"Yes, but why have I got to make an impression on this--on Mr. Filmer?"
"Because," said the old relative, giving me the eye, "I particularly
wish it."
Not, perhaps, a notably snappy comeback as comebacks go; but it was
enough to show me that that was more or less that, and I beetled out
with an aching heart.
I headed for the garden, and I'm dashed if the first person I saw
wasn't young Bingo Little.
Bingo Little and I have been pals practically from birth. Born in the
same village within a couple of days of one another, we went through
kindergarten, Eton, and Oxford together; and, grown to riper years, we
have enjoyed in the old metrop. full many a first-class binge in each
other's society. If there was one fellow in the world, I felt, who
could alleviate the horrors of this blighted visit of mine, that bloke
was young Bingo Little.
But how he came to be there was more than I could understand. Some
time before, you see, he had married the celebrated authoress Rosie
M. Banks, and the last I had seen of him he had been on the point of
accompanying her to America on a lecture tour. I distinctly remembered
him cursing rather freely because the trip would mean his missing Ascot.
Still, rummy as it might seem, here he was. And, aching for the sight
of a friendly face, I gave tongue like a bloodhound.
"Bingo!"
He spun round; and, by Jove, his face wasn't friendly, after all. It
was what they call contorted. He waved his arms at me like a semaphore.
"_Sh!_" he hissed. "Would you ruin me?"
"Eh?"
"Didn't you get my telegram?"
"Was that your telegram?"
"Of course it was my telegram."
"Then why didn't you sign it?"
"I did sign it."
"No you didn't. I couldn't make out what it was all about."
"Well, you got my letter."
"What letter?"
"My letter."
"I didn't get any letter."
"Then I must have forgotten to post it. It was to tell you that I was
down here, tutoring your cousin Thomas, and that it was essential that,
when we met, you should treat me as a perfect stranger."
"But why?"
"Because, if your aunt supposed that I was a pal of yours she would
naturally sack me on the spot."
"Why?"
Bingo raised his eyebrows.
"Why? Be reasonable, Bertie. If you were your aunt, and you knew the
sort of chap you were, would you let a fellow you knew to be your best
pal tutor your son?"
This made the old lemon swim a bit, but I got his meaning after awhile
and I had to admit that there was much rugged good sense in what he
said. Still, he hadn't explained what you might call the nub or gist of
the mystery.
"I thought you were in America," I said.
"Well, I'm not."
"Why not?"
"Never mind why not. I'm not."
"But why have you taken a tutoring job?"
"Never mind why. I have my reasons. And I want you to get it into your
head, Bertie--get it right through the concrete--that you and I must
not be seen hobnobbing. Your blighted cousin was caught smoking in
the shrubbery the day before yesterday, and that has made my position
pretty tottery because your aunt said that, if I had exercised an
adequate surveillance over him, it couldn't have happened. If, after
that, she finds out I'm a friend of yours, nothing can save me from
being shot out on my ear. And it is vital that I am not shot out."
"Why?"
"Never mind why."
At this point he seemed to think he heard somebody coming, for he
suddenly leaped with incredible agility into a laurel bush. And I
toddled along to consult Jeeves about these rummy happenings.
"Jeeves," I said, repairing to the bedroom where he was unpacking my
things, "you remember that telegram?"
"Yes, sir."
"It was from Mr. Little. He's here, tutoring my young cousin Thomas."
"Indeed, sir?"
"I can't understand it. He appears to be a free agent, if you know what
I mean; and yet would any man who was a free agent wantonly come to a
house which contained my aunt Agatha?"
"It seems peculiar, sir."
"Moreover, would anybody of his own free will and as a mere pleasure
seeker tutor my cousin Thomas, who is notoriously a tough egg and a
fiend in human shape?"
"Most improbable, sir."
"These are deep waters, Jeeves."
"Precisely, sir."
"And the ghastly part of it all is that he seems to consider it
necessary, in order to keep his job, to treat me like a long-lost
leper. Thus killing my only chance of having anything approaching a
decent time in this abode of desolation. For do you realize, Jeeves,
that my aunt says I mustn't smoke while I'm here?"
"Indeed, sir?"
"Nor drink."
"Why is this, sir?"
"Because she wants me--for some dark and furtive reason which she will
not explain--to impress a fellow named Filmer."
"Too bad, sir. However, many doctors, I understand, advocate such
abstinence as the secret of health. They say it promotes a freer
circulation of the blood and insures the arteries against premature
hardening."
"Oh, do they? Well, you can tell them next time you see them that they
are silly asses."
"Very good, sir."
* * * * *
And so began what, looking back along a fairly eventful career, I think
I can confidently say was the scaliest visit I have ever experienced in
the course of my life. What with the agony of missing the life-giving
cocktail before dinner; the painful necessity of being obliged, every
time I wanted a quiet cigarette, to lie on the floor in my bedroom and
puff the smoke up the chimney; the constant discomfort of meeting Aunt
Agatha round unexpected corners; and the fearful strain on the morale
of having to chum with the Right Hon. A. B. Filmer--it was not long
before Bertram was up against it to an extent hitherto undreamed of.
I played golf with the Right Hon. every day, and it was only by biting
the Wooster lip and clenching the fists till the knuckles stood out
white under the strain that I managed to pull through. The Right Hon.
punctuated some of the ghastliest golf I have ever seen with a flow
of conversation which, as far as I was concerned, went completely
over the top; and, all in all, I was beginning to feel pretty sorry
for myself when, one night as I was in my room listlessly donning the
soup-and-fish in preparation for the evening meal, in trickled young
Bingo and took my mind off my own troubles.
For when it is a question of a pal being in the soup we Woosters no
longer think of self; and that poor old Bingo was knee-deep in the
bisque was made plain by his mere appearance, which was that of a cat
which has just been struck by a half brick and is expecting another
shortly.
"Bertie," said Bingo, having sat down on the bed and diffused silent
gloom for a moment, "how is Jeeves's brain these days?"
"Fairly strong on the wing, I fancy. How is the gray matter, Jeeves?
Surging about pretty freely?"
"Yes, sir."
"Thank heaven for that!" said young Bingo, "for I require your soundest
counsel. Unless right-thinking people take strong steps through the
proper channels, my name will be mud."
"What's wrong, old thing?" I asked sympathetically.
Bingo plucked at the coverlet.
"I will tell you," he said. "I will also now reveal why I am staying in
this pesthouse, tutoring a kid who requires not education in the Greek
and Latin languages but a swift slosh on the base of the skull with a
black-jack. I came here, Bertie, because it was the only thing I could
do. At the last moment before she sailed to America, Rosie decided
that I had better stay behind and look after the Peke. She left me a
couple of hundred quid to see me through till her return. This sum,
judiciously expended over the period of her absence, would have been
enough to keep the Peke and myself in moderate affluence. But you know
how it is."
"How what is?"
"When someone comes slinking up to you in the club and tells you that
some cripple of a horse can't help winning even if it develops lumbago
and the botts ten yards from the starting post. I tell you, I regarded
the thing as a cautious and conservative investment."
"You mean you planked the entire capital on a horse?"
Bingo laughed bitterly.
"If you could call the thing a horse. If it hadn't shown a flash of
speed in the straight it would have got mixed up with the next race.
It came in last, putting me in a dashed delicate position. Somehow or
other I had to find the funds to keep me going, so that I could win
through till Rosie's return without her knowing what had occurred.
Rosie is the dearest girl in the world; but if you were a married man,
Bertie, you would be aware that the best of wives is apt to cut up
rough if she finds that her husband has dropped six weeks' housekeeping
money on a single race. Isn't that so, Jeeves?"
"Yes, sir. Women are odd in that respect."
"It was a moment for swift thinking. There was enough left from the
wreck to board the Peke out at a comfortable home. I signed him up
for six weeks at the Kosy Komfort Kennels at Kingsbridge, Kent, and
tottered out, a broken man, to get a tutoring job. I landed the kid
Thomas. And here I am."
It was a sad story, of course, but it seemed to me that, awful as it
might be to be in constant association with my aunt Agatha and young
Thos., he had got rather well out of a tight place.
"All you have to do," I said, "is to carry on here for a few weeks
more, and everything will be oojah-cum-spiff."
Bingo barked bleakly.
"A few weeks more! I shall be lucky if I stay two days. You remember I
told you that your aunt's faith in me as a guardian of her blighted son
was shaken a few days ago by the fact that he was caught smoking. I now
find that the person who caught him smoking was the man Filmer. And ten
minutes ago young Thomas told me that he was proposing to inflict some
hideous revenge on Filmer for having reported him to your aunt. I don't
know what he is going to do, but if he does it, out I inevitably go on
my left ear. Your aunt thinks the world of Filmer, and would sack me on
the spot. And three weeks before Rosie gets back!"