Thank You, Jeeves

I shook my head.

'No, Chuffy, I fear I cannot recede from my position.'

'Well, go to hell, then,' said Chuffy agreeably. 'Personally, I regard him as a life-saver.'

'But are you sure this thing is going to come off? What would this fellow want with a place the size of the Hall?'

'Oh, that part of it is simple enough. He's a great pal of old Glossop's and the idea is that he shall put up the cash and let Glossop run the house as a sort of country club for his nerve patients.'

'Why doesn't old Glossop simply rent it from you?'

'My dear ass, what sort of state do you suppose the place is in these days? You talk as if you could open it and step straight into it. Most of the rooms haven't been used for forty years. It wants at least fifteen thousand quid spent on it, to put it in repair. More. Besides new furniture, fittings and so on. If some millionaire like this chap doesn't take it on, I shall have it on my hands the rest of my life.'

'Oh, he's a millionaire, is he?'

'Yes, that part of it is all right. All I'm worrying about is getting his signature on the dotted line. Well, he's coming to lunch to-day, and it's going to be a good one too. He's apt to soften up a good bit after a fat lunch, isn't he?'

'Unless he's got dyspepsia. Many American millionaires have. This man of yours may be one of those fellows who can't get outside more than a glass of milk and a dog biscuit.'

Chuffy laughed jovially.

'Not much. Not old Stoker.' He suddenly began to leap about like a lamb in the springtime. 'Hullo-ullo-ullo!'

A car had drawn up at the steps and was discharging passengers.

Passenger A was J. Washburn Stoker. Passenger B was his daughter, Pauline. Passenger C was his young son, Dwight. And Passenger D was Sir Roderick Glossop.

4 ANNOYING PREDICAMENT OF

PAULINE STOKER

I must say I was pretty well a-twitter. It was about as juicy a biff as I had had for years. To have encountered this segment of the dead past in London would have been bad enough. Running into the gang down here like this, with the prospect of a lengthy luncheon party ahead, was a dashed sight worse. I removed the lid with as much courtly grace as I could muster up, but the face had coloured with embarrassment and I was more or less gasping for air.

Chuffy was being the genial host.

'Hallo-allo-allo! Here you all are. How are you, Mr Stoker? How are you, Sir Roderick? Hallo, Dwight. Er – good morning, Miss Stoker. May I introduce my friend, Bertie Wooster? Mr Stoker, my friend, Bertie Wooster. Dwight, my friend, Bertie Wooster. Miss Stoker, my friend, Bertie Wooster. Sir Roderick Glossop, my friend, Bertie.... Oh, but you know each other already, don't you?'

I was still under the ether. You will agree that all this was enough to rattle any chap. I surveyed the mob. Old Stoker was glaring at me. Old Glossop was glaring at me. Young Dwight was staring at me. Only Pauline appeared to find no awkwardness in the situation. She was as cool as an oyster on the half-shell and as chirpy as a spring breeze. We might have been meeting by appointment. Where Bertram could find only a tentative 'Pip-pip!' she bounded forward, full of speech, and grabbed the old hand warmly.

'Well, well, well! Old Colonel Wooster in person! Fancy finding you here, Bertie! I called you up in London, but they told me you had left.'

'Yes. I came down here.'

'I see you did, you little blob of sunshine. Well, sir, this has certainly made my day. You're looking fine, Bertie. Don't you think he's looking lovely, father?'

Old Stoker appeared reluctant to set himself up as a judge of male beauty. He made a noise like a pig swallowing half a cabbage, but refused to commit himself further. Dwight, a solemn child, was drinking me in in silence. Sir Roderick, who had turned purple, was now fading away to a lighter shade, but still looked as if his finer feelings had sustained a considerable wallop.

At this moment, however, the Dowager Lady Chuffnell came out. She was one of those powerful women who look like female Masters of Hounds, and she handled the mob scene with quiet efficiency. Before I knew where I was, the whole gang had gone indoors, and I was alone with Chuffy. He was staring at me in an odd manner and doing a bit of lower-lip biting.

'I didn't know you knew these people, Bertie.'

'I met them in New York.'

'You saw something of Miss Stoker there?'

'A little.'

'Only a little?'

'Quite a little.'

'I thought her manner seemed rather warm.'

'Oh, no. About normal.'

'I should have imagined you were great friends.'

'Oh, no. Just fairly pally. She goes on like that with everyone.'

'She does?'

'Oh, yes. Big-hearted, you see.'

'She has got a delightful, impulsive, generous, spontaneous, genuine nature, hasn't she?'

'Absolutely.'

'Beautiful girl, Bertie.'

'Oh, very.'

'And charming.'

'Oh, most.'

'In fact, attractive.'

'Oh, quite.'

'I saw a good deal of her in London.'

'Yes?'

'We went to the Zoo and Madame Tussaud's together.'

'I see. And what does she seem to feel about this buying the house binge?'

'She seems all for it.'

'Tell me, laddie,' I said, anxious to get off the current subj., 'how do the prospects look?'

He knitted the Chuffnell brow.

'Sometimes good. Sometimes not.'

'I see.'

'Uncertain.'

'I understand.'

'This Stoker chap makes me nervous. He's friendly enough as a general rule, but I can't help feeling that at any moment he may fly off the handle and scratch the entire fixture. You can't tell me if there are any special subjects to avoid when talking to him, can you?'

'Special subjects?'

'Well, you know how it is with a stranger. You say it's a fine day, and he goes all white and tense, because you've reminded him that it was on a fine day that his wife eloped with the chauffeur.'

I considered.

'Well, if I were you,' I said, 'I wouldn't harp too much on the topic of B. Wooster. I mean, if you were thinking of singing my praises ...'

'I wasn't.'

'Well, don't. He doesn't like me.'

'Why not?'

'Just one of these unreasonable antipathies. And I was thinking, old man, if it's all the same to you, it might be better if I didn't join the throng at the luncheon table. You can tell your aunt I've got a headache.'

'Well, if the sight of you is going to infuriate him.... What makes him bar you so much?'

'I don't know.'

'Well, I'm glad you told me. You had better sneak off.'

'I will.'

'And I suppose I ought to be joining the others.'

He went indoors, and I started to take a turn or two up and down the gravel. I was glad to be alone. I wished to muse upon this matter of his attitude towards Pauline Stoker.

I wonder if you would mind just going back a bit and running the mental eye over that part of our conversation which had had to do with the girl.

Anything strike you about it?

No?

Oh, well, to get the full significance, of course, you ought to have been there and observed him. I am a man who can read faces, and Chuffy's had seemed to me highly suggestive. Not only had its expression, as he spoke of Pauline, been that of a stuffed frog with a touch of the Soul's Awakening about it, but it had also turned a fairly deepish crimson in colour. The tip of the nose had wiggled, and there had been embarrassment in the manner. The result being that I had become firmly convinced that the old schoolmate had copped it properly. Quick work, of course, seeing that he had only known the adored object a few days, but Chuffy is like that. A man of impulse and hot-blooded impetuosity. You find the girl, and he does the rest.