He gave a kind of yelp, stared at me for a moment, and then

  began to talk of New York in a way that reminded me of Jimmy

  Mundy, the reformer chappie. Jimmy had just come to New York on

  a hit-the-trail campaign, and I had popped in at the Garden a couple

  of days before, for half an hour or so, to hear him. He had certainly

  told New York some pretty straight things about itself, having ap-

  parently taken a dislike to the place, but, by Jove, you know, dear old

  Rocky made him look like a publicity agent for the old metrop.!

  “Pretty soft!” he cried. “To have to come and live in New York!

  To have to leave my little cottage and take a stuff y, smelly, over-

  heated hole of an apartment in this Heaven-forsaken, festering Ge-

  henna. To have to mix night after night with a mob who think that

  life is a sort of St. Vitus’s dance, and imagine that they’re having a

  good time because they’re making enough noise for six and drinking

  too much for ten. I loathe New York, Bertie. I wouldn’t come near

  the place if I hadn’t got to see editors occasionally. Th

  ere’s a blight on

  it. It’s got moral delirium tremens. It’s the limit. Th

  e very thought of

  staying more than a day in it makes me sick. And you call this thing

  pretty soft for me!”

  I felt rather like Lot’s friends must have done when they dropped

  in for a quiet chat and their genial host began to criticise the Cities

  of the Plain. I had no idea old Rocky could be so eloquent.

  “It would kill me to have to live in New York,” he went on. “To

  have to share the air with six million people! To have to wear stiff

  collars and decent clothes all the time! To—” He started. “Good

  Lord! I suppose I should have to dress for dinner in the evenings.

  What a ghastly notion!”

  117

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  I was shocked, absolutely shocked.

  “My dear chap!” I said reproachfully.

  “Do you dress for dinner every night, Bertie?”

  “Jeeves,” I said coldly. Th

  e man was still standing like a statue by

  the door. “How many suits of evening clothes have I?”

  “We have three suits full of evening dress, sir; two dinner

  jackets—”

  “Th

  ree.”

  “For practical purposes two only, sir. If you remember we cannot

  wear the third. We have also seven white waistcoats.”

  “And shirts?”

  “Four dozen, sir.”

  “And white ties?”

  “Th

  e fi rst two shallow shelves in the chest of drawers are com-

  pletely fi lled with our white ties, sir.”

  I turned to Rocky.

  “You see?”

  Th

  e chappie writhed like an electric fan.

  “I won’t do it! I can’t do it! I’ll be hanged if I’ll do it! How on

  earth can I dress up like that? Do you realize that most days I don’t

  get out of my pyjamas till fi ve in the afternoon, and then I just put

  on an old sweater?”

  I saw Jeeves wince, poor chap! Th

  is sort of revelation shocked

  his fi nest feelings.

  “Th

  en, what are you going to do about it?” I said.

  “Th

  at’s what I want to know.”

  “You might write and explain to your aunt.”

  “I might – if I wanted her to get round to her lawyer’s in two

  rapid leaps and cut me out of her will.”

  I saw his point.

  “What do you suggest, Jeeves?” I said.

  Jeeves cleared his throat respectfully.

  “Th

  e crux of the matter would appear to be, sir, that Mr. Todd

  is obliged by the conditions under which the money is delivered into

  his possession to write Miss Rockmetteller long and detailed letters

  relating to his movements, and the only method by which this can

  be accomplished, if Mr. Todd adheres to his expressed intention of

  remaining in the country, is for Mr. Todd to induce some second

  party to gather the actual experiences which Miss Rockmetteller

  118

  MY MAN JEEVES

  wishes reported to her, and to convey these to him in the shape of a

  careful report, on which it would be possible for him, with the aid of

  his imagination, to base the suggested correspondence.”

  Having got which off the old diaphragm, Jeeves was silent.

  Rocky looked at me in a helpless sort of way. He hasn’t been brought

  up on Jeeves as I have, and he isn’t on to his curves.

  “Could he put it a little clearer, Bertie?” he said. “I thought at

  the start it was going to make sense, but it kind of fl ickered. What’s

  the idea?”

  “My dear old man, perfectly simple. I knew we could stand on

  Jeeves. All you’ve got to do is to get somebody to go round the town

  for you and take a few notes, and then you work the notes up into

  letters. Th

  at’s it, isn’t it, Jeeves?”

  “Precisely, sir.”

  Th

  e light of hope gleamed in Rocky’s eyes. He looked at Jeeves

  in a startled way, dazed by the man’s vast intellect.

  “But who would do it?” he said. “It would have to be a pretty

  smart sort of man, a man who would notice things.”

  “Jeeves!” I said. “Let Jeeves do it.”

  “But would he?”

  “You would do it, wouldn’t you, Jeeves?”

  For the fi rst time in our long connection I observed Jeeves almost

  smile. Th

  e corner of his mouth curved quite a quarter of an inch, and

  for a moment his eye ceased to look like a meditative fi sh’s.

  “I should be delighted to oblige, sir. As a matter of fact, I have

  already visited some of New York’s places of interest on my evening out, and it would be most enjoyable to make a practice of the

  pursuit.”

  “Fine! I know exactly what your aunt wants to hear about, Rocky.

  She wants an earful of cabaret stuff . Th

  e place you ought to go to

  fi rst, Jeeves, is Reigelheimer’s. It’s on Forty-second Street. Anybody

  will show you the way.”

  Jeeves shook his head.

  “Pardon me, sir. People are no longer going to Reigelheimer’s.

  Th

  e place at the moment is Frolics on the Roof.”

  “You see?” I said to Rocky. “Leave it to Jeeves. He knows.”

  It isn’t often that you fi nd an entire group of your fellow-humans

  happy in this world; but our little circle was certainly an example of

  119

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  the fact that it can be done. We were all full of beans. Everything

  went absolutely right from the start.

  Jeeves was happy, partly because he loves to exercise his giant

  brain, and partly because he was having a corking time among the

  bright lights. I saw him one night at the Midnight Revels. He was

  sitting at a table on the edge of the dancing fl oor, doing himself

  remarkably well with a fat cigar and a bottle of the best. I’d never

  imagined he could look so nearly human. His face wore an expres-

  sion of austere benevolence, and he was making notes in a small

  book.

  As for the rest of us, I was feeling pretty good, because I was

  fond of old Rocky and glad to be able to do him a good turn. Rocky

  was perfectly contented, because he was still able to sit on fences

  in his pyjamas and watch worms. And, as for the aunt, she seemed

  tickled to death. She was getting Broadway at pretty long range,

  but it seemed to be hitting her just right. I read one of her letters to

  Rocky, and it was full of life.

  But then Rocky’s letters, based on Jeeves’s notes, were enough to

  buck anybody up. It was rummy when you came to think of it. Th

  ere

  was I, loving the life, while the mere mention of it gave Rocky a

  tired feeling; yet here is a letter I wrote to a pal of mine in London:

  Dear Freddie,

  Well, here I am in New York. It’s not a bad place. I’m not having a

  bad time. Everything’s pretty all right. Th

  e cabarets aren’t bad. Don’t

  know when I shall be back. How’s everybody? Cheer-o!

  Yours,

  Bertie.

  p.s. – Seen old Ted lately?

  Not that I cared about Ted; but if I hadn’t dragged him in I

  couldn’t have got the confounded thing on to the second page.

  Now here’s old Rocky on exactly the same subject:

  Dearest Aunt Isabel,

  How can I ever thank you enough for giving me the opportunity to

  live in this astounding city! New York seems more wonderful every

  day.

  120

  MY MAN JEEVES

  Fifth Avenue is at its best, of course, just now. Th

  e dresses are

  magnifi cent!

  Wads of stuff about the dresses. I didn’t know Jeeves was such

  an authority.

  I was out with some of the crowd at the Midnight Revels the other

  night. We took in a show fi rst, after a little dinner at a new place on

  Forty-third Street. We were quite a gay party. Georgie Cohan looked

  in about midnight and got off a good one about Willie Collier. Fred

  Stone could only stay a minute, but Doug. Fairbanks did all sorts of

  stunts and made us roar. Diamond Jim Brady was there, as usual, and

  Laurette Taylor showed up with a party. Th

  e show at the Revels is

  quite good. I am enclosing a programme.

  Last night a few of us went round to Frolics on the Roof—

  And so on and so forth, yards of it. I suppose it’s the artistic

  temperament or something. What I mean is, it’s easier for a chappie

  who’s used to writing poems and that sort of tosh to put a bit of a

  punch into a letter than it is for a chappie like me. Anyway, there’s

  no doubt that Rocky’s correspondence was hot stuff . I called Jeeves

  in and congratulated him.

  “Jeeves, you’re a wonder!”

  “Th

  ank you, sir.”

  “How you notice everything at these places beats me. I couldn’t

  tell you a thing about them, except that I’ve had a good time.”

  “It’s just a knack, sir.”

  “Well, Mr. Todd’s letters ought to brace Miss Rockmetteller all

  right, what?”

  “Undoubtedly, sir,” agreed Jeeves.

  And, by Jove, they did! Th

  ey certainly did, by George! What I

  mean to say is, I was sitting in the apartment one afternoon, about a

  month after the thing had started, smoking a cigarette and resting

  the old bean, when the door opened and the voice of Jeeves burst the

  silence like a bomb.

  It wasn’t that he spoke loud. He has one of those soft, soothing

  voices that slide through the atmosphere like the note of a far-off

  sheep. It was what he said made me leap like a young gazelle.

  “Miss Rockmetteller!”

  And in came a large, solid female.

  121

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  Th

  e situation fl oored me. I’m not denying it. Hamlet must have

  felt much as I did when his father’s ghost bobbed up in the fairway.

  I’d come to look on Rocky’s aunt as such a permanency at her own

  home that it didn’t seem possible that she could really be here in New

  York. I stared at her. Th

  en I looked at Jeeves. He was standing there

  in an attitude of dignifi ed detachment, the chump, when, if ever he

  should have been rallying round the young master, it was now.

  Rocky’s aunt looked less like an invalid than any one I’ve ever

  seen, except my Aunt Agatha. She had a good deal of Aunt Agatha

  about her, as a matter of fact. She looked as if she might be deucedly

  dangerous if put upon; and something seemed to tell me that she

  would certainly regard herself as put upon if she ever found out the

  game which poor old Rocky had been pulling on her.

  “Good afternoon,” I managed to say.

  “How do you do?” she said. “Mr. Cohan?”

  “Er – no.”

  “Mr. Fred Stone?”

  “Not absolutely. As a matter of fact, my name’s Wooster – Bertie

  Wooster.”

  She seemed disappointed. Th

  e fi ne old name of Wooster ap-

  peared to mean nothing in her life.

  “Isn’t Rockmetteller home?” she said. “Where is he?”

  She had me with the fi rst shot. I couldn’t think of anything to

  say. I couldn’t tell her that Rocky was down in the country, watch-

  ing worms.

  Th

  ere was the faintest fl utter of sound in the background. It was

  the respectful cough with which Jeeves announces that he is about

  to speak without having been spoken to.

  “If you remember, sir, Mr. Todd went out in the automobile

  with a party in the afternoon.”

  “So he did, Jeeves; so he did,” I said, looking at my watch. “Did

  he say when he would be back?”

  “He gave me to understand, sir, that he would be somewhat late

  in returning.”

  He vanished; and the aunt took the chair which I’d forgotten

  to off er her. She looked at me in rather a rummy way. It was a nasty

  look. It made me feel as if I were something the dog had brought

  in and intended to bury later on, when he had time. My own Aunt

  122

  MY MAN JEEVES

  Agatha, back in England, has looked at me in exactly the same way

  many a time, and it never fails to make my spine curl.

  “You seem very much at home here, young man. Are you a great

  friend of Rockmetteller’s?”

  “Oh, yes, rather!”

  She frowned as if she had expected better things of old Rocky.

  “Well, you need to be,” she said, “the way you treat his fl at as

  your own!”

  I give you my word, this quite unforeseen slam simply robbed

  me of the power of speech. I’d been looking on myself in the light

  of the dashing host, and suddenly to be treated as an intruder jarred

  me. It wasn’t, mark you, as if she had spoken in a way to suggest

  that she considered my presence in the place as an ordinary social

  call. She obviously looked on me as a cross between a burglar and

  the plumber’s man come to fi x the leak in the bathroom. It hurt her

  – my being there.

  At this juncture, with the conversation showing every sign of

  being about to die in awful agonies, an idea came to me. Tea – the

  good old stand-by.

  “Would you care for a cup of tea?” I said.

  “Tea?”

  She spoke as if she had never heard of the stuff .

  “Nothing like a cup after a journey,” I said. “Bucks you up! Puts

  a bit of zip into you. What I mean is, restores you, and so on, don’t

  you know. I’ll go and tell Jeeves.”

  I tottered down the passage to Jeeves’s lair. Th

  e man was reading

  the evening paper as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Jeeves,” I said, “we want some tea.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “I say, Jeeves, this is a bit thick, what?”

  I wanted sympathy, don’t you know – sympathy and kindness.

  Th

  e old nerve centres had had the deuce of a shock.

  “She’s got the idea this place belongs to Mr. Todd. What on

  earth put that into her head?”

  Jeeves fi lled the kettle with a restrained dignity.

  “No doubt because of Mr. Todd’s letters, sir,” he said. “It was my

  suggestion, sir, if you remember, that they should be addressed from

  this apartment in order that Mr. Todd should appear to possess a

  good central residence in the city.”

  123

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  I remembered. We had thought it a brainy scheme at the time.

  “Well, it’s bally awkward, you know, Jeeves. She looks on me as

  an intruder. By Jove! I suppose she thinks I’m someone who hangs

  about here, touching Mr. Todd for free meals and borrowing his

  shirts.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s pretty rotten, you know.”

  “Most disturbing, sir.”

  “And there’s another thing: What are we to do about Mr. Todd?

  We’ve got to get him up here as soon as ever we can. When you have

  brought the tea you had better go out and send him a telegram, tell-

  ing him to come up by the next train.”

  “I have already done so, sir. I took the liberty of writing the mes-

  sage and dispatching it by the lift attendant.”

  “By Jove, you think of everything, Jeeves!”

  “Th

  ank you, sir. A little buttered toast with the tea? Just so, sir.

  Th

  ank you.”

  I went back to the sitting-room. She hadn’t moved an inch. She

  was still bolt upright on the edge of her chair, gripping her umbrella

  like a hammer-thrower. She gave me another of those looks as I

  came in. Th

  ere was no doubt about it; for some reason she had taken

  a dislike to me. I suppose because I wasn’t George M. Cohan. It was

 

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