“When you say ‘No, sir,’ do you mean ‘Yes, sir’?”
“No, sir. I mean ‘No, sir.’”
“He is not all right otherwise?”
“No, sir.”
“But he’s betrothed.”
“No longer, sir. Miss Bassett has severed the engagement.”
“You don’t mean that?”
“Yes, sir.”
I wonder if you have noticed a rather peculiar thing about this
chronicle. I allude to the fact that at one time or another practically
everybody playing a part in it has had occasion to bury his or her
face in his or her hands. I have participated in some pretty glutinous
affairs in my time, but I think that never before or since have I been
mixed up with such a solid body of brow clutchers.
Uncle Tom did it, if you remember. So did Gussie. So did Tuppy. So,
probably, though I have no data, did Anatole, and I wouldn’t put it
past the Bassett. And Aunt Dahlia, I have no doubt, would have done it,
too, but for the risk of disarranging the carefully fixed coiffure.
Well, what I am trying to say is that at this juncture I did it myself.
Up went the hands and down went the head, and in another jiffy I was
clutching as energetically as the best of them.
And it was while I was still massaging the coconut and wondering what
the next move was that something barged up against the door like the
delivery of a ton of coals.
“I think this may very possibly be Mr. Fink-Nottle himself, sir,” said
Jeeves.
His intuition, however, had led him astray. It was not Gussie but
Tuppy. He came in and stood breathing asthmatically. It was plain that
he was deeply stirred.
-18-
I eyed him narrowly. I didn’t like his looks. Mark you, I don’t say I
ever had, much, because Nature, when planning this sterling fellow,
shoved in a lot more lower jaw than was absolutely necessary and
made the eyes a bit too keen and piercing for one who was neither an
Empire builder nor a traffic policeman. But on the present occasion,
in addition to offending the aesthetic sense, this Glossop seemed to
me to be wearing a distinct air of menace, and I found myself wishing
that Jeeves wasn’t always so dashed tactful. I mean, it’s all very
well to remove yourself like an eel sliding into mud when the employer
has a visitor, but there are moments--and it looked to me as if this
was going to be one of them--when the truer tact is to stick round and
stand ready to lend a hand in the free-for-all.
For Jeeves was no longer with us. I hadn’t seen him go, and I hadn’t
heard him go, but he had gone. As far as the eye could reach, one
noted nobody but Tuppy. And in Tuppy’s demeanour, as I say, there was
a certain something that tended to disquiet. He looked to me very much
like a man who had come to reopen that matter of my tickling Angela’s
ankles.
However, his opening remark told me that I had been alarming myself
unduly. It was of a pacific nature, and came as a great relief.
“Bertie,” he said, “I owe you an apology. I have come to make it.”
My relief on hearing these words, containing as they did no reference
of any sort to tickled ankles, was, as I say, great. But I don’t
think it was any greater than my surprise. Months had passed since
that painful episode at the Drones, and until now he hadn’t given a
sign of remorse and contrition. Indeed, word had reached me through
private sources that he frequently told the story at dinners and other
gatherings and, when doing so, laughed his silly head off.
I found it hard to understand, accordingly, what could have caused him
to abase himself at this later date. Presumably he had been given the
elbow by his better self, but why?
Still, there it was.
“My dear chap,” I said, gentlemanly to the gills, “don’t mention it.”
“What’s the sense of saying, ‘Don’t mention it’? I have mentioned it.”
“I mean, don’t mention it any more. Don’t give the matter another
thought. We all of us forget ourselves sometimes and do things which,
in our calmer moments, we regret. No doubt you were a bit tight at the
time.”
“What the devil do you think you’re talking about?”