a bit hard on a chap.

  “Th

  is is a surprise, what?” I said, after about fi ve minutes’ restful

  silence, trying to crank the conversation up again.

  “What is a surprise?”

  “Your coming here, don’t you know, and so on.”

  She raised her eyebrows and drank me in a bit more through her

  glasses.

  “Why is it surprising that I should visit my only nephew?” she

  said.

  Put like that, of course, it did seem reasonable.

  “Oh, rather,” I said. “Of course! Certainly. What I mean is—”

  Jeeves projected himself into the room with the tea. I was jolly

  glad to see him. Th

  ere’s nothing like having a bit of business ar-

  ranged for one when one isn’t certain of one’s lines. With the teapot

  to fool about with I felt happier.

  “Tea, tea, tea – what? What?” I said.

  124

  MY MAN JEEVES

  It wasn’t what I had meant to say. My idea had been to be a good

  deal more formal, and so on. Still, it covered the situation. I poured

  her out a cup. She sipped it and put the cup down with a shudder.

  “Do you mean to say, young man,” she said frostily, “that you

  expect me to drink this stuff ?”

  “Rather! Bucks you up, you know.”

  “What do you mean by the expression ‘Bucks you up’?”

  “Well, makes you full of beans, you know. Makes you fi zz.”

  “I don’t understand a word you say. You’re English, aren’t you?”

  I admitted it. She didn’t say a word. And somehow she did it in

  a way that made it worse than if she had spoken for hours. Somehow

  it was brought home to me that she didn’t like Englishmen, and

  that if she had had to meet an Englishman, I was the one she’d have

  chosen last.

  Conversation languished again after that.

  Th

  en I tried again. I was becoming more convinced every mo-

  ment that you can’t make a real lively salon with a couple of people, especially if one of them lets it go a word at a time.

  “Are you comfortable at your hotel?” I said.

  “At which hotel?”

  “Th

  e hotel you’re staying at.”

  “I am not staying at an hotel.”

  “Stopping with friends – what?”

  “I am naturally stopping with my nephew.”

  I didn’t get it for the moment; then it hit me.

  “What! Here?” I gurgled.

  “Certainly! Where else should I go?”

  Th

  e full horror of the situation rolled over me like a wave. I

  couldn’t see what on earth I was to do. I couldn’t explain that this

  wasn’t Rocky’s fl at without giving the poor old chap away hopelessly,

  because she would then ask me where he did live, and then he would

  be right in the soup. I was trying to induce the old bean to recover

  from the shock and produce some results when she spoke again.

  “Will you kindly tell my nephew’s man-servant to prepare my

  room? I wish to lie down.”

  “Your nephew’s man-servant?”

  “Th

  e man you call Jeeves. If Rockmetteller has gone for an auto-

  mobile ride, there is no need for you to wait for him. He will natu-

  rally wish to be alone with me when he returns.”

  125

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  I found myself tottering out of the room. Th

  e thing was too

  much for me. I crept into Jeeves’s den.

  “Jeeves!” I whispered.

  “Sir?”

  “Mix me a b.-and-s., Jeeves. I feel weak.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Th

  is is getting thicker every minute, Jeeves.”

  “Sir?”

  “She thinks you’re Mr. Todd’s man. She thinks the whole place

  is his, and everything in it. I don’t see what you’re to do, except stay

  on and keep it up. We can’t say anything or she’ll get on to the whole

  thing, and I don’t want to let Mr. Todd down. By the way, Jeeves,

  she wants you to prepare her bed.”

  He looked wounded.

  “It is hardly my place, sir—”

  “I know – I know. But do it as a personal favour to me. If you

  come to that, it’s hardly my place to be fl ung out of the fl at like this and have to go to an hotel, what?”

  “Is it your intention to go to an hotel, sir? What will you do for

  clothes?”

  “Good Lord! I hadn’t thought of that. Can you put a few things

  in a bag when she isn’t looking, and sneak them down to me at the

  St. Aurea?”

  “I will endeavour to do so, sir.”

  “Well, I don’t think there’s anything more, is there? Tell Mr.

  Todd where I am when he gets here.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  I looked round the place. Th

  e moment of parting had come. I

  felt sad. Th

  e whole thing reminded me of one of those melodramas

  where they drive chappies out of the old homestead into the snow.

  “Good-bye, Jeeves,” I said.

  “Good-bye, sir.”

  And I staggered out.

  %

  You know, I rather think I agree with those poet-and-philoso-

  pher Johnnies who insist that a fellow ought to be devilish pleased

  if he has a bit of trouble. All that stuff about being refi ned by suf-

  fering, you know. Suff ering does give a chap a sort of broader and

  126

  MY MAN JEEVES

  more sympathetic outlook. It helps you to understand other people’s

  misfortunes if you’ve been through the same thing yourself.

  As I stood in my lonely bedroom at the hotel, trying to tie my

  white tie myself, it struck me for the fi rst time that there must be

  whole squads of chappies in the world who had to get along without

  a man to look after them. I’d always thought of Jeeves as a kind

  of natural phenomenon; but, by Jove! of course, when you come to

  think of it, there must be quite a lot of fellows who have to press

  their own clothes themselves and haven’t got anybody to bring them

  tea in the morning, and so on. It was rather a solemn thought, don’t

  you know. I mean to say, ever since then I’ve been able to appreciate

  the frightful privations the poor have to stick.

  I got dressed somehow. Jeeves hadn’t forgotten a thing in his

  packing. Everything was there, down to the fi nal stud. I’m not sure

  this didn’t make me feel worse. It kind of deepened the pathos. It

  was like what somebody or other wrote about the touch of a van-

  ished hand.

  I had a bit of dinner somewhere and went to a show of some

  kind; but nothing seemed to make any diff erence. I simply hadn’t

  the heart to go on to supper anywhere. I just sucked down a whisky-

  and-soda in the hotel smoking-room and went straight up to bed. I

  don’t know when I’ve felt so rotten. Somehow I found myself mov-

  ing about the room softly, as if there had been a death in the family.

  If I had anybody to talk to I should have talked in a whisper; in fact,

  when the telephone-bell rang I answered in such a sad, hushed voice

  that the fellow at the other end of the wire said “Halloa!” fi ve times,

  thinking he hadn’t got me.

  It was Rocky. Th

  e poor old scout was deeply agitated.

  “Bertie! Is that you, Bertie! Oh, gosh? I’m having a time!”

  “Where are you speaking from?”

  “Th

  e Midnight Revels. We’ve been here an hour, and I think

  we’re a fi xture for the night. I’ve told Aunt Isabel I’ve gone out to

  call up a friend to join us. She’s glued to a chair, with this-is-the-life written all over her, taking it in through the pores. She loves it, and

  I’m nearly crazy.”

  “Tell me all, old top,” I said.

  “A little more of this,” he said, “and I shall sneak quietly off to

  the river and end it all. Do you mean to say you go through this sort

  of thing every night, Bertie, and enjoy it? It’s simply infernal! I was

  127

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  just snatching a wink of sleep behind the bill of fare just now when

  about a million yelling girls swooped down, with toy balloons. Th

  ere

  are two orchestras here, each trying to see if it can’t play louder than

  the other. I’m a mental and physical wreck. When your telegram ar-

  rived I was just lying down for a quiet pipe, with a sense of absolute

  peace stealing over me. I had to get dressed and sprint two miles

  to catch the train. It nearly gave me heart-failure; and on top of

  that I almost got brain fever inventing lies to tell Aunt Isabel. And

  then I had to cram myself into these confounded evening clothes of

  yours.”

  I gave a sharp wail of agony. It hadn’t struck me till then that

  Rocky was depending on my wardrobe to see him through.

  “You’ll ruin them!”

  “I hope so,” said Rocky, in the most unpleasant way. His trou-

  bles seemed to have had the worst eff ect on his character. “I should

  like to get back at them somehow; they’ve given me a bad enough

  time. Th

  ey’re about three sizes too small, and something’s apt to give

  at any moment. I wish to goodness it would, and give me a chance

  to breathe. I haven’t breathed since half-past seven. Th

  ank Heaven,

  Jeeves managed to get out and buy me a collar that fi tted, or I should

  be a strangled corpse by now! It was touch and go till the stud broke.

  Bertie, this is pure Hades! Aunt Isabel keeps on urging me to dance.

  How on earth can I dance when I don’t know a soul to dance with?

  And how the deuce could I, even if I knew every girl in the place?

  It’s taking big chances even to move in these trousers. I had to tell

  her I’ve hurt my ankle. She keeps asking me when Cohan and Stone

  are going to turn up; and it’s simply a question of time before she

  discovers that Stone is sitting two tables away. Something’s got to be

  done, Bertie! You’ve got to think up some way of getting me out of

  this mess. It was you who got me into it.”

  “Me! What do you mean?”

  “Well, Jeeves, then. It’s all the same. It was you who suggested

  leaving it to Jeeves. It was those letters I wrote from his notes that

  did the mischief. I made them too good! My aunt’s just been tell-

  ing me about it. She says she had resigned herself to ending her life

  where she was, and then my letters began to arrive, describing the

  joys of New York; and they stimulated her to such an extent that she

  pulled herself together and made the trip. She seems to think she’s

  128

  MY MAN JEEVES

  had some miraculous kind of faith cure. I tell you I can’t stand it,

  Bertie! It’s got to end!”

  “Can’t Jeeves think of anything?”

  “No. He just hangs round saying: ‘Most disturbing, sir!’ A fat

  lot of help that is!”

  “Well, old lad,” I said, “after all, it’s far worse for me than it is for

  you. You’ve got a comfortable home and Jeeves. And you’re saving a

  lot of money.”

  “Saving money? What do you mean – saving money?”

  “Why, the allowance your aunt was giving you. I suppose she’s

  paying all the expenses now, isn’t she?”

  “Certainly she is; but she’s stopped the allowance. She wrote

  the lawyers to-night. She says that, now she’s in New York, there

  is no necessity for it to go on, as we shall always be together, and

  it’s simpler for her to look after that end of it. I tell you, Bertie, I’ve examined the darned cloud with a microscope, and if it’s got a silver

  lining it’s some little dissembler!”

  “But, Rocky, old top, it’s too bally awful! You’ve no notion of

  what I’m going through in this beastly hotel, without Jeeves. I must

  get back to the fl at.”

  “Don’t come near the fl at.”

  “But it’s my own fl at.”

  “I can’t help that. Aunt Isabel doesn’t like you. She asked me

  what you did for a living. And when I told her you didn’t do any-

  thing she said she thought as much, and that you were a typical

  specimen of a useless and decaying aristocracy. So if you think you

  have made a hit, forget it. Now I must be going back, or she’ll be

  coming out here after me. Good-bye.”

  %

  Next morning Jeeves came round. It was all so home-like when

  he fl oated noiselessly into the room that I nearly broke down.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said. “I have brought a few more of your

  personal belongings.”

  He began to unstrap the suit-case he was carrying.

  “Did you have any trouble sneaking them away?”

  “It was not easy, sir. I had to watch my chance. Miss Rock-

  metteller is a remarkably alert lady.”

  “You know, Jeeves, say what you like – this is a bit thick, isn’t it?”

  129

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  “Th

  e situation is certainly one that has never before come under

  my notice, sir. I have brought the heather-mixture suit, as the cli-

  matic conditions are congenial. To-morrow, if not prevented, I will

  endeavour to add the brown lounge with the faint green twill.”

  “It can’t go on – this sort of thing – Jeeves.”

  “We must hope for the best, sir.”

  “Can’t you think of anything to do?”

  “I have been giving the matter considerable thought, sir, but so

  far without success. I am placing three silk shirts – the dove-co-

  loured, the light blue, and the mauve – in the fi rst long drawer, sir.”

  “You don’t mean to say you can’t think of anything, Jeeves?”

  “For the moment, sir, no. You will fi nd a dozen handkerchiefs and

  the tan socks in the upper drawer on the left.” He strapped the suit-

  case and put it on a chair. “A curious lady, Miss Rockmetteller, sir.”

  “You understate it, Jeeves.”

  He gazed meditatively out of the window.

  “In many ways, sir, Miss Rockmetteller reminds me of an aunt

  of mine who resides in the south-east portion of London. Th

  eir tem-

  peraments are much alike. My aunt has the same taste for the plea-

  sures of the great city. It is a passion with her to ride in hansom cabs,

  sir. Whenever the family take their eyes off her she escapes from the

  house and spends the day riding about in cabs. On several occasions

  she has broken into the children’s savings bank to secure the means

  to enable her to gratify this desire.”

  “I love to have these little chats with you about your female rela-

  tives, Jeeves,” I said coldly, for I felt that the man had let me down,

  and I was fed up with him. “But I don’t see what all this has got to

  do with my trouble.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir. I am leaving a small assortment of neck-

  ties on the mantelpiece, sir, for you to select according to your prefer-

  ence. I should recommend the blue with the red domino pattern, sir.”

  Th

  en he streamed imperceptibly toward the door and fl owed si-

  lently out.

  %

  I’ve often heard that chappies, after some great shock or loss,

  have a habit, after they’ve been on the fl oor for a while wonder-

  ing what hit them, of picking themselves up and piecing themselves

  together, and sort of taking a whirl at beginning a new life. Time,

  130

  MY MAN JEEVES

  the great healer, and Nature, adjusting itself, and so on and so forth.

  Th

  ere’s a lot in it. I know, because in my own case, after a day or two

  of what you might call prostration, I began to recover. Th

  e frightful

  loss of Jeeves made any thought of pleasure more or less a mockery,

  but at least I found that I was able to have a dash at enjoying life

  again. What I mean is, I braced up to the extent of going round the

  cabarets once more, so as to try to forget, if only for the moment.

  New York’s a small place when it comes to the part of it that

  wakes up just as the rest is going to bed, and it wasn’t long before

  my tracks began to cross old Rocky’s. I saw him once at Peale’s,

  and again at Frolics on the roof. Th

  ere wasn’t anybody with him

  either time except the aunt, and, though he was trying to look as if

  he had struck the ideal life, it wasn’t diffi

  cult for me, knowing the

  circumstances, to see that beneath the mask the poor chap was suf-

  fering. My heart bled for the fellow. At least, what there was of it

  that wasn’t bleeding for myself bled for him. He had the air of one

  who was about to crack under the strain.

  It seemed to me that the aunt was looking slightly upset also. I

  took it that she was beginning to wonder when the celebrities were

  going to surge round, and what had suddenly become of all those

  wild, careless spirits Rocky used to mix with in his letters. I didn’t

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19