'Oh, of course. Take a tenner off the dressing-table.'
'Very good, sir.'
'Jeeves,' I said.
'Sir?'
'What beats me is how the dickens the thing happened. I mean, how did the chappie Butt ever get to know who he was?'
Jeeves coughed.
'There, sir, I fear I may have been somewhat to blame.'
'You? How?'
'I fear 1 may carelessly have disclosed Mr Little's identity to Mr Butt on the occasion when I had that conversation with him.'
I sat up.
'What?'
'Indeed, now that I recall the incident, sir, I distinctly remember saying that Mr Little's work for the Cause really seemed to me to deserve something in the nature of public recognition. I greatly regret having been the means of bringing about a temporary estrangement between Mr Little and his lordship. And I am afraid there is another aspect to the matter. I am also responsible for the breaking off of relations between Mr Little and the young lady who came to tea here.'
I sat up again. It's a rummy thing, but the silver lining had absolutely escaped my notice till then.
'Do you mean to say it's off?'
'Completely, sir. I gathered from Mr Little's remarks that his hopes in that direction may now be looked on as definitely quenched. If there were no other obstacle, the young lady's father, I am informed by Mr Little, now regards him as a spy and a deceiver.'
'Well, I'm dashed.'
'I appear inadvertently to have caused much trouble, sir.'
'Jeeves!' I said.
'Sir?'
'How much money is there on the dressing-table?'
'In addition to the ten-pound note which you instructed me to take, sir, there are two five-pound notes, three one-pounds, a ten shillings, two half-crowns, a florin, four shillings, a sixpence, and a halfpenny, sir.'
'Collar it all,' I said. 'You've earned it.'
13
The Great Sermon Handicap
After Goodwood's over, I generally find that I get a bit restless. I'm not much of a lad for the birds and the trees and the great open spaces as a rule, but there's no doubt that London's not at its best in August, and rather tends to give me the pip and make me think of popping down into the country till things have bucked up a trifle. London, about a couple of weeks after that spectacular finish of young Bingo's which I've just been telling you about, was empty and smelled of burning asphalt. All my pals were away, most of the theatres were shut, and they were taking up Piccadilly in large spadefuls.
It was most infernally hot. As I sat in the old flat one night trying to muster up energy enough to go to bed, I felt I couldn't stand it much longer: and when Jeeves came in with the tissue-restorers on a tray I put the thing to him squarely.
'Jeeves,' I said, wiping the brow and gasping like a stranded goldfish, 'it's beastly hot.'
'The weather is oppressive, sir.'
'Not all the soda, Jeeves.'
'No, sir.'
'I think we've had about enough of the metrop. for the time being, and require a change. Shift-ho, I think, Jeeves, what?'
'Just as you say, sir. There is a letter on the tray, sir.'
'By Jove, Jeeves, that was practically poetry. Rhymed, did you notice?' I opened the letter. 'I say, this is rather extraordinary.'
'Sir?'
'You know Twing Hall?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, Mr Little is there.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Absolutely in the flesh. He's had to take another of those tutoring jobs.'
After that fearful mix-up at Goodwood, when young Bingo Little, a broken man, had touched me for a tenner and whizzed silently off into the unknown, I had been all over the place, asking mutual friends if they had heard anything of him, but nobody had. And all the time he had been at Twing Hall. Rummy. And I'll tell you why it was rummy. Twing Hall belongs to old Lord Wickhammersley, a great pal of my guv'nor's when he was alive, and I have a standing invitation to pop down there when I like. I generally put in a week or two some time in the summer, and I was thinking of going there before I read the letter.
'And what's more, Jeeves, my cousin Claude, and my cousin Eustace - you remember them?'
'Very vividly, sir.'
'Well, they're down there, too, reading for some exam or other with the vicar. I used to read with him myself at one time. He's known far and wide as a pretty hot coach for those of fairly feeble intellect. Well, when I tell you he got me through Smalls, you'll gather that he's a bit of a hummer. I call this most extraordinary.'
I read the letter again. It was from Eustace. Claude and Eustace are twins, and more or less generally admitted to be the curse of the human race.
The Vicarage,
Twing, Glos.
Dear Bertie,
Do you want to make a bit of money? I hear you had a bad Goodwood, so you probably do. Well, come down here quick and get in on the biggest sporting event of the season. I'll explain when I see you, but you can take it from me it's all right.
Claude and I are with a reading-party at old Heppenstall's. There are nine of us, not counting your pal Bingo Little, who is tutoring the kid up at the Hall.
Don't miss this golden opportunity, which may never occur again. Come and join us.
Yours,
EUSTACE.
I handed this to Jeeves. He studied it thoughtfully. 'What do you make of it? A rummy communication, what?'
'Very high-spirited young gentlemen, sir, Mr Claude and Mr Eustace. Up to some game, I should be disposed to imagine.'
'Yes. But what game, do you think?'
'It is impossible to say, sir. Did you observe that the letter continues over the page?'
'Eh, what?' I grabbed the thing. This was what was on the other side of the last page:
SERMON HANDICAP
RUNNERS AND BETTING
PROBABLE STARTERS
Rev. Joseph Tucker (Badgwick), scratch.
Rev. Leonard Starkie (Stapleton), scratch.
Rev. Alexander Jones (Upper Bingley), receives three minutes.
Rev. W. Dix (Litde Clickton-on-the-Wold), receives five minutes.
Rev. Francis Heppenstall (Twing), receives eight minutes.
Rev. Cuthbert Dibble (Boustead Parva), receives nine minutes.
Rev. Orlo Hough (Boustead Magna), receives nine minutes.
Rev. J. J. Roberts (Fale-by-the-Water), receives ten minutes.
Rev. G. Hayward (Lower Bingley), receives twelve minutes.
Rev. James Bates (Gandle-by-the-Hill), receives fifteen minutes.
(The above have arrived.)
Prices: 5-2, Tucker, Starkie; 3-1, Jones; 9-2,
Dix; 6-1, Heppenstall, Dibble, Hough; 100-8 any other.
It baffled me.
'Do you understand it, Jeeves?'
'No, sir.'
'Well, I think we ought to have a look into it, anyway, what?'
'Undoubtedly, sir.'
'Right-o, then. Pack our spare dickey and a toothbrush in a neat brown-paper parcel, send a wire to Lord Wickhammersley to say we're coming, and buy two tickets on the five-ten at Paddington tomorrow.'
The five-ten was late as usual, and everybody was dressing for dinner when I arrived at the Hall. It was only by getting into my evening things in record time and taking the stairs to the dining-room in a couple of bounds that I managed to dead-heat with the soup. I slid into the vacant chair, and found that I was sitting next to old Wickhammersley's youngest daughter, Cynthia.
'Oh, hallo, old thing,' I said.
Great pals we've always been. In fact, there was a time when I had an idea I was in love with Cynthia. However, it blew over. A dashed pretty and lively and attractive girl, mind you, but full of ideals and all that. I may be wronging her, but I have an idea that she's the sort of girl who would want a fellow to carve out a career and what not. I know I've heard her speak favourably of Napoleon. So what with one thing and another the jolly old frenzy sort of petered out, and now we're just pals. I think she's a topper, and she thinks me next door to a loony, so everything's nice and matey.