'Hey  to  you with knobs on,' she replied. 'Oh, hullo, Bertie.  You
here?'
     'You never spoke a truer word. If you can spare me a moment of your
valuable time, young Roberta -'
     'Half a second, I think I've got a bite. No, false alarm. What were
you saying?'
     'I was saying -'
     'Oh, by the way, I heard from Mother this morning.'
     'I heard from her yesterday morning.'
     'I  was  kind  of expecting you would. You saw that  thing  in  The
Times?'
     'With the naked eye.'
     'Puzzled you for a moment, perhaps?'
     'For several moments.'
     'Well,  I'll  tell you all about that. The idea came  to  me  in  a
flash.'
     'You mean it was you who shoved that communique in the journal?'
     'Of course.'
     'Why?' I said, getting right down to it in my direct way.
     I thought I had her there, but no.
     'I was paving the way for Reggie.'
     I passed a hand over my fevered brow.
     'Something seems to have gone wrong with my usually keen hearing,' I
said.  'It sounds just as if you were saying "I was paving the way  for
Reggie."'
     'I  was. I was making his path straight. Softening up Mother on his
behalf.'
     I passed another hand over my f.b.
     'Now you seem to be saying "Softening up Mother on his behalf."'
     'That's  what I am saying. It's perfectly simple. I'll  put  it  in
words of one syllable for you. I love Reggie. Reggie loves me.'
     'Reggie,' of course, is two syllables, but I let it go.
     'Reggie who?'
     'Reggie Herring.'
     I was amazed.
     'You mean old Kipper?'
     'I wish you wouldn't call him Kipper.'
     'I  always  have. Dash it,' I said with some warmth, 'if  a  fellow
shows up at a private school on the south coast of England with a  name
like  Herring, what else do you expect his playmates to call  him?  But
how do you mean you love him and he loves you? You've never met him.'
     'Of  course  I've met him. We were in the same hotel in Switzerland
last  Christmas. I taught him to ski,' she said, a dreamy  look  coming
into  her  twin starlikes. 'I shall never forget the day I  helped  him
unscramble  himself after he had taken a toss on the beginners'  slope.
He  had  both  legs wrapped round his neck. I think that is  when  love
dawned. My heart melted as I sorted him out.'
     'You didn't laugh?'
     'Of course I didn't laugh. I was all sympathy and understanding.'
     For  the first time the thing began to seem plausible to me. Bobbie
is a fun-loving girl, and the memory of her reaction when in the garden
at  Skeldings  I had once stepped on the teeth of a rake  and  had  the
handle  jump up and hit me on the tip of the nose was still  laid  away
among  my  souvenirs. She had been convulsed with mirth. If, then,  she
had  refrained  from guffawing when confronted with  the  spectacle  of
Reginald  Herring with both legs wrapped round his neck,  her  emotions
must have been very deeply involved.
     'Well,  all right,' I said. 'I accept your statement that  you  and
Kipper are that way. But why, that being so, did you blazon it forth to
the  world, if blazoning forth is the expression I want, that you  were
engaged to me?'
     'I told you. It was to soften Mother up.'
     'Which sounded to me like delirium straight from the sick bed.'
     'You don't get the subtle strategy?'
     'Not by several parasangs.'
     'Well, you know how you stand with Mother.'
     'Our relations are a bit distant.'
     'She  shudders  at the mention of your name. So I  thought  if  she
thought I was going to marry you and then found I wasn't, she'd  be  so
thankful for the merciful escape I'd had that she'd be ready to  accept
anyone  as a son-in-law, even someone like Reggie, who, though a wonder
man,  hasn't got his name in Debrett and isn't any too hot financially.
Mother's idea of a mate for me has always been a well-to-do millionaire
or a Duke with a large private income. Now do you follow?'
     'Oh  yes,  I follow all right. You've been doing what Jeeves  does,
studying  the  psychology of the individual. But  do  you  think  it'll
work?'
     'Bound to. Let's take a parallel case. Suppose your Aunt Dahlia read
in the paper one morning that you were going to be shot at sunrise.'
     'I couldn't be. I'm never up so early.'
     'But  suppose she did? She'd be pretty worked up about it, wouldn't
she?'
     'Extremely, one imagines, for she loves me dearly. I'm  not  saying
her  manner  toward  me  doesn't verge at  times  on  the  brusque.  In
childhood days she would occasionally clump me on the side of the head,
and since I have grown to riper years she has more than once begged  me
to  tie  a brick around my neck and go and drown myself in the pond  in
the  kitchen garden. Nevertheless, she loves her Bertram,  and  if  she
heard I was to be shot at sunrise, she would, as you say, be as sore as
a gum-boil. But why? What's that got to do with it?'
     'Well, suppose she then found out it was all a mistake and it wasn't
you but somebody else who was to face the firing squad. That would make
her happy, wouldn't it?'
     'One can picture her dancing all over the place on the tips of  her
toes.'
     'Exactly.  She'd be so all over you that nothing you did  would  be
wrong  in  her eyes. Whatever you wanted to do would be all right  with
her. Go to it, she would say. And that's how Mother will feel when  she
learns that I'm not marrying you after all. She'll be so relieved.'
     I agreed that the relief would, of course, be stupendous.
     'But you'll be giving her the inside facts in a day or two?' I said,
for  I  was  anxious to have assurance on this point.  A  man  with  an
Engagement notice in The Times hanging over him cannot but feel uneasy.
     'Well, call it a week or two. No sense in rushing things.'
     'You want me to sink in?'
     'That's the idea.'
     'And meanwhile what's the drill? Do I kiss you a good deal from time
to time?'
     'No, you don't.'
     'Right-ho. I just want to know where I stand.'
     'An occasional passionate glance will be ample.'
     'It  shall be attended to. Well, I'm delighted about you and Kipper
or,  as you would prefer to say, Reggie. There's nobody I'd rather  see
you centre-aisle-ing with.'
     'It's very sporting of you to take it like this.'
     'Don't give it a thought.'
     'I'm awfully fond of you, Bertie.'
     'Me, too, of you.'
     'But I can't marry everybody, can I?'
     'I wouldn't even try. Well, now that we've got all that straight, I
suppose I'd better be going and saying "Come aboard" to Aunt Dahlia.'
     'What's the time?'
     'Close on five.'
     'I  must run like a hare. I'm supposed to be presiding at  the  tea
table.'
     'You? Why you?'
     'Your  aunt's  not  here. She found a telegram when  she  got  back
yesterday saying that her son Bonzo was sick of a fever at his  school,
and  dashed off to be with him. She asked me to deputy-hostess for  her
till  her  return, but I shan't be able to for the next few days.  I've
got to dash back to Mother. Ever since she saw that thing in The Times,
she's  been wiring me every hour on the hour to come home for a  round-
table conference. What's a guffin?'
     'I don't know. Why?'
     'That's  what  she  calls you in her latest 'gram.  Quote.  "Cannot
understand  how  you can be contemplating marrying that guffin."  Close
quote.  I suppose it's more of less the same as a gaby, which  was  how
you figured in one of her earlier communications.'
     'That sounds promising.'
     'Yes, I think the thing's in the bag. After you, Reggie will come to
her  like rare and refreshing fruit. She'll lay down the red carpet for
him.'
     And  with a brief 'Whoopee!' she shot off in the direction  of  the
house  at forty or so m.p.h. I followed more slowly, for she had  given
me much food for thought, and I was musing.
     Strange,  I  was feeling, this strong pro-Kipper sentiment  in  the
Wickham  bosom. I mean, consider the facts. What with that  espieglerie
of  hers, which was tops, she had been pretty extensively wooed in  one
quarter and another for years, and no business had resulted, so that it
was  generally assumed that only something extra special in the way  of
suitors  would meet her specifications and that whoever eventually  got
his  nose  under  the wire would be a king among men  and  pretty  warm
stuff. And she had gone and signed up with Kipper Herring.
     Mind you, I'm not saying a word against old Kipper. The salt of the
earth.  But  nobody could have called him a knock-out  in  the  way  of
looks. Having gone in a lot for boxing from his earliest years, he  had
the  cauliflower  ear  of which I had spoken  to  Aunt  Dahlia  and  in
addition to this a nose which some hidden hand had knocked slightly out
of  the  straight. He would, in short, have been an unsafe  entrant  to
have backed in a beauty contest, even if the only other competitors had
been Boris Karloff, King Kong and Oofy Prosser of the Drones.
     But  then,  of course, one had to remind oneself that looks  aren't
everything. A cauliflower ear can hide a heart of gold, as in  Kipper's
case  it  did,  his being about as gold as they come. His  brain,  too,
might  have  helped to do the trick. You can't hold down  an  editorial
post  on  an  important London weekly paper without being  fairly  well
fixed  with the little grey cells, and girls admire that sort of thing.
And one had to remember that most of the bimbos to whom Roberta Wickham
had  been  giving the bird through the years had been of  the  huntin',
shootin' and fishin' type, fellows who had more or less shot their bolt
after  saying  'Eh, what?' and slapping their leg with a hunting  crop.
Kipper must have come as a nice change.
     Still, the whole thing provided, as I say, food for thought, and  I
was  in  what  is  called a reverie as I made my way to  the  house,  a
reverie  so profound that no turf accountant would have given  any  but
the  shortest  odds against my sooner or later bumping into  something.
And  this, to cut a long story s., I did. It might have been a tree,  a
bush  or  a  rustic  seat. In actual fact it turned out  to  be  Aubrey
Upjohn.  I came on him round a comer and rammed him squarely  before  I
could  put the brakes on. I clutched him round the neck and he clutched
me  about  the  middle, and for some moments we tottered  to  and  fro,
linked in a close embrace. Then, the mists clearing from my eyes, I saw
who it was that I had been treading the measure with.
     Seeing him steadily and seeing him whole, as I have heard Jeeves put
it,  I was immediately struck by the change that had taken place in his
appearance  since  those get-togethers in his study at  Malvern  House,
Bramley-on-Sea, when with a sinking heart I had watched him  reach  for
the  whangee  and start limbering up the shoulder muscles  with  a  few
trial  swings.  At  that  period of our acquaintance  he  had  been  an
upstanding  old gentleman about eight feet six in height  with  burning
eyes,  foam-flecked lips and flame coming out of both nostrils. He  had
now  shrunk  to a modest five foot seven or there-abouts, and  I  could
have felled him with a single blow.
     Not that I did, of course. But I regarded him without a trace of the
old trepidation. It seemed incredible that I could ever have considered
this human shrimp a danger to pedestrians and traffic.
     I  think this was partly due to the fact that at some point in  the
fifteen years since our last meeting he had grown a moustache.  In  the
Malvern  House  epoch what had always struck a chill into  the  plastic
mind had been his wide, bare upper lip, a most unpleasant spectacle  to
behold,  especially  when  twitching.  I  wouldn't  say  the  moustache
softened his face, but being of the walrus or soup-strainer type it hid
some of it, which was all to the good. The up-shot was that instead  of
quailing,  as  I  had  expected to do when we  met,  I  was  suave  and
debonair, possibly a little too much so.
     'Oh, hullo, Upjohn!' I said. 'Yoo-hoo!'
     'Who you?' he responded, making it sound like a reverse echo.
     'Wooster is the name.'
     'Oh,  Wooster?'  he  said, as if he had been  hoping  it  would  be
something  else, and one could understand his feelings, of  course.  No
doubt  he,  like  me, had been buoying himself up for  years  with  the
thought  that  we should never meet again and that, whatever  brickbats
life  might have in store for him, he had at least got Bertram  out  of
his system. A nasty jar it must have been for the poor bloke having  me
suddenly pop up from a trap like this.
     'Long time since we met,' I said.
     'Yes,' he agreed in a hollow voice, and it was so plain that he was
wishing it had been longer that conversation flagged, and there  wasn't
much in the way of feasts of reason and flows of the soul as we covered
the hundred yards to the lawn where the tea table awaited us. I think I
may  have  said 'Nice day, what?' and he may have grunted, but  nothing
more.
     Only Bobbie was present when we arrived at the trough. Wilbert  and
Phyllis were presumably still in the leafy glade, and Mrs Cream, Bobbie
said,  worked in her room every afternoon on her new spine-freezer  and
seldom  knocked  off  for  a cuppa. We seated ourselves  and  had  just
started sipping, when the butler came out of the house bearing  a  bowl
of fruit and hove to beside the table with it.
     Well,  when I say 'butler', I use the term loosely. He was  dressed
like  a  butler  and he behaved like a butler, but in the  deepest  and
truest sense of the word he was not a butler.
     Reading from left to right, he was Sir Roderick Glossop.


        4
     At the Drones Club and other places I am accustomed to frequent you
will  often  hear  comment on Bertram Wooster's  self-control  or  sang
froid,  as it's sometimes called, and it is generally agreed that  this
is  considerable. In the eyes of many people, I suppose, I seem one  of
those men of chilled steel you read about, and I'm not saying I'm  not.
But  it is possible to find a chink in my armour, and this can be  done
by  suddenly  springing eminent loony-doctors on me  in  the  guise  of
butlers.
     It  was  out of the q. that I could have been mistaken in supposing
that  it was Sir Roderick Glossop who, having delivered the fruit,  was
now  ambling  back to the house. There could not be two men  with  that
vast bald head and those bushy eyebrows, and it would be deceiving  the
customers  to  say that I remained unshaken. The effect the  apparition
had  on me was to make me start violently, and we all know what happens
when  you start violently while holding a full cup of tea. The contents
of mine flew through the air and came to rest on the trousers of Aubrey
Upjohn,  MA,  moistening  them to no little extent.  Indeed,  it  would
scarcely  be  distorting the facts to say that he was now not  so  much
wearing trousers as wearing tea.
     I could see the unfortunate man felt his position deeply, and I was
surprised  that he contented himself with a mere 'Ouch!' But I  suppose
these  solid citizens have to learn to curb the tongue. Creates  a  bad
impression, I mean, if they start blinding and stiffing as  those  more
happily placed would be.
     But  words are not always needed. In the look he now shot at  me  I
seemed  to read a hundred unspoken expletives. It was the sort of  look
the  bucko  mate  of  a tramp steamer would have given  an  able-bodied
seaman who for one reason or another had incurred his displeasure.
     'I  see  you  have not changed since you were with  me  at  Malvern
House,'  he  said in an extremely nasty voice, dabbing at the  trousers
with  a  handkerchief. 'Bungling Wooster we used to call him,' he  went
on, addressing his remarks to Bobbie and evidently trying to enlist her
sympathy.  'He could not perform the simplest action such as holding  a
cup  without spreading ruin and disaster on all sides. It was an  axiom
at  Malvern  House that if there was a chair in any room  in  which  he
happened  to  be, Wooster would trip over it. The child,'  said  Aubrey
Upjohn, 'is the father of the man.'
     'Frightfully sorry,' I said.
     'Too  late  to be sorry now. A new pair of trousers ruined.  It  is
doubtful  if  anything can remove the stain of tea from white  flannel.
Still, one must hope for the best.'
     Whether  I was right or wrong at this point in patting him  on  the
shoulder and saying 'That's the spirit!' I find it difficult to decide.
Wrong,  probably, for it did not seem to soothe. He gave me another  of
those looks and strode off, smelling strongly of tea.
     'Shall  I  tell you something, Bertie?' said Bobbie, following  him
with  a  thoughtful eye. 'That walking tour Upjohn was going to  invite
you to take with him is off. You will get no Christmas present from him
this  year,  and  don't  expect him to come and  tuck  you  up  in  bed
tonight.'
     I upset the milk jug with an imperious wave of the hand.
     'Never mind about Upjohn and Christmas presents and walking  tours.
What is Pop Glossop doing here as the butler?'
     'Ah! I thought you might be going to ask that. I was meaning to tell
you some time.'
     'Tell me now.'
     'Well, it was his idea.'
     I eyed her sternly. Bertram Wooster has no objection to listening to
drivel,  but it must not be pure babble from the padded cell,  as  this
appeared to be.
     'His idea?'
     'Yes.'
     'Are you asking me to believe that Sir Roderick Glossop got up  one
morning,  gazed  at himself in the mirror, thought  he  was  looking  a
little  pale  and said to himself, "I need a change. I think  I'll  try
being a butler for awhile"?'
     'No, not that, but... I don't know where to begin.'
     'Begin at the beginning. Come on now, young B. Wickham, smack  into
it,' I said, and took a piece of cake in a marked manner.
     The austerity of my tone seemed to touch a nerve and kindle the fire
that  always slept in this vermilion-headed menace to the common  weal,
for  she  frowned a displeased frown and told me for heaven's  sake  to
stop goggling like a dead halibut.
     'I  have every right to goggle like a dead halibut,' I said coldly,
'and  I  shall  continue to do so as long as I see fit. I  am  under  a
considerable nervous s. As always seems to happen when you are mixed up
in  the  doings,  life has become one damn thing after another,  and  I
think  I  am  justified  in  demanding an  explanation.  I  await  your
statement.'
     'Well, let me marshal my thoughts.'
     She did so, and after a brief intermission, during which I finished
my piece of cake, proceeded.
     'I'd  better  begin  by telling you about Upjohn,  because  it  all
started  through him. You see, he's egging Phyllis on to marry  Wilbert
Cream.'
     'When you say egging -'
     'I  mean  egging. And when a man like that eggs, something  has  to
give,  especially when the girl's a pill like Phyllis, who always  does
what Daddy tells her.'
     'No will of her own?'
     'Not  a smidgeon. To give you an instance, a couple of days ago  he
took  her  to Birmingham to see the repertory company's performance  of
Chekhov's Seagull, because he thought it would be educational. I'd like
to  catch  anyone trying to make me see Chekhov's Seagull, but  Phyllis
just bowed her head and said, "Yes, Daddy." Didn't even attempt to  put
up a fight. That'll show you how much of a will of her own she's got.'
     It  did indeed. Her story impressed me profoundly. I knew Chekhov's
Seagull.  My  Aunt  Agatha had once made me take  her  son  Thos  to  a
performance of it at the Old Vic, and what with the strain of trying to
follow  the  cock-eyed goings-on of characters called Zarietchnaya  and
Medvienko  and  having to be constantly on the alert  to  prevent  Thos
making  a  sneak  for  the great open spaces,  my  suffering  had  been
intense. I needed no further evidence to tell me that Phyllis Mills was
a girl whose motto would always be 'Daddy knows best'. Wilbert had only
got  to  propose  and she would sign on the dotted line because  Upjohn
wished it.
     'Your aunt's worried sick about it.'
     'She doesn't approve?'
     'Of course she doesn't approve. You must have heard of Willie Cream,
going over to New York so much.'
     'Why yes, news of his escapades has reached me. He's a playboy.'
     'Your aunt thinks he's a screwball.'
     'Many  playboys  are,  I  believe. Well, that  being  so,  one  can
understand why she doesn't want those wedding bells to ring out.  But,'
I  said, putting my finger on the res in my unerring way, 'that doesn't
explain where Pop Glossop comes in.'
     'Yes, it does. She got him here to observe Wilbert.'
     I found myself fogged.
     'Cock an eye at him, you mean? Drink him in, as it were? What good's
that going to do?'
     She snorted impatiently.
     'Observe  in  the  technical  sense.  You  know  how  these  brain
specialists  work. They watch the subject closely. They engage  him  in
conversation. They apply subtle tests. And sooner or later -'
     'I begin to see. Sooner or later he lets fall an incautious word to
the  effect that he thinks he's a poached egg, and then they've got him
where they want him.'
     'Well, he does something which tips them off. Your aunt was moaning
to  me  about  the  situation, and I suddenly had this  inspiration  of
bringing Glossop here. You know how I get sudden inspirations.'
     'I do. That hot-water-bottle episode.'
     'Yes, that was one of them.'
     'Ha!'
     'What did you say?'
     'Just "Ha!"'
     'Why "Ha!"?'
     'Because  when I think of that night of terror, I feel like  saying
"Ha!"'
     She  seemed  to see the justice of this. Pausing merely  to  eat  a
cucumber sandwich, she proceeded.
     'So  I said to your aunt, "I'll tell you what to do," I said.  "Get
Glossop here," I said, "and have him observe Wilbert Cream. Then you'll
be in a position to go to Upjohn and pull the rug from under him."'
     Again  I  was  not  abreast. There had been,  as  far  as  I  could
recollect, no mention of any rug.
     'How do you mean?'
     'Well, isn't it obvious? "Rope in old Glossop," I said, "and let him
observe.  Then you'll be in a position," I said, "to go to  Upjohn  and
tell  him  that Sir Roderick Glossop, the greatest alienist in England,
is  convinced that Wilbert Cream is round the bend and to ask him if he
proposes  to marry his stepdaughter to a man who at any moment  may  be
marched  off  and added to the membership list of Colney  Hatch."  Even
Upjohn  would shrink from doing a thing like that. Or don't  you  think
so?'
     I weighed this.
     'Yes,'  I  said, 'I should imagine you were right.  Quite  possibly
Upjohn  has human feelings, though I never noticed them when I  was  in
statu  pupillari,  as I believe the expression is.  One  sees  now  why
Glossop is at Brinkley Court. What one doesn't see is why one finds him
buttling.'
     'I  told you that was his idea. He thought he was such a celebrated
figure  that  it would arouse Mrs Cream's suspicions if  he  came  here
under his own name.'
     'I  see  what you mean. She would catch him observing  Wilbert  and
wonder why-'
     ' - and eventually put two and two together -'
     ' - and start Hey-what's-the-big-idea-ing.'
     'Exactly. No mother likes to find that her hostess has got a  brain
specialist  down to observe the son who is the apple  of  her  eye.  It
hurts her feelings.'
     'Whereas, if she catches the butler observing him, she merely  says
to  herself, "Ah, an observant butler." Very sensible. With  this  deal
Uncle  Tom's got on with Homer Cream, it would be fatal to risk  giving
her  the pip in any way. She would kick to Homer, and Homer would  draw
himself up and say "After what has occurred, Travers, I would prefer to
break off the negotiations," and Uncle Tom would lose a packet. What is
this deal they've got on, by the way? Did Aunt Dahlia tell you?'
     'Yes, but it didn't penetrate. It's something to do with some  land
your  uncle owns somewhere, and Mr Cream is thinking of buying  it  and
putting   up  hotels  and  things.  It  doesn't  matter,  anyway.   The
fundamental  thing, the thing to glue the eye on,  is  that  the  Cream
contingent have to be kept sweetened at any cost. So not a  word  to  a
soul.'
     'Quite.  Bertram Wooster is not a babbler. No spiller of the  beans
he.  But why are you so certain that Wilbert Cream is loopy? He doesn't
look loopy to me.'
     'Have you met him?'
     'Just for a moment. He was in a leafy glade, reading poetry to  the
Mills girl.'
     She took this big.
     'Reading poetry? To Phyllis?'
     'That's right. I thought it odd that a chap like him should be doing
such a thing. Limericks, yes. If he had been reciting limericks to her,
I  could have understood it. But this was stuff from one of those books
they bind in limp purple leather and sell at Christmas. I wouldn't care
to swear to it, but it sounded to me extremely like Omar Khayyam.'
     She continued to take it big.
     'Break it up, Bertie, break it up! There's not a moment to be lost.
You must go and break it up immediately.'
     'Who, me? Why me?'
     'That's what you're here for. Didn't your aunt tell you? She  wants
you  to follow Wilbert Cream and Phyllis about everywhere and see  that
he doesn't get a chance of proposing.'
     'You  mean that I'm to be a sort of private eye or shamus,  tailing
them up? I don't like it,' I said dubiously.
     'You don't have to like it,' said Bobbie. 'You just do it.'


        5
     Wax in the hands of the other sex, as the expression is, I went and
broke  it up as directed, but not blithely. It is never pleasant for  a
man  of  sensibility  to find himself regarded as  a  buttinski  and  a
trailing  arbutus, and it was thus, I could see at a g.,  that  Wilbert
Cream  was  pencilling  me  in. At the moment  of  my  arrival  he  had
suspended  the  poetry  reading and had taken Phyllis's  hand  in  his,
evidently  saying or about to say something of an intimate  and  tender
nature. Hearing my 'What ho', he turned, hurriedly released the fin and
directed  at me a look very similar to the one I had recently  received
from  Aubrey  Upjohn.  He  muttered something under  his  breath  about
someone,  whose name I did not catch, apparently having  been  paid  to
haunt the place.
     'Oh, it's you again,' he said.
     Well, it was, of course. No argument about that.
     'Kind  of  at  a  loose end?' he said. 'Why don't you  settle  down
somewhere with a good book?'
     I explained that I had just popped in to tell them that tea was now
being  served  on  the main lawn, and Phyllis squeaked  a  bit,  as  if
agitated.
     'Oh, dear!' she said. 'I must run. Daddy doesn't like me to be late
for tea. He says it's not respectful to my elders.'
     I  could see trembling on Wilbert Cream's lips a suggestion  as  to
where Daddy could stick himself and his views on respect to elders, but
with a powerful effort he held it back.
     'I  shall  take  Poppet  for a walk,' he said,  chirruping  to  the
dachshund,  who  was sniffing at my legs, filling his  lungs  with  the
delicious Wooster bouquet.
     'No tea?' I said.
     'No.'
     'There are muffins.'
     'Tchah!' he ejaculated, if that's the word, and strode off, followed
by the low-slung dog, and it was borne in upon me that here was another
source  from  which I could expect no present at Yule-Tide.  His  whole
demeanour  made  it plain that I had not added to my little  circle  of
friends.  Though  going  like a breeze with dachshunds,  I  had  failed
signally to click with Wilbert Cream.
     When  Phyllis and I reached the lawn, only Bobbie was  at  the  tea
table, and this surprised us both.
     'Where's Daddy?' Phyllis asked.
     'He suddenly decided to go to London,' said Bobbie.
     'To London?'
     'That's what he said.'
     'Why?'
     'He didn't tell me.'
     'I must go and see him,' said Phyllis, and buzzed off.
     Bobbie seemed to be musing.
     'Do you know what I think, Bertie?'
     'What?'
     'Well, when Upjohn came out just now, he was all of a doodah, and he
had  this  week's  Thursday Review in his hand. Came by  the  afternoon
post,  I suppose. I think he had been reading Reggie's comment  on  his
book.'
     This seemed plausible. I number several authors among my aquaintance
-  the  name of Boko Fittleworth is one that springs to the mind -  and
they invariably become all of a doodah when they read a stinker in  the
press about their latest effort.
     'Oh, you know about that thing Kipper wrote?'
     'Yes,  he  showed  it  to  me one day when  we  were  having  lunch
together.'
     'Very mordant, I gathered from what he told me. But I don't see why
that should make Upjohn bound up to London.'
     'I  suppose he wants to ask the editor who wrote the thing, so that
he can horsewhip him on the steps of his club. But of course they won't
tell him, and it wasn't signed so ... Oh, hullo, Mrs Cream.'
     The woman she was addressing was tall and thin with a hawk-like face
that  reminded me of Sherlock Holmes. She had an ink spot on her  nose,
the  result  of  working  on  her novel of suspense.  It  is  virtually
impossible  to  write  a novel of suspense without  getting  a  certain
amount of ink on the beezer. Ask Agatha Christie or anyone.
     'I finished my chapter a moment ago, so I thought I would stop for a
cup of tea,' said this literateuse. 'No good overdoing it.'
     'No.  Quit when you're ahead of the game, that's the idea. This  is
Mrs  Travers's  nephew  Bertie  Wooster,'  said  Bobbie  with  what   I
considered  a far too apologetic note in her voice. If Roberta  Wickham
has  one fault more pronounced than another, it is that she is inclined
to  introduce me to people as if I were something she would  much  have
preferred  to  hush  up. 'Bertie loves your books,'  she  added,  quite
unnecessarily, and the Cream started like a Boy Scout at the sound of a
bugle.
     'Oh, do you?'
     'Never  happier  than when curled up with one  of  them,'  I  said,
trusting that she wouldn't ask me which one of them I liked best.
     'When I told him you were here, he was overcome.'
     'Well, that certainly is great. Always glad to meet the fans. Which
of my books do you like best?'
     And I had got as far as 'Er' and was wondering, though not with much
hope, if 'All of them' would meet the case, when Pop Glossop joined  us
with  a  telegram for Bobbie on a salver. From her mother, I  presumed,
calling  me  some  name which she had forgotten to insert  in  previous
communications.  Or,  of  course, possibly  expressing  once  more  her
conviction  that I was a guffin, which, I thought, having had  time  to
ponder  over  it, would be something in the nature of a bohunkus  or  a
hammerhead.
     'Oh, thank you, Swordfish,' said Bobbie, taking the 'gram.
     It was fortunate that I was not holding a tea cup as she spoke, for
hearing Sir Roderick thus addressed I gave another of my sudden  starts
and,  had  I  had such a cup in my hand, must have strewn its  contents
hither and thither like a sower going forth sowing. As it was, I merely
sent a cucumber sandwich flying through the air.
     'Oh,  sorry,'  I  said, for it had missed the  Cream  by  a  hair's
breadth.
     I  could have relied on Bobbie to shove her oar in. The girl had no
notion of passing a thing off.
     'Excuse it, please,' she said. 'I ought to have warned you.  Bertie
is  training  for  the Jerk The Cucumber Sandwich  event  at  the  next
Olympic Games. He has to be practising all the time.'
     On  Ma  Cream's brow there was a thoughtful wrinkle, as though  she
felt  unable to accept this explanation of what had occurred.  But  her
next  words showed that it was not on my activities that her  mind  was
dwelling but on the recent Swordfish. Having followed him with  a  keen
glance as he faded from view, she said:
     'This butler of Mrs Travers's. Do you know where she got him,  Miss
Wickham?'
     'At the usual pet shop, I think.'
     'Had he references?'
     'Oh,  yes.  He was with Sir Roderick Glossop, the brain specialist,
for years. I remember Mrs Travers saying Sir Roderick gave him a super-
colossal reference. She was greatly impressed.'
     Ma Cream sniffed.
     'References can be forged.'
     'Good gracious! Why do you say that?'
     'Because I am not at all easy in my mind about this man. He  has  a
criminal face.'
     'Well, you might say that about Bertie.'
     'I feel that Mrs Travers should be warned. In my Blackness at Night
the  butler  turned out to be one of a gang of crooks, planted  in  the
house  to  make  it easy for them to break in. The inside  stand,  it's
called.  I  strongly suspect that this is why this Swordfish  is  here,
though  of course it is quite possible that he is working on  his  own.
One thing I am sure of, and that is that he is not a genuine butler.'
     'What  makes  you  think that?' I asked, handkerchiefing  my  upper
slopes, which had become considerably bedewed. I didn't like this  line
of  talk at all. Let the Cream get firmly in her nut the idea that  Sir
Roderick  Glossop was not the butler, the whole butler and nothing  but
the  butler,  and  disaster, as I saw it, loomed. She would  probe  and
investigate,  and  before you could say 'What  ho'  would  be  in  full
possession  of  the  facts. In which event, bim would  go  Uncle  Tom's
chance  of  scooping in a bit of easy money. And ever since I've  known
him  failure to get his hooks on any stray cash that's floating  around
has  always put him out of touch with the blue bird. It isn't that he's
mercenary. It's just that he loves the stuff.
     Her manner suggested that she was glad I had asked her that.
     'I'll tell you what makes me think it. He betrays his amateurishness
in  a  hundred  ways.  This  very morning I found  him  having  a  long
conversation with Wilbert. A real butler would never do that. He  would
feel it was a liberty.'
     I contested this statement.
     'Now  there,' I said, 'I take issue with you, if taking issue means
what  I  think  it  means. Many of my happiest hours have  been  passed
chatting  with butlers, and it has nearly always happened that  it  was
they  who  made the first advances. They seek me out and tell me  about
their rheumatism. Swordfish looks all right to me.'
     'You  are not a student of criminology, as I am. I have the trained
eye, and my judgment is never wrong. That man is here for no good.'
     I  could see that all this was making Bobbie chafe, but her  better
self  prevailed and she checked the heated retort. She is very fond  of
T.  Portarlington Travers, who, she tells me, is the living image of  a
wire-haired terrier now residing with the morning stars but at one time
very dear to her, and she remembered that for his sake the Cream had to
be deferred to and handled with gloves. When she spoke, it was with the
mildness of a cushat dove addressing another cushat dove from  whom  it
was hoping to borrow money.
     'But  don't  you  think,  Mrs Cream,  that  it  may  be  just  your
imagination? You have such a wonderful imagination. Bertie  was  saying
only  the other day that he didn't know how you did it. Write all those
frightfully imaginative books, I mean. Weren't you, Bertie?'
     'My very words.'
     'And if you have an imagination, you can't help imagining. Can you,
Bertie?'
     'Dashed difficult.'
     Her  honeyed words were wasted. The Cream continued to dig her toes
in like Balaam's ass, of whom you have doubtless heard.
     'I'm not imagining that that butler is up to something fishy,'  she
said tartly. 'And I should have thought it was pretty obvious what that
something  was. You seem to have forgotten that Mr Travers has  one  of
the finest collections of old silver in England.'
     This was correct. Owing possibly to some flaw in his mental make-up,
Uncle  Tom  has been collecting old silver since I was so high,  and  I
suppose the contents of the room on the ground floor where he parks the
stuff  are  worth a princely sum. I knew all about that  collection  of
his,  not  only  because I had had to listen to him for  hours  on  the
subject  of  sconces,  foliation, ribbon wreaths  in  high  relief  and
gadroon  borders,  but  because I had what you might  call  a  personal
interest  in  it, once having stolen an eighteenth-century  cow-creamer
for  him.  (Long  story. No time to go into it now. You  will  find  it
elsewhere in the archives.)
     'Mrs  Travers was showing it to Willie the other day,  and  he  was
thrilled. Willie collects old silver himself.'
     With each hour that passed I was finding it more and more difficult
to  get  a  toe-hold  on  the  character of  W.  Cream.  An  in-and-out
performer,  if ever there was one. First all that poetry, I  mean,  and
now  this. I had always supposed that playboys didn't give a  hoot  for
anything  except  blondes and cold bottles. It just showed  once  again
that half the world doesn't know how the other three-quarters lives.
     'He  says there are any number of things in Mr Travers's collection
that  he would give his back teeth for. There was an eighteenth-century
cow-creamer  he particularly coveted. So keep your eye on that  butler.
I'm  certainly  going to keep mine. Well,' said the Cream,  rising,  'I
must  be  getting  back to my work. I always like to rough  out  a  new
chapter before finishing for the day.'
     She  legged it, and for a moment silence reigned. Then Bobbie said,
'Phew!' and I agreed that 'Phew!' was the mot juste.
     'We'd better get Glossop out of here quick,' I said.
     'How can we? It's up to your aunt to do that, and she's away.'
     'Then  I'm  jolly  well going to get out myself. There's  too  much
impending doom buzzing around these parts for my taste. Brinkley Court,
once  a peaceful country-house, has become like something sinister  out
of Edgar Allan Poe, and it makes my feet cold. I'm leaving.'
     'You  can't till your aunt gets back. There has to be some sort  of
host  or  hostess  here,  and I simply must go home  tomorrow  and  see
Mother. You'll have to clench your teeth and stick it.'
     'And the severe mental strain to which I am being subjected doesn't
matter, I suppose?'
     'Not a bit. Does you good. Keeps your pores open.'
     I  should probably have said something pretty cutting in  reply  to
this, if I could have thought of anything, but as I couldn't I didn't.
     'What's Aunt Dahlia's address?' I said.
     'Royal Hotel, Eastbourne. Why?'
     'Because,' I said, taking another cucumber sandwich, 'I'm going  to
wire her to ring me up tomorrow without fail, so that I can apprise her
of what's going on in this joint.'


        6
     I  forget how the subject arose, but I remember Jeeves once  saying
that sleep knits up the ravelled sleave of care. Balm of hurt minds, he
described it as. The idea being, I took it, that if things are  getting
sticky,  they tend to seem less glutinous after you've had  your  eight
hours.
     Apple sauce, in my opinion. It seldom pans out that way with me, and
it  didn't now. I had retired to rest taking a dim view of the  current
situation  at Brinkley Court and opening my eyes to a new day,  as  the
expression is, I found myself taking an even dimmer. Who knew, I  asked
myself as I practically pushed the breakfast egg away untasted, what Ma
Cream might not at any moment uncover? And who could say how soon, if I
continued to be always at his side, Wilbert Cream would get it  up  his
nose and start attacking me with tooth and claw? Already his manner was
that  of  a  man  whom the society of Bertram Wooster had  fed  to  the
tonsils,  and  one  more sight of the latter at his elbow  might  quite
easily  make  him  decide  to  take prompt  steps  through  the  proper
channels.
     Musing  along these lines, I had little appetite for lunch,  though
Anatole  had  extended himself to the utmost. I winced every  time  the
Cream  shot a sharp, suspicious look at Pop Glossop as he messed  about
at  the  sideboard,  and the long, loving looks her  son  Wilbert  kept
directing  at Phyllis Mills chilled me to the marrow. At the conclusion
of  the  meal  he would, I presumed, invite the girl to  accompany  him
again  to that leafy glade, and it was idle to suppose that there would
not be pique on his part, or even chagrin, when I came along, too.
     Fortunately, as we rose from the table, Phyllis said she was  going
to  her room to finish typing Daddy's speech, and my mind was eased for
the  nonce. Even a New York playboy, accustomed from his earliest years
to  pursue blondes like a bloodhound, would hardly follow her there and
press his suit.
     Seeming himself to recognize that there was nothing cons