FORTHCOMING MARRIAGESMR C. E. BIFFEN AND MISS GLOSSOPThe engagement is announced between Charles Edward, only son of the late Mr E. C. Biffen, and Mrs Biffen, of 11 Penslow Square, Mayfair, and Honoria Jane Louise, only daughter of Sir Roderick and Lady Glossop, of 6b Harley Street, W.
FORTHCOMING MARRIAGES
MR C. E. BIFFEN AND MISS GLOSSOP
The engagement is announced between Charles Edward, only son of the late Mr E. C. Biffen, and Mrs Biffen, of 11 Penslow Square, Mayfair, and Honoria Jane Louise, only daughter of Sir Roderick and Lady Glossop, of 6b Harley Street, W.
'Great Scott!' I exclaimed.
'Sir?' said Jeeves, turning at the door.
'Jeeves, you remember Miss Glossop?'
'Very vividly, sir.'
'She's engaged to Mr Biffen!'
'Indeed, sir?' said Jeeves. And, with not another word, he slid out. The blighter's calm amazed and shocked me. It seemed to indicate that there must be a horrible streak of callousness in him. I mean to say, it wasn't as if he didn't know Honoria Glossop.
I read the paragraph again. A peculiar feeling it gave me. I don't know if you have ever experienced the sensation of seeing the announcement of the engagement of a pal of yours to a girl whom you were only saved from marrying yourself by the skin of your teeth. It induces a sort of—well, it's difficult to describe it exactly; but I should imagine a fellow would feel much the same if he happened to be strolling through the jungle with a boyhood chum and met a tigress or a jaguar, or what not, and managed to shin up a tree and looked down and saw the friend of his youth vanishing into the undergrowth in the animal's slavering jaws. A sort of profound, prayerful relief, if you know what I mean, blended at the same time with a pang of pity. What I'm driving at is that, thankful as I was that I hadn't had to marry Honoria myself, I was sorry to see a real good chap like old Biffy copping it. I sucked down a spot of tea and began to brood over the business.
Of course, there are probably fellows in the world—tough, hardy blokes with strong chins and glittering eyes—who could get engaged to this Glossop menace and like it, but I knew perfectly well that Biffy was not one of them. Honoria, you see, is one of those robust, dynamic girls with the muscles of a welterweight and a laugh like a squadron of cavalry charging over a tin bridge. A beastly thing to have to face over the breakfast table. Brainy, moreover. The sort of girl who reduces you topulp with sixteen sets of tennis and a few rounds of golf and then comes down to dinner as fresh as a daisy, expecting you to take an intelligent interest in Freud. If I had been engaged to her another week, her old father would have had one more patient on his books; and Biffy is much the same quiet sort of peaceful, inoffensive bird as me. I was shocked, I tell you, shocked.
And, as I was saying, the thing that shocked me most was Jeeves's frightful lack of proper emotion. The man happening to float in at this juncture, I gave him one more chance to show some human sympathy.
'You got the name correctly, didn't you, Jeeves?' I said. 'Mr Biffen is going to marry Honoria Glossop, the daughter of the old boy with the egg-like head and the eyebrows.'
'Yes, sir. Which suit would you wish me to lay out this morning?'
And this, mark you, from the man who, when I was engaged to the Glossop, strained every fibre in his brain to extricate me. It beat me. I couldn't understand it.
'The blue with the red twill,' I said coldly. My manner was marked, and I meant him to see that he had disappointed me sorely.
About a week later I went back to London, and scarcely had I got settled in the old flat when Biffy blew in. One glance was enough to tell me that the poisoned wound had begun to fester. The man did not look bright. No, there was no getting away from it, not bright. He had that kind of stunned, glassy expression which I used to see on my own face in the shaving-mirror during my brief engagement to the Glossop pestilence. However, if you don't want to be one of the What is Wrong With This Picture brigade, you must observe the conventions, so I shook his hand as warmly as I could.
'Well, well, old man,' I said. 'Congratulations.'
'Thanks,' said Biffy wanly, and there was rather a weighty silence.
'Bertie,' said Biffy, after the silence had lasted about three minutes.
'Hallo?'
'Is it really true—?'
'What?'
'Oh, nothing,' said Biffy, and conversation languished again. After about a minute and a half he came to the surface once more.
'Bertie.'
'Still here, old thing. What is it?'
'I say, Bertie, is it really true that you were once engaged to Honoria?'
'It is.'
Biffy coughed.
'How did you get out—I mean, what was the nature of the tragedy that prevented the marriage?'
'Jeeves worked it. He thought out the entire scheme.'
'I think, before I go,' said Biffy thoughtfully, 'I'll just step into the kitchen and have a word with Jeeves.'
I felt that the situation called for complete candour.
'Biffy, old egg,' I said, 'as man to man, do you want to oil out of this thing?'
'Bertie, old cork,' said Biffy earnestly, 'as one friend to another, I do.'
'Then why the dickens did you ever get into it?'
'I don't know. Why did you?'
'I—well, it sort of happened.'
'And it sort of happened with me. You know how it is when your heart's broken. A kind of lethargy comes over you. You get absent-minded and cease to exercise proper precautions, and the first thing you know you're for it. I don't know how it happened, old man, but there it is. And what I want you to tell me is, what's the procedure?'
'You mean, how does a fellow edge out?'
'Exactly. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, Bertie, but I can't go through with this thing. The shot isnot on the board. For about a day and a half I thought it might be all right, but now—You remember that laugh of hers?'
'I do.'
'Well, there's that, and then all this business of never letting a fellow alone—improving his mind and so forth—'
'I know. I know.'
'Very well, then. What do you recommend? What did you mean when you said that Jeeves worked a scheme?'
'Well, you see, old Sir Roderick, who's a loony-doctor and nothing but a loony-doctor, however much you may call him a nerve specialist, discovered that there was a modicum of insanity in my family. Nothing serious. Just one of my uncles. Used to keep rabbits in his bedroom. And the old boy came to lunch here to give me the once-over, and Jeeves arranged matters so that he went away firmly convinced that I was off my onion.'
'I see,' said Biffy thoughtfully. 'The trouble is there isn't any insanity in my family.'
'None?'
It seemed to me almost incredible that a fellow could be such a perfect chump as dear old Biffy without a bit of assistance.
'Not a loony on the list,' he said gloomily. 'It's just like my luck. The old boy's coming to lunch with me tomorrow, no doubt to test me as he did you. And I never felt saner in my life.'
I thought for a moment. The idea of meeting Sir Roderick again gave me a cold shivery feeling; but when there is a chance of helping a pal we Woosters have no thought of self.
'Look here, Biffy,' I said, 'I'll tell you what. I'll roll up for that lunch. It may easily happen that when he finds you are a pal of mine he will forbid the banns right away and no more questions asked.'
'Something in that,' said Biffy, brightening. 'Awfully sporting of you, Bertie.'
'Oh, not at all,' I said. 'And meanwhile I'll consult Jeeves. Put the whole thing up to him and ask his advice. He's never failed me yet.'
Biffy pushed off, a good deal braced, and I went into the kitchen.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'I want your help once more. I've just been having a painful interview with Mr Biffen.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'It's like this,' I said, and told him the whole thing.
It was rummy, but I could feel him freezing from the start. As a rule, when I call Jeeves into conference on one of these little problems, he's all sympathy and bright ideas; but not today.
'I fear, sir,' he said, when I had finished, 'it is hardly my place to intervene in a private matter affecting—'
'Oh come!'
'No, sir. It would be taking a liberty.'
'Jeeves,' I said, tackling the blighter squarely, 'what have you got against old Biffy?'
'I, sir?'
'Yes, you.'
'I assure you, sir!'
'Oh, well, if you don't want to chip in and save a fellow-creature, I suppose I can't make you. But let me tell you this. I am now going back to the sitting-room, and I am going to put in some very tense thinking. You'll look pretty silly when I come and tell you that I've got Mr Biffen out of the soup without your assistance. Extremely silly you'll look.'
'Yes, sir. Shall I bring you a whisky-and-soda, sir?'
'No. Coffee! Strong and black. And if anybody wants to see me, tell 'em that I'm busy and can't be disturbed.'
An hour later I rang the bell.
'Jeeves,' I said with hauteur.
'Yes, sir?'
'Kindly ring Mr Biffen up on the phone and say that Mr Wooster presents his compliments and that he has got it.'
I was feeling more than a little pleased with myself next morning as I strolled round to Biffy's. As a rule the bright ideas you get overnight have a trick of not seeming quite so frightfully fruity when you examine them by the light of day; but this one looked as good at breakfast as it had done before dinner. I examined it narrowly from every angle, and I didn't see how it could fail.
A few days before, my Aunt Emily's son Harold had celebrated his sixth birthday; and, being up against the necessity of weighing in with a present of some kind, I had happened to see in a shop in the Strand a rather sprightly little gadget, well calculated in my opinion to amuse the child and endear him to one and all. It was a bunch of flowers in a sort of holder ending in an ingenious bulb attachment which, when pressed, shot about a pint and a half of pure spring water into the face of anyone who was ass enough to sniff at it. It seemed to me just the thing to please the growing mind of a kid of six, and I had rolled round with it.
But when I got to the house I found Harold sitting in the midst of a mass of gifts so luxurious and costly that I simply hadn't the crust to contribute a thing that had set me back a mere elevenpence-ha'penny; so with rare presence of mind—for we Woosters can think quick on occasion—I wrenched my Uncle James's card off a toy aeroplane, substituted my own, and trousered the squirt, which I took away with me. It had been lying around in my flat ever since, and it seemed to me that the time had come to send it into action.
'Well?' said Biffy anxiously, as I curveted into his sitting-room.
The poor old bird was looking pretty green about thegills. I recognized the symptoms. I had felt much the same myself when waiting for Sir Roderick to turn up and lunch with me. How the deuce people who have anything wrong with their nerves can bring themselves to chat with that man, I can't imagine; and yet he has the largest practice in London. Scarcely a day passes without his having to sit on somebody's head and ring for the attendant to bring the strait-waistcoat; and his outlook on life has become so jaundiced through constant association with coves who are picking straws out of their hair that I was convinced that Biffy had merely got to press the bulb and nature would do the rest.
So I patted him on the shoulder and said: 'It's all right, old man!'
'What does Jeeves suggest?' asked Biffy eagerly.
'Jeeves doesn't suggest anything.'
'But you said it was all right.'
'Jeeves isn't the only thinker in the Wooster home, my lad. I have taken over your little problem, and I can tell you at once that I have the situation well in hand.'
'You?' said Biffy.
His tone was far from flattering. It suggested a lack of faith in my abilities, and my view was that an ounce of demonstration would be worth a ton of explanation. I shoved the bouquet at him.
'Are you fond of flowers, Biffy?' I said.
'Eh?'
'Smell these.'
Biffy extended the old beak in a careworn sort of way, and I pressed the bulb as per printed instructions on the label.
I do like getting my money's-worth. Elevenpence-ha'penny the thing had cost me, and it would have been cheap at double. The advertisement on the outside of the box had said that its effects were 'indescribably ludicrous', and I can testify that it was nooverstatement. Poor old Biffy leaped three feet in the air and smashed a small table.
'There!' I said.
The old egg was a trifle incoherent at first, but he found words fairly soon and began to express himself with a good deal of warmth.
'Calm yourself, laddie,' I said, as he paused for breath. 'It was no mere jest to pass an idle hour. It was a demonstration. Take this, Biffy, with an old friend's blessing, refill the bulb, shove it into Sir Roderick's face, press firmly, and leave the rest to him. I'll guarantee that in something under three seconds the idea will have dawned on him that you are not required in his family.'
Biffy stared at me.
'Are you suggesting that I squirt Sir Roderick?'
'Absolutely. Squirt him good. Squirt as you have never squirted before.'
'But—'
He was still yammering at me in a feverish sort of way when there was a ring at the front-door bell.
'Good Lord!' cried Biffy, quivering like a jelly. 'There he is. Talk to him while I go and change my shirt.'
I had just time to refill the bulb and shove it beside Biffy's plate, when the door opened and Sir Roderick came in. I was picking up the fallen table at the moment, and he started talking brightly to my back.
'Good afternoon. I trust I am not—Mr Wooster!'
I'm bound to say I was not feeling entirely at my ease. There is something about the man that is calculated to strike terror into the stoutest heart. If ever there was a bloke at the very mention of whose name it would be excusable for people to tremble like aspens, that bloke is Sir Roderick Glossop. He has an enormous bald head, all the hair which ought to be on it seeming to have run into his eyebrows, and his eyes go through you like a couple of Death Rays.
'How are you, how are you, how are you?' I said,overcoming a slight desire to leap backwards out of the window. 'Long time since we met, what?'
'Nevertheless, I remember you most distinctly, Mr Wooster.'
'That's fine,' I said. 'Old Biffy asked me to come and join you in mangling a bit of lunch.'
He waggled the eyebrows at me.
'Are you a friend of Charles Biffen?'
'Oh, rather. Been friends for years and years.'
He drew in his breath sharply, and I could see that Biffy's stock had dropped several points. His eye fell on the floor, which was strewn with things that had tumbled off the upset table.
'Have you had an accident?' he said.
'Nothing serious,' I explained. 'Old Biffy had some sort of fit or seizure just now and knocked over the table.'
'A fit!'
'Or seizure.'
'Is he subject to fits?'
I was about to answer, when Biffy hurried in. He had forgotten to brush his hair, which gave him a wild look, and saw the old boy direct a keen glance at him. It seemed to me that what you might call the preliminary spade-work had been most satisfactorily attended to and that the success of the good old bulb could be in no doubt whatever.
Biffy's man came in with the nose-bags and we sat down to lunch.
It looked at first as though the meal was going to be one of those complete frosts which occur from time to time in the career of a constant luncher-out. Biffy, a very C-3 host, contributed nothing to the feast of reason and flow of soul beyond an occasional hiccup, and every time I started to pull a nifty, Sir Roderick swung round on me with such a piercing stare that it stopped me in my tracks. Fortunately, however, the second courseconsisted of a chicken fricassee of such outstanding excellence that the old boy, after wolfing a plateful, handed up his dinner-pail for a second instalment and became almost genial.
'I am here this afternoon, Charles,' he said, with what practically amounted to bonhomie, 'on what I might describe as a mission. Yes, a mission. This is most excellent chicken.'
'Glad you like it,' mumbled old Biffy.
'Singularly toothsome,' said Sir Roderick, pronging another half ounce. 'Yes, as I was saying, a mission. You young fellows nowadays are, I know, content to live in the centre of the most wonderful metropolis the world has seen, blind and indifferent to its many marvels. I should be prepared—were I a betting man, which I am not—to wager a considerable sum that you have never in your life visited even so historic a spot as Westminster Abbey. Am I right?'
Biffy gurgled something about always having meant to.
'Nor the Tower of London?'
No, nor the Tower of London.
'And there exists at this very moment, not twenty minutes by cab from Hyde Park Corner, the most supremely absorbing and educational collection of objects, both animate and inanimate, gathered from the four corners of the Empire, that has ever been assembled in England's history. I allude to the British Empire Exhibition now situated at Wembley.'
'A fellow told me one about Wembley yesterday,' I said, to help on the cheery flow of conversation. 'Stop me if you've heard it before. Chap goes up to deaf chap outside the exhibition and says, "Is this Wembley?" "Hey?" says deaf chap. "Is this Wembley?" says chap. "Hey?" says deaf chap. "Is this Wembley?" says chap. "No, Thursday," says deaf chap. Ha, ha, I mean, what?'
The merry laughter froze on my lips. Sir Rodericksort of just waggled an eyebrow in my direction and I saw that it was back to the basket for Bertram. I never met a man who had such a knack of making a fellow feel like a waste-product.
'Have you yet paid a visit to Wembley, Charles?' he asked. 'No? Precisely as I suspected. Well, that is the mission on which I am here this afternoon. Honoria wishes me to take you to Wembley. She says it will broaden your mind, in which view I am at one with her. We will start immediately after luncheon.'
Biffy cast an imploring look at me.
'You'll come too, Bertie?'
There was such agony in his eyes that I only hesitated for a second. A pal is a pal. Besides, I felt that, if only the bulb fulfilled the high expectations I had formed of it, the merry expedition would be cancelled in no uncertain manner.
'Oh, rather,' I said.
'We must not trespass on Mr Wooster's good nature,' said Sir Roderick, looking pretty puff-faced.
'Oh, that's all right,' I said. 'I've been meaning to go to the good old exhibish for a long time. I'll slip home and change my clothes and pick you up here in my car.'
There was a silence. Biffy seemed too relieved at the thought of not having to spend the afternoon alone with Sir Roderick to be capable of speech, and Sir Roderick was registering silent disapproval. And then he caught sight of the bouquet by Biffy's plate.
'Ah, flowers,' he said. 'Sweet peas, if I am not in error. A charming plant, pleasing alike to the eye and the nose.'
I caught Biffy's eye across the table. It was bulging, and a strange light shone in it.
'Are you fond of flowers, Sir Roderick?' he croaked.
'Extremely.'
'Smell these.'
Sir Roderick dipped his head and sniffed. Biffy'sfingers closed slowly over the bulb. I shut my eyes and clutched the table.
'Very pleasant,' I heard Sir Roderick say. 'Very pleasant indeed.'
I opened my eyes, and there was Biffy leaning back in his chair with a ghastly look, and the bouquet on the cloth beside him. I realized what had happened. In that supreme crisis of his life, with his whole happiness depending on a mere pressure of the fingers, Biffy, the poor spineless fish, had lost his nerve. My closely reasoned scheme had gone phut.
Jeeves was fooling about with the geraniums in the sitting-room window-box when I got home.
'They make a very nice display, sir,' he said, cocking a paternal eye at the things.
'Don't talk to me about flowers,' I said. 'Jeeves, I know now how a general feels when he plans out some great scientific movement and his troops let him down at the eleventh hour.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Yes,' I said, and told him what had happened.
He listened thoughtfully.
'A somewhat vacillating and changeable young gentleman, Mr Biffen,' was his comment when I had finished. 'Would you be requiring me for the remainder of the afternoon, sir?'
'No. I'm going to Wembley. I just came back to change and get the car. Produce some fairly durable garments which can stand getting squashed by the many-headed, Jeeves, and then phone to the garage.'
'Very good, sir. The grey cheviot lounge will, I fancy, be suitable. Would it be too much if I asked you to give me a seat in the car, sir? I had thought of going to Wembley myself this afternoon.'
'Eh? Oh, all right.'
'Thank you very much, sir.'
I got dressed, and we drove round to Biffy's flat. Biffyand Sir Roderick got in at the back and Jeeves climbed into the front seat next to me. Biffy looked so ill-attuned to an afternoon's pleasure that my heart bled for the blighter and I made one last attempt to appeal to Jeeves's better feelings.
'I must say, Jeeves,' I said, 'I'm dashed disappointed in you.'
'I am sorry to hear that, sir.'
'Well, I am. Dashed disappointed. I do think you might rally round. Did you see Mr Biffen's face?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, then.'
'If you will pardon my saying so, sir, Mr Biffen has surely only himself to thank if he has entered upon matrimonial obligations which do not please him.'
'You're talking absolute rot, Jeeves. You know as well as I do that Honoria Glossop is an Act of God. You might just as well blame a fellow for getting run over by a truck.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Absolutely yes. Besides, the poor ass wasn't in a condition to resist. He told me all about it. He had lost the only girl he had ever loved, and you know what a man's like when that happens to him.'
'How was that, sir?'
'Apparently he fell in love with some girl on the boat going over to New York, and they parted at the Customs sheds, arranging to meet next day at her hotel. Well, you know what Biffy's like. He forgets his own name half the time. He never made a note of the address, and it passed clean out of his mind. He went about in a sort of trance, and suddenly woke up to find that he was engaged to Honoria Glossop.'
'I did not know of this, sir.'
'I don't suppose anybody knows of it except me. He told me when I was in Paris.'
'I should have supposed it would have been feasible to make inquiries, sir.'
'That's what I said. But he had forgotten her name.'
'That sounds remarkable, sir.'
'I said that too. But it's a fact. All he remembered was that her Christian name was Mabel. Well, you can't go scouring New York for a girl named Mabel, what?'
'I appreciate the difficulty, sir.'
'Well, there it is, then.'
'I see, sir.'
We had got into a mob of vehicles outside the Exhibition by this time, and, some tricky driving being indicated, I had to suspend the conversation. We parked ourselves eventually and went in. Jeeves drifted away, and Sir Roderick took charge of the expedition. He headed for the Palace of Industry, with Biffy and myself trailing behind.
Well, you know, I have never been much of a lad for exhibitions. The citizenry in the mass always rather puts me off, and after I have been shuffling along with the multitude for a quarter of an hour or so I feel as if I were walking on hot bricks. About this particular binge, too, there seemed to me a lack of what you might call human interest. I mean to say, millions of people, no doubt, are so constituted that they scream with joy and excitement at the spectacle of a stuffed porcupine fish or a glass jar of seeds from Western Australia—but not Bertram. No; if you will take the word of one who would not deceive you, not Bertram. By the time we had tottered out of the Gold Coast village and were working towards the Palace of Machinery, everything pointed to my shortly executing a quiet sneak in the direction of that rather jolly Planters' Bar in the West Indian section. Sir Roderick had whizzed us past this at a high rate of speed, it touching no chord in him; but I had been able to observe that there was a sprightly sportsman behind the counter mixing things out of bottles and stirring them up with a stick in long glasses that seemed to haveice in them, and the urge came upon me to see more of this man. I was about to drop away from the main body and become a straggler, when something pawed at my coat sleeve. It was Biffy, and he had the air of one who has had about sufficient.
There are certain moments in life when words are not needed. I looked at Biffy, Biffy looked at me. A perfect understanding linked our two souls.
'?'
'!'
Three minutes later we had joined the Planters.
I have never been in the West Indies, but I am in a position to state that in certain of the fundamentals of life they are streets ahead of our European civilization. The man behind the counter, as kindly a bloke as I ever wish to meet, seemed to guess our requirements the moment we hove in view. Scarcely had our elbows touched the wood before he was leaping to and fro, bringing down a new bottle with each leap. A planter, apparently, does not consider he has had a drink unless it contains at least seven ingredients, and I'm not saying, mind you, that he isn't right. The man behind the bar told us the things were called Green Swizzles; and, if ever I marry and have a son, Green Swizzle Wooster is the name that will go down on the register, in memory of the day his father's life was saved at Wembley.
After the third, Biffy breathed a contented sigh.
'Where do you think Sir Roderick is?' he said.
'Biffy, old thing,' I replied frankly, 'I'm not worrying.'
'Bertie, old bird,' said Biffy, 'nor am I.'
He sighed again, and broke a long silence by asking the man for a straw.
'Bertie,' he said, 'I've just remembered something rather rummy. You know Jeeves?'
I said I knew Jeeves.
'Well, a rather rummy incident occurred as we were going into this place. Old Jeeves sidled up to me and saidsomething rather rummy. You'll never guess what it was.'
'No. I don't believe I ever shall.'
'Jeeves said,' proceeded Biffy earnestly, 'and I am quoting his very words—Jeeves said, "Mr Biffen"—addressing me, you understand—'
'I understand.'
'"Mr Biffen," he said, "I strongly advise you to visit the—"'
'The what?' I asked as he paused.
'Bertie, old man,' said Biffy, deeply concerned, 'I've absolutely forgotten!'
I stared at the man.
'What I can't understand,' I said, 'is how you manage to run that Herefordshire place of yours for a day. How on earth do you remember to milk the cows and give the pigs their dinner?'
'Oh, that's all right. There are divers blokes about the places—hirelings and menials, you know—who look after all that.'
'Ah!' I said. 'Well, that being so, let us have one more Green Swizzle, and then hey for the Amusement Park.'
When I indulged in those few rather bitter words about exhibitions, it must be distinctly understood that I was not alluding to what you might call the more earthy portion of these curious places. I yield to no man in my approval of those institutions where on payment of a shilling you are permitted to slide down a slippery runway sitting on a mat. I love the Jiggle-Joggle, and I am prepared to take on all and sundry at Skee Ball for money, stamps, or Brazil nuts.
But, joyous reveller as I am on these occasions, I was simply not in it with old Biffy. Whether it was the Green Swizzles or merely the relief of being parted from Sir Roderick, I don't know, but Biffy flung himself into the pastimes of the proletariat with a zest that was almostfrightening. I could hardly drag him away from the Whip, and as for the Switchback, he looked like spending the rest of his life on it. I managed to remove him at last, and he was wandering through the crowd at my side with gleaming eyes, hesitating between having his fortune told and taking a whirl at the Wheel of Joy, when he suddenly grabbed my arm and uttered a sharp animal cry.
'Bertie!'
'Now what?'
He was pointing at a large sign over a building.
'Look! Palace of Beauty!'
I tried to choke him off. I was getting a bit weary by this time. Not so young as I was.
'You don't want to go in there,' I said. 'A fellow at the club was telling me about that. It's only a lot of girls. You don't want to see a lot of girls.'
'I do want to see a lot of girls,' said Biffy firmly. 'Dozens of girls, and the more unlike Honoria they are, the better. Besides, I've suddenly remembered that that's the place Jeeves told me to be sure and visit. It all comes back to me. "Mr Biffen," he said, "I strongly advise you to visit the Palace of Beauty." Now, what the man was driving at or what his motive was, I don't know; but I ask you, Bertie, is it wise, is it safe, is it judicious ever to ignore Jeeves's lightest word? We enter by the door on the left.'
I don't know if you know this Palace of Beauty place? It's a sort of aquarium full of the delicately nurtured instead of fishes. You go in, and there is a kind of cage with a female goggling out at you through a sheet of plate glass. She's dressed in some weird kind of costume, and over the cage is written 'Helen of Troy'. You pass on to the next, and there's another one doing jiu-jitsu with a snake. Sub-title, Cleopatra. You get the idea—Famous Women Through the Ages and all that. I can't say it fascinated me to any great extent. I maintain that lovelywoman loses a lot of her charm if you have to stare at her in a tank. Moreover, it gave me a rummy sort of feeling of having wandered into the wrong bedroom at a country house, and I was flying past at a fair rate of speed, anxious to get it over, when Biffy suddenly went off his rocker.
At least, it looked like that. He let out a piercing yell, grabbed my arm with a sudden clutch that felt like the bite of a crocodile, and stood there gibbering.
'Wuk!' ejaculated Biffy, or words to that general import.
A large and interested crowd had gathered round. I think they thought the girls were going to be fed or something. But Biffy paid no attention to them. He was pointing in a loony manner at one of the cages. I forget which it was, but the female inside wore a ruff, so it may have been Queen Elizabeth or Boadicea or someone of that period. She was rather a nice-looking girl, and she was staring at Biffy in much the same pop-eyed way as he was staring at her.
'Mabel!' yelled Biffy, going off in my ear like a bomb.
I can't say I was feeling my chirpiest. Drama is all very well, but I hate getting mixed up in it in a public spot; and I had not realized before how dashed public this spot was. The crowd seemed to have doubled itself in the last five seconds, and, while most of them had their eye on Biffy, quite a goodish few were looking at me as if they thought I was an important principal in the scene and might be expected at any moment to give of my best in the way of wholesome entertainment for the masses.
Biffy was jumping about like a lamb in the springtime—and, what is more, a feeble-minded lamb.
'Bertie! It's her! It's she!' He looked about him wildly. 'Where the deuce is the stage-door?' he cried. 'Where's the manager? I want to see the house-manager immediately.'
And then he suddenly bounded forward and began hammering on the glass with his stick.
'I say, old lad!' I began, but he shook me off.
These fellows who live in the country are apt to go in for fairly sizable clubs instead of the light canes which your well-dressed man about town considers suitable for metropolitan use; and down in Herefordshire, apparently, something in the nature of a knobkerrie isde rigueur. Biffy's first slosh smashed the glass all to a hash. Three more cleared the way for him to go into the cage without cutting himself. And, before the crowd had time to realize what a wonderful bob's-worth it was getting in exchange for its entrance fee, he was inside, engaging the girl in earnest conversation. And at the same moment two large policemen rolled up.
You can't make policemen take the romantic view. Not a tear did these two blighters stop to brush away. They were inside the cage and out of it and marching Biffy through the crowd before you had time to blink. I hurried after them, to do what I could in the way of soothing Biffy's last moments, and the poor old lad turned a glowing face in my direction.
'Chiswick, 60873,' he bellowed in a voice charged with emotion. 'Write it down, Bertie, or I shall forget it. Chiswick, 60873. Her telephone number.'
And then he disappeared, accompanied by about eleven thousand sightseers, and a voice spoke at my elbow.
'Mr Wooster! What—what—what is the meaning of this?'
Sir Roderick, with bigger eyebrows than ever, was standing at my side.
'It's all right,' I said. 'Poor old Biffy's only gone off his crumpet.'
He tottered.
'What?'
'Had a sort of fit or seizure, you know.'
'Another!' Sir Roderick drew a deep breath. 'And this is the man I was about to allow my daughter to marry!' I heard him mutter.
I tapped him in a kindly spirit on the shoulder. It took some doing, mark you, but I did it.
'If I were you,' I said, 'I should call that off. Scratch the fixture. Wash it out absolutely, is my advice.'
He gave me a nasty look.
'I do not require your advice, Mr Wooster! I had already arrived independently at the decision of which you speak. Mr Wooster, you are a friend of this man—a fact which should in itself have been sufficient warning to me. You will—unlike myself—be seeing him again. Kindly inform him, when you do see him, that he may consider his engagement at an end.'
'Right-ho,' I said, and hurried off after the crowd. It seemed to me that a little bailing-out might be in order.
It was about an hour later that I shoved my way out to where I had parked the car. Jeeves was sitting in the front seat, brooding over the cosmos. He rose courteously as I approached.
'You are leaving, sir?'
'I am.'
'And Sir Roderick, sir?'
'Not coming. I am revealing no secrets, Jeeves, when I inform you that he and I have parted brass rags. Not on speaking terms now.'
'Indeed, sir? And Mr Biffen? Will you wait for him?'
'No. He's in prison.'
'Really, sir?'
'Yes. I tried to bail him out, but they decided on second thoughts to coop him up for the night.'
'What was his offence, sir?'
'You remember that girl of his I was telling you about? He found her in a tank at the Palace of Beauty and went after her by the quickest route, which was via a plate-glass window. He was then scooped up and borne off in irons by the constabulary.' I gazed sideways at him. It is difficult to bring off a penetrating glance out ofthe corner of your eye, but I managed it. 'Jeeves,' I said, 'there is more in this than the casual observer would suppose. You told Mr Biffen to go to the Palace of Beauty. Did you know the girl would be there?'
'Yes, sir.'
This was most remarkable and rummy to a degree.
'Dash it, do you know everything?'
'Oh, no, sir,' said Jeeves with an indulgent smile. Humouring the young master.
'Well, how did you know that?'
'I happen to be acquainted with the future Mrs Biffen, sir.'
'I see. Then you knew all about that business in New York?'
'Yes, sir. And it was for that reason that I was not altogether favourably disposed towards Mr Biffen when you were first kind enough to suggest that I might be able to offer some slight assistance. I mistakenly supposed that he had been trifling with the girl's affections, sir. But when you told me the true facts of the case I appreciated the injustice I had done to Mr Biffen and endeavoured to make amends.'
'Well, he certainly owes you a lot. He's crazy about her.'
'That is very gratifying, sir.'
'And she ought to be pretty grateful to you, too. Old Biffy's got fifteen thousand a year, not to mention more cows, pigs, hens, and ducks than he knows what to do with. A dashed useful bird to have in any family.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Tell me, Jeeves,' I said, 'how did you happen to know the girl in the first place?'
Jeeves looked dreamily out into the traffic.
'She is my niece, sir. If I might make the suggestion, sir, I should not jerk the steering wheel with quite such suddenness. We very nearly collided with that omnibus.'
The evidence was all in. The machinery of the law had worked without a hitch. And the beak, having adjusted a pair of pince-nez which looked as though they were going to do a nose dive any moment, coughed like a pained sheep and slipped us the bad news. 'The prisoner, Wooster,' he said—and who can paint the shame and agony of Bertram at hearing himself so described?—'will pay a fine of five pounds.'
'Oh, rather!' I said. 'Absolutely! Like a shot!'
I was dashed glad to get the thing settled at such a reasonable figure. I gazed across what they call the sea of faces till I picked up Jeeves, sitting at the back. Stout fellow, he had come to see the young master through his hour of trial.
'I say, Jeeves,' I sang out, 'have you got a fiver? I'm a bit short.'
'Silence!' bellowed some officious blighter.
'It's all right,' I said; 'just arranging the financial details. Got the stuff, Jeeves?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Good egg!'
'Are you a friend of the prisoner?' asked the beak.
'I am in Mr Wooster's employment, Your Worship, in the capacity of gentleman's personal gentleman.'
'Then pay the fine to the clerk.'
'Very good, Your Worship.'
The beak gave a coldish nod in my direction, as much as to say that they might now strike the fetters from my wrists; and having hitched up the pince-nez once more, proceeded to hand poor old Sippy one of thenastiest looks ever seen in Bosher Street Police Court.
'The case of the prisoner Leon Trotzky—which,' he said, giving Sippy the eye again, 'I am strongly inclined to think an assumed and fictitious name—is more serious. He has been convicted of a wanton and violent assault upon the police. The evidence of the officer has proved that the prisoner struck him in the abdomen, causing severe internal pain, and in other ways interfered with him in the execution of his duties. I am aware that on the night following the annual aquatic contest between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge a certain licence is traditionally granted by the authorities, but aggravated acts of ruffianly hooliganism like that of the prisoner Trotzky cannot be overlooked or palliated. He will serve a sentence of thirty days in the Second Division without the option of a fine.'
'No, I say—here—hi—dash it all!' protested poor old Sippy.
'Silence!' bellowed the officious blighter.
'Next case,' said the beak. And that was that.
The whole affair was most unfortunate. Memory is a trifle blurred; but as far as I can piece together the facts, what happened was more or less this:
Abstemious cove though I am as a general thing, there is one night in the year when, putting all other engagements aside, I am rather apt to let myself go a bit and renew my lost youth, as it were. The night to which I allude is the one following the annual aquatic contest between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; or, putting it another way, Boat-Race Night. Then, if ever, you will see Bertram under the influence. And on this occasion, I freely admit, I had been doing myself rather juicily, with the result that when I ran into old Sippy opposite the Empire I was in quite fairly bonhomous mood. This being so, it cut me to the quick to perceivethat Sippy, generally the brightest of revellers, was far from being his usual sunny self. He had the air of a man with a secret sorrow.
'Bertie,' he said as we strolled along towards Piccadilly Circus, 'the heart bowed down by weight of woe to weakest hope will cling.' Sippy is by way of being an author, though mainly dependent for the necessaries of life on subsidies from an old aunt who lives in the country, and his conversation often takes a literary turn. 'But the trouble is that I have no hope to cling to, weak or otherwise. I am up against it, Bertie.'
'In what way, laddie?'
'I've got to go tomorrow and spend three weeks with some absolutely dud—I will go further—some positively scaly friends of my Aunt Vera. She has fixed the thing up, and may a nephew's curse blister every bulb in her garden.'
'Who are these hounds of hell?' I asked.
'Some people named Pringle. I haven't seen them since I was ten, but I remember them at that time striking me as England's premier warts.'
'Tough luck. No wonder you've lost your morale.'
'The world,' said Sippy, 'is very grey. How can I shake off this awful depression?'
It was then that I got one of those bright ideas one does get round about 11.30 on Boat-Race Night.
'What you want, old man,' I said, 'is a policeman's helmet.'
'Do I, Bertie?'
'If I were you, I'd just step straight across the street and get that one over there.'
'But there's a policeman inside it. You can see him distinctly.'
'What does that matter?' I said. I simply couldn't follow his reasoning.
Sippy stood for a moment in thought.
'I believe you're absolutely right,' he said at last.'Funny I never thought of it before. You really recommend me to get that helmet?'
'I do, indeed.'
'Then I will,' said Sippy, brightening up in the most remarkable manner.
So there you have the posish, and you can see why, as I left the dock a free man, remorse gnawed at my vitals. In his twenty-fifth year, with life opening out before him and all that sort of thing, Oliver Randolph Sipperley had become a jail-bird, and it was all my fault. It was I who had dragged that fine spirit down into the mire, so to speak, and the question now arose, What could I do to atone?
Obviously the first move must be to get in touch with Sippy and see if he had any last messages and what-not. I pushed about a bit, making inquiries, and presently found myself in a little dark room with whitewashed walls and a wooden bench. Sippy was sitting on the bench with his head in his hands.
'How are you, old lad?' I asked in a hushed, bedside voice.
'I'm a ruined man,' said Sippy, looking like a poached egg.
'Oh, come,' I said, 'it's not so bad as all that. I mean to say, you had the swift intelligence to give a false name. There won't be anything about you in the papers.'
'I'm not worrying about the papers. What's bothering me is, how can I go and spend three weeks with the Pringles, starting today, when I've got to sit in a prison cell with a ball and chain on my ankle?'
'But you said you didn't want to go.'
'It isn't a question of wanting, fathead. I've got to go. If I don't my aunt will find out where I am. And if she finds out that I am doing thirty days, without the option, in the lowest dungeon beneath the castle moat—well, where shall I get off?'
I saw his point.
'This is not a thing we can settle for ourselves,' I said gravely. 'We must put our trust in a higher power. Jeeves is the man we must consult.'
And having collected a few of the necessary data, I shook his hand, patted him on the back and tooled off home to Jeeves.
'Jeeves,' I said, when I had climbed outside the pick-me-up which he had thoughtfully prepared against my coming, 'I've got something to tell you; something important; something that vitally affects one whom you have always regarded with—one whom you have always looked upon—one whom you have—well, to cut a long story short, as I'm not feeling quite myself—Mr Sipperley.'
'Yes, sir?'
'Jeeves, Mr Souperley is in the sip.'
'Sir?'
'I mean, Mr Sipperley is in the soup.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'And all owing to me. It was I who, in a moment of mistaken kindness, wishing only to cheer him up and give him something to occupy his mind, recommended him to pinch that policeman's helmet.'
'Is that so, sir?'
'Do you mind not intoning the responses, Jeeves?' I said. 'This is a most complicated story for a man with a headache to have to tell, and if you interrupt you'll make me lose the thread. As a favour to me, therefore, don't do it. Just nod every now and then to show that you're following me.'
I closed my eyes and marshalled the facts.
'To start with then, Jeeves, you may or may not know that Mr Sipperley is practically dependent on his Aunt Vera.'
'Would that be Miss Sipperley of the Paddock, Beckley-on-the-Moor, in Yorkshire, sir?'
'Yes. Don't tell me you know her!'
'Not personally, sir. But I have a cousin residing in the village who has some slight acquaintance with Miss Sipperley. He has described her to me as an imperious and quick-tempered old lady.... But I beg your pardon, sir, I should have nodded.'
'Quite right, you should have nodded. Yes, Jeeves, you should have nodded. But it's too late now.'
I nodded myself. I hadn't had my eight hours the night before, and what you might call a lethargy was showing a tendency to steal over me from time to time.
'Yes, sir?' said Jeeves.
'Oh—ah—yes,' I said, giving myself a bit of a hitch up. 'Where had I got to?'
'You were saying that Mr Sipperley is practically dependent upon Miss Sipperley, sir.'
'Was I?'
'You were, sir.'
'You're perfectly right; so I was. Well, then, you can readily understand, Jeeves, that he has got to take jolly good care to keep in with her. You get that?'
Jeeves nodded.
'Now mark this closely: The other day she wrote to old Sippy, telling him to come down and sing at her village concert. It was equivalent to a royal command, if you see what I mean, so Sippy couldn't refuse in so many words. But he had sung at her village concert once before and had got the bird in no uncertain manner, so he wasn't playing any return dates. You follow so far, Jeeves?'
Jeeves nodded.
'So what did he do, Jeeves? He did what seemed to him at the moment a rather brainy thing. He told her that, though he would have been delighted to sing at her village concert, by a most unfortunate chance an editor had commissioned him to write a series of articles on the colleges of Cambridge and he was obliged to popdown there at once and would be away for quite three weeks. All clear up to now?'
Jeeves inclined the coco-nut.
'Whereupon, Jeeves, Miss Sipperley wrote back, saying that she quite realized that work must come before pleasure—pleasure being her loose way of describing the act of singing songs at the Beckley-on-the-Moor concert and getting the laugh from the local toughs; but that, if he was going to Cambridge, he must certainly stay with her friends, the Pringles, at their house just outside the town. And she dropped them a line telling them to expect him on the twenty-eighth, and they dropped another line saying right-ho, and the thing was settled. And now Mr Sipperley is in the jug, and what will be the ultimate outcome or upshot? Jeeves, it is a problem worthy of your great intellect. I rely on you.'
'I will do my best to justify your confidence, sir.'
'Carry on, then. And meanwhile pull down the blinds and bring a couple more cushions and heave that small chair this way so that I can put my feet up, and then go away and brood and let me hear from you in—say, a couple of hours, or maybe three. And if anybody calls and wants to see me, inform them that I am dead.'
'Dead, sir?'
'Dead. You won't be so far wrong.'
It must have been well towards evening when I woke up with a crick in my neck but otherwise somewhat refreshed. I pressed the bell.
'I looked in twice, sir,' said Jeeves, 'but on each occasion you were asleep and I did not like to disturb you.'
'The right spirit, Jeeves.... Well?'
'I have been giving close thought to the little problem which you indicated, sir, and I can see only one solution.'
'One is enough. What do you suggest?'
'That you go to Cambridge in Mr Sipperley's place, sir.'
I stared at the man. Certainly I was feeling a good deal better than I had been a few hours before; but I was far from being in a fit condition to have rot like this talked to me.
'Jeeves,' I said sternly, 'pull yourself together. This is mere babble from the sickbed.'
'I fear I can suggest no other plan of action, sir, which will extricate Mr Sipperley from his dilemma.'
'But think! Reflect! Why, even I, in spite of having had a disturbed night and a most painful morning with the minions of the law, can see that the scheme is a loony one. To put the finger on only one leak in the thing, it isn't me these people want to see; it's Mr Sipperley. They don't know me from Adam.'
'So much the better, sir. For what I am suggesting is that you go to Cambridge, affecting actually to be Mr Sipperley.'
This was too much.
'Jeeves,' I said, and I'm not half sure there weren't tears in my eyes, 'surely you can see for yourself that this is pure banana oil. It is not like you to come into the presence of a sick man and gibber.'
'I think the plan I have suggested would be practicable, sir. While you were sleeping, I was able to have a few words with Mr Sipperley, and he informed me that Professor and Mrs Pringle have not set eyes upon him since he was a lad of ten.'
'No, that's true. He told me that. But even so, they would be sure to ask him questions about my aunt—or rather his aunt. Where would I be then?'
'Mr Sipperley was kind enough to give me a few facts respecting Miss Sipperley, sir, which I jotted down. With these, added to what my cousin has told me of the lady's habits, I think you would be in a position to answer any ordinary question.'
There is something dashed insidious about Jeeves. Time and again since we first came together he has stunned me with some apparently drivelling suggestion or scheme or ruse or plan of campaign, and after about five minutes has convinced me that it is not only sound but fruity. It took nearly a quarter of an hour to reason me into this particular one, it being considerably the weirdest to date; but he did it. I was holding out pretty firmly, when he suddenly clinched the thing.
'I would certainly suggest, sir,' he said, 'that you left London as soon as possible and remained hid for some little time in some retreat where you would not be likely to be found.'
'Eh? Why?'
'During the last hours Mrs Spenser has been on the telephone three times, sir, endeavouring to get into communication with you.'
'Aunt Agatha!' I cried, paling beneath my tan.
'Yes, sir. I gathered from her remarks that she had been reading in the evening paper a report of this morning's proceedings in the police court.'
I hopped from the chair like a jack rabbit of the prairie. If Aunt Agatha was out with her hatchet, a move was most certainly indicated.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'this is a time for deeds, not words. Pack—and that right speedily.'
'I have packed, sir.'
'Find out when there is a train for Cambridge.'
'There is one in forty minutes, sir.'
'Call a taxi.'
'A taxi is at the door, sir.'
'Good!' I said. 'Then lead me to it.'
The Maison Pringle was quite a bit of a way out of Cambridge, a mile or two down the Trumpington Road; and when I arrived everybody was dressing for dinner. Soit wasn't till I had shoved on the evening raiment and got down to the drawing-room that I met the gang.
'Hullo-ullo!' I said, taking a deep breath and floating in.
I tried to speak in a clear and ringing voice, but I wasn't feeling my chirpiest. It is always a nervous job for a diffident and unassuming bloke to visit a strange house for the first time; and it doesn't make the thing any better when he goes there pretending to be another fellow. I was conscious of a rather pronounced sinking feeling, which the appearance of the Pringles did nothing to allay.
Sippy had described them as England's premier warts, and it looked to me as if he might be about right. Professor Pringle was a thinnish, baldish, dyspeptic-lookingish cove with an eye like a haddock, while Mrs Pringle's aspect was that of one who had had bad news round about the year 1900 and never really got over it. And I was just staggering under the impact of these two when I was introduced to a couple of ancient females with shawls all over them.
'No doubt you remember my mother?' said Professor Pringle mournfully, indicating Exhibit A.
'Oh-ah!' I said, achieving a bit of a beam.
'And my aunt,' sighed the prof, as if things were getting worse and worse.
'Well, well, well!' I said, shooting another beam in the direction of Exhibit B.
'They were saying only this morning that they remembered you,' groaned the prof, abandoning all hope.
There was a pause. The whole strength of the company gazed at me like a family group out of one of Edgar Allan Poe's less cheery yarns, and I felt myjoie de vivredying at the roots.
'I remember Oliver,' said Exhibit A. She heaved a sigh. 'He was such a pretty child. What a pity! What a pity!'
Tactful, of course, and calculated to put the guest completely at his ease.
'I remember Oliver,' said Exhibit B, looking at me in much the same way as the Bosher Street beak had looked at Sippy before putting on the black cap. 'Nasty little boy! He teased my cat.'
'Aunt Jane's memory is wonderful, considering that she will be eighty-seven next birthday,' whispered Mrs Pringle with mournful pride.
'What did you say?' asked the Exhibit suspiciously.
'I said your memory was wonderful.'
'Ah!' The dear old creature gave me another glare. I could see that no beautiful friendship was to be looked for by Bertram in this quarter. 'He chased my Tibby all over the garden, shooting arrows at her from a bow.'
At this moment a cat strolled out from under the sofa and made for me with its tail up. Cats always do take to me, which made it all the sadder that I should be saddled with Sippy's criminal record. I stooped to tickle it under the ear, such being my invariable policy, and the Exhibit uttered a piercing cry.
'Stop him! Stop him!'
She leaped forward, moving uncommonly well for one of her years, and having scooped up the cat, stood eyeing me with bitter defiance, as if daring me to start anything. Most unpleasant.
'I like cats,' I said feebly.
It didn't go. The sympathy of the audience was not with me. And conversation was at what you might call a low ebb, when the door opened and a girl came in.
'My daughter Heloise,' said the prof moodily, as if he hated to admit it.
I turned to mitt the female, and stood there with my hand out, gaping. I can't remember when I've had such a nasty shock.
I suppose everybody has had the experience ofsuddenly meeting somebody who reminded them frightfully of some fearful person. I mean to say, by way of an example, once when I was golfing in Scotland I saw a woman come into the hotel who was the living image of my Aunt Agatha. Probably a very decent sort, if I had only waited to see, but I didn't wait. I legged it that evening, utterly unable to stand the spectacle. And on another occasion I was driven out of a thoroughly festive night club because the head waiter reminded me of my Uncle Percy.
Well, Heloise Pringle, in the most ghastly way, resembled Honoria Glossop.
I think I may have told you before about this Glossop scourge. She was the daughter of Sir Roderick Glossop, the loony-doctor, and I had been engaged to her for about three weeks, much against my wishes, when the old boy most fortunately got the idea that I was off my rocker and put the bee on the proceedings. Since then the mere thought of her had been enough to make me start out of my sleep with a loud cry. And this girl was exactly like her.
'Er—how are you?' I said.
'How do you do?'
Her voice put the lid on it. It might have been Honoria herself talking. Honoria Glossop has a voice like a lion tamer making some authoritative announcement to one of the troupe, and so had this girl. I backed away convulsively and sprang into the air as my foot stubbed itself against something squashy. A sharp yowl rent the air, followed by an indignant cry, and I turned to see Aunt Jane, on all fours, trying to put things right with the cat, which had gone to earth under the sofa. She gave me a look, and I could see that her worst fears had been realized.
At this juncture dinner was announced—not before I was ready for it.
'Jeeves,' I said, when I got him alone that night, 'I am no faint heart, but I am inclined to think that this binge is going to prove a shade above the odds.'
'You are not enjoying your visit, sir?'
'I am not, Jeeves. Have you seen Miss Pringle?'
'Yes, sir, from a distance.'
'The best way to see her. Did you observe her keenly?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Did she remind you of anybody?'
'She appeared to me to bear a remarkable likeness to her cousin, Miss Glossop, sir.'
'Her cousin! You don't mean to say she's Honoria Glossop's cousin!'
'Yes, sir. Mrs Pringle was a Miss Blatherwick—the younger of two sisters, the elder of whom married Sir Roderick Glossop.'
'Great Scott! That accounts for the resemblance.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And what a resemblance, Jeeves! She even talks like Miss Glossop.'
'Indeed, sir? I have not yet heard Miss Pringle speak.'
'You have missed little. And what it amounts to, Jeeves, is that, though nothing will induce me to let old Sippy down, I can see that this visit is going to try me high. At a pinch, I could stand the prof and wife. I could even make the effort of a lifetime and bear up against Aunt Jane. But to expect a man to mix daily with the girl Heloise—and to do it, what is more, on lemonade, which is all there was to drink at dinner—is to ask too much of him. What shall I do, Jeeves?'
'I think that you should avoid Miss Pringle's society as much as possible.'
'The same great thought had occurred to me,' I said.
It is all very well, though, to talk airily about avoiding a female's society; but when you are living in the same house with her, and she doesn't want to avoid you, it takes a bit of doing. It is a peculiar thing in lifethat the people you most particularly want to edge away from always seem to cluster round like a poultice. I hadn't been twenty-four hours in the place before I perceived that I was going to see a lot of this pestilence.
She was one of those girls you're always meeting on the stairs and in passages. I couldn't go into a room without seeing her drift in a minute later. And if I walked in the garden she was sure to leap out at me from a laurel bush or the onion bed or something. By about the tenth day I had begun to feel absolutely haunted.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'I have begun to feel absolutely haunted.'
'Sir?'
'This woman dogs me. I never seem to get a moment to myself. Old Sippy was supposed to come here to make a study of the Cambridge colleges, and she took me round about fifty-seven this morning. This afternoon I went to sit in the garden, and she popped up through a trap and was in my midst. This evening she cornered me in the morning-room. It's getting so that, when I have a bath, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find her nestling in the soap dish.'