"There will be no need for alternative schemes, Jeeves. We will carry
on along the lines I have indicated. I shall give you ten minutes'
start. That will enable you to take up your position near the front
door and self to collect the string. At the conclusion of that period I
shall come along and do all the difficult part. So no more discussion.
Snap into it, Jeeves."
"Very good, sir."
* * * * *
I felt pretty bucked as I tooled up the hill to St. Ethelburga's and
equally bucked as I pushed open the front gate and stepped into the
dark garden. But just as I started to cross the lawn there came upon me
a rummy sensation, as if all my bones had been removed and spaghetti
substituted, and I paused.
I don't know if you have ever had the experience of starting off on a
binge filled with a sort of glow of exhilaration, if that's the word
I want, and then, without a moment's warning, having it disappear as
if somebody had pressed a switch. That is what happened to me at this
juncture, and a most unpleasant feeling it was.
The truth came to me like a bit of ice down the neck. I remember
reading somewhere that it is a defect of generous and high-spirited
natures that they are apt to allow themselves to be carried away by
what you might call the exuberance of the moment. I can't recollect
the exact words, but that was the nub of the thing, and I could see now
what the fellow who wrote it meant. What he was driving at was that
blokes like myself tend, when stirred, to spread themselves a trifle
excessively, with the result that before they know where they are they
find themselves committed, if you follow me, to a course of action
which, when contemplated in cold blood, doesn't look any too juicy.
This was what had happened to me. I perceived that I had been a dashed
sight too impulsive. Purely in order to score off Jeeves, I had gone
and let myself in for what promised to be the mouldiest ordeal of a
lifetime.
You see, it wasn't as if I really liked doing this sort of thing.
The world may be divided broadly into two classes: fellows who enjoy
prowling through other people's gardens in the dark in order to climb
trees and tie string to flower pots, and fellows who do not.
The nearer I got to the house, the more clearly was it revealed to me
that I belonged to the second class, and I'm bound to say I wished more
and more that I had been a bit less haughty with Jeeves when he had
tried to outline that alternative scheme of his. An alternative scheme
was just what I felt I could have done with.
At this point I found myself at the conservatory door, and a few
moments later I was inside, scooping up the pots.
Then ho! for the tree, bearing 'mid snow and ice the banner with the
strange device "Excelsior!"
I will say for that tree that it might have been placed there for
the purpose. My views on the broad, general principle of leaping from
branch to branch in a garden belonging to Aunt Agatha's closest friend
remained unaltered; but I had to admit that, if it was to be done, this
was undoubtedly the tree to do it on. It was a cedar of sorts, and
almost before I knew where I was, I was sitting on top of the world
with the conservatory roof gleaming below me. I balanced the flower pot
on my knee and began to tie the string round it.
And, as I tied, my thoughts turned in a moody way to the subject of
Woman.
I was suffering from a considerable strain of the old nerves at the
moment, of course, and, looking back, it may be that I was too harsh:
but the way I felt in that dark roosting hour was that you can say what
you like, but the more a thoughtful man has to do with women, the more
extraordinary it seems to him that such a sex should be allowed to
clutter up the earth.
Women, the way I looked at it, simply wouldn't do. Take the females who
were mixed up in this present business. Aunt Agatha, to start with,
better known as the Pest of Point Street, the human snapping turtle.
Aunt Agatha's closest friend, Miss Mapleton, of whom I can only say
that on the single occasion on which I had met her she had struck me
as just the sort of person who would be Aunt Agatha's closest friend.
Bobbie Wickham, a girl who went about the place letting the pure in
heart in for the sort of thing I was doing now. And Bobbie Wickham's
cousin Clementina, who, instead of sticking sedulously to her studies,
spent the springtime of her life filling inkpots with sherbet....
What a crew! What a crew!