"Jeeves," I said.
"Sir?"
"I see all. Do you see all?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then flock round."
"I fear, sir...."
Bingo gave a low moan.
"Don't tell me, Jeeves," he said brokenly, "that nothing suggests
itself."
"Nothing at the moment, I regret to say, sir."
Bingo uttered a stricken _woofle_ like a bulldog that has been refused
cake.
"Well, then, the only thing I can do, I suppose," he said sombrely, "is
not to let the pie-faced little thug out of my sight for a second."
"Absolutely," I said. "Ceaseless vigilance, eh, Jeeves?"
"Precisely, sir."
"But meanwhile, Jeeves," said Bingo in a low, earnest voice, "you will
be devoting your best thought to the matter, won't you?"
"Most certainly, sir."
"Thank you, Jeeves."
"Not at all, sir."
* * * * *
I will say for young Bingo that, once the need for action arrived, he
behaved with an energy and determination which compelled respect. I
suppose there was not a minute during the next two days when the kid
Thos. was able to say to himself, "Alone at last!" But on the evening
of the second day Aunt Agatha announced that some people were coming
over on the morrow for a spot of tennis, and I feared that the worst
must now befall.
Young Bingo, you see, is one of those fellows who, once their fingers
close over the handle of a tennis racquet, fall into a sort of trance
in which nothing outside the radius of the lawn exists for them. If you
came up to Bingo in the middle of a set and told him that panthers were
devouring his best friend in the kitchen garden, he would look at you
and say, "Oh, ah?" or words to that effect. I knew that he would not
give a thought to young Thos. and the Right Hon. till the last ball had
bounced, and, as I dressed for dinner that night, I was conscious of an
impending doom.
"Jeeves," I said, "have you ever pondered on Life?"
"From time to time, sir, in my leisure moments."
"Grim, isn't it, what?"
"Grim, sir?"
"I mean to say, the difference between things as they look and things
as they are."
"The trousers perhaps a half inch higher, sir. A very slight adjustment
on the braces will effect the necessary alteration. You were saying,
sir?"
"I mean, here at Woollam Chersey we have apparently a happy, carefree
country-house party. But beneath the glittering surface, Jeeves, dark
currents are running. One gazes at the Right Hon. wrapping himself
round the salmon mayonnaise at lunch, and he seems a man without a
care in the world. Yet all the while a dreadful fate is hanging over
him, creeping nearer and nearer. What exact steps do you think the kid
Thomas intends to take?"
"In the course of an informal conversation which I had with the young
gentleman this afternoon, sir, he informed me that he had been reading
a romance entitled _Treasure Island_ and had been much struck by the
character and actions of a certain Captain Flint. I gathered that he
was weighing the advisability of modelling his own conduct on that of
the captain."
"But, good heavens, Jeeves! If I remember _Treasure Island_, Flint was
the bird who went about hitting people with a cutlass. You don't think
young Thomas would bean Mr. Filmer with a cutlass?"
"Possibly he does not possess a cutlass, sir."
"Well, with anything."
"We can but wait and see, sir. The tie, if I might suggest it, sir, a
shade more tightly knotted. One aims at the perfect butterfly effect.
If you will permit me...."
"What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this? Do you realize that
Mr. Little's domestic happiness is hanging in the scale?"
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter."
I could see the man was pained, but I did not try to heal the wound.
What's the word I want? Preoccupied. I was too preoccupied, don't you
know. And distrait. Not to say careworn.
* * * * *
I was still careworn when, next day at half-past two, the revels
commenced on the tennis lawn. It was one of those close, baking days
with thunder rumbling just round the corner; and it seemed to me that
there was a brooding menace in the air.
"Bingo," I said, as we pushed forth to do our bit in the first doubles,
"I wonder what young Thos. will be up to this afternoon, with the eye
of authority no longer on him?"
"Eh?" said Bingo absently. Already the tennis look had come into his
face, and his eye was glazed. He swung his racquet and snorted a little.
"I don't see him anywhere," I said.
"You don't what?"
"See him."
"Who?"
"Young Thos."
"What about him?"