“What? Didn’t you?”
“No, sir.”
“Jeeves, let us get this clear. Was it not you who threw away that
o.j.?”
“No, sir. I assumed, when I entered the room and found the pitcher
empty, that you had done so.”
We looked at each other, awed. Two minds with but a single thought.
“I very much fear, sir----”
“So do I, Jeeves.”
“It would seem almost certain----”
“Quite certain. Weigh the facts. Sift the evidence. The jug was
standing on the mantelpiece, for all eyes to behold. Gussie had been
complaining of thirst. You found him in here, laughing heartily. I
think that there can be little doubt, Jeeves, that the entire contents
of that jug are at this moment reposing on top of the existing cargo in
that already brilliantly lit man’s interior. Disturbing, Jeeves.”
“Most disturbing, sir.”
“Let us face the position, forcing ourselves to be calm. You inserted
in that jug--shall we say a tumblerful of the right stuff?”
“Fully a tumblerful, sir.”
“And I added of my plenty about the same amount.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And in two shakes of a duck’s tail Gussie, with all that lapping about
inside him, will be distributing the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar
School before an audience of all that is fairest and most refined in
the county.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It seems to me, Jeeves, that the ceremony may be one fraught with
considerable interest.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What, in your opinion, will the harvest be?”
“One finds it difficult to hazard a conjecture, sir.”
“You mean imagination boggles?”
“Yes, sir.”