I blotted the last page of my manuscript and sank back, feeling more or
less of a spent force. After incredible sweat of the old brow the thing
seemed to be in pretty fair shape, and I was just reading it through
and debating whether to bung in another paragraph at the end, when
there was a tap at the door and Jeeves appeared.
'Mrs Travers, sir, on the telephone.'
'Oh?' I said. Preoccupied, don't you know.
'Yes, sir. She presents her compliments and would be glad to know what
progress you have made with the article which you are writing for her.'
'Jeeves, can I mention men's knee-length underclothing in a woman's
paper?'
'No, sir.'
'Then tell her it's finished.'
'Very good, sir.'
'And, Jeeves, when you're through, come back. I want you to cast your
eye over this effort and give it the OK.'
My Aunt Dahlia, who runs a woman's paper called _Milady's Boudoir_, had
recently backed me into a corner and made me promise to write her a
few authoritative words for her 'Husbands and Brothers' page on 'What
the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing'. I believe in encouraging aunts, when
deserving; and, as there are many worse eggs than her knocking about
the metrop, I had consented blithely. But I give you my honest word
that if I had had the foggiest notion of what I was letting myself in
for, not even a nephew's devotion would have kept me from giving her
the raspberry. A deuce of a job it had been, taxing the physique to
the utmost. I don't wonder now that all these author blokes have bald
heads and faces like birds who have suffered.
'Jeeves,' I said, when he came back, 'you don't read a paper called
_Milady's Boudoir_ by any chance, do you?'
'No, sir. The periodical has not come to my notice.'
'Well, spring sixpence on it next week, because this article will
appear in it. Wooster on the well-dressed man, don't you know.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Yes, indeed, Jeeves. I've rather extended myself over this little
bijou. There's a bit about socks that I think you will like.'
He took the manuscript, brooded over it, and smiled a gentle, approving
smile.
'The sock passage is quite in the proper vein, sir,' he said.
'Well expressed, what?'
'Extremely, sir.'
I watched him narrowly as he read on, and, as I was expecting, what
you might call the love-light suddenly died out of his eyes. I braced
myself for an unpleasant scene.
'Come to the bit about soft silk shirts for evening wear?' I asked
carelessly.
'Yes, sir,' said Jeeves, in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten
in the leg by a personal friend. 'And if I may be pardoned for saying
so--'
'You don't like it?'
'No, sir. I do not. Soft silk shirts with evening costume are not worn,
sir.'
'Jeeves,' I said, looking the blighter diametrically in the centre of
the eyeball, 'they're dashed well going to be. I may as well tell you
now that I have ordered a dozen of those shirtings from Peabody and
Simms, and it's no good looking like that, because I am jolly well
adamant.'
'If I might--'
'No, Jeeves,' I said, raising my hand, 'argument is useless. Nobody has
a greater respect than I have for your judgement in socks, in ties,
and--I will go farther--in spats; but when it comes to evening shirts
your nerve seems to fail you. You have no vision. You are prejudiced
and reactionary. Hidebound is the word that suggests itself. It may
interest you to learn that when I was at Le Touquet the Prince of Wales
buzzed into the Casino one night with soft silk shirt complete.'
'His Royal Highness, sir, may permit himself a certain licence which in
your own case--'
'No, Jeeves,' I said firmly, 'it's no use. When we Woosters are
adamant, we are--well, adamant, if you know what I mean.'
'Very good, sir.'
I could see the man was wounded, and, of course, the whole episode had
been extremely jarring and unpleasant; but these things have to be gone
through. Is one a serf or isn't one? That's what it all boils down to.
Having made my point, I changed the subject.
'Well, that's that,' I said. 'We now approach another topic. Do you
know any housemaids, Jeeves?'
'Housemaids, sir?'
'Come, come, Jeeves, you know what housemaids are.'
'Are you requiring a housemaid, sir?'
'No, but Mr Little is. I met him at the club a couple of days ago, and
he told me that Mrs Little is offering rich rewards to anybody who will
find her one guaranteed to go light on the china.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Yes. The one now in office apparently runs through the _objets d'art_
like a typhoon, simoom, or sirocco. So if you know any--'
'I know a great many, sir. Some intimately, others mere acquaintances.'
'Well, start digging round among the old pals. And now the hat, the
stick, and other necessaries. I must be getting along and handing in
this article.'
* * * * *
The offices of _Milady's Boudoir_ were in one of those rummy streets in
the Covent Garden neighbourhood; and I had just got to the door, after
wading through a deep top-dressing of old cabbages and tomatoes, when
who should come out but Mrs Little. She greeted me with the warmth due
to the old family friend, in spite of the fact that I hadn't been round
to the house for a goodish while.
'Whatever are you doing in these parts, Bertie? I thought you never
came east of Leicester Square.'
'I've come to deliver an article of sorts which my Aunt Dahlia asked
me to write. She edits a species of journal up those stairs. _Milady's
Boudoir_.'
'What a coincidence! I have just promised to write an article for her,
too.'
'Don't you do it,' I said earnestly. 'You've simply no notion what a
ghastly labour--Oh, but, of course, I was forgetting. You're used to
it, what?'
Silly of me to have talked like that. Young Bingo Little, if you
remember, had married the famous female novelist, Rosie M. Banks,
author of some of the most pronounced and widely read tripe ever put on
the market. Naturally a mere article would be pie for her.
'No, I don't think it will give me much trouble,' she said. 'Your aunt
has suggested a most delightful subject.'
'That's good. By the way, I spoke to my man Jeeves about getting you a
housemaid. He knows all the hummers.'
'Thank you so much. Oh, are you doing anything tomorrow night?'
'Not a thing.'
'Then do come and dine with us. Your aunt is coming, and hopes to bring
your uncle. I am looking forward to meeting him.'
'Thanks. Delighted.'
I mean it, too. The Little household may be weak on housemaids, but it
is right there when it comes to cooks. Somewhere or other some time ago
Bingo's missus managed to dig up a Frenchman of the most extraordinary
vim and skill. A most amazing Johnnie who dishes a wicked _ragout_.
Old Bingo has put on at least ten pounds in weight since this fellow
Anatole arrived in the home.
'At eight, then.'
'Right. Thanks ever so much.'
She popped off, and I went upstairs to hand in my copy, as we boys of
the Press call it. I found Aunt Dahlia immersed to the gills in papers
of all descriptions.
I am not much of a lad for my relatives as a general thing, but
I've always been very pally with Aunt Dahlia. She married my Uncle
Thomas--between ourselves a bit of a squirt--the year Bluebottle won
the Cambridgeshire; and they hadn't got half way down the aisle before
I was saying to myself, 'That woman is much too good for the old bird.'
Aunt Dahlia is a large, genial soul, the sort you see in dozens on the
hunting field. As a matter of fact, until she married Uncle Thomas, she
put in most of her time on horseback; but he won't live in the country,
so nowadays she expends her energy on this paper of hers.
She came to the surface as I entered, and flung a cheery look at my
head.
'Hullo, Bertie! I say, have you really finished that article?'
'To the last comma.'
'Good boy! My gosh, I'll bet it's rotten.'
'On the contrary, it is extremely hot stuff, and most of it approved by
Jeeves, what's more. The bit about soft silk shirts got in amongst him
a trifle; but you can take it from me, Aunt Dahlia, that they are the
latest yodel and will be much seen at first nights and other occasions
where Society assembles.'
'Your man Jeeves,' said Aunt Dahlia, flinging the article into a basket
and skewering a few loose pieces of paper on a sort of meat hook, 'is a
washout, and you can tell him I said so.'
'Oh, come,' I said. 'He may not be sound on shirtings--'
'I'm not referring to that. As long as a week ago I asked him to get me
a cook, and he hasn't found one yet.'
'Great Scott! Is Jeeves a domestic employment agency? Mrs Little wants
him to find her a housemaid. I met her outside. She tells me she's
doing something for you.'
'Yes, thank goodness. I'm relying on it to bump the circulation up a
bit. I can't read her stuff myself, but women love it. Her name on the
cover will mean a lot. And we need it.'
'Paper not doing well?'
'It's doing all right really, but it's got to be a slow job building up
a circulation.'
'I suppose so.'
'I can get Tom to see that in his lucid moments,' said Aunt Dahlia,
skewering a few more papers. 'But just at present the poor fathead has
got one of his pessimistic spells. It's entirely due to that mechanic
who calls herself a cook. A few more of her alleged dinners, and Tom
will refuse to go on paying the printers' bills.'
'You don't mean that!'
'I do mean it. There was what she called a _ris de veau à la
financière_ last night which made him talk for three-quarters of an
hour about good money going to waste and nothing to show for it.'
I quite understood, and I was dashed sorry for her. My Uncle Thomas
is a cove who made a colossal pile of money out in the East, but in
doing so put his digestion on the blink. This has made him a tricky
proposition to handle. Many a time I've lunched with him and found him
perfectly chirpy up to the fish, only to have him turn blue on me well
before the cheese.
Who was that lad they used to try to make me read at Oxford?
Ship--Shop--Schopenhauer. That's the name. A grouch of the most
pronounced description. Well, Uncle Thomas, when his gastric juices
have been giving him the elbow, can make Schopenhauer look like
Pollyanna. And the worst of it is, from Aunt Dahlia's point of view,
that on these occasions he always seems to think he's on the brink of
ruin and wants to start to economize.
'Pretty tough,' I said. 'Well, anyway, he'll get one good dinner
tomorrow night at the Littles'.'
'Can you guarantee that, Bertie?' asked Aunt Dahlia earnestly. 'I
simply daren't risk unleashing him on anything at all wonky.'
'They've got a marvellous cook. I haven't been round there for some
time, but unless he's lost his form of two months ago Uncle Thomas is
going to have the treat of a lifetime.'
'It'll only make it all the worse for him, coming back to our
steak-incinerator,' said Aunt Dahlia, a bit on the Schopenhauer side
herself.
* * * * *
The little nest where Bingo and his bride had settled themselves was
up in St John's Wood; one of those rather jolly houses with a bit of
garden. When I got there on the following night, I found that I was
the last to weigh in. Aunt Dahlia was chatting with Rosie in a corner,
while Uncle Thomas, standing by the mantelpiece with Bingo, sucked down
a cocktail in a frowning, suspicious sort of manner, rather like a
chappie having a short snort before dining with the Borgias: as if he
were saying to himself that, even if this particular cocktail wasn't
poisoned, he was bound to cop it later on.
Well, I hadn't expected anything in the nature of beaming _joie de
vivre_ from Uncle Thomas, so I didn't pay much attention to him. What
did surprise me was the extraordinary gloom of young Bingo. You may say
what you like against Bingo, but nobody has ever found him a depressing
host. Why, many a time in the days of his bachelorhood I've known him
to start throwing bread before the soup course. Yet now he and Uncle
Thomas were a pair. He looked haggard and careworn, like a Borgia who
has suddenly remembered that he has forgotten to shove cyanide in the
_consommé_, and the dinner gong due any moment.
And the mystery wasn't helped at all by the one remark he made to me
before conversation became general. As he poured out my cocktail, he
suddenly bent forward.
'Bertie,' he whispered, in a nasty, feverish manner, 'I want to see
you. Life and death matter. Be in tomorrow morning.'
That was all. Immediately after that the starting-gun went and we
toddled down to the festive. And from that moment, I'm bound to say,
in the superior interests of the proceedings he rather faded out of
my mind. For good old Anatole, braced presumably by the fact of there
being guests, had absolutely surpassed himself.
I am not a man who speaks hastily in these matters. I weigh my words.
And I say again that Anatole had surpassed himself. It was as good a
dinner as I have ever absorbed, and it revived Uncle Thomas like a
watered flower. As we sat down he was saying some things about the
Government which they wouldn't have cared to hear. With the _consommé
pâté d'Italie_ he said but what could you expect nowadays? With the
_paupiettes de sole à la princesse_ he admitted rather decently that
the Government couldn't be held responsible for the rotten weather,
anyway. And shortly after the _caneton Aylesbury à la broche_ he was
practically giving the lads the benefit of his whole-hearted support.
And all the time young Bingo looking like an owl with a secret sorrow.
Rummy!
I thought about it a good deal as I walked home, and I was hoping he
wouldn't roll round with his hard-luck story too early in the morning.
He had the air of one who intends to charge in at about six-thirty.
Jeeves was waiting up for me when I got back.
'A pleasant dinner, sir?' he said.
'Magnificent, Jeeves.'
'I am glad to hear that, sir. Mr George Travers rang up on the
telephone shortly after you had left. He was extremely desirous that
you should join him at Harrogate, sir. He leaves for that town by an
early train tomorrow.'
My Uncle George is a festive old bird who has made a habit for years
of doing himself a dashed sight too well, with the result that he's
always got Harrogate or Buxton hanging over him like the sword of
what's-his-name. And he hates going there alone.
'It can't be done,' I said. Uncle George is bad enough in London, and
I wasn't going to let myself be cooped up with him in one of these
cure-places.
'He was extremely urgent, sir.'
'No, Jeeves,' I said firmly. 'I am always anxious to oblige, but Uncle
George--no, no! I mean to say, what?'
'Very good, sir,' said Jeeves.
It was a pleasure to hear the way he said it. Docile the man was
becoming, absolutely docile. It just showed that I had been right in
putting my foot down about those shirts.
* * * * *
When Bingo showed up next morning I had had breakfast and was all ready
for him. Jeeves shot him into the presence, and he sat down on the bed.
'Good morning, Bertie,' said young Bingo.
'Good morning, old thing,' I replied courteously.
'Don't go, Jeeves,' said young Bingo hollowly. 'Wait.'
'Sir?'
'Remain. Stay. Cluster round. I shall need you.'
'Very good, sir.'
Bingo lit a cigarette and frowned bleakly at the wallpaper.
'Bertie,' he said, 'the most frightful calamity has occurred. Unless
something is done, and done right speedily, my social prestige is
doomed, my self-respect will be obliterated, my name will be mud, and I
shall not dare to show my face in the West End of London again.'
'My aunt!' I cried, deeply impressed.
'Exactly,' said young Bingo, with a hollow laugh. 'You have put it in a
nutshell. The whole trouble is due to your blasted aunt.'
'Which blasted aunt? Specify, old thing. I have so many.'
'Mrs Travers. The one who runs that infernal paper.'
'Oh, no, dash it, old man,' I protested. 'She's the only decent aunt
I've got. Jeeves, you will bear me out in this?'
'Such has always been my impression, I must confess, sir.'
'Well, get rid of it, then,' said young Bingo. 'The woman is a menace
to society, a home-wrecker, and a pest. Do you know what's she's done?
She's got Rosie to write an article for that rag of hers.'
'I know that.'
'Yes, but you don't know what it's about.'
'No. She only told me Aunt Dahlia had given her a splendid idea for the
thing.'
'It's about me!'
'You?'
'Yes, me! Me! And do you know what it's called? It is called "How I
Keep the Love of My Husband-Baby".'
'My what?'
'Husband-baby!'
'What's a husband-baby?'
'I am, apparently,' said young Bingo, with much bitterness. 'I am also,
according to this article, a lot of other things which I have too
much sense of decency to repeat even to an old friend. This beastly
composition, in short, is one of those things they call "human interest
stories"; one of those intimate revelations of married life over which
the female public loves to gloat; all about Rosie and me and what
she does when I come home cross, and so on. I tell you, Bertie, I am
still blushing all over at the recollection of something she says in
paragraph two.'
'What?'
'I decline to tell you. But you can take it from me that it's the edge.
Nobody could be fonder of Rosie than I am, but--dear, sensible girl as
she is in ordinary life--the moment she gets in front of a dictating
machine she becomes absolutely maudlin. Bertie, that article must not
appear!'
'But--'
'If it does I shall have to resign from my clubs, grow a beard, and
become a hermit. I shall not be able to face the world.'
'Aren't you pitching it a bit strong, old lad?' I said. 'Jeeves, don't
you think he's pitching it a bit strong?'
'Well, sir--'
'I am pitching it feebly,' said young Bingo earnestly. 'You haven't
heard the thing. I have. Rosie shoved the cylinder on the dictating
machine last night before dinner, and it was grisly to hear the
instrument croaking out those awful sentences. If that article appears
I shall be kidded to death by every pal I've got. Bertie,' he said, his
voice sinking to a hoarse whisper, 'you have about as much imagination
as a warthog, but surely even you can picture to yourself what Jimmy
Bowles and Tuppy Rogers, to name only two, will say when they see me
referred to in print as "half god, half prattling, mischievous child"?'