aid coldly that the master was not receiving.
   'I think he'll see me. I'm an old friend of his.'
   'I will enquire. Your name, sir?'
   'Mr Wooster.'
   He  pushed  off,  to return some moments later to  say  that  Mr
Bingley  would be glad if I would join him in the library. Speaking
in  what  seemed to me a disapproving voice, as though  to  suggest
that,  while  he  was  compelled to carry out the  master's  orders
however eccentric, he would never have admitted a chap like  me  if
it had been left to him.
   'If you would step this way, sir,' he said haughtily.
   What  with one thing and another I had rather got out  of  touch
lately  with that If-you-would-step-this-way-sir stuff, and it  was
in  a somewhat rattled frame of mind that I entered the library and
found  Bingley  in  an armchair with his feet up on  an  occasional
table.  He greeted me cordially enough, but with that touch of  the
patronizing so noticeable at our two previous meetings.
   'Ah,  Wooster, my dear fellow, come in. I told Bastable to  tell
everyone I was not at home, but of course you're different.  Always
glad to see an old pal. And what can I do for you, Wooster?'
   I  had  to  say  for  him that he had made it  easy  for  me  to
introduce the subject I was anxious to discuss. I was about to  get
going, when he asked me if I would like a drink. I said No, thanks,
and he said in an insufferably smug way that I was probably wise.
   'I  often  thought,  when I was staying with  you  at  Chuffnell
Regis,  that you drank too much, Wooster. Remember how  you  burned
that  cottage down? A sober man wouldn't have done that.  You  must
have been stewed to the eyebrows, cocky.'
   A  hot  denial trembled on my lips. I mean to say,  it's  a  bit
thick  to be chided for burning cottages down by the very chap  who
put  them  to  the  flames. But I restrained  myself.  The  man,  I
reminded  myself,  had  to be kept in with.  If  that  was  how  he
remembered that night of terror at Chuffnell Regis, it was not  for
me to destroy his illusions. I refrained from comment, and he asked
me  if I would like a cigar. When I said I wouldn't, he nodded like
a father pleased with a favourite son.
   'I  am  glad to see this improvement in you, Wooster.  I  always
thought  you smoked too much. Moderation, moderation in all things,
that's  the  only way. But you were going to tell me why  you  came
here. Just for a chat about old times, was it?'
   'It's  with  ref  to  that  book you  pinched  from  the  Junior
Ganymede.'
   He  had  been  drinking a whisky-and-soda as  I  spoke,  and  he
drained his glass before replying.
   'I  wish  you wouldn't use that word "pinch",' he said,  looking
puff-faced. It was plain that I had given offence.
   'I  simply  borrowed  it because I needed  it  in  my  business.
They'll get it back all right.'
   'Mrs McCorkadale told my aunt you tried to sell it to her.'
   His annoyance increased. His air was that of a man compelled  to
listen to a tactless oaf who persisted in saying the wrong thing.
   'Not  sell.  I  would have had a clause in the agreement  saying
that she was to return it when she had done with it. The idea I had
in  mind  was  that she would have photostatic copies made  of  the
pages  dealing with young Winship without the book going out of  my
possession.  But the deal didn't come off. She wouldn't  cooperate.
Fortunately  I  have  other  markets. It's  the  sort  of  property
there'll  be  a  lot  of people bidding for. But  why  are  you  so
interested, old man? Nothing to do with you, is it?'
   'I'm a pal of Ginger Winship's.'
   'And  I've no objection to him myself. Nice enough young  fellow
he always seemed to me, though the wrong size.'
   'Wrong size?' I said, not getting this.
   'His  shirts  didn't fit me. Not that I hold that  against  him.
These things are all a matter of luck. Don't run away with the idea
that  I'm  a  man with a grievance, trying to get back at  him  for
something  he  did  to  me when I was staying  at  his  place.  Our
relations  were very pleasant. I quite liked him, and if it  didn't
matter  to me one way or the other who won this election, I'd  just
as  soon  he  came  out  on top. But business  is  business.  After
studying  form I did some pretty heavy betting on McCorkadale,  and
I've  got  to  protect my investments, old man. That's only  common
sense, isn't it?'
   He  paused,  apparently expecting a round of  applause  for  his
prudence.  When  I  remained sotto voce and  the  silent  tomb,  he
proceeded.
   'If  you  want  to  get along in this world, Wooster  old  chap,
you've got to grasp your opportunities. That's what I do. I examine
each  situation that crops up, and I ask myself "What is  there  in
this for me? How," I ask myself, "can I handle this situation so as
to  do  Rupert Bingley a bit of good?", and it's not often I  don't
find  a way. This time I didn't even have to think. There was young
Winship  trying to get into Parliament, and here was I standing  to
win  something  like  a  couple of hundred  quid  if  he  lost  the
election,  and  there was the club book with all the  stuff  in  it
which would make it certain he did lose. I recognized it at once as
money for jam. The only problem was how to get the book, and I soon
solved  that. I don't know if you noticed, that day we met  at  the
Junior  Ganymede, that I had a large briefcase with me? And that  I
said  I'd  got to see the secretary about something? Well,  what  I
wanted to see him about was borrowing the book. And I wouldn't have
to  find some clever way of getting him looking the other way while
I  did  it,  because I knew he'd be out to lunch. So I  popped  in,
popped the book in the briefcase and popped off. Nobody saw  me  go
in.  Nobody  saw me come out. The whole operation was  like  taking
candy from a kid.'
   There  are  some stories which fill the man of sensibility  with
horror,  repugnance, abhorrence and disgust. I don't mean anecdotes
like the one Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright told me at the Drones, I  am
referring to loathsome revelations such as the bit of autobiography
to  which I had just been listening. To say that I felt as  if  the
Wooster soul had been spattered with mud by a passing car would not
be  putting it at all too strongly. I also felt that nothing was to
be  gained by continuing this distasteful interview. I had had some
idea  of  going  into  the possibility of Aunt Agatha  reading  the
contents of the club book and touching on the doom, desolation  and
despair which must inevitably be my portion if she did, but  I  saw
that  it  would  be  fruitless or bootless.  The  man  was  without
something and pity ... ruth, would it be? I know it begins  with  r
...  and  would simply have given me the horse's laugh. I  was  now
quite  certain that he had murdered his uncle and forged the  will.
Such a performance to such a man would have been mere routine.
   I  turned, accordingly, to the door, but before I got  there  he
stopped me, wanting to know if when coming to stay with Aunt Dahlia
I  had brought Reggie Jeeves with me. I said I had, and he said  he
would like to see old Reggie again.
   'What  a  cough drop!' he said mirthfully. The word was  strange
to  me, but weighing it and deciding that it was intended to  be  a
compliment  and a tribute to his many gifts, I agreed  that  Jeeves
was in the deepest and truest sense a cough drop.
   'Tell  Bastable as you go out that if Reggie calls to  send  him
up. But nobody else.'
   'Right ho.'
   'Good  man,  Bastable. He places my bets for me.  Which  reminds
me.  Have you done as I advised and put a bit on Ma McCorkadale for
the  Market  Snodsbury stakes? No? Do it without fail, Wooster  old
man.  You'll  never regret it. It'll be like finding money  in  the
street.'
   I  wasn't feeling any too good as I drove away. I have described
my heart-bowed-down-ness on approaching the Arnold Abney study door
after morning prayers in the days when I was in statu pupillari, as
the  expression is, and I was equally apprehensive now as  I  faced
the  prospect of telling the old ancestor of my failure to  deliver
the goods in the matter of Bingley. I didn't suppose that she would
give  me  six of the best, as A. Abney was so prone to do, but  she
would  certainly  not hesitate to let me know she  was  displeased.
Aunts as a class are like Napoleon, if it was Napoleon; they expect
their orders to be carried out without a hitch and don't listen  to
excuses.
   Nor  was  I  mistaken.  After lunching at  a  pub  in  order  to
postpone  the meeting as long as possible, I returned  to  the  old
homestead and made my report, and was unfortunate enough to make it
while  she was engaged in reading a Rex Stout - in the hard  cover,
not  a  paperback. When she threw this at me with the accurate  aim
which  years of practice have given her, its sharp edge took me  on
the tip of the nose, making me blink not a little.
   'I  might  have  known you would mess the whole thing  up,'  she
boomed.
   'Not  my  fault, aged relative,' I said. 'I did  my  best.  Than
which,' I added, 'no man can do more.'
   I  thought I had her there, but I was wrong. It was the sort  of
line which can generally be counted on to soothe the savage breast,
but  this time it laid an egg. She snorted. Her snorts are not  the
sniffing  snorts snorted by Ma McCorkadale, they resemble  more  an
explosion in the larger type of ammunition dump and send strong men
rocking back on their heels as if struck by lightning.
   'How  do  you mean you did your best? You don't seem  to  me  to
have done anything. Did you threaten to have him arrested?'
   'No, I didn't do that.'
   'Did you grasp him by the throat and shake him like a rat?'
   I admitted that that had not occurred to me.
   'In  other  words, you did absolutely nothing,'  she  said,  and
thinking  it  over I had to own that she was perfectly right.  It's
funny how one doesn't notice these things at the time. It was  only
now that I realized that I had let Bingley do all the talking, self
offering practically nil in the way of a come-back. I could  hardly
have  made less of a contribution to our conversation if I had been
the deaf adder I mentioned earlier.
   She  heaved herself up from the chaise longue on which  she  was
reclining.  Her manner was peevish. In time, of course,  she  would
get over her chagrin and start loving her Bertram again as of yore,
but there was no getting away from it that an aunt's affection was,
as of even date, at its lowest ebb. She said gloomily:
   'I'll have to do it myself.'
   'Are you going to see Bingley?'
   'I  am  going to see Bingley, and I am going to talk to Bingley,
and  I  am  going, if necessary, to take Bingley by the throat  and
shake him -'
   'Like a rat?'
   'Yes,  like  a  rat,' she said with the quiet  confidence  of  a
woman who had been shaking rats by the throat since she was a  slip
of a girl. 'Five Ormond Crescent, here I come!'
   It  shows  to  what  an extent happenings in  and  about  Market
Snodsbury  had affected my mental processes that she had been  gone
at least ten minutes before the thought of Bastable floated into my
mind,  and I wished I had been able to give her a word of  warning.
That zealous employee of Rupert Bingley had been instructed to  see
to  it that no callers were admitted to the presence, and I saw  no
reason  to  suppose  that he would fail in his duty  when  the  old
ancestor  showed up. He would not use physical violence  -  indeed,
with a woman of her physique he would be unwise to attempt it - but
it  would be the work of an instant with him not to ask her to step
this  way,  thus  ensuring her departure with what  Ma  McCorkadale
would  call a flea in her ear. I could see her returning  in,  say,
about a quarter of an hour a baffled and defeated woman.
   I  was right. It was some twenty minutes later, as I sat reading
the  Rex  Stout which she had used as a guided missile, that  heavy
breathing became audible without and shortly afterwards she  became
visible  within, walking with the measured tread of a  saint  going
round  St  Paul's. A far less discerning eye than mine  could  have
spotted that she had been having Bastable trouble.
   It  would have been kinder, perhaps, not to have spoken, but  it
was one of those occasions when you feel you have to say something.
   'Any luck?' I enquired.
   She  sank on to the chaise longue, simmering gently. She punched
a  cushion,  and  I could see she was wishing it  could  have  been
Bastable.  He  was  essentially the  sort  of  man  who  asks,  nay
clamours, to be treated in this manner.
   'No,' she said. 'I couldn't get in.'
   'Why was that?' I asked, wearing the mask.
   'A beefy butler sort of bird slammed the door in my face.'
   'Too bad.'
   'And I was just too late to get my foot in.'
   'Always  necessary  to work quick on these occasions.  The  most
precise timing is called for. Odd that he should have admitted  me.
I  suppose  my air of quiet distinction was what turned the  scale.
What did you do?'
   'I came away. What else could I have done?'
   'No, I can see how difficult it must have been.'
   'The  maddening part of it is that I was all set to try  to  get
that  money  out of L. P. Runkle this afternoon. I felt that  today
was the day. But if my luck's out, as it seems to be, perhaps I had
better postpone it.'
   'Not strike while the iron is hot?'
   'It may not be hot enough.'
   'Well, you're the judge. You know,' I said, getting back to  the
main  issue,  'the  ambassador  to conduct  the  negotiations  with
Bingley  is really Jeeves. It is he who should have been given  the
assignment.  Where I am speechless in Bingley's  presence  and  you
can't  even  get into the house, he would be inside and  talking  a
blue  streak  before you could say What ho. And he  has  the  added
advantage  that Bingley seems fond of him. He thinks he's  a  cough
drop.'
   'What on earth's a cough drop?'
   'I  don't  know,  but it's something Bingley  admires.  When  he
spoke  of  him as one, it was with a genuine ring of enthusiasm  in
his voice. Did you tell Jeeves about Bingley having the book?'
   'Yes, I told him.'
   'How did he take it?'
   'You  know how Jeeves takes things. One of his eyebrows  rose  a
little and he said he was shocked and astounded.'
   'That's strong stuff for him. "Most disturbing" is as far as  he
goes usually.'
   'It's  a  curious  thing,' said the aged relative  thoughtfully.
'As I was driving off in the car I thought I saw Jeeves coming away
from Bingley's place. Though I couldn't be sure it was him.'
   'It  must have been. His first move on getting the low-down from
you about the book would be to go and see Bingley. I wonder if he's
back yet.'
   'Not  likely. I was driving, he was walking. There  wouldn't  be
time.'
   'I'll ring for Seppings and ask. Oh, Seppings,' I said, when  he
answered the bell, 'Is Jeeves downstairs?'
   'No, sir. He went out and has not yet returned.'
   'When he does, tell him to come and see me, will you.'
   'Very good, sir.'
   I  thought of asking if Jeeves, when he left, had had the air of
a  man  going to no. 5 Ormond Crescent, but decided that this might
be  trying Seppings too high, so let it go. He withdrew, and we sat
for  some time talking about Jeeves. Then, feeling that this wasn't
going  to  get us anywhere and that nothing constructive  could  be
accomplished till he returned, we took up again the matter of L. P.
Runkle.  At  least, the aged relative took it up,  and  I  put  the
question I had been wanting to put at an earlier stage.
   'You  say,'  I  said,  'that you felt  today  was  the  day  for
approaching him. What gave you that idea?'
   'The  way  he tucked into his lunch and the way he talked  about
it  afterwards.  Lyrical was the only word for  it,  and  I  wasn't
surprised. Anatole had surpassed himself.'
   'The Supreme de Foie Gras au Champagne?'
   'And the Neige aux Perles des Alpes.'
   I  heaved  a silent sigh, thinking of what might have been.  The
garbage I had had to insult the Wooster stomach with at the pub had
been  of  a particularly lethal nature. Generally these rural  pubs
are  all  right  in  the matter of browsing,  but  I  had  been  so
unfortunate  as  to pick one run by a branch of the Borgia  family.
The  thought occurred to me as I ate that if Bingley had given  his
uncle  lunch there one day, he wouldn't have had to go to  all  the
bother and expense of buying little-known Asiatic poisons.
   I  would  have told the old relative this, hoping for  sympathy,
but at this moment the door opened, and in came Jeeves. Opening the
conversation with that gentle cough of his that sounds like a  very
old sheep clearing its throat on a misty mountain top, he said:
   'You wished to see me, sir?'
   He  couldn't  have  had a warmer welcome  if  he  had  been  the
prodigal son whose life story I had had to bone up when I won  that
Scripture Knowledge prize. The welkin, what there was of it in  the
drawing-room, rang with our excited yappings.
   'Come in, Jeeves,' bellowed the aged relative.
   'Yes,  come in, Jeeves, come in,' I cried. 'We were waiting  for
you with ... with what?'
   'Bated breath,' said the ancestor.
   'That's right. With bated breath and -'
   'Tense,  quivering nerves. Not to mention twitching muscles  and
bitten  finger nails. Tell me, Jeeves, was that you  I  saw  coming
away from 5 Ormond Crescent about an hour ago?'
   'Yes, madam.'
   'You had been seeing Bingley?'
   'Yes, madam.'
   'About the book?'
   'Yes, madam.'
   'Did you tell him he had jolly well got to return it?'
   'No, madam.'
   'Then why on earth did you go to see him?'
   'To obtain the book, madam.'
   'But you said you didn't tell him -'
   'There  was  no necessity to broach the subject, madam.  He  had
not  yet recovered consciousness. If I might explain. On my arrival
at  his residence he offered me a drink, which I accepted. He  took
one  himself.  We  talked  for awhile of  this  and  that.  Then  I
succeeded  in diverting his attention for a moment, and  while  his
scrutiny was elsewhere I was able to insert a chemical substance in
his  beverage  which  had the effect of rendering  him  temporarily
insensible. I thus had ample time to make a search of the  room.  I
had  assumed that he would be keeping the book there, and I had not
been in error. It was in a lower drawer of the desk. I secured  it,
and took my departure.'
   Stunned  by this latest revelation of his efficiency and  do-it-
yourself-ness, I was unable to utter, but the old ancestor gave the
sort of cry or yowl which must have rung over many a hunting field,
causing  members  of the Quorn and the Pytchley to  leap  in  their
saddles like Mexican jumping beans.
   'You mean you slipped him a Mickey Finn?'
   'I believe that is what they are termed in the argot, madam.'
   'Do you always carry them about with you?'
   'I am seldom without a small supply, madam.'
   'Never know when they won't come in handy, eh?'
   'Precisely,  madam. Opportunities for their use  are  constantly
arising.'
   'Well, I can only say thank you. You have snatched victory  from
the jaws of defeat.'
   'It is kind of you to say so, madam.'
   'Much obliged, Jeeves.'
   'Not at all, madam.'
   I  was  expecting the aged relative to turn to me at this  point
and  tick  me  off for not having had the sense to give  Bingley  a
Mickey  Finn myself, and I knew, for you cannot reason with  aunts,
that  it  would be no use pleading that I hadn't got any;  but  her
jocund mood caused her to abstain. Returning to the subject  of  L.
P. Runkle, she said this had made her realize that her luck was in,
after all, and she was going to press it.
   'I'll  go  and  see  him now,' she yipped,  'and  I  confidently
expect  to play on him as on a stringed instrument. Out of my  way,
young  Bertie,' she cried, heading for the door, 'or  I'll  trample
you to the dust. Yoicks!' she added, reverting to the patois of the
old hunting days. 'Tally ho! Gone away! Hark forrard!'
   Or words to that effect.


        12
   Her  departure - at, I should estimate, some sixty m.p.h. - left
behind  it the sort of quivering stillness you get during hurricane
time  in America, when the howling gale, having shaken you  to  the
back teeth, passes on to tickle up residents in spots further west.
Kind of a dazed feeling it gives you. I turned to Jeeves, and found
him,  of  course, as serene and unmoved as an oyster  on  the  half
shell. He might have been watching yowling aunts shoot out of rooms
like bullets from early boyhood.
   'What was that she said, Jeeves?'
   'Yoicks,  sir, if I am not mistaken. It seemed to me that  Madam
also added Tally-ho, Gone away and Hark forrard.'
   'I  suppose  members  of the Quorn and the Pytchley  are  saying
that sort of thing all the time.'
   'So  I  understand,  sir. It encourages the  hounds  to  renewed
efforts. It must, of course, be trying for the fox.'
   'I'd hate to be a fox, wouldn't you, Jeeves?'
   'Certainly I can imagine more agreeable existences, sir.'
   'Not only being chivvied for miles across difficult country  but
having to listen to men in top hats uttering those uncouth cries.'
   'Precisely, sir. A very wearing life.'
   I  produced  my cambric handkerchief and gave the  brow  a  mop.
Recent  events had caused me to perspire in the manner  popularized
by the fountains at Versailles.
   'Warm work, Jeeves.'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Opens the pores a bit.'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'How quiet everything seems now.'
   'Yes,  sir. Silence like a poultice comes to heal the  blows  of
sound.'
   'Shakespeare?'
   'No,  sir. The American author Oliver Wendell Holmes. His  poem,
"The  Organ Grinders". An aunt of mine used to read it to me  as  a
child.'
   'I didn't know you had any aunts.'
   'Three,sir.'
   'Are they as jumpy as the one who has just left us?'
   'No, sir. Their outlook on life is uniformly placid.'
   I  had  begun to feel a bit more placid myself. Calmer,  if  you
know  what  I  mean.  And with the calm had  come  more  charitable
thoughts.
   'Well,  I  don't  blame the aged relative for  being  jumpy,'  I
said. 'She's all tied up with an enterprise of pith and something.'
   'Of great pith and moment, sir?'
   'That's right.'
   'Let  us  hope that its current will not turn awry and lose  the
name of action.'
   'Yes, let's. Turn what?'
   'Awry, sir.'
   'Don't you mean agley?'
   'No, sir.'
   'Then it isn't the poet Burns?'
   'No, sir. The words occur in Shakespeare's drama Hamlet.'
   'Oh,  I know Hamlet. Aunt Agatha once made me take her son  Thos
to  it  at  the  Old Vic. Not a bad show, I thought, though  a  bit
highbrow. You're sure the poet Burns didn't write it?'
   'Yes, sir. The fact, I understand, is well established.'
   'Then  that  settles that. But we have wandered from the  point,
which  is that Aunt Dahlia is up to her neck in this enterprise  of
great pith and moment. It's about Tuppy Glossop.'
   'Indeed, sir?'
   'It  ought  to interest you, because I know you've always  liked
Tuppy.'
   'A very pleasant young gentleman, sir.'
   'When  he  isn't  looping back the last  ring  over  the  Drones
swimming-pool, yes. Well, it's too long a story to tell you at  the
moment,  but the gist of it is this. L. P. Runkle, taking advantage
of a legal quibble ... is it quibble?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Did  down  Tuppy's  father  over a  business  deal...  no,  not
exactly a business deal, Tuppy's father was working for him, and he
took  advantage of the small print in their contract to rob him  of
the proceeds of something he had invented.'
   'It  is  often the way, sir. The financier is apt to prosper  at
the expense of the inventor.'
   'And  Aunt Dahlia is hoping to get him to cough up a bit of cash
and slip it to Tuppy.'
   'Actuated by remorse, sir?'
   'Not  just by remorse. She's relying more on the fact  that  for
quite a time he has been under the spell of Anatole's cooking,  and
she  feels  that  this  will have made him a  softer  and  kindlier
financier,  readier  to oblige and do the square  thing.  You  look
dubious, Jeeves. Don't you think it will work? She's sure it will.'
   'I wish I could share Madam's confidence, but -'
   'But,  like  me,  you look on her chance of  playing  on  L.  P.
Runkle as on a stringed instrument as ... what? A hundred to  eight
shot?'
   'A  somewhat longer price than that, sir. We have to  take  into
consideration the fact that Mr Runkle is ...'
   'Yes? You hesitate, Jeeves, Mr Runkle is what?'
   'The expression I am trying to find eludes me, sir. It is one  I
have  sometimes heard you use to indicate a deficiency of sweetness
and light in some gentleman of your acquaintance. You have employed
it  of  Mr Spode or, as I should say, Lord Sidcup and, in the  days
before your association with him took on its present cordiality, of
Mr Glossop's uncle, Sir Roderick. It is on the tip of my tongue.'
   'A stinker?'
   No, he said, it wasn't a stinker.
   'A tough baby?'
   'No.'
   'A twenty-minute egg?'
   'That was it, sir. Mr Runkle is a twenty-minute egg.'
   'But  have  you seen enough of him to judge? After  all,  you've
only just met him.'
   'Yes, sir, that is true, but Bingley, on learning that he was  a
guest  of Madam's, told me a number of stories illustrative of  his
hardhearted  and implacable character. Bingley was at one  time  in
his employment.'
   'Good lord, he seems to have been employed by everyone.'
   'Yes,  sir,  he was inclined to flit. He never remained  in  one
post for long.'
   'I don't wonder.'
   'But  his  relationship  with Mr Runkle  was  of  more  extended
duration.  He accompanied him to the United States of America  some
years ago and remained with him for several months.'
   'During which period he found him a twenty-minute egg?'
   'Precisely,  sir. So I very much fear that Madam's efforts  will
produce  no satisfactory results. Would it be a large sum of  money
that she is hoping to persuade Mr Runkle to part with?'
   'Pretty  substantial,  I gather. You see,  what  Tuppy's  father
invented were those Magic Midget things, and Runkle must have  made
a packet out of them. I suppose she aims at a fifty-fifty split.'
   'Then  I  am forced to the opinion that a hundred to one against
is  more the figure a level-headed turf accountant would place upon
the likelihood of her achieving her objective.'
   Not  encouraging, you'll agree. In fact, you might  describe  it
as definitely damping. I would have called him a pessimist, only  I
couldn't  think  of  the word, and while I was  trying  to  hit  on
something other than 'Gloomy Gus', which would scarcely have been a
fitting way to address one of his dignity, Florence came in through
the  French  window  and  he  of course  shimmered  off.  When  our
conversations are interrupted by the arrival of what you might call
the  quality, he always disappears like a family spectre  vanishing
at dawn.
   Except  at  meals I hadn't seen anything of Florence  till  now,
she,  so to speak, having taken the high road while I took the  low
road.  What  I  mean  to  say  is that she  was  always  in  Market
Snodsbury,  bustling about on behalf of the Conservative  candidate
to  whom  she  was  betrothed, while I,  after  that  nerve-racking
encounter  with  the widow of the late McCorkadale,  had  given  up
canvassing  in  favour  of  curling up with  a  good  book.  I  had
apologized  to Ginger for this ... is pusillanimity the  word?  ...
and  he  had  taken  it extraordinarily well,  telling  me  it  was
perfectly all right and he wished he could do the same.
   She  was  looking as beautiful as ever, if not more so,  and  at
least  ninety-six per cent of the members of the Drones Club  would
have  asked nothing better than to be closeted with her like  this.
I,  however, would willingly have avoided the tete-a-tete,  for  my
trained senses told me that she was in one of her tempers, and when
this  happens the instinct of all but the hardiest is  to  climb  a
tree  and  pull  it up after them. The overbearing  dishpotness  to
which  I  alluded earlier and which is so marked a feature  of  her
make-up was plainly to the fore. She said, speaking abruptly:
   'What are you doing in here on a lovely day like this, Bertie?'
   I  explained that I had been in conference with Aunt Dahlia, and
she  riposted that the conference was presumably over by now,  Aunt
D.  being  conspicuous by her absence, so why wasn't I out  getting
fresh air and sunshine.
   'You're much too fond of frowsting indoors. That's why you  have
that sallow look.'
   'I didn't know I had a sallow look.'
   'Of  course  you have a sallow look. What else did  you  expect?
You look like the underside of a dead fish.'
   My  worst  fears seemed to be confirmed. I had anticipated  that
she  would work off her choler on the first innocent bystander  she
met,  and  it  was just my luck that this happened to be  me.  With
bowed  head  I prepared to face the storm, and then to my  surprise
she changed the subject.
   'I'm looking for Harold,' she said.
   'Oh, yes?'
   'Have you seen him.'
   'I don't think I know him.'
   'Don't be a fool. Harold Winship.'
   'Oh,  Ginger,' I said, enlightened. 'No, he hasn't swum into  my
ken. What do you want to see him about? Something important?'
   'It  is  important to me, and it ought to be to him.  Unless  he
takes himself in hand, he is going to lose this election.'
   'What makes you think that?'
   'His behaviour at lunch today.'
   'Oh,  did he take you to lunch? Where did you go? I had mine  at
a  pub, and the garbage there had to be chewed to be believed.  But
perhaps you went to a decent hotel?'
   'It  was  the Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Town  Hall.  A
vitally important occasion, and he made the feeblest speech I  have
ever heard. A child with water on the brain could have done better.
Even you could have done better.'
   Well,  I  suppose  placing me on a level of  efficiency  with  a
water-on-the-brained  child was quite a stately  compliment  coming
from  Florence,  so I didn't go further into the  matter,  and  she
carried on, puffs of flame emerging from both nostrils.
   'Er, er, er!'
   'I beg your pardon?'
   'He  kept  saying Er. Er, er, er. I could have thrown  a  coffee
spoon at him.'
   Here,  of course, was my chance to work in the old gag about  to
err  being  human, but it didn't seem to me the moment. Instead,  I
said:
   'He was probably nervous.'
   'That  was  his  excuse.  I told him  he  had  no  right  to  be
nervous.'
   'Then you've seen him?'
   'I saw him.'
   'After the lunch?'
   'Immediately after the lunch.'
   'But you want to see him again?'
   'I do.'
   'I'll go and look for him, shall I?'
   'Yes,  and tell him to meet me in Mr Travers's study.  We  shall
not be interrupted there.'
   'He's probably sitting in the summerhouse by the lake.'
   Well,  tell  him  to stop sitting and come to  the  study,'  she
said,  for  all  the  world  as if she had  been  Arnold  Abney  MA
announcing that he would like to see Wooster after morning prayers.
Quite took me back to the old days.
   To  get  to the summerhouse you have to go across the lawn,  the
one  Spode was toying with the idea of buttering me over,  and  the
first  thing  I  saw  as  I did so, apart  from  the  birds,  bees,
butterflies,  and what not which put in their leisure hours  there,
was L. P. Runkle lying in the hammock wrapped in slumber, with Aunt
Dahlia  in  a  chair at his side. When she sighted  me,  she  rose,
headed in my direction and drew me away a yard or two, at the  same
time putting a finger to her lips.

   'He's asleep,' she said.
   A  snore from the hammock bore out the truth of this, and I said
I could see he was and what a revolting spectacle he presented, and
she  told  me  for heaven's sake not to bellow like that.  Somewhat
piqued  at  being  accused of bellowing by a woman  whose  lightest
whisper  was like someone calling the cattle home across the  sands
of Dee, I said I wasn't bellowing, and she said 'Well, don't.'
   'He may be in a nasty mood if he's woken suddenly.'
   It  was  an  astute piece of reasoning, speaking  well  for  her
grasp  of  strategy and tactics, but with my quick  intelligence  I
spotted a flaw in it to which I proceeded to call her attention.
   'On  the  other hand, if you don't wake him, how can  you  plead
Tuppy's cause?'
   'I  said suddenly, ass. It'll be all right if I let Nature  take
its course.'
   'Yes, you may have a point there. Will Nature be long about  it,
do you think?'
   'How do I know?'
   'I  was  only  wondering. You can't sit there the  rest  of  the
afternoon.'
   'I can if necessary.'
   'Then  I'll leave you to it. I've got to go and look for Ginger.
Have you seen him?'
   'He  came  by  just now with his secretary on  his  way  to  the
summerhouse.  He told me he had some dictation to do.  Why  do  you
want him?'
   'I  don't  particularly,  though always  glad  of  his  company.
Florence told me to find him. She has been giving him hell  and  is
anxious to give him some more. Apparently -'
   Here  she interrupted me with a sharp 'Hist!', for L. P.  Runkle
had stirred in his sleep and it looked as if life was returning  to
the  inert frame. But it proved to be a false alarm, and I  resumed
my remarks.
   'Apparently  he  failed to wow the customers at the  Chamber  of
Commerce lunch, where she had been counting on him being a  regular
... who was the Greek chap?'
   'Bertie,  if  I wasn't afraid of waking Runkle, I'd  strike  you
with  a  blunt instrument, if I had a blunt instrument. What  Greek
chap?'
   'That's what I'm asking you. He chewed pebbles.'
   'Do you mean Demosthenes?'
   'You  may  be right. I'll take it up later with Jeeves. Florence
was  expecting Ginger to be a regular Demosthenes, if that was  the
name,  which seems unlikely, though I was at school with  a  fellow
called Gianbattista, and he let her down, and this has annoyed her.
You know how she speaks her mind, when annoyed.'
   'She   speaks  her  mind  much  too  much,'  said  the  relative
severely. 'I wonder Ginger stands it.'
   It  so  happened that I was in a position to solve  the  problem
that  was  perplexing her. The facts governing the relationship  of
guys  and dolls had long been an open book to me. I had given  deep
thought  to  the matter, and when I give deep thought to  a  matter
perplexities are speedily ironed out.
   'He  stands  it, aged relative, because he loves  her,  and  you
wouldn't be far wrong in saying that love conquers all. I know what
you  mean,  of course. It surprises you that a fellow of his  thews
and sinews should curl up in a ball when she looks squiggle-eyed at
him and receive her strictures, if that's the word I want, with the
meekness of a spaniel rebuked for bringing a decaying bone into the
drawing-room. What you overlook is the fact that in the  matter  of
finely  chiselled profile, willowy figure and platinum-blonde  hair
she is well up among the top ten, and these things weigh with a man
like Ginger. You and I, regarding Florence coolly, pencil her in as
too  bossy  for  human consumption, but he gets a different  slant.
It's  the old business of what Jeeves calls the psychology  of  the
individual.  Very possibly the seeds of rebellion start  to  seethe
within  him when she speaks her mind, but he catches sight  of  her
sideways  or  gets a glimpse of her hair, assuming for purposes  of
argument  that she isn't wearing a hat, or notices once again  that
she  has as many curves as a scenic railway, and he feels that it's
worth putting up with a spot of mind-speaking in order to make  her
his  own. His love, you see, is not wholly spiritual. There's a bit
of the carnal mixed up in it.'
   I  would  have  spoken  further, for the subject  was  one  that
always  calls  out  the  best in me, but  at  this  point  the  old
ancestor, who had been fidgeting for some time, asked me to go  and
drown  myself  in  the  lake. I buzzed off,  accordingly,  and  she
returned  to  her  chair beside the hammock, brooding  over  L.  P.
Runkle like a mother over her sleeping child.
   I  don't suppose she had observed it, for aunts seldom give much
attention to the play of expression on the faces of their  nephews,
but all through these exchanges I had been looking grave, making it
pretty  obvious that there was something on my mind. I was thinking
of  what  Jeeves had said about the hundred to one which  a  level-
headed  bookie  would wager against her chance of extracting  money
from  a  man so liberally equipped with one-way pockets  as  L.  P.
Runkle,  and  it  pained  me  deeply  to  picture  her  dismay  and
disappointment  when,  waking  from his  slumbers,  he  refused  to
disgorge.  It  would be a blow calculated to take all the  stuffing
out  of  her, she having been so convinced that she was on  a  sure
thing.
   I  was  also, of course, greatly concerned about Ginger.  Having
been  engaged to Florence myself, I knew what she could do  in  the
way  of  ticking  off the errant male, and the symptoms  seemed  to
point  to  the probability that on the present occasion  she  would
eclipse  all  previous performances. I had not failed to  interpret
the  significance  of that dark frown, that bitten  lip  and  those
flashing  eyes,  nor  the  way  the willowy  figure  had  quivered,
indicating, unless she had caught a chill, that she was as sore  as
a  sunburned neck. I marvelled at the depths to which my old friend
must  have  sunk  as an orator in order to get such stark  emotions
under way, and I intended - delicately, of course - to question him
about this.
   I  had,  however, no opportunity to do so, for on  entering  the
summerhouse  the first thing I saw was him and Magnolia  Glendennon
locked  in  an  embrace so close that it seemed  to  me  that  only
powerful machinery could unglue them.


        13
   In  taking this view, however, I was in error, for scarcely  had
I  uttered the first yip of astonishment when the Glendennon popsy,
echoing it with a yip of her own such as might have proceeded  from
a  nymph  surprised while bathing, disentangled  herself  and  came
whizzing  past me, disappearing into the great world outside  at  a
speed  which  put her in the old ancestor's class as a sprinter  on
the  flat.  It was as though she had said 'Oh for the  wings  of  a
dove' and had got them.

   I,  meanwhile,  stood rooted to the s., the mouth slightly  ajar
and  the  eyes  bulging to their fullest extent. What's  that  word
beginning  with  dis? Disembodied? No, not disembodied.  Distemper?
No,   not   distemper.  Disconcerted,  that's  the   one.   I   was
disconcerted. I should imagine that if you happened  to  wander  by
accident  into  the steam room of a Turkish bath on Ladies'  Night,
you  would  have emotions very similar to those I was  experiencing
now.
   Ginger, too, seemed not altogether at his ease. Indeed, I  would
describe him as definitely taken aback. He breathed heavily, as  if
suffering  from asthma; the eye with which he regarded me contained
practically none of the chumminess you would expect to see  in  the
eye  of an old friend; and his voice, when he spoke, resembled that
of  an annoyed cinnamon bear. Throaty, if you know what I mean, and
on  the peevish side. His opening words consisted of a well-phrased
critique of my tactlessness in selecting that particular moment for
entering the summerhouse. He wished, he said, that I wouldn't creep
about  like  a ruddy detective. Had I, he asked, got my  magnifying
glass  with me and did I propose to go around on all fours, picking
up  small  objects and putting them away carefully in an  envelope?
What, he enquired, was I doing here, anyway?
   To  this  I might have replied that I was perfectly entitled  at
all  times to enter a summerhouse which was the property of my Aunt
Dahlia and so related to me by ties of blood, but something told me
that suavity would be the better policy. In rebuttal, therefore,  I
merely  said  that I wasn't creeping about like a ruddy  detective,
but  navigating with a firm and manly stride, and had  simply  been
looking  for  him  because Florence had ordered me  to  and  I  had
learned from a usually well-informed source that this was where  he
was.
   My  reasoning  had  the soothing effect I  had  hoped  for.  His
manner  changed, losing its cinnamon bear quality and taking  on  a
welcome  all-pals-together-ness. It bore out  what  I  have  always
said,  that  there's nothing like suavity for pouring  oil  on  the
troubled  w.'s. When he spoke again, it was plain that he  regarded
me as a friend and an ally.
   'I suppose all this seems a bit odd to you, Bertie.'
   'Not at all, old man, not at all.'
   'But there is a simple exp