'So you see what it amounts to, Jeeves. We want you to suggest some way
by which Mr Worple can make Miss Singer's acquaintance without getting
on to the fact that Mr Corcoran already knows her. Understand?'
'Perfectly, sir.'
'Well, try to think of something.'
'I have thought of something already, sir.'
'You have!'
'The scheme I would suggest cannot fail of success, but it has what may
seem to you a drawback, sir, in that it requires a certain financial
outlay.'
'He means,' I translated to Corky, 'that he has got a pippin of an
idea, but it's going to cost a bit.'
Naturally the poor chap's face dropped, for this seemed to dish the
whole thing. But I was still under the influence of the girl's melting
gaze, and I saw that this was where I started in as the knight-errant.
'You can count on me for all that sort of thing, Corky,' I said. 'Only
too glad. Carry on, Jeeves.'
'I would suggest, sir, that Mr Corcoran take advantage of Mr Worple's
attachment to ornithology.'
'How on earth did you know that he was fond of birds?'
'It is the way these New York apartments are constructed, sir. Quite
unlike our London houses. The partitions between the rooms are of the
flimsiest nature. With no wish to overhear, I have sometimes heard Mr
Corcoran expressing himself with a generous strength on the subject I
have mentioned.'
'Oh! Well?'
'Why should not the young lady write a small volume, to be
entitled--let us say--_The Children's Book of American Birds_ and
dedicate it to Mr Worple? A limited edition could be published at
your expense, sir, and a great deal of the book would, of course, be
given over to eulogistic remarks concerning Mr Worple's own larger
treatise on the same subject. I should recommend the dispatching of a
presentation copy to Mr Worple, immediately on publication, accompanied
by a letter in which the young lady asks to be allowed to make the
acquaintance of one to whom she owes so much. This would, I fancy,
produce the desired result, but as I say, the expense involved would be
considerable.'
I felt like the proprietor of a performing dog on the vaudeville stage
when the tyke has just pulled off his trick without a hitch. I had
betted on Jeeves all along, and I had known that he wouldn't let me
down. It beats me sometimes why a man with his genius is satisfied to
hang around pressing my clothes and what-not. If I had half Jeeves's
brain I should have a stab at being Prime Minister or something.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'that is absolutely ripping! One of your very best
efforts.'
'Thank you, sir.'
The girl made an objection.
'But I'm sure I couldn't write a book about anything. I can't even
write good letters.'
'Muriel's talents,' said Corky, with a little cough, 'lie more in the
direction of the drama, Bertie. I didn't mention it before, but one of
our reasons for being a trifle nervous as to how Uncle Alexander will
receive the news is that Muriel is in the chorus of that show _Choose
your Exit_ at the Manhattan. It's absurdly unreasonable, but we both
feel that that fact might increase Uncle Alexander's natural tendency
to kick like a steer.'
I saw what he meant. I don't know why it is--one of these psychology
sharps could explain it, I suppose--but uncles and aunts, as a class,
are always dead against the drama, legitimate or otherwise. They don't
seem able to stick it at any price.
But Jeeves had a solution, of course.
'I fancy it would be a simple matter, sir, to find some impecunious
author who would be glad to do the actual composition of the volume for
a small fee. It is only necessary that the young lady's name should
appear on the title page.'
'That's true,' said Corky. 'Sam Patterson would do it for a hundred
dollars. He writes a novelette, three short stories, and ten thousand
words of a serial for one of the all-fiction magazines under different
names every month. A little thing like this would be nothing to him.
I'll get after him right away.'
'Fine!'
'Will that be all, sir?' said Jeeves. 'Very good, sir. Thank you, sir.'
* * * * *
I always used to think that publishers had to be devilish intelligent
fellows, loaded down with the grey matter; but I've got their number
now. All a publisher has to do is to write cheques at intervals, while
a lot of deserving and industrious chappies rally round and do the real
work. I know, because I've been one myself. I simply sat tight in the
old flat with a fountain-pen, and in due season a topping, shiny book
came along.
I happened to be down at Corky's place when the first copies of _The
Children's Book of American Birds_ bobbed up. Muriel Singer was there,
and we were talking of things in general when there was a bang at the
door and the parcel was delivered.
It was certainly some book. It had a red cover with a fowl of some
species on it, and underneath the girl's name in gold letters. I opened
a copy at random.
'Often of a spring morning,' it said at the top of page twenty-one,
'as you wander through the fields, you will hear the sweet-toned,
carelessly flowing warble of the purple finch linnet. When you are
older you must read all about him in Mr Alexander Worple's wonderful
book, _American Birds_.'
You see. A boost for the uncle right away. And only a few pages later
there he was in the limelight again in connexion with the yellow-billed
cuckoo. It was great stuff. The more I read, the more I admired the
chap who had written it and Jeeves's genius in putting us on to the
wheeze. I didn't see how the uncle could fail to drop. You can't call a
chap the world's greatest authority on the yellow-billed cuckoo without
rousing a certain disposition towards chumminess in him.
'It's a cert!' I said.
'An absolute cinch!' said Corky.
And a day or two later he meandered up the Avenue to my flat to tell me
that all was well. The uncle had written Muriel a letter so dripping
with the milk of human kindness that if he hadn't known Mr Worple's
handwriting Corky would have refused to believe him the author of it.
Any time it suited Miss Singer to call, said the uncle, he would be
delighted to make her acquaintance.
* * * * *
Shortly after this I had to go out of town. Divers sound sportsmen
had invited me to pay visits to their country places, and it wasn't
for several months that I settled down in the city again. I had been
wondering a lot, of course, about Corky, whether it all turned out
right, and so forth, and my first evening in New York, happening to
pop into a quiet sort of little restaurant which I go to when I don't
feel inclined for the bright lights, I found Muriel Singer there,
sitting by herself at a table near the door. Corky, I took it, was out
telephoning. I went up and passed the time of day.
'Well, well, well, what?' I said.
'Why, Mr Wooster! How do you do?'
'Corky around?'
'I beg your pardon?'
'You're waiting for Corky, aren't you?'
'Oh, I didn't understand. No, I'm not waiting for him.'
It seemed to me that there was a sort of something in her voice, a kind
of thingummy, you know.
'I say, you haven't had a row with Corky, have you?'
'A row?'
'A spat, don't you know--little misunderstanding--faults on both
sides--er--and all that sort of thing.'
'Why, whatever makes you think that?'
'Oh, well, as it were, what? What I mean is--I thought you usually
dined with him before you went to the theatre.'
'I've left the stage now.'
Suddenly the whole thing dawned on me. I had forgotten what a long time
I had been away.
'Why, of course, I see now! You're married!'
'Yes.'
'How perfectly topping! I wish you all kinds of happiness.'
'Thank you so much. Oh, Alexander,' she said, looking past me, 'this is
a friend of mine--Mr Wooster.'
I spun round. A bloke with a lot of stiff grey hair and a red sort
of healthy face was standing there. Rather a formidable Johnnie, he
looked, though peaceful at the moment.
'I want you to meet my husband, Mr Wooster. Mr Wooster is a friend of
Bruce's, Alexander.'
The old boy grasped my hand warmly, and that was all that kept me from
hitting the floor in a heap. The place was rocking. Absolutely.
'So you know my nephew, Mr Wooster?' I heard him say. 'I wish you would
try to knock a little sense into him and make him quit this playing at
painting. But I have an idea that he is steadying down. I noticed it
first that night he came to dinner with us, my dear, to be introduced
to you. He seemed altogether quieter and more serious. Something seemed
to have sobered him. Perhaps you will give us the pleasure of your
company at dinner tonight, Mr Wooster? Or have you dined?'
I said I had. What I needed then was air, not dinner. I felt that I
wanted to get into the open and think this thing out.
When I reached my flat I heard Jeeves moving about in his lair. I
called him.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'now is the time for all good men to come to the aid
of the party. A stiff b-and-s first of all, and then I've a bit of news
for you.'
He came back with a tray and a long glass.
'Better have one yourself, Jeeves. You'll need it.'
'Later on, perhaps, thank you, sir.'
'All right. Please yourself. But you're going to get a shock. You
remember my friend, Mr Corcoran?'
'Yes, sir.'
'And the girl who was to slide gracefully into his uncle's esteem by
writing the book on birds?'
'Perfectly, sir.'
'Well, she's slid. She's married the uncle.'
He took it without blinking. You can't rattle Jeeves.
'That was always a development to be feared, sir.'
'You don't mean to tell me that you were expecting it?'
'It crossed my mind as a possibility.'
'Did it, by Jove! Well, I think you might have warned us!'
'I hardly liked to take the liberty, sir.'
* * * * *
Of course, as I saw after I had had a bite to eat and was in a calmer
frame of mind, what had happened wasn't my fault, if you came down to
it. I couldn't be expected to foresee that the scheme, in itself a
cracker-jack, would skid into the ditch as it had done; but all the
same I'm bound to admit that I didn't relish the idea of meeting Corky
again until time, the great healer, had been able to get in a bit of
soothing work. I cut Washington Square out absolutely for the next few
months. I gave it the complete miss-in-baulk. And then, just when I
was beginning to think I might safely pop down in that direction and
gather up the dropped threads, so to speak, time, instead of working
the healing wheeze, went and pulled the most awful bone and put the lid
on it. Opening the paper one morning, I read that Mrs Alexander Worple
had presented her husband with a son and heir.
I was so dashed sorry for poor old Corky that I hadn't the heart to
touch my breakfast. I was bowled over. Absolutely. It was the limit.
I hardly knew what to do. I wanted, of course, to rush down to
Washington Square and grip the poor blighter silently by the hand; and
then, thinking it over, I hadn't the nerve. Absent treatment seemed the
touch. I gave it him in waves.
But after a month or so I began to hesitate again. It struck me that
it was playing it a bit low-down on the poor chap, avoiding him like
this just when he probably wanted his pals to surge round him most.
I pictured him sitting in his lonely studio with no company but his
bitter thoughts, and the pathos of it got me to such an extent that I
bounded straight into a taxi and told the driver to go all out for the
studio.
I rushed in, and there was Corky, hunched up at the easel, painting
away, while on the model throne sat a severe-looking female of middle
age, holding a baby.
A fellow has to be ready for that sort of thing.
'Oh, ah!' I said, and started to back out.
Corky looked over his shoulder.
'Hallo, Bertie. Don't go. We're just finishing for the day. That will
be all this afternoon,' he said to the nurse, who got up with the baby
and decanted it into a perambulator which was standing in the fairway.
'At the same hour tomorrow, Mr Corcoran?'
'Yes, please.'
'Good afternoon.'
'Good afternoon.'
Corky stood there, looking at the door, and then he turned to me and
began to get it off his chest. Fortunately, he seemed to take it for
granted that I knew all about what had happened, so it wasn't as
awkward as it might have been.
'It's my uncle's idea,' he said. 'Muriel doesn't know about it yet. The
portrait's to be a surprise for her on her birthday. The nurse takes
the kid out ostensibly to get a breather, and they beat it down here.
If you want an instance of the irony of fate, Bertie, get acquainted
with this. Here's the first commission I have ever had to paint a
portrait, and the sitter is that human poached egg that has butted
in and bounced me out of my inheritance. Can you beat it! I call it
rubbing the thing in to expect me to spend my afternoons gazing into
the ugly face of a little brat who to all intents and purposes has hit
me behind the ear with a black-jack and swiped all I possess. I can't
refuse to paint the portrait, because if I did my uncle would stop my
allowance; yet every time I look up and catch that kid's vacant eye,
I suffer agonies. I tell you, Bertie, sometimes when he gives me a
patronizing glance and then turns away and is sick, as if it revolted
him to look at me, I come within an ace of occupying the entire front
page of the evening papers as the latest murder sensation. There are
moments when I can almost see the headlines: "Promising Young Artist
Beans Baby With Axe."'
I patted his shoulder silently. My sympathy for the poor old scout was
too deep for words.
I kept away from the studio for some time after that, because it didn't
seem right to me to intrude on the poor chappie's sorrow. Besides, I'm
bound to say that nurse intimidated me. She reminded me so infernally
of Aunt Agatha. She was the same gimlet-eyed type.
But one afternoon Corky called me on the phone.
'Bertie!'
'Hallo?'
'Are you doing anything this afternoon?'
'Nothing special.'
'You couldn't come down here, could you?'
'What's the trouble? Anything up?'
'I've finished the portrait.'
'Good boy! Stout work!'
'Yes.' His voice sounded rather doubtful. 'The fact is, Bertie, it
doesn't look quite right to me. There's something about it--My uncle's
coming in half an hour to inspect it, and--I don't know why it is, but
I kind of feel I'd like your moral support!'
I began to see that I was letting myself in for something. The
sympathetic cooperation of Jeeves seemed to me to be indicated.
'You think he'll cut up rough?'
'He may.'
I threw my mind back to the red-faced chappie I had met at the
restaurant, and tried to picture him cutting up rough. It was only too
easy. I spoke to Corky firmly on the telephone.
'I'll come,' I said.
'Good!'
'But only if I may bring Jeeves.'
'Why Jeeves? What's Jeeves got to do with it? Who wants Jeeves? Jeeves
is the fool who suggested the scheme that has led--'
'Listen, Corky, old top! If you think I am going to face that uncle of
yours without Jeeves's support, you're mistaken. I'd sooner go into a
den of wild beasts and bite a lion on the back of the neck.'
'Oh, all right,' said Corky. Not cordially, but he said it; so I rang
for Jeeves, and explained the situation.
'Very good, sir,' said Jeeves.
* * * * *
We found Corky near the door, looking at the picture with one hand up
in a defensive sort of way, as if he thought it might swing on him.
'Stand right where you are, Bertie,' he said, without moving. 'Now,
tell me honestly, how does it strike you?'
The light from the big window fell right on the picture. I took a good
look at it. Then I shifted a bit nearer and took another look. Then I
went back to where I had been at first, because it hadn't seemed quite
so bad from there.
'Well?' said Corky anxiously.