You know, the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate. This chappie before me, who spoke in that absolutely careless way of macaroons and limado, was the man I had seen in happier days telling the head-waiter at Claridge’s exactly how he wanted the chef to prepare the sole frite augourmet aux champignons, and saying he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn’t just right. Ghastly! Ghastly!
A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn’t been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose them, and Mabel hopped it.
‘Well?’ said Bingo rapturously.
I took it that he wanted my opinion of the female poisoner who had just left us.
‘Very nice,’ I said.
He seemed dissatisfied.
‘You don’t think she’s the most wonderful girl you ever saw?’ he said wistfully.
‘Oh, absolutely!’ I said, to appease the blighter. ‘Where did you meet her?’
‘At a subscription dance at Camberwell.’
‘What on earth were you doing at a subscription dance at Camberwell?’
‘Your man Jeeves asked me if I would buy a couple of tickets. It was in aid of some charity or other.’
‘Jeeves? I didn’t know he went in for that sort of thing.’
‘Well, I suppose he has to relax a bit every now and then. Anyway, he was there, swinging a dashed efficient shoe. I hadn’t meant to go at first, but I turned up for a lark. Oh, Bertie, think what I might have missed!’
‘What might you have missed?’ I asked, the old lemon being slightly clouded.
‘Mabel, you chump. If I hadn’t gone I shouldn’t have met Mabel.’
‘Oh, ah!’
At this point Bingo fell into a species of trance, and only came out of it to wrap himself round the pie and the macaroon.
‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘I want your advice.’
‘Carry on.’
‘At least, not your advice, because that wouldn’t be much good to anybody. I mean, you’re a pretty consummate old ass, aren’t you? Not that I want to hurt your feelings, of course.’
‘No, no, I see that.’
‘What I wish you would do is to put the whole thing to that fellow Jeeves of yours, and see what he suggests. You’ve often told me that he has helped other pals of yours out of messes. From what you tell me, he’s by way of being the brains of the family.’
‘He’s never let me down yet.’
‘Then put my case to him.’
‘What case?’
‘My problem.’
‘What problem?’
‘Why, you poor fish, my uncle, of course. What do you think my uncle’s going to say to all this? If I sprang it on him cold, he’d tie himself in knots on the hearthrug.’
‘One of these emotional johnnies, eh?’
‘Somehow or other his mind has got to be prepared to receive the news. But how?’
‘Ah!’
‘That’s a lot of help, that “ah”! You see, I’m pretty well dependent on the old boy. If he cut off my allowance, I should be very much in the soup. So you put the whole binge to Jeeves and see if he can’t scare up a happy ending somehow. Tell him my future is in his hands, and that, if the wedding bells ring out, he can rely on me, even unto half my kingdom. Well, call it ten quid. Jeeves would exert himself with ten quid on the horizon, what?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ I said.
I wasn’t in the least surprised at Bingo wanting to lug Jeeves into his private affairs like this. It was the first thing I would have thought of doing myself if I had been in any hole of any description. As I have frequently had occasion to observe, he is a bird of the ripest intellect, full of bright ideas. If anybody could fix things for poor old Bingo, he could.
I stated the case to him that night after dinner.
‘Jeeves.’
‘Sir?’
‘Are you busy just now?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I mean, not doing anything in particular?’
‘No, sir. It is my practice at this hour to read some improving book; but, if you desire my services, this can easily be postponed, or indeed, abandoned altogether.’
‘Well, I want your advice. It’s about Mr Little.’
‘Young Mr Little, sir, or the elder Mr Little, his uncle, who lives in Pounceby Gardens?’
Jeeves seemed to know everything. Most amazing thing. I’d been pally with Bingo practically all my life, and yet I didn’t remember having heard that his uncle lived anywhere in particular.
‘How did you know he lived in Pounceby Gardens?’ I said.
‘I am on terms of some intimacy with the elder Mr Little’s cook, sir. In fact, there is an understanding.’
I’m bound to say that this gave me a bit of a start. Somehow I’d never thought of Jeeves going in for that sort of thing.
‘Do you mean you’re engaged?’
‘It may be said to amount to that, sir.’
‘Well, well!’
‘She is a remarkably excellent cook, sir,’ said Jeeves, as though he felt called on to give some explanation. ‘What was it you wished to ask me about Mr Little?’
I sprang the details on him.
‘And that’s how the matter stands, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘I think we ought to rally round a trifle and help poor old Bingo put the thing through. Tell me about old Mr Little. What sort of a chap is he?’
‘A somewhat curious character, sir. Since retiring from business he has become a great recluse, and now devotes himself almost entirely to the pleasures of the table.’
‘Greedy hog, you mean?’
‘I would not, perhaps, take the liberty of describing him in precisely those terms, sir. He is what is usually called a gourmet. Very particular about what he eats, and for that reason sets a high value on Miss Watson’s services.
‘The cook?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, it looks to me as though our best plan would be to shoot young Bingo in on him after dinner one night. Melting mood, I mean to say, and all that.’
‘The difficulty is, sir, that at the moment Mr Little is on a diet, owing to an attack of gout.’
‘Things begin to look wobbly.’
‘No, sir, I fancy that the elder Mr Little’s misfortune may be turned to the younger Mr Little’s advantage. I was speaking only the other day to Mr Little’s valet, and he was telling me that it has become his principle duty to read to Mr Little in the evenings. If I were in your place, sir, I should send young Mr Little to read to his uncle.’
‘Nephew’s devotion, you mean? Old man touched by kindly action, what?’
‘Partly that, sir. But I would rely more on young Mr Little’s choice of literature.’
‘That’s no good. Jolly old Bingo has a kind face, but when it comes to literature he stops at the Sporting Times.’
‘That difficulty may be overcome. I would be happy to select books for Mr Little to read. Perhaps I might explain my idea a little further.’
‘I can’t say I quite grasp it yet.’
‘The method which I advocate is what, I believe, the advertisers call Direct Suggestion, sir, consisting as it does of driving an idea home by constant repetition. You may have had experience of the system?’
‘You mean they keep on telling you that some soap or other is the best, and after a bit you come under the influence and charge round the corner and buy a cake?’
‘Exactly, sir. The same method was the basis of all the most valuable propaganda during the recent war. I see no reason why it should not be adopted to bring about the desired result with regard to the subject’s views on class distinctions. If young Mr Little were to read day after day to his uncle a series of narratives in which marriage with young persons of an inferior social status was held up as both feasible and admirable, I fancy it would prepare the elder Mr Little’s mind for the reception of the information that his nephew wishes
to marry a waitress in a tea-shop.’
‘Are there any books of that sort nowadays? The only ones I ever see mentioned in the papers are about married couples who find life grey, and can’t stick each other at any price.’
‘Yes, sir, there are a great many, neglected by the reviewers but widely read. You have never encountered All for Love, by Rosie M. Banks?’
‘No.’
‘Nor, A Red, Red Summer, by the same author?’
‘No.’
‘I have an aunt, sir, who owns an almost complete set of Rosie M. Banks’. I could easily borrow as many volumes as young Mr Little might require. They make very light, attractive reading.’
‘Well, it’s worth trying.’
‘I should certainly recommend the scheme, sir.’
‘All right, then. Toddle round to your aunt’s tomorrow and grab a couple of the fruitiest. We can but have a dash at it.’
‘Precisely, sir.’
2
* * *
No Wedding Bells for Bingo
BINGO REPORTED THREE days later that Rosie M. Banks was the goods and beyond a question the stuff to give the troops. Old Little had jibbed somewhat at first at the proposed change of literary diet, he not being much of a lad for fiction and having stuck hitherto exclusively to the heavier monthly reviews; but Bingo had got chapter one of All for Love past his guard before he knew what was happening and after that there was nothing to it. Since then they had finished A Red, Red Summer Rose, Madcap Myrtle and Only a Factory Girl, and were half-way through The Courtship of Lord Strathmorlick.
Bingo told me all this in a husky voice over an egg beaten up in sherry. The only blot on the thing from his point of view was that it wasn’t doing a bit of good to the old vocal cords, which were beginning to show signs of cracking under the strain. He had been looking his symptoms up in a medical dictionary, and he thought he had got ‘clergyman’s throat’. But against this you had to set the fact that he was making an undoubted hit in the right quarter, and also that after the evening’s reading he always stayed on to dinner; and, from what he told me, the dinners turned out by old Little’s cook had to be tasted to be believed. There were tears in the old blighter’s eyes as he got on the subject of the clear soup. I suppose to a fellow who for weeks had been tackling macaroons and limado it must have been like Heaven.
Old Little wasn’t able to give any practical assistance at these banquets, but Bingo said that he came to the table and had his whack of arrowroot, and sniffed the dishes, and told stories of entrées he had had in the past, and sketched out scenarios of what he was going to do to the bill of fare in the future, when the doctor put him in shape; so I suppose he enjoyed himself, too, in a way. Anyhow, things seemed to be buzzing along quite satisfactorily, and Bingo said he had got an idea which, he thought, was going to clinch the thing. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, but he said it was a pippin.
‘We make progress, Jeeves,’ I said.
‘That is very satisfactory, sir.’
‘Mr Little tells me that when he came to the big scene in Only a Factory Girl, his uncle gulped like a stricken bullpup.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Where Lord Claude takes the girl in his arms, you know, and says –’
‘I am familiar with the passage, sir. It is distinctly moving. It was a great favourite of my aunt’s.’
‘I think we’re on the right track.’
‘It would seem so, sir.’
‘In fact, this looks like being another of your successes. I’ve always said, and I always shall say, that for sheer brains, Jeeves, you stand alone. All the other great thinkers of the age are simply in the crowd, watching you go by.’
‘Thank you very much, sir. I endeavour to give satisfaction.’
About a week after this, Bingo blew in with the news that his uncle’s gout had ceased to trouble him, and that on the morrow he would be back at the old stand working away with knife and fork as before.
‘And, by the way,’ said Bingo, ‘he wants you to lunch with him tomorrow.’
‘Me? Why me? He doesn’t know I exist.’
‘Oh, yes, he does. I’ve told him about you.’
‘What have you told him?’
‘Oh, various things. Anyhow, he wants to meet you. And take my tip, laddie – you go! I should think lunch tomorrow would be something special.’
I don’t know why it was, but even then it struck me that there was something dashed odd – almost sinister, if you know what I mean – about young Bingo’s manner. The old egg had the air of one who has something up his sleeve.
‘There is more in this than meets the eye,’ I said. ‘Why should your uncle ask a fellow to lunch whom he’s never seen?’
‘My dear old fathead, haven’t I just said that I’ve been telling him all about you – that you’re my best pal – at school together, and all that sort of thing?’
‘But even then – and another thing. Why are you so dashed keen on my going?’
Bingo hesitated for a moment.
‘Well, I told you I’d got an idea. This is it. I want you to spring the news on him. I haven’t the nerve myself.’
‘What! I’m hanged if I do!’
‘And you call yourself a pal of mine!’
‘Yes, I know; but there are limits.’
‘Bertie,’ said Bingo reproachfully, ‘I saved your life once.’
‘When?’
‘Didn’t I? It must have been some other fellow, then. Well, anyway, we were boys together and all that. You can’t let me down.’
‘Oh, all right,’ I said. ‘But, when you say you haven’t nerve enough for any dashed thing in the world, you misjudge yourself. A fellow who –’
‘Cheerio!’ said young Bingo. ‘One-thirty tomorrow. Don’t be late.’
I’m bound to say that the more I contemplated the binge, the less I liked it. It was all very well for Bingo to say that I was slated for a magnificent lunch; but what good is the best possible lunch to a fellow if he is slung out into the street on his ear during the soup course? However, the word of a Wooster is his bond and all that sort of rot, so at one-thirty next day I tottered up the steps of No. 16, Pounceby Gardens, and punched the bell. And half a minute later I was in the drawing-room, shaking hands with the fattest man I have ever seen in my life.
The motto of the Little family was evidently ‘variety’. Young Bingo is long and thin and hasn’t had a superfluous ounce on him since we first met; but the uncle restored the average and a bit over. The hand which grasped mine wrapped it round and enfolded it till I began to wonder if I’d ever get it out without excavating machinery.
‘Mr Wooster, I am gratified – I am proud – I am honoured.’
It seemed to me that young Bingo must have boosted me to some purpose.
‘Oh, ah!’ I said.
He stepped back a bit, still hanging to the good right hand.
‘You are very young to have accomplished so much!’
I couldn’t follow the train of thought. The family, especially my Aunt Agatha, who has savaged me incessantly from childhood up, have always rather made a point of the fact that mine is a wasted life, and that, since I won the prize at my first school for the best collection of wild flowers made during the summer holidays, I haven’t done a dam’ thing to land me on the nation’s scroll of fame. I was wondering if he couldn’t have got me mixed up with someone else, when the telephone bell rang outside in the hall, and the maid came in to say that I was wanted. I buzzed down, and found it was young Bingo.
‘Hallo!’ said young Bingo. ‘So you’ve got there? Good man! I knew I could rely on you. I say, old crumpet, did my uncle seem pleased to see you?’
‘Absolutely all over me. I can’t make it out.’
‘Oh, that’s all right. I just rang up to explain. The fact is, old man, I know you won’t mind, but I told him that you were the author of those books I’ve been reading to him.’
‘What!’
‘Yes, I said that
“Rosie M. Banks” was your pen-name, and you didn’t want it generally known, because you were a modest, retiring sort of chap. He’ll listen to you now. Absolutely hang on your words. A brightish idea, what? I doubt if Jeeves in person could have thought up a better one than that. Well, pitch it strong, old lad, and keep steadily before you the fact that I must have my allowance raised. I can’t possibly marry on what I’ve got now. If this film is to end with the slow fade-out on the embrace, at least double is indicated. Well, that’s that. Cheerio!’
And he rang off. At that moment the gong sounded, and the genial host came tumbling downstairs like the delivery of a ton of coals.
I always look back to that lunch with a sort of aching regret. It was the lunch of a lifetime, and I wasn’t in a fit state to appreciate it. Subconsciously, if you know what I mean, I could see it was pretty special, but I had got the wind up to such a frightful extent over the ghastly situation in which young Bingo had landed me that its deeper meaning never really penetrated. Most of the time I might have been eating sawdust for all the good it did me.
Old Little struck the literary note right from the start.
‘My nephew has probably told you that I have been making a close study of your books of late?’ he began.
‘Yes. He did mention it. How – er – how did you like the bally things?’
He gazed reverently at me.
‘Mr Wooster, I am not ashamed to say that the tears came into my eyes as I listened to them. It amazes me that a man as young as you can have been able to plumb human nature so surely to its depths; to play with so unerring a hand on the quivering heart-strings of your reader; to write novels so true, so human, so moving, so vital!’
‘Oh, it’s just a knack,’ I said.
The good old persp. was bedewing my forehead by this time in a pretty lavish manner. I don’t know when I’ve been so rattled.
‘Do you find the room a trifle warm?’
‘Oh, no, no, rather not. Just right.’
‘Then it’s the pepper. If my cook has a fault – which I am not prepared to admit – it is that she is inclined to stress the pepper a trifle in her made dishes. By the way, do you like her cooking?’
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