About the Book
Also by P. G. Wodehouse
Title Page
Thank You, Jeeves
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
The Code of the Woosters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
The Inimitable Jeeves
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Copyright
Books by P. G. Wodehouse
Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen
The Adventures of Sally
Bachelors Anonymous
Barmy in Wonderland
Big Money
Bill the Conqueror
Blandings Castle and Elsewhere
Carry on, Jeeves
The Clicking of Cuthbert
Cocktail Time
The Code of the Woosters
The Coming of Bill
Company for Henry
A Damsel in Distress
Do Butlers Burgle Banks?
Doctor Sally
Eggs, Beans and Crumpets
A Few Quick Ones
French Leave
Frozen Assets
Full Moon
Galahad at Blandings
A Gentleman of Leisure
The Girl in Blue
The Girl on the Boat
The Gold Bat
The Head of Kay’s
The Heart of a Goof
Heavy Weather
Hot Water
Ice in the Bedroom
If I Were You
Indiscretions of Archie
The Inimitable Jeeves
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
Jeeves in the Offing
Jill the Reckless
Joy in the Morning
Laughing Gas
Leave it to Psmith
The Little Nugget
Lord Emsworth and Others
Louder and Funnier
Love Among the Chickens
The Luck of the Bodkins
The Man Upstairs
The Man with Two Left Feet
The Mating Season
Meet Mr Mulliner
Mike and Psmith
Mike at Wrykyn
Money for Nothing
Money in the Bank
Mr Mulliner Speaking
Much Obliged, Jeeves
Mulliner Nights
Not George Washington
Nothing Serious
The Old Reliable
Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin
A Pelican at Blandings
Piccadilly Jim
Pigs Have Wings
Plum Pie
The Pothunters
A Prefect’s Uncle
The Prince and Betty
Psmith, Journalist
Psmith in the City
Quick Service
Right Ho, Jeeves
Ring for Jeeves
Sam the Sudden
Service with a Smile
The Small Bachelor
Something Fishy
Something Fresh
Spring Fever
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
Summer Lightning
Summer Moonshine
Sunset at Blandings
The Swoop
Tales of St Austin’s
Thank You, Jeeves
Ukridge
Uncle Dynamite
Uncle Fred in the Springtime
Uneasy Money
Very Good, Jeeves
The White Feather
William Tell Told Again
Young Men in Spats
Omnibuses
The Golf Omnibus
The World of Blandings
The World of Jeeves
The World of Mr Mulliner
The World of Psmith
The World of Ukridge
The World of Uncle Fred
Tales From The Drones Club
Wodehouse Nuggets (edited by Richard Usborne)
The World of Wodehouse Clergy
The Hollywood Omnibus
Weekend Wodehouse
The Aunts Omnibus
The Jeeves Omnibus 2
Verse
The Parrot and Other Poems
Autobiographical
Wodehouse on Wodehouse (comprising Bring on the Girls, Over Seventy, Performing Flea)
Letters
Yours, Plum
This is the first of the full-length novels about Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, and it is the only book of mine which I tried to produce without sitting down at the typewriter and getting a crick in the back.
Not that I ever thought of dictating it to a stenographer. How anybody can compose a story by word of mouth, face to face with a bored looking secretary with a notebook is more than I can imagine. Yet many authors think nothing of saying ‘Ready, Miss Spelvin? Take dictation. Quote No comma Lord Jasper Murgatroyd comma close quote said no better make it hissed Evangeline comma quote I would not marry you if you were the last man on earth close quote period Quote Well comma, I’m not the last man on earth comma so the point does not arise comma close quote replied Lord Jasper comma twirling his moustache cynically period And so the long day wore on.’
If I started to do that sort of thing I should be feeling all the time that the girl was saying to herself as she took it down, ‘Well comma this beats me period How comma with homes for the feeble minded touting for customers on every side comma has a fathead like this Wodehouse succeeded in remaining at large all these years mark of interrogation.’
But I did get one of those machines where you talk into a mouth-piece and have your observations recorded on wax, and I started Thank You, Jeeves, on it. And after the first few paragraphs I thought I would run back and play the stuff over to hear how it sounded.
It sounded too awful for human consumption. Until that moment I had never realized that I had a voice like that of a very pompous school-master addressing the young scholars in his charge from the pulpit in the school chapel. There was a kind of foggy dreariness about it that chilled the spirits. It stunned me, I had been hoping, if all went well, to make Thank You, Jeeves an amusing book – gay, if you see what I mean, rollicking if you still follow me and debonair, and it was plain to me that a man with a voice like that could never come within several miles of being debonair. With him at the controls the thing would develop into one of those dim tragedies of peasant life which we return to the library after a quick glance at Page One. I sold the machine next day and felt like the Ancient Mariner when he got rid of the albatross. So now I confine myself to the good old typewriter.
Writing my stories I enjoy. It is the thinking them out that is apt to blot the sunshine from my life. You can’t think out plots like mine without getting a suspicion from time to time that something has gone seriously wrong with the brain’s two hemispheres and the broad band of transversely running fibres known as the corpus callosum. It is my practice to make about 400 pages of notes before starting a novel, and during this process there always comes a moment when I say to myself ‘Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown.’ The odd thing is that just as I am feeling that I must get a proposer and seconder and have myself put up for the loony bin, something always clicks and after that all is joy and jollity.
P. G. Wodehouse
I WAS A shade perturbed. Nothing to signify, really, but still just a spot concerned. As I sat in the old flat, idly touching the strings of my banjolele, an instrument to which I had become greatly addicted of late, and you couldn’t have said that the brow was actually furrowed, and yet, on the other hand, you couldn’t have stated absolutely that it wasn’t. Perhaps the word ‘pensive’ about covers it. It seemed to me that a situation fraught with embarrassing potentialities had arisen.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘do you know what?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do you know whom I saw last night?’
‘No, sir.’
‘J. Washburn Stoker and his daughter, Pauline.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘They must be over here.’
‘It would seem so, sir.’
‘Awkward, what?’
‘I can conceive that after what occurred in New York it might be distressing for you to encounter Miss Stoker, sir. But I fancy the contingency need scarcely arise.’
I weighed this.
‘When you start talking about contingencies arising, Jeeves, the brain seems to flicker and I rather miss the gist. Do you mean that I ought to be able to keep out of her way?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Avoid her?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I played five bars of ‘Old Man River’ with something of abandon. His pronouncement had eased my mind. I followed his reasoning. After all, London’s a large place. Quite simple not to run into people, if you don’t want to.
‘It gave me rather a shock, though.’
‘I can readily imagine so, sir.’
‘Accentuated by the fact that they were accompanied by Sir Roderick Glossop.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes. It was at the Savoy Grill. They were putting on the nosebag together at a table by the window. And here’s rather a rummy thing, Jeeves. The fourth member of the party was Lord Chuffnell’s aunt, Myrtle. What would she be doing in that gang?’
‘Possibly her ladyship is an acquaintance either of Mr Stoker, Miss Stoker, or Sir Roderick, sir.’
‘Yes, that may be so. Yes, that might account for it. But it surprised me, I confess.’
‘Did you enter into conversation with them, sir?’
‘Who, me? No, Jeeves. I was out of the room like a streak. Apart from wishing to dodge the Stokers, can you see me wantonly and deliberately going and chatting with old Glossop?’
‘Certainly he has never proved a very congenial companion in the past, sir.’
‘If there is one man in the world I hope never to exchange speech with again, it is that old crumb.’
‘I forgot to mention, sir, that Sir Roderick called to see you this morning.’
‘What!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘He called to see me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘After what has passed between us?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, I’m dashed!’
‘Yes, sir. I informed him that you had not yet risen, and he said that he would return later.’
‘He did, did he?’ I laughed. One of those sardonic ones. ‘Well, when he does, set the dog on him.’
‘We have no dog, sir.’
‘Then step down to the flat below and borrow Mrs Tinkler-Moulke’s Pomeranian. Paying social calls after the way he behaved in New York! I never heard of such a thing. Did you ever hear of such a thing, Jeeves?’
‘I confess that in the circumstances his advent occasioned me surprise, sir.’
‘I should think it did. Good Lord! Good heavens! Good gosh! The man must have the crust of a rhinoceros.’
And when I have given you the inside story, I think you will agree with me that my heat was justified. Let me marshal my facts and go to it.
About three months before, noting a certain liveliness in my Aunt Agatha, I had deemed it prudent to pop across to New York for a space to give her time to blow over. And about half-way through my first week there, in the course of a beano of some description at the Sherry-Netherland, I made the acquaintance of Pauline Stoker.
She got right in amongst me. Her beauty maddened me like wine.
‘Jeeves,’ I recollect saying, on returning to the apartment, ‘who was the fellow who on looking at something felt like somebody looking at something? I learned the passage at school, but it has escaped me.’
‘I fancy the individual you have in mind, sir, is the poet Keats, who compared his emotions on first reading Chapman’s Homer to those of stout Cortez when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific.’
‘The Pacific, eh?’
‘Yes, sir. And all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a peak in Darien.’
‘Of course. It all comes back to me. Well, that’s how I felt this afternoon on being introduced to Miss Pauline Stoker. Press the trousers with special care tonight, Jeeves. I am dining with her.’
In New York, I have always found, one get off the mark quickly in matters of the heart. This, I believe, is due to something in the air. Two weeks later I proposed to Pauline. She accepted me. So far, so good. But mark the sequel. Scarcely forty-eight hours after that a monkey wrench was bunged into the machinery and the whole thing was off.
The hand that flung that monkey wrench was the hand of Sir Roderick Glossop.
In these memoirs of mine, as you may recall, I have had occasion to make somewhat frequent mention of this old pot of poison. A bald-domed, bushy-browed blighter, ostensibly a nerve specialist, but in reality, as everybody knows, nothing more nor less than a high-priced loony-doctor, he has been cropping up in my path for years, always with the most momentous results. And it so happened that he was in New York when the announcement of my engagement appeared in the papers.
What brought him there was one of his periodical visits to J. Washburn Stoker’s second cousin, George. This George was a man who, after a lifetime of doing down the widow and orphan, had begun to feel the strain a bit. His conversation was odd, and he had a tendency to walk on his hands. He had been a patient of Sir Roderick’s for some years, and it was the latter’s practice to dash over to New York every once in a while to take a look at him. He arrived on the present occasion just in time to read over the morning coffee and egg the news that Bertram Wooster and Pauline Stoker were planning to do the Wedding Glide. And, as far as I can ascertain, he was at the telephone, ringing up the father of the bride-to-be, without so much as stopping to wipe his mouth.
Well, what he told J. Washburn about me I cannot, of course, say: but, at a venture, I imagine he informed him that I had once been engaged to his daughter, Honoria, and that he had broken off the match because he had decided that I was barmy to the core. He would have touched, no doubt, on the incident of the cats and the fish in my bedroom: possibly, also, on the episode of the stolen hat and my habit of climbing down water-spouts: winding up, it may be, with a description of the unfortunate affair of the punctured hot-water bottle at Lady Wickham’s.
A close friend of J. Washburn’s and a man on whose judgment J. W. relied, I take it that he had little difficulty in persuading the latter that I was not the ideal son-in-law. At any rate, as I say, within a mere forty-eight hours of the holy moment I was notified that it would be unnecessary for me to order the new spongebag trousers and gardenia, because my nomination had been cancelled.
And it was this man who was having the cool what’s-the-word to come calling at the Wooster home. I mean, I ask you!
I resolved to be pretty terse with him.
I was still playing the banjolele when he arrived. Those who know Bertram Wooster best are aware that he is a man of sudden, strong enthusiasms and that, when in the grip of one of these, he becomes a remorseless machine – tense, absorbed, single-minded. It was so in the matter of this banjolele-playing of mine. Since the night at the Alhambra when the supreme virtuosity of Ben Bloom and his Sixteen Baltimore Buddies had fired me to take up the study of the instrument, not a day had passed without its couple of hours’ assiduous practice. And I was twanging the strings like one inspired when the door opened and Jeeves shovelled in the foul strait-waistcoat specialist to whom I have just been alluding.
In the interval which had elapsed since I had first been apprised of the man’s desire to have speech with me, I had been thinking things over: and the only conclusion to which I could come was that he must have had a change of heart of some nature and decided that an apology was due to me for the way he had behaved. It was, therefore, a somewhat softened Bertram Wooster who now rose to do the honours.
‘Ah, Sir Roderick,’ I said. ‘Good morning.’
Nothing could have exceeded the courtesy with which I had spoken. Conceive of my astonishment, therefore, when his only reply was a grunt, and an indubitably unpleasant grunt, at that. I felt that my diagnosis of the situation had been wrong. Right off the bull’s-eye I had been. Here was no square-shooting apologizer. He couldn’t have been glaring at me with more obvious distaste if I had been the germ of dementia praecox.
Well, if that was the attitude he was proposing to adopt, well, I mean to say. My geniality waned. I drew myself up coldly, at the same time raising a stiff eyebrow. And I was just about to work off the old To-what-am-I-indebted-for-this-visit gag, when he chipped in ahead of me.
‘You ought to be certified!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’re a public menace. For weeks, it appears, you have been making life a hell for all your neighbours with some hideous musical instrument. I see you have it with you now. How dare you play that thing in a respectable block of flats? Infernal din!’
I remained cool and dignified.
‘Did you say “infernal din”?’
‘I did.’
‘Oh? Well, let me tell you that the man that hath no music in himself …’ I stepped to the door. ‘Jeeves,’ I called down the passage, ‘what was it Shakespeare said the man who hadn’t music in himself was fit for?’
‘Treasons, stratagems, and spoils, sir.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves. Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,’ I said, returning.
He danced a step or two.
‘Are you aware that the occupant of the flat below, Mrs Tinkler-Moulke, is one of my patients, a woman in a highly nervous condition. I have had to give her a sedative.’
I raised a hand.
‘Spare the gossip from the loony-bin,’ I said distantly. ‘Might I inquire, on my side, if you are aware that Mrs Tinkler-Moulke owns a Pomeranian?’
‘Don’t drivel.’
‘I am not drivelling. This animal yaps all day and not infrequently far into the night. So Mrs Tinkler-Moulke has had the nerve to complain of my banjolele, has she? Ha! Let her first pluck out the Pom which is in her own eye,’ I said, becoming a bit scriptural.
He chafed visibly.
‘I am not here to talk about dogs. I wish for your assurance that you will immediately cease annoying this unfortunate woman.’
I shook the head.
‘I am sorry she is a cold audience, but my art must come first.’
‘That is your final word, is it?’
‘It is.’
‘Very good. You will hear more of this.’
‘And Mrs Tinkler-Moulke will hear more of this,’ I replied, brandishing the banjolele.
I touched the buzzer.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘show Sir R. Glossop out!’
I confess that I was well pleased with the manner in which I had comported myself during this clash of wills. There was a time, you must remember, when the sudden appearance of old Glossop in my sitting-room would have been enough to send me bolting for cover like a rabbit. But since then I had passed through the furnace, and the sight of him no longer filled me with a nameless dread. With a good deal of quiet self-satisfaction I proceeded to play ‘The Wedding of the Painted Doll’, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, ‘Three Little Words’, ‘Goodnight, Sweetheart’, ‘My Love Parade’, ‘Spring is Here’, ‘Whose Baby are You?’ and part of ‘I Want an Automobile with a Horn that Goes Toot-Toot’, in the order named: and it was as I was approaching the end of this last number that the telephone rang.
I went to the instrument and stood listening. And, as I listened, my face grew hard and set.
‘Very good, Mr Manglehoffer,’ I said coldly. ‘You may inform Mrs Tinkler-Moulke and her associates that I choose the latter alternative.’
I touched the bell.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘there has been a spot of trouble.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Unpleasantness is rearing its ugly head in Berkeley Mansions, W1. I note also a lack of give-and-take and an absence of the neighbourly spirit. I have just been talking to the manager of this building on the telephone, and he has delivered an ultimatum. He says I must either chuck playing the banjolele or clear out.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Complaints, it would seem, have been lodged by the Honourable Mrs Tinkler-Moulke, of C6; by Lieutenant-Colonel J. J. Bustard, DSO, of B5; and Sir Everard and Lady Blennerhassett, of B7. All right. So be it. I don’t care. We shall be well rid of these Tinkler-Moulkes, these Bustards, and these Blennerhassetts. I leave them without a pang.’
‘You are proposing to move, sir?’
I raised the eyebrows.
‘Surely, Jeeves, you cannot imagine that I ever considered any other course?’
‘But I fear you will encounter a similar hostility elsewhere, sir.’
‘Not where I am going. It is my intention to retire to the depths of the country. In some old-world sequestered nook I shall find a cottage, and there resume my studies.’
‘A cottage, sir?’
‘A cottage, Jeeves. If possible, honeysuckle-covered.’
The next moment, you could have knocked me down with a toothpick. There was a brief pause, and then Jeeves, whom I have nurtured in my bosom, so to speak, for years and years and years, gave a sort of cough and there proceeded from his lips these incredible words:
‘In that case, I fear I must give my notice.’
There was a tense silence. I stared at the man.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, and you wouldn’t be far out in describing me as stunned, ‘did I hear you correctly?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You actually contemplate leaving my entourage?’
‘Only with the greatest reluctance, sir. But if it is your intention to play that instrument within the narrow confines of a country cottage –’
I drew myself up.
‘You say “that instrument”, Jeeves. And you say it in an unpleasant, soupy voice. Am I to understand that you dislike this banjolele?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You’ve stood it all right up to now.’
‘With grave difficulty, sir.’
‘And let me tell you that better men than you have stood worse than banjoleles. Are you aware that a certain Bulgarian, Elia Gospodinoff, once played the bagpipes for twenty-four hours without a stop? Ripley vouches for this in his “Believe It Or Not”.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Well, do you suppose Gospodinoff’s personal attendant kicked? A laughable idea. They are made of better stuff than that in Bulgaria. I am convinced that he was behind the young master from start to finish of his attempt on the Central European record, and I have no doubt frequently rallied round with ice packs and other restoratives. Be Bulgarian, Jeeves.’
‘No, sir. I fear I cannot recede from my position.’
‘But, dash it, you say you are receding from your position.’
‘I should have said, I cannot abandon the stand which I have taken.’
‘Oh.’
I mused awhile.
‘You mean this, Jeeves?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You have thought it all out carefully, weighing the pros and cons, balancing this against that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you are resolved?’
‘Yes, sir. If it is really your intention to continue playing that instrument, I have no option but to leave.’
The Wooster blood boiled over. Circumstances of recent years have so shaped themselves as to place this blighter in a position which you might describe as that of a domestic Mussolini: but, forgetting this and sticking simply to cold fact, what is Jeeves, after all? A valet. A salaried attendant. And a fellow simply can’t go on truckling – do I mean truckling? I know it begins with a ‘t’ – to his valet for ever. There comes a moment when he must remember that his ancestors did dashed well at the Battle of Crécy and put the old foot down. This moment had now arrived.
‘Then, leave, dash it!’
‘Very good, sir.’
I CONFESS THAT it was in sombre mood that I assembled the stick, the hat, and the lemon-coloured gloves some half-hour later and strode out in the streets of London. But though I did not care to think what existence would be like without Jeeves, I had no thought of weakening. As I turned the corner into Piccadilly, I was a thing of fire and chilled steel; and I think in about another half-jiffy I should have been snorting, if not actually shouting the ancient battle cry of the Woosters, had I not observed on the skyline a familiar form.
This familiar form was none other than that of my boyhood friend, the fifth Baron Chuffnell – the chap, if you remember, whose Aunt Myrtle I had seen the previous night hobnobbing with the hellhound, Glossop.
The sight of him reminded me that I was in the market for a country cottage and that here was the very chap to supply same.
I wonder if I have ever told you about Chuffy? Stop me if I have. He’s a fellow I’ve known more or less all my life, he and self having been at private school, Eton and Oxford together. We don’t see a frightful lot of one another nowadays, however, as he spends most of his time down at Chuffnell Regis on the coast of Somersetshire, where he owns an enormous great place with about a hundred and fifty rooms and miles of rolling parkland. Don’t run away, however, on the strength of this, with the impression that Chuffy is one of my wealthier cronies. He’s dashed hard up, poor bloke, like most fellows who own land, and only lives at Chuffnell Hall because he’s stuck with it and can’t afford to live anywhere else. If somebody came to him and offered to buy the place, he would kiss him on both cheeks. But who wants to buy a house that size in these times? He can’t even let it. So he sticks on there most of the year, with nobody to talk to except the local doctor and parson and his Aunt Myrtle and her twelve-year-old son, Seabury, who live at the Dower House in the park. A pretty mouldy existence for one who at the University gave bright promise of becoming one of the lads.
Chuffy also owns the village of Chuffnell Regis – not that that does him much good, either. I mean to say, the taxes on the estate and all the expenses of repairs and what not come to pretty nearly as much as he gets out of the rents, making the thing more or less of a washout. Still, he is the landlord, and, as such, would doubtless have dozens of cottages at his disposal and probably be only too glad of the chance of easing one of them off on to a reputable tenant like myself.
‘You’re the very chap I wanted to see, Chuffy,’ I said accordingly, after our initial what-ho-ing. ‘Come right along with me to the Drones for a bite of lunch. I can put a bit of business in your way.’
He shook his head, wistfully, I thought.
‘I’d like it, Bertie, but I’m due at the Carlton in five minutes. I’m lunching with a man.’
‘Give him a miss.’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘Well, bring him along, then, and we’ll make it a threesome.’
Chuffy smiled rather wanly.
‘I don’t think you’d enjoy it, Bertie. He’s Sir Roderick Glossop.’
I goggled. It’s always a bit of a shock, when you’ve just parted from Bloke A, to meet Bloke B and have Bloke B suddenly bring Bloke A into the conversation.
‘Sir Roderick Glossop?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I didn’t know you knew him.’
‘I don’t, very well. Just met him a couple of times. He’s a great friend of my Aunt Myrtle.’
‘Ah! That explains it. I saw her dining with him last night.’
‘Well, if you come to the Carlton, you’ll see me lunching with him today.’
‘But, Chuffy, old man, is this wise? Is this prudent? It’s an awful ordeal breaking bread with this man. I know. I’ve done it.’
‘I dare say, but I’ve got to go through with it. I had an urgent wire from him yesterday, telling me to come up and see him without fail, and what I’m hoping is that he wants to take the Hall for the summer or knows somebody who does. He would hardly wire like that unless there was something up. No, I shall have to stick it, Bertie. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll dine with you tomorrow night.’
I would have been all for it, of course, had the circs been different, but I had to refuse. I had formed my plans and made my arrangements and they could not be altered.
‘I’m sorry, Chuffy. I’m leaving London tomorrow.’
‘You are?’
‘Yes. The management of the building where I reside has offered me the choice between clearing out immediately or ceasing to play the banjolele. I elected to do the former. I am going to take a cottage in the country somewhere, and that’s what I meant when I said I could put business in your way. Can you let me have a cottage?’
‘I can give you your choice of half a dozen.’
‘It must be quiet and secluded. I shall be playing the banjolele a good deal.’
‘I’ve got the very shack for you. On the edge of the harbour and not a neighbour within a mile except Police Sergeant Voules. And he plays the harmonium. You could do duets.’
‘Fine!’
‘And there’s a troupe of nigger minstrels down there this year. You could study their technique.’
‘Chuffy, it sounds like heaven. And we shall be able to see something of each other for a change.’
‘You don’t come playing your damned banjolele at the Hall.’
‘No, old man. But I’ll drop over to lunch with you most days.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘By the way, what has Jeeves got to say about all this? I shouldn’t have thought he would have cared about leaving London.’
I stiffened a little.
‘Jeeves has nothing to say on that or any other subject. We have parted brass-rags.’
‘What!’
I had anticipated that the news would stagger him.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘from now on, Jeeves will take the high road and I’ll take the low road. He had the immortal rind to tell me that if I didn’t give up my banjolele he would resign. I accepted his portfolio.’
‘You’ve really let him go?’
‘I have.’
‘Well, well, well!’
I waved a hand nonchalantly.
‘These things happen,’ I said. ‘I’m not pretending I’m pleased, of course, but I can bite the bullet. My self-respect would not permit me to accept the man’s terms. You can push a Wooster just so far. “Very good, Jeeves,” I said to him. “So be it. I shall watch your future career with considerable interest.” And that was that.’
We walked on for a bit in silence.
‘So you’ve parted with Jeeves, have you?’ said Chuffy, in a thoughtful sort of voice. ‘Well, well, well! Any objection to my looking in and saying goodbye to him?’
‘None whatever.’
‘It would be a graceful act.’
‘Quite.’
‘I’ve always admired his intellect.’
‘Me too. No one more.’
‘I’ll go round to the flat after lunch.’
‘Follow the green line,’ I said, and my manner was airy and even careless. This parting of the ways with Jeeves had made me feel a bit as if I had just stepped on a bomb and was trying to piece myself together again in a bleak world, but we Woosters can keep the stiff upper lip.
I lunched at the Drones and spent the afternoon there. I had much to think of. Chuffy’s news that there was a troupe of nigger minstrels performing on the Chuffnell Regis sands had definitely weighed the scale down on the side of the advantages of the place. The fact that I would be in a position to forgather with these experts and possibly pick up a hint or two from their banjoist on fingering and execution enabled me to bear with fortitude the prospect of being in a spot where I would probably have to meet the Dowager Lady Chuffnell and her son Seabury pretty frequently. I had often felt how tough it must be for poor old Chuffy having this pair of pustules popping in and out all the time. And in saying this I am looking straight at little Seabury, a child who should have been strangled at birth. I have no positive proof, but I have always been convinced that it was he who put the lizard in my bed the last time I stayed at the Hall.
But, as I say, I was prepared to put up with this couple in return for the privilege of being in close communication with a really hot banjoist, and most of these nigger minstrel chaps can pick the strings like nobody’s business. It was not, therefore, the thought of them which, as I returned to the flat to dress for dinner, was filling me with a strange moodiness.
No. We Woosters can be honest with ourselves. What was giving me the pip was the reflection that Jeeves was about to go out of my life. There never had been anyone like Jeeves, I felt, as I climbed sombrely into the soup and fish, and there never would be. A wave of not unmanly sentiment poured over me. I was conscious of a pang. And when my toilet was completed and I stood before the mirror, surveying that perfectly pressed coat, those superbly creased trousers, I came to a swift decision.
Abruptly, I went into the sitting-room and leaned on the bell.
‘Jeeves,’ I said. ‘A word.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘touching on our conversation this morning.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I have been thinking things over. I have come to the conclusion that we have both been hasty. Let us forget the past. You may stay on.’
‘It is very kind of you, sir, but … are you still proposing to continue the study of that instrument?’
I froze.
‘Yes, Jeeves, I am.’
‘Then I fear, sir …’
It was enough. I nodded haughtily.
‘Very good, Jeeves. That is all. I will of course, give you an excellent recommendation.’
‘Thank you, sir. It will not be necessary. This afternoon I entered the employment of Lord Chuffnell.’
I started.
‘Did Chuffy sneak round here this afternoon and scoop you in?’
‘Yes, sir. I go with him to Chuffnell Regis in about a week’s time.’
‘You do, do you? Well, it may interest you to know that I repair to Chuffnell Regis tomorrow.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes. I have taken a cottage there. We shall meet at Philippi, Jeeves.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Or am I thinking of some other spot?’
‘No, sir, Philippi is correct.’
‘Very good, Jeeves.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Such, then is the sequence of events which led up to Bertram Wooster, on the morning of July the fifteenth, standing at the door of Seaview Cottage, Chuffnell Regis, surveying the scene before him through the aromatic smoke of a meditative cigarette.
YOU KNOW, THE longer I live, the more I feel that the great wheeze in life is to be jolly well sure what you want and not let yourself be put off by pals who think they know better than you do. When I had announced at the Drones, on my last day in the metropolis, that I was retiring to this secluded spot for an indeterminate period, practically everybody had begged me, you might say with tears in their eyes, not to dream of doing such a cloth-headed thing. They said I should be bored stiff.
But I had carried on according to plan, and here I was, on the fifth morning of my visit, absolutely in the pink and with no regrets whatsoever. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. And London seemed miles away – which it was, of course. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that a great peace enveloped the soul.
A thing I never know when I’m telling a story is how much scenery to bung in. I’ve asked one or two scriveners of my acquaintance, and their views differ. A fellow I met at a cocktail party in Bloomsbury said that he was all for describing kitchen sinks and frosty bedrooms and squalor generally, but the beauties of Nature no. Whereas, Freddie Oaker, of the Drones, who does tales of pure love for the weeklies under the pen-name of Alicia Seymour, once told me that he reckoned that flowery meadows in springtime alone were worth at least a hundred quid a year to him.
Personally, I’ve always rather barred long descriptions of the terrain, so I will be on the brief side. As I stood there that morning, what the eye rested on was the following. There was a nice little splash of garden, containing a bush, a tree, a couple of flower beds, a lily pond with a statue of a nude child with a bit of a tummy on him, and to the right a hedge. Across this hedge, Brinkley, my new man, was chatting with our neighbour, Police Sergeant Voules, who seemed to have looked in with a view to selling eggs.
There was another hedge straight ahead, with the garden gate in it, and over this one espied the placid waters of the harbour, which was much about the same as any other harbour, except that some time during the night a whacking great yacht had rolled up and cast anchor in it. And of all the objects under my immediate advisement I noted this yacht with the most pleasure and approval. White in colour, in size resembling a young liner, it lent a decided tone to the Chuffnell Regis foreshore.
Well, such was the spreading prospect. Add a cat sniffing at a snail on the path and me at the door smoking a gasper, and you have the complete picture.
No, I’m wrong. Not quite the complete picture, because I had left the old two-seater in the road, and I could just see the top part of it. And at this moment the summer stillness was broken by the tooting of its horn, and I buzzed to the gate with all possible speed for fear some fiend in human shape was scratching my paint. Arriving at destination, I found a small boy in the front seat, pensively squeezing the bulb, and was about to administer one on the side of the head when I recognized Chuffy’s cousin, Seabury, and stayed the hand.
‘Hallo,’ he said.
‘What ho,’ I replied.
My manner was reserved. The memory of that lizard in my bed still lingered. I don’t know if you have ever leaped between the sheets, all ready for a spot of sleep, and received an unforeseen lizard up the left pyjama leg? It is an experience that puts its stamp on a man. And while, as I say, I had no legal proof that this young blighter had been the author of the outrage, I entertained suspicions that were tantamount to certainty. So now I not only spoke with a marked coldness but also gave him the fairly frosty eye.
It didn’t seem to jar him. He continued to regard me with that supercilious gaze which had got him so disliked among the right-minded. He was a smallish, freckled kid with aeroplane ears, and he had a way of looking at you as if you were something he had run into in the course of a slumming trip. In my Rogues’ Gallery of repulsive small boys I suppose he would come about third – not quite so bad as my Aunt Agatha’s son, young Thos, or Mr Blumenfeld’s Junior, but well ahead of little Sebastian Moon, my Aunt Dahlia’s Bonzo, and the field.
After staring at me for a moment as if he were thinking that I had changed for the worse since he last saw me, he spoke.
‘You’re to come to lunch.’
‘Is Chuffy back, then?’
‘Yes.’
Well, of course, if Chuffy had returned, I was at his disposal. I shouted over the hedge to Brinkley that I would be absent from the midday meal and climbed into the car and we rolled off.
‘When did he get back?’
‘Last night.’
‘Shall we be lunching alone?’
‘No.’
‘Who’s going to be there?’
‘Mother and me and some people.’
‘A party? I’d better go back and put on another suit.’
‘No.’
‘You think this one looks all right?’
‘No, I don’t. I think it looks rotten. But there isn’t time.’
This point settled, he passed into the silence for a while. A brooding kid. He came out of it to give me some local gossip.
‘Mother and I are living at the Hall again.’
‘What!’
‘Yes. There’s a smell at the Dower House.’
‘Even though you’ve left it?’ I said, in my keen way.
He was not amused.
‘You needn’t try to be funny. If you really want to know, I expect it’s my mice.’
‘Your what?’
‘I’ve started breeding mice and puppies. And, of course, they nif a bit,’ he added in a dispassionate sort of way. ‘But mother thinks it’s the drains. Can you give me five shillings?’
I simply couldn’t follow his train of thought. The way his conversation flitted about gave me that feeling you get in dreams sometimes.
‘Five shillings?’
‘Five shillings.’
‘What do you mean, five shillings?’
‘I mean five shillings.’
‘I dare say. But what I want to know is how have we suddenly got on to the subject? We were discussing mice, and you introduce this five shillings motif.’
‘I want five shillings.’
‘Admitting that you may possibly want that sum, why the dickens should I give it to you?’
‘For protection.’
‘What!’
‘Protection.’
‘What from?’
‘Just protection.’
‘You don’t get any five shillings out of me.’
‘Oh, all right.’
He sat silent for a space.
‘Things happen to guys that don’t kick in their protection money,’ he said dreamily.
And on this note of mystery the conversation concluded, for we were moving up the drive of the Hall and on the steps I perceived Chuffy standing. I stopped the car and got out.
‘Hallo, Bertie,’ said Chuffy.
‘Welcome to Chuffnell Hall,’ I replied. I looked round. The kid had vanished. ‘I say, Chuffy,’ I said, ‘young blighted Seabury. What about him?’
‘What about him?’
‘Well, if you ask me, I should say he had gone off his rocker. He’s just been trying to touch me for five bob and babbling about protection.’
Chuffy laughed heartily, looking bronzed and fit.
‘Oh, that. That’s his latest idea.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He’s been seeing gangster films.’
The scales fell from my eyes.
‘He’s turned racketeer?’
‘Yes. Rather amusing. He goes round collecting protection money from everybody according to their means. Makes a good thing out of it, too. Enterprising kid. I’d pay up if I were you. I have.’
I was shocked. Not so much at the information that the foul child had given this additional evidence of a diseased mind as that Chuffy should be exhibiting this attitude of amused tolerance. I eyed him keenly. Right from the start this morning I had thought his manner strange. Usually, when you meet him, he is brooding over his financial situation and is rather apt to greet you with the lack-lustre eye and the care-worn frown. He had been like that five days ago in London. What, then, had caused him to beam all over the place like this and even to go as far as to speak of little Seabury with what amounted to something perilously near to an indulgent affection? I sensed a mystery and decided to apply the acid test.
‘How is your Aunt Myrtle?’
‘She’s fine.’
‘Living at the Hall now, I hear.’
‘Yes.’
‘Indefinitely?’
‘Oh, yes.’
It was enough.
One of the things, I must mention, which have always made poor old Chuffy’s lot so hard is his aunt’s attitude towards him. She has never quite been able to get over that matter of the succession. Seabury, you see, was not the son of Chuffy’s late uncle, the fourth Baron: he was simply something Lady Chuffnell had picked up en route in the course of a former marriage and, consequently, did not come under the head of what the Peerage calls ‘issues’. And, in matters of succession, if you aren’t issue, you haven’t a hope. When the fourth Baron pegged out, accordingly, it was Chuffy who copped the title and estates. All perfectly square and aboveboard, of course, but you can’t get women to see these things, and the relict’s manner, Chuffy has often told me, was consistently unpleasant. She had a way of clasping Seabury in her arms and looking reproachfully at Chuffy as if he had slipped over a fast one on mother and child. Nothing actually said, you understand, but her whole attitude that of a woman who considers she has been the victim of sharp practice.
The result of this had been that the Dowager Lady Chuffnell was not one of Chuffy’s best-loved buddies. Their relations had always been definitely strained, and what I’m driving at is that usually, when you mention her name, a look of pain comes into Chuffy’s clean-cut face and he winces a little, as if you had probed an old wound.
Now he was actually smiling. Even that remark of mine about her living at the Hall had not jarred him. Obviously, there were mysteries here. Something was being kept from Bertram.
I tackled him squarely.
‘Chuffy,’ I said, ‘what does this mean?’
‘What does what mean?’
‘This bally cheeriness. You can’t deceive me. Not old Hawk-Eye Wooster. Come clean, my lad, something is up. What is all the ruddy happiness about?’
He hesitated. For a moment he eyed me narrowly.
‘Can you keep a secret?’
‘No.’
‘Well, it doesn’t much matter, because it’ll be in the Morning Post in a day or two. Bertie,’ said Chuffy, in a hushed voice, ‘do you know what’s happened? I’m getting Aunt Myrtle off this season.’
‘You mean somebody wants to marry her?’
‘I do.’
‘Who is this half-wit?’
‘Your old friend, Sir Roderick Glossop.’
I was stupefied.
‘What!’
‘I was surprised, too.’
‘But old Glossop can’t be contemplating matrimony.’
‘Why not? He’s been a widower more than two years.’
‘Oh, I dare say it’s possible to make up some kind of a story for him. But what I mean is, he doesn’t seem to go with orange blossoms and wedding cake.’
‘Well, there it is.’
‘Well, I’m dashed!’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there’s one thing, Chuffy, old man. This means that little Seabury will be getting a really testing stepfather and old Glossop just the stepson I could have wished him. Both have been asking for something on these lines for years. But fancy any woman being mad enough to link her lot with his. Our Humble Heroines!’
‘I wouldn’t say the heroism was all on one side. About fifty-fifty, I should call it. There is lots of good in this Glossop, Bertie.’
I could not accept this. It seemed to me loose thinking.
‘Aren’t you going a bit far, old man? Admitted that he is taking your Aunt Myrtle off your hands …’
‘And Seabury.’
‘And Seabury, true. But, even so, would you really say there was good in the old pest? Remember all the stories I’ve told you about him from time to time. They show him in a very dubious light.’
‘Well, he’s doing me a bit of good, anyway. Do you know what it was he wanted to see me about so urgently that day in London?’
‘What?’
‘He’s found an American he thinks he can sell the Hall to.’
‘Not really?’
‘Yes. If all goes well, I shall at last get rid of this blasted barracks and have a bit of money in my pocket. And all the credit will be due to Uncle Roderick, as I like to think of him. So you will kindly refrain, Bertie, from nasty cracks at his expense and, in particular, from mentioning him in the same breath with young Seabury. You must learn to love Uncle Roddie for my sake.’
I shook my head.
‘No, Chuffy, I fear I cannot recede from my position.’
‘Well, go to hell, then,’ said Chuffy agreeably. ‘Personally, I regard him as a life-saver.’
‘But are you sure this thing is going to come off? What would this fellow want with a place the size of the Hall?’
‘Oh, that part of it is simple enough. He’s a great pal of old Glossop’s and the idea is that he shall put up the cash and let Glossop run the house as a sort of country club for his nerve patients.’
‘Why doesn’t old Glossop simply rent it from you?’
‘My dear ass, what sort of state do you suppose the place is in these days? You talk as if you could open it and step straight into it. Most of the rooms haven’t been used for forty years. It wants at least fifteen thousand quid spent on it, to put it in repair. More. Besides new furniture, fittings and so on. If some millionaire like this chap doesn’t take it on, I shall have it on my hands the rest of my life.’
‘Oh, he’s a millionaire, is he?’
‘Yes, that part of it is all right. All I’m worrying about is getting his signature on the dotted line. Well, he’s coming to lunch today, and it’s going to be a good one too. He’s apt to soften up a good bit after a fat lunch, isn’t he?’
‘Unless he’s got dyspepsia. Many American millionaires have. This man of yours may be one of those fellows who can’t get outside more than a glass of milk and a dog biscuit.’
Chuffy laughed jovially.
‘Not much. Not old Stoker.’ He suddenly began to leap about like a lamb in the spring-time. ‘Hullo-ullo-ullo!’
A car had drawn up at the steps and was discharging passengers.
Passenger A was J. Washburn Stoker. Passenger B was his daughter, Pauline. Passenger C was his young son, Dwight. And Passenger D was Sir Roderick Glossop.
I MUST SAY I was pretty well a-twitter. It was about as juicy a biff as I had had for years. To have encountered this segment of the dead past in London would have been bad enough. Running into the gang down here like this, with the prospect of a lengthy luncheon party ahead, was a dashed sight worse. I removed the lid with as much courtly grace as I could muster up, but the face had coloured with embarrassment and I was more or less gasping for air.
Chuffy was being the genial host.
‘Hullo-ullo-ullo! Here you all are. How are you, Mr Stoker? How are you, Sir Roderick? Hullo, Dwight. Er – good morning, Miss Stoker. May I introduce my friend, Bertie Wooster? Mr Stoker, my friend, Bertie Wooster. Dwight, my friend, Bertie Wooster. Miss Stoker, my friend, Bertie Wooster. Sir Roderick Glossop, my friend, Bertie … Oh, but you know each other already, don’t you?’
I was still under the ether. You will agree that all this was enough to rattle any chap. I surveyed the mob. Old Stoker was glaring at me. Old Glossop was glaring at me. Young Dwight was staring at me. Only Pauline appeared to find no awkwardness in the situation. She was as cool as an oyster on the half-shell and as chirpy as a spring breeze. We might have been meeting by appointment. Where Bertram could find only a tentative ‘Pip-pip’ she bounded forward, full of speech, and grabbed the old hand warmly.
‘Well, well, well! Old Colonel Wooster in person! Fancy finding you here, Bertie! I called you up in London, but they told me you had left.’
‘Yes. I came down here.’
‘I see you did, you little blob of sunshine. Well, sir, this has certainly made my day. You’re looking fine, Bertie. Don’t you think he’s looking lovely, Father?’
Old Stoker appeared reluctant to set himself up as a judge of male beauty. He made a noise like a pig swallowing half a cabbage, but refused to commit himself further. Dwight, a solemn child, was drinking me in in silence. Sir Roderick, who had turned purple, was now fading away to a lighter shade, but still looked as if his finer feelings had sustained a considerable wallop.
At this moment, however, the Dowager Lady Chuffnell came out. She was one of those powerful women who look like female Masters of Hounds, and she handled the mob scene with quiet efficiency. Before I knew where I was, the whole gang had gone indoors, and I was alone with Chuffy. He was staring at me in an odd manner and doing a bit of lower-lip biting.
‘I didn’t know you knew these people, Bertie.’
‘I met them in New York.’
‘You saw something of Miss Stoker there?’
‘A little.’
‘Only a little?’
‘Quite a little.’
‘I thought her manner seemed rather warm.’
‘Oh, no. About normal.’
‘I should have imagined you were great friends.’