“Only for the moment. You could slip down tonight, after everyone is in
bed, and raid the larder.”
He brightened.
“That’s right. I could, couldn’t I?”
“I expect there would be something cold there.”
“There is something cold there,” said Tuppy, with growing cheerfulness.
“A steak-and-kidney pie. We had it for lunch today. One of Anatole’s
ripest. The thing I admire about that man,” said Tuppy reverently,
“the thing that I admire so enormously about Anatole is that, though a
Frenchman, he does not, like so many of these _chefs_, confine himself
exclusively to French dishes, but is always willing and ready to weigh
in with some good old simple English fare such as this steak-and-kidney
pie to which I have alluded. A masterly pie, Bertie, and it wasn’t more
than half finished. It will do me nicely.”
“And at dinner you will push, as arranged?”
“Absolutely as arranged.”
“Fine.”
“It’s an excellent idea. One of Jeeves’s best. You can tell him from
me, when you see him, that I’m much obliged.”
The cigarette fell from my fingers. It was as though somebody had
slapped Bertram Wooster across the face with a wet dish-rag.
“You aren’t suggesting that you think this scheme I have been sketching
out is Jeeves’s?”
“Of course it is. It’s no good trying to kid me, Bertie. You wouldn’t
have thought of a wheeze like that in a million years.”
There was a pause. I drew myself up to my full height; then, seeing
that he wasn’t looking at me, lowered myself again.
“Come, Glossop,” I said coldly, “we had better be going. It is time we
were dressing for dinner.”
-9-
Tuppy’s fatheaded words were still rankling in my bosom as I went up to
my room. They continued rankling as I shed the form-fitting, and had
not ceased to rankle when, clad in the old dressing-gown, I made my way
along the corridor to the _salle de bain_.
It is not too much to say that I was piqued to the tonsils.
I mean to say, one does not court praise. The adulation of the
multitude means very little to one. But, all the same, when one has
taken the trouble to whack out a highly juicy scheme to benefit an
in-the-soup friend in his hour of travail, it’s pretty foul to find
him giving the credit to one’s personal attendant, particularly if
that personal attendant is a man who goes about the place not packing
mess-jackets.
But after I had been splashing about in the porcelain for a bit,
composure began to return. I have always found that in moments of
heart-bowed-downness there is nothing that calms the bruised spirit
like a good go at the soap and water. I don’t say I actually sang in
the tub, but there were times when it was a mere spin of the coin
whether I would do so or not.
The spiritual anguish induced by that tactless speech had become
noticeably lessened.
The discovery of a toy duck in the soap dish, presumably the property
of some former juvenile visitor, contributed not a little to this new
and happier frame of mind. What with one thing and another, I hadn’t
played with toy ducks in my bath for years, and I found the novel
experience most invigorating. For the benefit of those interested, I
may mention that if you shove the thing under the surface with the
sponge and then let it go, it shoots out of the water in a manner
calculated to divert the most careworn. Ten minutes of this and I was
enabled to return to the bedchamber much more the old merry Bertram.
Jeeves was there, laying out the dinner disguise. He greeted the young
master with his customary suavity.
“Good evening, sir.”