Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by P. G. Wodehouse
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Copyright
A Jeeves and Wooster novel
Jeeves is on holiday in Herne Bay, and while he’s away the world caves in on Bertie Wooster. For a start, he’s astonished to read in The Times of his engagement to the mercurial Bobbie Wickham. Then at Brinkley Court, his Aunt Dahlia’s establishment, he finds his awful former head master in attendance ready to award the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. And finally the Brinkley butler turns out for reasons of his own to be Bertie’s nemesis in disguise, the brain surgeon Sir Roderick Glossop.
With all occasions informing against him, Bertie has to hightail it to Herne Bay to liberate Jeeves from his shrimping net. And after that, the fun really starts.
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (always known as ‘Plum’) wrote more than ninety novels and some three hundred short stories over 73 years. He is widely recognised as the greatest 20th century writer of humour in the English language.
Wodehouse mixed the high culture of his classical education with the popular slang of the suburbs in both England and America, becoming a ‘cartoonist of words’. Drawing on the antics of a near-contemporary world, he placed his Drones, Earls, Ladies (including draconian aunts and eligible girls) and Valets, in a recently vanished society, whose reality is transformed by his remarkable imagination into something timeless and enduring.
Perhaps best known for the escapades of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, Wodehouse also created the world of Blandings Castle, home to Lord Emsworth and his cherished pig, the Empress of Blandings. His stories include gems concerning the irrepressible and disreputable Ukridge; Psmith, the elegant socialist; the ever-so-slightly-unscrupulous Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred; and those related by Mr Mulliner, the charming raconteur of The Angler’s Rest, and the Oldest Member at the Golf Club.
Wodehouse collaborated with a variety of partners on straight plays and worked principally alongside Guy Bolton on providing the lyrics and script for musical comedies with such composers as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. He liked to say that the royalties for ‘Just My Bill’, which Jerome Kern incorporated into Showboat, were enough to keep him in tobacco and whisky for the rest of his life.
In 1936 he was awarded The Mark Twain Medal for ‘having made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world’. He was made a Doctor of Letters by Oxford University in 1939 and in 1975, aged 93, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died shortly afterwards, on St Valentine’s Day.
To have created so many characters that require no introduction places him in a very select group of writers, lead by Shakespeare and Dickens.
Fiction
Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen
The Adventures of Sally
Bachelors Anonymous
Barmy in Wonderland
Big Money
Bill the Conqueror
Blandings Castle and Elsewhere
Carry On, Jeeves
The Clicking of Cuthbert
Cocktail Time
The Code of the Woosters
The Coming of Bill
Company for Henry
A Damsel in Distress
Do Butlers Burgle Banks
Doctor Sally
Eggs, Beans and Crumpets
A Few Quick Ones
French Leave
Frozen Assets
Full Moon
Galahad at Blandings
A Gentleman of Leisure
The Girl in Blue
The Girl on the Boat
The Gold Bat
The Head of Kay’s
The Heart of a Goof
Heavy Weather
Hot Water
Ice in the Bedroom
If I Were You
Indiscretions of Archie
The Inimitable Jeeves
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
Jill the Reckless
Joy in the Morning
Laughing Gas
Leave it to Psmith
The Little Nugget
Lord Emsworth and Others
Louder and Funnier
Love Among the Chickens
The Luck of Bodkins
The Man Upstairs
The Man with Two Left Feet
The Mating Season
Meet Mr Mulliner
Mike and Psmith
Mike at Wrykyn
Money for Nothing
Money in the Bank
Mr Mulliner Speaking
Much Obliged, Jeeves
Mulliner Nights
Not George Washington
Nothing Serious
The Old Reliable
Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin
A Pelican at Blandings
Piccadilly Jim
Pigs Have Wings
Plum Pie
The Pothunters
A Prefect’s Uncle
The Prince and Betty
Psmith, Journalist
Psmith in the City
Quick Service
Right Ho, Jeeves
Ring for Jeeves
Sam me Sudden
Service with a Smile
The Small Bachelor
Something Fishy
Something Fresh
Spring Fever
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
Summer Lightning
Summer Moonshine
Sunset at Blandings
The Swoop
Tales of St Austin’s
Thank You, Jeeves
Ukridge
Uncle Dynamite
Uncle Fred in the Springtime
Uneasy Money
Very Good, Jeeves
The White Feather
William Tell Told Again
Young Men in Spats
Omnibuses
The World of Blandings
The World of Jeeves
The World of Mr Mulliner
The World of Psmith
The World of Ukridge
The World of Uncle Fred
Wodehouse Nuggets (edited by Richard Usborne)
The World of Wodehouse Clergy
The Hollywood Omnibus
Weekend Wodehouse
Paperback Omnibuses
The Golf Omnibus
The Aunts Omnibus
The Drones Omnibus
The Jeeves Omnibus 1
The Jeeves Omnibus 3
Poems
The Parrot and Other Poems
Autobiographical
Wodehouse on Wodehouse (comprising Bring on the Girls, Over Seventy, Performing Flea)
Letters
Yours, Plum
JEEVES PLACED THE sizzling eggs and b. on the breakfast table, and Reginald (‘Kipper’) Herring and I, licking the lips, squared our elbows and got down to it. A lifelong buddy of mine, this Herring, linked to me by what are called imperishable memories. Years ago, when striplings, he and I had done a stretch together at Malvern House, Bramley-on-Sea, the preparatory school conducted by that prince of stinkers, Aubrey Upjohn M.A., and had frequently stood side by side in the Upjohn study awaiting the receipt of six of the juiciest from a cane of the type that biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder, as the fellow said. So we were, you might say, rather like a couple of old sweats who had fought shoulder to shoulder on Crispin’s day, if I’ve got the name right.
The plat du jour having gone down the hatch, accompanied by some fluid ounces of strengthening coffee, I was about to reach for the marmalade, when I heard the telephone tootling out in the hall and rose to attend to it.
‘Bertram Wooster’s residence,’ I said, having connected with the instrument. ‘Wooster in person at this end. Oh hullo,’ I added, for the voice that boomed over the wire was that of Mrs Thomas Portarlington Travers of Brinkley Court, Market Snodsbury, near Droitwich – or, putting it another way, my good and deserving Aunt Dahlia. ‘A very hearty pip-pip to you, old ancestor,’ I said, well pleased, for she is a woman with whom it is always a privilege to chew the fat.
‘And a rousing toodle-oo to you, you young blot on the landscape,’ she replied cordially. ‘I’m surprised to find you up as early as this. Or have you just got in from a night on the tiles?’
I hastened to rebut this slur.
‘Certainly not. Nothing of that description whatsoever. I’ve been upping with the lark this last week, to keep Kipper Herring company. He’s staying with me till he can get into his new flat. You remember old Kipper? I brought him down to Brinkley one summer. Chap with a cauliflower ear.’
‘I know who you mean. Looks like Jack Dempsey.’
‘That’s right. Far more, indeed, than Jack Dempsey does. He’s on the staff of the Thursday Review, a periodical of which you may or may not be a reader, and has to clock in at the office at daybreak. No doubt, when I apprise him of your call, he will send you his love, for I know he holds you in high esteem. The perfect hostess, he often describes you as. Well, it’s nice to hear your voice again, old flesh and blood. How’s everything down Market Snodsbury way?’
‘Oh, we’re jogging along. But I’m not speaking from Brinkley. I’m in London.’
‘Till when?’
‘Driving back this afternoon.’
‘I’ll give you lunch.’
‘Sorry, can’t manage it. I’m putting on the nosebag with Sir Roderick Glossop.’
This surprised me. The eminent brain specialist to whom she alluded was a man I would not have cared to lunch with myself, our relations having been on the stiff side since the night at Lady Wickham’s place in Hertfordshire when, acting on the advice of my hostess’s daughter Roberta, I had punctured his hot-water bottle with a darning needle in the small hours of the morning. Quite unintentional, of course. I had planned to puncture the h-w-b of his nephew Tuppy Glossop, with whom I had a feud on, and unknown to me they had changed rooms. Just one of those unfortunate misunderstandings.
‘What on earth are you doing that for?’
‘Why shouldn’t I? He’s paying.’
I saw her point – a penny saved is a penny earned and all that sort of thing – but I continued surprised. It amazed me that Aunt Dahlia, presumably a free agent, should have selected this very formidable loony-doctor to chew the mid-day chop with. However, one of the first lessons life teaches us is that aunts will be aunts, so I merely shrugged a couple of shoulders.
‘Well, it’s up to you, of course, but it seems a rash act. Did you come to London just to revel with Glossop?’
‘No, I’m here to collect my new butler and take him home with me.’
‘New butler? What’s become of Seppings?’
‘He’s gone.’
I clicked the tongue. I was very fond of the major-domo in question, having enjoyed many a port in his pantry, and this news saddened me.
‘No, really?’ I said. ‘Too bad. I thought he looked a little frail when I last saw him. Well, that’s how it goes. All flesh is grass, I often say.’
‘To Bognor Regis, for his holiday.’
I unclicked the tongue.
‘Oh, I see. That puts a different complexion on the matter. Odd how all these pillars of the home seem to be dashing away on toots these days. It’s like what Jeeves was telling me about the great race movements of the middle ages. Jeeves starts his holiday this morning. He’s off to Herne Bay for the shrimping, and I’m feeling like that bird in the poem who lost his pet gazelle or whatever the animal was. I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.’
‘I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. Have you a clean shirt?’
‘Several.’
‘And a toothbrush?’
‘Two, both of the finest quality.’
‘Then pack them. You’re coming to Brinkley tomorrow.’
The gloom which always envelops Bertram Wooster like a fog when Jeeves is about to take his annual vacation lightened perceptibly. There are few things I find more agreeable than a sojourn at Aunt Dahlia’s rural lair. Picturesque scenery, gravel soil, main drainage, company’s own water and, above all, the superb French cheffing of her French chef Anatole, God’s gift to the gastric juices. A full hand, as you might put it.
‘What an admirable suggestion,’ I said. ‘You solve all my problems and bring the blue bird out of a hat. Rely on me. You will observe me bowling up in the Wooster sports model tomorrow afternoon with my hair in a braid and a song on my lips. My presence will, I feel sure, stimulate Anatole to new heights of endeavour. Got anybody else staying at the old snake pit?’
‘Five inmates in all.’
‘Five?’ I resumed my tongue-clicking. ‘Golly! Uncle Tom must be frothing at the mouth a bit,’ I said, for I knew the old buster’s distaste for guests in the home. Even a single weekender is sometimes enough to make him drain the bitter cup.
‘Tom’s not there. He’s gone to Harrogate with Cream.’
‘You mean lumbago.’
‘I don’t mean lumbago. I mean Cream. Homer Cream. Big American tycoon, who is visiting these shores. He suffers from ulcers, and his medicine man has ordered him to take the waters at Harrogate. Tom has gone with him to hold his hand and listen to him of an evening while he tells him how filthy the stuff tastes.’
‘Antagonistic.’
‘What?’
‘I mean altruistic. You are probably not familiar with the word, but it’s one I’ve heard Jeeves use. It’s what you say of a fellow who gives selfless service, not counting the cost.’
‘Selfless service, my foot! Tom’s in the middle of a very important business deal with Cream. If it goes through, he’ll make a packet free of income tax. So he’s sucking up to him like a Hollywood Yes-man.’
I gave an intelligent nod, though this of course was wasted on her because she couldn’t see me. I could readily understand my uncle-by-marriage’s mental processes. T. Portarlington Travers is a man who has accumulated the pieces of eight in sackfuls, but he is always more than willing to shove a bit extra away behind the brick in the fireplace, feeling – and rightly – that every little bit added to what you’ve got makes just a little bit more. And if there’s one thing that’s right up his street, it is not paying income tax. He grudges every penny the Government nicks him for.
‘That is why, when kissing me goodbye, he urged me with tears in his eyes to lush Mrs Cream and her son Willie up and treat them like royalty. So they’re at Brinkley, dug into the woodwork.’
‘Willie, did you say?’
‘Short for Wilbert.’
I mused. Willie Cream. The name seemed familiar somehow. I seemed to have heard it or seen it in the papers somewhere. But it eluded me.
‘Adela Cream writes mystery stories. Are you a fan of hers? No? Well, start boning up on them directly you arrive, because every little helps. I’ve brought a complete set. They’re very good.’
‘I shall be delighted to run an eye over her material,’ I said, for I am what they call an a-something of novels of suspense. Aficionado, would that be it? ‘I can always do with another corpse or two. We have established, then, that among the inmates are this Mrs Cream and her son Wilbert. Who are the other three?’
‘Well, there’s Lady Wickham’s daughter Roberta.’
I started violently, as if some unseen hand had goosed me.
‘What! Bobbie Wickham? Oh, my gosh!’
‘Why the agitation? Do you know her?’
‘You bet I know her.’
‘I begin to see. Is she one of the gaggle of girls you’ve been engaged to?’
‘Not actually, no. We were never engaged. But that was merely because she wouldn’t meet me half way.’
‘Turned you down, did she?’
‘Yes, thank goodness.’
‘Why thank goodness? She’s a one-girl beauty chorus.’
‘She doesn’t try the eyes, I agree.’
‘A pippin, if ever there was one.’
‘Very true, but is being a pippin everything? What price the soul?’
‘Isn’t her soul like mother makes?’
‘Far from it. Much below par. What I could tell you . . . But no, let it go. Painful subj.’
I had been about to mention fifty-seven or so of the reasons why the prudent operator, if he valued his peace of mind, deemed it best to stay well away from the red-headed menace under advisement, but realized that at a moment when I was wanting to get back to the marmalade it would occupy too much time. It will be enough to say that I had long since come out of the ether and was fully cognisant of the fact that in declining to fall in with my suggestion that we should start rounding up clergymen and bridesmaids, the beasel had rendered me a signal service, and I’ll tell you why.
Aunt Dahlia, describing this young blister as a one-girl beauty chorus, had called her shots perfectly correctly. Her outer crust was indeed of a nature to cause those beholding it to rock back on their heels with a startled whistle. But while equipped with eyes like twin stars, hair ruddier than the cherry, oomph, espièglerie and all the fixings, B. Wickham had also the disposition and general outlook on life of a ticking bomb. In her society you always had the uneasy feeling that something was likely to go off at any moment with a pop. You never knew what she was going to do next or into what murky depths of soup she would carelessly plunge you.
‘Miss Wickham, sir,’ Jeeves had once said to me warningly at the time when the fever was at its height, ‘lacks seriousness. She is volatile and frivolous. I would always hesitate to recommend as a life partner a young lady with quite such a vivid shade of red hair.’
His judgment was sound. I have already mentioned how with her subtle wiles this girl had induced me to sneak into Sir Roderick Glossop’s sleeping apartment and apply the darning needle to his hot-water bottle, and that was comparatively mild going for her. In a word, Roberta, daughter of the late Sir Cuthbert and Lady Wickham of Skeldings Hall, Herts, was pure dynamite and better kept at a distance by all those who aimed at leading the peaceful life. The prospect of being immured with her in the same house, with all the facilities a country house affords an enterprising girl for landing her nearest and dearest in the mulligatawny, made me singularly dubious about the shape of things to come.
And I was tottering under this blow when the old relative administered another, and it was a haymaker.
‘And there’s Aubrey Upjohn and his stepdaughter Phyllis Mills,’ she said. ‘That’s the lot. What’s the matter with you? Got asthma?’
I took her to be alluding to the sharp gasp which had escaped my lips, and I must confess that it had come out not unlike the last words of a dying duck. But I felt perfectly justified in gasping. A weaker man would have howled like a banshee. There floated into my mind something Kipper Herring had once said to me. ‘You know, Bertie,’ he had said, in philosophical mood, ‘we have much to be thankful for in this life of ours, you and I. However rough the going, there is one sustaining thought to which we can hold. The storm clouds may lower and the horizon grow dark, we may get a nail in our shoe and be caught in the rain without an umbrella, we may come down to breakfast and find that someone else has taken the brown egg, but at least we have the consolation of knowing that we shall never see Aubrey Gawd-help-us Upjohn again. Always remember this in times of despondency,’ he said, and I always had. And now here the bounder was, bobbing up right in my midst. Enough to make the stoutest-hearted go into his dying-duck routine.
‘Aubrey Upjohn?’ I quavered. ‘You mean my Aubrey Upjohn?’
‘That’s the one. Soon after you made your escape from his chain gang he married Jane Mills, a friend of mine with a colossal amount of money. She died, leaving a daughter. I’m the daughter’s godmother. Upjohn’s retired now and going in for politics. The hot tip is that the boys in the back room are going to run him as the Conservative candidate in the Market Snodsbury division at the next by-election. What a thrill it’ll be for you, meeting him again. Or does the prospect scare you?’
‘Certainly not. We Woosters are intrepid. But what on earth did you invite him to Brinkley for?’
‘I didn’t. I only wanted Phyllis, but he came along, too.’
‘You should have bunged him out.’
‘I hadn’t the heart to.’
‘Weak, very weak.’
‘Besides, I needed him in my business. He’s going to present the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. We’ve been caught short as usual, and somebody has got to make a speech on ideals and the great world outside to those blasted boys, so he fits in nicely. I believe he’s a very fine speaker. His only trouble is that he’s stymied unless he has his speech with him and can read it. Calls it referring to his notes. Phyllis told me that. She types the stuff for him.’
‘A thoroughly low trick,’ I said severely. ‘Even I, who have never soared above the Yeoman’s Wedding Song at a village concert, wouldn’t have the crust to face my public unless I’d taken the trouble to memorize the words, though actually with the Yeoman’s Wedding Song it is possible to get by quite comfortably by keeping singing “Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, I hurry along”. In short . . .’
I would have spoken further, but at this point, after urging me to put a sock in it, and giving me a kindly word of warning not to step on any banana skins, she rang off.
I CAME AWAY from the telephone on what practically amounted to leaden feet. Here, I was feeling, was a nice bit of box fruit. Bobbie Wickham, with her tendency to stir things up and with each new day to discover some new way of staggering civilization, would by herself have been bad enough. Add Aubrey Upjohn, and the mixture became too rich. I don’t know if Kipper, when I rejoined him, noticed that my brow was sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, as I have heard Jeeves put it. Probably not, for he was tucking into toast and marmalade at the moment, but it was. As had happened so often in the past, I was conscious of an impending doom. Exactly what form this would take I was of course unable to say – it might be one thing or it might be another – but a voice seemed to whisper to me that somehow at some not distant date Bertram was slated to get it in the gizzard.
‘That was Aunt Dahlia, Kipper,’ I said.
‘Bless her jolly old heart,’ he responded. ‘One of the very best, and you can quote me as saying so. I shall never forget those happy days at Brinkley, and shall be glad at any time that suits her to cadge another invitation. Is she up in London?’
‘Till this afternoon.’
‘We fill her to the brim with rich foods, of course?’
‘No, she’s got a lunch date. She’s browsing with Sir Roderick Glossop, the loony-doctor. You don’t know him, do you?’
‘Only from hearing you speak of him. A tough egg, I gather.’
‘One of the toughest.’
‘He was the chap, wasn’t he, who found the twenty-four cats in your bedroom?’
‘Twenty-three,’ I corrected. I like to get things right. ‘They were not my cats. They had been deposited there by my cousins Claude and Eustace. But I found them difficult to explain. He’s a rather bad listener. I hope I shan’t find him at Brinkley, too.’
‘Are you going to Brinkley?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’
‘You’ll enjoy that.’
‘Well, shall I? The point is a very moot one.’
‘You’re crazy. Think of Anatole. Those dinners of his! Is the name of the Peri who stood disconsolate at the gate of Eden familiar to you?’
‘I’ve heard Jeeves mention her.’
‘Well, that’s how I feel when I remember Anatole’s dinners. When I reflect that every night he’s dishing them up and I’m not there, I come within a very little of breaking down. What gives you the idea that you won’t enjoy yourself? Brinkley Court’s an earthly Paradise.’
‘In many respects, yes, but life there at the moment has its drawbacks. There’s far too much of that where-every-prospect-pleases-and-only-man-is-vile stuff buzzing around for my taste. Who do you think is staying at the old dosshouse? Aubrey Upjohn.’
It was plain that I had shaken him. His eyes widened, and an astonished piece of toast fell from his grasp.
‘Old Upjohn? You’re kidding.’
‘No, he’s there. Himself, not a picture. And it seems only yesterday that you were buoying me up by telling me I’d never have to see him again. The storm clouds may lower, you said, if you recollect . . .’
‘But how does he come to be at Brinkley?’
‘Precisely what I asked the aged relative, and she had an explanation that seems to cover the facts. Apparently after we took our eye off him he married a friend of hers, one Jane Mills, and acquired a stepdaughter, Phyllis Mills, whose godmother Aunt Dahlia is. The ancestor invited the Mills girl to Brinkley, and Upjohn came along for the ride.’
‘I see. I don’t wonder you’re trembling like a leaf.’
‘Not like a leaf, exactly, but . . . yes, I think you might describe me as trembling. One remembers that fishy eye of his.’
‘And the wide, bare upper lip. It won’t be pleasant having to gaze at those across the dinner table. Still, you’ll like Phyllis.’
‘Do you know her?’
‘We met out in Switzerland last Christmas. Slap her on the back, will you, and give her my regards. Nice girl, though goofy. She never told me she was related to Upjohn.’
‘She would naturally keep a thing like that dark.’
‘Yes, one sees that. Just as one would have tried to keep it dark if one had been mixed up in any way with Palmer the poisoner. What ghastly garbage that was he used to fling at us when we were serving our sentence at Malvern House. Remember the sausages on Sunday? And the boiled mutton with caper sauce?’
‘And the margarine. Recalling this last, it’s going to be a strain having to sit and watch him getting outside pounds of best country butter. Oh, Jeeves,’ I said, as he shimmered in to clear the table, ‘you never went to a preparatory school on the south coast of England, did you?’
‘No, sir, I was privately educated.’
‘Ah, then you wouldn’t understand. Mr Herring and I were discussing our former prep-school beak, Aubrey Upjohn, M.A. By the way, Kipper, Aunt Dahlia was telling me something about him which I never knew before and which ought to expose him to the odium of all thinking men. You remember those powerful end-of-term addresses he used to make to us? Well, he couldn’t have made them if he hadn’t had the stuff all typed out in his grasp, so that he could read it. Without his notes, as he calls them, he’s a spent force. Revolting, that, Jeeves, don’t you think?’
‘Many orators are, I believe, similarly handicapped, sir.’
‘Too tolerant, Jeeves, far too tolerant. You must guard against this lax outlook. However, the reason I mention Upjohn to you is that he has come back into my life, or will be so coming in about two ticks. He’s staying at Brinkley, and I shall be going there tomorrow. That was Aunt Dahlia on the phone just now, and she demands my presence. Will you pack a few necessaries in a suitcase or so?’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘When are you leaving on your Herne Bay jaunt?’
‘I was thinking of taking a train this morning, sir, but if you would prefer that I remained till tomorrow –’
‘No, no, perfectly all right. Start as soon as you like. What’s the joke?’ I asked, as the door closed behind him, for I observed that Kipper was chuckling softly. Not an easy thing to do, of course, when your mouth’s full of toast and marmalade, but he was doing it.
‘I was thinking of Upjohn,’ he said.
I was amazed. It seemed incredible to me that anyone who had done time at Malvern House, Bramley-on-Sea, could chuckle, softly or otherwise, when letting the mind dwell on that outstanding menace. It was like laughing lightly while contemplating one of those horrors from outer space which are so much with us at the moment on the motion-picture screen.
‘I envy you, Bertie,’ he went on, continuing to chuckle. ‘You have a wonderful treat in store. You are going to be present at the breakfast table when Upjohn opens his copy of this week’s Thursday Review and starts to skim through the pages devoted to comments on current literature. I should explain that among the books that recently arrived at the office was a slim volume from his pen dealing with the Preparatory School and giving it an enthusiastic build-up. The formative years which we spent there, he said, were the happiest of our life.’
‘Gadzooks!’
‘He little knew that his brain child would be given to one of the old lags of Malvern House to review. I’ll tell you something, Bertie, that every young man ought to know. Never be a stinker, because if you are, though you may flourish for a time like a green bay tree, sooner or later retribution will overtake you. I need scarcely tell you that I ripped the stuffing out of the beastly little brochure. The thought of those sausages on Sunday filled me with the righteous fury of a Juvenal.’
‘Of a who?’
‘Nobody you know. Before your time. I seemed inspired. Normally, I suppose, a book like that would get me a line and a half in the Other Recent Publications column, but I gave it six hundred words of impassioned prose. How extraordinarily fortunate you are to be in a position to watch his face as he reads them.’
‘How do you know he’ll read them?’
‘He’s a subscriber. There was a letter from him on the correspondence page a week or two ago, in which he specifically stated that he had been one for years.’
‘Did you sign the thing?’
‘No. Ye Ed is not keen on underlings advertising their names.’
‘And it was really hot stuff?’
‘Red hot. So eye him closely at the breakfast table. Mark his reaction. I confidently expect the blush of shame and remorse to mantle his cheek.’
‘The only catch is that I don’t come down to breakfast when I’m at Brinkley. Still, I suppose I could make a special effort.’
‘Do so. You will find it well worth while,’ said Kipper and shortly afterwards popped off to resume the earning of the weekly envelope.
He had been gone about twenty minutes when Jeeves came in, bowler hat in hand, to say goodbye. A solemn moment, taxing our self-control to the utmost. However, we both kept the upper lip stiff, and after we had kidded back and forth for awhile he started to withdraw. He had reached the door when it suddenly occurred to me that he might have inside information about this Wilbert Cream of whom Aunt Dahlia had spoken. I have generally found that he knows everything about everyone.
‘Oh, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘Half a jiffy.’
‘Sir?’
‘Something I want to ask you. It seems that among my fellow-guests at Brinkley will be a Mrs Homer Cream, wife of an American big butter and egg man, and her son Wilbert, commonly known as Willie, and the name Willie Cream seemed somehow to touch a chord. Rightly or wrongly I associate it with trips we have taken to New York, but in what connection I haven’t the vaguest. Does it ring a bell with you?’