The Jeeves Omnibus (150 page)

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 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 bird 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 bloke 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 looking sort of fellow peering out after him with a kind of gloomy satisfaction.

In a way, I couldn’t help sympathizing with the chap. 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?’

‘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 Broadway Special hat. It was a remarkably priceless effort, and much admired by the lads. But, just because he preferred the White House Wonder, 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 two a.m. – artists and writers and so forth 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 had 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 watch-dog.’

I don’t want a watch-dog 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 – tomorrow 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 go 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 good in him.

‘Fine!’ I said. ‘Is Lord Pershore in, Jeeves?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Do you expect him back to dinner?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Where is he?’

‘In prison, sir.’

‘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 fellow 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 eyes.

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? Niagara Falls, Yellowstone Park, and the jolly old Grand Canyon, and what not?’

‘I saw a great deal.’

There was another slight
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?’