The Greatest Works of P. G. Wodehouse. P. G. Wodehouse
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all the returns in, then?” I asked.
“All except Gandle-by-the-Hill. But we needn’t worry about Bates. He never had a chance. By the way, poor old Jeeves loses his tenner. Silly ass!”
“Jeeves? How do you mean?”
“He came to me this morning, just after you had left, and asked me to put a tenner on Bates for him. I told him he was a chump and begged him not to throw his money away, but he would do it.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. This note arrived for you just after you had left the house this morning.”
Jeeves had materialized from nowhere, and was standing at my elbow.
“Eh? What? Note?”
“The Reverend Mr. Heppenstall’s butler brought it over from the Vicarage, sir. It came too late to be delivered to you at the moment.”
Young Bingo was talking to Jeeves like a father on the subject of betting against the form-book. The yell I gave made him bite his tongue in the middle of a sentence.
“What the dickens is the matter?” he asked, not a little peeved.
“We’re dished! Listen to this!”
I read him the note:—
“The Vicarage,
“Twing, Glos.
“My Dear Wooster,—As you may have heard, circumstances over which I have no control will prevent my preaching the sermon on Brotherly Love for which you made such a flattering request. I am unwilling, however, that you shall be disappointed, so, if you will attend divine service at Gandle-by-the-Hill this morning, you will hear my sermon preached by young Bates, my nephew. I have lent him the manuscript at his urgent desire, for, between ourselves, there are wheels within wheels. My nephew is one of the candidates for the headmastership of a well-known public school, and the choice has narrowed down between him and one rival.
“Late yesterday evening James received private information that the head of the Board of Governors of the school proposed to sit under him this Sunday in order to judge of the merits of his preaching, a most important item in swaying the Board’s choice. I acceded to his plea that I lend him my sermon on Brotherly Love, of which, like you, he apparently retains a vivid recollection. It would have been too late for him to compose a sermon of suitable length in place of the brief address which—mistakenly, in my opinion—he had designed to deliver to his rustic flock, and I wished to help the boy.
“Trusting that his preaching of the sermon will supply you with as pleasant memories as you say you have of mine, I remain,
“Cordially yours,
F. Heppenstall.
“P.S.—The hay-fever has rendered my eyes unpleasantly weak for the time being, so I am dictating this letter to my butler, Brookfield, who will convey it to you.”
I DON’T know when I’ve experienced a more massive silence than the one that followed my reading of this cheery epistle. Young Bingo gulped once or twice, and practically every known emotion came and went on his face. Jeeves coughed one soft, low, gentle cough like a sheep with a blade of grass stuck in its throat, and then stood gazing serenely at the landscape. Finally young Bingo spoke.
“Great Scot!” he whispered, hoarsely. “An S.P. job!”
“I believe that is the technical term, sir,” said Jeeves.
“So you had inside information, dash it!” said young Bingo.
“Why, yes, sir,” said Jeeves. “Brookfield happened to mention the contents of the note to me when he brought it. We are old friends.”
Bingo registered grief, anguish, rage, despair, and resentment.
“Well, all I can say,” he cried, “is that it’s a bit thick! Preaching another man’s sermon! Do you call that honest? Do you call that playing the game?”
“Well, my dear old thing,” I said, “be fair. It’s quite within the rules. Clergymen do it all the time. They aren’t expected always to make up the sermons they preach.”
Jeeves coughed again, and fixed me with an expressionless eye.
“And in the present case, sir, if I may be permitted to take the liberty of making the observation, I think we should make allowances. We should remember that the securing of this headmastership meant everything to the young couple.”
“Young couple! What young couple?”
“The Reverend James Bates, sir, and Lady Cynthia. I am informed by her ladyship’s maid that they have been engaged to be married for some weeks—provisionally, so to speak; and his lordship made his consent conditional on Mr. Bates securing a really important and remunerative position.”
Young Bingo turned a light green.
“Engaged to be married!”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a silence.
“I think I’ll go for a walk,” said Bingo.
“But, my dear old thing.” I said, “it’s just lunch-time. The gong will be going any minute now.”
“I don’t want any lunch!” said Bingo.
The Purity of the Turf
When the thing was over, I made my mind up.
“Jeeves,” I said.
“Sir?”
“Never again! The strain is too great. I don’t say I shall chuck betting altogether: if I get hold of a good thing for one of the big races no doubt I shall have my bit on as aforetime: but you won’t catch me mixing myself up with one of these minor country meetings again. They’re too hot.”
“I think perhaps you are right, sir,” said Jeeves.
It was young Bingo Little who lured me into the thing. About the third week of my visit at Twing Hall he blew into my bedroom one morning while I was toying with a bit of breakfast and thinking of this and that.
“Bertie!” he said, in an earnest kind of voice.
I decided to take a firm line from the start. Young Bingo, if you remember, was at a pretty low ebb at about this juncture. He had not only failed to put his finances on a sound basis over the recent Sermon Handicap, but had also discovered that Cynthia Wick loved another. These things had jarred the unfortunate mutt, and he had developed a habit of dropping in on me at all hours and decanting his anguished soul on me. I could stand this all right after dinner, and even after lunch; but before breakfast, no. We Woosters are amiability itself, but there is a limit.
“Now look here, old friend,” I said. “I know your bally heart is broken and all that, and at some future time I shall be delighted to hear all about it, but——”
“I didn’t come to talk about that.”
“No? Good egg!”
“The past,” said young Bingo, “is dead. Let us say no more about it.”
“Right-o!”
“I have been wounded to the very depths of my soul, but don’t speak about it.”
“I won’t.”
“Ignore it. Forget it.”
“Absolutely!”
I hadn’t seen him so dashed reasonable for weeks.
“What I came to see you about this morning, Bertie,” he said, fishing a sheet of paper out of his pocket, “was to ask if you would care to come in on another little flutter.”
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