"And that's how the matter stands, Jeeves," I said. "I think we ought
to rally round a trifle and help poor old Bingo put the thing through.
Tell me about old Mr. Little. What sort of a chap is he?"
"A somewhat curious character, sir. Since retiring from business he has
become a great recluse, and now devotes himself almost entirely to the
pleasures of the table."
"Greedy hog, you mean?"
"I would not, perhaps, take the liberty of describing him in precisely
those terms, sir. He is what is usually called a gourmet. Very
particular about what he eats, and for that reason sets a high value on
Miss Watson's services."
"The cook?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, it looks to me as though our best plan would be to shoot young
Bingo in on him after dinner one night. Melting mood, I mean to say,
and all that."
"The difficulty is, sir, that at the moment Mr. Little is on a diet,
owing to an attack of gout."
"Things begin to look wobbly."
"No, sir, I fancy that the elder Mr. Little's misfortune may be turned
to the younger Mr. Little's advantage. I was speaking only the other
day to Mr. Little's valet, and he was telling me that it has become his
principal duty to read to Mr. Little in the evenings. If I were in your
place, sir, I should send young Mr. Little to read to his uncle."
"Nephew's devotion, you mean? Old man touched by kindly action, what?"
"Partly that, sir. But I would rely more on young Mr. Little's choice
of literature."
"That's no good. Jolly old Bingo has a kind face, but when it comes to
literature he stops at the _Sporting Times_."
"That difficulty may be overcome. I would be happy to select books for
Mr. Little to read. Perhaps I might explain my idea further?"
"I can't say I quite grasp it yet."
"The method which I advocate is what, I believe, the advertisers call
Direct Suggestion, sir, consisting as it does of driving an idea home
by constant repetition. You may have had experience of the system?"
"You mean they keep on telling you that some soap or other is the best,
and after a bit you come under the influence and charge round the
corner and buy a cake?"
"Exactly, sir. The same method was the basis of all the most valuable
propaganda during the recent war. I see no reason why it should not be
adopted to bring about the desired result with regard to the subject's
views on class distinctions. If young Mr. Little were to read day after
day to his uncle a series of narratives in which marriage with young
persons of an inferior social status was held up as both feasible and
admirable, I fancy it would prepare the elder Mr. Little's mind for the
reception of the information that his nephew wishes to marry a waitress
in a tea-shop."
"_Are_ there any books of that sort nowadays? The only ones I ever
see mentioned in the papers are about married couples who find life
grey, and can't stick each other at any price."
"Yes, sir, there are a great many, neglected by the reviewers but
widely read. You have never encountered 'All for Love,' by Rosie M.
Banks?"
"No."
"Nor 'A Red, Red Summer Rose,' by the same author?"
"No."
"I have an aunt, sir, who owns an almost complete set of Rosie M.
Banks'. I could easily borrow as many volumes as young Mr. Little might
require. They make very light, attractive reading."
"Well, it's worth trying."
"I should certainly recommend the scheme, sir."
"All right, then. Toddle round to your aunt's to-morrow and grab a
couple of the fruitiest. We can but have a dash at it."
"Precisely, sir."
* * * * *
Bingo reported three days later that Rosie M. Banks was the goods and
beyond a question the stuff to give the troops. Old Little had jibbed
somewhat at first at the proposed change of literary diet, he not being
much of a lad for fiction and having stuck hitherto exclusively to the
heavier monthly reviews; but Bingo had got chapter one of "All for
Love" past his guard before he knew what was happening, and after that
there was nothing to it. Since then they had finished "A Red, Red
Summer Rose," "Madcap Myrtle" and "Only a Factory Girl," and were
halfway through "The Courtship of Lord Strathmorlick."
Bingo told me all this in a husky voice over an egg beaten up in
sherry. The only blot on the thing from his point of view was that it
wasn't doing a bit of good to the old vocal cords, which were beginning
to show signs of cracking under the strain. He had been looking his
symptoms up in a medical dictionary, and he thought he had got
"clergyman's throat." But against this you had to set the fact that he
was making an undoubted hit in the right quarter, and also that after
the evening's reading he always stayed on to dinner; and, from what he
told me, the dinners turned out by old Little's cook had to be tasted
to be believed. There were tears in the old blighter's eyes as he got
on the subject of the clear soup. I suppose to a fellow who for weeks
had been tackling macaroons and limado it must have been like Heaven.
Old Little wasn't able to give any practical assistance at these
banquets, but Bingo said that he came to the table and had his whack of
arrowroot, and sniffed the dishes, and told stories of _entrées_ he had
had in the past, and sketched out scenarios of what he was going to do
to the bill of fare in the future, when the doctor put him in shape; so
I suppose he enjoyed himself, too, in a way. Anyhow, things seemed to
be buzzing along quite satisfactorily, and Bingo said he had got an
idea which, he thought, was going to clinch the thing. He wouldn't tell
me what it was, but he said it was a pippin.
"We make progress, Jeeves," I said.
"That is very satisfactory, sir."
"Mr. Little tells me that when he came to the big scene in 'Only a
Factory Girl,' his uncle gulped like a stricken bull-pup."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Where Lord Claude takes the girl in his arms, you know, and says----"
"I am familiar with the passage, sir. It is distinctly moving. It was a
great favourite of my aunt's."
"I think we're on the right track."
"It would seem so, sir."
"In fact, this looks like being another of your successes. I've always
said, and I always shall say, that for sheer brain, Jeeves, you stand
alone. All the other great thinkers of the age are simply in the crowd,
watching you go by."
"Thank you very much, sir. I endeavour to give satisfaction."
About a week after this, Bingo blew in with the news that his uncle's
gout had ceased to trouble him, and that on the morrow he would be back
at the old stand working away with knife and fork as before.
"And, by the way," said Bingo, "he wants you to lunch with him
tomorrow."
"Me? Why me? He doesn't know I exist."
"Oh, yes, he does. I've told him about you."
"What have you told him?"
"Oh, various things. Anyhow, he wants to meet you. And take my tip,
laddie--you go! I should think lunch to-morrow would be something
special."
I don't know why it was, but even then it struck me that there was
something dashed odd--almost sinister, if you know what I mean--about
young Bingo's manner. The old egg had the air of one who has something
up his sleeve.
"There is more in this than meets the eye," I said. "Why should your
uncle ask a fellow to lunch whom he's never seen?"
"My dear old fathead, haven't I just said that I've been telling him
all about you--that you're my best pal--at school together, and all
that sort of thing?"
"But even then--and another thing. Why are you so dashed keen on my
going?"
Bingo hesitated for a moment.
"Well, I told you I'd got an idea. This is it. I want you to spring the
news on him. I haven't the nerve myself."
"What! I'm hanged if I do!"
"And you call yourself a pal of mine!"
"Yes, I know; but there are limits."
"Bertie," said Bingo reproachfully, "I saved your life once."
"When?"
"Didn't I? It must have been some other fellow, then. Well, anyway, we
were boys together and all that. You can't let me down."
"Oh, all right," I said. "But, when you say you haven't nerve enough
for any dashed thing in the world, you misjudge yourself. A fellow
who----"
"Cheerio!" said young Bingo. "One-thirty to-morrow. Don't be late."
* * * * *
I'm bound to say that the more I contemplated the binge, the less I
liked it. It was all very well for Bingo to say that I was slated for a
magnificent lunch; but what good is the best possible lunch to a fellow
if he is slung out into the street on his ear during the soup course?
However, the word of a Wooster is his bond and all that sort of rot, so
at one-thirty next day I tottered up the steps of No. 16, Pounceby
Gardens, and punched the bell. And half a minute later I was up in the
drawing-room, shaking hands with the fattest man I have ever seen in my
life.
The motto of the Little family was evidently "variety." Young Bingo is
long and thin and hasn't had a superfluous ounce on him since we first
met; but the uncle restored the average and a bit over. The hand which
grasped mine wrapped it round and enfolded it till I began to wonder if
I'd ever get it out without excavating machinery.
"Mr. Wooster, I am gratified--I am proud--I am honoured."
It seemed to me that young Bingo must have boosted me to some purpose.
"Oh, ah!" I said.
He stepped back a bit, still hanging on to the good right hand.
"You are very young to have accomplished so much!"
I couldn't follow the train of thought. The family, especially my Aunt
Agatha, who has savaged me incessantly from childhood up, have always
rather made a point of the fact that mine is a wasted life, and that,
since I won the prize at my first school for the best collection of
wild flowers made during the summer holidays, I haven't done a dam'
thing to land me on the nation's scroll of fame. I was wondering if he
couldn't have got me mixed up with someone else, when the
telephone-bell rang outside in the hall, and the maid came in to say
that I was wanted. I buzzed down, and found it was young Bingo.
"Hallo!" said young Bingo. "So you've got there? Good man! I knew I
could rely on you. I say, old crumpet, did my uncle seem pleased to see
you?"
"Absolutely all over me. I can't make it out."
"Oh, that's all right. I just rang up to explain. The fact is, old man,
I know you won't mind, but I told him that you were the author of those
books I've been reading to him."
"What!"
"Yes, I said that 'Rosie M. Banks' was your pen-name, and you didn't
want it generally known, because you were a modest, retiring sort of
chap. He'll listen to you now. Absolutely hang on your words. A
brightish idea, what? I doubt if Jeeves in person could have thought up
a better one than that. Well, pitch it strong, old lad, and keep
steadily before you the fact that I must have my allowance raised. I
can't possibly marry on what I've got now. If this film is to end with
the slow fade-out on the embrace, at least double is indicated. Well,
that's that. Cheerio!"
And he rang off. At that moment the gong sounded, and the genial host
came tumbling downstairs like the delivery of a ton of coals.
* * * * *
I always look back to that lunch with a sort of aching regret. It was
the lunch of a lifetime, and I wasn't in a fit state to appreciate it.
Subconsciously, if you know what I mean, I could see it was pretty
special, but I had got the wind up to such a frightful extent over the
ghastly situation in which young Bingo had landed me that its deeper
meaning never really penetrated. Most of the time I might have been
eating sawdust for all the good it did me.
Old Little struck the literary note right from the start.
"My nephew has probably told you that I have been making a close study
of your books of late?" he began.
"Yes. He did mention it. How--er--how did you like the bally things?"
He gazed reverently at me.
"Mr. Wooster, I am not ashamed to say that the tears came into my eyes
as I listened to them. It amazes me that a man as young as you can have
been able to plumb human nature so surely to its depths; to play with
so unerring a hand on the quivering heart-strings of your reader; to
write novels so true, so human, so moving, so vital!"
"Oh, it's just a knack," I said.
The good old persp. was bedewing my forehead by this time in a pretty
lavish manner. I don't know when I've been so rattled.
"Do you find the room a trifle warm?"
"Oh, no, no, rather not. Just right."
"Then it's the pepper. If my cook has a fault--which I am not prepared
to admit--it is that she is inclined to stress the pepper a trifle in
her made dishes. By the way, do you like her cooking?"
I was so relieved that we had got off the subject of my literary output
that I shouted approval in a ringing baritone.
"I am delighted to hear it, Mr. Wooster. I may be prejudiced, but to my
mind that woman is a genius."
"Absolutely!" I said.
"She has been with me seven years, and in all that time I have not
known her guilty of a single lapse from the highest standard. Except
once, in the winter of 1917, when a purist might have condemned a
certain mayonnaise of hers as lacking in creaminess. But one must make
allowances. There had been several air-raids about that time, and no
doubt the poor woman was shaken. But nothing is perfect in this world,
Mr. Wooster, and I have had my cross to bear. For seven years I have
lived in constant apprehension lest some evilly-disposed person might
lure her from my employment. To my certain knowledge she has received
offers, lucrative offers, to accept service elsewhere. You may judge of
my dismay, Mr. Wooster, when only this morning the bolt fell. She gave
notice!"
"Good Lord!"
"Your consternation does credit, if I may say so, to the heart of the
author of 'A Red, Red Summer Rose.' But I am thankful to say the worst
has not happened. The matter has been adjusted. Jane is not leaving
me."
"Good egg!"
"Good egg, indeed--though the expression is not familiar to me. I do
not remember having come across it in your books. And, speaking of your
books, may I say that what has impressed me about them even more than
the moving poignancy of the actual narrative, is your philosophy of
life. If there were more men like you, Mr. Wooster, London would be a
better place."
This was dead opposite to my Aunt Agatha's philosophy of life, she
having always rather given me to understand that it is the presence in
it of chappies like me that makes London more or less of a plague spot;
but I let it go.
"Let me tell you, Mr. Wooster, that I appreciate your splendid defiance
of the outworn fetishes of a purblind social system. I appreciate it!
You are big enough to see that rank is but the guinea stamp and that,
in the magnificent words of Lord Bletchmore in 'Only a Factory Girl,'
'Be her origin ne'er so humble, a good woman is the equal of the finest
lady on earth!'"