ck. It's never any good going on the
run, because the police are sure to get you sooner or later, and it
makes it all the worse for you if you've done a bolt.'
   With  cold  dignity  I said I had had to  go  up  to  London  on
business.  He  paid  no attention to this. He was  scrutinizing  me
rather  in  the manner of the halibut on the fishmonger's  slab  to
which the ancestor had referred in our recent conversation.
   'The  odd  thing  is,' he said, continuing to scan  me  closely,
'that you haven't a criminal face. It's a silly, fatuous face,  but
not  criminal. You remind me of one of those fellows who do  dances
with the soubrette in musical comedy.'
   Come,  come,  I  said  to  myself, this  is  better.  Spode  had
compared  me  to a member of the ensemble. In the  view  of  L.  P.
Runkle  I was at any rate one of the principals. Moving up  in  the
world.
   'Must  be  a  great help to you in your business.  Lulls  people
into  a  false security. They think there can't be any danger  from
someone  who  looks like you, they're off their  guard,  and  wham!
you've got away with their umbrellas and cameras. No doubt you  owe
all  your successes to this. But you know the old saying about  the
pitcher going too often to the well. This time you're for it.  This
time -'
   He  broke  off, not because he had come to an end  of  his  very
offensive  remarks  but because Florence had  joined  us,  and  her
appearance  immediately claimed his attention.  She  was  far  from
being  dapper. It was plain that she had been in the  forefront  of
the  late  battle, for whereas Ginger had merely  had  egg  in  his
hair',  she  was, as it were, festooned in egg. She  had  evidently
been  right in the centre of the barrage. In all political meetings
of  the stormier kind these things are largely a matter of luck.  A
escapes unscathed, B becomes a human omelette.
   A  more tactful man than L. P. Runkle would have affected not to
notice  this, but I don't suppose it ever occurred to him to affect
not to notice things.
   'Hullo!' he said. 'You've got egg all over you.'
   Florence replied rather acidly that she was aware of this.
   'Better change your dress.'
   'I  intend  to. Would you mind, Mr Runkle, if I had a word  with
Mr Wooster alone?'
   I  think Runkle was on the point of saying 'What about?', but on
catching  her eye he had prudent second thoughts. He lumbered  off,
and she proceeded to have . the word she had mentioned.
   She  kept  it  crisp. None of the 'Er' stuff which  was  such  a
feature  of  Ginger's  oratory. Even Demosthenes  would  have  been
slower  in  coming  to the nub, though he, of  course,  would  been
handicapped by having to speak in Greek.
   'I'm glad I found you, Bertie.'
   A civil 'Oh, ah' was all the reply I could think of.
   'I  have been thinking things over, and I have made up my  mind.
Harold Winship is a mere lout, and I am having nothing more  to  do
with him. I see now that I made a great mistake when I broke off my
engagement  to  you.  You have your faults,  but  they  are  easily
corrected.  I have decided to marry you, and I think  we  shall  be
very happy.'
   'But  not  immediately,'  said L. P.  Runkle,  rejoining  us.  I
described  him a moment ago as lumbering off, but a man  like  that
never lumbers far if there is a chance of hearing what somebody has
to  say  to  somebody else in private. 'He'll first have  to  do  a
longish stretch in prison.'
   His  reappearance  had  caused  Florence  to  stiffen.  She  now
stiffened  further, her aspect similar to that of the old  ancestor
when about to go into her grande dame act.
   'Mr Runkle!'
   'I'm here.'
   'I thought you had gone.'
   'I hadn't.'
   'How dare you listen to a private conversation!'
   'They're  the only things worth listening to. I owe much  of  my
large fortune to listening to private conversations.'
   'What is this nonsense about prison?'
   'Wooster  won't  find  it nonsense. He has  sneaked  a  valuable
silver porringer of mine, a thing I paid nine thousand pounds  for,
and  I  am  expecting  a man any minute now who  will  produce  the
evidence necessary to convict. It's an open and shut case.'
   'Is  this  true, Bertie?' said Florence with that touch  of  the
prosecuting District Attorney I remembered so vividly,  and  all  I
could say was 'Well... I... er ... well.'
   With  a  guardian  angel  like mine  working  overtime,  it  was
enough. She delivered judgment instantaneously.
   'I shall not marry you,' she said, and went off haughtily to de-
egg herself.
   'Very sensible of her,' said L. P. Runkle. 'The right course  to
take.  A  man like you, bound to be in and out of prison,  couldn't
possibly  be  a good husband. How is a wife to make her  plans  ...
dinner  parties, holidays, Christmas treats for the  children,  the
hundred and one things a woman has to think of ... when she doesn't
know from one day to another whether the head of the house won't be
telephoning  to say he's been arrested again and no  bail  allowed?
Yes?'  said  Runkle, and I saw that Seppings had  appeared  in  the
offing.
   'A Mr Bingley has called to see you, sir.'
   'Ah, yes, I was expecting him.'
   He  popped  off,  and  scarcely had he  ceased  to  pollute  the
atmosphere when the old ancestor blew in.
   She  was  plainly  agitated, the resemblance to  a  cat  on  hot
bricks being very marked. She panted a good deal, and her face  had
taken  on  the rather pretty mauve colour it always does  when  the
soul is not at rest.
   'Bertie,'  she  boomed, 'when you went away yesterday,  did  you
leave the door of your bedroom unlocked?'
   'Of course I didn't.'
   'Well, Jeeves says it's open now.'
   'It can't be.'
   'It  is.  He  thinks Runkle or some minion of his has  skeleton-
keyed the lock. Don't yell like that, curse you.'
   I  might have retorted by asking her what she expected me to  do
when  I  suddenly  saw all, but I was too busy  seeing  all  to  be
diverted into arguments about my voice production. The awful  truth
had hit me as squarely between the eyes as if it had been an egg or
a turnip hurled by one of the Market Snodsbury electorate.
   'Bingley!' I ejaculated.
   'And don't sing.'
   'I   was   not   singing,  I  was  ejaculating  "Bingley!",   or
vociferating "Bingley!" if you prefer it. You remember Bingley, the
fellow who stole the club book, the chap you were going to take  by
the  throat and shake like a rat. Aged relative, we are up  against
it in no uncertain manner. Bingley is the Runkle minion you alluded
to.
   Jeeves  says  he dropped in to tea this afternoon. What  simpler
for  him, having had his cuppa, than to nip upstairs and search  my
room?  He  used to be Runkle's personal attendant, so Runkle  would
turn  to  him naturally when he needed an accomplice. Yes, I  don't
wonder  you're  perturbed,' I added, for she  had  set  the  welkin
ringing  with  one of those pungent monosyllables so often  on  her
lips  in  the  old  Quorn-and-Pytchley days.  'And  I'll  tell  you
something else which will remove your last doubts, if you had  any.
He's  just turned up again, and Runkle has gone out to confer  with
him.  What do you suppose they're conferring about? Give you  three
guesses.'
   The  Quorn trains its daughters well. So does the Pytchley.  She
did not swoon, as many an aunt would have done in her place, merely
repeated  the  monosyllable in a slightly lower tone - meditatively
as  it were, like some aristocrat of the French Revolution on being
informed that the tumbril waited.
   'This  tears  it,' she said, the very words such  an  aristocrat
would have used, though speaking of course in French. 'I'll have to
confess that I took his foul porringer.'
   'No, no, you mustn't do that.'
   'What  else  is  there  for me to do? I  can't  let  you  go  to
chokey.'
   'I don't mind.'
   'I do. I may have my faults -'
   'No, no.'
   'Yes,  yes.  I  am  quite aware that there are blemishes  in  my
spiritual  make-up  which  ought  to  have  been  corrected  at  my
finishing  school, but I draw the line at letting my  nephew  do  a
stretch  for  pinching  porringers which I pinched  myself.  That's
final.'
   I  saw what she meant, of course. Noblesse oblige, and all that.
And  very  creditable, too. But I had a powerful  argument  to  put
forward, and I lost no time in putting it.
   'But  wait, old ancestor. There's another aspect of the  matter.
If  it's ... what's the expression? ... if it's bruited abroad that
I'm  merely  an  as-pure-as-the-driven-snow innocent bystander,  my
engagement to Florence will be on again.'
   'Your  what to who?' It should have been 'whom', but  I  let  it
go. 'Are you telling me that you and Florence ...'
   'She  proposed  to me ten minutes ago and I had  to  accept  her
because one's either preux or one isn't, and then Runkle butted  in
and  pointed  out to her the disadvantages of marrying someone  who
would  shortly be sewing mailbags in Wormwood Scrubs, and she broke
it off.'
   The  relative  seemed stunned, as if she had come  on  something
abstruse in the Observer crossword puzzle.
   'What  is it about you that fascinates the girls? First Madeline
Bassett,  now Florence, and dozens of others in the past. You  must
have a magnetic personality.'
   'That  would  seem  to be the explanation,' I  agreed.  'Anyway,
there  it is. One whisper that there isn't a stain on my character,
and  I  haven't a hope. The Bishop will be notified, the  assistant
clergy  and  bridesmaids  rounded  up,  the  organist  will   start
practising "The Voice That Breathed O'er Eden", and the limp figure
you  see  drooping  at the altar rails will be Bertram  Wilberforce
Wooster.  I implore you, old blood relation, to be silent  and  let
the  law take its course. If it's a choice between serving  a  life
sentence  under Florence and sewing a mailbag or two, give  me  the
mailbags every time.'
   She nodded understandingly, and said she saw what I meant.
   'I thought you would.'
   'There  is much in what you say.' She mused awhile. 'As a matter
of  fact,  though, I doubt if it will get as far as  mailbags.  I'm
pretty  sure what's going to happen. Runkle will offer to drop  the
whole thing if I let him have Anatole.'
   'Good God!'
   'You  may well say "Good God!" You know what • Anatole means  to
Tom.'
   She  did  not  need to labour the point. Uncle  Tom  combines  a
passionate love of food with a singular difficulty in digesting it,
and Anatole is the only chef yet discovered who can fill him up  to
the Plimsoll mark without causing the worst sort of upheaval in his
gastric juices.
   'But would Anatole go to Runkle?'
   'He'd go to anyone if the price was right.'
   'None of that faithful old retainer stuff ?'
   'None.  His outlook is entirely practical. That's the French  in
him.'
   'I  wonder  you've been able to keep him so long. He  must  have
had other offers.'
   'I've  always  topped  them. If it was simply  another  case  of
outbidding the opposition, I wouldn't be worrying.'
   'But when Uncle Tom comes back and finds Anatole conspicuous  by
his absence, won't the home be a bit in the melting pot?'
   'I don't like to think of it.'
   But she did think of it. So did I. And we were both thinking  of
it,  when  our  musings were interrupted by the  return  of  L.  P.
Runkle, who waddled in and fixed us with a bulging eye.
   I  suppose  if  he had been slenderer, one might have  described
him  as  a  figure of doom, but even though so badly in need  of  a
reducing  diet he was near enough to being one to make my  interior
organs  do a quick shuffle-off-to-Buffalo as if some muscular  hand
had  stirred them up with an egg-whisk. And when he began to speak,
he  was certainly impressive. These fellows who have built up large
commercial  empires  are  always what  I  have  heard  Jeeves  call
orotund.   They   get   that  way  from  dominating   meetings   of
shareholders.  Having  started off with 'Oh,  there  you  are,  Mrs
Travers',  he went into his speech, and it was about as orotund  as
anything  that  has ever come my way. It ran, as nearly  as  I  can
remember, as follows:
   'I   was   hoping  to  see  you,  Mrs  Travers.  In  a  previous
conversation,  you will recall that I stated uncompromisingly  that
your  nephew Mr Wooster had purloined the silver porringer which  I
brought  here  to  sell to your husband, whose  absence  I  greatly
deplore.  That  this  was  no mere suspicion  has  now  been  fully
substantiated. I have a witness who is prepared to testify on  oath
in court that he found it in the top drawer of the chest of drawers
in  Mr  Wooster's bedroom, unskilfully concealed behind  socks  and
handkerchiefs.'
   Here  if  it had been a shareholders meeting, he would  probably
have been reminded of an amusing story which may be new to some  of
you present this afternoon, but I suppose in a private conversation
he saw no need for it. He continued, still orotund.
   'The  moment I report this to the police and acquaint them  with
the   evidence  at  my  disposal,  Wooster's  arrest  will   follow
automatically, and a sharp sentence will be the inevitable result.'
   It  was an unpleasant way of putting it, but I was compelled  to
admit  that  it covered the facts like a bedspread. Dust  off  that
cell, Wormwood Scrubs, I was saying to myself, I shall soon be with
you.
   'Such is the position. But I am not a vindictive man, I have  no
wish, if it can be avoided, to give pain to a hostess who has  been
to such trouble to make my visit enjoyable.'
   He  paused  for  a moment to lick his lips, and I  knew  he  was
tasting  again  those master-dishes of Anatole's.  And  it  was  on
Anatole that he now touched.
   'While   staying  here  as  your  guest,  I  have  been  greatly
impressed by the skill and artistry of your chef. I will agree  not
to  press  charges against Mr Wooster provided you consent  to  let
this gifted man leave your employment and enter mine.'
   A  snort  rang  through the room, one of the ancestor's  finest.
You might almost have called it orotund. Following it with the word
'Ha!', she turned to me with a spacious wave of the hand.
   'Didn't  I  tell you, Bertie? Wasn't I right? Didn't I  say  the
child of unmarried parents would blackmail me?'
   A  fellow  with  the  excess weight of L.  P.  Runkle  finds  it
difficult  to  stiffen all over when offended, but he stiffened  as
far  as he could. It was as if some shareholder at the meeting  had
said the wrong thing.
   'Blackmail?'
   'That's what I said.'
   'It is not blackmail. It is nothing of the sort.'
   'He   is  quite  right,  madam,'  said  Jeeves,  appearing  from
nowhere.  I'll  swear he hadn't been there half  a  second  before.
'Blackmail  implies  the extortion of money. Mr  Runkle  is  merely
extorting a cook.'
   'Exactly.   A   purely  business  transaction,'   said   Runkle,
obviously considering him a Daniel come to judgment.
   'It  would  be very different,' said Jeeves, 'were  somebody  to
try to obtain money from him by threatening to reveal that while in
America he served a prison sentence for bribing a juror in  a  case
in which he was involved.'
   A  cry  broke from L. P. Runkle's lips, somewhat similar to  the
one  the cat Gus had uttered when the bag of cat food fell on  him.
He  tottered and his face would, I think, have turned ashy white if
his  blood pressure hadn't been the sort that makes it pretty tough
going  for a face to turn ashy white. The best it could manage  was
something Florence would have called sallow.
   The  ancestor,  on the other hand, had revived like  a  floweret
beneath  the watering-can. Not that she looks like a floweret,  but
you know what I mean.
   'What!' she ejaculated.
   'Yes,  madam,  the  details are all in the  club  book.  Bingley
recorded  them very fully. His views were very far to the  left  at
the  time,  and  I think he derived considerable satisfaction  from
penning an expose of a gentleman of Mr Runkle's wealth. It is  also
with  manifest gusto that he relates how Mr Runkle, in grave danger
of  a  further  prison sentence in connection with  a  real  estate
fraud,  forfeited  the money he had deposited as security  for  his
appearance in court and disappeared.'
   'Jumped his bail, you mean?'
   'Precisely, madam. He escaped to Canada in a false beard.'
   The  ancestor  drew  a deep breath. Her eyes were  glowing  more
like  twin stars than anything. Had not her dancing days been  long
past,  I think she might have gone into a brisk buck-and-wing.  The
lower limbs twitched just as if she were planning to.
   'Well,'  she  said,  'a  nice bit of news  that'll  be  for  the
fellows who dole out knighthoods. "Runkle?" they'll say. "That  old
lag?  If we made a man like that a knight, we'd never hear the last
of  it. The boys on the Opposition benches would kid the pants  off
us."  We  were discussing, Runkle, yesterday that little matter  of
the  money you ought to have given Tuppy Glossop years ago. If  you
will  step  into  my  boudoir, we will go  into  it  again  at  our
leisure.'

        17
   The  following day dawned bright and clear, at least  I  suppose
it  did, but I wasn't awake at the time. When eventually I came  to
life,  the sun was shining, all Nature appeared to be smiling,  and
Jeeves  was  bringing in the breakfast tray. Gus the cat,  who  had
been  getting  his  eight hours on an adjacent  armchair,  stirred,
opened an eye and did a sitting high jump on to the bed, eager  not
to miss anything that was going.
   'Good morning, Jeeves.'
   'Good morning, sir.'
   'Weather looks all right.'
   'Extremely clement, sir.'
   'The  snail's on the wing and the lark's on the thorn, or rather
the  other  way round, as I've sometimes heard you say.  Are  those
kippers I smell?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Detach  a portion for Gus, will you. He will probably  like  to
take it from the soap dish, reserving the saucer for milk.'
   'Very good, sir.'
   I  sat  up and eased the spine into the pillows. I was conscious
of a profound peace.
   'Jeeves,' I said, 'I am conscious of a profound peace. I  wonder
if  you remember me telling you a few days ago that I was having  a
sharp attack of euphoria?'
   'Yes,  sir.  I  recall your words clearly.  You  said  you  were
sitting on top of the world with a rainbow round your shoulder.'
   'Similar  conditions prevail this morning. I thought  everything
went off very well last night, didn't you?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Thanks to you.'
   'It is very kind of you to say so, sir.'
   'I  take it the ancestor came to a satisfactory arrangement with
Runkle?'
   'Most  satisfactory,  sir. Madam has just informed  me  that  Mr
Runkle was entirely co-operative.'
   'So  Tuppy  and  Angela will be joined in holy wedlock,  as  the
expression is?'
   'Almost immediately, I understood from Madam.'
   'And  even  now  Ginger  and  M.  Glendennon  are  probably   in
conference with the registrar of their choice.'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'And  Spode has got a black eye, which one hopes is painful.  In
short,  on  every  side one sees happy endings popping  up  out  of
traps.  A pity that Bingley is flourishing like a green what-is-it,
but one can't have everything.'
   'No,  sir. Medio de fonte leporum surgit amari aliquid in  ipsis
floribus angat.'
   'I don't think I quite followed you there, Jeeves.'
   'I  was  quoting  from the Roman poet Lucretius,  sir.  A  rough
translation  would be "From the heart of this fountain of  delights
wells up some bitter taste to choke them even among the flowers".'
   'Who did you say wrote that?'
   'Lucretius, sir, 99-55 bc.'
   'Gloomy sort of bird.'
   'His outlook was perhaps somewhat sombre, sir.'
   'Still,  apart from Bingley, one might describe joy as  reigning
supreme.'
   'A very colourful phrase, sir.'
   'Not  my  own.  I  read it somewhere. Yes, I think  we  may  say
everything's  more  or less oojah-cum-spiff.  With  one  exception,
Jeeves,'  I said, a graver note coming into my voice as I gave  Gus
his second helping of kipper. 'There remains a fly in the ointment,
a familiar saying meaning ... well, I don't quite know what it does
mean. It seems to imply a state of affairs at which one is supposed
to  look  askance,  but why, I ask myself, shouldn't  flies  be  in
ointment? What harm do they do? And who wants ointment, anyway? But
you get what I'm driving at. The Junior Ganymede club book is still
in existence. That is what tempers my ecstasy with anxiety. We have
seen  how packed with trinitrotoluol it is, and we know how  easily
it  can fall into the hands of the powers of darkness. Who can  say
that  another  Bingley may not come along and snitch  it  from  the
secretary's  room? I know it is too much to ask  you  to  burn  the
beastly thing, but couldn't you at least destroy the eighteen pages
in which I figure?'
   'I have already done so, sir.'
   I  leaped like a rising trout, to the annoyance of Gus, who  had
gone  to  sleep  on my solar plexus. Words failed me,  but  in  due
season I managed three.
   'Much obliged, Jeeves.'
   'Not at all, sir.'