"No, sir. Love."
"Love?"
"Yes, sir. The young gentleman confided in me during a brief
conversation in the hall shortly after luncheon. We had been speaking
for a while on neutral subjects, when he suddenly turned a deeper
shade of pink and after some slight hesitation inquired of me if I
did not think Miss Greta Garbo the most beautiful woman at present in
existence."
I clutched the brow. "Jeeves! Don't tell me Thos. is in love with Greta
Garbo?"
"Yes, sir. Unfortunately such is the case. He gave me to understand
that it had been coming on for some time, and her last picture settled
the issue. His voice shook with an emotion which it was impossible to
misread. I gathered from his observations, sir, that he proposes to
spend the rest of his life trying to make himself worthy of her."
It was a knock-out. This was the end.
"This is the end, Jeeves," I said. "Bonzo must be a good forty marks
behind by now. Only some sensational outrage upon the public weal on
the part of young Thos. could have enabled him to wipe out the lead.
And of that there is now, apparently, no chance."
"The eventuality does appear remote, sir."
I brooded. "Uncle Thomas will have a fit when he comes back and finds
Anatole gone."
"Yes, sir."
"Aunt Dahlia will drain the bitter cup to the dregs."
"Yes, sir."
"And speaking from a purely selfish point of view, the finest
cooking I have ever bitten will pass out of my life forever, unless
the Snettishams invite me in some night to take potluck. And that
eventuality is also remote."
"Yes, sir."
"Then the only thing I can do is square the shoulders and face the
inevitable."
"Yes, sir."
"Like some aristocrat of the French Revolution popping into the
tumbrel, what? The brave smile. The stiff upper lip."
"Yes, sir."
"Right ho, then. Is the shirt studded?"
"Yes, sir."
"The tie chosen?"
"Yes, sir."
"The collar and evening underwear all in order?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then I'll have a bath and be with you in two ticks."
* * * * *
It is all very well to talk about the brave smile and the stiff upper
lip, but my experience--and I dare say others have found the same--is
that they are a dashed sight easier to talk about than actually to fix
on the face. For the next few days, I'm bound to admit, I found myself,
in spite of every effort, registering gloom pretty consistently.
For, as if to make things tougher, Anatole at this juncture suddenly
developed a cooking streak which put all his previous efforts in the
shade.
Night after night we sat at the dinner table, the food melting in our
mouths, and Aunt Dahlia would look at me and I would look at Aunt
Dahlia, and the male Snettisham would ask the female Snettisham in a
ghastly, gloating sort of way if she had ever tasted such cooking and
the female Snettisham would smirk at the male Snettisham and say she
never had in all her puff, and I would look at Aunt Dahlia and Aunt
Dahlia would look at me and our eyes would be full of unshed tears, if
you know what I mean.
And all the time old Mr. Anstruther's visit was drawing to a close.
And then, on the very last afternoon of his stay, the thing happened.
It was one of those warm, drowsy, peaceful afternoons. I was up in my
bedroom getting off a spot of correspondence, and from where I sat I
looked down on the shady lawn fringed with its gay flower beds. There
was a bird or two hopping about, a butterfly or so fluttering to and
fro, and an assortment of bees buzzing hither and thither. In a garden
chair sat old Mr. Anstruther, getting his eight hours.
It was a sight which, had I had less on my mind, would no doubt have
soothed the old soul a bit. The only blot on the landscape was Lady
Snettisham, walking about and probably sketching out future menus,
curse her.
And so for a time everything carried on. The birds hopped, the
butterflies fluttered, the bees buzzed, and old Mr. Anstruther
snored--all in accordance with the programme. And I worked through a
letter to my tailor to the point where I proposed to say something
pretty strong about the way the right sleeve of my last coat bagged.
There was a tap on the door, and Jeeves entered, bringing the second
post. I laid the letters listlessly beside me.
"Well, Jeeves," I said sombrely.
"Sir?"
"Mr. Anstruther leaves to-morrow."
"Yes, sir."
I gazed down at the sleeping septuagenarian. "In my young days,
Jeeves," I said, "however much I might have been in love, I could never
have resisted the spectacle of an old gentleman asleep like that. I
would have done _something_ to him, no matter what the cost."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Yes. Probably with a pea shooter. But the modern boy is degenerate.
He has lost his vim. I suppose Thos. is indoors, showing Sebastian his
stamp album or something. Ha!" I said, and I said it rather nastily.
"I fancy Master Thomas and Master Sebastian are playing in the stable
yard, sir. I encountered Master Sebastian not long back and he
informed me he was on his way thither."
"The motion pictures, Jeeves," I said, "are the curse of the age. But
for them, if Thos. had found himself alone in a stable yard with a kid
like Sebastian----"
I broke off. From some point to the southwest, out of my line of
vision, there had proceeded a piercing squeal.
It cut through the air like a knife, and old Mr. Anstruther started
as if it had run into the fleshy part of his leg. And the next moment
Sebastian appeared, going well and followed by Thos., who was going
even better.
In spite of the fact that he was hampered in his movements by a large
stable bucket which he bore in his right hand, Thos. was running a
great race. He had almost come up with Sebastian, when the latter, with
great presence of mind, dodged behind Mr. Anstruther, and there for a
moment the matter rested.
But only for a moment. Thos., for some reason plainly stirred to
the depths of his being, moved adroitly to one side, and, poising
the bucket for an instant, discharged its contents. And Mr.
Anstruther received, as far as I could gather from a distance, the
entire consignment. In one second he had become the wettest man in
Worcestershire.
"Jeeves!" I cried.
"Yes, indeed, sir," said Jeeves, and seemed to me to put the whole
thing in a nutshell.
Down below, things were hotting up nicely. Old Mr. Anstruther may have
been frail, but he undoubtedly had his moments. I have rarely seen
a man of his years conduct himself with such a lissom abandon. There
was a stick lying beside the chair, and with this in hand he went into
action like a two-year-old. A moment later, he and Thos. had passed
out of the picture round the house, Thos. cutting out a rare pace but,
judging from the sounds of anguish, not good enough to distance the
field.
The tumult and the shouting died; and after gazing for a while with
considerable satisfaction at the Snettisham, who was standing there
with a sandbagged look watching her nominee pass right out of the
betting, I turned to Jeeves. I felt quietly triumphant. It is not often
that I score off him, but now I had scored in no uncertain manner.
"You see, Jeeves," I said, "I was right and you were wrong. Blood will
tell. Once a Thos., always a Thos. Can the leopard change his spots or
the Ethiopian his what not? What was that thing they used to teach us
at school about expelling Nature?"
"You may expel Nature with a pitchfork, sir, but she will always
return? In the original Latin----"
"Never mind about the original Latin. The point is that I told you
Thos. could not resist those curls, and he couldn't. You would have it
that he could."
"I do not fancy it was the curls that caused the upheaval, sir. I think
Master Sebastian had been speaking disparagingly of Miss Garbo."
"Eh? Why should he do that?"
"I suggested that he should do so, sir, not long ago when I encountered
him on his way to the stable yard. It was a move which he was very
willing to make, as he informed me that in his opinion Miss Garbo was
definitely inferior both in beauty and talent to Miss Clara Bow."