'Well, it's dashed awkward, you know, Jeeves. She looks on me as an
intruder. By Jove! I suppose she thinks I'm someone who hangs about
here, touching Mr Todd for free meals and borrowing his shirts.'
'Extremely probable, sir.'
'It's pretty rotten you know.'
'Most disturbing, sir.'
'And there's another thing: What are we to do about Mr Todd? We've got
to get him up here as soon as ever we can. When you have brought the
tea you had better go out and send him a telegram, telling him to come
up by the next train.'
'I have already done so, sir. I took the liberty of writing the message
and dispatching it by the lift attendant.'
'By Jove, you think of everything, Jeeves!'
'Thank you, sir. A little buttered toast with the tea? Just so, sir.
Thank you.'
I went back to the sitting-room. She hadn't moved an inch. She was
still bolt upright on the edge of her chair, gripping her umbrella like
a hammer-thrower. She gave me another of those looks as I came in.
There was no doubt about it; for some reason she had taken a dislike to
me. I suppose because I wasn't George M. Cohan. It was a bit hard on a
chap.
'This is a surprise, what?' I said, after about five minutes' restful
silence, trying to crank the conversation up again.
'What is a surprise?'
'Your coming here, don't you know, and so on.'
She raised her eyebrows and drank me in a bit more through her glasses.
'Why is it surprising that I should visit my only nephew?' she said.
'Oh, rather,' I said. 'Of course! Certainly. What I mean is--'
Jeeves projected himself into the room with the tea. I was jolly glad
to see him. There's nothing like having a bit of business arranged for
one when one isn't certain of one's lines. With the teapot to fool
about with I felt happier.
'Tea, tea, tea--what! What!' I said.
It wasn't what I had meant to say. My idea had been to be a good deal
more formal, and so on. Still, it covered the situation. I poured her
out a cup. She sipped it and put the cup down with a shudder.
'Do you mean to say, young man,' she said, frostily, 'that you expect
me to drink this stuff?'
'Rather! Bucks you up, you know.'
'What do you mean by the expression "Bucks you up"?'
'Well, makes you full of beans, you know. Makes you fizz.'
'I don't understand a word you say. You're English, aren't you?'
I admitted it. She didn't say a word. And she did it in a way that made
it worse than if she had spoken for hours. Somehow it was brought home
to me that she didn't like Englishmen, and that if she had had to meet
an Englishman I was the one she'd have chosen last.
Conversation languished once more after that.
Then I tried again. I was becoming more convinced every moment that you
can't make a real lively _salon_ with a couple of people, especially if
one of them lets it go a word at a time.
'Are you comfortable at your hotel?' I said.
'At which hotel?'
'The hotel you're staying at.'
'I am not staying at an hotel.'
'Stopping with friends--what?'
'I am naturally stopping with my nephew.'