The Greatest Works of P. G. Wodehouse. P. G. Wodehouse
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not. The race went by the form-book all right.”
I was trying to do sums in my head. I was just in the middle of working out the syndicate’s losses, when old Heppenstall’s voice came sort of faintly to me out of the distance. He had been pretty fatherly and debonair when ladling out the prizes for the other events, but now he had suddenly grown all pained and grieved. He peered sorrowfully at the multitude.
“WITH regard to the Girls’ Egg and Spoon Race, which has just concluded,” he said, “I have a painful duty to perform. Circumstances have arisen which it is impossible to ignore. It is not too much to say that I am stunned.”
He gave the populace about five seconds to wonder why he was stunned, then went on.
“Three years ago, as you are aware, I was compelled to expunge from the list of events at this annual festival the Fathers’ Quarter-Mile, owing to reports coming to my ears of wagers taken and given on the result at the village inn and a strong suspicion that on at least one occasion the race had actually been sold by the speediest runner. That unfortunate occurrence shook my faith in human nature, I admit—but still there was one event at least which I confidently expected to remain untainted by the miasma of Professionalism. I allude to the Girls’ Egg and Spoon Race. It seems, alas, that I was too sanguine.”
He stopped again, and wrestled with his feelings.
“I will not weary you with the unpleasant details. I will merely say that before the race was run a stranger in our midst, the manservant of one of the guests at the Hall—I will not specify with more particularity—approached several of the competitors and presented each of them with five shillings on condition that they—er—finished. A belated sense of remorse has led him to confess to me what he did, but it is too late. The evil is accomplished, and retribution must take its course. It is no time for half-measures. I must be firm. I rule that Sarah Mills, Jane Parker, Bessie Clay, and Rosie Jukes, the first four to pass the winning-post, have forfeited their amateur status and are disqualified, and this handsome work-bag, presented by Lord Wickhammersley, goes, in consequence, to Prudence Baxter. Prudence, step forward!”
The Metropolitan Touch
Nobody is more alive than I am to the fact that young Bingo Little is in many respects a sound old egg: but I must say there are things about him that could be improved. The man’s too expansive altogether. When it comes to letting the world in on the secrets of his heart, he has about as much shrinking reticence as a steam calliope. Well, for instance, here’s the telegram I got from him one evening in November:—
I say Bertie old man I am in love at last. She is the most wonderful girl Bertie old man. This is the real thing at last Bertie. Come here at once and bring Jeeves. Oh I say you know that tobacco shop in Bond Street on the left side as you go up. Will you get me a hundred of their special cigarettes and send them to me here. I have run out. I know when you see her you will think she is the most wonderful girl. Mind you bring Jeeves. Don’t forget the cigarettes.
—Bingo.
It had been handed in at Twing Post Office. In other words, he had submitted that frightful rot to the goggling eye of a village post-mistress who was probably the mainspring of local gossip and would have the place ringing with the news before nightfall. He couldn’t have given himself away more completely if he had hired the town-crier. When I was a kid, I used to read stories about knights and Vikings and that species of chappie who would get up without a blush in the middle of a crowded banquet and loose off a song about how perfectly priceless they thought their best girl. I’ve often felt that those days would have suited young Bingo down to the ground.
Jeeves had brought the thing in with the evening drink, and I slung it over to him.
“It’s about due, of course,” I said. “Young Bingo hasn’t been in love for at least a couple of months. I wonder who it is this time?”
“Miss Mary Burgess, sir,” said Jeeves, “the niece of the Reverend Mr. Heppenstall. She is staying at Twing Vicarage.”
“Great Scott!” I knew that Jeeves knew practically everything in the world, but this sounded like second-sight. “How do you know that?”
“When we were visiting Twing Hall in the summer, sir, I formed a somewhat close friendship with Mr. Heppenstall’s butler. He is good enough to keep me abreast of the local news from time to time. From this account, sir, the young lady appears to be a very estimable young lady. Of a somewhat serious nature, I understand. Mr. Little is very épris, sir. Brookfield, my correspondent, writes that last week he observed him in the moonlight at an advanced hour gazing up at his window.”
“Whose window? Brookfield’s?”
“Yes, sir. Presumably under the impression that it was the young lady’s.”
“But what the deuce is he doing at Twing at all?”
“Mr. Little was compelled to resume his old position as tutor to Lord Wickhammersley’s son at Twing Hall, sir. Owing to having been unsuccessful in some speculations at Hurst Park at the end of October.”
“Good Lord, Jeeves! Is there anything you don’t know?”
“I could not say, sir.”
I picked up the telegram.
“I suppose he wants us to go down and help him out a bit?”
“That would appear to be his motive in dispatching the message, sir.”
“Well, what shall we do? Go?”
“I would advocate it, sir. If I may say so, I think that Mr. Little should he encouraged in this particular matter.”
“You think he’s picked a winner this time?”
“I hear nothing but excellent reports of the young lady, sir. I think it is beyond question that she would be an admirable influence for Mr. Little, should the affair come to a happy conclusion. Such a union would also, I fancy, go far to restore Mr. Little to the good graces of his uncle, the young lady being well connected and possessing private means. In short, sir, I think that if there is anything that we can do we should do it.”
“Well, with you behind him,” I said, “I don’t see how he can fail to click.”
“You are very good, sir,” said Jeeves. “The tribute is much appreciated.”
BINGO met us at Twing station next day, and insisted on my sending Jeeves on in the car with the bags while he and I walked. He started in about the female the moment we had begun to hoof it.
“She is very wonderful, Bertie. She is not one of these flippant, shallow-minded modern girls. She is sweetly grave and beautifully earnest. She reminds me of—what is the name I want?”
“Marie Lloyd?”
“Saint Cecilia,” said young Bingo, eyeing me with a good deal of loathing. “She reminds me of Saint Cecilia. She makes me yearn to be a better, nobler, deeper, broader man.”
“What beats me.” I said, following up a train of thought, “is what principle you pick them on. The girls you fall in love with, I mean. I mean to say, what’s your system? As far as I can see, no two of them are alike. First it was Mabel the waitress, then Honoria Glossop, then that fearful blister Charlotte Corday Rowbotham——”
I own that Bingo had the decency to shudder. Thinking of Charlotte always made me shudder, too.
“You don’t seriously mean, Bertie, that you are intending to compare the feeling I have for Mary Burgess, the holy devotion, the spiritual——”
“Oh, all right, let it go,” I said. “I say, old lad, aren’t we going rather a long way round?”
Considering that we were supposed to be heading for Twing Hall, it seemed to