“My dear Tuppy, you are not showing your usual good sense in this
Angela-chap-at-Cannes matter. If you will forgive me saying so, you
have got an _idée fixe_.”
“A what?”
“An _idée fixe_. You know. One of those things fellows get. Like Uncle
Tom’s delusion that everybody who is known even slightly to the police
is lurking in the garden, waiting for a chance to break into the house.
You keep talking about this chap at Cannes, and there never was a
chap at Cannes, and I’ll tell you why I’m so sure about this. During
those two months on the Riviera, it so happens that Angela and I were
practically inseparable. If there had been somebody nosing round her, I
should have spotted it in a second.”
He started. I could see that this had impressed him.
“Oh, she was with you all the time at Cannes, was she?”
“I don’t suppose she said two words to anybody else, except, of course,
idle conv. at the crowded dinner table or a chance remark in a throng
at the Casino.”
“I see. You mean that anything in the shape of mixed bathing and
moonlight strolls she conducted solely in your company?”
“That’s right. It was quite a joke in the hotel.”
“You must have enjoyed that.”
“Oh, rather. I’ve always been devoted to Angela.”
“Oh, yes?”
“When we were kids, she used to call herself my little sweetheart.”
“She did?”
“Absolutely.”
“I see.”
He sat plunged in thought, while I, glad to have set his mind at rest,
proceeded with my tea. And presently there came the banging of a gong
from the hall below, and he started like a war horse at the sound of
the bugle.
“Breakfast!” he said, and was off to a flying start, leaving me to
brood and ponder. And the more I brooded and pondered, the more did it
seem to me that everything now looked pretty smooth. Tuppy, I could
see, despite that painful scene in the larder, still loved Angela with
all the old fervour.
This meant that I could rely on that plan to which I had referred to
bring home the bacon. And as I had found the way to straighten out the
Gussie-Bassett difficulty, there seemed nothing more to worry about.
It was with an uplifted heart that I addressed Jeeves as he came in to
remove the tea tray.
-13-
“Jeeves,” I said.
“Sir?”
“I’ve just been having a chat with young Tuppy, Jeeves. Did you happen
to notice that he wasn’t looking very roguish this morning?”
“Yes, sir. It seemed to me that Mr. Glossop’s face was sicklied o’er
with the pale cast of thought.”
“Quite. He met my cousin Angela in the larder last night, and a rather
painful interview ensued.”
“I am sorry, sir.”
“Not half so sorry as he was. She found him closeted with a
steak-and-kidney pie, and appears to have been a bit caustic about fat
men who lived for food alone.”
“Most disturbing, sir.”
“Very. In fact, many people would say that things had gone so far
between these two nothing now could bridge the chasm. A girl who could
make cracks about human pythons who ate nine or ten meals a day and
ought to be careful not to hurry upstairs because of the danger of
apoplectic fits is a girl, many people would say, in whose heart love
is dead. Wouldn’t people say that, Jeeves?”
“Undeniably, sir.”
“They would be wrong.”
“You think so, sir?”
“I am convinced of it. I know these females. You can’t go by what they
say.”
“You feel that Miss Angela’s strictures should not be taken too much
_au pied de la lettre_, sir?”
“Eh?”
“In English, we should say ‘literally’.”
“Literally. That’s exactly what I mean. You know what girls are. A tiff
occurs, and they shoot their heads off. But underneath it all the old
love still remains. Am I correct?”
“Quite correct, sir. The poet Scott----”
“Right ho, Jeeves.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And in order to bring that old love whizzing to the surface once more,
all that is required is the proper treatment.”
“By ‘proper treatment,’ sir, you mean----”
“Clever handling, Jeeves. A spot of the good old snaky work. I see what
must be done to jerk my Cousin Angela back to normalcy. I’ll tell you,
shall I?”
“If you would be so kind, sir.”
I lit a cigarette, and eyed him keenly through the smoke. He waited
respectfully for me to unleash the words of wisdom. I must say for
Jeeves that--till, as he is so apt to do, he starts shoving his oar in
and cavilling and obstructing--he makes a very good audience. I don’t
know if he is actually agog, but he looks agog, and that’s the great
thing.
“Suppose you were strolling through the illimitable jungle, Jeeves, and
happened to meet a tiger cub.”
“The contingency is a remote one, sir.”
“Never mind. Let us suppose it.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Let us now suppose that you sloshed that tiger cub, and let us suppose
further that word reached its mother that it was being put upon. What
would you expect the attitude of that mother to be? In what frame of
mind do you consider that that tigress would approach you?”
“I should anticipate a certain show of annoyance, sir.”
“And rightly. Due to what is known as the maternal instinct, what?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good, Jeeves. We will now suppose that there has recently been
some little coolness between this tiger cub and this tigress. For some
days, let us say, they have not been on speaking terms. Do you think
that that would make any difference to the vim with which the latter
would leap to the former’s aid?”
“No, sir.”
“Exactly. Here, then, in brief, is my plan, Jeeves. I am going to draw
my Cousin Angela aside to a secluded spot and roast Tuppy properly.”
“Roast, sir?”
“Knock. Slam. Tick-off. Abuse. Denounce. I shall be very terse about
Tuppy, giving it as my opinion that in all essentials he is more like
a wart hog than an ex-member of a fine old English public school. What
will ensue? Hearing him attacked, my Cousin Angela’s womanly heart will
be as sick as mud. The maternal tigress in her will awake. No matter
what differences they may have had, she will remember only that he
is the man she loves, and will leap to his defence. And from that to
falling into his arms and burying the dead past will be but a step. How
do you react to that?”
“The idea is an ingenious one, sir.”
“We Woosters are ingenious, Jeeves, exceedingly ingenious.”
“Yes, sir.”
“As a matter of fact, I am not speaking without a knowledge of the form
book. I have tested this theory.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Yes, in person. And it works. I was standing on the Eden rock at
Antibes last month, idly watching the bathers disport themselves in the
water, and a girl I knew slightly pointed at a male diver and asked
me if I didn’t think his legs were about the silliest-looking pair of
props ever issued to human being. I replied that I did, indeed, and
for the space of perhaps two minutes was extraordinarily witty and
satirical about this bird’s underpinning. At the end of that period, I
suddenly felt as if I had been caught up in the tail of a cyclone.
“Beginning with a _critique_ of my own limbs, which she said, justly
enough, were nothing to write home about, this girl went on to dissect
my manners, morals, intellect, general physique, and method of eating
asparagus with such acerbity that by the time she had finished the best
you could say of Bertram was that, so far as was known, he had never
actually committed murder or set fire to an orphan asylum. Subsequent
investigation proved that she was engaged to the fellow with the legs
and had had a slight disagreement with him the evening before on the
subject of whether she should or should not have made an original call
of two spades, having seven, but without the ace. That night I saw them
dining together with every indication of relish, their differences made
up and the lovelight once more in their eyes. That shows you, Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I expect precisely similar results from my Cousin Angela when I start
roasting Tuppy. By lunchtime, I should imagine, the engagement will be
on again and the diamond-and-platinum ring glittering as of yore on her
third finger. Or is it the fourth?”
“Scarcely by luncheon time, sir. Miss Angela’s maid informs me that
Miss Angela drove off in her car early this morning with the intention
of spending the day with friends in the vicinity.”
“Well, within half an hour of whatever time she comes back, then. These
are mere straws, Jeeves. Do not let us chop them.”
“No, sir.”
“The point is that, as far as Tuppy and Angela are concerned, we may
say with confidence that everything will shortly be hotsy-totsy once
more. And what an agreeable thought that is, Jeeves.”
“Very true, sir.”
“If there is one thing that gives me the pip, it is two loving hearts
being estranged.”
“I can readily appreciate the fact, sir.”
I placed the stub of my gasper in the ash tray and lit another, to
indicate that that completed Chap. I.
“Right ho, then. So much for the western front. We now turn to the
eastern.”
“Sir?”
“I speak in parables, Jeeves. What I mean is, we now approach the
matter of Gussie and Miss Bassett.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Here, Jeeves, more direct methods are required. In handling the case
of Augustus Fink-Nottle, we must keep always in mind the fact that we
are dealing with a poop.”
“A sensitive plant would, perhaps, be a kinder expression, sir.”
“No, Jeeves, a poop. And with poops one has to employ the strong,
forceful, straightforward policy. Psychology doesn’t get you anywhere.
You, if I may remind you without wounding your feelings, fell into
the error of mucking about with psychology in connection with this
Fink-Nottle, and the result was a wash-out. You attempted to push
him over the line by rigging him out in a Mephistopheles costume and
sending him off to a fancy-dress ball, your view being that scarlet
tights would embolden him. Futile.”
“The matter was never actually put to the test, sir.”
“No. Because he didn’t get to the ball. And that strengthens my
argument. A man who can set out in a cab for a fancy-dress ball and
not get there is manifestly a poop of no common order. I don’t think I
have ever known anybody else who was such a dashed silly ass that he
couldn’t even get to a fancy-dress ball. Have you, Jeeves?”
“No, sir.”
“But don’t forget this, because it is the point I wish, above all,
to make: Even if Gussie had got to that ball; even if those scarlet
tights, taken in conjunction with his horn-rimmed spectacles, hadn’t
given the girl a fit of some kind; even if she had rallied from the
shock and he had been able to dance and generally hobnob with her; even
then your efforts would have been fruitless, because, Mephistopheles
costume or no Mephistopheles costume, Augustus Fink-Nottle would never
have been able to summon up the courage to ask her to be his. All
that would have resulted would have been that she would have got that
lecture on newts a few days earlier. And why, Jeeves? Shall I tell you
why?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Because he would have been attempting the hopeless task of trying to
do the thing on orange juice.”
“Sir?”
“Gussie is an orange-juice addict. He drinks nothing else.”
“I was not aware of that, sir.”
“I have it from his own lips. Whether from some hereditary taint,
or because he promised his mother he wouldn’t, or simply because he
doesn’t like the taste of the stuff, Gussie Fink-Nottle has never in
the whole course of his career pushed so much as the simplest gin and
tonic over the larynx. And he expects--this poop expects, Jeeves--this
wabbling, shrinking, diffident rabbit in human shape expects under
these conditions to propose to the girl he loves. One hardly knows
whether to smile or weep, what?”
“You consider total abstinence a handicap to a gentleman who wishes to
make a proposal of marriage, sir?”
The question amazed me.
“Why, dash it,” I said, astounded, “you must know it is. Use your
intelligence, Jeeves. Reflect what proposing means. It means that a
decent, self-respecting chap has got to listen to himself saying things
which, if spoken on the silver screen, would cause him to dash to the
box-office and demand his money back. Let him attempt to do it on
orange juice, and what ensues? Shame seals his lips, or, if it doesn’t
do that, makes him lose his morale and start to babble. Gussie, for
example, as we have seen, babbles of syncopated newts.”
“Palmated newts, sir.”
“Palmated or syncopated, it doesn’t matter which. The point is that
he babbles and is going to babble again, if he has another try at
it. Unless--and this is where I want you to follow me very closely,
Jeeves--unless steps are taken at once through the proper channels.
Only active measures, promptly applied, can provide this poor,
pusillanimous poop with the proper pep. And that is why, Jeeves, I
intend tomorrow to secure a bottle of gin and lace his luncheon orange
juice with it liberally.”
“Sir?”