‘The idea being what?’
‘To sap their confidence, of course, chump. To sow doubts and misgivings in their mind and make them clip the price a bit. The cheaper he gets the thing, the better he will be pleased. And I want him to be in cheery mood, because if I succeed in signing the Grindle up for this serial, I shall be compelled to get into his ribs for a biggish sum of money. It’s sinful what these best-selling women novelists want for their stuff. So pop off there without delay and shake your head at the thing.’
I am always anxious to oblige the right sort of aunt, but I was compelled to put in what Jeeves would have called a nolle prosequi. Those morning mixtures of his are practically magical in their effect, but even after partaking of them one does not oscillate the bean.
‘I can’t shake my head. Not today.’
She gazed at me with a censorious waggle of the right eyebrow.
‘Oh, so that’s how it is? Well, if your loathsome excesses have left you incapable of headshaking, you can at least curl your lip.’
‘Oh, rather.’
‘Then carry on. And draw your breath in sharply. Also try clicking the tongue. Oh, yes, and tell them you think it’s modern Dutch.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Apparently it’s something a cow-creamer ought not to be.’
She paused, and allowed her eye to roam thoughtfully over my perhaps somewhat corpse-like face.
‘So you were out on the tiles last night, were you, my little chickadee? It’s an extraordinary thing – every time I see you, you appear to be recovering from some debauch. Don’t you ever stop drinking? How about when you’re asleep?’
I rebutted the slur.
‘You wrong me, relative. Except at times of special revelry, I am exceedingly moderate in my potations. A brace of cocktails, a glass of wine at dinner and possibly a liqueur with the coffee – that is Bertram Wooster. But last night I gave a small bachelor binge for Gussie Fink-Nottle.’
‘You did, did you?’ She laughed – a bit louder than I could have wished in my frail state of health, but then she is always a woman who tends to bring plaster falling from the ceiling when amused. ‘Spink-Bottle, eh? Bless his heart! How was the old newt-fancier?’
‘Pretty roguish.’
‘Did he make a speech at this orgy of yours?’
‘Yes. I was astounded. I was all prepared for a blushing refusal. But no. We drank his health, and he rose to his feet as cool as some cucumbers, as Anatole would say, and held us spellbound.’
‘Tight as an owl, I suppose?’
‘On the contrary. Offensively sober.’
‘Well, that’s a nice change.’
We fell into a thoughtful silence. We were musing on the summer afternoon down at her place in Worcestershire when Gussie, circumstances having so ordered themselves as to render him full to the back teeth with the right stuff, had addressed the young scholars of Market Snodsbury Grammar School on the occasion of their annual prize giving.
A thing I never know, when I’m starting out to tell a story about a chap I’ve told a story about before, is how much explanation to bung in at the outset. It’s a problem you’ve got to look at from every angle. I mean to say, in the present case, if I take it for granted that my public knows all about Gussie Fink-Nottle and just breeze ahead, those publicans who weren’t hanging on my lips the first time are apt to be fogged. Whereas, if before kicking off I give about eight volumes of the man’s life and history, other bimbos, who were so hanging, will stifle yawns and murmur ‘Old stuff. Get on with it.’
I suppose the only thing to do is to put the salient facts as briefly as possible in the possession of the first gang, waving an apologetic hand at the second gang the while, to indicate that they had better let their attention wander for a minute or two and that I will be with them shortly.
This Gussie, then, was a fish-faced pal of mine who, on reaching man’s estate, had buried himself in the country and devoted himself entirely to the study of newts, keeping the little chaps in a glass tank and observing their habits with a sedulous eye. A confirmed recluse you would have called him, if you had happened to know the word, and you would have been right. By all the rulings of the form book, a less promising prospect for the whispering of tender words into shell-like ears and the subsequent purchase of platinum ring and licence for wedding it would have seemed impossible to discover in a month of Sundays.
But Love will find a way. Meeting Madeline Bassett one day and falling for her like a ton of bricks, he had emerged from his retirement and started to woo, and after numerous vicissitudes had clicked and was slated at no distant date to don the spongebag trousers and gardenia for buttonhole and walk up the aisle with the ghastly girl.
I call her a ghastly girl because she was a ghastly girl. The Woosters are chivalrous, but they can speak their minds. A droopy, soupy, sentimental exhibit, with melting eyes and a cooing voice and the most extraordinary views on such things as stars and rabbits. I remember her telling me once that rabbits were gnomes in attendance on the Fairy Queen and that the stars were God’s daisy chain. Perfect rot, of course. They’re nothing of the sort.
Aunt Dahlia emitted a low, rumbling chuckle, for that speech of Gussie’s down at Market Snodsbury has always been one of her happiest memories.
‘Good old Spink-Bottle! Where is he now?’
‘Staying at the Bassett’s father’s place – Totleigh Towers, Totleigh-in-the-Wold, Glos. He went back there this morning. They’re having the wedding at the local church.’
‘Are you going to it?’
‘Definitely no.’
‘No, I suppose it would be too painful for you. You being in love with the girl.’
I stared.
‘In love? With a female who thinks that every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born?’
‘Well, you were certainly engaged to her once.’
‘For about five minutes, yes, and through no fault of my own. My dear old relative,’ I said, nettled, ‘you are perfectly well aware of the inside facts of that frightful affair.’
I winced. It was an incident in my career on which I did not care to dwell. Briefly, what had occurred was this. His nerve sapped by long association with newts, Gussie had shrunk from pleading his cause with Madeline Bassett, and had asked me to plead it for him. And when I did so, the fat-headed girl thought I was pleading mine. With the result that when, after that exhibition of his at the prize giving, she handed Gussie the temporary mitten, she had attached herself to me, and I had had no option but to take the rap. I mean to say, if a girl has got it into her nut that a fellow loves her, and comes and tells him that she is returning her fiancé to store and is now prepared to sign up with him, what can a chap do?
Mercifully, things had been straightened out at the eleventh hour by a reconciliation between the two pills, but the thought of my peril was one at which I still shuddered. I wasn’t going to feel really easy in my mind till the parson had said: ‘Wilt thou, Augustus?’ and Gussie had whispered a shy ‘Yes.’
‘Well, if it is of any interest to you,’ said Aunt Dahlia, ‘I am not proposing to attend that wedding myself. I disapprove of Sir Watkyn Bassett, and don’t think he ought to be encouraged. There’s one of the boys, if you want one!’
‘You know the old crumb, then?’ I said, rather surprised, though of course it bore out what I often say – viz that it’s a small world.
‘Yes, I know him. He’s a friend of Tom’s. They both collect old silver and snarl at one another like wolves about it all the time. We had him staying at Brinkley last month. And would you care to hear how he repaid me for all the loving care I lavished on him while he was my guest? Sneaked round behind my back and tried to steal Anatole!’
‘No!’
‘That’s what he did. Fortunately, Anatole proved staunch – after I had doubled his wages.’
‘Double them again,’ I said earnestly. ‘Keep on doubling them. Pour out money like water rather than lose that sup
erb master of the roasts and hashes.’
I was visibly affected. The thought of Anatole, that peerless disher-up, coming within an ace of ceasing to operate at Brinkley Court, where I could always enjoy his output by inviting myself for a visit, and going off to serve under old Bassett, the last person in the world likely to set out a knife and fork for Bertram, had stirred me profoundly.
‘Yes,’ said Aunt Dahlia, her eye smouldering as she brooded on the frightful thing, ‘that’s the sort of hornswoggling high-binder Sir Watkyn Bassett is. You had better warn Spink-Bottle to watch out on the wedding day. The slightest relaxation of vigilance, and the old thug will probably get away with his tie-pin in the vestry. And now,’ she said, reaching out for what had the appearance of being a thoughtful essay on the care of the baby in sickness and in health, ‘push off. I’ve got about six tons of proofs to correct. Oh, and give this to Jeeves, when you see him. It’s the “Husbands’ Corner” article. It’s full of deep stuff about braid on the side of men’s dress trousers, and I’d like him to vet it. For all I know, it may be Red propaganda. And I can rely on you not to bungle that job? Tell me in your own words what it is you’re supposed to do.’
‘Go to antique shop –’
‘– in the Brompton Road –’
‘– in, as you say, the Brompton Road. Ask to see cow-creamer –’
‘– and sneer. Right. Buzz along. The door is behind you.’
It was with a light heart that I went out into the street and hailed a passing barouche. Many men, no doubt, might have been a bit sick at having their morning cut into in this fashion, but I was conscious only of pleasure at the thought that I had it in my power to perform this little act of kindness. Scratch Bertram Wooster, I often say, and you find a Boy Scout.
The antique shop in the Brompton Road proved, as foreshadowed, to be an antique shop in the Brompton Road and, like all antique shops except the swanky ones in the Bond Street neighbourhood, dingy outside and dark and smelly within. I don’t know why it is, but the proprietors of these establishments always seem to be cooking some sort of stew in the back room.
‘I say,’ I began, entering; then paused as I perceived that the bloke in charge was attending to two other customers.
‘Oh, sorry,’ I was about to add, to convey the idea that I had horned in inadvertently, when the words froze on my lips.
Quite a slab of misty fruitfulness had drifted into the emporium, obscuring the view, but in spite of the poor light I was able to note that the smaller and elder of these two customers was no stranger to me.
It was old Pop Bassett in person. Himself. Not a picture.
There is a tough, bulldog strain in the Woosters which has often caused comment. It came out in me now. A weaker man, no doubt, would have tiptoed from the scene and headed for the horizon, but I stood firm. After all, I felt, the dead past was the dead past. By forking out that fiver, I had paid my debt to Society and had nothing to fear from this shrimp-faced little son of a whatnot. So I remained where I was, giving him the surreptitious once-over.
My entry had caused him to turn and shoot a quick look at me, and at intervals since then he had been peering at me sideways. It was only a question of time, I felt, before the hidden chord in his memory would be touched and he would realize that the slight distinguished-looking figure leaning on its umbrella in the background was an old acquaintance. And now it was plain that he was hep. The bird in charge of the shop had pottered off into an inner room, and he came across to where I stood, giving me the up-and-down through his wind-shields.
‘Hallo, hallo,’ he said. ‘I know you, young man. I never forget a face. You came up before me once.’
I bowed slightly.
‘But not twice. Good! Learned your lesson, eh? Going straight now? Capital. Now, let me see, what was it? Don’t tell me. It’s coming back. Of course, yes. Bag-snatching.’
‘No, no. It was –’
‘Bag-snatching,’ he repeated firmly. ‘I remember it distinctly. Still, it’s all past and done with now, eh? We have turned over a new leaf, have we not? Splendid. Roderick, come over here. This is most interesting.’
His buddy, who had been examining a salver, put it down and joined the party.
He was, as I had already been able to perceive, a breath-taking cove. About seven feet in height, and swathed in a plaid ulster which made him look about six feet across, he caught the eye and arrested it. It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment.
But it wasn’t merely the sheer expanse of the bird that impressed. Close to, what you noticed more was his face, which was square and powerful and slightly moustached towards the centre. His gaze was keen and piercing. I don’t know if you have ever seen those pictures in the papers of Dictators with tilted chins and blazing eyes, inflaming the populace with fiery words on the occasion of the opening of a new skittle alley, but that was what he reminded me of.
‘Roderick,’ said old Bassett, ‘I want you to meet this fellow. Here is a case which illustrates exactly what I have so often maintained – that prison life does not degrade, that it does not warp the character and prevent a man rising on stepping-stones of his dead self to higher things.’
I recognized the gag – one of Jeeves’s – and wondered where he could have heard it.
‘Look at this chap. I gave him three months not long ago for snatching bags at railway stations, and it is quite evident that his term in jail has had the most excellent effect on him. He has reformed.’
‘Oh, yes?’ said the Dictator.
Granted that it wasn’t quite ‘Oh, yeah?’ I still didn’t like the way he spoke. He was looking at me with a nasty sort of supercilious expression. I remember thinking that he would have been the ideal man to sneer at a cow-creamer.
‘What makes you think he has reformed?’
‘Of course he has reformed. Look at him. Well groomed, well dressed, a decent member of Society. What his present walk in life is, I do not know, but it is perfectly obvious that he is no longer stealing bags. What are you doing now, young man?’
‘Stealing umbrellas, apparently,’ said the Dictator. ‘I notice he’s got yours.’
And I was on the point of denying the accusation hotly – I had indeed, already opened my lips to do so – when there suddenly struck me like a blow on the upper maxillary from a sock stuffed with wet sand the realization that there was a lot in it.
I mean to say, I remembered now that I had come out without my umbrella, and yet here I was, beyond any question of doubt, umbrellaed to the gills. What had caused me to take up the one that had been leaning against a seventeenth-century chair, I cannot say, unless it was the primeval instinct which makes a man without an umbrella reach out for the nearest one in sight, like a flower groping towards the sun.
A manly apology seemed in order. I made it as the blunt instrument changed hands.
‘I say, I’m most frightfully sorry.’
Old Bassett said he was, too – sorry and disappointed. He said it was this sort of thing that made a man sick at heart.
The Dictator had to shove his oar in. He asked if he should call a policeman, and old Bassett’s eyes gleamed for a moment. Being a magistrate makes you love the idea of calling policemen. It’s like a tiger tasting blood. But he shook his head.
‘No, Roderick. I couldn’t. Not today – the happiest day of my life.’
The Dictator pursed his lips, as if feeling that the better the day, the better the deed.
‘But listen,’ I bleated, ‘it was a mistake.’
‘Ha!’ said the Dictator.
‘I thought that umbrella was mine.’
‘That,’ said old Bassett, ‘is the fundamental trouble with you, my man. You are totally unable to distinguish between meum and tuum. Well, I am not going to have you arrested this time, but I advise you to be very careful. Come, Roderick.’
They biffed off, the Dictator pausing at the door to give me another look and say ‘Ha!’
again.
A most unnerving experience all this had been for a man of sensibility, as you may well imagine, and my immediate reaction was a disposition to give Aunt Dahlia’s commission the miss-in-balk and return to the flat and get outside another of Jeeves’s pick-me-ups. You know how harts pant for cooling streams when heated in the chase. Very much that sort of thing. I realized now what madness it had been to go out into the streets of London with only one of them under my belt, and I was on the point of melting away and going back to the fountain head, when the proprietor of the shop emerged from the inner room, accompanied by a rich smell of stew and a sandy cat, and inquired what he could do for me. And so, the subject having come up, I said that I understood that he had an eighteenth-century cow-creamer for sale.
He shook his head. He was a rather mildewed bird of gloomy aspect, almost entirely concealed behind a cascade of white whiskers.
‘You’re too late. It’s promised to a customer.’
‘Name of Travers?’
‘Ah.’
‘Then that’s all right. Learn, O thou of unshuffled features and agreeable disposition,’ I said, for one likes to be civil, ‘that the above Travers is my uncle. He sent me here to have a look at the thing. So dig it out, will you? I expect it’s rotten.’
‘It’s a beautiful cow-creamer.’
‘Ha!’ I said, borrowing a bit of the Dictator’s stuff. ‘That’s what you think. We shall see.’
I don’t mind confessing that I’m not much of a lad for old silver, and though I have never pained him by actually telling him so, I have always felt that Uncle Tom’s fondness for it is evidence of a goofiness which he would do well to watch and check before it spreads. So I wasn’t expecting the heart to leap up to any great extent at the sight of this exhibit. But when the whiskered ancient pottered off into the shadows and came back with the thing, I scarcely knew whether to laugh or weep. The thought of an uncle paying hard cash for such an object got right in amongst me.
It was a silver cow. But when I say ‘cow’, don’t go running away with the idea of some decent, self-respecting cudster such as you may observe loading grass into itself in the nearest meadow. This was a sinister, leering, Underworld sort of animal, the kind that would spit out of the side of its mouth for twopence. It was about four inches high and six long. Its back opened on a hinge. Its tail was arched, so that the tip touched the spine – thus, I suppose, affording a handle for the cream-lover to grasp. The sight of it seemed to take me into a different and dreadful world.
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 1: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.1 Page 23