Thank You, Jeeves

Womanlike, she evaded the issue.

'What on earth did you want to kiss me like that for in front of father? You needn't tell me you were carried away by my radiant beauty. No, it was just plain, straight goofiness, and I can quite understand now why Sir Roderick told father that you ought to be under restraint. Why are you still at large? You must have a pull of some kind.'

We Woosters are pretty sharp on this sort of thing. I spoke with a good deal of asperity.

'The incident to which you allude is readily explained. I thought he was Chuffy.'

'Thought who was Chuffy?'

'Your father.'

'If you're trying to make out that Marmaduke looks the least bit like father you must be cuckoo,' she replied with a warmth equal to my own. I gathered that she was not a great admirer of the parent's appearance, and I'm not saying she wasn't right. 'Besides, I don't see what you mean.'

I explained.

'The idea was to let Chuffy observe you in my embrace, so that the generous fire would be stirred within him and he would get keyed up to proposing to you, feeling that if he didn't get action right speedily he might lose you.'

Her manner softened.

'You didn't think that out by yourself?'

'I did.' I was somewhat nettled. 'Why everybody should imagine that I can't get ideas without the assistance of Jeeves ...'

'But that was very sweet of you.'

'We Woosters are sweet, exceedingly sweet, when a pal's happiness is in the balance.'

'I can see now why I accepted you that night in New York,' she said meditatively. 'There's a sort of woolly-headed duckiness about you. If I wasn't so crazy about Marmaduke, I could easily marry you, Bertie.'

'No, no,' I said, with some alarm. 'Don't dream of it. I mean to say...'

'Oh, it's all right. I'm not going to. I'm going to marry Marmaduke; that's why I'm here.'

'And now,' I said, 'we've come right back to it. Once more we have worked round to the very point concerning which I most desire enlightenment. What on earth is the idea behind all this? You say you swam ashore from the yacht? Why? You came and dumped yourself in my little home. Why?'

'Because I wanted somewhere to lie low till I could get clothes, of course. I can't go to the Hall in a swimming suit.'

I began to follow the train of thought.

'Oh, you swam ashore to get to Chuffy?'

'Of course. Father was keeping me a prisoner on board the yacht, and this evening your man Jeeves ...'

I winced.

'My late man.'

'All right. Your late man. Your late man Jeeves arrived with an early letter from Marmaduke. Oh, boy!'

'How do you mean, oh, boy?'

'Was that a letter? I cried six pints when I read it.'

'Hot stuff?'

'It was beautiful. It throbbed with poetry.'

'It did?'

'Yes.'

'This letter?'

'Yes.'

'Chuffy's letter?'

'Yes. You seem surprised.'

I was a bit. One of the very best, old Chuffy, of course, but I wouldn't have said he could write letters like that. But then one has got to take into consideration the fact that when I've been with him he has generally been eating steak-and-kidney pudding or cursing horses for not running fast enough. On such occasions, the poetic side of a man is not uppermost.

'So this letter stirred you up, did it?'

'You bet it stirred me up. I felt I couldn't wait another day without seeing him. What was that poem about a woman wailing for her demon lover?'

'Ah, there you have me. Jeeves would know.'

'Well, that's what I felt like. And, talking of Jeeves, what a man! Sympathy? He drips with it.'

'Oh, you confided in Jeeves?'

'Yes. And told him what I was going to do.'

'And he didn't try to stop you?'

'Stop me? He was all for it.'

'He was, was he?'

'You should have seen him. Such a kind smile. He said you would be delighted to help me.'

'He did, eh?'

'He spoke most highly of you.'

'Really?'

'Oh, yes, he thinks a lot of you. I remember his very words. "Mr Wooster, miss," he said, "is, perhaps, mentally somewhat negligible, but he has a heart of gold." He said that as he was lowering me from the side of the boat by a rope, having first made sure that the coast was clear. I couldn't dive, you see, because of the splash.'

I was chewing the lip in some chagrin.

'What the devil did he mean, "mentally negligible"?'

'Oh, you know. Loopy.'

'Tchah!'

'Eh?'

'I said "Tchah!"'

'Why?'

'Why?' I was a good deal moved. 'Well, wouldn't you say "Tchah!" if your late man was going about the place telling people you were mentally negligible....'

'But with a heart of gold.'

'Never mind the heart of gold. The point is that my man, my late man, a fellow I have always looked on more as some sort of an uncle than a personal attendant, is shooting to and fro bellowing out at the top of his voice that I am mentally negligible and filling my bedroom with girls....'

'Bertie! Are you annoyed?'

'Annoyed!'

'You sound annoyed. And I can't see why. I should have thought you would have been only too glad of the chance of helping me get to the man I love. Having this heart of gold I hear so much about.'

'The point is not whether I have a heart of gold. Heaps of people have hearts of gold and yet would be upset at finding girls in their bedrooms in the small hours. What you don't seem to realize, what you and this Jeeves of yours have omitted to take into your calculations, is that I have a reputation to keep up, an unspotted name to maintain in its pristine purity. This cannot be done by entertaining girls who come in, in the middle of the night, without so much as a by-your-leave and coolly pinch your heliotrope pyjamas ...'

'You didn't expect me to sleep in a wet swimming suit?'

'... and leap into your bed ...'

She uttered an exclamation.

'I know what this reminds me of. I've been trying to think ever since you came in. The story of the Three Bears. You must have been told it as a kid. "There's somebody in my bed...." Wasn't that what the Big Bear said?'

I frowned doubtfully.

'As I recollect it, it was something about porridge. "Who's been eating my porridge?"'

'I'm sure there was a bed in it.'

'Bed? Bed? I can't remember any bed. On the subject of the porridge, however, I am absolutely.... But we are wandering from the point once more. What I was saying was that a reputable bachelor like myself, who has never had his licence so much as endorsed, can scarcely be blamed for looking askance at girls in heliotrope pyjamas in his bed....'

'You said they suited me.'

'They do suit you.'

'You said I looked fine in them.'

'You do look fine in them, but once more you are refusing to meet the issue squarely. The point is ...'

'How many points is that? I seem to have counted about a dozen.'

'There is only one point, and I am endeavouring to make it clear. In a nutshell, what will people say when they find you here?'

'But they won't find me here.'

'You think so? Ha! What about Brinkley?'

'Who's he?'

'My man.'

'Your late man?'

I clicked the tongue.

'My new man. At nine to-morrow morning he will bring me tea.'

'Well, you'll like that.'

'He will bring it to this room. He will approach the bed. He will place it on the table.'

'What on earth for?'

'To facilitate my getting at the cup and sipping.'

'Oh, you mean he will put the tea on the table. You said he would put the bed on the table.'

'I never said anything of the sort.'

'You did. Distinctly.'

I tried to reason with the girl.

'My dear child,' I said, 'I must really ask you to use your intelligence. Brinkley is not a juggler. He is a well-trained gentleman's gentleman, and would consider it a liberty to put beds on tables. And why should he put beds on tables? The idea would never occur to him. He ...'