“The jacket, you mean?” I queried, groping.
“I do. You look like one of the chorus of male guests at Abernethy
Towers in Act 2 of a touring musical comedy.”
“You do not admire this jacket?”
“I do not.”
“You did at Cannes.”
“Well, this isn’t Cannes.”
“But, dash it----”
“Oh, never mind. Let it go. If you want to give my butler a laugh, what
does it matter? What does anything matter now?”
There was a death-where-is-thy-sting-fullness about her manner which
I found distasteful. It isn’t often that I score off Jeeves in the
devastating fashion just described, and when I do I like to see happy,
smiling faces about me.
“Tails up, Aunt Dahlia,” I urged buoyantly.
“Tails up be dashed,” was her sombre response. “I’ve just been talking
to Tom.”
“Telling him?”
“No, listening to him. I haven’t had the nerve to tell him yet.”
“Is he still upset about that income-tax money?”
“Upset is right. He says that Civilisation is in the melting-pot and
that all thinking men can read the writing on the wall.”
“What wall?”
“Old Testament, ass. Belshazzar’s feast.”
“Oh, that, yes. I’ve often wondered how that gag was worked. With
mirrors, I expect.”
“I wish I could use mirrors to break it to Tom about this baccarat
business.”
I had a word of comfort to offer here. I had been turning the thing
over in my mind since our last meeting, and I thought I saw where
she had got twisted. Where she made her error, it seemed to me, was
in feeling she had got to tell Uncle Tom. To my way of thinking, the
matter was one on which it would be better to continue to exercise a
quiet reserve.
“I don’t see why you need mention that you lost that money at baccarat.”
“What do you suggest, then? Letting _Milady’s Boudoir_ join
Civilisation in the melting-pot. Because that is what it will
infallibly do unless I get a cheque by next week. The printers have
been showing a nasty spirit for months.”
“You don’t follow. Listen. It’s an understood thing, I take it, that
Uncle Tom foots the _Boudoir_ bills. If the bally sheet has been
turning the corner for two years, he must have got used to forking out
by this time. Well, simply ask him for the money to pay the printers.”
“I did. Just before I went to Cannes.”
“Wouldn’t he give it to you?”
“Certainly he gave it to me. He brassed up like an officer and a
gentleman. That was the money I lost at baccarat.”
“Oh? I didn’t know that.”
“There isn’t much you do know.”
A nephew’s love made me overlook the slur.
“Tut!” I said.
“What did you say?”
“I said ‘Tut!’”
“Say it once again, and I’ll biff you where you stand. I’ve enough to
endure without being tutted at.”
“Quite.”
“Any tutting that’s required, I’ll attend to myself. And the same
applies to clicking the tongue, if you were thinking of doing that.”
“Far from it.”
“Good.”
I stood awhile in thought. I was concerned to the core. My heart, if
you remember, had already bled once for Aunt Dahlia this evening. It
now bled again. I knew how deeply attached she was to this paper of
hers. Seeing it go down the drain would be for her like watching a
loved child sink for the third time in some pond or mere.
And there was no question that, unless carefully prepared for the
touch, Uncle Tom would see a hundred _Milady’s Boudoirs_ go phut rather
than take the rap.
Then I saw how the thing could be handled. This aunt, I perceived, must
fall into line with my other clients. Tuppy Glossop was knocking off
dinner to melt Angela. Gussie Fink-Nottle was knocking off dinner to
impress the Bassett. Aunt Dahlia must knock off dinner to soften Uncle
Tom. For the beauty of this scheme of mine was that there was no limit
to the number of entrants. Come one, come all, the more the merrier,
and satisfaction guaranteed in every case.
“I’ve got it,” I said. “There is only one course to pursue. Eat less
meat.”
She looked at me in a pleading sort of way. I wouldn’t swear that
her eyes were wet with unshed tears, but I rather think they were,
certainly she clasped her hands in piteous appeal.
“Must you drivel, Bertie? Won’t you stop it just this once? Just for
tonight, to please Aunt Dahlia?”
“I’m not drivelling.”
“I dare say that to a man of your high standards it doesn’t come under
the head of drivel, but----”