RIGHT
HO JEEVES
PART
5
-7-
I
meditated pretty freely as I drove down to Brinkley in the old two-seater that
afternoon. The news of this rift or rupture of Angela's and Tuppy's had
disturbed me greatly.
The
projected match, you see, was one on which I had always looked with kindly
approval. Too often, when a chap of your acquaintance is planning to marry a
girl you know, you find yourself knitting the brow a bit and chewing the lower
lip dubiously, feeling that he or she, or both, should be warned while there is
yet time.
But I have
never felt anything of this nature about Tuppy and Angela. Tuppy, when not
making an ass of himself, is a soundish sort of egg. So is Angela a soundish
sort of egg. And, as far as being in love was concerned, it had always seemed
to me that you wouldn't have been far out in describing them as two hearts that
beat as one.
True, they
had had their little tiffs, notably on the occasion when Tuppy—with what he
said was fearless honesty and I considered thorough goofiness—had told Angela
that her new hat made her look like a Pekingese. But in every romance you have
to budget for the occasional dust-up, and after that incident I had supposed
that he had learned his lesson and that from then on life would be one grand,
sweet song.
And now
this wholly unforeseen severing of diplomatic relations had popped up through a
trap.
I gave the
thing the cream of the Wooster brain all the way down, but it continued to beat
me what could have caused the outbreak of hostilities, and I bunged my foot
sedulously on the accelerator in order to get to Aunt Dahlia with the greatest
possible speed and learn the inside history straight from the horse's mouth.
And what with all six cylinders hitting nicely, I made good time and found
myself closeted with the relative shortly before the hour of the evening
cocktail.
She seemed
glad to see me. In fact, she actually said she was glad to see me—a statement
no other aunt on the list would have committed herself to, the customary
reaction of these near and dear ones to the spectacle of Bertram arriving for a
visit being a sort of sick horror.
"Decent
of you to rally round, Bertie," she said.
"My
place was by your side, Aunt Dahlia," I responded.
I could
see at a g. that the unfortunate affair had got in amongst her in no uncertain
manner. Her usually cheerful map was clouded, and the genial smile conspic. by
its a. I pressed her hand sympathetically, to indicate that my heart bled for
her.
"Bad
show this, my dear old flesh and blood," I said. "I'm afraid you've
been having a sticky time. You must be worried."
She
snorted emotionally. She looked like an aunt who has just bitten into a bad
oyster.
"Worried
is right. I haven't had a peaceful moment since I got back from Cannes. Ever
since I put my foot across this blasted threshold," said Aunt Dahlia,
returning for the nonce to the hearty argot of the hunting field,
"everything's been at sixes and sevens. First there was that mix-up about
the prize-giving."
She paused
at this point and gave me a look. "I had been meaning to speak freely to
you about your behaviour in that matter, Bertie," she said. "I had
some good things all stored up. But, as you've rallied round like this, I
suppose I shall have to let you off. And, anyway, it is probably all for the
best that you evaded your obligations in that sickeningly craven way. I have an
idea that this Spink-Bottle of yours is going to be good. If only he can keep
off newts."
"Has
he been talking about newts?"
"He
has. Fixing me with a glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner. But if that was
the worst I had to bear, I wouldn't mind. What I'm worrying about is what Tom
says when he starts talking."
"Uncle
Tom?"
"I
wish there was something else you could call him except 'Uncle Tom'," said
Aunt Dahlia a little testily. "Every time you do it, I expect to see him
turn black and start playing the banjo. Yes, Uncle Tom, if you must have it. I
shall have to tell him soon about losing all that money at baccarat, and, when
I do, he will go up like a rocket."
"Still,
no doubt Time, the great healer——"
"Time,
the great healer, be blowed. I've got to get a cheque for five hundred pounds
out of him for Milady's Boudoir by August the third at the latest."
I was
concerned. Apart from a nephew's natural interest in an aunt's refined weekly
paper, I had always had a soft spot in my heart for Milady's Boudoir
ever since I contributed that article to it on What the Well-Dressed Man is
Wearing. Sentimental, possibly, but we old journalists do have these feelings.
"Is
the Boudoir on the rocks?"
"It
will be if Tom doesn't cough up. It needs help till it has turned the
corner."
"But
wasn't it turning the corner two years ago?"
"It
was. And it's still at it. Till you've run a weekly paper for women, you don't
know what corners are."
"And
you think the chances of getting into uncle—into my uncle by marriage's ribs
are slight?"
"I'll
tell you, Bertie. Up till now, when these subsidies were required, I have
always been able to come to Tom in the gay, confident spirit of an only child touching
an indulgent father for chocolate cream. But he's just had a demand from the
income-tax people for an additional fifty-eight pounds, one and threepence, and
all he's been talking about since I got back has been ruin and the sinister
trend of socialistic legislation and what will become of us all."
I could
readily believe it. This Tom has a peculiarity I've noticed in other very oofy
men. Nick him for the paltriest sum, and he lets out a squawk you can hear at
Land's End. He has the stuff in gobs, but he hates giving up.
"If
it wasn't for Anatole's cooking, I doubt if he would bother to carry on. Thank
God for Anatole, I say."
I bowed my
head reverently.
"Good
old Anatole," I said.
"Amen,"
said Aunt Dahlia.
Then the
look of holy ecstasy, which is always the result of letting the mind dwell,
however briefly, on Anatole's cooking, died out of her face.
"But
don't let me wander from the subject," she resumed. "I was telling
you of the way hell's foundations have been quivering since I got home. First
the prize-giving, then Tom, and now, on top of everything else, this infernal
quarrel between Angela and young Glossop."
I nodded
gravely. "I was frightfully sorry to hear of that. Terrible shock. What
was the row about?"
"Sharks."
"Eh?"
"Sharks.
Or, rather, one individual shark. The brute that went for the poor child when
she was aquaplaning at Cannes. You remember Angela's shark?"
Certainly
I remembered Angela's shark. A man of sensibility does not forget about a
cousin nearly being chewed by monsters of the deep. The episode was still green
in my memory.
In a
nutshell, what had occurred was this: You know how you aquaplane. A motor-boat
nips on ahead, trailing a rope. You stand on a board, holding the rope, and the
boat tows you along. And every now and then you lose your grip on the rope and
plunge into the sea and have to swim to your board again.
A silly
process it has always seemed to me, though many find it diverting.
Well, on
the occasion referred to, Angela had just regained her board after taking a
toss, when a great beastly shark came along and cannoned into it, flinging her
into the salty once more. It took her quite a bit of time to get on again and
make the motor-boat chap realize what was up and haul her to safety, and during
that interval you can readily picture her embarrassment.
According
to Angela, the finny denizen kept snapping at her ankles virtually without
cessation, so that by the time help arrived, she was feeling more like a salted
almond at a public dinner than anything human. Very shaken the poor child had
been, I recall, and had talked of nothing else for weeks.
"I
remember the whole incident vividly," I said. "But how did that start
the trouble?"
"She
was telling him the story last night."
"Well?"
"Her
eyes shining and her little hands clasped in girlish excitement."
"No
doubt."
"And
instead of giving her the understanding and sympathy to which she was entitled,
what do you think this blasted Glossop did? He sat listening like a lump of
dough, as if she had been talking about the weather, and when she had finished,
he took his cigarette holder out of his mouth and said, 'I expect it was only a
floating log'!"
"He
didn't!"
"He
did. And when Angela described how the thing had jumped and snapped at her, he
took his cigarette holder out of his mouth again, and said, 'Ah! Probably a
flatfish. Quite harmless. No doubt it was just trying to play.' Well, I mean!
What would you have done if you had been Angela? She has pride, sensibility,
all the natural feelings of a good woman. She told him he was an ass and a fool
and an idiot, and didn't know what he was talking about."
I must say
I saw the girl's viewpoint. It's only about once in a lifetime that anything
sensational ever happens to one, and when it does, you don't want people taking
all the colour out of it. I remember at school having to read that stuff where
that chap, Othello, tells the girl what a hell of a time he'd been having among
the cannibals and what not. Well, imagine his feelings if, after he had described
some particularly sticky passage with a cannibal chief and was waiting for the
awestruck "Oh-h! Not really?", she had said that the whole thing had
no doubt been greatly exaggerated and that the man had probably really been a
prominent local vegetarian.
Yes, I saw
Angela's point of view.
"But
don't tell me that when he saw how shirty she was about it, the chump didn't
back down?"
"He
didn't. He argued. And one thing led to another until, by easy stages, they had
arrived at the point where she was saying that she didn't know if he was aware
of it, but if he didn't knock off starchy foods and do exercises every morning,
he would be getting as fat as a pig, and he was talking about this modern habit
of girls putting make-up on their faces, of which he had always disapproved.
This continued for a while, and then there was a loud pop and the air was full
of mangled fragments of their engagement. I'm distracted about it. Thank
goodness you've come, Bertie."
"Nothing
could have kept me away," I replied, touched. "I felt you needed
me."
"Yes."
"Quite."
"Or,
rather," she said, "not you, of course, but Jeeves. The minute all
this happened, I thought of him. The situation obviously cries out for Jeeves.
If ever in the whole history of human affairs there was a moment when that
lofty brain was required about the home, this is it."
I think,
if I had been standing up, I would have staggered. In fact, I'm pretty sure I
would. But it isn't so dashed easy to stagger when you're sitting in an
arm-chair. Only my face, therefore, showed how deeply I had been stung by these
words.
Until she
spoke them, I had been all sweetness and light—the sympathetic nephew prepared
to strain every nerve to do his bit. I now froze, and the face became hard and
set.
"Jeeves!"
I said, between clenched teeth.
"Oom
beroofen," said Aunt Dahlia.
I saw that
she had got the wrong angle.
"I
was not sneezing. I was saying 'Jeeves!'"
"And
well you may. What a man! I'm going to put the whole thing up to him. There's
nobody like Jeeves."
My
frigidity became more marked.
"I
venture to take issue with you, Aunt Dahlia."
"You
take what?"
"Issue."
"You
do, do you?"
"I
emphatically do. Jeeves is hopeless."
"What?"
"Quite
hopeless. He has lost his grip completely. Only a couple of days ago I was
compelled to take him off a case because his handling of it was so footling.
And, anyway, I resent this assumption, if assumption is the word I want, that
Jeeves is the only fellow with brain. I object to the way everybody puts things
up to him without consulting me and letting me have a stab at them first."
She seemed
about to speak, but I checked her with a gesture.
"It
is true that in the past I have sometimes seen fit to seek Jeeves's advice. It
is possible that in the future I may seek it again. But I claim the right to
have a pop at these problems, as they arise, in person, without having
everybody behave as if Jeeves was the only onion in the hash. I sometimes feel
that Jeeves, though admittedly not unsuccessful in the past, has been lucky
rather than gifted."
"Have
you and Jeeves had a row?"
"Nothing
of the kind."
"You
seem to have it in for him."
"Not
at all."
And yet I
must admit that there was a modicum of truth in what she said. I had been
feeling pretty austere about the man all day, and I'll tell you why.
You
remember that he caught that 12.45 train with the luggage, while I remained on
in order to keep a luncheon engagement. Well, just before I started out to the
tryst, I was pottering about the flat, and suddenly—I don't know what put the
suspicion into my head, possibly the fellow's manner had been furtive—something
seemed to whisper to me to go and have a look in the wardrobe.
And it was
as I had suspected. There was the mess-jacket still on its hanger. The hound
hadn't packed it.
Well, as
anybody at the Drones will tell you, Bertram Wooster is a pretty hard chap to
outgeneral. I shoved the thing in a brown-paper parcel and put it in the back
of the car, and it was on a chair in the hall now. But that didn't alter the
fact that Jeeves had attempted to do the dirty on me, and I suppose a certain
what-d'you-call-it had crept into my manner during the above remarks.
"There
has been no breach," I said. "You might describe it as a passing
coolness, but no more. We did not happen to see eye to eye with regard to my
white mess-jacket with the brass buttons and I was compelled to assert my
personality. But——"
"Well,
it doesn't matter, anyway. The thing that matters is that you are talking
piffle, you poor fish. Jeeves lost his grip? Absurd. Why, I saw him for a
moment when he arrived, and his eyes were absolutely glittering with
intelligence. I said to myself 'Trust Jeeves,' and I intend to."
"You
would be far better advised to let me see what I can accomplish, Aunt
Dahlia."
"For
heaven's sake, don't you start butting in. You'll only make matters
worse."
"On
the contrary, it may interest you to know that while driving here I
concentrated deeply on this trouble of Angela's and was successful in
formulating a plan, based on the psychology of the individual, which I am
proposing to put into effect at an early moment."
"Oh,
my God!"
"My
knowledge of human nature tells me it will work."
"Bertie,"
said Aunt Dahlia, and her manner struck me as febrile, "lay off, lay off!
For pity's sake, lay off. I know these plans of yours. I suppose you want to
shove Angela into the lake and push young Glossop in after her to save her
life, or something like that."
"Nothing
of the kind."
"It's
the sort of thing you would do."
"My
scheme is far more subtle. Let me outline it for you."
"No,
thanks."
"I
say to myself——"
"But
not to me."
"Do
listen for a second."
"I
won't."
"Right
ho, then. I am dumb."
"And
have been from a child."
I
perceived that little good could result from continuing the discussion. I waved
a hand and shrugged a shoulder.
"Very
well, Aunt Dahlia," I said, with dignity, "if you don't want to be in
on the ground floor, that is your affair. But you are missing an intellectual
treat. And, anyway, no matter how much you may behave like the deaf adder of
Scripture which, as you are doubtless aware, the more one piped, the less it
danced, or words to that effect, I shall carry on as planned. I am extremely
fond of Angela, and I shall spare no effort to bring the sunshine back into her
heart."
"Bertie,
you abysmal chump, I appeal to you once more. Will you please lay off? You'll
only make things ten times as bad as they are already."
I remember
reading in one of those historical novels once about a chap—a buck he would
have been, no doubt, or a macaroni or some such bird as that—who, when people
said the wrong thing, merely laughed down from lazy eyelids and flicked a speck
of dust from the irreproachable Mechlin lace at his wrists. This was
practically what I did now. At least, I straightened my tie and smiled one of
those inscrutable smiles of mine. I then withdrew and went out for a saunter in
the garden.
And the
first chap I ran into was young Tuppy. His brow was furrowed, and he was
moodily bunging stones at a flowerpot.
-8-
I think I
have told you before about young Tuppy Glossop. He was the fellow, if you
remember, who, callously ignoring the fact that we had been friends since
boyhood, betted me one night at the Drones that I could swing myself across the
swimming bath by the rings—a childish feat for one of my lissomeness—and then,
having seen me well on the way, looped back the last ring, thus rendering it
necessary for me to drop into the deep end in formal evening costume.
To say
that I had not resented this foul deed, which seemed to me deserving of the
title of the crime of the century, would be paltering with the truth. I had
resented it profoundly, chafing not a little at the time and continuing to
chafe for some weeks.
But you
know how it is with these things. The wound heals. The agony abates.
I am not
saying, mind you, that had the opportunity presented itself of dropping a wet
sponge on Tuppy from some high spot or of putting an eel in his bed or finding
some other form of self-expression of a like nature, I would not have embraced
it eagerly; but that let me out. I mean to say, grievously injured though I had
been, it gave me no pleasure to feel that the fellow's bally life was being
ruined by the loss of a girl whom, despite all that had passed, I was convinced
he still loved like the dickens.
On the
contrary, I was heart and soul in favour of healing the breach and rendering
everything hotsy-totsy once more between these two young sundered blighters.
You will have gleaned that from my remarks to Aunt Dahlia, and if you had been
present at this moment and had seen the kindly commiserating look I gave Tuppy,
you would have gleaned it still more.
It was one
of those searching, melting looks, and was accompanied by the hearty clasp of
the right hand and the gentle laying of the left on the collar-bone.
"Well,
Tuppy, old man," I said. "How are you, old man?"
My
commiseration deepened as I spoke the words, for there had been no lighting up
of the eye, no answering pressure of the palm, no sign whatever, in short, of
any disposition on his part to do Spring dances at the sight of an old friend.
The man seemed sandbagged. Melancholy, as I remember Jeeves saying once about
Pongo Twistleton when he was trying to knock off smoking, had marked him for
her own. Not that I was surprised, of course. In the circs., no doubt, a
certain moodiness was only natural.
I released
the hand, ceased to knead the shoulder, and, producing the old case, offered
him a cigarette.
He took it
dully.
"Are
you here, Bertie?" he asked.
"Yes,
I'm here."
"Just
passing through, or come to stay?"
I thought
for a moment. I might have told him that I had arrived at Brinkley Court with
the express intention of bringing Angela and himself together once more, of
knitting up the severed threads, and so on and so forth; and for perhaps half
the time required for the lighting of a gasper I had almost decided to do so.
Then, I reflected, better, on the whole, perhaps not. To broadcast the fact
that I proposed to take him and Angela and play on them as on a couple of
stringed instruments might have been injudicious. Chaps don't always like being
played on as on a stringed instrument.
"It
all depends," I said. "I may remain. I may push on. My plans are
uncertain."
He nodded
listlessly, rather in the manner of a man who did not give a damn what I did, and
stood gazing out over the sunlit garden. In build and appearance, Tuppy
somewhat resembles a bulldog, and his aspect now was that of one of these fine
animals who has just been refused a slice of cake. It was not difficult for a
man of my discernment to read what was in his mind, and it occasioned me no
surprise, therefore, when his next words had to do with the subject marked with
a cross on the agenda paper.
"You've
heard of this business of mine, I suppose? Me and Angela?"
"I
have, indeed, Tuppy, old man."
"We've
bust up."
"I
know. Some little friction, I gather, in re Angela's shark."
"Yes.
I said it must have been a flatfish."
"So
my informant told me."
"Who
did you hear it from?"
"Aunt
Dahlia."
"I
suppose she cursed me properly?"
"Oh,
no."
"Beyond
referring to you in one passage as 'this blasted Glossop', she was, I thought,
singularly temperate in her language for a woman who at one time hunted
regularly with the Quorn. All the same, I could see, if you don't mind me
saying so, old man, that she felt you might have behaved with a little more
tact."
"Tact!"
"And
I must admit I rather agreed with her. Was it nice, Tuppy, was it quite kind to
take the bloom off Angela's shark like that? You must remember that Angela's
shark is very dear to her. Could you not see what a sock on the jaw it would be
for the poor child to hear it described by the man to whom she had given her
heart as a flatfish?"
I saw that
he was struggling with some powerful emotion.
"And
what about my side of the thing?" he demanded, in a voice choked with
feeling.
"Your
side?"
"You
don't suppose," said Tuppy, with rising vehemence, "that I would have
exposed this dashed synthetic shark for the flatfish it undoubtedly was if
there had not been causes that led up to it. What induced me to speak as I did
was the fact that Angela, the little squirt, had just been most offensive, and
I seized the opportunity to get a bit of my own back."
"Offensive?"
"Exceedingly
offensive. Purely on the strength of my having let fall some casual
remark—simply by way of saying something and keeping the conversation going—to
the effect that I wondered what Anatole was going to give us for dinner, she
said that I was too material and ought not always to be thinking of food.
Material, my elbow! As a matter of fact, I'm particularly spiritual."
"Quite."
"I
don't see any harm in wondering what Anatole was going to give us for dinner.
Do you?"
"Of
course not. A mere ordinary tribute of respect to a great artist."
"Exactly."
"All
the same——"
"Well?"
"I
was only going to say that it seems a pity that the frail craft of love should
come a stinker like this when a few manly words of contrition——"
He stared
at me.
"You
aren't suggesting that I should climb down?"
"It
would be the fine, big thing, old egg."
"I
wouldn't dream of climbing down."
"But,
Tuppy——"
"No.
I wouldn't do it."
"But
you love her, don't you?"
This
touched the spot. He quivered noticeably, and his mouth twisted. Quite the
tortured soul.
"I'm
not saying I don't love the little blighter," he said, obviously moved.
"I love her passionately. But that doesn't alter the fact that I consider
that what she needs most in this world is a swift kick in the pants."
A Wooster
could scarcely pass this. "Tuppy, old man!"
"It's
no good saying 'Tuppy, old man'."
"Well,
I do say 'Tuppy, old man'. Your tone shocks me. One raises the eyebrows. Where
is the fine, old, chivalrous spirit of the Glossops."
"That's
all right about the fine, old, chivalrous spirit of the Glossops. Where is the
sweet, gentle, womanly spirit of the Angelas? Telling a fellow he was getting a
double chin!"
"Did
she do that?"
"She
did."
"Oh,
well, girls will be girls. Forget it, Tuppy. Go to her and make it up."
He shook
his head.
"No.
It is too late. Remarks have been passed about my tummy which it is impossible
to overlook."
"But,
Tummy—Tuppy, I mean—be fair. You once told her her new hat made her look like a
Pekingese."
"It
did make her look like a Pekingese. That was not vulgar abuse. It was sound,
constructive criticism, with no motive behind it but the kindly desire to keep
her from making an exhibition of herself in public. Wantonly to accuse a man of
puffing when he goes up a flight of stairs is something very different."
I began to
see that the situation would require all my address and ingenuity. If the
wedding bells were ever to ring out in the little church of Market Snodsbury,
Bertram had plainly got to put in some shrewdish work. I had gathered, during
my conversation with Aunt Dahlia, that there had been a certain amount of frank
speech between the two contracting parties, but I had not realized till now
that matters had gone so far.
The pathos
of the thing gave me the pip. Tuppy had admitted in so many words that love
still animated the Glossop bosom, and I was convinced that, even after all that
occurred, Angela had not ceased to love him. At the moment, no doubt, she might
be wishing that she could hit him with a bottle, but deep down in her I was
prepared to bet that there still lingered all the old affection and tenderness.
Only injured pride was keeping these two apart, and I felt that if Tuppy would
make the first move, all would be well.
I had
another whack at it.
"She's
broken-hearted about this rift, Tuppy."
"How
do you know? Have you seen her?"
"No,
but I'll bet she is."
"She
doesn't look it."
"Wearing
the mask, no doubt. Jeeves does that when I assert my authority."
"She
wrinkles her nose at me as if I were a drain that had got out of order."
"Merely
the mask. I feel convinced she loves you still, and that a kindly word from you
is all that is required."
I could
see that this had moved him. He plainly wavered. He did a sort of twiddly on
the turf with his foot. And, when he spoke, one spotted the tremolo in the
voice:
"You
really think that?"
"Absolutely."
"H'm."
"If
you were to go to her——"
He shook
his head.
"I
can't do that. It would be fatal. Bing, instantly, would go my prestige. I know
girls. Grovel, and the best of them get uppish." He mused. "The only
way to work the thing would be by tipping her off in some indirect way that I
am prepared to open negotiations. Should I sigh a bit when we meet, do you
think?"
"She
would think you were puffing."
"That's
true."
I lit
another cigarette and gave my mind to the matter. And first crack out of the
box, as is so often the way with the Woosters, I got an idea. I remembered the
counsel I had given Gussie in the matter of the sausages and ham.
"I've
got it, Tuppy. There is one infallible method of indicating to a girl that you
love her, and it works just as well when you've had a row and want to make it
up. Don't eat any dinner tonight. You can see how impressive that would be. She
knows how devoted you are to food."
He started
violently.
"I am
not devoted to food!"
"No,
no."
"I am
not devoted to food at all."
"Quite.
All I meant——"
"This
rot about me being devoted to food," said Tuppy warmly, "has got to
stop. I am young and healthy and have a good appetite, but that's not the same
as being devoted to food. I admire Anatole as a master of his craft, and am
always willing to consider anything he may put before me, but when you say I am
devoted to food——"
"Quite,
quite. All I meant was that if she sees you push away your dinner untasted, she
will realize that your heart is aching, and will probably be the first to
suggest blowing the all clear."
Tuppy was
frowning thoughtfully.
"Push
my dinner away, eh?"
"Yes."
"Push
away a dinner cooked by Anatole?"
"Yes."
"Push
it away untasted?"
"Yes."
"Let
us get this straight. Tonight, at dinner, when the butler offers me a ris de
veau à la financiere, or whatever it may be, hot from Anatole's hands, you
wish me to push it away untasted?"
"Yes."
He chewed
his lip. One could sense the struggle going on within. And then suddenly a sort
of glow came into his face. The old martyrs probably used to look like that.
"All
right."
"You'll
do it?"
"I
will."
"Fine."
"Of
course, it will be agony."
I pointed
out the silver lining.
"Only
for the moment. You could slip down tonight, after everyone is in bed, and raid
the larder."
He
brightened.
"That's
right. I could, couldn't I?"
"I
expect there would be something cold there."
"There
is something cold there," said Tuppy, with growing cheerfulness. "A steak-and-kidney
pie. We had it for lunch today. One of Anatole's ripest. The thing I admire
about that man," said Tuppy reverently, "the thing that I admire so
enormously about Anatole is that, though a Frenchman, he does not, like so many
of these chefs, confine himself exclusively to French dishes, but is
always willing and ready to weigh in with some good old simple English fare
such as this steak-and-kidney pie to which I have alluded. A masterly pie,
Bertie, and it wasn't more than half finished. It will do me nicely."
"And
at dinner you will push, as arranged?"
"Absolutely
as arranged."
"Fine."
"It's
an excellent idea. One of Jeeves's best. You can tell him from me, when you see
him, that I'm much obliged."
The
cigarette fell from my fingers. It was as though somebody had slapped Bertram
Wooster across the face with a wet dish-rag.
"You
aren't suggesting that you think this scheme I have been sketching out is
Jeeves's?"
"Of
course it is. It's no good trying to kid me, Bertie. You wouldn't have thought
of a wheeze like that in a million years."
There was
a pause. I drew myself up to my full height; then, seeing that he wasn't
looking at me, lowered myself again.
"Come,
Glossop," I said coldly, "we had better be going. It is time we were
dressing for dinner."
To be continued
