The Jeeves Omnibus (256 page)
Read The Jeeves Omnibus Online
Authors: P. G. Wodehouse
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Humour, #Literary, #Fiction, #Classic, #General, #Classics
Tuppy’s bitter sneer cracked the top-soil.
‘Angela!’ he woofed. ‘Don’t talk to me about Angela. Angela’s a rag and a bone and a hank of hair and an Al scourge, if you want to know. She gave me the push. Yes, she did. Simply because I had the manly courage to speak out candidly on the subject of that ghastly lid she was chump enough to buy. It made her look like a Peke, and I told her it made her look like a Peke. And instead of admiring me for my fearless honesty she bunged me out on my ear. Faugh!’
‘She did?’ I said.
‘She jolly well did,’ said young Tuppy. ‘At four-sixteen pm on Tuesday the seventeenth.’
‘By the way, old man,’ I said, ‘I’ve found that telegram.’
‘What telegram?’
‘The one I told you about.’
‘Oh, that one?’
‘Yes, that’s the one.’
‘Well, let’s have a look at the beastly thing.’
I handed it over, watching him narrowly. And suddenly, as he read, I saw him wobble. Stirred to the core. Obviously.
‘Anything important?’ I said.
‘Bertie,’ said young Tuppy, in a voice that quivered with strong emotion, ‘my recent remarks
re
your cousin Angela. Wash them out. Cancel them. Look on them as not spoken. I tell you, Bertie, Angela’s all right. An angel in human shape, and that’s official. Bertie, I’ve got to get up to London. She’s ill.’
‘Ill?’
‘High fever and delirium. This wire’s from your aunt. She wants me to come up to London at once. Can I borrow your car?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thanks,’ said Tuppy, and dashed out.
He had only been gone about a second when Jeeves came in with the restorative.
‘Mr Glossop’s gone, Jeeves.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘To London.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘In my car. To see my cousin Angela. The sun is once more shining, Jeeves.’
‘Extremely gratifying, sir.’
I gave him the eye.
‘Was it you, Jeeves, who ’phoned to Miss What’s-her-bally-name about the alleged water-spaniel?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I thought as much.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Yes, Jeeves, the moment Mr Glossop told me that a Mysterious Voice had ’phoned on the subject of Irish water-spaniels, I thought as much. I recognized your touch. I read your motives like an open book. You knew she would come buzzing up.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you knew how Tuppy would react. If there’s one thing that gives a jousting knight the pip, it is to have his audience walk out on him.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But, Jeeves.’
‘Sir?’
‘There’s just one point. What will Mr Glossop say when he finds my cousin Angela full of beans and not delirious?’
‘The point had not escaped me, sir. I took the liberty of ringing Mrs Travers up on the telephone and explaining the circumstances. All will be in readiness for Mr Glossop’s arrival.’
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you think of everything.’
‘Thank you, sir. In Mr Glossop’s absence, would you care to drink this whisky-and-soda?’
I shook the head.
‘No, Jeeves, there is only one man who must do that. It is you. If ever anyone earned a refreshing snort, you are he. Pour it out, Jeeves, and shove it down.’
‘Thank you very much, sir.’
‘Cheerio, Jeeves!’
‘Cheerio, sir, if I may use the expression.’
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781407071770
First published in this collection 1991
© in this collection the Trustees of the P.G. Wodehouse Estate 1991
Ring for Jeeves
© P.G. Wodehouse 1953
The Mating Season
© P.G. Wodehouse 1949
Very Good, Jeeves
© P.G. Wodehouse 1930
All rights reserved
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Reprinted 1991, 1992 (twice), 1994, 1999, 2000, 2006, 2007
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780091748333
About the Author
The author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr Mulliner, P. G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After two years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank he became a full-time writer, contributing to a variety of periodicals. As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies, and at one stage had five shows running simultaneously on Broadway.
At the age of 93, in the New Year’s Honours List of 1975, he received a long-overdue knighthood, only to die on St Valentine’s Day some 45 days later.
Also by P. G. Wodehouse
Fiction
Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen
The Adventures of Sally
Bachelors Anonymous
Barmy in Wonderland
Big Money
Bill the Conqueror
Blandings Castle and Elsewhere
Carry On, Jeeves
The Clicking of Cuthbert
Cocktail Time
The Code of the Woosters
The Coming of Bill
Company for Henry
A Damsel in Distress
Do Butlers Burgle Banks?
Doctor Sally
Eggs, Beans and Crumpets
A Few Quick Ones
French Leave
Frozen Assets
Full Moon
Galahad at Blandings
A Gentleman of Leisure
The Girl in Blue
The Girl on the Boat
The Gold Bat
The Head of Kay’s
The Heart of a Goof
Heavy Weather
Ice in the Bedroom
If I Were You
Indiscretions of Archie
The Inimitable Jeeves
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
Jeeves in the Offing
Jill the Reckless
Joy in the Morning
Laughing Gas
Leave it to Psmith
The Little Nugget
Lord Emsworth and Others
Louder and Funnier
Love Among the Chickens
The Luck of Bodkins
The Man Upstairs
The Man with Two Left Feet
The Mating Season
Meet Mr Mulliner
Mike and Psmith
Mike at Wrykyn
Money for Nothing
Money in the Bank
Mr Mulliner Speaking
Much Obliged, Jeeves
Mulliner Nights
Not George Washington
Nothing Serious
The Old Reliable
Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin
A Pelican at Blandings
Piccadilly Jim
Pigs Have Wings
Plum Pie
The Pothunters
A Prefect’s Uncle
The Prince and Betty
Psmith, Journalist
Psmith in the City
Quick Service
Right Ho, Jeeves
Ring for Jeeves
Sam the Sudden
Service with a Smile
The Small Bachelor
Something Fishy
Something Fresh
Spring Fever
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
Summer Lightning
Summer Moonshine
Sunset at Blandings
The Swoop
Tales of St Austin’s
Thank You, Jeeves
Ukridge
Uncle Dynamite
Uncle Fred in the Springtime
Uneasy Money
Very Good, Jeeves
The White Feather
William Tell Told Again
Young Men in Spats
Omnibuses
The World of Blandings
The World of Jeeves
The World of Mr Mulliner
The World of Psmith
The World of Ukridge
The World of Uncle Fred
Wodehouse Nuggets (edited by Richard Usborne)
The World of Wodehouse Clergy
The Hollywood Omnibus
Weekend Wodehouse
Paperback Omnibuses
The Golf Omnibus
The Aunts Omnibus
The Drones Omnibus
The Clergy Omnibus
The Jeeves Omnibus 1
The Jeeves Omnibus 2
The Jeeves Omnibus 3
The Jeeves Omnibus 4
The Jeeves Omnibus 5
The Mulliner Omnibus
Poems
The Parrot and Other Poems
Autobiographical
Wodehouse on Wodehouse (comprising Bring on the Girls, Over Seventy, Performing Flea)
Letters
Yours, Plum
1
AS I SAT
in the bath tub, soaping a meditative foot and singing, if I remember correctly, ‘Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar’, it would be deceiving my public to say that I was feeling boomps-a-daisy. The evening that lay before me promised to be one of those sticky evenings, no good to man or beast. My Aunt Dahlia, writing from her country residence, Brinkley Court down in Worcestershire, had asked me as a personal favour to take some acquaintances of hers out to dinner, a couple of the name of Trotter.
They were, she said, creeps of the first water and would bore the pants off me, but it was imperative that they be given the old oil, because she was in the middle of a very tricky business deal with the male half of the sketch and at such times every little helps. ‘Don’t fail me, my beautiful bountiful Bertie’, her letter had concluded, on a note of poignant appeal.