rence were quite
unsuitably matched.  Her ladyship  is of a  highly  determined and arbitrary
temperament, quite opposed to  your own. I was in  Lord Worplesdon's service
for nearly a  year, during which  time I had ample opportunities of studying
her ladyship. The opinion  of the servants' hall  was far from favourable to
her. Her ladyship's temper caused a good  deal of  adverse comment among us.
It was at times quite impossible. You would not have been happy, sir!'

     'Get out!'

     'I think you  would also  have  found  her educational methods a little
trying, sir. I have glanced at the book her ladyship gave you -- it has been
lying on your table  since our  arrival --  and  it is, in my opinion, quite
unsuitable. You would not have enjoyed it. And I have it from her ladyship's
own maid, who happened to overhear a conversation between  her ladyship  and
one of  the  gentlemen staying  here  -- Mr Maxwell, who  is  employed in an
editorial, capacity  by one of the reviews -- that  it was her intention  to
start you almost immediately  upon Nietzsche. You would not enjoy Nietzsche,
sir. He is fundamentally unsound.'

     'Get out!'

     'Very good, sir.'



     It's rummy how sleeping on a thing often makes you feel quite different
about it. It's happened to me over and over again. Somehow or other,  when I
woke next morning the old heart didn't feel half  so  broken as it had done.
It was a perfectly  topping day, and  there was something  about the way the
sun came  in at the window and the row the birds  were kicking up in the ivy
that made me half wonder whether Jeeves wasn't right. After all, though  she
had a wonderful profile, was it such a catch being engaged to Florence Craye
as the casual  observer might imagine? Wasn't there something in what Jeeves
had said about  her character?  I  began to  realize that  my ideal wife was
something  quite different, something a  lot more  clinging and drooping and
prattling, and what not.

     I had got as far as this in thinking the thing out when that  'Types of
Ethical Theory'  caught my eye. I opened it,  and  I give you my honest word
this was what hit me:

     Of the two antithetic terms in the Greek philosophy one only was
     real and self-subsisting; and that one was Ideal Thought as
     opposed to that which it has to penetrate and mould. The other,
     corresponding to our Nature, was ill itself phenomenal, unreal,
     without any permanent footing, having no predicates that held
     true for two moments together; in short, redeemed from negation
     only by including indwelling realities appearing through.

     Well --  I mean to say -- what? And Nietzsche, from all accounts, a lot
worse than that!

     'Jeeves,'  I said, when  he  came in  with  my  morning tea, 'I've been
thinking it over. You're engaged again.'

     'Thank you, sir.'

     I  sucked down  a cheerful mouthful.  A  great respect for this bloke's
judgement began to soak through me.

     'Oh, Jeeves,' I said; 'about that check suit.'

     'Yes, sir?'

     'Is it really a frost?'

     'A trifle too bizarre, sir, in my opinion.'

     'But lots of fellows have asked me who my tailor is.'

     'Doubtless in order to avoid him, sir.'

     'He's supposed to be one of the best men in "London.'

     'I am saying nothing against his moral character, sir.'

     I hesitated  a  bit. I had  a  feeling  that  I was  passing  into this
chappie's clutches, and that if I gave in now I should become lust like poor
old  Aubrey Fothergill,  unable to call my soul my own. On  the other  hand,
this was obviously a cove of rare intelligence, and it would be a comfort in
a lot of ways to have him doing the thinking for me. I made up my mind.

     'All right, Jeeves,' I said. 'You  know!  Give the bally thing away  to
somebody!'

     He  looked down  at me like  a father gazing tenderly  at  the  wayward
child.

     'Thank you, sir. I  gave it to the under-gardener last night.  A little
more tea, sir ?'



     ==1916