I hadn't had a notion that Bingley had ever
worked for Ginger. It just shows the truth of the old saying that
half the world doesn't know how the other three-quarters live.
'He then told me without a blush of shame that on his latest
visit to London he had purloined this book and now had it in his
possession.'
I gasped with horror. I don't know why, but the thought that
Bingley must have been pinching the thing at the very moment when
Jeeves and I were sipping our snootfuls in the next room seemed to
make it so particularly poignant. Not that it wouldn't have been
pretty poignant anyway. For years I had been haunted by the fear
that the Junior Ganymede club book, with all the dynamite it
contained, would get into the wrong hands, and the hands it had got
into couldn't have been more the sort of hands you would have
wished it hadn't. I don't know if I make myself clear, but what I'm
driving at is that if I had been picking a degraded character to
get away with that book, Bingley was the last character I would
have picked. I remember Jeeves speaking of someone who was fit for
treasons, stratagems and spoils, and that was Bingley all over. The
man was wholly without finer feelings, and when you come up against
someone without finer feelings, you've had it.
The aged relative was not blind to the drama of the situation.
She uttered an awed 'Lord love a duck!', and the McCorkadale said
she might well say 'Lord love a duck', though it was not an
expression she would have used herself.
'What did you do?' the ancestor asked, all agog, and the
McCorkadale gave that sniffing snort of hers. It was partly like an
escape of steam and partly like two or three cats unexpectedly
encountering two or three dogs, with just a suggestion of a cobra
waking up cross in the morning. I wondered how it had affected the
late Mr McCorkadale. Probably made him feel that there are worse
things than being run over by a municipal tram.
'I sent him away with a flea in his ear. I pride myself on
being a fair fighter, and his proposition revolted me. If you want
to have him arrested, though I am afraid I cannot see how it can be
done, he lives at 5 Ormond Crescent. He appears to have asked my
maid to look in and see his etchings on her afternoon off, and he
gave her his address. But, as I say, there would seem not to be
sufficient evidence for an arrest. Our conversation was without
witnesses, and he would simply have to deny possession of the book.
A pity. I would have enjoyed seeing a man like that hanged, drawn
and quartered.'
She snorted again, and the ancestor, who always knows what the
book of etiquette would advise, came across with the soothing
syrup. She said Ma McCorkadale deserved a medal.
'Not at all.'
'It was splendid of you to turn the man down.'
'As I said, I am a fair fighter.'
'Apart from your revulsion at his proposition, it must have
been very annoying for you to be interrupted when you were working
on your speech.'
'Especially as a few moments before this person appeared I had
been interrupted by an extraordinary young man who gave me the
impression of being half-witted.'
'That would have been my nephew, Bertram Wooster.'
'Oh, I beg your pardon.'
'Quite all right.'
'I may have formed a wrong estimate of his mentality. Our
interview was very brief. I just thought it odd that he should be
trying to persuade me to vote for my opponent.'
'It's the sort of thing that would seem a bright idea to
Bertie. He's like that. Whimsical. Moving in a mysterious way his
wonders to perform. But he ought not to have butted in when you
were busy with your speech. Is it coming out well?'
'I am satisfied with it.'
'Good for you. I suppose you're looking forward to the debate?'
'Very keenly. I am greatly in favour of it. It simplifies
things so much if the two opponents face one another on the same
platform and give the voters a chance to compare their views.
Provided, of course, that both observe the decencies of debate. But
I really must be getting back to my work.'
'Just a moment.' No doubt it was the word 'observe' that had
rung a bell with the ancestor. 'Do you do the Observer crossword
puzzle by any chance?'
'I solve it at breakfast on Sunday mornings.'
'Not the whole lot?'
'Oh yes.'
'Every clue?'
'I have never failed yet. I find it ridiculously simple.'
'Then what's all that song and dance about the measured tread
of saints round St Paul's?'
'Oh, I guessed that immediately. The answer, of course, is
pedometer. You measure tread with a pedometer. Dome, meaning St
Paul's, comes in the middle and Peter, for St Peter, round it. Very
simple.'
'Oh, very. Well, thank you. You have taken a great weight off
my mind,' said Aunt Dahlia, and they parted in complete amity, a
thing I wouldn't have thought possible when Ma McCorkadale was one
of the parters.
For perhaps a quarter of a minute after I had rejoined the
human herd, as represented by my late father's sister Dahlia, I
wasn't able to get a word in, the old ancestor being fully occupied
with saying what she thought of the compiler of the Observer
crossword puzzle, with particular reference to domes and
pedometers. And when she had said her say on that subject she
embarked on a rueful tribute to the McCorkadale, giving it as her
opinion that against a woman with a brain like that Ginger hadn't
the meagre chance of a toupee in a high wind. Though, she added in
more hopeful vein, now that the menace of the Ganymede Club book
had been squashed there was just a possibility that the eloquence
of Spode might get his nose in front.
All this while I had been trying to cut in with my opening
remark, which was to the effect that the current situation was a
bit above the odds, but it was only when I had repeated this for
the third time that I succeeded in obtaining her attention.
'This is a bit thick, what,' I said, varying my approach
slightly.
She seemed surprised as if the idea had not occurred to her.
'Thick?'
'Well, isn't it?'
'Why? If you were listening, you heard her say that, being a
fair fighter, she had scorned the tempter and sent him away with a
flea in his ear, which must be a most uncomfortable thing to have.
Bingley was baffled.'
'Only for the nonce.'
'Nonsense.'
'Not nonsense, nonce, which isn't at all the same thing. I feel
that Bingley, though crushed to earth, will rise again. How about
if he sells that book with all its ghastly contents to the Market
Snodsbury Argus-Reminder?'
I was alluding to the powerful bi-weekly sheet which falls over
itself in its efforts to do down the Conservative cause, omitting
no word or act to make anyone with Conservative leanings feel like
a piece of cheese. Coming out every Wednesday and Saturday with
proofs of Ginger's past, I did not see how it could fail to give
his candidature the sleeve across the windpipe.
I put this to the old blood relation in no uncertain terms. I
might have added that that would wipe the silly smile off her face,
but there was no necessity. She saw at once that I spoke sooth, and
a crisp hunting-field expletive escaped her. She goggled at me with
all the open dismay of an aunt who has inadvertently bitten into a
bad oyster.
'I never thought of that!'
'Give it your attention now.'
'Those Argus-Reminder hounds stick at nothing.'
'The sky is notoriously their limit.'
'Did you tell me Ginger had done time?'
'I said he was always in the hands of the police on Boat Race
night. And, of course, on Rugger night.'
'What's Rugger night?'
'The night of the annual Rugby football encounter between the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Many blithe spirits get even
more effervescent then than when celebrating the Boat Race. Ginger
was one of them.'
'He really got jugged?'
'Invariably. His practice of pinching policemen's helmets
ensured this. Released next morning on payment of a fine, but
definitely after spending the night in a dungeon cell.'
There was no doubt that I had impressed on her the gravity of
the situation. She gave a sharp cry like that of a stepped-on
dachshund, and her face took on the purple tinge it always assumes
in moments of strong emotion.
'This does it!'
'Fairly serious, I agree.'
'Fairly serious! The merest whisper of such goings-on will be
enough to alienate every voter in the town. Ginger's done for.'
'You don't think they might excuse him because his blood was
young at the time?'
'Not a hope. They won't be worrying about his ruddy blood. You
don't know what these blighters here are like. Most of them are
chapel folk with a moral code that would have struck Torquemada as
too rigid.'
'Torquemada?'
'The Spanish Inquisition man.'
'Oh, that Torquemada.'
'How many Torquemadas did you think there were?'
I admitted that it was not a common name, and she carried on.
'We must act!'
'But how?'
'Or, rather, you must act. You must go to this man and reason
with him.'
I h'med a bit at this. I doubted whether a fellow with
Bingley's lust for gold would listen to reason.
'What shall I say?'
'You'll know what to say.'
'Oh, shall I?'
'Appeal to his better instincts.'
'He hasn't got any.'
'Now don't make difficulties, Bertie. That's your besetting
sin, always arguing. You want to help Ginger, don't you?'
'Of course I do.'
'Very well, then.'
When an aunt has set her mind on a thing, it's no use trying to
put in a nolle prosequi. I turned to the door.
Half-way there a thought occurred to me. I said:
'How about Jeeves?'
'What about him?'
'We ought to spare his feelings as far as possible. I
repeatedly warned him that that club book was high-level explosive
and ought not to be in existence. What if it fell into the wrong
hands, I said, and he said it couldn't possibly fall into the wrong
hands. And now it has fallen into about the wrongest hands it could
have fallen into. I haven't the heart to say "I told you so" and
watch him writhe with shame and confusion. You see, up till now
Jeeves has always been right. His agony on finding that he has at
last made a floater will be frightful. I shouldn't wonder if he
might not swoon. I can't face him. You'll have to tell him.'
'Yes, I'll do it.'
'Try to break it gently.'
'I will. When you were listening outside, did you get this man
Bingley's address?'
'I got it.'
'Then off you go.'
So off I went.
Considering how shaky was his moral outlook and how marked his
tendency to weave low plots at the drop of a hat, you would have
expected Bingley's headquarters to have been one of those sinister
underground dens lit by stumps of candles stuck in the mouths of
empty beer bottles such as abound, I believe, in places like
Whitechapel and Limehouse. But no. Number 5 Ormond Crescent turned
out to be quite an expensive-looking joint with a nice little bit
of garden in front of it well supplied with geraniums, bird baths
and terracotta gnomes, the sort of establishment that might have
belonged to a blameless retired Colonel or a saintly stockbroker.
Evidently his late uncle hadn't been just an ordinary small town
grocer, weighing out potted meats and raisins to a public that had
to watch the pennies, but something on a much more impressive
scale. I learned later that he had owned a chain of shops, one of
them as far afield as Birmingham, and why the ass had gone and left
his money to a chap like Bingley is more than I can tell you,
though the probability is that Bingley, before bumping him off with
some little-known Asiatic poison, had taken the precaution of
forging the will.
On the threshold I paused. I remember in my early days at the
private school where I won my Scripture Knowledge prize, Arnold
Abney MA, the headmaster, would sometimes announce that he wished
to see Wooster in his study after morning prayers, and I always
halted at the study door, a prey to uneasiness and apprehension,
not liking the shape of things to come. It was much the same now. I
shrank from the impending interview. But whereas in the case of A.
Abney my disinclination to get things moving had been due to the
fear that the proceedings were going to lead up to six of the best
from a cane that stung like an adder, with Bingley it was a natural
reluctance to ask a favour of a fellow I couldn't stand the sight
of. I wouldn't say the Woosters were particularly proud, but we do
rather jib at having to grovel to the scum of the earth.
However, it had to be done, and, as I heard Jeeves say once, if
it were done, then 'twere well 'twere done quickly. Stiffening the
sinews and summoning up the blood, to quote another his gags, I
pressed the bell.
If I had any doubts as to Bingley now being in the chips, the
sight of the butler who opened the door would have dispelled them.
In assembling his domestic staff, Bingley had done himself proud,
sparing no expense. I don't say his butler was quite in the class
of Jeeves's Uncle Charlie Silversmith, but he came so near it that
the breath was taken. And like Uncle Charlie he believed in pomp
and ceremony when buttling. I asked him if I could see Mr Bingley,
and he said coldly that the master was not receiving.
'I think he'll see me. I'm an old friend of his.'
'I will enquire. Your name, sir?'
'Mr Wooster.'
He pushed off, to return some moments later to say that Mr
Bingley would be glad if I would join him in the library. Speaking
in what seemed to me a disapproving voice, as though to suggest
that, while he was compelled to carry out the master's orders
however eccentric, he would never have admitted a chap like me if
it had been left to him.
'If you would step this way, sir,' he said haughtily.
What with one thing and another I had rather got out of touch
lately with that If-you-would-step-this-way-sir stuff, and it was
in a somewhat rattled frame of mind that I entered the library and
found Bingley in an armchair with his feet up on an occasional
table. He greeted me cordially enough, but with that touch of the
patronizing so noticeable at our two previous meetings.
'Ah, Wooster, my dear fellow, come in. I told Bastable to tell
everyone I was not at home, but of course you're different. Always
glad to see an old pal. And what can I do for you, Wooster?'
I had to say for him that he had made it easy for me to
introduce the subject I was anxious to discuss. I was about to get
going, when he asked me if I would like a drink. I said No, thanks,
and he said in an insufferably smug way that I was probably wise.
'I often thought, when I was staying with you at Chuffnell
Regis, that you drank too much, Wooster. Remember how you burned
that cottage down? A sober man wouldn't have done that. You must
have been stewed to the eyebrows, cocky.'
A hot denial trembled on my lips. I mean to say, it's a bit
thick to be chided for burning cottages down by the very chap who
put them to the flames. But I restrained myself. The man, I
reminded myself, had to be kept in with. If that was how he
remembered that night of terror at Chuffnell Regis, it was not for
me to destroy his illusions. I refrained from comment, and he asked
me if I would like a cigar. When I said I wouldn't, he nodded like
a father pleased with a favourite son.
'I am glad to see this improvement in you, Wooster. I always
thought you smoked too much. Moderation, moderation in all things,
that's the only way. But you were going to tell me why you came
here. Just for a chat about old times, was it?'
'It's with ref to that book you pinched from the Junior
Ganymede.'
He had been drinking a whisky-and-soda as I spoke, and he
drained his glass before replying.
'I wish you wouldn't use that word "pinch",' he said, looking
puff-faced. It was plain that I had given offence.
'I simply borrowed it because I needed it in my business.
They'll get it back all right.'
'Mrs McCorkadale told my aunt you tried to sell it to her.'
His annoyance increased. His air was that of a man compelled to
listen to a tactless oaf who persisted in saying the wrong thing.
'Not sell. I would have had a clause in the agreement saying
that she was to return it when she had done with it. The idea I had
in mind was that she would have photostatic copies made of the
pages dealing with young Winship without the book going out of my
possession. But the deal didn't come off. She wouldn't cooperate.
Fortunately I have other markets. It's the sort of property
there'll be a lot of people bidding for. But why are you so
interested, old man? Nothing to do with you, is it?'
'I'm a pal of Ginger Winship's.'
'And I've no objection to him myself. Nice enough young fellow
he always seemed to me, though the wrong size.'
'Wrong size?' I said, not getting this.
'His shirts didn't fit me. Not that I hold that against him.
These things are all a matter of luck. Don't run away with the idea
that I'm a man with a grievance, trying to get back at him for
something he did to me when I was staying at his place. Our
relations were very pleasant. I quite liked him, and if it didn't
matter to me one way or the other who won this election, I'd just
as soon he came out on top. But business is business. After
studying form I did some pretty heavy betting on McCorkadale, and
I've got to protect my investments, old man. That's only common
sense, isn't it?'
He paused, apparently expecting a round of applause for his
prudence. When I remained sotto voce and the silent tomb, he
proceeded.
'If you want to get along in this world, Wooster old chap,
you've got to grasp your opportunities. That's what I do. I examine
each situation that crops up, and I ask myself "What is there in
this for me? How," I ask myself, "can I handle this situation so as
to do Rupert Bingley a bit of good?", and it's not often I don't
find a way. This time I didn't even have to think. There was young
Winship trying to get into Parliament, and here was I standing to
win something like a couple of hundred quid if he lost the
election, and there was the club book with all the stuff in it
which would make it certain he did lose. I recognized it at once as
money for jam. The only problem was how to get the book, and I soon
solved that. I don't know if you noticed, that day we met at the
Junior Ganymede, that I had a large briefcase with me? And that I
said I'd got to see the secretary about something? Well, what I
wanted to see him about was borrowing the book. And I wouldn't have
to find some clever way of getting him looking the other way while
I did it, because I knew he'd be out to lunch. So I popped in,
popped the book in the briefcase and popped off. Nobody saw me go
in. Nobody saw me come out. The whole operation was like taking
candy from a kid.'
There are some stories which fill the man of sensibility with
horror, repugnance, abhorrence and disgust. I don't mean anecdotes
like the one Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright told me at the Drones, I am
referring to loathsome revelations such as the bit of autobiography
to which I had just been listening. To say that I felt as if the
Wooster soul had been spattered with mud by a passing car would not
be putting it at all too strongly. I also felt that nothing was to
be gained by continuing this distasteful interview. I had had some
idea of going into the possibility of Aunt Agatha reading the
contents of the club book and touching on the doom, desolation and
despair which must inevitably be my portion if she did, but I saw
that it would be fruitless or bootless. The man was without
something and pity ... ruth, would it be? I know it begins with r
... and would simply have given me the horse's laugh. I was now
quite certain that he had murdered his uncle and forged the will.
Such a performance to such a man would have been mere routine.
I turned, accordingly, to the door, but before I got there he
stopped me, wanting to know if when coming to stay with Aunt Dahlia
I had brought Reggie Jeeves with me. I said I had, and he said he
would like to see old Reggie again.
'What a cough drop!' he said mirthfully. The word was strange
to me, but weighing it and deciding that it was intended to be a
compliment and a tribute to his many gifts, I agreed that Jeeves
was in the deepest and truest sense a cough drop.
'Tell Bastable as you go out that if Reggie calls to send him
up. But nobody else.'
'Right ho.'
'Good man, Bastable. He places my bets for me. Which reminds
me. Have you done as I advised and put a bit on Ma McCorkadale for
the Market Snodsbury stakes? No? Do it without fail, Wooster old
man. You'll never regret it. It'll be like finding money in the
street.'
I wasn't feeling any too good as I drove away. I have described
my heart-bowed-down-ness on approaching the Arnold Abney study door
after morning prayers in the days when I was in statu pupillari, as
the expression is, and I was equally apprehensive now as I faced
the prospect of telling the old ancestor of my failure to deliver
the goods in the matter of Bingley. I didn't suppose that she would
give me six of the best, as A. Abney was so prone to do, but she
would certainly not hesitate to let me know she was displeased.
Aunts as a class are like Napoleon, if it was Napoleon; they expect
their orders to be carried out without a hitch and don't listen to
excuses.
Nor was I mistaken. After lunching at a pub in order to
postpone the meeting as long as possible, I returned to the old
homestead and made my report, and was unfortunate enough to make it
while she was engaged in reading a Rex Stout - in the hard cover,
not a paperback. When she threw this at me with the accurate aim
which years of practice have given her, its sharp edge took me on
the tip of the nose, making me blink not a little.
'I might have known you would mess the whole thing up,' she
boomed.
'Not my fault, aged relative,' I said. 'I did my best. Than
which,' I added, 'no man can do more.'
I thought I had her there, but I was wrong. It was the sort of
line which can generally be counted on to soothe the savage breast,
but this time it laid an egg. She snorted. Her snorts are not the
sniffing snorts snorted by Ma McCorkadale, they resemble more an
explosion in the larger type of ammunition dump and send strong men
rocking back on their heels as if struck by lightning.
'How do you mean you did your best? You don't seem to me to
have done anything. Did you threaten to have him arrested?'
'No, I didn't do that.'
'Did you grasp him by the throat and shake him like a rat?'
I admitted that that had not occurred to me.
'In other words, you did absolutely nothing,' she said, and
thinking it over I had to own that she was perfectly right. It's
funny how one doesn't notice these things at the time. It was only
now that I realized that I had let Bingley do all the talking, self
offering practically nil in the way of a come-back. I could hardly
have made less of a contribution to our conversation if I had been
the deaf adder I mentioned earlier.
She heaved herself up from the chaise longue on which she was
reclining. Her manner was peevish. In time, of course, she would
get over her chagrin and start loving her Bertram again as of yore,
but there was no getting away from it that an aunt's affection was,
as of even date, at its lowest ebb. She said gloomily:
'I'll have to do it myself.'
'Are you going to see Bingley?'
'I am going to see Bingley, and I am going to talk to Bingley,
and I am going, if necessary, to take Bingley by the throat and
shake him -'
'Like a rat?'
'Yes, like a rat,' she said with the quiet confidence of a
woman who had been shaking rats by the throat since she was a slip
of a girl. 'Five Ormond Crescent, here I come!'
It shows to what an extent happenings in and about Market
Snodsbury had affected my mental processes that she had been gone
at least ten minutes before the thought of Bastable floated into my
mind, and I wished I had been able to give her a word of warning.
That zealous employee of Rupert Bingley had been instructed to see
to it that no callers were admitted to the presence, and I saw no
reason to suppose that he would fail in his duty when the old
ancestor showed up. He would not use physical violence - indeed,
with a woman of her physique he would be unwise to attempt it - but
it would be the work of an instant with him not to ask her to step
this way, thus ensuring her departure with what Ma McCorkadale
would call a flea in her ear. I could see her returning in, say,
about a quarter of an hour a baffled and defeated woman.
I was right. It was some twenty minutes later, as I sat reading
the Rex Stout which she had used as a guided missile, that heavy
breathing became audible without and shortly afterwards she became
visible within, walking with the measured tread of a saint going
round St Paul's. A far less discerning eye than mine could have
spotted that she had been having Bastable trouble.
It would have been kinder, perhaps, not to have spoken, but it
was one of those occasions when you feel you have to say something.
'Any luck?' I enquired.
She sank on to the chaise longue, simmering gently. She punched
a cushion, and I could see she was wishing it could have been
Bastable. He was essentially the sort of man who asks, nay
clamours, to be treated in this manner.
'No,' she said. 'I couldn't get in.'
'Why was that?' I asked, wearing the mask.
'A beefy butler sort of bird slammed the door in my face.'
'Too bad.'
'And I was just too late to get my foot in.'
'Always necessary to work quick on these occasions. The most
precise timing is called for. Odd that he should have admitted me.
I suppose my air of quiet distinction was what turned the scale.
What did you do?'
'I came away. What else could I have done?'
'No, I can see how difficult it must have been.'
'The maddening part of it is that I was all set to try to get
that money out of L. P. Runkle this afternoon. I felt that today
was the day. But if my luck's out, as it seems to be, perhaps I had
better postpone it.'
'Not strike while the iron is hot?'
'It may not be hot enough.'
'Well, you're the judge. You know,' I said, getting back to the
main issue, 'the ambassador to conduct the negotiations with
Bingley is really Jeeves. It is he who should have been given the
assignment. Where I am speechless in Bingley's presence and you
can't even get into the house, he would be inside and talking a
blue streak before you could say What ho. And he has the added
advantage that Bingley seems fond of him. He thinks he's a cough
drop.'
'What on earth's a cough drop?'
'I don't know, but it's something Bingley admires. When he
spoke of him as one, it was with a genuine ring of enthusiasm in
his voice. Did you tell Jeeves about Bingley having the book?'
'Yes, I told him.'
'How did he take it?'
'You know how Jeeves takes things. One of his eyebrows rose a
little and he said he was shocked and astounded.'
'That's strong stuff for him. "Most disturbing" is as far as he
goes usually.'
'It's a curious thing,' said the aged relative thoughtfully.
'As I was driving off in the car I thought I saw Jeeves coming away
from Bingley's place. Though I couldn't be sure it was him.'
'It must have been. His first move on getting the low-down from
you about the book would be to go and see Bingley. I wonder if he's
back yet.'
'Not likely. I was driving, he was walking. There wouldn't be
time.'
'I'll ring for Seppings and ask. Oh, Seppings,' I said, when he
answered the bell, 'Is Jeeves downstairs?'
'No, sir. He went out and has not yet returned.'
'When he does, tell him to come and see me, will you.'
'Very good, sir.'
I thought of asking if Jeeves, when he left, had had the air of
a man going to no. 5 Ormond Crescent, but decided that this might
be trying Seppings too high, so let it go. He withdrew, and we sat
for some time talking about Jeeves. Then, feeling that this wasn't
going to get us anywhere and that nothing constructive could be
accomplished till he returned, we took up again the matter of L. P.
Runkle. At least, the aged relative took it up, and I put the
question I had been wanting to put at an earlier stage.
'You say,' I said, 'that you felt today was the day for
approaching him. What gave you that idea?'
'The way he tucked into his lunch and the way he talked about
it afterwards. Lyrical was the only word for it, and I wasn't
surprised. Anatole had surpassed himself.'
'The Supreme de Foie Gras au Champagne?'
'And the Neige aux Perles des Alpes.'
I heaved a silent sigh, thinking of what might have been. The
garbage I had had to insult the Wooster stomach with at the pub had
been of a particularly lethal nature. Generally these rural pubs
are all right in the matter of browsing, but I had been so
unfortunate as to pick one run by a branch of the Borgia family.
The thought occurred to me as I ate that if Bingley had given his
uncle lunch there one day, he wouldn't have had to go to all the
bother and expense of buying little-known Asiatic poisons.
I would have told the old relative this, hoping for sympathy,
but at this moment the door opened, and in came Jeeves. Opening the
conversation with that gentle cough of his that sounds like a very
old sheep clearing its throat on a misty mountain top, he said:
'You wished to see me, sir?'
He couldn't have had a warmer welcome if he had been the
prodigal son whose life story I had had to bone up when I won that
Scripture Knowledge prize. The welkin, what there was of it in the
drawing-room, rang with our excited yappings.
'Come in, Jeeves,' bellowed the aged relative.
'Yes, come in, Jeeves, come in,' I cried. 'We were waiting for
you with ... with what?'
'Bated breath,' said the ancestor.
'That's right. With bated breath and -'
'Tense, quivering nerves. Not to mention twitching muscles and
bitten finger nails. Tell me, Jeeves, was that you I saw coming
away from 5 Ormond Crescent about an hour ago?'
'Yes, madam.'
'You had been seeing Bingley?'
'Yes, madam.'
'About the book?'
'Yes, madam.'
'Did you tell him he had jolly well got to return it?'
'No, madam.'
'Then why on earth did you go to see him?'
'To obtain the book, madam.'
'But you said you didn't tell him -'
'There was no necessity to broach the subject, madam. He had
not yet recovered consciousness. If I might explain. On my arrival
at his residence he offered me a drink, which I accepted. He took
one himself. We talked for awhile of this and that. Then I
succeeded in diverting his attention for a moment, and while his
scrutiny was elsewhere I was able to insert a chemical substance in
his beverage which had the effect of rendering him temporarily
insensible. I thus had ample time to make a search of the room. I
had assumed that he would be keeping the book there, and I had not
been in error. It was in a lower drawer of the desk. I secured it,
and took my departure.'
Stunned by this latest revelation of his efficiency and do-it-
yourself-ness, I was unable to utter, but the old ancestor gave the
sort of cry or yowl which must have rung over many a hunting field,
causing members of the Quorn and the Pytchley to leap in their
saddles like Mexican jumping beans.
'You mean you slipped him a Mickey Finn?'
'I believe that is what they are termed in the argot, madam.'
'Do you always carry them about with you?'
'I am seldom without a small supply, madam.'
'Never know when they won't come in handy, eh?'
'Precisely, madam. Opportunities for their use are constantly
arising.'
'Well, I can only say thank you. You have snatched victory from
the jaws of defeat.'
'It is kind of you to say so, madam.'
'Much obliged, Jeeves.'
'Not at all, madam.'
I was expecting the aged relative to turn to me at this point
and tick me off for not having had the sense to give Bingley a
Mickey Finn myself, and I knew, for you cannot reason with aunts,
that it would be no use pleading that I hadn't got any; but her
jocund mood caused her to abstain. Returning to the subject of L.
P. Runkle, she said this had made her realize that her luck was in,
after all, and she was going to press it.
'I'll go and see him now,' she yipped, 'and I confidently
expect to play on him as on a stringed instrument. Out of my way,
young Bertie,' she cried, heading for the door, 'or I'll trample
you to the dust. Yoicks!' she added, reverting to the patois of the
old hunting days. 'Tally ho! Gone away! Hark forrard!'
Or words to that effect.
Her departure - at, I should estimate, some sixty m.p.h. - left
behind it the sort of quivering stillness you get during hurricane