Part 4

"In order to achieve verisimilitude, I was reluctantly compelled to break it, sir. And in my excitement, sir, I am sorry to say I broke it beyond repair."

I drew myself up.

"Jeeves!" I said.

"Pardon me, sir, but would it not be wiser to wear a hat? There is a keen wind."

I blinked.

"Aren't I wearing a hat?"

"No, sir."

I put up a hand and felt the lemon. He was perfectly right.

"Nor I am! I must have left it in Sippy's office. Wait here, Jeeves, while I fetch it."

"Very good, sir."

"I have much to say to you."

"Thank you, sir."

I galloped up the stairs and dashed in at the door. And something squashy fell on my neck, and the next minute the whole world was a solid mass of flour. In the agitation of the moment I had gone in at the wrong door; and what it all boils down to is that, if any more of my pals get inferiority complexes, they can jolly well get rid of them for themselves. Bertram is through.

Jeeves and the Yuletide Spirit

The letter arrived on the morning of the sixteenth. I was pushing a bit of breakfast into the Wooster face at the moment; and, feeling fairly well fortified with coffee and kippers, I decided to break the news to Jeeves without delay. As Shakespeare says, if you're going to do a thing you might just as well pop right at it and get it over. The man would be disappointed, of course, and possibly even chagrined; but, dash it all, a spot of disappointment here and there does a fellow good. Makes him realize that life is stern and life is earnest.

"Oh, Jeeves," I said.

"Sir?"

"We have here a communication from Lady Wickham. She has written inviting me to Skeldings for the festivities. So will you see about bunging the necessaries together? We repair thither on the twenty-third. We shall be there some little time, I expect."

There was a pause. I could feel he was directing a frosty gaze at me, but I dug into the marmalade and refused to meet it.

"I thought I understood you to say, sir, that you proposed to visit Monte Carlo immediately after Christmas."

"I know. But that's all off. Plans changed."

At this point the telephone bell rang, tiding over nicely what had threatened to be an awkward moment. Jeeves unhooked the receiver.

"Yes?... Yes, madam.... Very good, madam. Here is Mr. Wooster." He handed me the instrument. "Mrs. Spenser Gregson, sir."

You know, every now and then I can't help feeling that Jeeves is losing his grip. In his prime it would have been with him the work of a moment to have told my aunt Agatha that I was not at home. I gave him one of those reproachful glances, and took the machine.

"Hullo?" I said. "Yes? Yes? Yes? Bertie speaking. Hullo? Hullo? Hullo?"

"Don't keep on saying Hullo," yipped the old relative, in her customary curt manner. "You're not a parrot. Sometimes I wish you were, because then you might have a little sense."

Quite the wrong sort of tone to adopt toward a fellow in the early morning, of course, but what can one do?

"Bertie, Lady Wickham tells me she has invited you to Skeldings for Christmas. Are you going?"

"Rather!"

"Well, mind you behave yourself. Lady Wickham is an old friend of mine."

"I shall naturally endeavour, Aunt Agatha," I replied stiffly, "to conduct myself in a manner befitting an English gentleman paying a visit----"

"What did you say? Speak up. I can't hear."

"I said, 'Right ho.'"

"Oh? Well, mind you do. And there's another reason why I particularly wish you to be as little of an imbecile as you can manage while at Skeldings. Sir Roderick Glossop will be there."

"What!"

"Don't bellow like that."

"Did you say Sir Roderick Glossop?"

"I did."

"You don't mean Tuppy Glossop?"

"I mean Sir Roderick Glossop. Which was my reason for saying Sir Roderick Glossop. Now, Bertie, I want you to listen to me attentively. Are you there?"

"Yes. Still here."

"Well, then, listen. I have at last succeeded, after incredible difficulty and in face of all the evidence, in almost persuading Sir Roderick that you are not actually insane. He is prepared to suspend judgment until he has seen you once more. On your behaviour at Skeldings, therefore----"

But I had hung up the receiver. Shaken. That's what I was. S. to the core.

This Glossop was a formidable old bird with a bald head and outsize eyebrows, by profession a loony-doctor. How it happened, I couldn't tell you to this day, but I once got engaged to his daughter Honoria, a ghastly dynamic exhibit who read Nietzsche and had a laugh like waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast. The fixture was scratched, owing to events occurring which convinced the old boy that I was off my napper; and since then he has always had my name at the top of his list of Loonies I Have Lunched With.

"Jeeves," I said, all of a twitter, "do you know what? Sir Roderick Glossop is going to be at Lady Wickham's."

"Very good, sir. If you have finished breakfast I will clear away."

Cold and haughty. No sympathy. None of the rallying-around spirit which one likes to see. As I had anticipated, Jeeves had been looking forward to a little flutter at the tables. We Woosters can wear the mask. I ignored his lack of decent feeling.

"Do so, Jeeves," I said proudly.

Going down to Skeldings in the car on the afternoon of the twenty-third, Jeeves was aloof and reserved. And before dinner on the first night of my visit he put the studs in my dress shirt in what I can only call a marked manner. The whole thing was extremely painful, and it seemed to me, as I lay in bed on the morning of the twenty-fourth, that the only step to take was to put the whole facts of the case before him and trust to his native good sense to effect an understanding.

My hostess, Lady Wickham, was a beaky female built far too closely on the lines of my aunt Agatha for comfort; but she had seemed matey enough on my arrival. Her daughter Roberta had welcomed me with a warmth which, I'm bound to say, had set the old heartstrings fluttering a bit. And Sir Roderick, in the brief moment we had had together, had said, "Ha, young man!"--not particularly chummily, but he said it; and my view was that it practically amounted to the lion lying down with the lamb.

So, all in all, life at this juncture seemed pretty well all to the mustard, and I decided to tell Jeeves exactly how matters stood.

"Jeeves," I said, as he appeared with the steaming.

"Sir?"

"I'm afraid scratching that Monte Carlo trip has been a bit of a jar for you, Jeeves."

"Not at all, sir."

"Oh, yes, it has. The heart was set on wintering in the world's good old plague spot, I know. I saw your eye light up when I said we were due for a visit there. You snorted a bit and your fingers twitched. I know, I know. And now that there has been a change of programme, the iron has entered into your soul."

"Not at all, sir."

"Oh, yes, it has. I've seen it. Very well, then. What I wish to impress upon you, Jeeves, is that it was through no light and airy caprice that I accepted this invitation to Lady Wickham's. I have been angling for it for weeks, prompted by many considerations. It was imperative that I should come to Skeldings for Christmas, Jeeves, because I knew that young Tuppy Glossop was going to be here."

"Sir Roderick Glossop, sir?"

"His nephew. You may have observed hanging about the place a fellow with light hair and a Cheshire-cat grin. That is Tuppy, and I have been anxious for some time to get to grips with him. The Wooster honour is involved."

I took a sip of tea, for the mere memory of my wrongs had shaken me.

"In spite of the fact that young Tuppy is the nephew of Sir Roderick Glossop, at whose hands, Jeeves, as you are aware, I have suffered much, I fraternized with him freely. I said to myself that a man is not to be blamed for his relations, and that I should hate to have my pals hold my aunt Agatha, for instance, against me. Broad-minded, Jeeves, I think?"

"Extremely, sir."

"Well, then, as I say, I sought this Tuppy out, Jeeves, and hobnobbed; and what do you think he did?"

"I could not say, sir."

"I will tell you. One night, after dinner at the Drones' Club, he bet me I wouldn't swing myself across the swimming bath by the ropes and rings. I took him on, and was buzzing along in great style until I came to the last ring. And then I found that this fiend in human shape had looped it back against the rail, thus leaving me hanging in the void with no means of getting ashore to my home and loved ones.

"There was nothing for it but to drop into the water. And what I maintain, Jeeves, is that, if I can't get back at him somehow at Skeldings--with all the vast resources which a country house affords at my disposal--I am not the man I was."

"I see, sir."

"And now, Jeeves, we come to the most important reason why I had to spend Christmas at Skeldings. Jeeves," I said, diving into the old cup once more for a moment and bringing myself out wreathed in blushes, "the fact of the matter is, I'm in love."

"Indeed, sir?"

"You've seen Miss Roberta Wickham?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well, then."

There was a pause while I let it sink in.

"During your stay here, Jeeves," I said, "you will, no doubt, be thrown a good deal together with Miss Wickham's maid. On such occasions pitch it strong."

"Sir?"

"You know what I mean. Tell her I'm rather a good chap. Mention my hidden depths. These things get round. A boost is never wasted, Jeeves."

"Very good, sir. But----"

"But what?"

"Well, sir----"

"Carry on, Jeeves. We are always glad to hear from you, always."

"What I was about to remark, if you will excuse me, sir, was that I would scarcely have thought Miss Wickham a suitable----"

"Jeeves," I said coldly, "what is your kick against Miss Wickham?"

"Oh, really, sir!"

"Jeeves, I insist. This is a time for plain speaking. You have beefed about Miss Wickham. I wish to know why."

"It merely crossed my mind, sir, that for a gentleman of your description Miss Wickham is not a suitable mate."

"What do you mean by 'a gentleman of my description'?"

"I beg your pardon, sir. The expression escaped me inadvertently. I was about to observe, sir, that, though Miss Wickham is a charming young lady----"

"There, Jeeves, you spoke an imperial quart. What eyes!"

"Yes, sir."

"What hair!"

"Very true, sir."

"And what _espièglerie_--if that's the word I want."

"The exact word, sir."

"All right, then. Carry on."

"I grant Miss Wickham the possession of all these desirable qualities, sir. Nevertheless, considered as a matrimonial prospect for a gentleman of your description, I cannot look upon her as suitable. In my opinion, Miss Wickham lacks seriousness, sir. She is too volatile and frivolous. To qualify as Miss Wickham's husband, a gentleman would need to possess a commanding personality and considerable strength of character."

"Exactly!"

"I would always hesitate to recommend as a life's companion a young lady with such a vivid shade of red hair. Red hair, sir, is dangerous."

I eyed the blighter squarely.

"Jeeves," I said, "you're talking rot."

"Very good, sir."

"Absolute drivel."

"Very good, sir."

"Pure mashed potatoes."

"Very good, sir."

"Very good, sir--I mean very good, Jeeves; that will be all," I said.

And I drank a modicum of tea with a good deal of hauteur.

It isn't often that I find myself able to prove Jeeves in the wrong; but by dinner time that night I was in a position to do so, and I did it without delay.

"Touching on that matter we were touching on, Jeeves," I said, coming in from the bath and tackling him as he studded the shirt, "I should be glad if you would give me your careful attention for a moment. I warn you that what I am about to say is going to make you look pretty silly."

"Indeed, sir?"

"Yes, Jeeves. Pretty dashed silly it's going to make you look. This morning, if I remember rightly, you stated that Miss Wickham was volatile, frivolous, and lacking in seriousness. Am I correct?"

"Quite correct, sir."

"Then what I have to tell you may cause you to alter that opinion. I went for a walk with Miss Wickham this afternoon; and, as we walked I told her about what young Tuppy Glossop did to me in the swimming bath at the Drones'. She hung upon my words, Jeeves, and was full of sympathy."

"Indeed, sir?"

"Dripping with it. And that's not all. Almost before I had finished she was suggesting the ripest, fruitiest, brainiest scheme for bringing young Tuppy's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave that anyone could possibly imagine."

"That is very gratifying, sir."

"'Gratifying' is the word. It appears that at the school where Miss Wickham was educated, Jeeves, it used to become necessary from time to time for the right-thinking element to slip it across certain of the baser sort. Do you know what they did, Jeeves?"

"No, sir."

"They took a long stick, Jeeves, and--follow me closely here--they tied a darning needle to the end of it. Then, at dead of night, it appears, they sneaked into the party of the second part's cubicle and shoved the needle through the bedclothes and punctured her hot-water bottle.

"Girls are much subtler in these matters than boys, Jeeves. At my old school one would occasionally heave a jug of water over another bloke during the night watches, but we never thought of effecting the same result in this particularly neat and scientific manner.

"Well, Jeeves, that was the scheme which Miss Wickham suggested I should work on young Tuppy, and that is the girl you call frivolous and lacking in seriousness. Any girl who can think up a wheeze like that is my idea of a helpmate.

"I shall be glad, Jeeves, if by the time I come to bed to-night you have waiting for me in this room a stout stick with a good sharp darning needle attached."

"Well, sir----"

I raised my hand.

"Jeeves," I said, "not another word. Stick, one, and needle, darning, good, sharp, one, without fail, in this room at eleven-thirty to-night."

"Very good, sir."

"Have you any idea where young Tuppy sleeps?"

"I could ascertain, sir."

"Do so, Jeeves."

In a few minutes he was back with the necessary informash.

"Mr. Glossop is established in the Moat Room, sir."

"Where's that?"

"The second door on the floor below, sir."

"Right ho, Jeeves. Are the studs in my shirt?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the links also?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then push me into it."

* * * * *

The task to which I had set myself was one that involved hardship and discomfort, for it meant sitting up till well into the small hours, and then padding down a cold corridor. But I did not shrink from it. After all, there is a lot to be said for family tradition. We Woosters did our bit in the Crusades.

It being Christmas Eve, there was, as I had foreseen, a good deal of revelry and what not; so that it wasn't till past one that I got to my room. Allowing for everything, it didn't seem that it was going to be safe to start my little expedition till half-past two at the earliest; and I'm bound to say that it was only the utmost resolution that kept me from snuggling into the sheets and calling it a day. I'm not much of a lad now for late hours.

However, by half-past two everything appeared to be quiet. I shook off the mists of sleep, grabbed the good old stick and needle, and was off along the corridor. And presently, pausing outside the Moat Room, I turned the handle, found the door wasn't locked, and went in.

At first, when I had beetled in, the room had seemed as black as a coal cellar; but after a bit things began to lighten. The curtains weren't quite drawn over the window, and I could see a trifle of the scenery here and there.

The bed was opposite the window, with the head against the wall and the end where the feet were jutting out toward where I stood, thus rendering it possible, after one had sown the seed, so to speak, to make a quick get-away.

There only remained now the rather tricky problem of locating the old hot-water bottle. I mean to say, the one thing you can't do if you want to carry a job like this through with secrecy and dispatch is to stand at the end of a fellow's bed, jabbing at random.

I was a good deal cheered, at this juncture, to hear a fruity snore from the direction of the pillows. Reason told me that a bloke who could snore like that wasn't going to be awakened by a trifle. I edged forward and ran a hand in a gingerly sort of way over the coverlet. A moment later I had found the bulge. I steered the good old darning needle on to it, gripped the stick, and shoved. Then, pulling out the weapon, I sidled toward the door, and in an another moment would have been outside, buzzing for home and the good night's rest, when suddenly there was a crash that sent my spine shooting up through the top of my head, and the contents of the bed sat up like a jack-in-the-box and said:

"Who's that?"

It just shows how your most careful strategic moves can be the very ones that dish your campaign. In order to facilitate the orderly retreat according to plan, I had left the door open, and the beastly thing had slammed like a bomb.

But I wasn't giving much thought to the causes of the explosion. What was disturbing me was the discovery that, whoever else the bloke in the bed might be, he was not young Tuppy. Tuppy has one of those high, squeaky voices that sound like the tenor of the village choir failing to hit a high note. This one was something in between the last trump and a tiger calling for breakfast after being on a diet for a day or two. It was the sort of nasty, rasping voice you hear shouting "Fore!" when you're one of a slow foursome on the links and are holding up a couple of retired colonels.

I did not linger. Getting swiftly off the mark, I dived for the door handle, and was off and away, banging the door behind me. I may be a chump in many ways, as my aunt Agatha will freely attest, but I know when and when not to be among those present.

And I was just about to do the stretch of corridor leading to the stairs in a split second under the record time for the course, when something brought me up with a sudden jerk. An irresistible force was holding me straining at leash, as it were.

You know, sometimes it seems to me as if Fate were going out of its way to such an extent to snooter you that you wonder if it's worth while to struggle. The night being a trifle chillier than the dickens, I had donned for this expedition a dressing gown. It was the tail of this infernal garment that had caught in the door and pipped me at the eleventh hour.

The next moment the door had opened, light was streaming through it, and the bloke with the voice had grabbed me by the arm.

It was Sir Roderick Glossop.

For about three and a quarter seconds, or possibly more, we just stood there, drinking each other in, so to speak, the old boy still attached with a limpetlike grip to my elbow. If I hadn't been in a dressing gown and he in pink pajamas with a blue stripe, and if he hadn't been glaring quite so much as if he were shortly going to commit a murder, the tableau would have looked rather like one of those advertisements you see in the magazines, where the experienced elder is patting the young man's arm and saying to him: "My boy, if you subscribe to the Mutt-Jeff Correspondence School of Oswego, Kansas, as I did, you may some day, like me, become Third Assistant Vice President of the Schenectady Consolidated Nail File and Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation."

"You!" said Sir Roderick finally. And in this connection I want to state that it's all rot to say you can't hiss a word that hasn't an _s_ in it. The way he pushed out that "You!" sounded like an angry cobra.

By rights, I suppose, at this point I ought to have said something. The best I could manage, however, was a faint, soft, bleating sound.

"Come in here," he said, lugging me into the room. "We don't want to wake the whole house. Now," he said, depositing me on the carpet and closing the door, and doing a bit of eyebrow work, "kindly inform me what is this latest manifestation of insanity?"

It seemed to me that a light and cheery laugh might help. So I had a pop at one.

"Don't gibber!" said my genial host. And I'm bound to admit that the light and cheery hadn't come out quite as I'd intended.

I pulled myself together with a strong effort.

"Awfully sorry about all this," I said in a hearty sort of voice. "The fact is, I thought you were Tuppy."

"Kindly refrain from inflicting your idiotic slang on me. What do you mean by the adjective 'tuppy'?"

"It isn't so much an adjective, don't you know. More of a noun, I should think, if you examine it squarely. What I mean to say is, I thought you were your nephew."

"You thought I was my nephew? Why should I be my nephew?"

"What I'm driving at is, I thought this was his room."

"My nephew and I changed rooms. I have a great dislike for sleeping on an upper floor. I am nervous about fire."

For the first time since this interview had started I braced up a trifle. I lost that sense of being a toad under the harrow which had been cramping my style up till now. I even went so far as to eye this pink-pajamaed poltroon with a good deal of contempt and loathing. Just because he had this craven fear of fire and this selfish preference for letting Tuppy be cooked instead of himself, should the emergency occur, my nicely reasoned plans had gone up the spout. I gave him a look, and I think I may even have snorted a bit.

"I should have thought that your manservant would have informed you," said Sir Roderick, "that we contemplated making this change. I met him shortly before luncheon and told him to tell you."

This extraordinary statement staggered me. That Jeeves had been aware all along that this old crumb would occupy the bed which I was proposing to prod with darning needles and had let me rush upon my doom without a word of warning was almost beyond belief. You might say I was aghast. Yes, practically aghast.

"You told Jeeves that you were going to sleep in this room?" I gasped.

"I did. I was aware that you and my nephew were on terms of intimacy, and I wished to spare myself the possibility of a visit from you. I confess that it never occurred to me that such a visit was to be anticipated at three o'clock in the morning. What the devil do you mean," he barked, suddenly hotting up, "by prowling about the house at this hour? And what is that thing in your hand?"

I looked down, and found that I was still grasping the stick. I give you my honest word that, what with the maelstrom of emotions into which his revelation about Jeeves had cast me, the discovery came as an absolute surprise.

"This?" I said. "Oh, yes."

"What do you mean, 'Oh, yes'? What is it?"

"Well, it's a long story."

"We have the night before us."

"It's this way: I will ask you to picture me some weeks ago, perfectly peaceful and inoffensive, after dinner at the Drones', smoking a thoughtful cigarette and----"

I broke off. The man wasn't listening. He was goggling in a rapt sort of way at the end of the bed, from which there had now begun to drip on to the carpet a series of drops.

"Good heavens!"

"--thoughtful cigarette and chatting pleasantly of this and that----"

I broke off again. He had lifted the sheets and was gazing at the corpse of the hot-water bottle.

"Did you do this?" he said in a low, strangled sort of voice.

"Er--yes. As a matter of fact, yes. I was just going to tell you----"

"And your aunt tried to persuade me that you were not insane!"

"I'm not. Absolutely not. If you'll just let me explain----"

"I will do nothing of the kind."

"It all began----"

"Silence!"

"Right ho."

He did some deep-breathing exercises.

"My bed is drenched!"

"The way it all began----"

"Be quiet!" He heaved somewhat for a while. "You wretched, miserable idiot," he said, "kindly inform me which bedroom you are supposed to be occupying."

"It's on the floor above. The Clock Room."

"Thank you. I will find it."

"Eh?"

He gave me the eyebrow.