Chapter II: Part 2

About midday Motty’s luggage arrived, and soon afterward a large parcel of what I took to be nice books. I brightened up a little when I saw it. It was one of those massive parcels and looked as if it had enough in it to keep the chappie busy for a year. I felt a trifle more cheerful, and I got my Country Gentleman hat and stuck it on my head, and gave the pink tie a twist, and reeled out to take a bite of lunch with one or two of the lads at a neighbouring hostelry; and what with excellent browsing and sluicing and cheery conversation and what-not, the afternoon passed quite happily. By dinner-time I had almost forgotten blighted Motty’s existence.

I dined at the club and looked in at a show afterward, and it wasn’t till fairly late that I got back to the flat. There were no signs of Motty, and I took it that he had gone to bed.

It seemed rummy to me, though, that the parcel of nice books was still there with the string and paper on it. It looked as if Motty, after seeing mother off at the station, had decided to call it a day.

Jeeves came in with the nightly whisky-and-soda. I could tell by the chappie’s manner that he was still upset.

“Lord Pershore gone to bed, Jeeves?” I asked, with reserved hauteur and what-not.

“No, sir. His lordship has not yet returned.”

“Not returned? What do you mean?”

“His lordship came in shortly after six-thirty, and, having dressed, went out again.”

At this moment there was a noise outside the front door, a sort of scrabbling noise, as if somebody were trying to paw his way through the woodwork. Then a sort of thud.

“Better go and see what that is, Jeeves.”

“Very good, sir.”

He went out and came back again.

“If you would not mind stepping this way, sir, I think we might be able to carry him in.”

“Carry him in?”

“His lordship is lying on the mat, sir.”

I went to the front door. The man was right. There was Motty huddled up outside on the floor. He was moaning a bit.

“He’s had some sort of dashed fit,” I said. I took another look. “Jeeves! Someone’s been feeding him meat!”

“Sir?”

“He’s a vegetarian, you know. He must have been digging into a steak or something. Call up a doctor!”

“I hardly think it will be necessary, sir. If you would take his lordship’s legs, while I——”

“Great Scot, Jeeves! You don’t think—he can’t be——”

“I am inclined to think so, sir.”

And, by Jove, he was right! Once on the right track, you couldn’t mistake it. Motty was under the surface.

It was the deuce of a shock.

“You never can tell, Jeeves!”

“Very seldom, sir.”

“Remove the eye of authority and where are you?”

“Precisely, sir.”

“Where is my wandering boy to-night and all that sort of thing, what?”

“It would seem so, sir.”

“Well, we had better bring him in, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

So we lugged him in, and Jeeves put him to bed, and I lit a cigarette and sat down to think the thing over. I had a kind of foreboding. It seemed to me that I had let myself in for something pretty rocky.

Next morning, after I had sucked down a thoughtful cup of tea, I went into Motty’s room to investigate. I expected to find the fellow a wreck, but there he was, sitting up in bed, quite chirpy, reading Gingery stories.

“What ho!” I said.

“What ho!” said Motty.

“What ho! What ho!”

“What ho! What ho! What ho!”

After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.

“How are you feeling this morning?” I asked.

“Topping!” replied Motty, blithely and with abandon. “I say, you know, that fellow of yours—Jeeves, you know—is a corker. I had a most frightful headache when I woke up, and he brought me a sort of rummy dark drink, and it put me right again at once. Said it was his own invention. I must see more of that lad. He seems to me distinctly one of the ones!”

I couldn’t believe that this was the same blighter who had sat and sucked his stick the day before.

“You ate something that disagreed with you last night, didn’t you?” I said, by way of giving him a chance to slide out of it if he wanted to. But he wouldn’t have it, at any price.

“No!” he replied firmly. “I didn’t do anything of the kind. I drank too much! Much too much. Lots and lots too much! And, what’s more, I’m going to do it again! I’m going to do it every night. If ever you see me sober, old top,” he said, with a kind of holy exaltation, “tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Tut! Tut!’ and I’ll apologize and remedy the defect.”

“But I say, you know, what about me?”

“What about you?”

“Well, I’m, so to speak, as it were, kind of responsible for you. What I mean to say is, if you go doing this sort of thing I’m apt to get in the soup somewhat.”

“I can’t help your troubles,” said Motty firmly. “Listen to me, old thing: this is the first time in my life that I’ve had a real chance to yield to the temptations of a great city. What’s the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don’t yield to them? Makes it so bally discouraging for a great city. Besides, mother told me to keep my eyes open and collect impressions.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. I felt dizzy.

“I know just how you feel, old dear,” said Motty consolingly. “And, if my principles would permit it, I would simmer down for your sake. But duty first! This is the first time I’ve been let out alone, and I mean to make the most of it. We’re only young once. Why interfere with life’s morning? Young man, rejoice in thy youth! Tra-la! What ho!”

Put like that, it did seem reasonable.

“All my bally life, dear boy,” Motty went on, “I’ve been cooped up in the ancestral home at Much Middlefold, in Shropshire, and till you’ve been cooped up in Much Middlefold you don’t know what cooping is! The only time we get any excitement is when one of the choir-boys is caught sucking chocolate during the sermon. When that happens, we talk about it for days. I’ve got about a month of New York, and I mean to store up a few happy memories for the long winter evenings. This is my only chance to collect a past, and I’m going to do it. Now tell me, old sport, as man to man, how does one get in touch with that very decent chappie Jeeves? Does one ring a bell or shout a bit? I should like to discuss the subject of a good stiff b.-and-s. with him!”

I had had a sort of vague idea, don’t you know, that if I stuck close to Motty and went about the place with him, I might act as a bit of a damper on the gaiety. What I mean is, I thought that if, when he was being the life and soul of the party, he were to catch my reproving eye he might ease up a trifle on the revelry. So the next night I took him along to supper with me. It was the last time. I’m a quiet, peaceful sort of chappie who has lived all his life in London, and I can’t stand the pace these swift sportsmen from the rural districts set. What I mean to say is, I’m all for rational enjoyment and so forth, but I think a chappie makes himself conspicuous when he throws soft-boiled eggs at the electric fan. And decent mirth and all that sort of thing are all right, but I do bar dancing on tables and having to dash all over the place dodging waiters, managers, and chuckers-out, just when you want to sit still and digest.

Directly I managed to tear myself away that night and get home, I made up my mind that this was jolly well the last time that I went about with Motty. The only time I met him late at night after that was once when I passed the door of a fairly low-down sort of restaurant and had to step aside to dodge him as he sailed through the air _en route_ for the opposite pavement, with a muscular sort of looking chappie peering out after him with a kind of gloomy satisfaction.

In a way, I couldn’t help sympathizing with the fellow. He had about four weeks to have the good time that ought to have been spread over about ten years, and I didn’t wonder at his wanting to be pretty busy. I should have been just the same in his place. Still, there was no denying that it was a bit thick. If it hadn’t been for the thought of Lady Malvern and Aunt Agatha in the background, I should have regarded Motty’s rapid work with an indulgent smile. But I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that, sooner or later, I was the lad who was scheduled to get it behind the ear. And what with brooding on this prospect, and sitting up in the old flat waiting for the familiar footstep, and putting it to bed when it got there, and stealing into the sick-chamber next morning to contemplate the wreckage, I was beginning to lose weight. Absolutely becoming the good old shadow, I give you my honest word. Starting at sudden noises and what-not.

And no sympathy from Jeeves. That was what cut me to the quick. The man was still thoroughly pipped about the hat and tie, and simply wouldn’t rally round. One morning I wanted comforting so much that I sank the pride of the Woosters and appealed to the fellow direct.

“Jeeves,” I said, “this is getting a bit thick!”

“Sir?” Business and cold respectfulness.

“You know what I mean. This lad seems to have chucked all the principles of a well-spent boyhood. He has got it up his nose!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I shall get blamed, don’t you know. You know what my Aunt Agatha is!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well, then.”

I waited a moment, but he wouldn’t unbend.

“Jeeves,” I said, “haven’t you any scheme up your sleeve for coping with this blighter?”

“No, sir.”

And he shimmered off to his lair. Obstinate devil! So dashed absurd, don’t you know. It wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with that Country Gentleman hat. It was a remarkably priceless effort, and much admired by the lads. But, just because he preferred the Longacre, he left me flat.

It was shortly after this that young Motty got the idea of bringing pals back in the small hours to continue the gay revels in the home. This was where I began to crack under the strain. You see, the part of town where I was living wasn’t the right place for that sort of thing. I knew lots of chappies down Washington Square way who started the evening at about 2 a.m.—artists and writers and what-not, who frolicked considerably till checked by the arrival of the morning milk. That was all right. They like that sort of thing down there. The neighbours can’t get to sleep unless there’s someone dancing Hawaiian dances over their heads. But on Fifty-seventh Street the atmosphere wasn’t right, and when Motty turned up at three in the morning with a collection of hearty lads, who only stopped singing their college song when they started singing “The Old Oaken Bucket,” there was a marked peevishness among the old settlers in the flats. The management was extremely terse over the telephone at breakfast-time, and took a lot of soothing.

The next night I came home early, after a lonely dinner at a place which I’d chosen because there didn’t seem any chance of meeting Motty there. The sitting-room was quite dark, and I was just moving to switch on the light, when there was a sort of explosion and something collared hold of my trouser-leg. Living with Motty had reduced me to such an extent that I was simply unable to cope with this thing. I jumped backward with a loud yell of anguish, and tumbled out into the hall just as Jeeves came out of his den to see what the matter was.

“Did you call, sir?”

“Jeeves! There’s something in there that grabs you by the leg!”

“That would be Rollo, sir.”

“Eh?”

“I would have warned you of his presence, but I did not hear you come in. His temper is a little uncertain at present, as he has not yet settled down.”

“Who the deuce is Rollo?”

“His lordship’s bull-terrier, sir. His lordship won him in a raffle, and tied him to the leg of the table. If you will allow me, sir, I will go in and switch on the light.”

There really is nobody like Jeeves. He walked straight into the sitting-room, the biggest feat since Daniel and the lions’ den, without a quiver. What’s more, his magnetism or whatever they call it was such that the dashed animal, instead of pinning him by the leg, calmed down as if he had had a bromide, and rolled over on his back with all his paws in the air. If Jeeves had been his rich uncle he couldn’t have been more chummy. Yet directly he caught sight of me again, he got all worked up and seemed to have only one idea in life—to start chewing me where he had left off.

“Rollo is not used to you yet, sir,” said Jeeves, regarding the bally quadruped in an admiring sort of way. “He is an excellent watchdog.”

“I don’t want a watchdog to keep me out of my rooms.”

“No, sir.”

“Well, what am I to do?”

“No doubt in time the animal will learn to discriminate, sir. He will learn to distinguish your peculiar scent.”

“What do you mean—my peculiar scent? Correct the impression that I intend to hang about in the hall while life slips by, in the hope that one of these days that dashed animal will decide that I smell all right.” I thought for a bit. “Jeeves!”

“Sir?”

“I’m going away—to-morrow morning by the first train. I shall go and stop with Mr. Todd in the country.”

“Do you wish me to accompany you, sir?”

“No.”

“Very good, sir.”

“I don’t know when I shall be back. Forward my letters.”

“Yes, sir.”

As a matter of fact, I was back within the week. Rocky Todd, the pal I went to stay with, is a rummy sort of a chap who lives all alone in the wilds of Long Island, and likes it; but a little of that sort of thing goes a long way with me. Dear old Rocky is one of the best, but after a few days in his cottage in the woods, miles away from anywhere, New York, even with Motty on the premises, began to look pretty good to me. The days down on Long Island have forty-eight hours in them; you can’t get to sleep at night because of the bellowing of the crickets; and you have to walk two miles for a drink and six for an evening paper. I thanked Rocky for his kind hospitality, and caught the only train they have down in those parts. It landed me in New York about dinner-time. I went straight to the old flat. Jeeves came out of his lair. I looked round cautiously for Rollo.

“Where’s that dog, Jeeves? Have you got him tied up?”

“The animal is no longer here, sir. His lordship gave him to the porter, who sold him. His lordship took a prejudice against the animal on account of being bitten by him in the calf of the leg.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been so bucked by a bit of news. I felt I had misjudged Rollo. Evidently, when you got to know him better, he had a lot of intelligence in him.

“Ripping!” I said. “Is Lord Pershore in, Jeeves?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you expect him back to dinner?”

“No, sir.”

“Where is he?”

“In prison, sir.”

Have you ever trodden on a rake and had the handle jump up and hit you? That’s how I felt then.

“In prison!”

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t mean—in prison?”

“Yes, sir.”

I lowered myself into a chair.

“Why?” I said.

“He assaulted a constable, sir.”

“Lord Pershore assaulted a constable!”

“Yes, sir.”

I digested this.

“But, Jeeves, I say! This is frightful!”

“Sir?”

“What will Lady Malvern say when she finds out?”

“I do not fancy that her ladyship will find out, sir.”

“But she’ll come back and want to know where he is.”

“I rather fancy, sir, that his lordship’s bit of time will have run out by then.”

“But supposing it hasn’t?”

“In that event, sir, it may be judicious to prevaricate a little.”

“How?”

“If I might make the suggestion, sir, I should inform her ladyship that his lordship has left for a short visit to Boston.”

“Why Boston?”

“Very interesting and respectable centre, sir.”

“Jeeves, I believe you’ve hit it.”

“I fancy so, sir.”

“Why, this is really the best thing that could have happened. If this hadn’t turned up to prevent him, young Motty would have been in a sanatorium by the time Lady Malvern got back.”

“Exactly, sir.”

The more I looked at it in that way, the sounder this prison wheeze seemed to me. There was no doubt in the world that prison was just what the doctor ordered for Motty. It was the only thing that could have pulled him up. I was sorry for the poor blighter, but, after all, I reflected, a chappie who had lived all his life with Lady Malvern, in a small village in the interior of Shropshire, wouldn’t have much to kick at in a prison. Altogether, I began to feel absolutely braced again. Life became like what the poet Johnnie says—one grand, sweet song. Things went on so comfortably and peacefully for a couple of weeks that I give you my word that I’d almost forgotten such a person as Motty existed. The only flaw in the scheme of things was that Jeeves was still pained and distant. It wasn’t anything he said or did, mind you, but there was a rummy something about him all the time. Once when I was tying the pink tie I caught sight of him in the looking-glass. There was a kind of grieved look in his eye.

And then Lady Malvern came back, a good bit ahead of schedule. I hadn’t been expecting her for days. I’d forgotten how time had been slipping along. She turned up one morning while I was still in bed sipping tea and thinking of this and that. Jeeves flowed in with the announcement that he had just loosed her into the sitting-room. I draped a few garments round me and went in.

There she was, sitting in the same arm-chair, looking as massive as ever. The only difference was that she didn’t uncover the teeth, as she had done the first time.

“Good morning,” I said. “So you’ve got back, what?”

“I have got back.”

There was something sort of bleak about her tone, rather as if she had swallowed an east wind. This I took to be due to the fact that she probably hadn’t breakfasted. It’s only after a bit of breakfast that I’m able to regard the world with that sunny cheeriness which makes a fellow the universal favourite. I’m never much of a lad till I’ve engulfed an egg or two and a beaker of coffee.

“I suppose you haven’t breakfasted?”

“I have not yet breakfasted.”

“Won’t you have an egg or something? Or a sausage or something? Or something?”

“No, thank you.”

She spoke as if she belonged to an anti-sausage society or a league for the suppression of eggs. There was a bit of a silence.

“I called on you last night,” she said, “but you were out.”

“Awfully sorry! Had a pleasant trip?”

“Extremely, thank you.”

“See everything? Niag’ra Falls, Yellowstone Park, and the jolly old Grand Canyon, and what-not?”

“I saw a great deal.”

There was another slightly _frappé_ silence. Jeeves floated silently into the dining-room and began to lay the breakfast-table.

“I hope Wilmot was not in your way, Mr. Wooster?”

I had been wondering when she was going to mention Motty.

“Rather not! Great pals! Hit it off splendidly.”

“You were his constant companion, then?”

“Absolutely! We were always together. Saw all the sights, don’t you know. We’d take in the Museum of Art in the morning, and have a bit of lunch at some good vegetarian place, and then toddle along to a sacred concert in the afternoon, and home to an early dinner. We usually played dominoes after dinner. And then the early bed and the refreshing sleep. We had a great time. I was awfully sorry when he went away to Boston.”

“Oh! Wilmot is in Boston?”

“Yes. I ought to have let you know, but of course we didn’t know where you were. You were dodging all over the place like a snipe—I mean, don’t you know, dodging all over the place, and we couldn’t get at you. Yes, Motty went off to Boston.”

“You’re sure he went to Boston?”

“Oh, absolutely.” I called out to Jeeves, who was now messing about in the next room with forks and so forth: “Jeeves, Lord Pershore didn’t change his mind about going to Boston, did he?”

“No, sir.”

“I thought I was right. Yes, Motty went to Boston.”

“Then how do you account, Mr. Wooster, for the fact that when I went yesterday afternoon to Blackwell’s Island prison, to secure material for my book, I saw poor, dear Wilmot there, dressed in a striped suit, seated beside a pile of stones with a hammer in his hands?”

I tried to think of something to say, but nothing came. A chappie has to be a lot broader about the forehead than I am to handle a jolt like this. I strained the old bean till it creaked, but between the collar and the hair parting nothing stirred. I was dumb. Which was lucky, because I wouldn’t have had a chance to get any persiflage out of my system. Lady Malvern collared the conversation. She had been bottling it up, and now it came out with a rush:

“So this is how you have looked after my poor, dear boy, Mr. Wooster! So this is how you have abused my trust! I left him in your charge, thinking that I could rely on you to shield him from evil. He came to you innocent, unversed in the ways of the world, confiding, unused to the temptations of a large city, and you led him astray!”

I hadn’t any remarks to make. All I could think of was the picture of Aunt Agatha drinking all this in and reaching out to sharpen the hatchet against my return.

“You deliberately——”

Far away in the misty distance a soft voice spoke:

“If I might explain, your ladyship.”

Jeeves had projected himself in from the dining-room and materialized on the rug. Lady Malvern tried to freeze him with a look, but you can’t do that sort of thing to Jeeves. He is look-proof.

“I fancy, your ladyship, that you have misunderstood Mr. Wooster, and that he may have given you the impression that he was in New York when his lordship—was removed. When Mr. Wooster informed your ladyship that his lordship had gone to Boston, he was relying on the version I had given him of his lordship’s movements. Mr. Wooster was away, visiting a friend in the country, at the time, and knew nothing of the matter till your ladyship informed him.”

Lady Malvern gave a kind of grunt. It didn’t rattle Jeeves.

“I feared Mr. Wooster might be disturbed if he knew the truth, as he is so attached to his lordship and has taken such pains to look after him, so I took the liberty of telling him that his lordship had gone away for a visit. It might have been hard for Mr. Wooster to believe that his lordship had gone to prison voluntarily and from the best motives, but your ladyship, knowing him better, will readily understand.”

“What!” Lady Malvern goggled at him. “Did you say that Lord Pershore went to prison voluntarily?”

“If I might explain, your ladyship. I think that your ladyship’s parting words made a deep impression on his lordship. I have frequently heard him speak to Mr. Wooster of his desire to do something to follow your ladyship’s instructions and collect material for your ladyship’s book on America. Mr. Wooster will bear me out when I say that his lordship was frequently extremely depressed at the thought that he was doing so little to help.”

“Absolutely, by Jove! Quite pipped about it!” I said.

“The idea of making a personal examination into the prison system of the country—from within—occurred to his lordship very suddenly one night. He embraced it eagerly. There was no restraining him.”

Lady Malvern looked at Jeeves, then at me, then at Jeeves again. I could see her struggling with the thing.

“Surely, your ladyship,” said Jeeves, “it is more reasonable to suppose that a gentleman of his lordship’s character went to prison of his own volition than that he committed some breach of the law which necessitated his arrest?”

Lady Malvern blinked. Then she got up.

“Mr. Wooster,” she said, “I apologize. I have done you an injustice. I should have known Wilmot better. I should have had more faith in his pure, fine spirit.”

“Absolutely!” I said.

“Your breakfast is ready, sir,” said Jeeves.

I sat down and dallied in a dazed sort of way with a poached egg.

“Jeeves,” I said, “you are certainly a life-saver!”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Nothing would have convinced my Aunt Agatha that I hadn’t lured that blighter into riotous living.”

“I fancy you are right, sir.”

I champed my egg for a bit. I was most awfully moved, don’t you know, by the way Jeeves had rallied round. Something seemed to tell me that this was an occasion that called for rich rewards. For a moment I hesitated. Then I made up my mind.

“Jeeves!”

“Sir?”

“That pink tie!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Burn it!”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And, Jeeves!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Take a taxi and get me that Longacre hat, as worn by John Drew!”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

I felt most awfully braced. I felt as if the clouds had rolled away and all was as it used to be. I felt like one of those chappies in the novels who calls off the fight with his wife in the last chapter and decides to forget and forgive. I felt I wanted to do all sorts of other things to show Jeeves that I appreciated him.

“Jeeves,” I said, “it isn’t enough. Is there anything else you would like?”

“Yes, sir. If I may make the suggestion—fifty dollars.”

“Fifty dollars?”

“It will enable me to pay a debt of honour, sir. I owe it to his lordship.”

“You owe Lord Pershore fifty dollars?”

“Yes, sir. I happened to meet him in the street the night his lordship was arrested. I had been thinking a good deal about the most suitable method of inducing him to abandon his mode of living, sir. His lordship was a little over-excited at the time and I fancy that he mistook me for a friend of his. At any rate when I took the liberty of wagering him fifty dollars that he would not punch a passing policeman in the eye, he accepted the bet very cordially and won it.”

I produced my pocket-book and counted out a hundred.

“Take this, Jeeves,” I said; “fifty isn’t enough. Do you know, Jeeves, you’re—well, you absolutely stand alone!”

“I endeavour to give satisfaction, sir,” said Jeeves.

JEEVES AND THE HARD-BOILED EGG

Sometimes of a morning, as I’ve sat in bed sucking down the early cup of tea and watched my man Jeeves flitting about the room and putting out the raiment for the day, I’ve wondered what the deuce I should do if the fellow ever took it into his head to leave me. It’s not so bad now I’m in New York, but in London the anxiety was frightful. There used to be all sorts of attempts on the part of low blighters to sneak him away from me. Young Reggie Foljambe to my certain knowledge offered him double what I was giving him, and Alistair Bingham-Reeves, who’s got a valet who had been known to press his trousers sideways, used to look at him, when he came to see me, with a kind of glittering hungry eye which disturbed me deucedly. Bally pirates!

The thing, you see, is that Jeeves is so dashed competent. You can spot it even in the way he shoves studs into a shirt.

I rely on him absolutely in every crisis, and he never lets me down. And, what’s more, he can always be counted on to extend himself on behalf of any pal of mine who happens to be to all appearances knee-deep in the bouillon. Take the rather rummy case, for instance, of dear old Bicky and his uncle, the hard-boiled egg.

It happened after I had been in America for a few months. I got back to the flat latish one night, and when Jeeves brought me the final drink he said:

“Mr. Bickersteth called to see you this evening, sir, while you were out.”

“Oh?” I said.

“Twice, sir. He appeared a trifle agitated.”

“What, pipped?”

“He gave that impression, sir.”

I sipped the whisky. I was sorry if Bicky was in trouble, but, as a matter of fact, I was rather glad to have something I could discuss freely with Jeeves just then, because things had been a bit strained between us for some time, and it had been rather difficult to hit on anything to talk about that wasn’t apt to take a personal turn. You see, I had decided—rightly or wrongly—to grow a moustache and this had cut Jeeves to the quick. He couldn’t stick the thing at any price, and I had been living ever since in an atmosphere of bally disapproval till I was getting jolly well fed up with it. What I mean is, while there’s no doubt that in certain matters of dress Jeeves’s judgment is absolutely sound and should be followed, it seemed to me that it was getting a bit too thick if he was going to edit my face as well as my costume. No one can call me an unreasonable chappie, and many’s the time I’ve given in like a lamb when Jeeves has voted against one of my pet suits or ties; but when it comes to a valet’s staking out a claim on your upper lip you’ve simply got to have a bit of the good old bulldog pluck and defy the blighter.

“He said that he would call again later, sir.”

“Something must be up, Jeeves.”

“Yes, sir.”

I gave the moustache a thoughtful twirl. It seemed to hurt Jeeves a good deal, so I chucked it.

“I see by the paper, sir, that Mr. Bickersteth’s uncle is arriving on the _Carmantic_.”

“Yes?”

“His Grace the Duke of Chiswick, sir.”

This was news to me, that Bicky’s uncle was a duke. Rum, how little one knows about one’s pals! I had met Bicky for the first time at a species of beano or jamboree down in Washington Square, not long after my arrival in New York. I suppose I was a bit homesick at the time, and I rather took to Bicky when I found that he was an Englishman and had, in fact, been up at Oxford with me. Besides, he was a frightful chump, so we naturally drifted together; and while we were taking a quiet snort in a corner that wasn’t all cluttered up with artists and sculptors and what-not, he furthermore endeared himself to me by a most extraordinarily gifted imitation of a bull-terrier chasing a cat up a tree. But, though we had subsequently become extremely pally, all I really knew about him was that he was generally hard up, and had an uncle who relieved the strain a bit from time to time by sending him monthly remittances.

“If the Duke of Chiswick is his uncle,” I said, “why hasn’t he a title? Why isn’t he Lord What-Not?”

“Mr. Bickersteth is the son of his grace’s late sister, sir, who married Captain Rollo Bickersteth of the Coldstream Guards.”

Jeeves knows everything.

“Is Mr. Bickersteth’s father dead, too?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Leave any money?”

“No, sir.”

I began to understand why poor old Bicky was always more or less on the rocks. To the casual and irreflective observer, if you know what I mean, it may sound a pretty good wheeze having a duke for an uncle, but the trouble about old Chiswick was that, though an extremely wealthy old buster, owning half London and about five counties up north, he was notoriously the most prudent spender in England. He was what American chappies would call a hard-boiled egg. If Bicky’s people hadn’t left him anything and he depended on what he could prise out of the old duke, he was in a pretty bad way. Not that that explained why he was hunting me like this, because he was a chap who never borrowed money. He said he wanted to keep his pals, so never bit any one’s ear on principle.

At this juncture the door bell rang. Jeeves floated out to answer it.

“Yes, sir. Mr. Wooster has just returned,” I heard him say. And Bicky came trickling in, looking pretty sorry for himself.

“Halloa, Bicky!” I said. “Jeeves told me you had been trying to get me. Jeeves, bring another glass, and let the revels commence. What’s the trouble, Bicky?”

“I’m in a hole, Bertie. I want your advice.”

“Say on, old lad!”

“My uncle’s turning up to-morrow, Bertie.”

“So Jeeves told me.”

“The Duke of Chiswick, you know.”

“So Jeeves told me.”

Bicky seemed a bit surprised.

“Jeeves seems to know everything.”

“Rather rummily, that’s exactly what I was thinking just now myself.”

“Well, I wish,” said Bicky gloomily, “that he knew a way to get me out of the hole I’m in.”

Jeeves shimmered in with the glass, and stuck it competently on the table.

“Mr. Bickersteth is in a bit of a hole, Jeeves,” I said, “and wants you to rally round.”

“Very good, sir.”

Bicky looked a bit doubtful.

“Well, of course, you know, Bertie, this thing is by way of being a bit private and all that.”

“I shouldn’t worry about that, old top. I bet Jeeves knows all about it already. Don’t you, Jeeves?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Eh!” said Bicky, rattled.

“I am open to correction, sir, but is not your dilemma due to the fact that you are at a loss to explain to his grace why you are in New York instead of in Colorado?”

Bicky rocked like a jelly in a high wind.

“How the deuce do you know anything about it?”

“I chanced to meet his grace’s butler before we left England. He informed me that he happened to overhear his grace speaking to you on the matter, sir, as he passed the library door.”

Bicky gave a hollow sort of laugh.

“Well, as everybody seems to know all about it, there’s no need to try to keep it dark. The old boy turfed me out, Bertie, because he said I was a brainless nincompoop. The idea was that he would give me a remittance on condition that I dashed out to some blighted locality of the name of Colorado and learned farming or ranching, or whatever they call it, at some bally ranch or farm or whatever it’s called. I didn’t fancy the idea a bit. I should have had to ride horses and pursue cows, and so forth. I hate horses. They bite at you. I was all against the scheme. At the same time, don’t you know, I had to have that remittance.”

“I get you absolutely, dear boy.”

“Well, when I got to New York it looked a decent sort of place to me, so I thought it would be a pretty sound notion to stop here. So I cabled to my uncle telling him that I had dropped into a good business wheeze in the city and wanted to chuck the ranch idea. He wrote back that it was all right, and here I’ve been ever since. He thinks I’m doing well at something or other over here. I never dreamed, don’t you know, that he would ever come out here. What on earth am I to do?”

“Jeeves,” I said, “what on earth is Mr. Bickersteth to do?”

“You see,” said Bicky, “I had a wireless from him to say that he was coming to stay with me—to save hotel bills, I suppose. I’ve always given him the impression that I was living in pretty good style. I can’t have him to stay at my boarding-house.”

“Thought of anything, Jeeves?” I said.

“To what extent, sir, if the question is not a delicate one, are you prepared to assist Mr. Bickersteth?”

“I’ll do anything I can for you, of course, Bicky, old man.”

“Then, if I might make the suggestion, sir, you might lend Mr. Bickersteth——”

“No, by Jove!” said Bicky firmly. “I never have touched you, Bertie, and I’m not going to start now. I may be a chump, but it’s my boast that I don’t owe a penny to a single soul—not counting tradesmen, of course.”

“I was about to suggest, sir, that you might lend Mr. Bickersteth this flat. Mr. Bickersteth could give his grace the impression that he was the owner of it. With your permission I could convey the notion that I was in Mr. Bickersteth’s employment, and not in yours. You would be residing here temporarily as Mr. Bickersteth’s guest. His grace would occupy the second spare bedroom. I fancy that you would find this answer satisfactorily, sir.”

Bicky had stopped rocking himself and was staring at Jeeves in an awed sort of way.

“I would advocate the dispatching of a wireless message to his grace on board the vessel, notifying him of the change of address. Mr. Bickersteth could meet his grace at the dock and proceed directly here. Will that meet the situation, sir?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Bicky followed him with his eye till the door closed.

“How does he do it, Bertie?” he said. “I’ll tell you what I think it is. I believe it’s something to do with the shape of his head. Have you ever noticed his head, Bertie, old man? It sort of sticks out at the back!”

I hopped out of bed early next morning, so as to be among those present when the old boy should arrive. I knew from experience that these ocean liners fetch up at the dock at a deucedly ungodly hour. It wasn’t much after nine by the time I’d dressed and had my morning tea and was leaning out of the window, watching the street for Bicky and his uncle. It was one of those jolly, peaceful mornings that make a chappie wish he’d got a soul or something, and I was just brooding on life in general when I became aware of the dickens of a spat in progress down below. A taxi had driven up, and an old boy in a top hat had got out and was kicking up a frightful row about the fare. As far as I could make out, he was trying to get the cab chappie to switch from New York to London prices, and the cab chappie had apparently never heard of London before, and didn’t seem to think a lot of it now. The old boy said that in London the trip would have set him back eightpence; and the cabby said he should worry. I called to Jeeves.

“The duke has arrived, Jeeves.”

“Yes, sir?”

“That’ll be him at the door now.”

Jeeves made a long arm and opened the front door, and the old boy crawled in, looking licked to a splinter.

“How do you do, sir?” I said, bustling up and being the ray of sunshine. “Your nephew went down to the dock to meet you, but you must have missed him. My name’s Wooster, don’t you know. Great pal of Bicky’s, and all that sort of thing. I’m staying with him, you know. Would you like a cup of tea? Jeeves, bring a cup of tea.”

Old Chiswick had sunk into an arm-chair and was looking about the room.

“Does this luxurious flat belong to my nephew Francis?”

“Absolutely.”

“It must be terribly expensive.”

“Pretty well, of course. Everything costs a lot over here, you know.”

He moaned. Jeeves filtered in with the tea. Old Chiswick took a stab at it to restore his tissues, and nodded.

“A terrible country, Mr. Wooster! A terrible country! Nearly eight shillings for a short cab-drive! Iniquitous!” He took another look round the room. It seemed to fascinate him. “Have you any idea how much my nephew pays for this flat, Mr. Wooster?”

“About two hundred dollars a month, I believe.”

“What! Forty pounds a month!”

I began to see that, unless I made the thing a bit more plausible, the scheme might turn out a frost. I could guess what the old boy was thinking. He was trying to square all this prosperity with what he knew of poor old Bicky. And one had to admit that it took a lot of squaring, for dear old Bicky, though a stout fellow and absolutely unrivalled as an imitator of bull-terriers and cats, was in many ways one of the most pronounced fatheads that ever pulled on a suit of gent’s underwear.

“I suppose it seems rummy to you,” I said, “but the fact is New York often bucks chappies up and makes them show a flash of speed that you wouldn’t have imagined them capable of. It sort of develops them. Something in the air, don’t you know. I imagine that Bicky in the past, when you knew him, may have been something of a chump, but it’s quite different now. Devilish efficient sort of chappie, and looked on in commercial circles as quite the nib!”

“I am amazed! What is the nature of my nephew’s business, Mr. Wooster?”

“Oh, just business, don’t you know. The same sort of thing Carnegie and Rockefeller and all these coves do, you know.” I slid for the door. “Awfully sorry to leave you, but I’ve got to meet some of the lads elsewhere.”

Coming out of the lift I met Bicky bustling in from the street.

“Halloa, Bertie! I missed him. Has he turned up?”

“He’s upstairs now, having some tea.”

“What does he think of it all?”

“He’s absolutely rattled.”

“Ripping! I’ll be toddling up, then. Toodle-oo, Bertie, old man. See you later.”

“Pip-pip, Bicky, dear boy.”

He trotted off, full of merriment and good cheer, and I went off to the club to sit in the window and watch the traffic coming up one way and going down the other.

It was latish in the evening when I looked in at the flat to dress for dinner.

“Where’s everybody, Jeeves?” I said, finding no little feet pattering about the place. “Gone out?”

“His grace desired to see some of the sights of the city, sir. Mr. Bickersteth is acting as his escort. I fancy their immediate objective was Grant’s Tomb.”

“I suppose Mr. Bickersteth is a bit braced at the way things are going—what?”

“Sir?”

“I say, I take it that Mr. Bickersteth is tolerably full of beans.”

“Not altogether, sir.”

“What’s his trouble now?”

“The scheme which I took the liberty of suggesting to Mr. Bickersteth and yourself has, unfortunately, not answered entirely satisfactorily, sir.”

“Surely the duke believes that Mr. Bickersteth is doing well in business, and all that sort of thing?”

“Exactly, sir. With the result that he has decided to cancel Mr. Bickersteth’s monthly allowance, on the ground that, as Mr. Bickersteth is doing so well on his own account, he no longer requires pecuniary assistance.”

“Great Scot, Jeeves! This is awful.”

“Somewhat disturbing, sir.”

“I never expected anything like this!”

“I confess I scarcely anticipated the contingency myself, sir.”

“I suppose it bowled the poor blighter over absolutely?”

“Mr. Bickersteth appeared somewhat taken aback, sir.”

My heart bled for Bicky.

“We must do something, Jeeves.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you think of anything?”

“Not at the moment, sir.”

“There must be something we can do.”

“It was a maxim of one of my former employers, sir—as I believe I mentioned to you once before—the present Lord Bridgnorth, that there is always a way. I remember his lordship using the expression on the occasion—he was then a business gentleman and had not yet received his title—when a patent hair-restorer which he chanced to be promoting failed to attract the public. He put it on the market under another name as a depilatory, and amassed a substantial fortune. I have generally found his lordship’s aphorism based on sound foundations. No doubt we shall be able to discover some solution of Mr. Bickersteth’s difficulty, sir.”

“Well, have a stab at it, Jeeves!”

“I will spare no pains, sir.”

I went and dressed sadly. It will show you pretty well how pipped I was when I tell you that I near as a toucher put on a white tie with a dinner-jacket. I sallied out for a bit of food more to pass the time than because I wanted it. It seemed brutal to be wading into the bill of fare with poor old Bicky headed for the breadline.

When I got back old Chiswick had gone to bed, but Bicky was there, hunched up in an arm-chair, brooding pretty tensely, with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and a more or less glassy stare in his eyes. He had the aspect of one who had been soaked with what the newspaper chappies call “some blunt instrument.”

“This is a bit thick, old thing—what!” I said.

He picked up his glass and drained it feverishly, overlooking the fact that it hadn’t anything in it.

“I’m done, Bertie!” he said.

He had another go at the glass. It didn’t seem to do him any good.

“If only this had happened a week later, Bertie! My next month’s money was due to roll in on Saturday. I could have worked a wheeze I’ve been reading about in the magazine advertisements. It seems that you can make a dashed amount of money if you can only collect a few dollars and start a chicken-farm. Jolly sound scheme, Bertie! Say you buy a hen—call it one hen for the sake of argument. It lays an egg every day of the week. You sell the eggs seven for twenty-five cents. Keep of hen costs nothing. Profit practically twenty-five cents on every seven eggs. Or look at it another way: Suppose you have a dozen hens. Each of the hens has a dozen chickens. The chickens grow up and have more chickens. Why, in no time you’d have the place covered knee-deep in hens, all laying eggs, at twenty-five cents for every seven. You’d make a fortune. Jolly life, too, keeping hens!” He had begun to get quite worked up at the thought of it, but he slopped back in his chair at this juncture with a good deal of gloom. “But, of course, it’s no good,” he said, “because I haven’t the cash.”

“You’ve only to say the word, you know, Bicky, old top.”

“Thanks awfully, Bertie, but I’m not going to sponge on you.”

That’s always the way in this world. The chappies you’d like to lend money to won’t let you, whereas the chappies you don’t want to lend it to will do everything except actually stand you on your head and lift the specie out of your pockets. As a lad who has always rolled tolerably free in the right stuff, I’ve had lots of experience of the second class. Many’s the time, back in London, I’ve hurried along Piccadilly and felt the hot breath of the toucher on the back of my neck and heard his sharp, excited yapping as he closed in on me. I’ve simply spent my life scattering largesse to blighters I didn’t care a hang for; yet here was I now, dripping doubloons and pieces of eight and longing to hand them over, and Bicky, poor fish, absolutely on his uppers, not taking any at any price.

“Well, there’s only one hope, then.”

“What’s that?”

“Jeeves.”

“Sir?”

There was Jeeves, standing behind me, full of zeal. In this matter of shimmering into rooms the chappie is rummy to a degree. You’re sitting in the old arm-chair, thinking of this and that, and then suddenly you look up, and there he is. He moves from point to point with as little uproar as a jelly fish. The thing startled poor old Bicky considerably. He rose from his seat like a rocketing pheasant. I’m used to Jeeves now, but often in the days when he first came to me I’ve bitten my tongue freely on finding him unexpectedly in my midst.

“Did you call, sir?”

“Oh, there you are, Jeeves!”

“Precisely, sir.”

“Jeeves, Mr. Bickersteth is still up the pole. Any ideas?”

“Why, yes, sir. Since we had our recent conversation I fancy I have found what may prove a solution. I do not wish to appear to be taking a liberty, sir, but I think that we have overlooked his grace’s potentialities as a source of revenue.”

Bicky laughed, what I have sometimes seen described as a hollow, mocking laugh, a sort of bitter cackle from the back of the throat, rather like a gargle.

“I do not allude, sir,” explained Jeeves, “to the possibility of inducing his grace to part with money. I am taking the liberty of regarding his grace in the light of an at present—if I may say so—useless property, which is capable of being developed.”

Bicky looked at me in a helpless kind of way. I’m bound to say I didn’t get it myself.

“Couldn’t you make it a bit easier, Jeeves!”

“In a nutshell, sir, what I mean is this: His grace is, in a sense, a prominent personage. The inhabitants of this country, as no doubt you are aware, sir, are peculiarly addicted to shaking hands with prominent personages. It occurred to me that Mr. Bickersteth or yourself might know of persons who would be willing to pay a small fee—let us say two dollars or three—for the privilege of an introduction, including handshake, to his grace.”

Bicky didn’t seem to think much of it.

“Do you mean to say that anyone would be mug enough to part with solid cash just to shake hands with my uncle?”

“I have an aunt, sir, who paid five shillings to a young fellow for bringing a moving-picture actor to tea at her house one Sunday. It gave her social standing among the neighbours.”

Bicky wavered.

“If you think it could be done——”

“I feel convinced of it, sir.”

“What do you think, Bertie?”

“I’m for it, old boy, absolutely. A very brainy wheeze.”

“Thank you, sir. Will there be anything further? Good night, sir.”

And he floated out, leaving us to discuss details.

Until we started this business of floating old Chiswick as a money-making proposition I had never realized what a perfectly foul time those Stock Exchange chappies must have when the public isn’t biting freely. Nowadays I read that bit they put in the financial reports about “The market opened quietly” with a sympathetic eye, for, by Jove, it certainly opened quietly for us! You’d hardly believe how difficult it was to interest the public and make them take a flutter on the old boy. By the end of the week the only name we had on our list was a delicatessen-store keeper down in Bicky’s part of the town, and as he wanted us to take it out in sliced ham instead of cash that didn’t help much. There was a gleam of light when the brother of Bicky’s pawnbroker offered ten dollars, money down, for an introduction to old Chiswick, but the deal fell through, owing to its turning out that the chap was an anarchist and intended to kick the old boy instead of shaking hands with him. At that, it took me the deuce of a time to persuade Bicky not to grab the cash and let things take their course. He seemed to regard the pawnbroker’s brother rather as a sportsman and benefactor of his species than otherwise.