-17-
“And yet, Jeeves,” I said, twiddling a thoughtful steering wheel,
“there is always the bright side.”
Some twenty minutes had elapsed, and having picked the honest fellow
up outside the front door, I was driving in the two-seater to the
picturesque town of Market Snodsbury. Since we had parted--he to go to
his lair and fetch his hat, I to remain in my room and complete the
formal costume--I had been doing some close thinking.
The results of this I now proceeded to hand on to him.
“However dark the prospect may be, Jeeves, however murkily the
storm clouds may seem to gather, a keen eye can usually discern the
blue bird. It is bad, no doubt, that Gussie should be going, some
ten minutes from now, to distribute prizes in a state of advanced
intoxication, but we must never forget that these things cut both ways.”
“You imply, sir----”
“Precisely. I am thinking of him in his capacity of wooer. All this
ought to have put him in rare shape for offering his hand in marriage.
I shall be vastly surprised if it won’t turn him into a sort of
caveman. Have you ever seen James Cagney in the movies?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Something on those lines.”
I heard him cough, and sniped him with a sideways glance. He was
wearing that informative look of his.
“Then you have not heard, sir?”
“Eh?”
“You are not aware that a marriage has been arranged and will shortly
take place between Mr. Fink-Nottle and Miss Bassett?”
“What?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When did this happen?”
“Shortly after Mr. Fink-Nottle had left your room, sir.”
“Ah! In the post-orange-juice era?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But are you sure of your facts? How do you know?”
“My informant was Mr. Fink-Nottle himself, sir. He appeared anxious
to confide in me. His story was somewhat incoherent, but I had no
difficulty in apprehending its substance. Prefacing his remarks with
the statement that this was a beautiful world, he laughed heartily and
said that he had become formally engaged.”
“No details?”
“No, sir.”
“But one can picture the scene.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I mean, imagination doesn’t boggle.”
“No, sir.”
And it didn’t. I could see exactly what must have happened. Insert a
liberal dose of mixed spirits in a normally abstemious man, and he
becomes a force. He does not stand around, twiddling his fingers and
stammering. He acts. I had no doubt that Gussie must have reached for
the Bassett and clasped her to him like a stevedore handling a sack of
coals. And one could readily envisage the effect of that sort of thing
on a girl of romantic mind.
“Well, well, well, Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is splendid news.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You see now how right I was.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It must have been rather an eye-opener for you, watching me handle
this case.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The simple, direct method never fails.”
“No, sir.”
“Whereas the elaborate does.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Right ho, Jeeves.”
We had arrived at the main entrance of Market Snodsbury Grammar School.
I parked the car, and went in, well content. True, the Tuppy-Angela
problem still remained unsolved and Aunt Dahlia’s five hundred quid
seemed as far off as ever, but it was gratifying to feel that good old
Gussie’s troubles were over, at any rate.
The Grammar School at Market Snodsbury had, I understood, been built
somewhere in the year 1416, and, as with so many of these ancient
foundations, there still seemed to brood over its Great Hall, where
the afternoon’s festivities were to take place, not a little of the
fug of the centuries. It was the hottest day of the summer, and though
somebody had opened a tentative window or two, the atmosphere remained
distinctive and individual.
In this hall the youth of Market Snodsbury had been eating its daily
lunch for a matter of five hundred years, and the flavour lingered. The
air was sort of heavy and languorous, if you know what I mean, with the
scent of Young England and boiled beef and carrots.
Aunt Dahlia, who was sitting with a bevy of the local nibs in the
second row, sighted me as I entered and waved to me to join her, but I
was too smart for that. I wedged myself in among the standees at the
back, leaning up against a chap who, from the aroma, might have been a
corn chandler or something on that order. The essence of strategy on
these occasions is to be as near the door as possible.
The hall was gaily decorated with flags and coloured paper, and the
eye was further refreshed by the spectacle of a mixed drove of boys,
parents, and what not, the former running a good deal to shiny faces
and Eton collars, the latter stressing the black-satin note rather when
female, and looking as if their coats were too tight, if male. And
presently there was some applause--sporadic, Jeeves has since told me
it was--and I saw Gussie being steered by a bearded bloke in a gown to
a seat in the middle of the platform.
And I confess that as I beheld him and felt that there but for the
grace of God went Bertram Wooster, a shudder ran through the frame.
It all reminded me so vividly of the time I had addressed that girls’
school.
Of course, looking at it dispassionately, you may say that for horror
and peril there is no comparison between an almost human audience
like the one before me and a mob of small girls with pigtails down
their backs, and this, I concede, is true. Nevertheless, the spectacle
was enough to make me feel like a fellow watching a pal going over
Niagara Falls in a barrel, and the thought of what I had escaped caused
everything for a moment to go black and swim before my eyes.
When I was able to see clearly once more, I perceived that Gussie was
now seated. He had his hands on his knees, with his elbows out at right
angles, like a nigger minstrel of the old school about to ask Mr. Bones
why a chicken crosses the road, and he was staring before him with
a smile so fixed and pebble-beached that I should have thought that
anybody could have guessed that there sat one in whom the old familiar
juice was splashing up against the back of the front teeth.
In fact, I saw Aunt Dahlia, who, having assisted at so many hunting
dinners in her time, is second to none as a judge of the symptoms,
give a start and gaze long and earnestly. And she was just saying
something to Uncle Tom on her left when the bearded bloke stepped to
the footlights and started making a speech. From the fact that he spoke
as if he had a hot potato in his mouth without getting the raspberry
from the lads in the ringside seats, I deduced that he must be the head
master.
With his arrival in the spotlight, a sort of perspiring resignation
seemed to settle on the audience. Personally, I snuggled up against the
chandler and let my attention wander. The speech was on the subject
of the doings of the school during the past term, and this part of
a prize-giving is always apt rather to fail to grip the visiting
stranger. I mean, you know how it is. You’re told that J.B. Brewster
has won an Exhibition for Classics at Cat’s, Cambridge, and you feel
that it’s one of those stories where you can’t see how funny it is
unless you really know the fellow. And the same applies to G. Bullett
being awarded the Lady Jane Wix Scholarship at the Birmingham College
of Veterinary Science.
In fact, I and the corn chandler, who was looking a bit fagged I
thought, as if he had had a hard morning chandling the corn, were
beginning to doze lightly when things suddenly brisked up, bringing
Gussie into the picture for the first time.
“Today,” said the bearded bloke, “we are all happy to welcome as the
guest of the afternoon Mr. Fitz-Wattle----”
At the beginning of the address, Gussie had subsided into a sort of
daydream, with his mouth hanging open. About half-way through, faint
signs of life had begun to show. And for the last few minutes he had
been trying to cross one leg over the other and failing and having
another shot and failing again. But only now did he exhibit any real
animation. He sat up with a jerk.
“Fink-Nottle,” he said, opening his eyes.
“Fitz-Nottle.”
“Fink-Nottle.”
“I should say Fink-Nottle.”
“Of course you should, you silly ass,” said Gussie genially. “All
right, get on with it.”
And closing his eyes, he began trying to cross his legs again.
I could see that this little spot of friction had rattled the bearded
bloke a bit. He stood for a moment fumbling at the fungus with a
hesitating hand. But they make these head masters of tough stuff. The
weakness passed. He came back nicely and carried on.
“We are all happy, I say, to welcome as the guest of the afternoon Mr.
Fink-Nottle, who has kindly consented to award the prizes. This task,
as you know, is one that should have devolved upon that well-beloved
and vigorous member of our board of governors, the Rev. William Plomer,
and we are all, I am sure, very sorry that illness at the last moment
should have prevented him from being here today. But, if I may borrow a
familiar metaphor from the--if I may employ a homely metaphor familiar
to you all--what we lose on the swings we gain on the roundabouts.”
He paused, and beamed rather freely, to show that this was comedy. I
could have told the man it was no use. Not a ripple. The corn chandler
leaned against me and muttered “Whoddidesay?” but that was all.
It’s always a nasty jar to wait for the laugh and find that the gag
hasn’t got across. The bearded bloke was visibly discomposed. At that,
however, I think he would have got by, had he not, at this juncture,
unfortunately stirred Gussie up again.
“In other words, though deprived of Mr. Plomer, we have with us this
afternoon Mr. Fink-Nottle. I am sure that Mr. Fink-Nottle’s name is one
that needs no introduction to you. It is, I venture to assert, a name
that is familiar to us all.”
“Not to you,” said Gussie.
And the next moment I saw what Jeeves had meant when he had described
him as laughing heartily. “Heartily” was absolutely the _mot juste_. It
sounded like a gas explosion.
“You didn’t seem to know it so dashed well, what, what?” said Gussie.
And, reminded apparently by the word “what” of the word “Wattle,” he
repeated the latter some sixteen times with a rising inflection.
“Wattle, Wattle, Wattle,” he concluded. “Right-ho. Push on.”
But the bearded bloke had shot his bolt. He stood there, licked at
last; and, watching him closely, I could see that he was now at the
crossroads. I could spot what he was thinking as clearly as if he had
confided it to my personal ear. He wanted to sit down and call it a
day, I mean, but the thought that gave him pause was that, if he did,
he must then either uncork Gussie or take the Fink-Nottle speech as
read and get straight on to the actual prize-giving.
It was a dashed tricky thing, of course, to have to decide on the spur
of the moment. I was reading in the paper the other day about those
birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven’t
the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On
the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would
feel, no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house
going up in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.
So with the bearded bloke. Whether he was abreast of the inside facts
in Gussie’s case, I don’t know, but it was obvious to him by this time
that he had run into something pretty hot. Trial gallops had shown that
Gussie had his own way of doing things. Those interruptions had been
enough to prove to the perspicacious that here, seated on the platform
at the big binge of the season, was one who, if pushed forward to make
a speech, might let himself go in a rather epoch-making manner.
On the other hand, chain him up and put a green-baize cloth over him,
and where were you? The proceeding would be over about half an hour too
soon.
It was, as I say, a difficult problem to have to solve, and, left
to himself, I don’t know what conclusion he would have come to.
Personally, I think he would have played it safe. As it happened,
however, the thing was taken out of his hands, for at this moment,
Gussie, having stretched his arms and yawned a bit, switched on that
pebble-beached smile again and tacked down to the edge of the platform.
“Speech,” he said affably.
He then stood with his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, waiting
for the applause to die down.
It was some time before this happened, for he had got a very fine hand
indeed. I suppose it wasn’t often that the boys of Market Snodsbury
Grammar School came across a man public-spirited enough to call their
head master a silly ass, and they showed their appreciation in no
uncertain manner. Gussie may have been one over the eight, but as far
as the majority of those present were concerned he was sitting on top
of the world.
“Boys,” said Gussie, “I mean ladies and gentlemen and boys, I do not
detain you long, but I suppose on this occasion to feel compelled to
say a few auspicious words; Ladies--and boys and gentlemen--we have all
listened with interest to the remarks of our friend here who forgot
to shave this morning--I don’t know his name, but then he didn’t know
mine--Fitz-Wattle, I mean, absolutely absurd--which squares things up
a bit--and we are all sorry that the Reverend What-ever-he-was-called
should be dying of adenoids, but after all, here today, gone
tomorrow, and all flesh is as grass, and what not, but that wasn’t
what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was this--and I say it
confidently--without fear of contradiction--I say, in short, I am
happy to be here on this auspicious occasion and I take much pleasure
in kindly awarding the prizes, consisting of the handsome books you
see laid out on that table. As Shakespeare says, there are sermons in
books, stones in the running brooks, or, rather, the other way about,
and there you have it in a nutshell.”
It went well, and I wasn’t surprised. I couldn’t quite follow some
of it, but anybody could see that it was real ripe stuff, and I was
amazed that even the course of treatment he had been taking could have
rendered so normally tongue-tied a dumb brick as Gussie capable of it.
It just shows, what any member of Parliament will tell you, that if
you want real oratory, the preliminary noggin is essential. Unless
pie-eyed, you cannot hope to grip.
“Gentlemen,” said Gussie, “I mean ladies and gentlemen and, of course,
boys, what a beautiful world this is. A beautiful world, full of
happiness on every side. Let me tell you a little story. Two Irishmen,
Pat and Mike, were walking along Broadway, and one said to the other,
‘Begorrah, the race is not always to the swift,’ and the other replied,
‘Faith and begob, education is a drawing out, not a putting in.’”
I must say it seemed to me the rottenest story I had ever heard, and I
was surprised that Jeeves should have considered it worth while shoving
into a speech. However, when I taxed him with this later, he said that
Gussie had altered the plot a good deal, and I dare say that accounts
for it.
At any rate, that was the _conte_ as Gussie told it, and when I say
that it got a very fair laugh, you will understand what a popular
favourite he had become with the multitude. There might be a bearded
bloke or so on the platform and a small section in the second row who
were wishing the speaker would conclude his remarks and resume his
seat, but the audience as a whole was for him solidly.
There was applause, and a voice cried: “Hear, hear!”
“Yes,” said Gussie, “it is a beautiful world. The sky is blue, the
birds are singing, there is optimism everywhere. And why not, boys and
ladies and gentlemen? I’m happy, you’re happy, we’re all happy, even
the meanest Irishman that walks along Broadway. Though, as I say, there
were two of them--Pat and Mike, one drawing out, the other putting in.
I should like you boys, taking the time from me, to give three cheers
for this beautiful world. All together now.”
Presently the dust settled down and the plaster stopped falling from
the ceiling, and he went on.
“People who say it isn’t a beautiful world don’t know what they are
talking about. Driving here in the car today to award the kind prizes,
I was reluctantly compelled to tick off my host on this very point. Old
Tom Travers. You will see him sitting there in the second row next to
the large lady in beige.”
He pointed helpfully, and the hundred or so Market Snods-buryians who
craned their necks in the direction indicated were able to observe
Uncle Tom blushing prettily.
“I ticked him off properly, the poor fish. He expressed the opinion
that the world was in a deplorable state. I said, ‘Don’t talk rot, old
Tom Travers.’ ‘I am not accustomed to talk rot,’ he said. ‘Then, for a
beginner,’ I said, ‘you do it dashed well.’ And I think you will admit,
boys and ladies and gentlemen, that that was telling him.”
The audience seemed to agree with him. The point went big. The voice
that had said, “Hear, hear” said “Hear, hear” again, and my corn
chandler hammered the floor vigorously with a large-size walking stick.
“Well, boys,” resumed Gussie, having shot his cuffs and smirked
horribly, “this is the end of the summer term, and many of you, no
doubt, are leaving the school. And I don’t blame you, because there’s a
froust in here you could cut with a knife. You are going out into the
great world. Soon many of you will be walking along Broadway. And what
I want to impress upon you is that, however much you may suffer from
adenoids, you must all use every effort to prevent yourselves becoming
pessimists and talking rot like old Tom Travers. There in the second
row. The fellow with a face rather like a walnut.”
He paused to allow those wishing to do so to refresh themselves with
another look at Uncle Tom, and I found myself musing in some little
perplexity. Long association with the members of the Drones has put
me pretty well in touch with the various ways in which an overdose of
the blushful Hippocrene can take the individual, but I had never seen
anyone react quite as Gussie was doing.
There was a snap about his work which I had never witnessed before,
even in Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps on New Year’s Eve.
Jeeves, when I discussed the matter with him later, said it was
something to do with inhibitions, if I caught the word correctly,
and the suppression of, I think he said, the ego. What he meant, I
gathered, was that, owing to the fact that Gussie had just completed
a five years’ stretch of blameless seclusion among the newts, all the
goofiness which ought to have been spread out thin over those five
years and had been bottled up during that period came to the surface on
this occasion in a lump--or, if you prefer to put it that way, like a
tidal wave.
There may be something in this. Jeeves generally knows.
Anyway, be that as it may, I was dashed glad I had had the shrewdness
to keep out of that second row. It might be unworthy of the prestige of
a Wooster to squash in among the proletariat in the standing-room-only
section, but at least, I felt, I was out of the danger zone. So
thoroughly had Gussie got it up his nose by now that it seemed to me
that had he sighted me he might have become personal about even an old
school friend.
“If there’s one thing in the world I can’t stand,” proceeded Gussie,
“it’s a pessimist. Be optimists, boys. You all know the difference
between an optimist and a pessimist. An optimist is a man who--well,
take the case of two Irishmen walking along Broadway. One is an
optimist and one is a pessimist, just as one’s name is Pat and the
other’s Mike.... Why, hullo, Bertie; I didn’t know you were here.”
Too late, I endeavoured to go to earth behind the chandler, only to
discover that there was no chandler there. Some appointment, suddenly
remembered--possibly a promise to his wife that he would be home to
tea--had caused him to ooze away while my attention was elsewhere,
leaving me right out in the open.
Between me and Gussie, who was now pointing in an offensive manner,
there was nothing but a sea of interested faces looking up at me.
“Now, there,” boomed Gussie, continuing to point, “is an instance of
what I mean. Boys and ladies and gentlemen, take a good look at that
object standing up there at the back--morning coat, trousers as worn,
quiet grey tie, and carnation in buttonhole--you can’t miss him. Bertie
Wooster, that is, and as foul a pessimist as ever bit a tiger. I tell
you I despise that man. And why do I despise him? Because, boys and
ladies and gentlemen, he is a pessimist. His attitude is defeatist.
When I told him I was going to address you this afternoon, he tried to
dissuade me. And do you know why he tried to dissuade me? Because he
said my trousers would split up the back.”
The cheers that greeted this were the loudest yet. Anything about
splitting trousers went straight to the simple hearts of the young
scholars of Market Snodsbury Grammar School. Two in the row in front
of me turned purple, and a small lad with freckles seated beside them
asked me for my autograph.
“Let me tell you a story about Bertie Wooster.”
A Wooster can stand a good deal, but he cannot stand having his name
bandied in a public place. Picking my feet up softly, I was in the very
process of executing a quiet sneak for the door, when I perceived that
the bearded bloke had at last decided to apply the closure.
Why he hadn’t done so before is beyond me. Spell-bound, I take it.
And, of course, when a chap is going like a breeze with the public,
as Gussie had been, it’s not so dashed easy to chip in. However, the
prospect of hearing another of Gussie’s anecdotes seemed to have done
the trick. Rising rather as I had risen from my bench at the beginning
of that painful scene with Tuppy in the twilight, he made a leap for
the table, snatched up a book and came bearing down on the speaker.
He touched Gussie on the arm, and Gussie, turning sharply and seeing
a large bloke with a beard apparently about to bean him with a book,
sprang back in an attitude of self-defence.
“Perhaps, as time is getting on, Mr. Fink-Nottle, we had better----”
“Oh, ah,” said Gussie, getting the trend. He relaxed. “The prizes, eh?
Of course, yes. Right-ho. Yes, might as well be shoving along with it.
What’s this one?”
“Spelling and dictation--P.K. Purvis,” announced the bearded bloke.
“Spelling and dictation--P.K. Purvis,” echoed Gussie, as if he were
calling coals. “Forward, P.K. Purvis.”
Now that the whistle had been blown on his speech, it seemed to me
that there was no longer any need for the strategic retreat which I
had been planning. I had no wish to tear myself away unless I had
to. I mean, I had told Jeeves that this binge would be fraught with
interest, and it was fraught with interest. There was a fascination
about Gussie’s methods which gripped and made one reluctant to pass the
thing up provided personal innuendoes were steered clear of. I decided,
accordingly, to remain, and presently there was a musical squeaking and
P.K. Purvis climbed the platform.
The spelling-and-dictation champ was about three foot six in his
squeaking shoes, with a pink face and sandy hair. Gussie patted his
hair. He seemed to have taken an immediate fancy to the lad.
“You P.K. Purvis?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“It’s a beautiful world, P.K. Purvis.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Ah, you’ve noticed it, have you? Good. You married, by any chance?”
“Sir, no, sir.”
“Get married, P.K. Purvis,” said Gussie earnestly. “It’s the only life
... Well, here’s your book. Looks rather bilge to me from a glance at
the title page, but, such as it is, here you are.”
P.K. Purvis squeaked off amidst sporadic applause, but one could not
fail to note that the sporadic was followed by a rather strained
silence. It was evident that Gussie was striking something of a new
note in Market Snodsbury scholastic circles. Looks were exchanged
between parent and parent. The bearded bloke had the air of one who has
drained the bitter cup. As for Aunt Dahlia, her demeanour now told only
too clearly that her last doubts had been resolved and her verdict was
in. I saw her whisper to the Bassett, who sat on her right, and the
Bassett nodded sadly and looked like a fairy about to shed a tear and
add another star to the Milky Way.
Gussie, after the departure of P.K. Purvis, had fallen into a sort of
daydream and was standing with his mouth open and his hands in his
pockets. Becoming abruptly aware that a fat kid in knickerbockers was
at his elbow, he started violently.
“Hullo!” he said, visibly shaken. “Who are you?”
“This,” said the bearded bloke, “is R.V. Smethurst.”
“What’s he doing here?” asked Gussie suspiciously.
“You are presenting him with the drawing prize, Mr. Fink-Nottle.”
This apparently struck Gussie as a reasonable explanation. His face
cleared.
“That’s right, too,” he said.... “Well, here it is, cocky. You off?” he
said, as the kid prepared to withdraw.
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Wait, R.V. Smethurst. Not so fast. Before you go, there is a question
I wish to ask you.”
But the beard bloke’s aim now seemed to be to rush the ceremonies a
bit. He hustled R.V. Smethurst off stage rather like a chucker-out in
a pub regretfully ejecting an old and respected customer, and starting
paging G.G. Simmons. A moment later the latter was up and coming, and
conceive my emotion when it was announced that the subject on which he
had clicked was Scripture knowledge. One of us, I mean to say.
G.G. Simmons was an unpleasant, perky-looking stripling, mostly front
teeth and spectacles, but I gave him a big hand. We Scripture-knowledge
sharks stick together.
Gussie, I was sorry to see, didn’t like him. There was in his manner,
as he regarded G.G. Simmons, none of the chumminess which had marked it
during his interview with P.K. Purvis or, in a somewhat lesser degree,
with R.V. Smethurst. He was cold and distant.
“Well, G.G. Simmons.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“What do you mean--sir, yes, sir? Dashed silly thing to say. So you’ve
won the Scripture-knowledge prize, have you?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Yes,” said Gussie, “you look just the sort of little tick who would.
And yet,” he said, pausing and eyeing the child keenly, “how are we to
know that this has all been open and above board? Let me test you, G.G.
Simmons. What was What’s-His-Name--the chap who begat Thingummy? Can
you answer me that, Simmons?”
“Sir, no, sir.”
Gussie turned to the bearded bloke.
“Fishy,” he said. “Very fishy. This boy appears to be totally lacking
in Scripture knowledge.”
The bearded bloke passed a hand across his forehead.
“I can assure you, Mr. Fink-Nottle, that every care was taken to ensure
a correct marking and that Simmons outdistanced his competitors by a
wide margin.”
“Well, if you say so,” said Gussie doubtfully. “All right, G.G.
Simmons, take your prize.”
“Sir, thank you, sir.”
“But let me tell you that there’s nothing to stick on side about in
winning a prize for Scripture knowledge. Bertie Wooster----”
I don’t know when I’ve had a nastier shock. I had been going on the
assumption that, now that they had stopped him making his speech,
Gussie’s fangs had been drawn, as you might say. To duck my head down
and resume my edging toward the door was with me the work of a moment.
“Bertie Wooster won the Scripture-knowledge prize at a kids’ school we
were at together, and you know what he’s like. But, of course, Bertie
frankly cheated. He succeeded in scrounging that Scripture-knowledge
trophy over the heads of better men by means of some of the rawest and
most brazen swindling methods ever witnessed even at a school where
such things were common. If that man’s pockets, as he entered the
examination-room, were not stuffed to bursting-point with lists of the
kings of Judah----”
I heard no more. A moment later I was out in God’s air, fumbling with a
fevered foot at the self-starter of the old car.
The engine raced. The clutch slid into position. I tooted and drove off.
My ganglions were still vibrating as I ran the car into the stables of
Brinkley Court, and it was a much shaken Bertram who tottered up to his
room to change into something loose. Having donned flannels, I lay down
on the bed for a bit, and I suppose I must have dozed off, for the next
thing I remember is finding Jeeves at my side.