Right Ho, Jeeves
Market ... Snodsbury ... Grammar School ... Board of governors ...
Prize-giving.... Quite. But what’s it got to do with me?”
“You’re going to give away the prizes.”
I goggled. Her words did not appear to make sense. They seemed the
mere aimless vapouring of an aunt who has been sitting out in the sun
without a hat.
“Me?”
“You.”
I goggled again.
“You don’t mean me?”
“I mean you in person.”
I goggled a third time.
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“I am not pulling your leg. Nothing would induce me to touch your
beastly leg. The vicar was to have officiated, but when I got home
I found a letter from him saying that he had strained a fetlock and
must scratch his nomination. You can imagine the state I was in. I
telephoned all over the place. Nobody would take it on. And then
suddenly I thought of you.”
I decided to check all this rot at the outset. Nobody is more eager to
oblige deserving aunts than Bertram Wooster, but there are limits, and
sharply defined limits, at that.
“So you think I’m going to strew prizes at this bally Dotheboys Hall of
yours?”
“I do.”
“And make a speech?”
“Exactly.”
I laughed derisively.
“For goodness’ sake, don’t start gargling now. This is serious.”
“I was laughing.”
“Oh, were you? Well, I’m glad to see you taking it in this merry
spirit.”
“Derisively,” I explained. “I won’t do it. That’s final. I simply will
not do it.”
“You will do it, young Bertie, or never darken my doors again. And you
know what that means. No more of Anatole’s dinners for you.”
A strong shudder shook me. She was alluding to her _chef_, that superb
artist. A monarch of his profession, unsurpassed--nay, unequalled--at
dishing up the raw material so that it melted in the mouth of the
ultimate consumer, Anatole had always been a magnet that drew me to
Brinkley Court with my tongue hanging out. Many of my happiest moments
had been those which I had spent champing this great man’s roasts and
ragouts, and the prospect of being barred from digging into them in the
future was a numbing one.
“No, I say, dash it!”
“I thought that would rattle you. Greedy young pig.”
“Greedy young pigs have nothing to do with it,” I said with a touch of
hauteur. “One is not a greedy young pig because one appreciates the
cooking of a genius.”
“Well, I will say I like it myself,” conceded the relative. “But not
another bite of it do you get, if you refuse to do this simple, easy,
pleasant job. No, not so much as another sniff. So put that in your
twelve-inch cigarette-holder and smoke it.”
I began to feel like some wild thing caught in a snare.
“But why do you want me? I mean, what am I? Ask yourself that.”
“I often have.”
“I mean to say, I’m not the type. You have to have some terrific nib
to give away prizes. I seem to remember, when I was at school, it was
generally a prime minister or somebody.”
“Ah, but that was at Eton. At Market Snodsbury we aren’t nearly so
choosy. Anybody in spats impresses us.”
“Why don’t you get Uncle Tom?”
“Uncle Tom!”
“Well, why not? He’s got spats.”
“Bertie,” she said, “I will tell you why not Uncle Tom. You remember me
losing all that money at baccarat at Cannes? Well, very shortly I shall
have to sidle up to Tom and break the news to him. If, right after
that, I ask him to put on lavender gloves and a topper and distribute
the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School, there will be a divorce
in the family. He would pin a note to the pincushion and be off like a
rabbit. No, my lad, you’re for it, so you may as well make the best of
it.”
“But, Aunt Dahlia, listen to reason. I assure you, you’ve got hold
of the wrong man. I’m hopeless at a game like that. Ask Jeeves about
the time I got lugged in to address a girls’ school. I made the most
colossal ass of myself.”
“And I confidently anticipate that you will make an equally colossal
ass of yourself on the thirty-first of this month. That’s why I want
you. The way I look at it is that, as the thing is bound to be a frost,
anyway, one may as well get a hearty laugh out of it. I shall enjoy
seeing you distribute those prizes, Bertie. Well, I won’t keep you, as,
no doubt, you want to do your Swedish exercises. I shall expect you in
a day or two.”
And with these heartless words she beetled off, leaving me a prey to
the gloomiest emotions. What with the natural reaction after Pongo’s
party and this stunning blow, it is not too much to say that the soul
was seared.
And I was still writhing in the depths, when the door opened and Jeeves
appeared.
“Mr. Fink-Nottle to see you, sir,” he announced.
-5-
I gave him one of my looks.
“Jeeves,” I said, “I had scarcely expected this of you. You are aware
that I was up to an advanced hour last night. You know that I have
barely had my tea. You cannot be ignorant of the effect of that hearty
voice of Aunt Dahlia’s on a man with a headache. And yet you come
bringing me Fink-Nottles. Is this a time for Fink or any other kind of
Nottle?”
“But did you not give me to understand, sir, that you wished to see Mr.
Fink-Nottle to advise him on his affairs?”
This, I admit, opened up a new line of thought. In the stress of my
emotions, I had clean forgotten about having taken Gussie’s interests
in hand. It altered things. One can’t give the raspberry to a client.
I mean, you didn’t find Sherlock Holmes refusing to see clients just
because he had been out late the night before at Doctor Watson’s
birthday party. I could have wished that the man had selected some
more suitable hour for approaching me, but as he appeared to be a sort
of human lark, leaving his watery nest at daybreak, I supposed I had
better give him an audience.
“True,” I said. “All right. Bung him in.”
“Very good, sir.”
“But before doing so, bring me one of those pick-me-ups of yours.”
“Very good, sir.”
And presently he returned with the vital essence.
I have had occasion, I fancy, to speak before now of these pick-me-ups
of Jeeves’s and their effect on a fellow who is hanging to life by a
thread on the morning after. What they consist of, I couldn’t tell you.
He says some kind of sauce, the yolk of a raw egg and a dash of red
pepper, but nothing will convince me that the thing doesn’t go much
deeper than that. Be that as it may, however, the results of swallowing
one are amazing.
For perhaps the split part of a second nothing happens. It is as though
all Nature waited breathless. Then, suddenly, it is as if the Last
Trump had sounded and Judgment Day set in with unusual severity.
Bonfires burst out in all in parts of the frame. The abdomen becomes
heavily charged with molten lava. A great wind seems to blow through
the world, and the subject is aware of something resembling a steam
hammer striking the back of the head. During this phase, the ears ring
loudly, the eyeballs rotate and there is a tingling about the brow.
And then, just as you are feeling that you ought to ring up your lawyer
and see that your affairs are in order before it is too late, the whole
situation seems to clarify. The wind drops. The ears cease to ring.
Birds twitter. Brass bands start playing. The sun comes up over the
horizon with a jerk.
And a moment later all you are conscious of is a great peace.
As I drained the glass now, new life seemed to burgeon within me. I
remember Jeeves, who, however much he may go off the rails at times in
the matter of dress clothes and in his advice to those in love, has
always had a neat turn of phrase, once speaking of someone rising on
stepping-stones of his dead self to higher things. It was that way with
me now. I felt that the Bertram Wooster who lay propped up against the
pillows had become a better, stronger, finer Bertram.
“Thank you, Jeeves,” I said.
“Not at all, sir.”
“That touched the exact spot. I am now able to cope with life’s
problems.”
“I am gratified to hear it, sir.”
“What madness not to have had one of those before tackling Aunt Dahlia!
However, too late to worry about that now. Tell me of Gussie. How did
he make out at the fancy-dress ball?”
“He did not arrive at the fancy-dress ball, sir.”
I looked at him a bit austerely.
“Jeeves,” I said, “I admit that after that pick-me-up of yours I feel
better, but don’t try me too high. Don’t stand by my sick bed talking
absolute rot. We shot Gussie into a cab and he started forth, headed
for wherever this fancy-dress ball was. He must have arrived.”
“No, sir. As I gather from Mr. Fink-Nottle, he entered the cab
convinced in his mind that the entertainment to which he had been
invited was to be held at No. 17, Suffolk Square, whereas the actual
rendezvous was No. 71, Norfolk Terrace. These aberrations of memory are
not uncommon with those who, like Mr. Fink-Nottle, belong essentially
to what one might call the dreamer-type.”
“One might also call it the fatheaded type.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well?”
“On reaching No. 17, Suffolk Square, Mr. Fink-Nottle endeavoured to
produce money to pay the fare.”
“What stopped him?”
“The fact that he had no money, sir. He discovered that he had left
it, together with his ticket of invitation, on the mantelpiece of his
bedchamber in the house of his uncle, where he was residing. Bidding
the cabman to wait, accordingly, he rang the door-bell, and when the
butler appeared, requested him to pay the cab, adding that it was all
right, as he was one of the guests invited to the dance. The butler
then disclaimed all knowledge of a dance on the premises.”
“And declined to unbelt?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Upon which----”
“Mr. Fink-Nottle directed the cabman to drive him back to his uncle’s
residence.”
“Well, why wasn’t that the happy ending? All he had to do was go in,
collect cash and ticket, and there he would have been, on velvet.”
“I should have mentioned, sir, that Mr. Fink-Nottle had also left his
latchkey on the mantelpiece of his bedchamber.”
“He could have rung the bell.”
“He did ring the bell, sir, for some fifteen minutes. At the
expiration of that period he recalled that he had given permission to
the caretaker--the house was officially closed and all the staff on
holiday--to visit his sailor son at Portsmouth.”
“Golly, Jeeves!”
“Yes, sir.”
“These dreamer types do live, don’t they?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What happened then?”
“Mr. Fink-Nottle appears to have realized at this point that his
position as regards the cabman had become equivocal. The figures on
the clock had already reached a substantial sum, and he was not in a
position to meet his obligations.”
“He could have explained.”
“You cannot explain to cabmen, sir. On endeavouring to do so, he found
the fellow sceptical of his bona fides.”
“I should have legged it.”
“That is the policy which appears to have commended itself to Mr.
Fink-Nottle. He darted rapidly away, and the cabman, endeavouring to
detain him, snatched at his overcoat. Mr. Fink-Nottle contrived to
extricate himself from the coat, and it would seem that his appearance
in the masquerade costume beneath it came as something of a shock to
the cabman. Mr. Fink-Nottle informs me that he heard a species of
whistling gasp, and, looking round, observed the man crouching against
the railings with his hands over his face. Mr. Fink-Nottle thinks
he was praying. No doubt an uneducated, superstitious fellow, sir.
Possibly a drinker.”
“Well, if he hadn’t been one before, I’ll bet he started being one
shortly afterwards. I expect he could scarcely wait for the pubs to
open.”
“Very possibly, in the circumstances he might have found a restorative
agreeable, sir.”
“And so, in the circumstances, might Gussie too, I should think. What
on earth did he do after that? London late at night--or even in the
daytime, for that matter--is no place for a man in scarlet tights.”