Right Ho, Jeeves
ago, it had been. I had looked in at his place while on a motor trip,
and he had put me right off my feed by bringing a couple of green
things with legs to the luncheon table, crooning over them like a
young mother and eventually losing one of them in the salad. That
picture, rising before my eyes, didn’t give me much confidence in the
unfortunate goof’s ability to woo and win, I must say. Especially if
the girl he had earmarked was one of these tough modern thugs, all
lipstick and cool, hard, sardonic eyes, as she probably was.
“Tell me, Jeeves,” I said, wishing to know the worst, “what sort of a
girl is this girl of Gussie’s?”
“I have not met the young lady, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle speaks highly of
her attractions.”
“Seemed to like her, did he?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did he mention her name? Perhaps I know her.”
“She is a Miss Bassett, sir. Miss Madeline Bassett.”
“What?”
“Yes, sir.”
I was deeply intrigued.
“Egad, Jeeves! Fancy that. It’s a small world, isn’t it, what?”
“The young lady is an acquaintance of yours, sir?”
“I know her well. Your news has relieved my mind, Jeeves. It makes
the whole thing begin to seem far more like a practical working
proposition.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Absolutely. I confess that until you supplied this information I was
feeling profoundly dubious about poor old Gussie’s chances of inducing
any spinster of any parish to join him in the saunter down the aisle.
You will agree with me that he is not everybody’s money.”
“There may be something in what you say, sir.”
“Cleopatra wouldn’t have liked him.”
“Possibly not, sir.”
“And I doubt if he would go any too well with Tallulah Bankhead.”
“No, sir.”
“But when you tell me that the object of his affections is Miss
Bassett, why, then, Jeeves, hope begins to dawn a bit. He’s just the
sort of chap a girl like Madeline Bassett might scoop in with relish.”
This Bassett, I must explain, had been a fellow visitor of ours at
Cannes; and as she and Angela had struck up one of those effervescent
friendships which girls do strike up, I had seen quite a bit of her.
Indeed, in my moodier moments it sometimes seemed to me that I could
not move a step without stubbing my toe on the woman.
And what made it all so painful and distressing was that the more we
met, the less did I seem able to find to say to her.
You know how it is with some girls. They seem to take the stuffing
right out of you. I mean to say, there is something about their
personality that paralyses the vocal cords and reduces the contents
of the brain to cauliflower. It was like that with this Bassett and
me; so much so that I have known occasions when for minutes at a
stretch Bertram Wooster might have been observed fumbling with the
tie, shuffling the feet, and behaving in all other respects in her
presence like the complete dumb brick. When, therefore, she took her
departure some two weeks before we did, you may readily imagine that,
in Bertram’s opinion, it was not a day too soon.
It was not her beauty, mark you, that thus numbed me. She was a pretty
enough girl in a droopy, blonde, saucer-eyed way, but not the sort of
breath-taker that takes the breath.
No, what caused this disintegration in a usually fairly fluent prattler
with the sex was her whole mental attitude. I don’t want to wrong
anybody, so I won’t go so far as to say that she actually wrote poetry,
but her conversation, to my mind, was of a nature calculated to excite
the liveliest suspicions. Well, I mean to say, when a girl suddenly
asks you out of a blue sky if you don’t sometimes feel that the stars
are God’s daisy-chain, you begin to think a bit.
As regards the fusing of her soul and mine, therefore, there was
nothing doing. But with Gussie, the posish was entirely different. The
thing that had stymied me--viz. that this girl was obviously all loaded
down with ideals and sentiment and what not--was quite in order as far
as he was concerned.
Gussie had always been one of those dreamy, soulful birds--you can’t
shut yourself up in the country and live only for newts, if you’re
not--and I could see no reason why, if he could somehow be induced to
get the low, burning words off his chest, he and the Bassett shouldn’t
hit it off like ham and eggs.
“She’s just the type for him,” I said.
“I am most gratified to hear it, sir.”
“And he’s just the type for her. In fine, a good thing and one to be
pushed along with the utmost energy. Strain every nerve, Jeeves.”
“Very good, sir,” replied the honest fellow. “I will attend to the
matter at once.”
Now up to this point, as you will doubtless agree, what you might call
a perfect harmony had prevailed. Friendly gossip between employer and
employed, and everything as sweet as a nut. But at this juncture, I
regret to say, there was an unpleasant switch. The atmosphere suddenly
changed, the storm clouds began to gather, and before we knew where we
were, the jarring note had come bounding on the scene. I have known
this to happen before in the Wooster home.
The first intimation I had that things were about to hot up was a
pained and disapproving cough from the neighbourhood of the carpet.
For, during the above exchanges, I should explain, while I, having
dried the frame, had been dressing in a leisurely manner, donning here
a sock, there a shoe, and gradually climbing into the vest, the shirt,
the tie, and the knee-length, Jeeves had been down on the lower level,
unpacking my effects.
He now rose, holding a white object. And at the sight of it, I realized
that another of our domestic crises had arrived, another of those
unfortunate clashes of will between two strong men, and that Bertram,
unless he remembered his fighting ancestors and stood up for his
rights, was about to be put upon.
I don’t know if you were at Cannes this summer. If you were, you will
recall that anybody with any pretensions to being the life and soul of
the party was accustomed to attend binges at the Casino in the ordinary
evening-wear trouserings topped to the north by a white mess-jacket
with brass buttons. And ever since I had stepped aboard the Blue Train
at Cannes station, I had been wondering on and off how mine would go
with Jeeves.
In the matter of evening costume, you see, Jeeves is hidebound and
reactionary. I had had trouble with him before about soft-bosomed
shirts. And while these mess-jackets had, as I say, been all the
rage--_tout ce qu’il y a de chic_--on the Côte d’Azur, I had never
concealed it from myself, even when treading the measure at the Palm
Beach Casino in the one I had hastened to buy, that there might be
something of an upheaval about it on my return.
I prepared to be firm.
“Yes, Jeeves?” I said. And though my voice was suave, a close observer
in a position to watch my eyes would have noticed a steely glint.
Nobody has a greater respect for Jeeves’s intellect than I have, but
this disposition of his to dictate to the hand that fed him had got, I
felt, to be checked. This mess-jacket was very near to my heart, and I
jolly well intended to fight for it with all the vim of grand old Sieur
de Wooster at the Battle of Agincourt.
“Yes, Jeeves?” I said. “Something on your mind, Jeeves?”
“I fear that you inadvertently left Cannes in the possession of a coat
belonging to some other gentleman, sir.”
I switched on the steely a bit more.
“No, Jeeves,” I said, in a level tone, “the object under advisement is
mine. I bought it out there.”
“You wore it, sir?”
“Every night.”
“But surely you are not proposing to wear it in England, sir?”
I saw that we had arrived at the nub.
“Yes, Jeeves.”
“But, sir----”
“You were saying, Jeeves?”
“It is quite unsuitable, sir.”
“I do not agree with you, Jeeves. I anticipate a great popular success
for this jacket. It is my intention to spring it on the public tomorrow
at Pongo Twistleton’s birthday party, where I confidently expect it
to be one long scream from start to finish. No argument, Jeeves. No
discussion. Whatever fantastic objection you may have taken to it, I
wear this jacket.”
“Very good, sir.”
He went on with his unpacking. I said no more on the subject. I had
won the victory, and we Woosters do not triumph over a beaten foe.
Presently, having completed my toilet, I bade the man a cheery farewell
and in generous mood suggested that, as I was dining out, why didn’t
he take the evening off and go to some improving picture or something.
Sort of olive branch, if you see what I mean.
He didn’t seem to think much of it.
“Thank you, sir, I will remain in.”
I surveyed him narrowly.
“Is this dudgeon, Jeeves?”
“No, sir, I am obliged to remain on the premises. Mr. Fink-Nottle
informed me he would be calling to see me this evening.”
“Oh, Gussie’s coming, is he? Well, give him my love.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And a whisky and soda, and so forth.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Right ho, Jeeves.”
I then set off for the Drones.
At the Drones I ran into Pongo Twistleton, and he talked so much about
this forthcoming merry-making of his, of which good reports had already
reached me through my correspondents, that it was nearing eleven when I
got home again.
And scarcely had I opened the door when I heard voices in the
sitting-room, and scarcely had I entered the sitting-room when I found
that these proceeded from Jeeves and what appeared at first sight to be
the Devil.
A closer scrutiny informed me that it was Gussie Fink-Nottle, dressed
as Mephistopheles.
-2-
“What-ho, Gussie,” I said.
You couldn’t have told it from my manner, but I was feeling more than a
bit nonplussed. The spectacle before me was enough to nonplus anyone.
I mean to say, this Fink-Nottle, as I remembered him, was the sort of
shy, shrinking goop who might have been expected to shake like an aspen
if invited to so much as a social Saturday afternoon at the vicarage.
And yet here he was, if one could credit one’s senses, about to take
part in a fancy-dress ball, a form of entertainment notoriously a
testing experience for the toughest.
And he was attending that fancy-dress ball, mark you--not, like every
other well-bred Englishman, as a Pierrot, but as Mephistopheles--this
involving, as I need scarcely stress, not only scarlet tights but a
pretty frightful false beard.
Rummy, you’ll admit. However, one masks one’s feelings. I betrayed no
vulgar astonishment, but, as I say, what-hoed with civil nonchalance.
He grinned through the fungus--rather sheepishly, I thought.
“Oh, hullo, Bertie.”
“Long time since I saw you. Have a spot?”
“No, thanks. I must be off in a minute. I just came round to ask Jeeves
how he thought I looked. How do you think I look, Bertie?”
Well, the answer to that, of course, was “perfectly foul”. But we
Woosters are men of tact and have a nice sense of the obligations of a
host. We do not tell old friends beneath our roof-tree that they are an
offence to the eyesight. I evaded the question.
“I hear you’re in London,” I said carelessly.
“Oh, yes.”
“Must be years since you came up.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And now you’re off for an evening’s pleasure.”
He shuddered a bit. He had, I noticed, a hunted air.
“Pleasure!”
“Aren’t you looking forward to this rout or revel?”
“Oh, I suppose it’ll be all right,” he said, in a toneless voice.
“Anyway, I ought to be off, I suppose. The thing starts round about
eleven. I told my cab to wait.... Will you see if it’s there, Jeeves?”
“Very good, sir.”
There was something of a pause after the door had closed. A certain
constraint. I mixed myself a beaker, while Gussie, a glutton for
punishment, stared at himself in the mirror. Finally I decided that it
would be best to let him know that I was abreast of his affairs. It