“Odd, his coming to me. Still, if he did, he did. No argument about
that. It must have been a nasty jar for the poor perisher when he found
I wasn’t here.”
“No, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle did not call to see you, sir.”
“Pull yourself together, Jeeves. You’ve just told me that this is what
he has been doing, and assiduously, at that.”
“It was I with whom he was desirous of establishing communication, sir.”
“You? But I didn’t know you had ever met him.”
“I had not had that pleasure until he called here, sir. But it appears
that Mr. Sipperley, a fellow student with whom Mr. Fink-Nottle had been
at the university, recommended him to place his affairs in my hands.”
The mystery had conked. I saw all. As I dare say you know, Jeeves’s
reputation as a counsellor has long been established among the
cognoscenti, and the first move of any of my little circle on
discovering themselves in any form of soup is always to roll round and
put the thing up to him. And when he’s got A out of a bad spot, A puts
B on to him. And then, when he has fixed up B, B sends C along. And so
on, if you get my drift, and so forth.
That’s how these big consulting practices like Jeeves’s grow. Old
Sippy, I knew, had been deeply impressed by the man’s efforts on his
behalf at the time when he was trying to get engaged to Elizabeth Moon,
so it was not to be wondered at that he should have advised Gussie to
apply. Pure routine, you might say.
“Oh, you’re acting for him, are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now I follow. Now I understand. And what is Gussie’s trouble?”
“Oddly enough, sir, precisely the same as that of Mr. Sipperley when
I was enabled to be of assistance to him. No doubt you recall Mr.
Sipperley’s predicament, sir. Deeply attached to Miss Moon, he suffered
from a rooted diffidence which made it impossible for him to speak.”