THE GREAT SERMON HANDICAP
After Goodwood’s over, I generally find that I get a bit restless.
I’m not much of a lad for the birds and the trees and the great open
spaces as a rule, but there’s no doubt that London’s not at its best
in August, and rather tends to give me the pip and make me think of
popping down into the country till things have bucked up a trifle.
London, about a couple of weeks after that spectacular finish of young
Bingo’s which I’ve just been telling you about, was empty and smelled
of burning asphalt. All my pals were away, most of the theatres were
shut, and they were taking up Piccadilly in large spadefuls.
It was most infernally hot. As I sat in the old flat one night trying
to muster up energy enough to go to bed, I felt I couldn’t stand it
much longer: and when Jeeves came in with the tissue-restorers on a
tray I put the thing to him squarely.
“Jeeves,” I said, wiping the brow and gasping like a stranded goldfish,
“it’s beastly hot.”
“The weather _is_ oppressive, sir.”
“Not all the soda, Jeeves.”
“No, sir.”
“I think we’ve had about enough of the metrop. for the time being, and
require a change. Shift-ho, I think, Jeeves, what?”
“Just as you say, sir. There is a letter on the tray, sir.”
“By Jove, Jeeves, that was practically poetry. Rhymed, did you notice?”
I opened the letter. “I say, this is rather extraordinary.”
“Sir?”
“You know Twing Hall?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Mr. Little is there.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Absolutely in the flesh. He’s had to take another of those tutoring
jobs.”
After that fearful mix-up at Goodwood, when young Bingo Little, a
broken man, had touched me for a tenner and whizzed silently off into
the unknown, I had been all over the place, asking mutual friends if
they had heard anything of him, but nobody had. And all the time he had
been at Twing Hall. Rummy. And I’ll tell you why it was rummy. Twing
Hall belongs to old Lord Wickhammersley, a great pal of my guv’nor’s
when he was alive, and I have a standing invitation to pop down there
when I like. I generally put in a week or two some time in the summer,
and I was thinking of going there before I read the letter.
“And, what’s more, Jeeves, my cousin Claude, and my cousin Eustace--you
remember them?”
“Very vividly, sir.”
“Well, they’re down there, too, reading for some exam, or other with
the vicar. I used to read with him myself at one time. He’s known far
and wide as a pretty hot coach for those of fairly feeble intellect.
Well, when I tell you he got _me_ through Smalls, you’ll gather that
he’s a bit of a hummer. I call this most extraordinary.”
I read the letter again. It was from Eustace. Claude and Eustace are
twins, and more or less generally admitted to be the curse of the
human race.
_The Vicarage,
Twing, Glos._
_Dear Bertie--Do you want to make a bit of money? I hear you had a
bad Goodwood, so you probably do. Well, come down here quick and
get in on the biggest sporting event of the season. I’ll explain
when I see you, but you can take it from me it’s all right._
_Claude and I are with a reading-party at old Heppenstall’s.
There are nine of us, not counting your pal Bingo Little, who is
tutoring the kid up at the Hall._
_Don’t miss this golden opportunity, which may never occur again.
Come and join us._
_Yours,
Eustace._
I handed this to Jeeves. He studied it thoughtfully.
“What do you make of it? A rummy communication, what?”
“Very high-spirited young gentlemen, sir, Mr. Claude and Mr. Eustace.
Up to some game, I should be disposed to imagine.”
“Yes. But what game, do you think?”
“It is impossible to say, sir. Did you observe that the letter
continues over the page?”
“Eh, what?” I grabbed the thing. This was what was on the other side of
the last page:
SERMON HANDICAP
RUNNERS AND BETTING
PROBABLE STARTERS.
Rev. Joseph Tucker (Badgwick), scratch.
Rev. Leonard Starkie (Stapleton), scratch.
Rev. Alexander Jones (Upper Bingley), receives three minutes.
Rev. W. Dix (Little Clickton-in-the-Wold), receives five minutes.
Rev. Francis Heppenstall (Twing), receives eight minutes.
Rev. Cuthbert Dibble (Boustead Parva), receives nine minutes.
Rev. Orlo Hough (Boustead Magna), receives nine minutes.
Rev. J. J. Roberts (Fale-by-the-Water), receives ten minutes.
Rev. G. Hayward (Lower Bingley), receives twelve minutes.
Rev. James Bates (Gandle-by-the-Hill), receives fifteen minutes.
(_The above have arrived._)
PRICES.--5-2, Tucker, Starkie; 3-1, Jones; 9-2, Dix; 6-1,
Heppenstall, Dibble, Hough; 100-8 any other.
It baffled me.
“Do you understand it, Jeeves?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, I think we ought to have a look into it, anyway, what?”
“Undoubtedly, sir.”
“Right-o, then. Pack our spare dickey and a toothbrush in a neat
brown-paper parcel, send a wire to Lord Wickhammersley to say we’re
coming, and buy two tickets on the five-ten at Paddington to-morrow.”
* * * * *
The five-ten was late as usual, and everybody was dressing for dinner
when I arrived at the Hall. It was only by getting into my evening
things in record time and taking the stairs to the dining-room in
a couple of bounds that I managed to dead-heat with the soup. I
slid into the vacant chair, and found that I was sitting next to old
Wickhammersley’s youngest daughter, Cynthia.
“Oh, hallo, old thing,” I said.
Great pals we’ve always been. In fact, there was a time when I had an
idea I was in love with Cynthia. However, it blew over. A dashed pretty
and lively and attractive girl, mind you, but full of ideals and all
that. I may be wronging her, but I have an idea that she’s the sort of
girl who would want a fellow to carve out a career and what not. I know
I’ve heard her speak favourably of Napoleon. So what with one thing and
another the jolly old frenzy sort of petered out, and now we’re just
pals. I think she’s a topper, and she thinks me next door to a looney,
so everything’s nice and matey.
“Well, Bertie, so you’ve arrived?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve arrived. Yes, here I am. I say, I seem to have plunged
into the middle of quite a young dinner-party. Who are all these coves?”
“Oh, just people from round about. You know most of them. You remember
Colonel Willis, and the Spencers----”
“Of course, yes. And there’s old Heppenstall. Who’s the other clergyman
next to Mrs. Spencer?”
“Mr. Hayward, from Lower Bingley.”
“What an amazing lot of clergymen there are round here. Why, there’s
another, next to Mrs. Willis.”
“That’s Mr. Bates, Mr. Heppenstall’s nephew. He’s an assistant-master
at Eton. He’s down here during the summer holidays, acting as locum
tenens for Mr. Spettigue, the rector of Gandle-by-the-Hill.”
“I thought I knew his face. He was in his fourth year at Oxford when
I was a fresher. Rather a blood. Got his rowing-blue and all that.” I
took another look round the table, and spotted young Bingo. “Ah, there
he is,” I said. “There’s the old egg.”
“There’s who?”
“Young Bingo Little. Great pal of mine. He’s tutoring your brother, you
know.”
“Good gracious! Is he a friend of yours?”
“Rather! Known him all my life.”
“Then tell me, Bertie, is he at all weak in the head?”
“Weak in the head?”
“I don’t mean simply because he’s a friend of yours. But he’s so
strange in his manner.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, he keeps looking at me so oddly.”
“Oddly? How? Give an imitation.”
“I can’t in front of all these people.”
“Yes, you can. I’ll hold my napkin up.”
“All right, then. Quick. There!”
Considering that she had only about a second and a half to do it in, I
must say it was a jolly fine exhibition. She opened her mouth and eyes
pretty wide and let her jaw drop sideways, and managed to look so like
a dyspeptic calf that I recognised the symptoms immediately.
“Oh, that’s all right,” I said. “No need to be alarmed. He’s simply in
love with you.”
“In love with me. Don’t be absurd.”
“My dear old thing, you don’t know young Bingo. He can fall in love
with _anybody_.”
“Thank you!”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way, you know. I don’t wonder at his taking
to you. Why, I was in love with you myself once.”
“Once? Ah! And all that remains now are the cold ashes? This isn’t one
of your tactful evenings, Bertie.”
“Well, my dear sweet thing, dash it all, considering that you gave
me the bird and nearly laughed yourself into a permanent state of
hiccoughs when I asked you----”
“Oh, I’m not reproaching you. No doubt there were faults on both sides.
He’s very good-looking, isn’t he?”
“Good-looking? Bingo? Bingo good-looking? No, I say, come now, really!”
“I mean, compared with some people,” said Cynthia.
Some time after this, Lady Wickhammersley gave the signal for the
females of the species to leg it, and they duly stampeded. I didn’t get
a chance of talking to young Bingo when they’d gone, and later, in the
drawing-room, he didn’t show up. I found him eventually in his room,
lying on the bed with his feet on the rail, smoking a toofah. There was
a notebook on the counterpane beside him.
“Hallo, old scream,” I said.
“Hallo, Bertie,” he replied, in what seemed to me rather a moody,
distrait sort of manner.
“Rummy finding you down here. I take it your uncle cut off your
allowance after that Goodwood binge and you had to take this tutoring
job to keep the wolf from the door?”
“Correct,” said young Bingo tersely.
“Well, you might have let your pals know where you were.”
He frowned darkly.
“I didn’t want them to know where I was. I wanted to creep away and
hide myself. I’ve been through a bad time, Bertie, these last weeks.
The sun ceased to shine----”
“That’s curious. We’ve had gorgeous weather in London.”
“The birds ceased to sing----”
“What birds?”
“What the devil does it matter what birds?” said young Bingo, with some
asperity. “Any birds. The birds round about here. You don’t expect me
to specify them by their pet names, do you? I tell you, Bertie, it hit
me hard at first, very hard.”
“What hit you?” I simply couldn’t follow the blighter.
“Charlotte’s calculated callousness.”
“Oh, ah!” I’ve seen poor old Bingo through so many unsuccessful
love-affairs that I’d almost forgotten there was a girl mixed up with
that Goodwood business. Of course! Charlotte Corday Rowbotham. And she
had given him the raspberry, I remembered, and gone off with Comrade
Butt.
“I went through torments. Recently, however, I’ve--er--bucked up a bit.
Tell me, Bertie, what are you doing down here? I didn’t know you knew
these people.”
“Me? Why, I’ve known them since I was a kid.”
Young Bingo put his feet down with a thud.
“Do you mean to say you’ve known Lady Cynthia all that time?”
“Rather! She can’t have been seven when I met her first.”
“Good Lord!” said young Bingo. He looked at me for the first time as
though I amounted to something, and swallowed a mouthful of smoke the
wrong way. “I love that girl, Bertie,” he went on, when he’d finished
coughing.
“Yes. Nice girl, of course.”
He eyed me with pretty deep loathing.
“Don’t speak of her in that horrible casual way. She’s an angel. An
angel! Was she talking about me at all at dinner, Bertie?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What did she say?”
“I remember one thing. She said she thought you good-looking.”
Young Bingo closed his eyes in a sort of ecstasy. Then he picked up the
notebook.
“Pop off now, old man, there’s a good chap,” he said, in a hushed,
far-away voice. “I’ve got a bit of writing to do.”
“Writing?”
“Poetry, if you must know. I wish the dickens,” said young Bingo, not
without some bitterness, “she had been christened something except
Cynthia. There isn’t a dam’ word in the language it rhymes with. Ye
gods, how I could have spread myself if she had only been called Jane!”
* * * * *
Bright and early next morning, as I lay in bed blinking at the sunlight
on the dressing-table and wondering when Jeeves was going to show up
with a cup of tea, a heavy weight descended on my toes, and the voice
of young Bingo polluted the air. The blighter had apparently risen with
the lark.
“Leave me,” I said, “I would be alone. I can’t see anybody till I’ve
had my tea.”
“When Cynthia smiles,” said young Bingo, “the skies are blue; the world
takes on a roseate hue: birds in the garden trill and sing, and Joy is
king of everything, when Cynthia smiles.” He coughed, changing gears.
“When Cynthia frowns----”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“I’m reading you my poem. The one I wrote to Cynthia last night. I’ll
go on, shall I?”
“No!”
“No?”
“No. I haven’t had my tea.”
At this moment Jeeves came in with the good old beverage, and I
sprang on it with a glad cry. After a couple of sips things looked a
bit brighter. Even young Bingo didn’t offend the eye to quite such an
extent. By the time I’d finished the first cup I was a new man, so
much so that I not only permitted but encouraged the poor fish to read
the rest of the bally thing, and even went so far as to criticise the
scansion of the fourth line of the fifth verse. We were still arguing
the point when the door burst open and in blew Claude and Eustace. One
of the things which discourage me about rural life is the frightful
earliness with which events begin to break loose. I’ve stayed at places
in the country where they’ve jerked me out of the dreamless at about
six-thirty to go for a jolly swim in the lake. At Twing, thank heaven,
they know me, and let me breakfast in bed.
The twins seemed pleased to see me.
“Good old Bertie!” said Claude.
“Stout fellow!” said Eustace. “The Rev. told us you had arrived. I
thought that letter of mine would fetch you.”
“You can always bank on Bertie,” said Claude. “A sportsman to the
finger-tips. Well, has Bingo told you about it?”
“Not a word. He’s been----”
“We’ve been talking,” said Bingo hastily, “of other matters.”
Claude pinched the last slice of thin bread-and-butter, and Eustace
poured himself out a cup of tea.
“It’s like this, Bertie,” said Eustace, settling down cosily. “As I
told you in my letter, there are nine of us marooned in this desert
spot, reading with old Heppenstall. Well, of course, nothing is jollier
than sweating up the Classics when it’s a hundred in the shade, but
there does come a time when you begin to feel the need of a little
relaxation; and, by Jove, there are absolutely no facilities for
relaxation in this place whatever. And then Steggles got this idea.
Steggles is one of our reading-party, and, between ourselves, rather a
worm as a general thing. Still, you have to give him credit for getting
this idea.”
“What idea?”
“Well, you know how many parsons there are round about here. There are
about a dozen hamlets within a radius of six miles, and each hamlet has
a church and each church has a parson and each parson preaches a sermon
every Sunday. To-morrow week--Sunday the twenty-third--we’re running
off the great Sermon Handicap. Steggles is making the book. Each parson
is to be clocked by a reliable steward of the course, and the one that
preaches the longest sermon wins. Did you study the race-card I sent
you?”
“I couldn’t understand what it was all about.”
“Why, you chump, it gives the handicaps and the current odds on each
starter. I’ve got another one here, in case you’ve lost yours. Take a
careful look at it. It gives you the thing in a nutshell. Jeeves, old
son, do you want a sporting flutter?”
“Sir?” said Jeeves, who had just meandered in with my breakfast.
Claude explained the scheme. Amazing the way Jeeves grasped it right
off. But he merely smiled in a paternal sort of way.
“Thank you, sir, I think not.”
“Well, you’re with us, Bertie, aren’t you?” said Claude, sneaking a
roll and a slice of bacon. “Have you studied that card? Well, tell me,
does anything strike you about it?”
Of course it did. It had struck me the moment I looked at it.
“Why, it’s a sitter for old Heppenstall,” I said. “He’s got the event
sewed up in a parcel. There isn’t a parson in the land who could
give him eight minutes. Your pal Steggles must be an ass, giving
him a handicap like that. Why, in the days when I was with him, old
Heppenstall never used to preach under half an hour, and there was one
sermon of his on Brotherly Love which lasted forty-five minutes if it
lasted a second. Has he lost his vim lately, or what is it?”
“Not a bit of it,” said Eustace. “Tell him what happened, Claude.”
“Why,” said Claude, “the first Sunday we were here, we all went to
Twing church, and old Heppenstall preached a sermon that was well under
twenty minutes. This is what happened. Steggles didn’t notice it, and
the Rev. didn’t notice it himself, but Eustace and I both spotted
that he had dropped a chunk of at least half a dozen pages out of his
sermon-case as he was walking up to the pulpit. He sort of flickered
when he got to the gap in the manuscript, but carried on all right, and
Steggles went away with the impression that twenty minutes or a bit
under was his usual form. The next Sunday we heard Tucker and Starkie,
and they both went well over the thirty-five minutes, so Steggles
arranged the handicapping as you see on the card. You must come into
this, Bertie. You see, the trouble is that I haven’t a bean, and
Eustace hasn’t a bean, and Bingo Little hasn’t a bean, so you’ll have
to finance the syndicate. Don’t weaken! It’s just putting money in all
our pockets. Well, we’ll have to be getting back now. Think the thing
over, and phone me later in the day. And, if you let us down, Bertie,
may a cousin’s curse---- Come on, Claude, old thing.”
The more I studied the scheme, the better it looked.
“How about it, Jeeves?” I said.
Jeeves smiled gently, and drifted out.
“Jeeves has no sporting blood,” said Bingo.
“Well, I have. I’m coming into this. Claude’s quite right. It’s like
finding money by the wayside.”
“Good man!” said Bingo. “Now I can see daylight. Say I have a tenner
on Heppenstall, and cop; that’ll give me a bit in hand to back Pink
Pill with in the two o’clock at Gatwick the week after next: cop on
that, put the pile on Musk-Rat for the one-thirty at Lewes, and there
I am with a nice little sum to take to Alexandra Park on September the
tenth, when I’ve got a tip straight from the stable.”
It sounded like a bit out of “Smiles’s Self-Help.”
“And then,” said young Bingo, “I’ll be in a position to go to my uncle
and beard him in his lair somewhat. He’s quite a bit of a snob, you
know, and when he hears that I’m going to marry the daughter of an
earl----”
“I say, old man,” I couldn’t help saying, “aren’t you looking ahead
rather far?”
“Oh, that’s all right. It’s true nothing’s actually settled yet, but
she practically told me the other day she was fond of me.”
“What!”
“Well, she said that the sort of man she liked was the self-reliant,
manly man with strength, good looks, character, ambition, and
initiative.”
“Leave me, laddie,” I said. “Leave me to my fried egg.”
* * * * *
Directly I’d got up I went to the phone, snatched Eustace away from his
morning’s work, and instructed him to put a tenner on the Twing flier
at current odds for each of the syndicate; and after lunch Eustace
rang me up to say that he had done business at a snappy seven-to-one,
the odds having lengthened owing to a rumour in knowledgeable circles
that the Rev. was subject to hay-fever, and was taking big chances
strolling in the paddock behind the Vicarage in the early mornings. And
it was dashed lucky, I thought next day, that we had managed to get
the money on in time, for on the Sunday morning old Heppenstall fairly
took the bit between his teeth, and gave us thirty-six solid minutes on
Certain Popular Superstitions. I was sitting next to Steggles in the
pew, and I saw him blench visibly. He was a little, rat-faced fellow,
with shifty eyes and a suspicious nature. The first thing he did when
we emerged into the open air was to announce, formally, that anyone who
fancied the Rev. could now be accommodated at fifteen-to-eight on, and
he added, in a rather nasty manner, that if he had his way, this sort
of in-and-out running would be brought to the attention of the Jockey
Club, but that he supposed that there was nothing to be done about it.
This ruinous price checked the punters at once, and there was little
money in sight. And so matters stood till just after lunch on Tuesday
afternoon, when, as I was strolling up and down in front of the house
with a cigarette, Claude and Eustace came bursting up the drive on
bicycles, dripping with momentous news.
“Bertie,” said Claude, deeply agitated, “unless we take immediate
action and do a bit of quick thinking, we’re in the cart.”
“What’s the matter?”
“G. Hayward’s the matter,” said Eustace morosely. “The Lower Bingley
starter.”
“We never even considered him,” said Claude. “Somehow or other, he
got overlooked. It’s always the way. Steggles overlooked him. We all
overlooked him. But Eustace and I happened by the merest fluke to be
riding through Lower Bingley this morning, and there was a wedding on
at the church, and it suddenly struck us that it wouldn’t be a bad move
to get a line on G. Hayward’s form, in case he might be a dark horse.”
“And it was jolly lucky we did,” said Eustace. “He delivered an address
of twenty-six minutes by Claude’s stop-watch. At a village wedding,
mark you! What’ll he do when he really extends himself!”
“There’s only one thing to be done, Bertie,” said Claude. “You must
spring some more funds, so that we can hedge on Hayward and save
ourselves.”
“But----”
“Well, it’s the only way out.”
“But I say, you know, I hate the idea of all that money we put on
Heppenstall being chucked away.”
“What else can you suggest? You don’t suppose the Rev. can give this
absolute marvel a handicap and win, do you?”
“I’ve got it!” I said.
“What?”
“I see a way by which we can make it safe for our nominee. I’ll pop
over this afternoon, and ask him as a personal favour to preach that
sermon of his on Brotherly Love on Sunday.”
Claude and Eustace looked at each other, like those chappies in the
poem, with a wild surmise.
“It’s a scheme,” said Claude.
“A jolly brainy scheme,” said Eustace. “I didn’t think you had it in
you, Bertie.”
“But even so,” said Claude, “fizzer as that sermon no doubt is, will it
be good enough in the face of a four-minute handicap?”
“Rather!” I said. “When I told you it lasted forty-five minutes, I was
probably understating it. I should call it--from my recollection of the
thing--nearer fifty.”
“Then carry on,” said Claude.
I toddled over in the evening and fixed the thing up. Old Heppenstall
was most decent about the whole affair. He seemed pleased and touched
that I should have remembered the sermon all these years, and said he
had once or twice had an idea of preaching it again, only it had seemed
to him, on reflection, that it was perhaps a trifle long for a rustic
congregation.
“And in these restless times, my dear Wooster,” he said, “I fear that
brevity in the pulpit is becoming more and more desiderated by even
the bucolic churchgoer, who one might have supposed would be less
afflicted with the spirit of hurry and impatience than his metropolitan
brother. I have had many arguments on the subject with my nephew,
young Bates, who is taking my old friend Spettigue’s cure over at
Gandle-by-the-Hill. His view is that a sermon nowadays should be a
bright, brisk, straight-from-the-shoulder address, never lasting more
than ten or twelve minutes.”
“Long?” I said. “Why, my goodness! you don’t call that Brotherly Love
sermon of yours _long_, do you?”
“It takes fully fifty minutes to deliver.”
“Surely not?”
“Your incredulity, my dear Wooster, is extremely flattering--far more
flattering, of course, than I deserve. Nevertheless, the facts are as
I have stated. You are sure that I would not be well advised to make
certain excisions and eliminations? You do not think it would be a
good thing to cut, to prune? I might, for example, delete the rather
exhaustive excursus into the family life of the early Assyrians?”
“Don’t touch a word of it, or you’ll spoil the whole thing,” I said
earnestly.
“I am delighted to hear you say so, and I shall preach the sermon
without fail next Sunday morning.”
* * * * *
What I have always said, and what I always shall say, is, that this
ante-post betting is a mistake, an error, and a mug’s game. You never
can tell what’s going to happen. If fellows would only stick to the
good old S.P. there would be fewer young men go wrong. I’d hardly
finished my breakfast on the Saturday morning, when Jeeves came to my
bedside to say that Eustace wanted me on the telephone.
“Good Lord, Jeeves, what’s the matter, do you think?”
I’m bound to say I was beginning to get a bit jumpy by this time.
“Mr. Eustace did not confide in me, sir.”
“Has he got the wind up?”
“Somewhat vertically, sir, to judge by his voice.”
“Do you know what I think, Jeeves? Something’s gone wrong with the
favourite.”
“Which is the favourite, sir?”
“Mr. Heppenstall. He’s gone to odds on. He was intending to preach a
sermon on Brotherly Love which would have brought him home by lengths.
I wonder if anything’s happened to him.”
“You could ascertain, sir, by speaking to Mr. Eustace on the telephone.
He is holding the wire.”
“By Jove, yes!”
I shoved on a dressing-gown, and flew downstairs like a mighty, rushing
wind. The moment I heard Eustace’s voice I knew we were for it. It had
a croak of agony in it.
“Bertie?”
“Here I am.”
“Deuce of a time you’ve been. Bertie, we’re sunk. The favourite’s blown
up.”
“No!”
“Yes. Coughing in his stable all last night.”
“What!”
“Absolutely! Hay-fever.”
“Oh, my sainted aunt!”
“The doctor is with him now, and it’s only a question of minutes
before he’s officially scratched. That means the curate will show up
at the post instead, and he’s no good at all. He is being offered at a
hundred-to-six, but no takers. What shall we do?”
I had to grapple with the thing for a moment in silence.
“Eustace.”
“Hallo?”
“What can you get on G. Hayward?”
“Only four-to-one now. I think there’s been a leak, and Steggles has
heard something. The odds shortened late last night in a significant
manner.”
“Well, four-to-one will clear us. Put another fiver all round on G.
Hayward for the syndicate. That’ll bring us out on the right side of
the ledger.”
“If he wins.”
“What do you mean? I thought you considered him a cert. bar
Heppenstall.”
“I’m beginning to wonder,” said Eustace gloomily, “if there’s such a
thing as a cert. in this world. I’m told the Rev. Joseph Tucker did
an extraordinarily fine trial gallop at a mothers’ meeting over at
Badgwick yesterday. However, it seems our only chance. So-long.”
Not being one of the official stewards, I had my choice of churches
next morning, and naturally I didn’t hesitate. The only drawback to
going to Lower Bingley was that it was ten miles away, which meant
an early start, but I borrowed a bicycle from one of the grooms and
tooled off. I had only Eustace’s word for it that G. Hayward was such
a stayer, and it might have been that he had showed too flattering
form at that wedding where the twins had heard him preach; but any
misgivings I may have had disappeared the moment he got into the
pulpit. Eustace had been right. The man was a trier. He was a tall,
rangy-looking greybeard, and he went off from the start with a nice,
easy action, pausing and clearing his throat at the end of each
sentence, and it wasn’t five minutes before I realised that here was
the winner. His habit of stopping dead and looking round the church at
intervals was worth minutes to us, and in the home stretch we gained
no little advantage owing to his dropping his pince-nez and having to
grope for them. At the twenty-minute mark he had merely settled down.
Twenty-five minutes saw him going strong. And when he finally finished
with a good burst, the clock showed thirty-five minutes fourteen
seconds. With the handicap which he had been given, this seemed to
me to make the event easy for him, and it was with much bonhomie and
goodwill to all men that I hopped on to the old bike and started back
to the Hall for lunch.
Bingo was talking on the phone when I arrived.
“Fine! Splendid! Topping!” he was saying. “Eh? Oh, we needn’t worry
about him. Right-o, I’ll tell Bertie.” He hung up the receiver and
caught sight of me. “Oh, hallo, Bertie; I was just talking to Eustace.
It’s all right, old man. The report from Lower Bingley has just got
in. G. Hayward romps home.”
“I knew he would. I’ve just come from there.”
“Oh, were you there? I went to Badgwick. Tucker ran a splendid race,
but the handicap was too much for him. Starkie had a sore throat and
was nowhere. Roberts, of Fale-by-the-Water, ran third. Good old G.
Hayward!” said Bingo affectionately, and we strolled out on to the
terrace.
“Are all the returns in, then?” I asked.
“All except Gandle-by-the-Hill. But we needn’t worry about Bates. He
never had a chance. By the way, poor old Jeeves loses his tenner. Silly
ass!”
“Jeeves? How do you mean?”
“He came to me this morning, just after you had left, and asked me to
put a tenner on Bates for him. I told him he was a chump and begged him
not to throw his money away, but he would do it.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. This note arrived for you just after you had
left the house this morning.”
Jeeves had materialised from nowhere, and was standing at my elbow.
“Eh? What? Note?”
“The Reverend Mr. Heppenstall’s butler brought it over from the
Vicarage, sir. It came too late to be delivered to you at the moment.”
Young Bingo was talking to Jeeves like a father on the subject of
betting against the form-book. The yell I gave made him bite his tongue
in the middle of a sentence.
“What the dickens is the matter?” he asked, not a little peeved.
“We’re dished! Listen to this!”
I read him the note:
_The Vicarage,
Twing, Glos._
_My Dear Wooster,--As you may have heard, circumstances over
which I have no control will prevent my preaching the sermon on
Brotherly Love for which you made such a flattering request. I am
unwilling, however, that you shall be disappointed, so, if you
will attend divine service at Gandle-by-the-Hill this morning,
you will hear my sermon preached by young Bates, my nephew. I
have lent him the manuscript at his urgent desire, for, between
ourselves, there are wheels within wheels. My nephew is one of the
candidates for the headmastership of a well-known public school,
and the choice has narrowed down between him and one rival._
_Late yesterday evening James received private information that
the head of the Board of Governors of the school proposed to sit
under him this Sunday in order to judge of the merits of his
preaching, a most important item in swaying the Board’s choice. I
acceded to his plea that I lend him my sermon on Brotherly Love,
of which, like you, he apparently retains a vivid recollection. It
would have been too late for him to compose a sermon of suitable
length in place of the brief address which--mistakenly, in my
opinion--he had designed to deliver to his rustic flock, and I
wished to help the boy._
_Trusting that his preaching of the sermon will supply you with as
pleasant memories as you say you have of mine, I remain,_
_Cordially yours,
F. Heppenstall._
P.S.--_The hay-fever has rendered my eyes unpleasantly weak for
the time being, so I am dictating this letter to my butler,
Brookfield, who will convey it to you._
I don’t know when I’ve experienced a more massive silence than the one
that followed my reading of this cheery epistle. Young Bingo gulped
once or twice, and practically every known emotion came and went on his
face. Jeeves coughed one soft, low, gentle cough like a sheep with a
blade of grass stuck in its throat, and then stood gazing serenely at
the landscape. Finally young Bingo spoke.
“Great Scott!” he whispered hoarsely. “An S.P. job!”
“I believe that is the technical term, sir,” said Jeeves.
“So you had inside information, dash it!” said young Bingo.
“Why, yes, sir,” said Jeeves. “Brookfield happened to mention the
contents of the note to me when he brought it. We are old friends.”
Bingo registered grief, anguish, rage, despair and resentment.
“Well, all I can say,” he cried, “is that it’s a bit thick! Preaching
another man’s sermon! Do you call that honest? Do you call that playing
the game?”
“Well, my dear old thing,” I said, “be fair. It’s quite within the
rules. Clergymen do it all the time. They aren’t expected always to
make up the sermons they preach.”
Jeeves coughed again, and fixed me with an expressionless eye.
“And in the present case, sir, if I may be permitted to take the
liberty of making the observation, I think we should make allowances.
We should remember that the securing of this headmastership meant
everything to the young couple.”
“Young couple! What young couple?”
“The Reverend James Bates, sir, and Lady Cynthia. I am informed by
her ladyship’s maid that they have been engaged to be married for some
weeks--provisionally, so to speak; and his lordship made his consent
conditional on Mr. Bates securing a really important and remunerative
position.”
Young Bingo turned a light green.
“Engaged to be married!”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a silence.
“I think I’ll go for a walk,” said Bingo.
“But, my dear old thing,” I said, “it’s just lunch-time. The gong will
be going any minute now.”
“I don’t want any lunch!” said Bingo.