those of Mr Winship. They had been seated at opposite sides of the
auditorium, no doubt by design. Her supporters cheered, Mr
Winship's booed.'
'And when Ginger got up, I suppose her lot booed him?'
'No doubt they would have done so, had it not been for the tone
of his address. His appearance was greeted with a certain modicum
of hostility, but he had scarcely begun to speak when he was
rapturously received.'
'By the opposition?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Strange.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Can you elucidate?'
'Yes, sir. If I might consult my notes for a moment. Ah, yes.
Mr Winship's opening words were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I come
before you a changed man." A Voice: "That's good news." A second
Voice: "Shut up, you bleeder." A third Voice...'
'I think we might pass lightly over the Voices, Jeeves.'
'Very good, sir. Mr Winship then said, "I should like to begin
with a word to the gentleman in the turtleneck sweater in that seat
over there who kept calling my opponent a silly old geezer. If he
will kindly step on to this platform. I shall be happy to knock his
ugly block off. Mrs McCorkadale is not a silly old geezer." A Voice
. . . Excuse me, sir, I was forgetting. "Mrs McCorkadale is not a
silly old geezer," Mr Winship said, "but a lady of the greatest
intelligence and grasp of affairs. I admire her intensely.
Listening to her this evening has changed my political views
completely. She has converted me to hers, and I propose, when the
polls are opened, to cast my vote for her. I advise all of you to
do the same. Thank you." He then resumed his seat.'
'Good Lord, Jeeves!'
'Yes, sir.'
'He really said that?'
'Yes, sir.'
'No wonder his engagement's off.'
'I must confess it occasioned me no surprise, sir.'
I continued amazed. It seemed incredible that Ginger, whose
long suit was muscle rather than brain, should have had the
ingenuity and know-how to think up such a scheme for freeing
himself from Florence's clutches without forfeiting his standing as
a fairly preux chevalier. It seemed to reveal him as possessed of
snakiness of a high order, and I was just thinking that you never
can tell about a fellow's hidden depths, when one of those sudden
thoughts of mine came popping to the surface.
'Was this you, Jeeves?'
'Sir?'
'Did you put Ginger up to doing it?'
'It is conceivable that Mr Winship may have been influenced by
something I said, sir. He was very much exercised with regard to
his matrimonial entanglements and he did me the honour of
consulting me. It is quite possible that I may have let fall some
careless remark that turned his thoughts in the direction they
took.'
'In other words, you told him to go to it?'
'Yes, sir.'
I was silent for a space. I was thinking how jolly it would be
if he could dish up something equally effective with regard to me
and M. Bassett. The thought also occurred to me that what had
happened, while excellent for Ginger, wasn't so good for his
backers and supporters and the Conservative cause in general.
I mentioned this.
'Tough on the fellows who betted on him.'
'Into each life some rain must fall, sir.'
'Though possibly a good thing. A warning to them in future to
keep their money in the old oak chest and not risk it on wagers.
May prove a turning point in their lives. What really saddens one
is the thought that Bingley will now clean up. He'll make a
packet.'
'He told me this afternoon that he was expecting to do so.'
'You mean you've seen him?'
'He came here at about five o'clock, sir.'
'Stockish, hard and full of rage, I suppose?'
'On the contrary, sir, extremely friendly. He made no allusion
to the past. I gave him a cup of tea, and we chatted for perhaps
half an hour.'
'Strange.'
'Yes, sir. I wondered if he might not have had an ulterior
motive in approaching me.'
'Such as?'
'I must confess I cannot think of one. Unless he entertained
some hope of inducing me to part with the club book, but that is
hardly likely. Would there be anything further, sir?'
'You want to get back to the stricken parlourmaid?'
'Yes, sir. When you rang, I was about to see what a little weak
brandy and water would do.'
I sped him on his errand of mercy and sat down to brood. You
might have supposed that the singular behaviour of Bingley would
have occupied my thoughts. I mean, when you hear that a chap of his
well-established crookedness has been acting oddly, your natural
impulse is to say 'Aha!' and wonder what his game is. And perhaps
for a minute or two I did ponder on this. But I had so many other
things to ponder on that Bingley soon got shoved into the discard.
If I remember rightly, it was as I mused on Problem (b), the one
about restoring the porringer to L. P. Runkle, and again drew a
blank, that my reverie was interrupted by the entrance of the old
ancestor.
She was wearing the unmistakable look of an aunt who has just
been having the time of her life, and this did not surprise me.
Hers since she sold the weekly paper she used to run, the one I did
that piece on What The Well-Dressed Man Will Wear for, has been a
quiet sort of existence, pleasant enough but lacking in incident
and excitement. A really sensational event such as the egg-and-
vegetable-throwing get-together she had just been present at must
have bucked her up like a week at the seaside.
Her greeting could not have been more cordial. An aunt's love
oozed out from every syllable.
'Hullo, you revolting object,' she said. 'So you're back.'
'Just arrived.'
'Too bad you had that jury job. You missed a gripping
experience.'
'So Jeeves was telling me.'
'Ginger finally went off his rocker.'
With the inside information which had been placed at my
disposal I was able to correct this view.
'It was no rocker that he went off, aged relative. His actions
were motivated by the soundest good sense. He wanted to get
Florence out of his hair without actually telling her to look
elsewhere for a mate.'
'Don't be an ass. He loves her.'
'No longer. He's switched to Magnolia Glendennon.'
'You mean that secretary of his?'
'That identical secretary.'
'How do you know?'
'He told me so himself.'
'Well, I'll be blowed. He finally got fed up with Florence's
bossiness, did he?'
'Yes, I think it must have been coming on for some time without
him knowing it, subconsciously as Jeeves would say. Meeting
Magnolia brought it to the surface.'
'She seems a nice girl.'
'Very nice, according to Ginger.'
'I must congratulate him.'
'You'll have to wait a bit. They've gone up to London.'
'So have Spode and Madeline. And Runkle ought to be leaving
soon. It's like one of those great race movements of the Middle
Ages I used to read about at school. Well, this is wonderful.
Pretty soon it'll be safe for Tom to return to the nest. There's
still Florence, of course, but I doubt if she will be staying on.
My cup runneth over, young Bertie. I've missed Tom sorely. Home's
not home without him messing about the place. Why are you staring
at me like a halibut on a fishmonger's slab?'
I had not been aware that I was conveying this resemblance to
the fish she mentioned, but my gaze had certainly been on the
intent side, for her opening words had stirred me to my depths.
'Did you say,' I - yes, I suppose, vociferated would be the
word, 'that Spode and Madeline Bassett had gone to London?'
'Left half an hour ago.'
'Together?'
'Yes, in his car.'
'But Spode told me she had given him the push.'
'She did, but everything's all right again. He's not going to
give up his title and stand for Parliament. Getting hit in the eye
with that potato changed his plans completely. It made him feel
that if that was the sort of thing you have to go through to get
elected to the House of Commons, he preferred to play it safe and
stick to the House of Lords. And she, of course, assured that there
was going to be no funny business and that she would become the
Countess of Sidcup all right, withdrew her objections to marrying
him. Now you're puffing like Tom when he goes upstairs too fast.
Why is this?'
Actually, I had breathed deeply, not puffed, and certainly not
like Uncle Tom when he goes upstairs too fast, but I suppose to an
aunt there isn't much difference between a deep-breathing nephew
and a puffing nephew, and anyway I was in no mood to discuss the
point.
'You don't know who it was who threw that potato, do you?' I
asked.
'The one that hit Spode? I don't. It sort of came out of the
void. Why?'
'Because if I knew who it was, I would send camels bearing
apes, ivory and peacocks to his address. He saved me from the fate
that is worse than death. I allude to marriage with the Bassett
disaster.'
'Was she going to marry you?'
'According to Spode.'
A look almost of awe came into the ancestor's face.
'How right you were,' she said, 'when you told me once that you
had faith in your star. I've lost count of the number of times
you've been definitely headed for the altar with apparently no hope
of evading the firing squad, and every time something has happened
which enabled you to wriggle out of it. It's uncanny.'
She would, I think, have gone deeper into the matter, for
already she had begun to pay a marked tribute to my guardian angel,
who, she said, plainly knew his job from soup to nuts, but at this
moment Seppings appeared and asked her if she would have a word
with Jeeves, and she went out to have it.
And I had just put my feet up on the chaise longue and was
starting to muse ecstatically on the astounding bit of luck which
had removed the Bassett menace from my life, when my mood of what
the French call bien etre was given the sleeve across the windpipe
by the entrance of L. P. Runkle, the mere sight of whom, circs
being what they were, was enough to freeze the blood and make each
particular hair stand on end like quills upon the fretful
porpentine, as I have heard Jeeves put it.
I wasn't glad to see him, but he seemed glad to see me.
'Oh, there you are,' he said. 'They told me you had skipped.
Very sensible of you to come back. It's never any good going on the
run, because the police are sure to get you sooner or later, and it
makes it all the worse for you if you've done a bolt.'
With cold dignity I said I had had to go up to London on
business. He paid no attention to this. He was scrutinizing me
rather in the manner of the halibut on the fishmonger's slab to
which the ancestor had referred in our recent conversation.
'The odd thing is,' he said, continuing to scan me closely,
'that you haven't a criminal face. It's a silly, fatuous face, but
not criminal. You remind me of one of those fellows who do dances
with the soubrette in musical comedy.'
Come, come, I said to myself, this is better. Spode had
compared me to a member of the ensemble. In the view of L. P.
Runkle I was at any rate one of the principals. Moving up in the
world.
'Must be a great help to you in your business. Lulls people
into a false security. They think there can't be any danger from
someone who looks like you, they're off their guard, and wham!
you've got away with their umbrellas and cameras. No doubt you owe
all your successes to this. But you know the old saying about the
pitcher going too often to the well. This time you're for it. This
time -'
He broke off, not because he had come to an end of his very
offensive remarks but because Florence had joined us, and her
appearance immediately claimed his attention. She was far from
being dapper. It was plain that she had been in the forefront of
the late battle, for whereas Ginger had merely had egg in his
hair', she was, as it were, festooned in egg. She had evidently
been right in the centre of the barrage. In all political meetings
of the stormier kind these things are largely a matter of luck. A
escapes unscathed, B becomes a human omelette.
A more tactful man than L. P. Runkle would have affected not to
notice this, but I don't suppose it ever occurred to him to affect
not to notice things.
'Hullo!' he said. 'You've got egg all over you.'
Florence replied rather acidly that she was aware of this.
'Better change your dress.'
'I intend to. Would you mind, Mr Runkle, if I had a word with
Mr Wooster alone?'
I think Runkle was on the point of saying 'What about?', but on
catching her eye he had prudent second thoughts. He lumbered off,
and she proceeded to have . the word she had mentioned.
She kept it crisp. None of the 'Er' stuff which was such a
feature of Ginger's oratory. Even Demosthenes would have been
slower in coming to the nub, though he, of course, would been
handicapped by having to speak in Greek.
'I'm glad I found you, Bertie.'
A civil 'Oh, ah' was all the reply I could think of.
'I have been thinking things over, and I have made up my mind.
Harold Winship is a mere lout, and I am having nothing more to do
with him. I see now that I made a great mistake when I broke off my
engagement to you. You have your faults, but they are easily
corrected. I have decided to marry you, and I think we shall be
very happy.'
'But not immediately,' said L. P. Runkle, rejoining us. I
described him a moment ago as lumbering off, but a man like that
never lumbers far if there is a chance of hearing what somebody has
to say to somebody else in private. 'He'll first have to do a
longish stretch in prison.'
His reappearance had caused Florence to stiffen. She now
stiffened further, her aspect similar to that of the old ancestor
when about to go into her grande dame act.
'Mr Runkle!'
'I'm here.'
'I thought you had gone.'
'I hadn't.'
'How dare you listen to a private conversation!'
'They're the only things worth listening to. I owe much of my
large fortune to listening to private conversations.'
'What is this nonsense about prison?'
'Wooster won't find it nonsense. He has sneaked a valuable
silver porringer of mine, a thing I paid nine thousand pounds for,
and I am expecting a man any minute now who will produce the
evidence necessary to convict. It's an open and shut case.'
'Is this true, Bertie?' said Florence with that touch of the
prosecuting District Attorney I remembered so vividly, and all I
could say was 'Well... I... er ... well.'
With a guardian angel like mine working overtime, it was
enough. She delivered judgment instantaneously.
'I shall not marry you,' she said, and went off haughtily to de-
egg herself.
'Very sensible of her,' said L. P. Runkle. 'The right course to
take. A man like you, bound to be in and out of prison, couldn't
possibly be a good husband. How is a wife to make her plans ...
dinner parties, holidays, Christmas treats for the children, the
hundred and one things a woman has to think of ... when she doesn't
know from one day to another whether the head of the house won't be
telephoning to say he's been arrested again and no bail allowed?
Yes?' said Runkle, and I saw that Seppings had appeared in the
offing.
'A Mr Bingley has called to see you, sir.'
'Ah, yes, I was expecting him.'
He popped off, and scarcely had he ceased to pollute the
atmosphere when the old ancestor blew in.
She was plainly agitated, the resemblance to a cat on hot
bricks being very marked. She panted a good deal, and her face had
taken on the rather pretty mauve colour it always does when the
soul is not at rest.
'Bertie,' she boomed, 'when you went away yesterday, did you
leave the door of your bedroom unlocked?'
'Of course I didn't.'
'Well, Jeeves says it's open now.'
'It can't be.'
'It is. He thinks Runkle or some minion of his has skeleton-
keyed the lock. Don't yell like that, curse you.'
I might have retorted by asking her what she expected me to do
when I suddenly saw all, but I was too busy seeing all to be
diverted into arguments about my voice production. The awful truth
had hit me as squarely between the eyes as if it had been an egg or
a turnip hurled by one of the Market Snodsbury electorate.
'Bingley!' I ejaculated.
'And don't sing.'
'I was not singing, I was ejaculating "Bingley!", or
vociferating "Bingley!" if you prefer it. You remember Bingley, the
fellow who stole the club book, the chap you were going to take by
the throat and shake like a rat. Aged relative, we are up against
it in no uncertain manner. Bingley is the Runkle minion you alluded
to.
Jeeves says he dropped in to tea this afternoon. What simpler
for him, having had his cuppa, than to nip upstairs and search my
room? He used to be Runkle's personal attendant, so Runkle would
turn to him naturally when he needed an accomplice. Yes, I don't
wonder you're perturbed,' I added, for she had set the welkin
ringing with one of those pungent monosyllables so often on her
lips in the old Quorn-and-Pytchley days. 'And I'll tell you
something else which will remove your last doubts, if you had any.
He's just turned up again, and Runkle has gone out to confer with
him. What do you suppose they're conferring about? Give you three
guesses.'
The Quorn trains its daughters well. So does the Pytchley. She
did not swoon, as many an aunt would have done in her place, merely
repeated the monosyllable in a slightly lower tone - meditatively
as it were, like some aristocrat of the French Revolution on being
informed that the tumbril waited.
'This tears it,' she said, the very words such an aristocrat
would have used, though speaking of course in French. 'I'll have to
confess that I took his foul porringer.'
'No, no, you mustn't do that.'
'What else is there for me to do? I can't let you go to
chokey.'
'I don't mind.'
'I do. I may have my faults -'
'No, no.'
'Yes, yes. I am quite aware that there are blemishes in my
spiritual make-up which ought to have been corrected at my
finishing school, but I draw the line at letting my nephew do a
stretch for pinching porringers which I pinched myself. That's
final.'
I saw what she meant, of course. Noblesse oblige, and all that.
And very creditable, too. But I had a powerful argument to put
forward, and I lost no time in putting it.
'But wait, old ancestor. There's another aspect of the matter.
If it's ... what's the expression? ... if it's bruited abroad that
I'm merely an as-pure-as-the-driven-snow innocent bystander, my
engagement to Florence will be on again.'
'Your what to who?' It should have been 'whom', but I let it
go. 'Are you telling me that you and Florence ...'
'She proposed to me ten minutes ago and I had to accept her
because one's either preux or one isn't, and then Runkle butted in
and pointed out to her the disadvantages of marrying someone who
would shortly be sewing mailbags in Wormwood Scrubs, and she broke
it off.'
The relative seemed stunned, as if she had come on something
abstruse in the Observer crossword puzzle.
'What is it about you that fascinates the girls? First Madeline
Bassett, now Florence, and dozens of others in the past. You must
have a magnetic personality.'
'That would seem to be the explanation,' I agreed. 'Anyway,
there it is. One whisper that there isn't a stain on my character,
and I haven't a hope. The Bishop will be notified, the assistant
clergy and bridesmaids rounded up, the organist will start
practising "The Voice That Breathed O'er Eden", and the limp figure
you see drooping at the altar rails will be Bertram Wilberforce
Wooster. I implore you, old blood relation, to be silent and let
the law take its course. If it's a choice between serving a life
sentence under Florence and sewing a mailbag or two, give me the
mailbags every time.'
She nodded understandingly, and said she saw what I meant.
'I thought you would.'
'There is much in what you say.' She mused awhile. 'As a matter
of fact, though, I doubt if it will get as far as mailbags. I'm
pretty sure what's going to happen. Runkle will offer to drop the
whole thing if I let him have Anatole.'
'Good God!'
'You may well say "Good God!" You know what Anatole means to
Tom.'
She did not need to labour the point. Uncle Tom combines a
passionate love of food with a singular difficulty in digesting it,
and Anatole is the only chef yet discovered who can fill him up to
the Plimsoll mark without causing the worst sort of upheaval in his
gastric juices.
'But would Anatole go to Runkle?'
'He'd go to anyone if the price was right.'
'None of that faithful old retainer stuff ?'
'None. His outlook is entirely practical. That's the French in
him.'
'I wonder you've been able to keep him so long. He must have
had other offers.'
'I've always topped them. If it was simply another case of
outbidding the opposition, I wouldn't be worrying.'
'But when Uncle Tom comes back and finds Anatole conspicuous by
his absence, won't the home be a bit in the melting pot?'
'I don't like to think of it.'
But she did think of it. So did I. And we were both thinking of
it, when our musings were interrupted by the return of L. P.
Runkle, who waddled in and fixed us with a bulging eye.
I suppose if he had been slenderer, one might have described
him as a figure of doom, but even though so badly in need of a
reducing diet he was near enough to being one to make my interior
organs do a quick shuffle-off-to-Buffalo as if some muscular hand
had stirred them up with an egg-whisk. And when he began to speak,
he was certainly impressive. These fellows who have built up large
commercial empires are always what I have heard Jeeves call
orotund. They get that way from dominating meetings of
shareholders. Having started off with 'Oh, there you are, Mrs
Travers', he went into his speech, and it was about as orotund as
anything that has ever come my way. It ran, as nearly as I can
remember, as follows:
'I was hoping to see you, Mrs Travers. In a previous
conversation, you will recall that I stated uncompromisingly that
your nephew Mr Wooster had purloined the silver porringer which I
brought here to sell to your husband, whose absence I greatly
deplore. That this was no mere suspicion has now been fully
substantiated. I have a witness who is prepared to testify on oath
in court that he found it in the top drawer of the chest of drawers
in Mr Wooster's bedroom, unskilfully concealed behind socks and
handkerchiefs.'
Here if it had been a shareholders meeting, he would probably
have been reminded of an amusing story which may be new to some of
you present this afternoon, but I suppose in a private conversation
he saw no need for it. He continued, still orotund.
'The moment I report this to the police and acquaint them with
the evidence at my disposal, Wooster's arrest will follow
automatically, and a sharp sentence will be the inevitable result.'
It was an unpleasant way of putting it, but I was compelled to
admit that it covered the facts like a bedspread. Dust off that
cell, Wormwood Scrubs, I was saying to myself, I shall soon be with
you.
'Such is the position. But I am not a vindictive man, I have no
wish, if it can be avoided, to give pain to a hostess who has been
to such trouble to make my visit enjoyable.'
He paused for a moment to lick his lips, and I knew he was
tasting again those master-dishes of Anatole's. And it was on
Anatole that he now touched.
'While staying here as your guest, I have been greatly
impressed by the skill and artistry of your chef. I will agree not
to press charges against Mr Wooster provided you consent to let
this gifted man leave your employment and enter mine.'
A snort rang through the room, one of the ancestor's finest.
You might almost have called it orotund. Following it with the word
'Ha!', she turned to me with a spacious wave of the hand.
'Didn't I tell you, Bertie? Wasn't I right? Didn't I say the
child of unmarried parents would blackmail me?'
A fellow with the excess weight of L. P. Runkle finds it
difficult to stiffen all over when offended, but he stiffened as
far as he could. It was as if some shareholder at the meeting had
said the wrong thing.
'Blackmail?'
'That's what I said.'
'It is not blackmail. It is nothing of the sort.'
'He is quite right, madam,' said Jeeves, appearing from
nowhere. I'll swear he hadn't been there half a second before.
'Blackmail implies the extortion of money. Mr Runkle is merely
extorting a cook.'
'Exactly. A purely business transaction,' said Runkle,
obviously considering him a Daniel come to judgment.
'It would be very different,' said Jeeves, 'were somebody to
try to obtain money from him by threatening to reveal that while in
America he served a prison sentence for bribing a juror in a case
in which he was involved.'
A cry broke from L. P. Runkle's lips, somewhat similar to the
one the cat Gus had uttered when the bag of cat food fell on him.
He tottered and his face would, I think, have turned ashy white if
his blood pressure hadn't been the sort that makes it pretty tough
going for a face to turn ashy white. The best it could manage was
something Florence would have called sallow.
The ancestor, on the other hand, had revived like a floweret
beneath the watering-can. Not that she looks like a floweret, but
you know what I mean.
'What!' she ejaculated.
'Yes, madam, the details are all in the club book. Bingley
recorded them very fully. His views were very far to the left at
the time, and I think he derived considerable satisfaction from
penning an expose of a gentleman of Mr Runkle's wealth. It is also
with manifest gusto that he relates how Mr Runkle, in grave danger
of a further prison sentence in connection with a real estate
fraud, forfeited the money he had deposited as security for his
appearance in court and disappeared.'
'Jumped his bail, you mean?'
'Precisely, madam. He escaped to Canada in a false beard.'
The ancestor drew a deep breath. Her eyes were glowing more
like twin stars than anything. Had not her dancing days been long
past, I think she might have gone into a brisk buck-and-wing. The
lower limbs twitched just as if she were planning to.
'Well,' she said, 'a nice bit of news that'll be for the
fellows who dole out knighthoods. "Runkle?" they'll say. "That old
lag? If we made a man like that a knight, we'd never hear the last
of it. The boys on the Opposition benches would kid the pants off
us." We were discussing, Runkle, yesterday that little matter of
the money you ought to have given Tuppy Glossop years ago. If you
will step into my boudoir, we will go into it again at our
leisure.'
The following day dawned bright and clear, at least I suppose
it did, but I wasn't awake at the time. When eventually I came to
life, the sun was shining, all Nature appeared to be smiling, and
Jeeves was bringing in the breakfast tray. Gus the cat, who had
been getting his eight hours on an adjacent armchair, stirred,
opened an eye and did a sitting high jump on to the bed, eager not
to miss anything that was going.
'Good morning, Jeeves.'
'Good morning, sir.'
'Weather looks all right.'
'Extremely clement, sir.'
'The snail's on the wing and the lark's on the thorn, or rather
the other way round, as I've sometimes heard you say. Are those
kippers I smell?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Detach a portion for Gus, will you. He will probably like to
take it from the soap dish, reserving the saucer for milk.'
'Very good, sir.'
I sat up and eased the spine into the pillows. I was conscious
of a profound peace.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'I am conscious of a profound peace. I wonder
if you remember me telling you a few days ago that I was having a
sharp attack of euphoria?'
'Yes, sir. I recall your words clearly. You said you were
sitting on top of the world with a rainbow round your shoulder.'
'Similar conditions prevail this morning. I thought everything
went off very well last night, didn't you?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Thanks to you.'
'It is very kind of you to say so, sir.'
'I take it the ancestor came to a satisfactory arrangement with
Runkle?'
'Most satisfactory, sir. Madam has just informed me that Mr
Runkle was entirely co-operative.'
'So Tuppy and Angela will be joined in holy wedlock, as the
expression is?'
'Almost immediately, I understood from Madam.'
'And even now Ginger and M. Glendennon are probably in
conference with the registrar of their choice.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And Spode has got a black eye, which one hopes is painful. In
short, on every side one sees happy endings popping up out of
traps. A pity that Bingley is flourishing like a green what-is-it,
but one can't have everything.'
'No, sir. Medio de fonte leporum surgit amari aliquid in ipsis
floribus angat.'
'I don't think I quite followed you there, Jeeves.'
'I was quoting from the Roman poet Lucretius, sir. A rough
translation would be "From the heart of this fountain of delights
wells up some bitter taste to choke them even among the flowers".'
'Who did you say wrote that?'
'Lucretius, sir, 99-55 bc.'
'Gloomy sort of bird.'
'His outlook was perhaps somewhat sombre, sir.'
'Still, apart from Bingley, one might describe joy as reigning
supreme.'
'A very colourful phrase, sir.'
'Not my own. I read it somewhere. Yes, I think we may say
everything's more or less oojah-cum-spiff. With one exception,
Jeeves,' I said, a graver note coming into my voice as I gave Gus
his second helping of kipper. 'There remains a fly in the ointment,
a familiar saying meaning ... well, I don't quite know what it does
mean. It seems to imply a state of affairs at which one is supposed
to look askance, but why, I ask myself, shouldn't flies be in
ointment? What harm do they do? And who wants ointment, anyway? But
you get what I'm driving at. The Junior Ganymede club book is still
in existence. That is what tempers my ecstasy with anxiety. We have
seen how packed with trinitrotoluol it is, and we know how easily
it can fall into the hands of the powers of darkness. Who can say
that another Bingley may not come along and snitch it from the
secretary's room? I know it is too much to ask you to burn the
beastly thing, but couldn't you at least destroy the eighteen pages
in which I figure?'
'I have already done so, sir.'
I leaped like a rising trout, to the annoyance of Gus, who had
gone to sleep on my solar plexus. Words failed me, but in due
season I managed three.
'Much obliged, Jeeves.'
'Not at all, sir.'
auditorium, no doubt by design. Her supporters cheered, Mr
Winship's booed.'
'And when Ginger got up, I suppose her lot booed him?'
'No doubt they would have done so, had it not been for the tone
of his address. His appearance was greeted with a certain modicum
of hostility, but he had scarcely begun to speak when he was
rapturously received.'
'By the opposition?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Strange.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Can you elucidate?'
'Yes, sir. If I might consult my notes for a moment. Ah, yes.
Mr Winship's opening words were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I come
before you a changed man." A Voice: "That's good news." A second
Voice: "Shut up, you bleeder." A third Voice...'
'I think we might pass lightly over the Voices, Jeeves.'
'Very good, sir. Mr Winship then said, "I should like to begin
with a word to the gentleman in the turtleneck sweater in that seat
over there who kept calling my opponent a silly old geezer. If he
will kindly step on to this platform. I shall be happy to knock his
ugly block off. Mrs McCorkadale is not a silly old geezer." A Voice
. . . Excuse me, sir, I was forgetting. "Mrs McCorkadale is not a
silly old geezer," Mr Winship said, "but a lady of the greatest
intelligence and grasp of affairs. I admire her intensely.
Listening to her this evening has changed my political views
completely. She has converted me to hers, and I propose, when the
polls are opened, to cast my vote for her. I advise all of you to
do the same. Thank you." He then resumed his seat.'
'Good Lord, Jeeves!'
'Yes, sir.'
'He really said that?'
'Yes, sir.'
'No wonder his engagement's off.'
'I must confess it occasioned me no surprise, sir.'
I continued amazed. It seemed incredible that Ginger, whose
long suit was muscle rather than brain, should have had the
ingenuity and know-how to think up such a scheme for freeing
himself from Florence's clutches without forfeiting his standing as
a fairly preux chevalier. It seemed to reveal him as possessed of
snakiness of a high order, and I was just thinking that you never
can tell about a fellow's hidden depths, when one of those sudden
thoughts of mine came popping to the surface.
'Was this you, Jeeves?'
'Sir?'
'Did you put Ginger up to doing it?'
'It is conceivable that Mr Winship may have been influenced by
something I said, sir. He was very much exercised with regard to
his matrimonial entanglements and he did me the honour of
consulting me. It is quite possible that I may have let fall some
careless remark that turned his thoughts in the direction they
took.'
'In other words, you told him to go to it?'
'Yes, sir.'
I was silent for a space. I was thinking how jolly it would be
if he could dish up something equally effective with regard to me
and M. Bassett. The thought also occurred to me that what had
happened, while excellent for Ginger, wasn't so good for his
backers and supporters and the Conservative cause in general.
I mentioned this.
'Tough on the fellows who betted on him.'
'Into each life some rain must fall, sir.'
'Though possibly a good thing. A warning to them in future to
keep their money in the old oak chest and not risk it on wagers.
May prove a turning point in their lives. What really saddens one
is the thought that Bingley will now clean up. He'll make a
packet.'
'He told me this afternoon that he was expecting to do so.'
'You mean you've seen him?'
'He came here at about five o'clock, sir.'
'Stockish, hard and full of rage, I suppose?'
'On the contrary, sir, extremely friendly. He made no allusion
to the past. I gave him a cup of tea, and we chatted for perhaps
half an hour.'
'Strange.'
'Yes, sir. I wondered if he might not have had an ulterior
motive in approaching me.'
'Such as?'
'I must confess I cannot think of one. Unless he entertained
some hope of inducing me to part with the club book, but that is
hardly likely. Would there be anything further, sir?'
'You want to get back to the stricken parlourmaid?'
'Yes, sir. When you rang, I was about to see what a little weak
brandy and water would do.'
I sped him on his errand of mercy and sat down to brood. You
might have supposed that the singular behaviour of Bingley would
have occupied my thoughts. I mean, when you hear that a chap of his
well-established crookedness has been acting oddly, your natural
impulse is to say 'Aha!' and wonder what his game is. And perhaps
for a minute or two I did ponder on this. But I had so many other
things to ponder on that Bingley soon got shoved into the discard.
If I remember rightly, it was as I mused on Problem (b), the one
about restoring the porringer to L. P. Runkle, and again drew a
blank, that my reverie was interrupted by the entrance of the old
ancestor.
She was wearing the unmistakable look of an aunt who has just
been having the time of her life, and this did not surprise me.
Hers since she sold the weekly paper she used to run, the one I did
that piece on What The Well-Dressed Man Will Wear for, has been a
quiet sort of existence, pleasant enough but lacking in incident
and excitement. A really sensational event such as the egg-and-
vegetable-throwing get-together she had just been present at must
have bucked her up like a week at the seaside.
Her greeting could not have been more cordial. An aunt's love
oozed out from every syllable.
'Hullo, you revolting object,' she said. 'So you're back.'
'Just arrived.'
'Too bad you had that jury job. You missed a gripping
experience.'
'So Jeeves was telling me.'
'Ginger finally went off his rocker.'
With the inside information which had been placed at my
disposal I was able to correct this view.
'It was no rocker that he went off, aged relative. His actions
were motivated by the soundest good sense. He wanted to get
Florence out of his hair without actually telling her to look
elsewhere for a mate.'
'Don't be an ass. He loves her.'
'No longer. He's switched to Magnolia Glendennon.'
'You mean that secretary of his?'
'That identical secretary.'
'How do you know?'
'He told me so himself.'
'Well, I'll be blowed. He finally got fed up with Florence's
bossiness, did he?'
'Yes, I think it must have been coming on for some time without
him knowing it, subconsciously as Jeeves would say. Meeting
Magnolia brought it to the surface.'
'She seems a nice girl.'
'Very nice, according to Ginger.'
'I must congratulate him.'
'You'll have to wait a bit. They've gone up to London.'
'So have Spode and Madeline. And Runkle ought to be leaving
soon. It's like one of those great race movements of the Middle
Ages I used to read about at school. Well, this is wonderful.
Pretty soon it'll be safe for Tom to return to the nest. There's
still Florence, of course, but I doubt if she will be staying on.
My cup runneth over, young Bertie. I've missed Tom sorely. Home's
not home without him messing about the place. Why are you staring
at me like a halibut on a fishmonger's slab?'
I had not been aware that I was conveying this resemblance to
the fish she mentioned, but my gaze had certainly been on the
intent side, for her opening words had stirred me to my depths.
'Did you say,' I - yes, I suppose, vociferated would be the
word, 'that Spode and Madeline Bassett had gone to London?'
'Left half an hour ago.'
'Together?'
'Yes, in his car.'
'But Spode told me she had given him the push.'
'She did, but everything's all right again. He's not going to
give up his title and stand for Parliament. Getting hit in the eye
with that potato changed his plans completely. It made him feel
that if that was the sort of thing you have to go through to get
elected to the House of Commons, he preferred to play it safe and
stick to the House of Lords. And she, of course, assured that there
was going to be no funny business and that she would become the
Countess of Sidcup all right, withdrew her objections to marrying
him. Now you're puffing like Tom when he goes upstairs too fast.
Why is this?'
Actually, I had breathed deeply, not puffed, and certainly not
like Uncle Tom when he goes upstairs too fast, but I suppose to an
aunt there isn't much difference between a deep-breathing nephew
and a puffing nephew, and anyway I was in no mood to discuss the
point.
'You don't know who it was who threw that potato, do you?' I
asked.
'The one that hit Spode? I don't. It sort of came out of the
void. Why?'
'Because if I knew who it was, I would send camels bearing
apes, ivory and peacocks to his address. He saved me from the fate
that is worse than death. I allude to marriage with the Bassett
disaster.'
'Was she going to marry you?'
'According to Spode.'
A look almost of awe came into the ancestor's face.
'How right you were,' she said, 'when you told me once that you
had faith in your star. I've lost count of the number of times
you've been definitely headed for the altar with apparently no hope
of evading the firing squad, and every time something has happened
which enabled you to wriggle out of it. It's uncanny.'
She would, I think, have gone deeper into the matter, for
already she had begun to pay a marked tribute to my guardian angel,
who, she said, plainly knew his job from soup to nuts, but at this
moment Seppings appeared and asked her if she would have a word
with Jeeves, and she went out to have it.
And I had just put my feet up on the chaise longue and was
starting to muse ecstatically on the astounding bit of luck which
had removed the Bassett menace from my life, when my mood of what
the French call bien etre was given the sleeve across the windpipe
by the entrance of L. P. Runkle, the mere sight of whom, circs
being what they were, was enough to freeze the blood and make each
particular hair stand on end like quills upon the fretful
porpentine, as I have heard Jeeves put it.
I wasn't glad to see him, but he seemed glad to see me.
'Oh, there you are,' he said. 'They told me you had skipped.
Very sensible of you to come back. It's never any good going on the
run, because the police are sure to get you sooner or later, and it
makes it all the worse for you if you've done a bolt.'
With cold dignity I said I had had to go up to London on
business. He paid no attention to this. He was scrutinizing me
rather in the manner of the halibut on the fishmonger's slab to
which the ancestor had referred in our recent conversation.
'The odd thing is,' he said, continuing to scan me closely,
'that you haven't a criminal face. It's a silly, fatuous face, but
not criminal. You remind me of one of those fellows who do dances
with the soubrette in musical comedy.'
Come, come, I said to myself, this is better. Spode had
compared me to a member of the ensemble. In the view of L. P.
Runkle I was at any rate one of the principals. Moving up in the
world.
'Must be a great help to you in your business. Lulls people
into a false security. They think there can't be any danger from
someone who looks like you, they're off their guard, and wham!
you've got away with their umbrellas and cameras. No doubt you owe
all your successes to this. But you know the old saying about the
pitcher going too often to the well. This time you're for it. This
time -'
He broke off, not because he had come to an end of his very
offensive remarks but because Florence had joined us, and her
appearance immediately claimed his attention. She was far from
being dapper. It was plain that she had been in the forefront of
the late battle, for whereas Ginger had merely had egg in his
hair', she was, as it were, festooned in egg. She had evidently
been right in the centre of the barrage. In all political meetings
of the stormier kind these things are largely a matter of luck. A
escapes unscathed, B becomes a human omelette.
A more tactful man than L. P. Runkle would have affected not to
notice this, but I don't suppose it ever occurred to him to affect
not to notice things.
'Hullo!' he said. 'You've got egg all over you.'
Florence replied rather acidly that she was aware of this.
'Better change your dress.'
'I intend to. Would you mind, Mr Runkle, if I had a word with
Mr Wooster alone?'
I think Runkle was on the point of saying 'What about?', but on
catching her eye he had prudent second thoughts. He lumbered off,
and she proceeded to have . the word she had mentioned.
She kept it crisp. None of the 'Er' stuff which was such a
feature of Ginger's oratory. Even Demosthenes would have been
slower in coming to the nub, though he, of course, would been
handicapped by having to speak in Greek.
'I'm glad I found you, Bertie.'
A civil 'Oh, ah' was all the reply I could think of.
'I have been thinking things over, and I have made up my mind.
Harold Winship is a mere lout, and I am having nothing more to do
with him. I see now that I made a great mistake when I broke off my
engagement to you. You have your faults, but they are easily
corrected. I have decided to marry you, and I think we shall be
very happy.'
'But not immediately,' said L. P. Runkle, rejoining us. I
described him a moment ago as lumbering off, but a man like that
never lumbers far if there is a chance of hearing what somebody has
to say to somebody else in private. 'He'll first have to do a
longish stretch in prison.'
His reappearance had caused Florence to stiffen. She now
stiffened further, her aspect similar to that of the old ancestor
when about to go into her grande dame act.
'Mr Runkle!'
'I'm here.'
'I thought you had gone.'
'I hadn't.'
'How dare you listen to a private conversation!'
'They're the only things worth listening to. I owe much of my
large fortune to listening to private conversations.'
'What is this nonsense about prison?'
'Wooster won't find it nonsense. He has sneaked a valuable
silver porringer of mine, a thing I paid nine thousand pounds for,
and I am expecting a man any minute now who will produce the
evidence necessary to convict. It's an open and shut case.'
'Is this true, Bertie?' said Florence with that touch of the
prosecuting District Attorney I remembered so vividly, and all I
could say was 'Well... I... er ... well.'
With a guardian angel like mine working overtime, it was
enough. She delivered judgment instantaneously.
'I shall not marry you,' she said, and went off haughtily to de-
egg herself.
'Very sensible of her,' said L. P. Runkle. 'The right course to
take. A man like you, bound to be in and out of prison, couldn't
possibly be a good husband. How is a wife to make her plans ...
dinner parties, holidays, Christmas treats for the children, the
hundred and one things a woman has to think of ... when she doesn't
know from one day to another whether the head of the house won't be
telephoning to say he's been arrested again and no bail allowed?
Yes?' said Runkle, and I saw that Seppings had appeared in the
offing.
'A Mr Bingley has called to see you, sir.'
'Ah, yes, I was expecting him.'
He popped off, and scarcely had he ceased to pollute the
atmosphere when the old ancestor blew in.
She was plainly agitated, the resemblance to a cat on hot
bricks being very marked. She panted a good deal, and her face had
taken on the rather pretty mauve colour it always does when the
soul is not at rest.
'Bertie,' she boomed, 'when you went away yesterday, did you
leave the door of your bedroom unlocked?'
'Of course I didn't.'
'Well, Jeeves says it's open now.'
'It can't be.'
'It is. He thinks Runkle or some minion of his has skeleton-
keyed the lock. Don't yell like that, curse you.'
I might have retorted by asking her what she expected me to do
when I suddenly saw all, but I was too busy seeing all to be
diverted into arguments about my voice production. The awful truth
had hit me as squarely between the eyes as if it had been an egg or
a turnip hurled by one of the Market Snodsbury electorate.
'Bingley!' I ejaculated.
'And don't sing.'
'I was not singing, I was ejaculating "Bingley!", or
vociferating "Bingley!" if you prefer it. You remember Bingley, the
fellow who stole the club book, the chap you were going to take by
the throat and shake like a rat. Aged relative, we are up against
it in no uncertain manner. Bingley is the Runkle minion you alluded
to.
Jeeves says he dropped in to tea this afternoon. What simpler
for him, having had his cuppa, than to nip upstairs and search my
room? He used to be Runkle's personal attendant, so Runkle would
turn to him naturally when he needed an accomplice. Yes, I don't
wonder you're perturbed,' I added, for she had set the welkin
ringing with one of those pungent monosyllables so often on her
lips in the old Quorn-and-Pytchley days. 'And I'll tell you
something else which will remove your last doubts, if you had any.
He's just turned up again, and Runkle has gone out to confer with
him. What do you suppose they're conferring about? Give you three
guesses.'
The Quorn trains its daughters well. So does the Pytchley. She
did not swoon, as many an aunt would have done in her place, merely
repeated the monosyllable in a slightly lower tone - meditatively
as it were, like some aristocrat of the French Revolution on being
informed that the tumbril waited.
'This tears it,' she said, the very words such an aristocrat
would have used, though speaking of course in French. 'I'll have to
confess that I took his foul porringer.'
'No, no, you mustn't do that.'
'What else is there for me to do? I can't let you go to
chokey.'
'I don't mind.'
'I do. I may have my faults -'
'No, no.'
'Yes, yes. I am quite aware that there are blemishes in my
spiritual make-up which ought to have been corrected at my
finishing school, but I draw the line at letting my nephew do a
stretch for pinching porringers which I pinched myself. That's
final.'
I saw what she meant, of course. Noblesse oblige, and all that.
And very creditable, too. But I had a powerful argument to put
forward, and I lost no time in putting it.
'But wait, old ancestor. There's another aspect of the matter.
If it's ... what's the expression? ... if it's bruited abroad that
I'm merely an as-pure-as-the-driven-snow innocent bystander, my
engagement to Florence will be on again.'
'Your what to who?' It should have been 'whom', but I let it
go. 'Are you telling me that you and Florence ...'
'She proposed to me ten minutes ago and I had to accept her
because one's either preux or one isn't, and then Runkle butted in
and pointed out to her the disadvantages of marrying someone who
would shortly be sewing mailbags in Wormwood Scrubs, and she broke
it off.'
The relative seemed stunned, as if she had come on something
abstruse in the Observer crossword puzzle.
'What is it about you that fascinates the girls? First Madeline
Bassett, now Florence, and dozens of others in the past. You must
have a magnetic personality.'
'That would seem to be the explanation,' I agreed. 'Anyway,
there it is. One whisper that there isn't a stain on my character,
and I haven't a hope. The Bishop will be notified, the assistant
clergy and bridesmaids rounded up, the organist will start
practising "The Voice That Breathed O'er Eden", and the limp figure
you see drooping at the altar rails will be Bertram Wilberforce
Wooster. I implore you, old blood relation, to be silent and let
the law take its course. If it's a choice between serving a life
sentence under Florence and sewing a mailbag or two, give me the
mailbags every time.'
She nodded understandingly, and said she saw what I meant.
'I thought you would.'
'There is much in what you say.' She mused awhile. 'As a matter
of fact, though, I doubt if it will get as far as mailbags. I'm
pretty sure what's going to happen. Runkle will offer to drop the
whole thing if I let him have Anatole.'
'Good God!'
'You may well say "Good God!" You know what Anatole means to
Tom.'
She did not need to labour the point. Uncle Tom combines a
passionate love of food with a singular difficulty in digesting it,
and Anatole is the only chef yet discovered who can fill him up to
the Plimsoll mark without causing the worst sort of upheaval in his
gastric juices.
'But would Anatole go to Runkle?'
'He'd go to anyone if the price was right.'
'None of that faithful old retainer stuff ?'
'None. His outlook is entirely practical. That's the French in
him.'
'I wonder you've been able to keep him so long. He must have
had other offers.'
'I've always topped them. If it was simply another case of
outbidding the opposition, I wouldn't be worrying.'
'But when Uncle Tom comes back and finds Anatole conspicuous by
his absence, won't the home be a bit in the melting pot?'
'I don't like to think of it.'
But she did think of it. So did I. And we were both thinking of
it, when our musings were interrupted by the return of L. P.
Runkle, who waddled in and fixed us with a bulging eye.
I suppose if he had been slenderer, one might have described
him as a figure of doom, but even though so badly in need of a
reducing diet he was near enough to being one to make my interior
organs do a quick shuffle-off-to-Buffalo as if some muscular hand
had stirred them up with an egg-whisk. And when he began to speak,
he was certainly impressive. These fellows who have built up large
commercial empires are always what I have heard Jeeves call
orotund. They get that way from dominating meetings of
shareholders. Having started off with 'Oh, there you are, Mrs
Travers', he went into his speech, and it was about as orotund as
anything that has ever come my way. It ran, as nearly as I can
remember, as follows:
'I was hoping to see you, Mrs Travers. In a previous
conversation, you will recall that I stated uncompromisingly that
your nephew Mr Wooster had purloined the silver porringer which I
brought here to sell to your husband, whose absence I greatly
deplore. That this was no mere suspicion has now been fully
substantiated. I have a witness who is prepared to testify on oath
in court that he found it in the top drawer of the chest of drawers
in Mr Wooster's bedroom, unskilfully concealed behind socks and
handkerchiefs.'
Here if it had been a shareholders meeting, he would probably
have been reminded of an amusing story which may be new to some of
you present this afternoon, but I suppose in a private conversation
he saw no need for it. He continued, still orotund.
'The moment I report this to the police and acquaint them with
the evidence at my disposal, Wooster's arrest will follow
automatically, and a sharp sentence will be the inevitable result.'
It was an unpleasant way of putting it, but I was compelled to
admit that it covered the facts like a bedspread. Dust off that
cell, Wormwood Scrubs, I was saying to myself, I shall soon be with
you.
'Such is the position. But I am not a vindictive man, I have no
wish, if it can be avoided, to give pain to a hostess who has been
to such trouble to make my visit enjoyable.'
He paused for a moment to lick his lips, and I knew he was
tasting again those master-dishes of Anatole's. And it was on
Anatole that he now touched.
'While staying here as your guest, I have been greatly
impressed by the skill and artistry of your chef. I will agree not
to press charges against Mr Wooster provided you consent to let
this gifted man leave your employment and enter mine.'
A snort rang through the room, one of the ancestor's finest.
You might almost have called it orotund. Following it with the word
'Ha!', she turned to me with a spacious wave of the hand.
'Didn't I tell you, Bertie? Wasn't I right? Didn't I say the
child of unmarried parents would blackmail me?'
A fellow with the excess weight of L. P. Runkle finds it
difficult to stiffen all over when offended, but he stiffened as
far as he could. It was as if some shareholder at the meeting had
said the wrong thing.
'Blackmail?'
'That's what I said.'
'It is not blackmail. It is nothing of the sort.'
'He is quite right, madam,' said Jeeves, appearing from
nowhere. I'll swear he hadn't been there half a second before.
'Blackmail implies the extortion of money. Mr Runkle is merely
extorting a cook.'
'Exactly. A purely business transaction,' said Runkle,
obviously considering him a Daniel come to judgment.
'It would be very different,' said Jeeves, 'were somebody to
try to obtain money from him by threatening to reveal that while in
America he served a prison sentence for bribing a juror in a case
in which he was involved.'
A cry broke from L. P. Runkle's lips, somewhat similar to the
one the cat Gus had uttered when the bag of cat food fell on him.
He tottered and his face would, I think, have turned ashy white if
his blood pressure hadn't been the sort that makes it pretty tough
going for a face to turn ashy white. The best it could manage was
something Florence would have called sallow.
The ancestor, on the other hand, had revived like a floweret
beneath the watering-can. Not that she looks like a floweret, but
you know what I mean.
'What!' she ejaculated.
'Yes, madam, the details are all in the club book. Bingley
recorded them very fully. His views were very far to the left at
the time, and I think he derived considerable satisfaction from
penning an expose of a gentleman of Mr Runkle's wealth. It is also
with manifest gusto that he relates how Mr Runkle, in grave danger
of a further prison sentence in connection with a real estate
fraud, forfeited the money he had deposited as security for his
appearance in court and disappeared.'
'Jumped his bail, you mean?'
'Precisely, madam. He escaped to Canada in a false beard.'
The ancestor drew a deep breath. Her eyes were glowing more
like twin stars than anything. Had not her dancing days been long
past, I think she might have gone into a brisk buck-and-wing. The
lower limbs twitched just as if she were planning to.
'Well,' she said, 'a nice bit of news that'll be for the
fellows who dole out knighthoods. "Runkle?" they'll say. "That old
lag? If we made a man like that a knight, we'd never hear the last
of it. The boys on the Opposition benches would kid the pants off
us." We were discussing, Runkle, yesterday that little matter of
the money you ought to have given Tuppy Glossop years ago. If you
will step into my boudoir, we will go into it again at our
leisure.'
The following day dawned bright and clear, at least I suppose
it did, but I wasn't awake at the time. When eventually I came to
life, the sun was shining, all Nature appeared to be smiling, and
Jeeves was bringing in the breakfast tray. Gus the cat, who had
been getting his eight hours on an adjacent armchair, stirred,
opened an eye and did a sitting high jump on to the bed, eager not
to miss anything that was going.
'Good morning, Jeeves.'
'Good morning, sir.'
'Weather looks all right.'
'Extremely clement, sir.'
'The snail's on the wing and the lark's on the thorn, or rather
the other way round, as I've sometimes heard you say. Are those
kippers I smell?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Detach a portion for Gus, will you. He will probably like to
take it from the soap dish, reserving the saucer for milk.'
'Very good, sir.'
I sat up and eased the spine into the pillows. I was conscious
of a profound peace.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'I am conscious of a profound peace. I wonder
if you remember me telling you a few days ago that I was having a
sharp attack of euphoria?'
'Yes, sir. I recall your words clearly. You said you were
sitting on top of the world with a rainbow round your shoulder.'
'Similar conditions prevail this morning. I thought everything
went off very well last night, didn't you?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Thanks to you.'
'It is very kind of you to say so, sir.'
'I take it the ancestor came to a satisfactory arrangement with
Runkle?'
'Most satisfactory, sir. Madam has just informed me that Mr
Runkle was entirely co-operative.'
'So Tuppy and Angela will be joined in holy wedlock, as the
expression is?'
'Almost immediately, I understood from Madam.'
'And even now Ginger and M. Glendennon are probably in
conference with the registrar of their choice.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And Spode has got a black eye, which one hopes is painful. In
short, on every side one sees happy endings popping up out of
traps. A pity that Bingley is flourishing like a green what-is-it,
but one can't have everything.'
'No, sir. Medio de fonte leporum surgit amari aliquid in ipsis
floribus angat.'
'I don't think I quite followed you there, Jeeves.'
'I was quoting from the Roman poet Lucretius, sir. A rough
translation would be "From the heart of this fountain of delights
wells up some bitter taste to choke them even among the flowers".'
'Who did you say wrote that?'
'Lucretius, sir, 99-55 bc.'
'Gloomy sort of bird.'
'His outlook was perhaps somewhat sombre, sir.'
'Still, apart from Bingley, one might describe joy as reigning
supreme.'
'A very colourful phrase, sir.'
'Not my own. I read it somewhere. Yes, I think we may say
everything's more or less oojah-cum-spiff. With one exception,
Jeeves,' I said, a graver note coming into my voice as I gave Gus
his second helping of kipper. 'There remains a fly in the ointment,
a familiar saying meaning ... well, I don't quite know what it does
mean. It seems to imply a state of affairs at which one is supposed
to look askance, but why, I ask myself, shouldn't flies be in
ointment? What harm do they do? And who wants ointment, anyway? But
you get what I'm driving at. The Junior Ganymede club book is still
in existence. That is what tempers my ecstasy with anxiety. We have
seen how packed with trinitrotoluol it is, and we know how easily
it can fall into the hands of the powers of darkness. Who can say
that another Bingley may not come along and snitch it from the
secretary's room? I know it is too much to ask you to burn the
beastly thing, but couldn't you at least destroy the eighteen pages
in which I figure?'
'I have already done so, sir.'
I leaped like a rising trout, to the annoyance of Gus, who had
gone to sleep on my solar plexus. Words failed me, but in due
season I managed three.
'Much obliged, Jeeves.'
'Not at all, sir.'