AS YOU SAY, JEEVES The aroma of bacon and sausages was floating over the breakfast table when Jeeves shimmered in. -"Mrs. Travers wishes to speak to you on the telephone, Sir." I rose to attend to it and presently came over the wire the thunder of the voice which had chivvied so many foxes of the Home Counties. -"Hello, young excrescence" -A hearty pip-pip to you .old and respected relative. How's everything? Is Anatole at the top of his form?," Anatole was her gifted chef, God's gift to the gastric juices, but he was a temperamental Gaul, and his fits had caused no few crises in the Travers home. "Always thinking of your stomach, aren't you, my gay young tape-worm?" I ignored the slur. "And how is Uncle Tom? -Weil, from what I hear. He's in Paris, for the sale of the Maufringneuse old silver collection -And my charming cousin Angela? -She's just left for Sussex, where she is going to be a bridesmaid at the Butterwick wedding. I'm joining her to-morrow. But there's no stint of company:
Florence is here, to have her portrait painted by Cedric Talent, and also your old pal Perey Baconham... -Porky? We were at school together. -I know. He has us in fits with shady secrets of your boyhood. What a hellhound you were then, Bertie, not that you've changed much... -What's he doing at Brinkley? I spoke austerely, as I didn't countenance the lengths to which Porky seemed to be going. "-Weil, he's engaged to Pearl Pemberton, who was visiting Angela, and he came along for the ride. You know Pearl Pemberton, of course." I knew this Pearl. An attractive red-haired little pipsqueak, as full of beans and buck as if she on honeydew had fed or drunk the milk of Paradise, as Jeeves sometimes puts it. As for Porky, in spite of having practically written the words and music of Auld Lang Syng, he was a soundish sort of egg when I knew him a few aeons ago, and it would be a pleasure to sing "The Voice that Breathed O'er Eden" at their wedding. -A charming, delightful girl," I said. -Then you'll enjoy sharing her company. I want you to cone down immediately. -What..." I sputtered," with Florence on the premises! I had been engaged to Florence on a number of occasions, and only saved in the nick of time by quick service from my guardian angel. There was no telling what might be the fatal outcome of the famous Wooster fascination in a place as congested with rose-gardens and rhododendron bushes as Brinkley Court. "-That's why I want you here. So jump to it. -But...I whined, you're off your onion... -And don't give me any of your lip, or else!... You understand my meaning, Watson." I did. She loved black ma il and could always resort to it: the threat of being barred from her table and not getting a mouthful of Anatole's wonders was enough to have me cringe, and lick her hand, and roll on my .back with my legs in the air. "-Bung a couple of toothbrushes in a suitcase, Jeeves, I said d ully, we 're o ff to Brinkley. -Very well, Sir.' You notice it, no friendly conversation, no merry kidding back and forth. Jeeves's voice had an Alaskan quality which showed dudgeon. -And why? Because I had recently taken to smoking a pipe. Evidently when a bloke gets on in years and becomes a seasoned man of the world, it shows in his appearance. I didn't want to deceive my public by looking vapid. Soulfulness was of the essence; and s. was just what the miniature chimney provided. Compared to the image I struck while puffing on this implement of the intellectuals, the Ancient Mariner would have looked an irresponsible popinjay. And Dammit, if I was going to let Jeeves dictate my tastes, what had the Woosters become, who came to England with William the Conqueror and had been rather well
thought of at Agincourt? In those days, they certainly knew how to handle employees. It was "How now varlet" and "Marry come up, thou malapert knave" I ignored the dudgeon and ambled out. A few hours later, we were at Brinkley Court. Having left the Arab steed at the hands of Jeeves who was going to tuck it into bed in the garage, I ankled along, to be informed by the butler that my hostess was waiting for me in her Boudoir. "-Hi, fathead. So you finally made it, you old blot on the landscape. -Good evening, I said, courteously, but coldly. -No use looking at me like a lovelorn puppy. I'll ex- plain the perfectly simple thing I want you to do. I told you Florence was sitting for Talent. And I think this will lead to more than just a confounded icon," she added meaningfully. I was fogged, but tried to nod intelligently. -"Don't gape at me, you abysmal nit-wit. I'll try to put it into simple one-syllable words for you: the fellow is in love with her." Fellow of course, is two syllables, but I let it pass. I could well believe this piece of news: Florence unquestionably had what it took, platinum hair and all the fixings. The aunt was booming on, it reminded me of the cannon at Waterloo. "But the worm has cold feet... -Letting "I dare not" wait upon "1 would" like the cat in the adage. Eh? -Just one of Jeeves's gags. It's her profile: she has a wonderful profile, but... -Will you stop yacking away, gas-bag. I want you to spur him into action. He knows that you were once, or twice, or thrice, engaged to her, and if you haunt her like a family spectre and stick closer than porous plaster, he'll fall prey to the green-eyed monster, which... –What! I yipped -A simple matter, to please Auntie. But dash it… -That's settled then. And now, pop off, you goof. I've got some letters to write." A Wooster can recognize when his presence is superfluous and doesn't overstay his welcome. I popped off, an elegant but Fate-stricken figure wandering into the sunset... It being a cool English summer evening, I decided to go for a stroll among the messuages and parklands of Brinkley Court and turned my steps towards the lake. The lake at Brinkley Court is hardly worthy of its appellation, being merely a sort of overgrown pond, but it's pleasant of an evening with the twittering birds and whatnots. And who-or rather whom, should I meet, but my old friend Porky. I didn't approve of his tearing the veil from our Past for the benefit of the inmates of Brinkley Court and telling them stories of our schooldays which should have been labeled "TOP SECRET" and sealed in red wax—fragrant memories like flowers pressed between the leaves of an album, would have said Madeline Bassett, that Queen of the Gawd-help-us -and I intended to be pretty terse about it. Porky hadn't changed much. He had always more or less resembled a thug, who made you think of sawn-off guns and pineapple bombs, and he more than ever looked like one of the F.B.I.'s List of the Top Ten. . When two old friends get together after a long separation, the proceedings always begin with a picking up of the threads. The first old friend asks the second old friend for news
of Jimmy So-and-So, while the second old friend asks the first old friend what has been heard of Billy Such-and-Such. Inquiries are also instituted regarding Tom This, Dick That, and Harry The Other. While these routine preliminaries were being disposed of, my observant eye couldn't but notice that there seemed to be something rotten in the State of Porkydom, he didn't look at all like a fellow about to be united in wedded bliss with the woman he loved the jaundiced eye, the listless face... In fact, it stood out as plainly as a Palm Beach suit at the Eton and Harrow match that the outlook was sombre. Jeeves9 to whom, as is the current practice among us authors, I read this passage of my saga tells me that Roget-whoever he is-also suggests melancholy, gloomy, dark, sinister, lugubrious, dismal. However this isn't germane to the issue and "sombre" fitted Porky like paper on the wall. "I hear you and Pearl are planning a merger? I said. "When is the leap among the orange blossoms? -Tchah!" he said, and was gone with the wind. "-Jeeves, I said, as I was getting dressed for dinner, a certain rumminess seems to have manifested itself. All's not well on the Porky-Pearl front, and the projected axis seems to have gone phut. -So I understand, Sir. -You know all about it, then. -Mr. Baconham was here a moment ago, Sir. He appeared desirous to confer with me about the situation." I know, of course, that Jeeves's reputation as a counselor has been long established among the cognoscenti, and that his consulting practice was wide. But I was still surprised that a chap like Porky-whom I hadn't seen for quite a long time-should have heard of it. But no doubt, these things get about: chap A tells chap B who tells whap C who tells chap D, and so forth, if you get my drift. -"Well, tell me, Jeeves, I'm all agog." I could see ice forming on the man's upper slopes. This matter of the pipe still rankled; he was becoming discreet all over. "You know me, Jeeves, not a babbler; nor am I a sieve. Besides the two parties are friends of mine, and I may be able to help. Very well, Sir. There appears to have been a severance of the relation between Miss Pemberton and Mr. Baconham. I know that, dash it. But why the rift within the lute? Mr. Baconham gave me to understand that he used some strong words as regards Miss Pemberton's hat, Sir. His actual expression was that it looked like a young Vacherin Surely, the young prune didn't hand him the raspberry for that!" I marveled, although well aware that like so many red-haired girls, she had a low boiling point, and could explode like a stick of TNT, strewing ruin and desolation in all directions. -"No, Sir, but she told Mr. Baconham that Mr. Talent, who was an artist and not an apelike Jebusite and Amakelite... what? Jebusite and Amakelite, Sir: Ancient Tribes which fought against King David." My research at the time I won that Scripture Prize at school had required me to delve pretty deeply in the Testaments, bath old and juvenile, but I had no recollection of such weirdly-named chappies. However, there would be time enough to take a Refresher Course when I had sorted out this imbroglio. I called the meeting to order.
"We're wondering from the subject, Jeeves. You were saying? -As I was apprising you, sir, Miss Pemberton told Mr. Baconham that Mr. Talent, who was an artist and not an ape-like Jebusite and Amakelite with as much brains as a peahen, thought very highly of this hat. Mr. Baconham admits to having lost his morale and gave his fiancĂŠe to understand that the hat under advisement gave her a certain resemblance to a moth-eaten old sheep. Moth-eaten old sheep, are you sure? Not a baa-lamb? -No, Sir. I tut-tutted. -Not so good, that. You cannot go around calling girls moth-eaten old sheep. -No, Sir. -No wonder she blew her top. -Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Sir. -Quite. Still all may not be lost. Love is presumably still doing his bit at the old stand, what! , Mr. Baconham, despite what has occurred, still retains a fondness of Miss Pemberton, Sir. She is presumably as potty about him as ever. see...Then it's as easy as pie. A few honeyed words from me will smooth out this laughable little understanding. Leave the problem to me, Jeeves. They're pals of mine and I know them from A to Z. -Yes, Sir. The trousers a quarter of an inch higher, Sir." 1 gave the t. a bit of a hitch, musing on the tragedy of life: two young hearts now asunder, a young love nipped in the bud, a sweet girl shedding bitter tears, and a fiendish-looking but kind-hearted mug kicking himself for being such a chump. There was a thud in the background, followed by a pungent expletive born and bred in the hunting-field. "-I beg your pardon, Madam, I should have stepped out of the way. Or tooted your horn," said Aunt Dahlia. Navigating at a rate of about sixty knots an hour, she had collided with Jeeves, who, his thoughts being probably occupied elsewhere, had not had the presence of mind to disembody himself as he is wont to do and to rematerialize at some unseen spot. "-Ah, here you are, half-wit," she said, spying me. -"With my hair in a braid. You look in the pink. I am. Cedric proposed to Florence in the rose-garden. "And clicked, of course. Like Billy-ho. So none of this family-spectring and porous-plastering now. Remember Honoria." I shuddered. I had once in the hope of promoting the interests of a very cold-footed suitor, gone into this green-eyed monster sequence, only to discover that I was up, against a blond Othello who had been accepted the night before and immediately proceeded to refuse the nomination, leaving me stranded in the clutches of a girl who looked like a middle-weight catch-as-catch-can wrestler. It had taken all of Jeeves's ingenuity to get out of that one. I am not sure I shouldn't send you back where you come from," the relative-by-marriage was saying meditatively. "Still, now you're in... Thanks," I said a bit acidly, as the invitation seemed to me a mite lacking in enthusiasm.
Still, aunts will be aunts, and my Aunt Dahlia, for all her carelessness in plunging nephews in the mulligatawny, was about a billion times better than my broken-glassand--ten-penny-nails-chewing Aunt Agatha. The following day dawned bright and clear. The skies were blue, the birds were twittering, all Nature was smiling. But Nature's example was not followed by Pearl. She greeted me with the listless air young girls have when their life is blank. She looked like something which might have occurred to Ibsen in one of his less frivolous moments. As for Porky, I had seen him at breakfast, directing at a blameless kippered herring a look of such intense bitterness that the fish seemed to sizzle beneath it. It was high time I took the situation in hand and I went to have Ă word with Pearl. Having been a crony of Angela since they were so high, she was always in and out of Brinkley Court, and of course I'd seen a lot of her at that time; I remembered shooting her with a pop-gun and no little amount of hue and cry from the Family did this defiant gesture raise. And no doubt the fact that I had seen her spanked with the back of a hair-brush by Angela's governess now entitled me to speak to her like a Dutch uncle. -"I want a word with you young bacillus,'' I said in my most Dutch-uncle-y voice. -Oh, Bertie! Why don't you go and sleep in the hammock on the lawn? Leave me in peace, 1'm going to tidy the library." Well, this was a sure sign. As clearly as if it had been written on her forehead, these words showed that she was unhappy. No happy young girl goes and closets herself in a dusty library where two or three hundred early Victorian sermons, bound in green maroquin and unopened since 1900 stare at you from the shelves. And it's a well-known fact that it's only girls whose future holds no hope who devote themselves to such a task. Listen to me first, microbe; what's all this rot about you and Porky having parted brass rags? Would you kindly refrain from interfering with my private affairs? Go and boil your head, Bertie! I'll go and boil my head when I've had my say. You know you're head over heels in love with Porky. I am not. You are. It sticks out like a sore thumb. And besides Porky loves you like a ton of bricks. Ch, he does, does he?" she laughed like a hyena. -The love-light is permanently shining in his eyes, and your callousness is making him a candidate for Harakiri, or Kamekazi, or something like that. -Good! He is a beast, a brute, a swine, a hound and a louse," she added, rather nonsequentially, it seemed to me. "-This is pure banana-oil, silly half-portion. I was at school with Porky and I can tellyou that many were the times when he shared his fast bar of milk-chocolate with me. -He's a tick, a snake and a worm. Of course, after this disgraceful exhibition of pig headedness on Pearl's parte the Vshaped depression was still hovering over the luncheon-table, and Porky was looking like the wreck of Hesperus. Hoping to escape the gloom that these two were casting around like a London fog, I went down to the Lake to meditate. I was lying flat on my
back in a punt, thinking of this and that when, from somewhere in the vicinity, came the sound of a voice, jerking me back into the world. It was Florence's voice, cold and metallic. And presently, another voice answered, c. and m., as well. I recognized it as Cedric Talent's voice. I had been introduced to him the night before: he was a pop-eyed and chinless young man, with a stern gaze and a long thin neck, just like an ostrich. In fact, it seemed that Nature had toyed with the idea of producing an ostrich and changed its mind at the last minute, turning out something with the same general outline, but better-balanced and with no feathers. However, he was quite a hot number, with all the Dukes's and Earls's daughters trooping after him to have the loaf portraited for posterity. I remembered being told .that he had chosen to paint Florence by the lake, hoping no doubt that the flowers and greenery would help to achieve that wood nymph effect. Florence was certainly the most beautiful girl I knew , and would have been the dream jewel of any oriental potentate wishing to replenish his harem, but she was rather apt to be very opalescent - no, another word beginning with "op�‌opinionative I think it is. She more or less treated one and sundry as if they were. -And he often bought me jam sandwiches from the school shop," I said doggedly. My brain was whirring like a motor-cycle and I was warming up nicely to my subject; I went on with my sales-talk: -"He was the Pride of the School, always rescuing people from burning buildings and saving blue-eyed children from runaway horses.... -Will you stop driveling, Bertie. I wouldn't marry Porky if he were the last man in the world. My dearest wish is to dip him in boiling oil and watch him wriggle." And off she went, tossing her curls at me. I went back to my room, feeling rather ruffled. Jeeves was there and I put him abreast: "-Pretty strong words, this asinine cheesemite used, didn't she, Jeeves -Yes, Sir. But it's my experience that young ladies, when irate, utter strictures which are not to be taken literally, Sir. -So you're confident that you can salve Porky's problem? -Yes, Sir. What are you going to do? -I could not say, Sir. Well, you'd better eat plenty of fish, to feed that master-brain of yours. I'm afraid I can't help you any more on this case. -Very well, Sir. Menials in "Old Man River": "Hey you, lift that trunk", "Shift that Bale!" were customary form of address with her. The Talent bird however, didn't seem to fit into the dogsbody class. He was answering pretty heatedly and very soon the argument had developed into a quarrel which I couldn't but overhear, absolutely frozen into a position of appalled fascination. Apparently Florence didn't like the portrait, and Talent, sensitive and high-strung as these artists are, was digging his foot in, and putting his ears back and generally carrying on like a Top Quality deaf adder, refusing to alter it. The geezer sounded as if she was chafing as only a girl of spirits who is used to getting her own way can chafe when baffled and thwarted. And very soon, she was telling him that this business of standing together by the alter rails and coyly saying "1 will" was off. There had been a general
sagging of the market. Talent Preferred, taking the most sanguine estimate, could scarcely be quoted at more than about thirty or thirty-five. It's never pleasant to have to be listening in on a lover's tiff, and although the Woosters can take the rough with the smooth, the ordeal had taken its toil; as soon as both parties had strutted off, she as haughtily as the Queen of Sheba, he, as proudly as King . Solomon, I slinked out of the punt and sat on the grass in order to restore the shattered system with a soulful pipe. Mona Lisa's little sister was standing on the easel by the edge of the lake, with all the brushes and paraphernalia near. I got up to have a look at it. I am no connoisseur in this matter, but it seemed to me that the bounder Talent could swing a jolly fine brush: Florence had the face which launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium, and her former sweet heart had done it justice. In fact, he had done it complete justice, and this is proof that no credence whatsoever is to be attached to these old sayings learnt at mother's knee. Love hadn't been blind and the Florence in the portrait looked as imperative as the Florence in real life: she reminded me of one of these Walkyries about to grab the young warrior and haul him willy-nilly up to Valhalla. I went closer, still peering at her dial, and tripped over the easel, polka-ed a bit with the blasted contraption, tried to hold on to the picture, and came to the purler of a lifetime, while the portrait fell into the lake. -"Oh, Bertie!" I emitted a sharp gurgler and shied like a startled mustang. Florence had cone behind me and was cooing. I'd not been used to hearing her coo to me and the phenomenon unmanned me. -You have always been a preux chevalier, haven't you, Bertie? You couldn't stand this loathsome portrait. What a romantic you are!" Having missed Act One and arrived just in time to see the portrait dive like a dolphin into its watery grave, she was putting the wrong construction on the event. -"But..." I whined, absent-mindedly picking up the pipe which my Nijinsky performance had somehow detached from my mouth. The popsy was going on: -'You know, Bertie, this pipe suits you. It alters your whole appearance: you look so much more spiritual..." Well, you might have thought that I would have lapped up a rave notice like this, as my fan-mail could always do with a little boosting up. But, in fact, I was conscious of a clammy feeling in the small of my back, and my instincts were to climb up a tree and pull it up after me. Not feasible, of course, as the beazel was standing between me and the nearest tree. I knew the tone, she had used it once before when I had taken to growing a moustache, and with shattering effects. The s.e. were not long to follow: -You deserve to be made happy, and I am the appropriate one for such an undertaking. I'11 marry you, Bertie: your quixotic conduct has opened my eyes. I see your soul can be moulded. I am sure, that given the opportunity, I can foster the latent potentialities of your budding mind. I'll devote myself to the task and awaken all your dormant possibilities which need only an energetic and purposeful endeavor to come to the surface."
What can a fellow answer, except "Thanks!" I did, and tottered away. "Jeeves' I bleated in a dying duck's voice when the invaluable man appeared at my side carrying a restorative whisky and soda. Jeeves may have his defects, but he is full to the gills with feudal spirit. Whatever his differences with me, if the young master is in the soup, he immediately lets bygones be bygones and rallies of the ghastly business. His eyebrows rose one eighth of an inch, which was proof of utmost concern. -"Most disturbing", Sir. -What do you mean, disturbing! It's appalling! -Yes, Sir. -I don't want to marry the blasted girl..." I wailed. -Exactly, Sir. One appreciates the difficulty. Particularly as an unfortunate development seems to have arisen, Sir." I leaped about three feet, my heart broke from its moorings and crashed with a dull thud against my front teeth. " What, what,° I bubbled. There was an unpleasant sensation in the pit of my stomach as if some unfriendly hand had stirred my vital organs with an egg whisk. -"Mr Talent appears to be affianced with Miss Pemberton. I groaned hollowly. I have the information from the head-gardener who was spraying the roses against green-fly, Sir. Apparently Mr Talent came upon Miss Pemberton crying in the rose garden. Upon the information that her heart was broken, he proposed to her, saying that he too was affected with a broken heart and that they could cry on each other's shoulder. The young lady accepted him, Sir. This piece of news caused considerable surprise in the Servant's Hall, as Mr. Talent was generally thought to be betrothed to Lady Florence Craye, but the mystery is now satisfactorily explained. -Satisfactorily! -I beg your pardon, Sir. I should have said tragically. -Another whisky and soda, Jeeves, I said weakly. The man disappeared on his errand of mercy. That night the evening meal would have made a dinner on the nBountyu on one of Captain Blight's worst days, seem like a rollicking feast. Pearl had a broken heart, Porky had a broken heart, and so had Cedric. Florence apparently unmoved by all these brows sicklied o'er with the pale cast of care, was saying clever things about a Frenchman named Lalique son, who had cone to London with an exclusive collection of Modern Art brooches whose chiaroscuro-if Modern Art brooches have such a thing, which on reflection seems unlikely, I must check with Jeeves-she apparently thought very highly of. I writhed at the thought that unless Jeeves brought home the bacon, this kind of conversation was going to be a permanent fixture of my future life. The Cantaloupe produced by Anatole The Master Skillet-Wielder, turned to ash in my mouth so did his Consommé aux Pommes d'Amour, Sylphides à la Crème d'Ecrevisse, Selle d'Agneau à la Grecque,and Bénédictins Blancs. It was still light after dinner, and not feeling up to joining the Tchekovian gang, I once more wandered out to sit under a tree not far from the lake. I was rather considering tying a stone around my neck and ending it all by jumping into the lake, but the water looked rather green and uninviting, and I knew that Aunt Dahlia would not be amused at bumping into my swollen body while having her
morning swim. So I just remained there in the shadows, tearing my hair and gnashing my teeth. I suddenly heard a splashing noise in the direction of the lake, and lifting up the bean which had up till then been buried in my hands, beheld Porky who appeared to be shrimping or something. He hadn't seen me because it was getting on towards dusk and the tree I was sitting under cast quite a shadow. Apparently he had seen some Unidentified Floating Object, and being naturally curious had started wading into the mere, presumably in order to find out what it was. It was, of course, Florence's portrait which I hadn't thought of fishing out. I was going to call him when another Unidentified Object, this time Running (at a snappy rate of miles per hour, too) came centre right. I then identified it as being the Talent gargoyle who, spying Porky in the shallows and his masterpiece in the lake, jumped towards him, laid a hand on his shoulder, which made him turn round, and delivered a crisp punch on the beezer. -"Porky! my love, my precious lambkin," a female voice wailed. The precious lambkin was spilled on the grass, looking about as attractive as a half-drowned sheepdog. Pearl turned to Talent like a tigress: -"What do you mean, you ugly jug-headed sap, hitting my darling Porky? -He threw my painting into the lake. -Good show! I expect it was a rotten daub anyway. If I'd been here I would have held his hat and egged him on. My duck, my sweetie-pie. She sang, kneeling by Porky and becoming quite the little mother. -"My lovely angel pet! Can you forgive me for being such a swine? -It was all my fault. -No, mine. -No, mine. -My love, my dream rabbit. -Darling! I had had enough of these nauseating exchanges. Talent had melted in the darkness and I did the same. -"Jeeves" I said "I have a tale which will make you clap your little hands in glee and skip like a lamb in springtime. -Indeed, Sir? -I unfolded the story. -So you see, I concluded, all is gas and gaiters again. -I rather anticipated such a contingency, Sir. -What do you mean? -Yes, Sir. I presumed the best plan to bring about a reconciliation between these two young people going adrift was to take into account the psychology of the individual. I took the liberty of suggesting to Mr. Talent that Mr. Baconham, incensed by Miss Pemberton's betrothal, planned to revenge himself by destroying the portrait, Sir. When I espied him going towards the lake, I informed Miss Pemberton that her fiancĂŠ wished to confer with her by the water. I must admit that Mr Baconham trying to retrieve the picture was an unforeseen conjecture, Sir, but I fancy it didn't go against the smooth development of the events. -Jeeves, you stand alone! and re this little matter of my betrothal to Florence?
-I am sorry, Sir, I've used every endeavor to hit upon a solution of the problem confronting you, but I regret to say that my efforts haven't been crowned -You mean you're stymied. -I am afraid so, Sir. -Don't give up. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. -Precisely, Sir. I was in no hurry to see Florence's face peeping at me over the coffee-pot so the next morning I breakfasted in my room. Jeeves had already informed me that the United States Marines were not in sight and the stickiness of the situation made the coffee taste rather like hemlock-not that I have ever tasted any. This Porky and Pearl business had bucked me up like a week at bracing Bognor-Regis, but now Jeeves's report made life as dreary and sad as a wet Sunday in a Northern manufacturing town. There was a soft cough that might have proceeded from a sheep with asthma. Jeeves had materialized and was respectfully trying to attract my attention. -What is it, Jeeves? I believe that I can see speech fermenting behind that inscrutable mask of yours, I said, hope surging within me. -Yes, Sir. It's with reference to Lady Florence Craye's birthday present. Hope blew a fuse and lay dead by the wayside. I quivered like an Ouled Nail stomach dancer. You think I ought to weigh in with a present, do you? -Yes, Sir. Jeeves is a stickler on matters of etiquette and upon reflection I could see that he was right. We Woosters can bite the bullet and keep the stiff upper lip. I laughed mirthlessly, the sort of laugh a lost soul in an Inferno might have uttered, if tickled by some observation on the part of another soul. -"What do you suggest? -I was informed the young lady seemed to have been quite impressed by the Lalique son, brooches, Sir. -Oh, all right. Take the two-seater and get the damn thing. -Very well, sir." The man was right, as usual. These Lalique son brooches, being exclusive in design, were no trinket, but a handsome present, such as a fiancÊe might expect from one to whom she had plighted her troth. And Florence, I knew, having spent time among the Bloomsbury and Chelsea Bohemians, would find the brooch right up her street. This cooked the goose. Until now, I had more or less expected Jeeves to come up at the eleventh hour with a hot one. But his allusion to the birthday present made clear that he was washing his hands of the whole business. His grip was failing and he had failed to come up with a solution. This piece of baloney about Florence's present was tantamount to admitting himself licked to a custard. I went into the hair-tearing and teeth-grinding routine. -"Good evening, Sir. -Hello, Jeeves. Back from the old metrop, then‌ -I purchased the brooch, Sir. -Ah, yes, the brooch. Quite. -If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly, Sir.
As you say, Jeeves." I went to look for Florence whom I found presiding over the tea-table; except her, there was nobody at the trough, yet. -"Here you are, with comp and good wishes," I said. -Oh, thank you, Bertie!' She opened the parcel and rose like a salmon in the spawning season, looking at me as if I were something more than usually revolting one finds under a flat stone. -"Bertie! Is this a joke? How dare you insult me with that?" The tone had changed from fair to stormy. The eyes which poets in Bloomsbury had compared to twin lagoons slumbering beneath a southern sky looked like something out of an acetylene blow-pipe. And she was dangling it by the fingertips as if hardly daring to touch the most terrible piece of jewelry I had ever seen. It was an enormous brooch, in the shape of a spider with false ruby eyes and a revolting inebriated expression, like a licentious clubman operating on all twelve cylinders. It also was obviously a very cheap and gaudy trinket, something a decent housemaid wouldn't have been caught dead in a ditch with. What had happened to the Lalique son brooch, and who had substituted this ghastly changeling was a mystery. -"Many happy returns, Florence," interrupted an uncold and unmetallic voice. Florence took Cedric's parcel, opened it, and took out a Lalique son brooch. She was goggling. -Oh Cedric! How lovely, just what I wanted. How did you guess? -H'm Florence...about this portrait...I'm sorry; I'll do it again. Oh Cedric! -Will you marry me, Florence? , -Yes, Cedric, I will. I sneaked off, floating on a pink cloud over an ocean of bliss, while harps and sackbuts did their stuff and a thousand voices gave three rousing cheers. -Jeeves, have you ever seen me dance on the top of my toes and strew roses from my hat? -Sir? -I'm saved! Florence is engaged to Cedric. -Indeed, Sir? Something in the man's tone made me suspicious. Any fellow at the Drones will tell you that Bertie Wooster is pretty quick at the uptake and can quickly sense fishy business. -Was it you, Jeeves? Were you behind the whole show? -Sir? -Did you snitch the brooch and replace it by that foul spider? -I fear I have been remiss, Sir. I inadvertently gave you a parcel intended for one of the kennel-maids. -Thereby avoiding an epidemic of nervous fits among Aunt Dahlia's hounds. -It's rather an eye-catching ornament, Sir. Eye-catching! It's as big as a saucer and looks positively tight! But tell me, how did Talent get hold of the Lalique son brooch? -Knowing I was going to London, he did me the honor of asking me to get a present for Lady Florence Craye, Sir. I think he hoped that such a move would help to reopen the negotiations.
-Jeeves, you're wonderful. -I endeavor to give satisfaction, Sir. -Still, just to be on the safe side, I think you'd better pack. We'll return to G.H.Q. tomorrow. Not that I want to, but I don't feel quite safe here," I nearly added, "with Florence dug into the woodwork," but that would have been bandying a woman's name and I stopped just in time. "-I fancy it will not be necessary to leave, Sir. Lady Florence Craye's personal maid overheard her mistress telling Mr Talent she thought Steeple Bumpleigh would be a better setting for her portrait." Steeple Bumpleigh was Florence's father's and stepmother's lair. Of course, she wanted to produce her betrothed for inspection. I didn't like Cedric, but I couldn't help feeling a pang of pity for the poor chump. Florence's father, my uncle Percy, was an old Conquistador whose twenty-minutes-in-the-saucepan-ness was a byword, and to stand under the fire of Aunt Agatha's pince-nez was an ordeal which had made stronger men wilt. They could generally be seen the next morning at breakfast with their hair turned completely white. Still, Love conquers all, they say. And it suited me to the grounds Nothing could have pleased me more than a few weeks of quiet enjoyment of the peerless wizard's cuisine, which was such a feature of Brinkley Court. "-There's nobody like you, Jeeves. Everything seemed lost, and there was a fanfare of angel trumpets and you descended from Heaven, the sun shining on your wings. You waved your magic wand and solved all my problems, as usual. -I am glad to have given satisfaction, Sir." I pondered a while. I hadn't smoked my pipe since the moment when Florence had told me of its spiritualism giving qualities. If the penalty for spiritualism was to be lassoed by girls of her kind, give me materialism any day. "-Jeeves, I said, this pipe‌ Give it to the head-gardener. -I am exceedingly obliged, Sir; the instrument was not becoming. -As you say, Jeeves." E. G.Woudhouse