 Chapter 1 of The Inimitable Jeeves This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Beth Thomas. The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse. Chapter 1. Jeeves Exerts the Old Cerebellum Morning Jeeves, I said. Good morning, sir, said Jeeves. He put the good old cup of tea softly on the table by my bed, and I took a refreshing sip. Just right, as usual. Not too hot, not too sweet, not too weak, not too strong, not too much milk, and not a drop spilled in the saucer. A most amazing cove, Jeeves. So dashed competent in every respect. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I mean to say, just take one small instance. Every other ballet I've ever had used to barge into my room in the morning while I was still asleep, causing much misery. But Jeeves seems to know when I'm awake by a sort of telepathy. He always floats in with the cup exactly two minutes after I come to life, makes a useful lot of difference to a fellow's day. How's the weather, Jeeves? Exceptionally clement, sir. Anything in the papers? Some slight friction threatening in the bulk, and, sir, otherwise nothing. I say, Jeeves, a man I met at the club last night told me to put my shirt on privateer for the two o'clock race this afternoon. How about it? I should not advocate it, sir. The stable is not sanguine. That was enough for me, Jeeves knows. How, I couldn't say, but he knows. There was a time when I would laugh lightly and go ahead and lose my little all against his advice, but not now. Talking of shirts, I said, have those mauve ones I ordered arrived yet? Yes, sir, I sent them back. Sent them back? Yes, sir, they would not have become you. Well, I must say I'd thought fairly highly of those shirtings, but I bowed to superior knowledge. Weak? I don't know. Most fellows, no doubt, are all for having their valets confine their activities to creasing trousers and whatnot without trying to run the home, but it's different with Jeeves. Right from the first day he came to me, I have looked on him as a sort of guide, philosopher and friend. Mr. Little rang up on the telephone a few moments ago, sir. I informed him that you were not yet awake. Did he leave a message? No, sir. He mentioned that he had a matter of importance to discuss with you, but confided no details. Oh, well, I expect I shall be seeing him at the club. No doubt, sir. I wasn't what you might call in a fever of impatience. Bingo Little is a chap I was at school with, and we see a lot of each other still. He's the nephew of Old Mortimer Little, who retired from business recently with a goodish pile. You've probably heard of Little's liniment. It limbers up the legs. Bingo biffs about London on a pretty comfortable allowance given him by his uncle, and leads on the whole a fairly unclouded life. It wasn't likely that anything which he described as a matter of importance would turn out to be really so frightfully important. I took it that he had discovered some new brand of cigarette which he wanted me to try, or something like that, and didn't spoil my breakfast by worrying. After breakfast I lit a cigarette and went to the open window to inspect the day. It certainly was one of the best and brightest. Jeeves, I said. Sir? said Jeeves. He had been clearing away the breakfast things, but at the sound of the young master's voice ceased it courteously. You were absolutely right about the weather. It is a juicy morning. Decidedly, sir. Spring and all that? Yes, sir. In the spring, Jeeves, a lively o' iris gleams upon the burnish dove. So I have been informed, sir. Righto, then bring me my wangi, my yellowish shoes, and the old green humbug. I'm going into the park to do pastoral dances. I don't know if you know that sort of feeling you get these days round about the end of April and the beginning of May, when the skies are light blue with cotton wool clouds and there's a bit of a breeze blowing from the west. Kind of uplifted feeling. Romantic, if you know what I mean. I'm not much of a ladies' man, but on this particular morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted was some charming girl to buzz up and ask me to save her from assassins or something. So that it was a bit of an anticlimax when I merely ran into young bingo little, looking perfectly foul in a crimson satin tie decorated with horseshoes. Hello, Bertie," said Bingo. My God, man," I gargled, the cravat, the gents' neckwear. Why, for what reason? Ah, the tie," he blushed. I, uh, I was given it. He seemed embarrassed so I dropped the subject. We tuddled along a bit and sat down on a couple of chairs by the serpentine. Jeeves tells me you want to talk about something. I said, hey," said Bingo with a start. Ah, yes, yes, yes. I waited for him to unleash the topic of the day, but he didn't seem to want to get going. Conversation languished. He stared straight ahead of him in a glassy sort of manner. I say, Bertie," he said, after a pause of about an hour and a quarter. Hello? Do you like the name Mabel? No. No. No. You don't think there's a kind of music in the word, like the wind rustling gently through the treetops? No. He seemed disappointed for a moment, then cheered up. Of course you wouldn't. You always were a fat-headed worm without any soul, weren't you? Just as you say, who is she? Tell me all. For I realise now that poor old Bingo was going through it once again. Ever since I have known him and we were at school together, he has been perpetually falling in love with someone, generally in the spring, which seems to act on him like magic. At school he had the finest collection of actresses' photographs of anyone of his time, and at Oxford his romantic nature was a byword. You'd better come along and meet her at lunch," he said, looking at his watch. A ripe suggestion, I said, where are you meeting her, at the Ritz? Near the Ritz. He was geographically accurate. About fifty yards east of the Ritz there is one of those blighted tea and bun shops you see dotted about all over London. And into this, if you'll believe me, young Bingo dived like a homing rabbit. And before I had time to say a word we were wedged in at a table on the brink of a silent pool of coffee left there by an early luncher. I'm bound to say I couldn't quite follow the development of the scenario. Bingo, while not absolutely rolling in the stuff, has always had a fair amount of the ready. Apart from what he got from his uncle, I knew that he had finished up the jumping season well on the right side of the ledger. Why, then, was he lunching the girl at this godforsaken eatery? It couldn't be because he was hard up. Just then the waitress arrived, rather a pretty girl. Aren't we going to wait? I started to say to Bingo, thinking it's somewhat thick that in addition to asking a girl to lunch with him in a place like this he should fling himself on the foodstuffs before she turned up. Bingo looked at the girl's face and stopped. The man was gogling. His entire map was suffused with a rich blush. He looked like the soul's awakening done in pink. Hello, Mabel, he said with a sort of gulp. Hello, said the girl. Mabel, said Bingo, this is Bertie Wooster, a pal of mine. Pleased to meet you, she said. Nice morning. Fine, I said. You see I'm wearing the tie, said Bingo. It suits you beautiful, said the girl. Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie like that suited me I should have risen and struck them on the mazad regardless of their age and sex. But poor old Bingo simply got all flustered with gratification and smoked in the most gruesome manner. Well, what's it going to be today? Asked the girl, introducing the business touch into the conversation. Bingo studied the menu devoutly. I'll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruit cake and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie. I gazed at the man revolted that he could have been a pal of mine all these years and think me capable of insulting the old tum with this sort of stuff. Cut me to the quick. Or how about a bit of hot steak pudding with a sparkling limado to wash it down, said Bingo. You know, the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate. This chappy before me who spoke in that absolutely careless way of macaroons and limado was the man I had seen in happier days telling the head waiter at Claridge's exactly how he wanted the chef to prepare the sole frite or gourmet or champignon and saying that he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn't just right. Gastly, ghastly. A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn't been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against so I chose them and Mabel hopped it. Well, said Bingo rapturously, I took it that he wanted my opinion of the female poisoner who had just left us. Very nice, I said. He seemed dissatisfied. You don't think she's the most wonderful girl you ever saw? He said wistfully. Oh absolutely, I said to appease the blighter. Where did you meet her? At a subscription dance in Camberwell. What on earth were you doing at a subscription dance in Camberwell? Your man Jeeves asked me if I would buy a couple of tickets. It was an aid of some charity or other. Jeeves? I didn't know he went in for that sort of thing. Well, I suppose he has to relax a bit every now and then. Anyway, he was there swinging a dashed-efficient shoe. I hadn't meant to go at first, but I turned up for a lark. Oh Bertie, think what I might have missed. What might you have missed? The old lemon being slightly clouded. Mabel, you chump! If I hadn't gone, I shouldn't have met Mabel. Oh, huh. At this point, Bingo fell into a species of trance and only came out of it to wrap himself around the pie in macaroon. Bertie, he said, I want your advice. Carry on. At least, not your advice, because there wouldn't be much good to anybody. I mean, you're a pretty consummate old ass, aren't you? Not that I want to hurt your feelings, of course. No, no, I see that. What I wish you would do is put the whole thing to that fellow jeevs of yours and see what he suggests. You've often told me that he has helped other pals of yours out of messes. From what you tell me, he's by way of being the brains of the family. He's never let me down yet. Then put my case to him. What case? My problem. What problem? Why, you porold fish, my uncle, of course. What do you think my uncle's going to say to all this? If I sprang it on him cold, he'd tie himself in knots on the hearth rug. One of these emotional, Johnny, say. Somehow or other his mind has got to be prepared to receive the news. But how? Ah. That's a lot of help, that ah. You see, I'm pretty well dependent on the old boy. If he cut off my allowance, I should be very much in the soup. So you put the whole binge to jeevs and see if he can't scare up a happy ending somehow. Tell him my future is in his hands and that if the wedding bells ring out he can rely on me, even unto half my kingdom. Well, call it ten quid. Jeeves would exert himself with ten quid on the horizon, what? Undoubtedly, I said. I wasn't in the least surprised at Bingo wanting to lug Jeeves into his private affairs like this. It was the first thing I would have thought of doing myself, if I had been in any hole of any description. As I have frequently had occasion to observe, he is a bird of the ripest intellect full of bright ideas. If anybody could fix things for poor old Bingo, he could. I stated the case to him that night after dinner. Jeeves. Sir. Are you busy just now? No, sir. I mean, not doing anything in particular. No, sir. It is my practice at this hour to read some improving book. But if you desire my services, this can easily be postponed or indeed abandoned altogether. Well, I want your advice. Mr. Little. Young Mr. Little, sir, or the elder Mr. Little, his uncle who lives in Poundsby Gardens. Jeeves seemed to know everything, most amazing thing. I had been Pally with Bingo practically all my life and yet I didn't remember ever having heard that his uncle lived anywhere in particular. How did you know he lived in Poundsby Gardens? I said. I am on terms of some intimacy with the elder Mr. Little's cook, sir. In fact, there is an understanding. I am bound to say that this gave me a bit of a start. Somehow I had never thought of Jeeves going in for that sort of thing. Do you mean you are engaged? It may be said to amount to that, sir. Well, well. She is a remarkably excellent cook, sir, said Jeeves, as though he felt called on to give some explanation. What was it you wished to ask me about Mr. Little? I sprang the details on him. And that's how the matter stands, Jeeves, and I think we ought to rally round a trifle and help Borol Bingo put the thing through. Tell me about old Mr. Little. What sort of a chap is he? A somewhat curious character, sir. Since retiring from business he has become a great recluse and now devotes himself almost entirely to the pleasures of the table. Greedy Hog, you mean? I would not perhaps take the liberty of describing him in precisely those terms, sir. He is what is usually called a gourmet, very particular about what he eats and for that reason sets a high value on Miss Watson's services. The cook? Ah, yes, sir. Well, it looks to me as though our best plan would be to shoot young Bingo in on him after dinner one night, melting mood, I mean to say, and all that. The difficulty is, sir, that at the moment Mr. Little is on a diet owing to an attack of gout. Things begin to look wobbly. No, sir. I fancy that the elder Mr. Little's misfortune may be turned to the younger Mr. Little's advantage. I was speaking only the other day to Mr. Little's valet, and he was telling me that it has become his principal duty to read to Mr. Little in the evenings. If I were in your place, sir, I should send young Mr. Little to read to his uncle. Nephew's devotion, you mean? Old man touched by kindly action, what? Apartly that, sir, but I would rely more on young Mr. Little's choice of literature. Well, that's no good. Jolly old Bingo has no place, but when it comes to literature he stops at the sporting times. That difficulty may be overcome. I would be happy to select books for Mr. Little to read. Perhaps I might explain my idea further. I can't say I quite grasp it yet. The method which I advocate is what I believe the advertisers call direct suggestions, sir, consisting as it does of driving an idea home by constant repetition. You may have had experience of the system. You mean they keep on telling you that some soap or other is the best, and after a bit you come under the influence and charge around the corner and buy a cake? Exactly, sir. The same method was the basis of all the most valuable propaganda during the recent war. I see no reason why it should not be adopted to bring about the desired result with regard to the subject's views on class distinctions. If young Mr. Little were to read day after day to his uncle, a series of narratives in which marriage with young persons of an inferior social status was held up as both feasible and admirable, I fancy you would prepare the elder Mr. Little's mind for the reception of the information that his nephew wishes to marry a waitress in a tea shop. Are there any books of that sort nowadays? The only ones I ever see mentioned in the papers are about married couples who find life grey and can't stick each other at any price. Yes, sir. There are a great many, neglected by the reviewers, but widely read. You have never encountered All for Love by Rosie M. Banks? No. Nor a red-red summer rose by the same author? No. I have an aunt, sir, who owns an almost complete set of Rosie M. Banks. I could easily borrow as many volumes as young Mr. Little might require. They make very light, attractive reading. Well, it's worth trying. I should certainly recommend the scheme, sir. All right then, total round to your aunt's tomorrow and grab a couple of the rest. We can but have a dash at it. Precisely, sir. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 The Inimitable Jeeves This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rita Boutros The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse Chapter 2 No Wedding Bells for Bingo Bingo reported three days later that Rosie M. Banks was the goods and beyond a question the stuff to give the troops. Old Little had jibbed somewhat at first at the proposed change of literary diet. He not being much of a lot for fiction and having stuck hitherto exclusively to the heavier monthly reviews. But Bingo had got Chapter 1 of All for Love past his guard before he knew what was happening and after that there was nothing to it. Since then they had finished a red-red summer rose, madcap Myrtle and only a factory girl and were halfway through the courtship of Lord Strathmorelic. Bingo told me all this in a husky voice over an egg beaten up in sherry. The only part on the thing from his point of view was that it wasn't doing a bit of good to the old vocal cords which were beginning to show signs of cracking under the strain. He had been looking his symptoms up in a medical dictionary and he thought he had got clergyman's throat. But against this you had to set the fact that he was making an undoubted hit in the right quarter and also that after the evening's reading he always stayed on to dinner and from what he told me the dinners turned out by Old Little's cook had to be tasted to be believed. There were tears in the old blighter's eyes as he got on the subject of the clear soup. I suppose to a fellow who for weeks had been tackling macaroons and limato it must have been like heaven. Old Little wasn't able to give any practical assistance at these banquets but Bingo said he came to the table and had his whack of arrowroot and sniffed the dishes and told stories of entrees he had had in the past and sketched out scenarios of what he was going to do to the bill of fare in the future when the doctor put him in shape. So I suppose he enjoyed himself too in a way. Anyhow things seemed to be buzzing along quite satisfactorily and Bingo said he had got an idea which he thought was going to the thing. He wouldn't tell me what it was but he said it was a pippin. We make progress Jeeves I said. That is very satisfactory sir. Mr. Little tells me that when he came to the big scene in Only a Factory Girl his uncle gulped like a stricken bullpup. Indeed sir where Lord Claude takes the girl in his arms you know and says, I am familiar with the passage sir. It is deeply moving. It was a great favorite of my aunts. I think we're on the right track. It would seem so sir. In fact this looks like being another of your successes. I've always said and I always shall say that for sheer brain Jeeves you stand alone. All the other great thinkers of the age are simply in the crowd watching you go by. Thank you very much sir. I endeavor to give satisfaction. About a week after this Bingo blew in with the news that his uncle's gout had ceased to trouble him and that on the morrow he would be back at the old stand working away with knife and fork as before. And by the way said Bingo he wants you to lunch with him tomorrow. Me? Why me? He doesn't know I exist. Oh yes he does. I've told him about you. What have you told him? Various things. Anyhow he wants to meet you. And take my tip laddie you go. I should think lunch tomorrow would be something special. I don't know why it was but even then it struck me that there was something dashed odd. Almost sinister if you know what I mean about young Bingo's manner. The old egg had the air of one who has something up his sleeve. There is more in this than meets the eye I said. Why should your uncle take a fellow to lunch whom he's never seen? My dear old fat head haven't I just said that I've been telling him all about you that you're my best pal at school together and all that sort of thing? But even then and another thing why are you so dashed keen on my going? Bingo hesitated for a moment. Well I told you I've got an idea. This is it. I want you to spring the news on him. I haven't the nerve myself. What? I'm hanged if I do. And you call yourself a pal of mine. Yes I know but there are limits. Birdie, said Bingo reproachfully I saved your life once. When? Didn't I? It must have been some other fellow then. Well anyway we were boys together and all that. You can't let me down. Oh alright I said but when you say you haven't nerve enough for any dash thing in the world you misjudge yourself a fellow who Cheerio, said young Bingo 130 tomorrow don't be late. I'm bound to say that the more I contemplated the binge the less I liked it. It was all very well for Bingo to say that I was slated for a magnificent lunch but what good is the best possible lunch to a fellow if he is slung out into the street on his ear during the soup course. However the word of a Westeros is bond and all that sort of rot so at 130 next day I tottered up the steps of number 16 Pounceby Gardens and punched the bell and half a minute later I was up in the drawing room shaking hands with the fattest man I have ever seen in my life. The motto of the little family was evidently variety. Young Bingo is long and thin and hasn't had a superfluous ounce on him since we first met but the uncle restored the average and a bit over. The hand which grasped mine wrapped it round and unfolded it till I began to wonder if I'd ever get it out without excavating machinery. Mr. Wester, I am gratified, I am proud, I am honored. It seemed to me that young Bingo must have boosted me to some purpose. Oh, ah, I said. He stepped back a bit still hanging on to the good right hand. You are very young to have accomplished so much. I couldn't follow the train of thought. The family, especially my aunt Agatha who has savaged me incessantly from childhood up have always made a point of the fact that mine is a wasted life and that since I won the prize at my first school for the best collection of wildflowers made during the summer holidays I haven't done a damn thing to land me on the nation's scroll of fame. I was wondering if he couldn't have got me mixed up with someone else when the telephone bell rang outside in the hall and the maid came in to say that I was wanted. I buzzed down and found it was young Bingo. Hello, said young Bingo, so you've got there. Good man. I knew I could rely on you. I say old Crumpet, did my uncle seem pleased to see you? Absolutely all over me. I can't make it out. Oh, that's all right. I just rang up to explain. The fact is, old man, I know you won't mind. But I told him that you were the author of those books I've been reading to him. What? Yes, I said that Rosie M. Banks was your pen name and you didn't want it generally known because you were a modest retiring sort of chap. He'll listen to you now. Absolutely, hang on your words. A brightish idea, what? I doubt if Jeeves in person could have thought up a better one than that. Well, pitch it strong, old lad, and keep steadily before you the fact that I must have my allowance raised. I can't possibly marry on what I've got now. If this film is to end with the slow fade out on the embrace, at least double is indicated. Well, that's that. Cheerio! And he rang off. At that moment, the gong sounded and the genial host came tumbling downstairs like the delivery of a ton of coals. I always look back to that lunch with a sort of aching regret. It was the lunch of a lifetime and I wasn't in a fit state to appreciate it. Subconsciously, if you know what I mean, I could see it was pretty special but I had got the wind up to such a frightful extent that I asked the situation in which young bingo had landed me that its deeper meaning never really penetrated. Most of the time I might have been eating sawdust for all the good it did me. Old little struck the literary note right from the start. My nephew has probably told you that I have been making a close study of your books of late, he began. Yes, he did mention it. How did you like the ballet things? He gazed reverently at me. Mr. Wooster, I am not ashamed to say that the tears came into my eyes as I listened to them. It amazes me that a man as young as you can have been able to plumb human nature so surely to its depths to play with so unerring a hand on the quivering heartstrings of your reader to write novels so true, so human, so moving, so vital. Oh, it's just a knack, I said. The good old persp was be doing my forehead by this time in a pretty lavish manner. I don't know when I've been so rattled. Do you find the room a trifle warm? Oh, no, no, rather not, just right. Then it's the pepper. If my cook has a fault which I am not prepared to admit, it is that she is inclined to stress the pepper a trifle in her made dishes. By the way, do you like her cooking? I was so relieved that we had got off the subject of my literary output that I shouted approval in a ringing baritone. I am delighted to hear it, Mr. Wister. I may be prejudiced, but to my mind that woman is a genius. Absolutely, I said. She has been with me seven years, and in all that time I have not known her guilty of a single lapse from the highest standard, except once in the winter of 1917 when a purist might have condemned a certain mayonnaise of hers as lacking in creaminess. But one must make allowances. There had been several air raids about that time, and no doubt the poor woman was shaken. But nothing is perfect in this world, Mr. Wister, and I have had my cross to bear. For seven years I have lived in constant apprehension, lest some evilly disposed person might lure her from my employment. To my certain knowledge she has received offers lucrative offers to accept service elsewhere. You may judge of my dismay, Mr. Wister, when only this morning the bolt fell she gave notice. Good Lord! Your consternation does credit, if I may say so, to the heart of the author of a red-red summer rose. But I am thankful to say the worst has not happened. The matter has been adjusted. Jane is not leaving me. Good egg! Good egg indeed! Though the expression is not familiar to me, I do not remember having come across it in your books. And speaking of your books, may I say that what has impressed me about them even more than the moving poignancy of the actual narrative is your philosophy of life. If there were more men like you, Mr. Wister, London would be a better place. This was dead opposite to my Aunt Agatha's philosophy of life. She having always rather given me to understand that it is the presence in it of chapies like me that make London more or less of a plague spot. But I let it go. Let me tell you, Mr. Wister, that I appreciate your splendid defiance of the outworn fetishes of a purblind social system. I appreciate it. You are big enough to see that rank is but the guinea stamp and that in the magnificent words of Lord Bletchmore in Only a Factory Girl be her origin near so humble a good woman is the equal of the finest lady on earth. I sat up. I say, do you think that? I do, Mr. Wister. I am ashamed to say that there was a time when I was like other men, a slave to the idiotic convention which we call class distinction. But since I read your books I might have known it. Jeeves had done it again. You think it's all right for a chapie in what you might call a certain social position to marry a girl of what you might describe as the lower classes? Most assuredly I do, Mr. Wister. I took a deep breath and slipped him the good news. Young bingo, your nephew you know, wants to marry a waitress, I said. I honor him for it, said old little. You don't object? On the contrary. I took another deep breath and shifted to the sordid side of the business. I hope you won't think I'm budding in, don't you know, I said, but well, how about it? I fear I do not quite follow you. Well, I mean to say his allowance and all that. The money you're good enough to give him. He was rather hoping that you might see your way to jerking up the total a bit. Old little shook his head regretfully. I fear that can hardly be managed. You see, a man in my position is compelled to save every penny. I will gladly continue my nephew's existing allowance, but beyond that I cannot go. It would not be fair to my wife. What? But you're not married. Not yet, but I propose to enter upon that holy state almost immediately. The lady who for years has cooked so well for me, honored me by accepting my hand this very morning. A cold gleam of triumph came into his eye. Now let him try to get her away from me, he muttered defiantly. Young Mr. Little has been trying frequently during the afternoon to reach you on the telephone, sir, said Jeeves that night when I got home. I'll bet he has, I said. I had sent poor old Bingo an outline of the situation by Messenger Boy shortly after lunch. He seemed a trifle agitated. I don't wonder, Jeeves, I said, so brace up and bite the bullet. I'm afraid I have bad news for you. That scheme of yours reading those books to Old Mr. Little and all that has blown out a fuse. They did not soften him. They did. That's the whole baldy trouble, Jeeves. I'm sorry to say that fiance of yours, Miss Watson, you know, the cook, you know. Well, the long and the short of it is that she's chosen riches instead of honest worth if you know what I mean. Sir. She's handed you the mitten and gone and got engaged to Old Mr. Little. Indeed, sir. You don't seem much upset. The fact is, sir, I had anticipated some such outcome. I stared at him. Then what on earth did you suggest the scheme for? To tell you the truth, sir, I was not wholly averse from a severance of my relations with Miss Watson. In fact, I greatly desired it. I respect Miss Watson exceedingly, but I have seen for a long time that we were not suited. Now, the other young person with whom I have an understanding. Good night, Scott Gives. There isn't another. Yes, sir. How long has this been going on? For some weeks, sir. I was greatly attracted by her when I first met her at a subscription dance at Camberwell. My sainted aunt, not Gives, inclined his head gravely. Yes, sir. By an odd coincidence it is the same young person that young Mr. Little. I have placed the cigarettes on the table. Good night, sir. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 The inimitable Gives This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rita Butros. The inimitable Gives by P. G. Wodehouse Chapter 3 Aunt Agatha speaks her mind. I suppose, in the case of a chappy, of really fine fiber and all that sort of thing, a certain amount of gloom and anguish would have followed this dishing of young Bingo's matrimonial plans. I mean, if mine had been a noble nature I would have been all broken up. But, with one thing and another, I can't say I let it weigh on me very heavily. The fact that less than a week after he had had the bad news I came on young Bingo dancing like an untamed gazelle at Siro's helped me to bear up. A resilient bird, Bingo. He may be down, but he is never out. While these little love affairs of his are actually on, nobody could be more earnest and blighted. But once the fuse has blown out and the girl has handed him his hat and begged him as a favor never to let her see him again. Up he bobs as merry and bright as ever. If I've seen it happen once, I've seen it happen a dozen times. So, I didn't worry about Bingo. Or about anything else as a matter of fact. But with one thing and another, I can't remember ever having been chippier than it about this period in my career. Everything seemed to be going right. On three separate occasions horses on which I'd invested a sizable amount, one by length, instead of sitting down in the middle of the race, as horses usually do when I've got money on them. Added to this, the weather continued topping to a degree. My new socks were admitted on all sides to be just the kind that mother makes and, to round it all off, my Aunt Agatha had gone to France and wouldn't be on hand to snooter me for at least another six weeks. And, if you knew my Aunt Agatha, you'd agree that that alone was happiness enough for anyone. It suddenly struck me so forcibly one morning while I was having my bath that I hadn't a worry on Earth that I began to sing like a belly nightingale as I sploshed the sponge about. It seemed to me that everything was absolutely for the best in the best of all possible worlds. But, have you ever noticed a rummy thing about life? I mean the way something always comes along to give it to you in the neck at the very moment when you're feeling most braced about things in general. No sooner had I dried the old limbs and shoved on the suiting and toddled into the sitting room than the blow fell there was a letter from Aunt Agatha on the mantelpiece. Oh, gosh, I said when I'd read it. Sir, said Jeeves, he was fooling about in the background on some job or other. Aunt Agatha Jeeves, Mrs. Gregson, you know. Yes, sir? Oh, you wouldn't speak in that light careless tone if you knew what was in it, I said, with a hollow mirthless laugh. The curse has come upon us, Jeeves. She wants me to go and join her at what's the name of the dashed place at Rovill Sir Mare. Oh, hang it all. I had better be packing, sir. I suppose so. To people who don't know my Aunt Agatha, I find it extraordinarily difficult to explain why it is that she has always put the wind on me to such a frightful extent. I mean, I'm not dependent on her financially or anything like that, it's simply personality. I've come to the conclusion. You see, all through my childhood and when I was a kid at school, she was always able to turn me inside out with a single glance, and I haven't come out from under the influence yet. We run to height a bit in our family, and there's about five foot nine of Aunt Agatha topped off with a beaky nose and eagle eye and a lot of gray hair, and the general effect is pretty formidable. Anyway, it never even occurred to me for a moment to give her the mishand balk on this occasion. If she said I must go to Rovill, it was all over except buying it. What's the idea, Jeeves? I wonder why she wants me. I could not say, sir. Well, it was no good talking about it. The only gleam of consolation, the only bit of blue among the clouds, was the fact that at Rovill I should at last be able to wear the rather fruity cummerbund I had bought six months ago and had never had the nerve to put on. One of those silk contrivances, you know, which are around your waist instead of a waistcoat, something on the order of a sash only more substantial. I had never been able to muster up the courage to put it on so far, for I knew that there would be trouble with Jeeves when I did, it being a pretty brightish scarlet. Still, at a place like Rovill, presumably dripping with the gaiety and joie de vivre of France, it seemed to me that something might be done. Rovill, which I reached early in the morning after a beastly choppy crossing and a jerky night in the train, is a fairly nifty spot where a chappy without encumbrances in the shape of ants might spend a somewhat genial week or two. It is like all these French places, mainly sands and hotels and casinos. The hotel which had had the bad luck to draw Ant Agatha's custom was the Splendid, and by the time I got there, there wasn't a member of the staff who didn't seem to be feeling it deeply, I sympathized with them. I've had experience of Ant Agatha at hotels before. Of course, the real rough work was all over when I arrived, but I could tell by the way everyone groveled before her that she had started by having her first room changed because it hadn't a southern exposure, and her next because it had a creaking wardrobe and that she had said her say on the subject of the cooking, the waiting, the chamber mating, and everything else with perfect freedom and candor. She had got the whole gang nicely under control by now. The manager, a whiskered cove who looked like a bandit simply tied himself into knots whenever she looked at him. All this triumph had produced a sort of grim geniality in her, and she was almost motherly when we met. I am so glad you were able to come, Bertie, she said. The air will do you so much good, far better for you than spending your time in stuffy London nightclubs. Oh, ah, I said. You will meet some pleasant people too. I want to introduce you to a Miss Hemingway and her brother, who have become great friends of mine. I am sure you will like Miss Hemingway, a nice quiet girl, so different from so many of the bold girls she meets in London nowadays. Her brother is cured at Chipley in the Glen in Dorseture. He tells me they are connected with the Cantemingways, a very good family. She is a charming girl. I had a grim foreboding of an awful doom. All this boosting was so unlike Aunt Agatha, who normally is one of the most celebrated right and left hand knockers in London society. I felt a clammy suspicion by Jove I was right. Aileen Hemingway, said Aunt Agatha, is just the girl I should like to see you marry, Bertie. You ought to be thinking of getting married. Marriage might make something of you, and I could not wish you a better wife than dear Aileen. She would be such a good influence in your life. Here I say, I chipped in at this juncture, chilled to the marrow. Bertie, said Aunt Agatha, dropping the motherly manner for a bit and giving me the cold eye. Yes, but I say, it is young men like you, Bertie, who make the person with the future of the race at heart despair. Cursed with too much money, you fritter away in idle selfishness a life which might have been made useful, helpful and profitable. You do nothing but waste your time on frivolous pleasures. You are simply an antisocial animal, a drone. Bertie, it is imperative that you marry. But dash it all. Yes, you should be breeding children to- No, really, I say please, I said, blushing richly. Aunt Agatha belongs to two or three of these women's clubs, and she keeps forgetting she isn't in the smoking-room. Bertie, she resumed, and would no doubt have hauled up her slacks at some length had we not been interrupted. Here they are, she said, Aline dear. And I perceived a girl and a chapie bearing down on me smiling in a pleased sort of manner. I want you to meet my nephew Bertie Wooster, said Aunt Agatha. He has just arrived such a surprise, I had no notion that he intended coming to Roeville. I gave the couple the wary up and down feeling rather like a cat in the middle of a lot of hounds sort of trapped feeling, you know what I mean. An inner voice was whispering that Bertram was up against it. The brother was a small round cove with a face rather like a sheep he wore a pince-nez his expression was benevolent and he had on one of those collars which button at the back. Welcome to Roeville, Mr. Wooster, he said. Oh, Sidney, said the girl doesn't Mr. Wooster remind you of can and bleckensop trying to chiply to preach last Easter? My dear, the resemblance is most striking. They peered at me for a while as if I was something in a glass case and I gobbled back and had a good look at the girl. There's no doubt about it, she was different from what Aunt Agatha had called the bold girls one meets in London nowadays. No bobbed hair and gaspers about her. I don't know when I've met anybody who looked so respectable as the only ward. She had on a kind of plain dress and her hair was plain and her face was sort of mild and saint-like. I don't pretend to be a Sherlock Holmes or anything of that order but the moment I looked at her, I said to myself the girl plays the organ in a village church. Well, we gazed at one another for a bit and there was a certain amount of chit-chat and then I tore myself away. When I went, I had been booked up to take brother and the girl for a nice drive that afternoon and the thought of it depressed me to such an extent that I felt there was only one thing to be done. I went straight back to my room, dug out the cummerbund and draped it round the old tum. I turned round and jeez shied like a startled Mustang. I beg your pardon, sir. He said in a sort of hushed voice you are surely not proposing to appear in public in that thing. The cummerbund, I said, in a careless debonair way, passing it off. Oh, rather! I should not advise it, sir. Really, I shouldn't. Why not? The effect, sir, is loud in the extreme. I tackled the blighters squarely. I mean to say nobody knows better than I do that jeez is a mastermind in all that but dash it. I must call his soul his own. You can't be a surf to your valet. Besides, I was feeling pretty low and the cummerbund was the only thing which could cheer me up. You know, the trouble with you, jeez, I said, is that you're too... What's the word I want? Too baly insular. You can't realize that you aren't in Piccadilly all the time. In a place like this, a bit of color and touch of the poetic is expected of you. Why? I'm a fellow downstairs in a morning suit of yellow velvet. Nevertheless, sir. Jeez, I said firmly, my mind is made up. I am feeling a little low-spirited and need-chairing. Besides, what's wrong with it? This cummerbund seems to me to be called for. I consider that it has rather a Spanish effect. A touch of the Hidalgo. Sort of Vicente y Blasco. What's his name stuff? The jolly old Hidalgo off to the bullfight. Very good, sir. Said Jeez coldly. Dashed upsetting this sort of thing. If there's one thing that gives me the pip, it's unpleasantness in the home. And I could see that relations were going to be pretty fairly strained for a while. And, coming on top of Aunt Agatha's bombshell about the Hemingway girl, I don't mind confessing it made me feel more or less as though nobody loved me. The drive that afternoon was about as moldy as I had expected. The curate chappy prattled on of this and that the girl admired the view and I got a headache early in the proceedings which started at the soles of my feet and got worse all the way up. I tottered back to my room to dress for dinner, feeling like a toad under the harrow. If it hadn't been for that cummerbund business earlier in the day, I could have sobbed on Jeeves' neck and poured out all my troubles to him. Even as it was, I couldn't keep the thing entirely to myself. I say, Jeeves, I said, Sir, makes me a stiffish brandy and soda. Yes, sir? Stiffish Jeeves, not too much soda but splash the brandy about a bit. Very good, sir. After imbibing, I felt a shade better. Jeeves, I said, Sir, I rather fancy I'm in the soup, Jeeves. Indeed, sir. I eyed the man narrowly, dashed aloof his manner was, still brooding over the cummerbund. Yes, right up to the hawks, I said, suppressing the pride of the Worcesters and trying to induce him to be a bit matier. Have you seen a girl popping about here with a parson brother? Miss Hemingway, sir? Yes, sir. Martha wants me to marry her. Indeed, sir. Well, what about it? Sir? I mean, have you anything to suggest? No, sir. The blighter's manner was so cold and unchummy that I bit the bullet and had a dash at being airy. Oh, well, tra-la-la, I said. Precisely, sir, said Jeeves. And that was, so to speak, that. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of The Inimitable Jeeves. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Rita Boutros. The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse. Chapter 4 Pearls Mean Tears I remember it must have been when I was at school because I don't go in for that sort of thing very largely nowadays. Reading a poem or something about something or other in which there was a line which went, if I've got it rightly, shades of the prison house begin to close upon the growing boy. Well, what I'm driving at is that during the next two weeks is exactly how it was with me. I mean to say I could hear the wedding bells chiming faintly in the distance and getting louder and louder every day and how the deuce to slide out of it was more than I could think. Jeeves, no doubt, could have dug up a dozen brainy schemes in a couple of minutes, but he was still aloof and chilly and I couldn't bring myself to ask him point-blank. I could see easily enough that the young master was in a bad way and if that wasn't enough to make him overlook the fact that I was still gleaming brightly about the waistband, well, what it amounted to was that the old feudal spirit was dead in the Blighter's bosom and there was nothing to be done about it. It really was rummy the way the Hemingway family had taken to me. I wouldn't have said offhand anything about me. In fact, most people look on me as rather an ass, but there was no getting away from the fact that I went like a breeze with this girl and her brother. They didn't seem happy if they were away from me. I couldn't move a step-dash it without one of them popping up from somewhere and freezing on. In fact, I'd got into the habit now of retiring to my room when I wanted to take it easy for a bit. I had managed to get a rather decent suite on the third floor, looking down onto the promenade. I had gone to earth in my suite one evening and for the first time that day was feeling that life wasn't so bad after all. Right through the day, from lunchtime I'd had the Hemingway girl on my hands and Agatha having shoed us off together immediately after the midday meal. The result was, as I looked down on the lighted promenade and saw all the people popping happily about on their way to dinner and the casino and what not, a kind of wistful feeling came over me. I couldn't help thinking how dashed happy I could have contrived to be in this place if only Aunt Agatha and the other blisters had been elsewhere. I heaved a sigh and at that moment there was a knock at the door. Someone at the door jeeves, I said. Yes, sir? He opened the door and in popped Eileen Hemingway and her brother, the last person I had expected. I really had thought that I could be alone for a minute in my own room. Oh, hello, I said. Oh, Mr. Wooster said the girl in a gasping sort of way. I don't know how to begin. Then I noticed that she appeared considerably rattled and as for the brother he looked like a sheep with a secret sorrow. This made me sit up a bit and take notice. I had supposed that this was just a social call but apparently something had happened to give them a jolt. Though I couldn't see why they should come to me about it. Is anything up, I said? Poor Sydney, it was my fault. I ought never to have let him go there alone, said the girl. Dashed agitated. At this point the brother who, after shedding a floppy overcoat and parking his hat on a chair, had been standing by wrapped in the silence gave a little cough like a sheep caught in the mist on a mountaintop. The fact is, Mr. Wooster, he said, a sad, a most deplorable thing has occurred. This afternoon, while you were so kindly escorting my sister, I found the time hang a little heavy upon my hands and I was tempted to drop a gamble at the casino. I looked at the man in a kindlier spirit than I had been able to up-to-date. This evidence that he had sporting blood in his veins made him seem more human, I'm bound to say. If only I'd known earlier that he went in for that sort of thing I felt that we might have had a better time together. Oh, I said, did you click? He sighed heavily. If you mean was I successful in the answer in the negative, I rashly persisted in the view that the color red, having appeared no fewer than seven times in succession, must inevitably at no distance date give place to black. I was in error. I lost my little all, Mr. Wooster. Tough luck, I said. I left the casino, proceeded the chappy, and returned to the hotel. There I encountered one of my old musgrave, who chanced to be holiday-making over here. I induced him to cash me a check for one hundred pounds on my little account in my London bank. Well, that was all to the good what, I said, hoping to induce the poor fish to look on the bright side. I mean, bit of luck finding someone to slip it into first crack out of the box. On the contrary, Mr. Wooster, it did but make matters worse. I burned with shame as I make the confession, but I immediately went back to the casino and lost the entire sum. This time under the mistaken supposition that the color black was, as I believe the expression is, due for a run. I say, I said, you are having a night out. And concluded the chappy, the most lamentable feature of the whole affair is that I have no funds in the bank to meet the check when presented. I am free to confess that though I realized by this time that all this was leading up to a touch and that my ear was shortly going to be bitten in no uncertain manner, my heart warmed to the poor prune. Indeed, I gazed at him with no little interest and admiration. Never before had I encountered a curate so genuinely all to the mustard. Little as he might look like the lads of the village, he certainly appeared to be the real Tabasco and I wished he had shown me this side of his character before. Colonel Musgrave, he went on gulping somewhat, is not a man who would be likely to overlook the matter. He is a hard man. He will expose me to my vicar. My vicar is a hard man. In short, Mr. Wooster, if Colonel Musgrave presents that check, I shall be ruined and he leaves for England tonight. The girl who had been standing by biting her handkerchief and gurgling at intervals while her brother got the above off his chest now started in once more. Mr. Wooster, she cried, won't you, won't you help us? Oh, do say you will. We must have the money to get back the check from Colonel Musgrave before nine o'clock. He leaves on the nine twenty. I was at my wit's end what to do when I remembered how kind you had always been. Mr. Wooster, will you lend Sidney the money and take these as security? And before I knew what she was doing, she had dived into her bag, produced a case, and opened it. My pearls, she said, I don't know what they are worth. They were a present from my poor father. Now alas, no more, chipped in the brother. But I know they must be worth ever so much more than the amount we want. Dashed embarrassing, made me feel like a pawnbroker. More than a touch of popping the watch about the whole business. No, I say really, I protested there's no need of any security, you know, or any rot of that kind. Only too glad to let you have the money. I've got it on me as a matter of fact. Rather luckily drew some this morning. And I fished it out and pushed it across. The brother shook his head. Mr. Wooster, he said, we appreciate your generosity, your beautiful heartening confidence in us, but we cannot permit this. What Sidney means, said the girl, is that you really don't know anything about us when you come to think of it. You mustn't risk lending all this money without any security at all to two people who, after all, are almost strangers. If I hadn't thought that you would be quite business-like about this, I would never have dared to come to you. The idea of pledging the pearls at the local Montepiété was you will readily understand repugnant to us, said the brother. If you will just give me a receipt as a matter of form. Oh, righto! I wrote out the receipt and handed it over, feeling more or less of an ass. Here you are, I said. The girl took the piece of paper, shoved it in her bag, grabbed the money, and slipped it to Brother Sidney, and then, before I knew what was happening, she had darted at me, kissed me, and legged it from the room. I'm bound to say the thing rattled me. So dashed, sudden and unexpected, I mean a girl like that, always been quiet and amure and what not. By no means the sort of female you'd have expected to go about the place kissing fellows. Through a sort of mist I could see that Jeeves had appeared from the background, and was helping the brother on with his coat, and I remembered wondering idly how the Dickens a man could bring himself to wear a coat like that, it being more like a sack than anything else. Then the brother came up to me and grasped my hand. Was he sufficiently Mr. Wooster? Oh, not at all. You have saved my good name. Good name in man or woman, dear my lord, he said, massaging the fin with some fervor, is the immediate jewel of their souls. Whose steels my purse, steels trash, twas mine, tis his, and has been slaved to thousands. But he that filters for me my good name, robs me of that which enriches and makes me poor indeed. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Good night, Mr. Wooster. Good night, old thing, I said. I blinked at Jeeves as the door shut. Rather a sad affair, Jeeves, I said, Yes, sir? Lucky I happen to have all that money handy. Well, uh, yes, sir? You speak as though you didn't think much of it. It is not my place to criticize your actions, sir. But I will venture to say that I think you behaved a little rashly. What, lending that money? Yes, sir. These fashionable French watering places are notoriously infested by dishonest characters. This was a bit too thick. Now, look here, Jeeves, I said, I can stand a lot. But when it comes to your casting, ask whatever the word is on a burden holy orders. Perhaps I am over-suspicious, sir, but I have seen a great deal of these resorts. When I was in the employment of Lord Frederick Ranallac shortly before I entered your service, his lordship was very neatly swindled by a criminal known, I believe, by this sober-kay of soapy-sid who scraped acquaintance with us in Monte Carlo with the assistance of a female accomplice I have never forgotten the circumstances. I don't want to butt in on your reminiscences, Jeeves, I said coldly. But you're talking through your hat. How can there have been anything fishy about this business? They've left me the pearls, haven't they? Very well, then. Think before you speak. You had better be tooling down to the desk now and having these things shoved in the hotel safe. I picked up the case and opened it. Oh, great scot! The bally thing was empty. Oh, my lord, I said, staring, don't tell me there's been dirty work at the crossroads after all. Precisely, sir. It was in exactly the same manner that Lord Frederick was swindled on the occasion to which I have alluded. While his female accomplice was gratefully embracing his lordship, soapy-sid substituted a duplicate case for the one containing the pearls and went off with the jewels, the money and the receipt. On the strength of the receipt he subsequently demanded from his lordship the return of the pearls and his lordship not being able to produce them was obliged to pay a heavy sum in compensation. It is a simple but effective ruse. I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of things with a jerk. So be-sid! Sidney! Brother Sidney! Why, by Jove Jeeves, do you think that person was soapy-sid? Yes, sir. But it seems so extraordinary why his collar buttoned at the back. I mean, he would have deceived a bishop. Do you really think he was soapy-sid? Yes, sir. I recognized him directly. He came into the room. I stared at the blighter. Yes, sir. Then dash it all, I said, deeply moved. I think you might have told me. I thought it would save disturbance and unpleasantness if I merely abstracted the case from the man's pocket as I assisted him with his coat, sir. Here it is. He laid another case on the table beside the dud one, and by Jove you couldn't tell them apart. I opened it and there were the good old pearls as merry and bright as damn it smiling up at me. I gazed feebly at the man. I was feeling a bit overwrought. Jeeves, I said, you're an absolute genius. Yes, sir. Relief was surging over me in great chunks by now. Thanks to Jeeves, I was not going to be called on to cough up several thousand quid. It looks to me as though you had saved the old home. Even a chappy endowed with the immortal rind of dear old Sid is hardly likely to have the nerve to come back and retrieve these little chaps. I should imagine not, sir. Well then, oh, I say, you don't think they are just paced or anything like that. No, sir, these are genuine pearls and extremely valuable. Well then, dash it. I'm on velvet. Absolutely reclining on the good old plush. I may be down a hundred quid, but I'm up a jolly good string of pearls. Am I right or wrong? Hardly that, sir. I think that you will have to restore the pearls. What, to Sid? Not while I have my physique? No, sir, to their rightful owner. But who is their rightful owner? Mrs. Gregson, sir. What? How do you know? It was all over the hotel an hour ago that Mrs. Gregson's pearls had been abstracted. I was speaking to Mrs. Gregson's maid shortly before you came in and she informed me that the manager of the hotel is now in Mrs. Gregson's suite. And having a devil of a time, what? So I should be disposed to imagine, sir. The situation was beginning to unfold before me. I'll go and give them back to her, eh? It'll put me one up, what? Precisely, sir. And if I may make the suggestion, I think it might be judicious to stress the fact that they were stolen by Great Scott by the dashed girl she was hounding me on to Mary by Jove. Exactly, sir. Jeves, I said, this is going to be the biggest score off my jolly old relative that has ever been in the world's history. It is not unlikely, sir. Keep her quiet for a bit, what? Make her stop snootering me for a while. It should have that effect, sir. Golly, I said, bounding for the door. Long before I reached Aunt Agatha's lair, I could tell that the hunt was up. Diverse chapies in hotel uniform and not a few chamber maids of sorts were hanging out in the corridor. And through the panels I could hear a mixed assortment of voices with Aunt Agatha's topping the lot. I knocked, but no one took any notice, so I trickled in. Among those present, I noticed a chamber maid in hysterics. Aunt Agatha with her hair bristling and the whiskered cove who looked like a bandit, the hotel manager fellow. Oh, hello, I said. Aunt Agatha shooed me away. No welcoming smile for Bertram. Don't bother me now, Bertie. She snapped, looking at me as if I were more or less the last straw. Something up? Yes, yes, yes, I've lost my pearls. Pearls? Pearls? Pearls, I said. No, really? Dashed annoying. Where did you see them last? What does it matter where I saw them last? Stolen. Here, Wilfred the Whisker King who seemed to have been taking a rest between rounds, stepped into the ring again and began to talk rapidly in French. Cut to the quick, he seemed. The chamber maid whooped in the corner. Sure you've looked everywhere, I said? Of course I've looked everywhere. Well, you know, I've often lost a collar stud and do try not maddening Bertie. I have enough to bear without your imbecilities. Oh, be quiet, be quiet! She shouted in the sort of voice used by sergeant majors and those who call the cattle home across the sands of D. And such was the magnetism of her forceful personality that Wilfred subsided as if he had run into a wall. The chamber maid continued to go strong. I say, I said, I think there's something the matter with this girl. Isn't she crying or something? You may not have spotted it but I'm rather quick at noticing things. She stole my pearls, I'm convinced of it. This started the Whisker Specialist off again and in about a couple of minutes Aunt Agatha had reached the frozen grandam stage and was putting the last of the bandits through it in the voice she usually reserves for snubbing waiters in restaurants. I tell you, my good man, for the hundredth time I say, I said, don't want to interrupt you in all that sort of thing but these aren't the little chaps by any chance, are they? I pulled the pearls out of my pocket and held them up. These look like pearls, what? I don't know when I've had a more juicy moment. It was one of those occasions about which I shall prattle to my grandchildren if I ever have any going to press seems more or less of a hundred to one shot and Agatha simply deflated before my eyes. It reminded me of when I once saw some chappies letting the gas out of a balloon. Where? Where? Where? she gurgled. I got them from your friend Miss Hemingway even now she didn't get it from Miss Hemingway Miss Hemingway but but how did they come into her possession? How? I said because she jolly well stole them pinch them swipe them because that's how she makes her living dash it pawling up to unsuspicious people in hotels and sneaking their jewelry. I don't know what her alias is but her ballet brother the chap whose collar buttons at the back is known in criminal circles as soapy Sid she blanked Miss Hemingway a thief I I she stopped and looked feebly at me but how did you manage to recover the pearls Bertie dear? Never mind I said crisply I have my methods I dug out my entire stock of manly courage breathed a short prayer and let her have it right in the thorax. I must say and Agatha dash at all I said severely I think you have been infernally careless there's a printed notice in every bedroom in this place saying that there's a safe in the manager's office where jewelry and valuables ought to be placed and you absolutely disregarded it and what's the result? The first thief who came along simply walked into your room and pinched your pearls and instead of admitting that it was all your fault you started biting this poor man here in the gizzard you have been very very unjust to this poor man yes yes moaned the poor man and this unfortunate girl what about her? where does she get off? you've accused her of stealing the things on absolutely no evidence I think she would be very well advised to bring an action for for whatever it is and soak you for substantial damages may we may we say too far shouted the bandit chief backing me up like a gooden and the chambermaid looked up inquiringly as if the sun was breaking through the clouds I shall recompense her said ant agatha feebly if you take my tip I very well will and that effsoons all right speedily she's got a cast iron case and if I were her I wouldn't take a penny under twenty quid but what gives me the pip most is the way you've unjustly abused this poor man here and try to give his hotel a bad name yes by damn it's too bad cried the whiskered marvel you careless old woman you give my hotel bad names would you or wasn't it tomorrow you leave my hotel by great scotland and more to the same effect all good ripe stuff and presently having said his say he withdrew taking the chambermaid with him the latter with a crisp tenor clutched in a vice like grip I suppose she and the bandit split it outside a french hotel manager wouldn't be likely to let real money wander away from him without counting himself in on the division I turned to ant agatha whose demeanor was now rather like that of one who picking daisies on the railway has just caught the down express in the small of the back I don't want to rub it in ant agatha I said coldly but I should just like to point out before I go that the girl who stole your pearls is the girl you've been hounding me on to marry ever since I got here good heavens do you realize that if you had brought the thing off I should probably have had children who would have sneaked my watch while I was dandling them on my knee I'm not a complaining sort of chap as a rule but I must say that another time I do think you might be more careful how you go about egging me on to marry females I gave her one look turned on my heel and left the room ten o'clock a clear night and all's well jeeves I said breezing back into the good old sweet I am gratified to hear it sir if twenty quid would be of any use to you jeeves I am much obliged sir there was a pause and then well it was a wrench but I did it I unstripped the cummerbund and handed it over do you wish me to press this sir I gave the thing one last longing look it had been very dear to me now I said take it away give it to the deserving poor I shall never wear it again thank you very much sir said jeeves end of chapter 4 chapter 5 of the inimitable jeeves this is a Libervox recording all Libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org the inimitable jeeves by PG Wodehouse chapter 5 the pride of the Woosters is wounded if there's one thing I like it's a quiet life I'm not one of those fellows who gets all restless and depressed if things aren't happening to them all the time you can't make it too placid for me give me regular mills a good show with decent music every now and then at one or two pals to totter round with and I ask no more that is why the jar when it came was such a particularly nasty jar I mean I'd return from Roeville with the sort of feeling that from now on nothing could occur to upset me Aunt Agatha I imagined would require at least a year to recover from the Hemingway affair and apart from Aunt Agatha there's nobody who really does much in the way of harrying me it seemed to me that the skies were blue so to speak and no clouds in sight I little thought well look here what happened was this and I ask you if it wasn't enough to rattle anybody once a year jeeves takes a couple of weeks vacation and biffs off to the sea or somewhere to restore his tissues pretty rotten for me of course while he's away but it has to be stuck so I stick it that he usually manages to get a hold of a fairly decent fellow to look after me in his absence well the time had come round again and jeeves was in the kitchen giving the understudy a few tips about his duties I happen to want a stamp or something and I toddled down the passage to ask him for it the silly ass had left the kitchen door open and I hadn't gone two steps when his voice caught me squarely in the eardrum you'll find Mr. Wooster he was saying to the substitute chappy an exceedingly pleasant and amiable young gentleman but not intelligent by no means intelligent mentally he is negligible quite negligible well I mean to say what I suppose strictly speaking ought to have charged in and ticked the blighter off properly in no uncertain voice but I doubt whether it's humanly possible to tick jeeves off personally I didn't even have a dash at it I merely called for my hat and stick in a marked manner and laked it but the memory rankled if you know what I mean we Woosters do not lightly forget at least we do some things, appointments and people's birthdays letters to post and all that but not an absolute ballet insult like the above I brooded like the Dickens I was still brooding when I dropped in at the oyster bar at Buck's for a quick bracer I needed a bracer rather particularly at the moment because I was on my way to lunch with Aunt Agatha a pretty frightful ordeal believe me or believe me not even though I took it that after what happened at Roeville she would be in a fairly subdued and amiable mood I just had one quick and another rather slower and was feeling about as Cheerios was possible under the Cirques when a muffled voice hailed me from the northeast and turning round I saw young bingo little propped in a corner wrapping himself round a sizable chunk of bread and cheese hello, hello, hello I said haven't seen you for ages you've not been in here lately have you no I've been living out in the country eh I said for bingo's loathing for the country was well known whereabouts down in Hampshire at a place called Ditteridge oh really I know some people who've got a house there at Glossops have you met them why that's where I'm staying said young bingo I'm tutoring that Glossop kid what for I said I couldn't seem to see young bingo as a tutor though of course he did get a degree of sorts at Oxford and I suppose you can always fool some of the people some of the time what for for money of course an absolute sitter came unstitched in the second race to the Haydock Park young bingo with some bitterness and I dropped my entire month's allowance I hadn't the nerve to touch my uncle for any more so it was a case of buzzing round to the agents and getting a job I've been down there three weeks I haven't met the Glossop kid don't advise bingo briefly the only one in the family I really know is the girl I had hardly spoken these words when the most extraordinary change came over young bingo's face his eyes bulged his cheeks flushed and his Adam's apple hopped about like one of those india rubber balls on the top of the fountain in a shooting gallery oh Bertie he said in a strangled sort of voice I looked at the poor fish anxiously I knew that he was always falling in love with someone but it didn't seem possible that even he could have fallen in love with anoria Glossop to me the girl was simply nothing more or less than a pot of poison one of those dashed large brainy strenuous dynamic girls you see so many of these days she had been at Gertin where in addition to enlarging her brain to the most frightful extent she had gone in for every kind of sport and developed the physique of a middle-weight catch-as-can wrestler I'm not sure she didn't box for the varsity while she was up the effect she had on me whenever she appeared was to make me want to slide into a cellar and lie low till they blew the all-clear yet here is young bingo obviously all for her no mistaking it the love light was in the blighter's eyes I worship her birdie I worship the very ground she treads on continued the patient in a loud penetrating voice Fred Thompson and one or two fellows had come in and McGarry the chappy behind the bar was listening with his ears flapping but there's no reticence about bingo he always reminds me of the hero in a musical comedy who takes the center of the stage gathers the boys round him in a circle and tells them all about his love at the top of his voice have you told her no I haven't had the nerve but we walk together in the garden most evenings and it sometimes seems to me that there's a look in her eyes I know that look like a sergeant major nothing of the kind like a tender goddess half a second thing I said are you sure we're talking about the same girl the one I mean is a noria perhaps there's a younger sister or something I've not heard of her name is a noria bald bingo reverently and she strikes you as a tender goddess she does God bless you I said she walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climbs and starry skies and all that's best of dark and bright meat in her aspect and her eyes another bit of bread and cheese he said to the lad behind the bar you're keeping your strength up I said this is my lunch I've got to meet Oswald at Waterloo at 115 to catch the train back I brought him up to town to see the dentist Oswald is that the kid yes pestilential to a degree pestilential that reminds me I'm lunching with my Aunt Agatha I'll have to pop off now or I'll be late I hadn't seen Aunt Agatha since the little bear of the pearls and while I didn't anticipate any great pleasure for gnawing a bone in her society I must say that there was one topic of conversation I felt pretty confident she wouldn't touch on and that was the subject of my matrimonial future I mean when a woman's made a bloomer like the one Aunt Agatha made at Roeville you'd naturally think that a decent shame would keep her off it for at any rate month or two but women beat me I mean to say, as regards nerve you'll hardly credit it but she actually started in on me with the fish absolutely with the fish I give you my solemn word we'd hardly exchanged a word about the weather when she let me have it without a blush Bertie, she said I've been thinking about you and how necessary it is that you should get married I'd quite admit that I was dreadfully mistaken in my opinion of that terrible hypocritical girl at Roeville but this time there is no danger of an error by great good luck I have found the very wife for you a girl whom I have only recently met but whose family is above suspicion she has plenty of money too though that does not matter in your case the great point is that she is strong, self-reliant and sensible and will counterbalance the deficiencies and weaknesses of your character she has met you and while there is naturally much in you of which she disapproves, she does not dislike you I know this for I have sounded her, guardedly of course and I am sure that you have only to make the first advances who is it? I would have said it long before but the shock had made me swallow a bit of Roe the wrong way and I had only just finished turning purple and trying to get a bit of air back into the old windpipe who is it? Sir Roderick Glossop's daughter, Anoria no no I cried, pailing beneath the tan don't be silly Bertie she is just the wife for you yes, but look here she would mould you but I don't want to be moulded and Agatha gave me the kind of look she used to give me when I was a kid and had been found in the jam cupboard Bertie, I hope you're not going to be troublesome well, but I mean Lady Glossop has very kindly invited you to Ditteridge Hall for a few days I told her you would be delighted to come down tomorrow I'm sorry but I've got a dashed important engagement tomorrow what engagement? well you have no engagement and even if you had you must put it off I shall be very seriously annoyed Bertie if you do not go to Ditteridge Hall tomorrow oh, righto I said it wasn't two minutes after I had parted from Aunt Agatha before the old fighting spirit of the Woosters reasserted itself ghastly as the peril was which loomed before me I was conscious of a rummy sort of exhilaration it was a tight corner but the tighter the corner I felt the more juicily I should score off G's when I got myself out of it without a bit of help from him ordinarily, of course I should have consulted him I trusted him to solve the difficulty but after what I had heard him saying in the kitchen I was dashed if I was going to demean myself when I got home I addressed the man with light abandon chiefs, I said I'm in a bit of difficulty I'm sorry to hear that, sir yes, quite a bad hole in fact, you might say on the brink of a precipice and faced by an awful doom if I could be of any assistance, sir oh, no no, no no, thanks very much but no, no I won't trouble you, I've no doubt I shall be able to get out of it all right, by myself very good, sir so, that was that I'm bound to say I'd have welcomed a bit more curiosity from the fellow but that is G's all over cloaks his emotions if you know what I mean Anoria was away when I got to Ditteridge on the following afternoon her mother told me that she was staying with some people named Brothwaite in the neighborhood and would be back next day bringing the daughter of the house with her for a visit she said I would find Oswald out in the grounds and such is a mother's love that she spoke as if that were a bit of a boost for the grounds and an inducement to go there rather decent the grounds at Ditteridge couple of terraces, a bit of lawn with a cedar on it a bit of shrubbery, finally with a stone bridge running across it directly I had worked my way around the shrubbery I spotted young Bingo leaning against the bridge smoking a cigarette sitting on the stonework fishing was a species of kid whom I took to be Oswald, the plague spot Bingo was both surprised and delighted to see me and introduced me to the kid if the latter was surprised and delighted too he concealed it like a diplomat he just looked at me raised his eyebrow slightly and went on fishing he was one of those supercilious striplings who gives you the impression that you went to the wrong school and that your clothes don't fit this is Oswald, said Bingo what? I replied cordially could be sweeter, how are you oh, alright said the kid nice place this oh, alright said the kid having a good time fishing alright, said the kid young Bingo led me off to commune apart doesn't jolly old Oswald's incessant flow of prattle make your head ache sometimes, I asked Bingo sighed it's a hard job what's a hard job? loving him do you love him? I asked surprised, I shouldn't have thought it could be done I tried to said young Bingo coming back tomorrow, Bertie so I heard she is coming, my love, my own absolutely I said but touching on young Oswald once more do you have to be with him all day how do you manage to stick it oh, he doesn't give me much trouble when we aren't working he sits on that bridge all the time trying to catch titlers why don't you shove him in shove him in it seems to me distinctly the thing to do I said, regarding the stripling's back with a good deal of dislike it would wake him up a bit and make him take an interest in things Bingo shook his head a bit wistfully your proposition attracts me he said but I'm afraid it can't be done you see, she would never forgive me she is devoted to that little brute great Scott I cried, I've got it I don't know if you know that feeling when you get an inspiration and tingle all down your spine from the soft collar as now worn to the very soles of the old Waukesis Jeeves, I suppose feels that way more or less all the time but it isn't often it comes to me but now all nature seemed to be shouting at me you've clicked and I grabbed young Bingo by the arm in a way that must have made him feel as if a horse had bitten him his finely chiseled features were twisted with agony and whatnot and he asked me what the dickens I thought I was playing at Bingo, I said what would Jeeves have done how do you mean what would Jeeves have done I mean what would he have advised in a case like yours I mean, you wanting to make a hit with Anoria Glossop and all that why, take it from me laddie he would have shoved you behind that clump of bushes over there he would have got me to lure Anoria onto that bridge somehow then at the proper time he would have told me to give the kid a pretty hefty jab in the small of the back so as to shoot him into the water and then you would have dived in and hauled him out, how about it you didn't think that out by yourself, birdie said young Bingo in a hushed sort of voice yes, I did Jeeves isn't the only fellow with ideas but it's absolutely wonderful just a suggestion the only objection I can see is that it would be so dashed awkward for you I mean to say the kid turned round and said you had shoved him in that would make you frightfully unpopular with her I don't mind risking that the man was deeply moved birdie, this is noble no, no he clasped my hand silently then chuckled like the last drop of water going down the waste pipe in a bath now what, I said I was only thinking said young Bingo how fearfully wet Oswald will get oh happy day end of chapter 5 chapter 6 of the inimitable Jeeves this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the inimitable Jeeves by PG Wodehouse chapter 6 The Hero's Reward I don't know if you've noticed it but it's rummy how nothing in this world ever seems to be absolutely perfect the drawback to this otherwise singularly fruity binge was, of course the fact that Jeeves wouldn't be on the spot to watch me in action still, apart from that, there wasn't a flaw the beauty of the thing was you see, that nothing could possibly go wrong you know how it is, as a rule when you want to get Chapier on spot B at exactly the same moment when Chapie C is on spot D there's always a chance of a hitch take the case of it general I mean to say who's planning out a big movement he tells one regiment to capture the hill with the windmill on it at the exact moment when another regiment is taking the bridgehead, or something down in the valley and everything gets all messed up and then when they're chatting the thing over in camp that night the colonel of the first regiment says oh, sorry, did you say the hill with the windmill? I thought you said the one with the flock of sheep and there you are but in this case, nothing like that could happen because Oswald and Bingo would be on the spot right along so that all I had to worry about was getting a Noria there in due season and I managed that all right for a shot by asking her if she would come for a stroll in the grounds with me as I had something particular to say to her she had arrived shortly after lunch in the car with the Brathwaite girl I was introduced to the latter a tallish girl with blue eyes and fair hair I rather took to her she was so unlike a Noria and if I had been able to spare the time I shouldn't have minded talking to her for a bit but business was business I had fixed it up with Bingo to be behind the bushes at three sharp so I got hold of a Noria and steered her out through the grounds in the direction of the lake you're very quiet, Mr. Wooster she said I was concentrating pretty tensely at the moment we had just come inside of the lake and I was casting a keen eye over the ground to see that everything was in order everything appeared to be as arranged the kid Oswald was hunched up on the bridge and as Bingo wasn't visible I took it that he had got into position my watch made it two minutes after the hour eh? I said oh yes, I was just thinking you said you had something important to say to me absolutely I had decided to open the proceedings by sort of paving the way for young Bingo I mean to say without actually mentioning his name I wanted to prepare the girl's mind for the fact that surprising as it might seem there was someone who had long loved her from afar and all that sort of rot it's like this, I said it might sound rummy and all that but there's somebody who's frightfully in love with you and so forth oh, a friend of yours? yes she gave kind of laugh well why doesn't he tell me so well you see that's the sort of chap he is kind of shrinking, diffident kind of fellow hasn't got the nerve thanks you so much above him, don't you know looks on you as a sort of a goddess worships the ground you tread on but can't whack up the ginger to tell you so this is very interesting yes, he's not a bad chap, you know in his way rather an ass, perhaps but well meaning well, that's the Pashish you might just bear it in mind, what ha, how funny you are she chucked her head back and laughed with considerable thim she had a penetrating sort of laugh rather like a train going into a tunnel it didn't sound over musical to me and on the kid Oswald it appeared to jar not a little he gazed at us with a good deal of dislike I wish the Dickens you wouldn't make that row he said, scaring all the fish away it broke the spell a bit Honoria changed the subject I do wish Oswald wouldn't sit on the bridge like that she said I'm sure it isn't safe he might easily fall in I'll go and tell him, I said I suppose the distance between the kid and me at this juncture was about five yards, but I got the impression that it was nearer a hundred and as I started to total across the intervening space I had a rummy feeling that I'd done this very thing before then I remembered years ago at a country house party I had been roped in to play the part of a butler in some amateur theatricals in aid of some ghastly charity or other and I had had to open the proceedings by walking across the empty stage from left upper entrance and shoving a tray on a table down right they had impressed it on me at rehearsals that I mustn't take the course at a quick keel and toe like a chappy finishing strongly in a walking race and the result was that I kept the brakes on to such an extent that it seemed to me as if I was never going to get to the ballet table at all the stage seemed to stretch out in front of me like a trackless desert and there was a kind of breathless hush as if all nature had paused to concentrate its attention on me personally well I felt just like that now I had a kind of dry gulping in my throat and the more I walked the farther away the kid seemed to get till suddenly I found myself standing just behind him without quite knowing how I'd got there hello I said with a sickly sort of grin wasted on the kid because he didn't bother to turn round and look at me he merely wiggled his left ear in a rather peevish manner and when I met anybody in whose life I appeared to mean so little hello I said I laid my hand in a sort of elderly brother way on his shoulder hey look out said the kid wobbling on his foundations it was one of those things that want doing quickly or not at all I shut my eyes and pushed something seemed to give there was a scrambling sound kind of yelp laughing and a splash and so the long day wore on so to speak I opened my eyes the kid was just coming to the surface help! I shouted cocking an eye on the bush from which Young Bingo was scheduled to emerge nothing happened Young Bingo didn't emerge to the slightest extent whatever I say help! I shouted again I don't want to bore you with reminences of my theatrical career but I must just touch once more on that appearance of mine as a butler the scheme on that occasion had been that when I put the tray on the table the heroine would come on and say a few words to get me off well on the night the misguided female forgot to stand by and it was a full minute before the search party located her and shuddered onto the stage and all that time I had to stand there waiting a rotten sensation believe me and this was just the same only worse I understood what these writer chappies mean when they talk about time standing still meanwhile the kid Oswald was presumably being cut off in his prime and it began to seem to me that some sort of steps ought to be taken about it what I had seen of the lad hadn't particularly endeared to me but it was undoubtedly a bit thick to let him pass away I don't know when I have seen anything more grubby and unpleasant than the lake as viewed from the bridge but the thing apparently had to be done I chucked off my coat and vaulted over it seems rummy that water should be so much wetter when you go into it with your clothes on than when you're just bathing but take it from me that it is I was only under about three seconds I suppose but I came up feeling like the bodies you read of in the paper which had evidently been in the water several days I felt clammy and bloated at this point the scenario struck another snag I had assumed that directly I came to the surface I should get hold of the kid and steer him courageously to the shore but he hadn't waited to be steered when I had finished getting the water out of my eyes and had time to take a look around I saw him about ten yards away going strongly and using I think the Australian crawl the spectacle took all the heart out of me I mean to say the whole essence of a rescue if you know what I mean is that the party of the second part shall keep fairly still and in one spot if he starts swimming off on his own account and can obviously give you at least forty yards in the hundred where are you the whole thing falls through it didn't seem to me that there was much to be done except get ashore so I got ashore by the time I had landed the kid was half way to the house look at it from whatever angle you like the thing was a wash out I was interrupted in my meditations by a noise like the Scotch Express going under a bridge Maria Glossop laughing she was standing at my elbow looking at me in a rummy manner oh Bertie you are funny she said and even in that moment there seemed to be something sinister in the words she had never called me anything except Mr. Wooster before how wet you are yes I am wet you had better hurry into the house and change yes I rung a gallon or two of clothes you are funny she said again first proposing in that extraordinary roundabout way and then pushing poor little Oswald into the lake so as to impress me by saving him I managed to get the water out of my throat sufficiently to try to correct this fearful impression no he said you pushed him in and I saw you do it oh I'm not angry Bertie I think it was sweet of you this time that I took you in hand you certainly want someone to look after you you've been seeing too many moving pictures I suppose the next thing you would have done would have been to set the house on fire so as to rescue me she looked at me in a proprietary sort of way I think she said I shall be able to make something of you Bertie it is true yours has been a wasted life up to the present but you are still young and there is a lot of good in you really there isn't oh yes there is it simply wants bringing out now you run straight up into the house and change your wet clothes or you will catch cold and if you know what I mean there was a sort of motherly note in her voice which seemed to tell me even more than her actual words that I was for it as I was coming downstairs after changing I ran into young bingo looking festive to a degree just the man I wanted to see Bertie a wonderful thing has happened you blighter I cried what became of you do you know oh you mean about being in those bushes I had time to tell you about that it's all off all off Bertie I was actually starting to hide in those bushes when the most extraordinary thing happened walking across the lawn I saw the most radiant the most beautiful girl in the world there is none like her none Bertie do you believe in love at first sight you do believe in love at first sight don't you Bertie old man directly I saw her she seemed to draw me like a magnet I seemed to forget everything we two were alone in a world of music and sunshine I joined her I got into a conversation she is a Miss Brothwaite Bertie Daphne Brothwaite directly our eyes met I realized that what I had imagined to be my love for Honoria Glossop had been a mere passing whim Bertie you do believe in love at first sight don't you she is so wonderful so sympathetic like a tender goddess at this point I left the blighter two days I got a letter from Jeeves the weather it ended continues fine I have had one exceedingly enjoyable bath I gave one of those hollow mirthless laughs and went downstairs to join Honoria I had an appointment with her in the drawing room she was going to read Ruskin to me end of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of the inimitable Jeeves this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Paula Messina the inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Woodhouse Chapter 7 introducing Claude and Eustace the blow fell precisely at 145 summertime Spencer, Aunt Agatha's Butler, was offering me the fried potatoes at the moment and such was my emotion that I lofted six of them onto the sideboard with the spoon shaken to the core if you know what I mean Mark you I was in a pretty enfeebled condition already I had been engaged to Honoria Glossop nearly two weeks and during all that time not a day had passed without her putting in some heavy work Aunt Agatha had called molding me I had read solid literature till my eyes bubbled we had legged it together through miles of picture galleries and I had been compelled to undergo classical concerts to an extent you would hardly believe all in all therefore I was in no fit state to receive shocks especially shocks like this Honoria had lugged me round to lunch at Aunt Agatha's and I had just been saying to myself death where is that jolly old sting when she hove the bomb Bertie she said suddenly as if she had just remembered it what is the name of that man of yours your valet eh? oh jeez I think he's a bad influence for you said Honoria when we are married you must get rid of jeez it was at this point that I jerked the spoon and sent six of the best and crispest sailing on to the sideboard with Spencer gambling after them like a dignified old retriever get rid of jeez I guess yes I don't like him I don't like him said Aunt Agatha but I can't I mean why I couldn't carry on for a day without jeez you will have to said Honoria I don't like him at all I don't like him at all said Aunt Agatha I never did ghastly what but I never dreamed that it demanded such frightful sacrifices for a fellow I passed the rest of the meal in a sort of stupor the scheme had been if I remember that after lunch I should go off and catty for Honoria on a shopping tour down Regent Street but when she got up and started collecting me and the rest of her things Aunt Agatha stopped her you run along dear I want to say a few words to Bertie so Honoria legged it and Aunt Agatha drew up her chair and started in Bertie she said dear Honoria doesn't know it but a little difficulty has arisen about your marriage by Jove not really I said hope starting to dawn oh it's nothing at all of course it is only a little exasperating what it is Sir Roderick is being rather troublesome thinks I'm not a good bet wants to scratch the fixture well perhaps he's right pray do not be so absurd Bertie it is nothing so serious as that but the nature of Sir Roderick's profession unfortunately makes him over cautious I didn't get it over cautious yes I suppose this is inevitable a nerve specialist with his extensive practice can hardly help taking a rather warped a few of humanity I got what she was driving at now Sir Roderick Glossop Honoria's father is always called a nerve specialist because it sounds better but everybody knows that he's really a sort of janitor to the loony bin I mean to say begins to feel the strain a bit and you find him in the blue drawing room sticking straws in his hair old Glossop is the first person you send for he totals round gives the patient the once over talks about over excited nervous systems and recommends complete rest and seclusion and all that sort of thing practically every posh family in the country has called him in time or another and I suppose that being in that position I mean constantly having to sit on people's heads while their nearest and dearest phone to the asylum to send round the wagon does tend to make it chappy take what you might call a warped view of humanity you mean he thinks I may be a loony and he doesn't want a loony son-in-law I said Aunt Agatha seemed rather peeved of intelligence of course he does not think anything so ridiculous I told you he was simply exceedingly cautious he wants to satisfy himself that you were perfectly normal here she paused for Spencer had come in with the coffee when he had gone she went on he appears to have got hold of some extraordinary story about your having pushed his son Oswald into the lake a dooderidge hall incredible of course even you would hardly do a thing like that well I did sort of lean against him you know and he shot off the bridge Oswald definitely accuses you of having pushed him into the water that has disturbed Sir Roderick and unfortunately it has caused him to make inquiries and he has heard about your poor uncle Henry she eyed me with a good deal of solemnity and I took a grave sip of coffee we were peeping into the family cupboard and having a look at the good old skeleton my late uncle Henry you see was by way of being the blot on the Worcester Ascuchan an extremely decent chappy personally and one who would always endeared himself to me by tipping me with considerable selfishness when I was at school but there's no doubt he did at times do rather runny things notably keeping 11 pet rabbits in his bedroom and I suppose a purist might have considered him more or less off his onion in fact to be perfectly frank he wound up his career happy to the lost and completely surrounded by rabbits in some sort of a home it is very absurd of course continued on Agatha if any of the family had inherited poor Henry's eccentricity and it was nothing more it would have been Claude and Eustace and there could not be too brighter boys Claude and Eustace were twins and had been kids at school with me in my last summer term casting my mind back it seemed to me that bright just about to describe them the whole of that term as I remembered it had been spent in getting them out of a series of frightful rows look how well they're doing at Oxford your aunt Emily had a letter from Claude only the other day saying that they hoped to be elected shortly to a very important college club called the Seekers Seekers I couldn't recall any club of that name in my time at Oxford what do they seek Claude did not say truth or knowledge I should imagine it is evidently a very desirable club to belong to for Claude added that Lord Reinsby the Earl of Datchett's son was one of his fellow candidates however we are wondering from the point which is that Sir Roderick wants to have a quiet talk with you tonight alone now I rely on you Burtie to be I won't say intelligent but at least sensible don't giggle nervously try to keep that horrible glassy expression out of your eyes don't yawn or fidget and remember that Sir Roderick is the president of the west London branch of the anti-gambling league please do not talk about horse racing he will lunch with you at your flat tomorrow at one thirty please remember that he drinks no wine strongly disapproves of smoking and can only eat the simplest food owing to an impaired digestion do not offer him coffee for he considers it the root of half the nerve trouble in the world I should think a dog biscuit and a glass of water would about meet the case what Burtie oh all right merely perciflage now it is precisely that sort of idiotic remark that would be calculated to arouse Sir Roderick's worst suspicions do please try to refrain from any misguided flippancy when you are with him he is a very serious minded man are you going well please remember all I have said I rely on you and if anything goes wrong I shall never forgive you right oh I said and so home with a jolly day to look forward to I breakfasted pretty late next morning and went for a stroll afterwards it seemed to me that anything I could do to clear the old lemon ought to be done and a bit of fresh air generally relieves that old foggy feeling that comes over a fellow early in the day I had taken a stroll in the park and got back as far as Hyde Park corner when some blighter sloshed me between the shoulder blades it was young Eustace my cousin he was arm in arm with two other fellows the one on the outside being my cousin Claude and the one in the middle a pink faced chappy with light hair and an apologetic sort of look birdie old egg said young Eustace affably hello I said not frightfully terribly fancy running into you the one man in London who can support us in the style we are accustomed to by the way you've never met old dog face have you dog face this is my cousin birdie Lord Rainsby Mr. Worcester what are you doing in London I asked we've just been round to your flat birdie bitterly disappointed that you were out but were hospitably entertained by old jeeves that man's a corker birdie stick to him what are you doing in London I asked oh buzzing round we're just up for the day flying visit strictly unofficial we oil back on the 310 now touching that lunch you very decently volunteered to stand us which shall it be Ritz Savoy Carlton or if you're a member of Syros or the embassy that would do just as well I can't give you lunch I've got an engagement myself and by Jove I said taking a look at my watch I'm late I hailed a taxi sorry as man to man then said Eustace lend us a fiver I hadn't time to stop and argue I unbelted the fiver and hopped into the cab it was 20 to 2 when I got to the flat I bound it into the sitting room but it was empty jeeves shimmied in Sir Roderick has not yet arrived sir good egg I said I thought I should find him smashing up the furniture my experience is that the less you want a fellow the more punctual he's bound to be and I had had a vision of the old lad pacing the rug in my sitting room saying he cometh not and generally hearting up is everything in order I fancy you will find the arrangements quite satisfactory sir what are you giving us cold consomme a cutlet and a savoury sir with lemon squash iced well I don't see how that can hurt him don't go getting carried away by the excitement of the thing coffee no sir and don't let your eyes get glassy because if you do you're apt to find yourself in a padded cell before you know where you are very good sir there was a ring at the bell standby jeeves I said where off end of chapter 7