ay confidently expect to hear it again.'
     'No,  but listen, Bertie. Nothing can possibly go wrong if we  work
together.  Mrs  Cream won't show up this time. Lightning never  strikes
twice in the same place.'
     'Who made that rule?'
     'And  if she does ... Here's what I thought we'd do. You go in  and
start searching, and I'll stand outside the door.'
     'You feel that will be a lot of help?'
     'Of course it will. If I see her coming, I'll sing.'
     'Always  glad to hear you singing, of course, but in what way  will
that ease the strain?'
     'Oh, Bertie, you really are an abysmal chump. Don't you get it? When
you hear me burst into song, you'll know there's peril afoot and you'll
have plenty of time to nip out of the window.'
     'And break my bally neck?'
     'How  can you break your neck? There's a balcony outside  the  Blue
Room. I've seen Wilbert Cream standing on it, doing his Daily Dozen. He
breathes deeply and ties himself into a lovers' knot and -'
     'Never mind Wilbert Cream's excesses.'
     'I  only put that in to make it more interesting. The point is that
there is a balcony and once on it you're home. There's a water pipe  at
the  end of it. You just slide down that and go on your way, singing  a
gypsy song. You aren't going to tell me that you have any objection  to
sliding down water pipes. Jeeves says you're always doing it.'
     I  mused. It was true that I had slid down quite a number of  water
pipes  in my time. Circumstances had often so moulded themselves as  to
make  such an action imperative. It was by that route that I  had  left
Skeldings  Hall  at  three  in the morning after  the  hot-water-bottle
incident.  So  while it would be too much, perhaps, to say  that  I  am
never happier than when sliding down water pipes, the prospect of doing
so  caused  me  little or no concern. I began to  see  that  there  was
something in this plan she was mooting, if mooting is the word I want.
     What tipped the scale was the thought of Uncle Tom. His love for the
cow-creamer might be misguided, but you couldn't get away from the fact
that  he was deeply attached to the beastly thing, and one didn't  like
the  idea of him coming back from Harrogate and saying to himself  'And
now  for a refreshing look at the old cow-creamer' and finding  it  was
not  in  residence.  It  would blot the sunshine  from  his  life,  and
affectionate  nephews hate like the dickens to blot the  sunshine  from
the  lives  of uncles. It was true that I had said 'Let Uncle  Tom  eat
cake,' but I hadn't really meant it. I could not forget that when I was
at  Malvern House, Bramley-on-Sea, this relative by marriage had  often
sent  me postal orders sometimes for as much as ten bob. He, in  short,
had done the square thing by me, and it was up to me to do the s.t.  by
him.
     And so it came about that some five minutes later I stood once more
outside the Blue Room with Bobbie beside me, not actually at the moment
singing  in  the  wilderness but prepared  so  to  sing  if  Ma  Cream,
modelling her strategy on that of the Assyrian, came down like  a  wolf
on the fold. The nervous system was a bit below par, of course, but not
nearly  so much so as it might have been. Knowing that Bobbie would  be
on  sentry-go made all the difference. Any gangster will tell you  that
the  strain  and  anxiety of busting a safe are greatly  diminished  if
you've a look-out man ready at any moment to say 'Cheese it, the cops!'
     Just  to  make sure that Wilbert hadn't returned from his  hike,  I
knocked  on the door. Nothing stirred. The coast seemed c. I  mentioned
this to Bobbie, and she agreed that it was as c. as a whistle.
     'Now a quick run-through, to see that you have got it straight. If I
sing, what do you do?'
     'Nip out of the window.'
     'And - ?'
     'Slide down the water pipe.'
     'And - ?'
     'Leg it over the horizon.'
     'Right. In you go and get cracking,' she said, and I went in.
     The dear old room was just as I'd left it, nothing changed, and  my
first move, of course, was to procure another chair and give the top of
the  armoire  the once-over. It was a set-back to find  that  the  cow-
creamer wasn't there. I suppose these kleptomaniacs know a thing or two
and  don't hide the loot in the obvious place. There was nothing to  be
done  but start the exhaustive search elsewhere, and I proceeded to  do
so,  keeping an ear cocked for any snatch of song. None coming, it  was
with  something of the old debonair Wooster spirit that I looked  under
this  and  peered  behind  that, and I had  just  crawled  beneath  the
dressing-table  in  pursuance  of my  researches,  when  one  of  those
disembodied  voices  which were so frequent in  the  Blue  Room  spoke,
causing me to give my head a nasty bump.
     'For  goodness' sake!' it said, and I came out like a pickled onion
on  the  end of a fork, to find that Ma Cream was once more a  pleasant
visitor.  She was standing there, looking down at me with  a  what-the-
hell  expression on her finely chiselled face, and I didn't blame  her.
Gives  a  woman a start, naturally, to come into her son's bedroom  and
observe  an  alien trouser-seat sticking out from under  the  dressing-
table.
     We went into our routine.
     'Mr Wooster!'
     'Oh, hullo.'
     'It's you again?'
     'Why, yes,' I said, for this of course was perfectly correct, and an
odd  sound  proceeded from her, not exactly a hiccup and yet not  quite
not a hiccup.
     'Are you still looking for that mouse?'
     'That's right. I thought I saw it run under there, and I was  about
to deal with it regardless of its age or sex.'
     'What makes you think there is a mouse here?'
     'Oh, one gets these ideas.'
     'Do you often hunt for mice?'
     'Fairly frequently.'
     An idea seemed to strike her.
     'You don't think you're a cat?'
     'No, I'm pretty straight on that.'
     'But you pursue mice?'
     'Yes.'
     'Well, this is very interesting. I must consult my psychiatrist when
I  get  back  to  New York. I'm sure he will tell me that  this  mouse-
fixation is a symbol of something. Your head feels funny, doesn't it?'
     'It  does rather,' I said, the bump I had given it had been a juicy
one, and the temples were throbbing.
     'I thought as much. A sort of burning sensation, I imagine. Now you
do  just as I tell you. Go to your room and lie down. Relax. Try to get
a  little  sleep. Perhaps a cup of strong tea would help. And  ...  I'm
trying  to  think of the name of that alienist I've heard  people  over
here  speak so highly of. Miss Wickham mentioned him yesterday. Bossom?
Blossom? Glossop, that's it, Sir Roderick Glossop. I think you ought to
consult  him. A friend of mine is at his clinic now, and she says  he's
wonderful. Cures the most stubborn cases. Meanwhile, rest is the thing.
Go and have a good rest.'
     At  an early point in these exchanges I had started to sidle to the
door, and I now sidled through it, rather like a diffident crab on some
sandy beach trying to avoid the attentions of a child with a spade. But
I didn't go to my room and relax, I went in search of Bobbie, breathing
fire.  I wanted to take up with her the matter of that absence  of  the
burst of melody. I mean, considering that a mere couple of bars of some
popular song hit would have saved me from an experience that had turned
the  bones  to  water and whitened the hair from the neck  up,  I  felt
entitled to demand an explanation of why those bars had not emerged.
     I found her outside the front door at the wheel of her car.
     'Oh,  hullo,  Bertie,' she said, and a fish on  ice  couldn't  have
spoken more calmly. 'Have you got it?'
     I ground a tooth or two and waved the arms in a passionate gesture.
     'No,' I said, ignoring her query as to why I had chosen this moment
to do my Swedish exercises. 'I haven't. But Ma Cream got me.'
     Her eyes widened. She squeaked a bit.
     'Don't tell me she caught you bending again?'
     'Bending is right. I was half-way under the dressing-table. You and
your  singing,'  I  said,  and  I'm not sure  I  didn't  add  the  word
'Forsooth!'
     Her eyes widened a bit further, and she squeaked another squeak.
     'Oh, Bertie, I'm sorry about that.'
     'Me, too.'
     'You  see, I was called away to the telephone. Mother rang up.  She
wanted to tell me you were a nincompoop.'
     'One wonders where she picks up such expressions.'
     'From  her literary friends, I suppose. She knows a lot of literary
people.'
     'Great help to the vocabulary.'
     'Yes. She was delighted when I told her I was coming home. She wants
to have a long talk.'
     'About me, no doubt?'
     'Yes,  I  expect  your name will crop up. But I mustn't  stay  here
chatting with you, Bertie. If I don't get started, I shan't hit the old
nest till daybreak. It's a pity you made such a mess of things. Poor Mr
Travers, he'll be broken-hearted. Still, into each life some rain  must
fall,' she said, and drove off, spraying gravel in all directions.
     If  Jeeves  had  been there, I would have turned to  him  and  said
'Women,  Jeeves!',  and  he  would have said  'Yes,  sir'  or  possibly
'Precisely,  sir', and this would have healed the bruised spirit  to  a
certain  extent, but as he wasn't I merely laughed a bitter  laugh  and
made  for  the lawn. A go at Ma Cream's goose-flesher might, I thought,
do something to soothe the vibrating ganglions.
     And  it did. I hadn't been reading long when drowsiness stole  over
me,  the tired eyelids closed, and in another couple of ticks I was off
to  dreamland, slumbering as soundly as if I had been the cat Augustus.
I  awoke  to  find  that some two hours had passed, and  it  was  while
stretching  the  limbs that I remembered I hadn't  sent  that  wire  to
Kipper Herring, inviting him to come and join the gang. I went to  Aunt
Dahlia's   boudoir   and  repaired  this  omission,   telephoning   the
communication  to someone at the post office who would have  been  well
advised  to  consult a good aurist. This done, I headed  for  the  open
spaces  again, and was approaching the lawn with a view to  getting  on
with  my  reading  when, hearing engine noises in  the  background  and
turning  to cast an eye in their direction, blow me tight if  I  didn't
behold Kipper alighting from his car at the front door.


        9
     The distance from London to Brinkley Court being a hundred miles or
so  and not much more than two minutes having elapsed since I had  sent
off  that telegram, the fact that he was now outside the Brinkley front
door  struck me as quick service. It lowered the record of the chap  in
the  motoring sketch which Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright sometimes does  at
the Drones Club smoking concert where the fellow tells the other fellow
he's  going to drive to Glasgow and the other fellow says 'How  far  is
that?'  and the fellow says 'Three hundred miles' and the other  fellow
says 'How long will it take you to get there?' and the fellow says 'Oh,
about  half  an  hour, about half an hour.' The What-ho  with  which  I
greeted  the  back of his head as I approached was tinged, accordingly,
with a certain bewilderment.
     At the sound of the old familiar voice he spun around with something
of the agility of a cat on hot bricks, and I saw that his dial, usually
cheerful,  was  contorted with anguish, as if he had  swallowed  a  bad
oyster.  Guessing now what was biting him, I smiled one  of  my  subtle
smiles. I would soon, I told myself, be bringing the roses back to  his
cheeks.
     He  gulped a bit, then spoke in a hollow voice, like a spirit at  a
seance.
     'Hullo, Bertie.'
     'Hullo.'
     'So there you are.'
     'Yes, here I am.'
     'I was hoping I might run into you.'
     'And now the dream's come true.'
     'You see, you told me you were staying here.'
     'Yes.'
     'How's everything?'
     'Pretty fruity.'
     'Your aunt well?'
     'Fine.'
     'You all right?'
     'More or less.'
     'Capital. Long time since I was at Brinkley.'
     'Yes.'
     'Nothing much changed, I mean.'
     'No.'
     'Well, that's how it goes.'
     He paused and did another splash of gulping, and I could see that we
were  about  to come to the nub, all that had gone before  having  been
merely what they call pour-parlers. I mean the sort of banana oil  that
passes  between statesmen at conferences conducted in an atmosphere  of
the  utmost cordiality before they tear their whiskers off and get down
to cases.
     I  was right. His face working as if the first bad oyster had  been
followed by a second with even more spin on the ball, he said:
     'I saw that thing in The Times, Bertie.'
     I  dissembled.  I ought, I suppose, to have started bringing  those
roses  back right away, but I felt it would be amusing to kid the  poor
fish along for a while, so I wore the mask.
     'Ah, yes. In The Times. That thing. Quite. You saw it, did you?'
     'At the club, after lunch. I couldn't believe my eyes.'
     Well,  I  hadn't been able to believe mine, either,  but  I  didn't
mention this. I was thinking how like Bobbie it was, when planning this
scheme of hers, not to have let him in on the ground floor. Slipped her
mind, I suppose, or she may have kept it under her hat for some strange
reason of her own. She had always been a girl who moved in a mysterious
way her wonders to perform.
     'And I'll tell you why I couldn't. You'll scarcely credit this, but
only a couple of days ago she was engaged to me.'
     'You don't say?'
     'Yes, I jolly well do.'
     'Engaged to you, eh?'
     'Up to the hilt. And all the while she must have been contemplating
this ghastly bit of treachery.'
     'A bit thick.'
     'If you can tell me anything that's thicker, I shall be glad to hear
it.  It  just  shows you what women are like. A frightful sex,  Bertie.
There  ought to be a law. I hope to live to see the day when women  are
no longer allowed.'
     'That  would rather put a stopper on keeping the human race  going,
wouldn't it?'
     'Well, who wants to keep the human race going?'
     'I see what you mean. Yes, something in that, of course.'
     He  kicked  petulantly  at  a passing beetle,  frowned  awhile  and
resumed.
     'It's the cold, callous heartlessness of the thing that shocks  me.
Not  a  hint that she was proposing to return me to store. As  short  a
while  ago as last week, when we had a bite of lunch together, she  was
sketching out plans for the honeymoon with the greatest animation.  And
now this! Without a word of warning. You'd have thought that a girl who
was  smashing a fellow's life into hash would have dropped him a  line,
if only a postcard. Apparently that never occurred to her. She just let
me get the news from the morning paper. I was stunned.'
     'I bet you were. Did everything go black?'
     'Pretty black. I took the rest of the day thinking it over, and this
morning wangled leave from the office and got the car out and came down
here to tell you...'
     He paused, seeming overcome with emotion.
     'Yes?'
     'To  tell you that, whatever we do, we mustn't let this thing break
our old friendship.'
     'Of course not. Damn silly idea.'
     'It's such a very old friendship.'
     'I don't know when I've met an older.'
     'We were boys together.'
     'In Eton jackets and pimples.'
     'Exactly.  And more like brothers than anything. I would  share  my
last  bar  of almond rock with you, and you would cut me in fifty-fifty
on  your last bag of acid drops. When you had mumps, I caught them from
you,  and  when  I had measles, you caught them from me.  Each  helping
each.  So  we  must  carry  on regardless, just  as  if  this  had  not
happened.'
     'Quite.'
     'The same old lunches.'
     'Oh, rather.'
     'And golf on Saturdays and the occasional game of squash. And  when
you are married and settled down, I shall frequently look in on you for
a cocktail.'
     'Yes, do.'
     'I will. Though I shall have to exercise an iron self-restraint  to
keep  me  from beaning that pie-faced little hornswoggler  Mrs  Bertram
Wooster, nee Wickham, with the shaker.'
     'Ought you to call her a pie-faced little hornswoggler?'
     'Why,  can you think of something worse?' he said, with the air  of
one always open to suggestions. 'Do you know Thomas Otway?'
     'I don't believe so. Pal of yours?'
     'Seventeenth-century  dramatist. Wrote The Orphan.  In  which  play
these  words occur. "What mighty ills have not been done by Woman?  Who
was't betrayed the Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Antony the world?  A
woman. Who was the cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last  old
Troy  in  ashes? Woman. Deceitful, damnable, destructive Woman."  Otway
knew what he was talking about He had the right slant. He couldn't have
put it better if he had known Roberta Wickham personally.'
     I  smiled  another subtle smile. I was finding all  this  extremely
diverting.
     'I  don't  know  if  it's my imagination,  Kipper,'  I  said,  'but
something gives me the impression that at moment of going to press  you
aren't too sold on Bobbie.'
     He shrugged a shoulder.
     'Oh,  I wouldn't say that. Apart from wishing I could throttle  the
young twister with my bare hands and jump on the remains with hobnailed
boots,  I  don't feel much about her one way or the other. She  prefers
you to me, and there's nothing more to be said. The great thing is that
everything is all right between you and me.'
     'You  came  all  the way here just to make sure of that?'  I  said,
moved.
     'Well, there may possibly also have been an idea at the back of  my
mind  that  I  might get invited to dig in at one of those  dinners  of
Anatole's  before  going on to book a room at the "Bull  and  Bush"  in
Market Snodsbury. How is Anatole's cooking these days?'
     'Superber than ever.'
     'Continues to melt in the mouth, does it? It's two years since I bit
into his products, but the taste still lingers. What an artist!'
     'Ah!' I said, and would have bared my head, only I hadn't a hat on.
     'Would it run to a dinner invitation, do you think?'
     'My dear chap, of course. The needy are never turned from our door.'
     'Splendid. And after the meal I shall propose to Phyllis Mills.'
     'What!'
     'Yes, I know what you're thinking. She is closely related to Aubrey
Upjohn, you are saying to yourself. But surely, Bertie, she can't  help
that.'
     'More to be pitied than censured, you think?'
     'Exactly. We mustn't be narrow-minded. She is a sweet, gentle girl,
unlike certain scarlet-headed Delilahs who shall be nameless, and I  am
very fond of her.'
     'I thought you scarcely knew her.'
     'Oh  yes,  we saw quite a bit of one another in Switzerland.  We're
great buddies.'
     It seemed to me that the moment had come to bring the good news from
Aix to Ghent, as the expression is.
     'I don't know that I would propose to Phyllis Mills, Kipper. Bobbie
might not like it.'
     'But that's the whole idea, to show her she isn't the only onion in
the  stew  and that if she doesn't want me, there are others  who  feel
differently. What are you grinning about?'
     As a matter of fact, I was smiling subtly, but I let it go.
     'Kipper,' I said, 'I have an amazing story to relate.'
     I  don't  know  if  you  happen to take Old  Doctor  Gordon's  Bile
Magnesia,  which  when  the liver is disordered gives  instant  relief,
acting  like  magic and imparting an inward glow? I  don't  myself,  my
personal  liver being always more or less in mid-season form, but  I've
seen  the  advertisements.  They show the  sufferer  before  and  after
taking,  in  the  first case with drawn face and hollow  eyes  and  the
general  look of one shortly about to hand in his dinner pail,  in  the
second  all  beans and buck and what the French call bien  etre.  Well,
what  I'm  driving  at is that my amazing story had  exactly  the  same
effect on Kipper as the daily dose for adults ... He moved, he stirred,
he  seemed to feel the rush of life along his keel, and while  I  don't
suppose  he  actually  put on several pounds  in  weight  as  the  tale
proceeded, one got the distinct illusion that he was swelling like  one
of  those rubber ducks which you fill with air before inserting them in
the bath tub.
     'Well, I'll be blowed!' he said, when I had placed the facts before
him. 'Well, I'll be a son of a what not!'
     'I thought you would be.'
     'Bless her ingenious little heart! Not many girls would have got the
grey matter working like that.'
     'Very few.'
     'What a helpmeet! Talk about service and co-operation. Have you any
idea how the thing is working out?'
     'Rather smoothly, I think. On reading the announcement in The Times,
Wickham senior had hysterics and swooned in her tracks.'
     'She doesn't like you?'
     'That was the impression I got. It has been confirmed by subsequent
telegrams to Bobbie in which she refers to me as a guffin and  a  gaby.
She also considers me a nincompoop.'
     'Well, that's fine. It looks as though, after you, I shall come  to
her like ... it's on the tip of my tongue.'
     'Rare and refreshing fruit?'
     'Exactly. If you care to have a bet on it, five bob will get you ten
that this scenario will end with a fade-out of Lady Wickham folding  me
in her arms and kissing me on the brow and saying she knows I will make
her little girl happy. Gosh, Bertie, when I think that she - Bobbie,  I
mean,  not  Lady  Wickham - will soon be mine and  that  shortly  after
yonder sun has set I shall be tucking into one of Anatole's dinners,  I
could  dance a saraband. By the way, talking of dinner, do you  suppose
it  would also run to a bed? The "Bull and Bush" is well spoken  of  in
the  Automobile Guide, but I'm always a bit wary of these country pubs.
I'd  much  rather  be at Brinkley Court, of which  I  have  such  happy
memories. Could you swing it with your aunt?'
     'She isn't here. She left to minister to her son Bonzo, who is down
with  German measles at his school. But she rang up this afternoon  and
instructed me to wire you to come and make a prolonged stay.'
     'You're pulling my leg.'
     'No, this is official.'
     'But what made her think of me?'
     'There's something she wants you to do for her.'
     'She  can  have anything she asks, even unto half my kingdom.  What
does she ...' He paused, and a look of alarm came into his face. 'Don't
tell  me she wants me to present the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammer
School, like Gussie?'
     He  was  alluding to a mutual friend of ours of the name of  Gussie
Fink-Nottle,  who, hounded by the aged relative into  undertaking  this
task  in the previous summer, had got pickled to the gills and made  an
outstanding  exhibition of himself, setting up  a  mark  at  which  all
future orators would shoot in vain.
     'No, no, nothing like that. The prizes this year will be distributed
by Aubrey Upjohn.'
     'That's a relief. How is he, by the way? You've met him, of course?'
     'Oh, yes, we got together. I spilled some tea on him.'
     'You couldn't have done better.'
     'He's grown a moustache.'
     'That  eases my mind. I wasn't looking forward to seeing that  bare
upper  lip  of  his.  Remember how it used to make  us  quail  when  he
twitched  it at us? I wonder how he'll react when confronted  with  not
only  one former pupil but two, and those two the very brace that  have
probably haunted him in his dreams for the last fifteen years. Might as
well unleash me on him now.'
     'He isn't here.'
     'You said he was.'
     'Yes, he was and he will be, but he isn't. He's gone up to London.'
     'Isn't anybody here?'
     'Certainly. There's Phyllis Mills -'
     'Nice girl.'
     '  - and Mrs Homer Cream of New York City, NY, and her son Wilbert.
And  that  brings me to the something Aunt Dahlia wants you to  do  for
her.'
     I  was  pleased, as I put him hep on the Wilbert -Phyllis situation
and  revealed the part he was expected to play in it, to note  that  he
showed  no  signs  of  being about to issue the presidential  veto.  He
followed the set-up intelligently and when I had finished said that  of
course he would be only too willing to oblige. It wasn't much, he said,
to ask of a fellow who esteemed Aunt Dahlia as highly as he did and who
ever  since she had lushed him up so lavishly two summers ago had  been
wishing there was something he could do in the way of buying back.
     'Rely on me, Bertie,' he said. 'We can't have Phyllis tying herself
up  with  a  man who on the evidence would appear to be as nutty  as  a
fruit  cake.  I  will be about this Cream's bed and  about  his  board,
spying out all his ways. Every time he lures the poor girl into a leafy
glade,  I will be there, nestling behind some wild flower all ready  to
pop out and gum the game at the least indication that he is planning to
get  mushy. And now if you would show me to my room, I will have a bath
and brush-up so as to be all sweet and fresh for the evening meal. Does
Anatole still do those Timbales de ris de veau toulousaine?'
     'And the Sylphides a la creme d'ecrevisses.'
     'There  is none like him, none,' said Kipper, moistening  the  lips
with  the  tip  of  the tongue and looking like a wolf  that  has  just
spotted its Russian peasant. 'He stands alone.'


        10
     As  I  hadn't  the  remotest which rooms were available  and  which
weren't, getting Kipper dug in necessitated ringing for Pop Glossop.  I
pressed the button and he appeared, giving me, as he entered, the  sort
of conspiratorial glance the acting secretary of a secret society would
have given a friend on the membership roll.
     'Oh, Swordfish,' I said, having given him a conspiratorial glance in
return,  for  one  always  likes to do the civil  thing,  'this  is  Mr
Herring, who has come to join our little group.'
     He bowed from the waist, not that he had much waist.
     'Good evening, sir.'
     'He will be staying some time. Where do we park him?'
     'The Red Room suggests itself, sir.'
     'You get the Red Room, Kipper.'
     'Right-ho.'
     'I  had it last year. 'Tis not as deep as a well nor as wide  as  a
church door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve,' I said, recalling a gag of
Jeeves's. 'Will you escort Mr Herring thither, Swordfish?'
     'Very good, sir.'
     'And  when you have got him installed, perhaps I could have a  word
with you in your pantry,' I said, giving him a conspiratorial glance.
     'Certainly, sir,' he responded, giving me a conspiratorial glance.
     It was one of those big evenings for conspiratorial glances.
     I hadn't been waiting in the pantry long when he navigated over the
threshold,  and my first act was to congratulate him on the  excellence
of  his  technique. I had been much impressed by all that  'Very  good,
sir,' 'Certainly, sir,' bowing-from-the-waist stuff. I said that Jeeves
himself  couldn't have read his lines better, and he simpered  modestly
and said that one picked up these little tricks of the trade from one's
own butler.
     'Oh, by the way,' I said, 'where did you get the Swordfish?'
     He smiled indulgently.
     'That was Miss Wickham's suggestion.'
     'I thought as much.'
     'She  informed me that she had always dreamed of one day meeting  a
butler called Swordfish. A charming young lady. Full of fun.'
     'It  may be fun for her,' I said with one of my bitter laughs, 'but
it isn't so diverting for the unfortunate toads beneath the harrow whom
she  plunges  so ruthlessly in the soup. Let me tell you what  occurred
after I left you this afternoon.'
     'Yes, I am all eagerness to hear.'
     'Then pin your ears back and drink it in.'
     If  I  do say so, I told my story well, omitting no detail  however
slight.  It  had  him  Bless-my-soul-ing throughout,  and  when  I  had
finished  he  t'ck-t'ck-t'ck-ed  and  said  it  must  have  been   most
unpleasant for me, and I said that 'unpleasant' covered the facts  like
the skin on a sausage.
     'But  I  think  that  in your place I should  have  thought  of  an
explanation  of  your  presence  calculated  to  carry  more  immediate
conviction than that you were searching for a mouse.'
     'Such as?'
     'It is hard to say on the spur of the moment.'
     'Well,  it  was  on the spur of the m. that I had  to  say  it,'  I
rejoined  with  some heat. 'You don't get time to polish your  dialogue
and  iron out the bugs in the plot when a woman who looks like Sherlock
Holmes  catches you in her son's room with your rear elevation sticking
out from under the dressing-table.'
     'True. Quite true. But I wonder...'
     'Wonder what?'
     'I do not wish to hurt your feelings.'
     'Go ahead. My feelings have been hurt so much already that a little
bit extra won't make any difference.'
     'I may speak frankly?'
     'Do.'
     'Well,  then, I am wondering if it was altogether wise  to  entrust
this  very  delicate operation to a young fellow like  yourself.  I  am
coming  round  to the view you put forward when we were discussing  the
matter  with Miss Wickham. You said, if you recall, that the enterprise
should  have been placed in the hands of a mature, experienced  man  of
the world and not in those of one of less ripe years who as a child had
never  been  expert at hunt-the-slipper. I am, you will agree,  mature,
and in my earlier days I won no little praise for my skill at hunt-the-
slipper.  I  remember  one of the hostesses whose Christmas  parties  I
attended   comparing  me  to  a  juvenile  bloodhound.  An  extravagant
encomium, of course, but that is what she said.'
     I looked at him with a wild surmise. It seemed to me that there was
but one meaning to be attached to his words.
     'You aren't thinking of having a pop at it yourself?'
     'That is precisely my intention, Mr Wooster.'
     'Lord love a duck!'
     'The expression is new to me, but I gather from it that you consider
my conduct eccentric.'
     'Oh,  I  wouldn't say that, but do you realize what you are letting
yourself in for? You won't enjoy meeting Ma Cream. She has an eye  like
... what are those things that have eyes? Basilisks, that's the name  I
was  groping  for. She has an eye like a basilisk. Have you  considered
the  possibility  of  having that eye go through you  like  a  dose  of
salts?'
     'Yes,  I  can  envisage the peril. But the fact is, Mr  Wooster,  I
regard what has happened as a challenge. My blood is up.'
     'Mine froze.'
     'And  you  may possibly not believe me, but I find the prospect  of
searching Mr Cream's room quite enjoyable.'
     'Enjoyable?'
     'Yes. In a curious way it restores my youth. It brings back to me my
preparatory school days, when I would often steal down at night to  the
headmaster's study to eat his biscuits.'
     I  started. I looked at him with a kindling eye. Deep had called to
deep, and the cockles of the heart were warmed.
     'Biscuits?'
     'He kept them in a tin on his desk.'
     'You really used to do that at your prep school?'
     'Many years ago.'
     'So did I,' I said, coming within an ace of saying, 'My brother!'
     He  raised  his bushy eyebrows, and you could see that his  heart's
cockles were warmed, too.
     'Indeed? Fancy that! I had supposed the idea original with  myself,
but  no doubt all over England today the rising generation is doing the
same thing. So you too have lived in Arcady? What kind of biscuits were
yours? Mine were mixed.'
     'The ones with pink and white sugar on?'
     'In many instances, though some were plain.'
     'Mine were ginger nuts.'
     'Those are very good, too, of course, but I prefer the mixed.'
     'So do I. But you had to take what you could get in those days. Were
you ever copped?'
     'I am glad to say never.'
     'I was once. I can feel the place in frosty weather still.'
     'Too  bad.  But these things will happen. Embarking on the  present
venture, I have the sustaining thought that if the worst occurs  and  I
am apprehended, I can scarcely be given six of the best bending over  a
chair,  as  we  used to call it. Yes, you may leave this little  matter
entirely to me, Mr Wooster.'
     'I wish you'd call me Bertie.'
     'Certainly, certainly.'
     'And might I call you Roderick?'
     'I shall be delighted.'
     'Or Roddy? Roderick's rather a mouthful.'
     'Whichever you prefer.'
     'And you are really going to hunt the slipper?'
     'I  am resolved to do so. I have the greatest respect and affection
for your uncle and appreciate how deeply wounded he would be, were this
prized  object to be permanently missing from his collection.  I  would
never  forgive  myself if in the endeavour to recover his  property,  I
were to leave any -'
     'Stone unturned?'
     'I was about to say avenue unexplored. I shall strain every -'
     'Sinew?'
     'I was thinking of the word nerve.'
     'Just as juste. You'll have to bide your time, of course.'
     'Quite.'
     'And await your opportunity.'
     'Exactly.'
     'Opportunity knocks but once.'
     'So I understand.'
     'I'll  give you one tip. The thing isn't on top of the cupboard  or
armoire.'
     'Ah, that is helpful.'
     'Unless  of course he's put it there since. Well, anyway,  best  of
luck, Roddy.'
     'Thank you, Bertie.'
     If I had been taking Old Doctor Gordon's Bile Magnesia regularly, I
couldn't have felt more of an inward glow as I left him and headed  for
the  lawn  to get the Ma Cream book and return it to its place  on  the
shelves  of Aunt Dahlia's boudoir. I was lost in admiration of  Roddy's
manly  spirit. He was well stricken in years, fifty if a  day,  and  it
thrilled me to think that there was so much life in the old dog  still.
It  just  showed  ... well, I don't know what, but something.  I  found
myself  musing on the boy Glossop, wondering what he had been  like  in
his  biscuit-snitching days. But except that I knew  he  wouldn't  have
been  bald then, I couldn't picture him. It's often this way  when  one
contemplates one's seniors. I remember how amazed I was to  learn  that
my Uncle Percy, a tough old egg with apparently not a spark of humanity
in  him, had once held the metropolitan record for being chucked out of
Covent Garden Balls.
     I  got the book, and ascertaining after reaching Aunt Dahlia's lair
that there remained some twenty minutes before it would be necessary to
start  getting ready for the evening meal I took a seat and resumed  my
reading.  I  had  had to leave off at a point where Ma Cream  had  just
begun  to  spit on her hands and start filling the customers with  pity
and  terror. But I hadn't put more than a couple of clues  and  a  mere
sprinkling  of  human gore under my belt, when the door flew  open  and
Kipper  appeared. And as the eye rested on him, he too filled  me  with
pity and terror, for his map was flushed and his manner distraught.  He
looked like Jack Dempsey at the conclusion of his first conference with
Gene Tunney, the occasion, if you remember, when he forgot to duck.
     He lost no time in bursting into speech.
     'Bertie! I've been hunting for you all over the place!'
     'I was having a chat with Swordfish in his pantry. Something wrong?'
     'Something wrong!'
     'Don't you like the Red Room?'
     'The Red Room!'
     I  gathered from his manner that he had not come to beef about  his
sleeping accommodation.
     'Then what is your little trouble?'
     'My little trouble!'
     I felt that this sort of thing must be stopped at its source. It was
only  ten minutes to dressing-for-dinner time, and we could go on along
these lines for hours.
     'Listen, old crumpet,' I said patiently. 'Make up your mind whether
you  are  my  old  friend Reginald Herring or  an  echo  in  the  Swiss
mountains. If you're simply going to repeat every word I say -'
     At  this  moment  Pop Glossop entered with the  cocktails,  and  we
cheesed  the  give-and-take. Kipper drained his glass to the  lees  and
seemed  to become calmer. When the door closed behind Roddy and he  was
at liberty to speak, he did so quite coherently. Taking another beaker,
he said:
     'Bertie, the most frightful thing has happened.'
     I  don't  mind  saying that the heart did a bit of sinking.  In  an
earlier conversation with Bobbie Wickham it will be recalled that I had
compared Brinkley Court to one of those joints the late Edgar Allan Poe
used  to  write about. If you are acquainted with his works,  you  will
remember that in them it was always tough going for those who stayed in
country-houses, the visitor being likely at any moment to  encounter  a
walking  corpse  in a winding sheet with blood all over it.  Prevailing
conditions at Brinkley were not perhaps quite as testing as  that,  but
the atmosphere had undeniably become sinister, and here was Kipper more
than  hinting  that  he had a story to relate which  would  deepen  the
general feeling that things were hotting up.
     'What's the matter?' I said.
     'I'll tell you what's the matter,' he said.
     'Yes, do,' I said, and he did.
     'Bertie,' he said, taking a third one. 'I think you will understand
that  when  I read that announcement in The Times I was utterly  bowled
over?'
     'Oh quite. Perfectly natural.'
     'My head swam, and -'
     'Yes, you told me. Everything went black.'
     'I  wish  it had stayed black,' he said bitterly, 'but  it  didn't.
After awhile the mists cleared, and I sat there seething with fury. And
after  I  had seethed for a bit I rose from my chair, took pen in  hand
and wrote Bobbie a stinker.'
     'Oh, gosh!'
     'I put my whole soul into it.'
     'Oh, golly!'
     'I accused her in set terms of giving me the heave-ho in order that
she  could mercenarily marry a richer man. I called her a carrot-topped
Jezebel  whom  I was thankful to have got out of my hair.  I...  Oh,  I
can't remember what else I said but, as I say, it was a stinker.'
     'But you never mentioned a word about this when I met you.'
     'In  the ecstasy of learning that that Times thing was just a  ruse
and that she loved me still it passed completely from my mind. When  it
suddenly came back to me just now, it was like getting hit in  the  eye
with a wet fish. I reeled.'
     'Squealed?'
     'Reeled.  I felt absolutely boneless. But I had enough strength  to
stagger  to  the telephone. I rang up Skeldings Hall and  was  informed
that she had just arrived.'
     'She must have driven like an inebriated racing motorist.'
     'No doubt she did. Girls will be girls. Anyway, she was there.  She
told me with a merry lilt in her voice that she had found a letter from
me  on  the  hall table and could hardly wait to open it. In a  shaking
voice I told her not to.'
     'So you were in time.'
     'In time, my foot! Bertie, you're a man of the world. You've known a
good  many  members of the other sex in your day. What does a  girl  do
when she is told not to open a letter?'
     I got his drift.
     'Opens it?'
     'Exactly. I heard the envelope rip, and the next moment... No,  I'd
rather not think of it.'
     'She took umbrage?'
     'Yes, and she also took my head off. I don't know if you have  ever
been in a typhoon on the Indian Ocean.'
     'No, I've never visited those parts.'
     'Nor have I, but from what people tell me what ensued must have been
very like being in one. She spoke for perhaps five minutes -'
     'By Shrewsbury clock.'
     'What?'
     'Nothing. What did she say?'
     'I can't repeat it all, and wouldn't if I could.'
     'And what did you say?'
     'I couldn't get a word in edgeways.'
     'One can't sometimes.'
     'Women talk so damn quick.'
     'How well I know it! And what was the final score?'
     'She said she was thankful that I was glad to have got her out of my
hair,  because she was immensely relieved to have got me out  of  hers,
and  that  I had made her very happy because now she was free to  marry
you, which had always been her dearest wish.'
     In  this hair-raiser of Ma Cream's which I had been perusing  there
was  a  chap of the name of Scarface McColl, a gangster of sorts,  who,
climbing  into the old car one morning and twiddling the starting  key,
went  up in fragments owing to a business competitor having inserted  a
bomb  in  his engine, and I had speculated for a moment, while reading,
as to how he must have felt. I knew now. Just as he had done, I rose. I
sprang to the door, and Kipper raised an eyebrow.
     'Am I boring you?' he said rather stiffly.
     'No, no. But I must go and get my car.'
     'You going for a ride?'
     'Yes.'
     'But it's nearly dinner-time.'
     'I don't want any dinner.'
     'Where are you going?'
     'Herne Bay.'
     'Why Herne Bay?'
     'Because Jeeves is there, and this thing