The Greatest Works of P. G. Wodehouse. P. G. Wodehouse
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with an eloquence which rather surprised me, I hauled up my slacks for perhaps ten minutes on the subject of his duty to his family and what not. I appealed to his sense of decency. I boosted South Africa with vim. I said everything I could think of, much of it twice over. But all the blighter did was to babble about his dashed brother’s baseness in putting one over on him in the matter of the cigarette case. He seemed to think that Claude, by slinging in the handsome gift, had got right ahead of him; and there was a painful scene when the latter came back from Hurst Park. I could hear them talking half the night, long after I had tottered off to bed. I don’t know when I’ve met fellows who could do with less sleep than those two.
After this, things became a bit strained at the flat, owing to Claude and Eustace not being on speaking terms. I’m all for a certain chumminess in the home, and it was wearing to have to live with two fellows who wouldn’t admit that the other one was on the map at all.
One felt the thing couldn’t go on like that for long, and by Jove, it didn’t. But if anyone had come to me the day before and told me what was going to happen, I should simply have smiled wanly. When Claude sidled up to me on the Friday morning and told me his bit of news, I could hardly believe I was hearing right.
“Bertie,” he said, “I’ve been thinking it over.”
“What over?” I said.
“The whole thing. This business of staying in London when I ought to be in South Africa. It isn’t fair,” said Claude warmly. “It isn’t right. Bertie, old man, I’m leaving tomorrow.”
I reeled in my tracks. “You are?” I gasped.
“Yes. If,” said Claude, “you won’t mind sending old Jeeves out to buy a ticket for me. I’m afraid I’ll have to stick you for the passage money, old man. You don’t mind?”
“Mind!” I said, clutching his hand.
“That’s all right, then. I say, you won’t say a word to Eustace about this?”
“But isn’t he going too?”
Claude shuddered.
“No, thank Heaven! The idea of being cooped up on board a ship with that blighter gives me the pip just to think of it. No, not a word to Eustace. I say, I suppose you can get me a berth all right at such short notice?”
“Rather!” I said. Sooner than let this opportunity slip, I would have bought the bally boat. “Jeeves,” I said, breezing into the kitchen. “Go out on first speed to the Union Castle offices and book a berth on tomorrow’s boat for Mr. Claude. He is leaving us, Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Claude does not wish any mention of this to be made to Mr. Eustace.”
“No, sir. Mr. Eustace made the same proviso when he desired me to obtain a berth on tomorrow’s boat for himself.”
I gaped at the man. “Is he going, too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is rummy.”
“Yes, sir.”
Had circumstances been other than they were, I would at this juncture have unbent considerably towards Jeeves. But those spats still formed a barrier, and I took the opportunity of rather rubbing it in a bit on the man. I mean, he’d been so dashed aloof and unsympathetic that I couldn’t help pointing out how the happy ending had been snaffled without any help from him.
“So that’s that, Jeeves,” I said. “The episode is concluded. I knew things would sort themselves out. Many chaps in my place would have gone rushing about, asking people for help and advice and so forth.”
“Very possibly, sir.”
“But not me, Jeeves.”
“No, sir.”
I left him to brood on it.
Even the thought that I’d got to go to Harrogate with Uncle George couldn’t depress me that Saturday when I gazed about the old flat and realized that Claude and Eustace weren’t in it. They had slunk off stealthily and separately immediately after breakfast, Eustace to catch the boat train at Waterloo, Claude to go round to the garage where I kept my car. I didn’t want any chance of the two meeting at Waterloo and changing their minds, so I had suggested to Claude that he might find it pleasanter to drive down to Southampton.
I was lying back on the old settee, feeling what a wonderful world this was, when Jeeves came in with a letter.
“A messenger boy has brought this, sir.”
I opened the envelope and the first thing that fell out was a five-pound note.
“Great Scott!” I said. “What’s this?”
The letter was scribbled in pencil:
Dear Bertie,
Will you give enclosed to your man and tell him I wish I could make it more. He has saved my life. This is the first happy day I’ve had for a week. M. W.
Jeeves was standing holding out the fiver, which had fluttered to the floor.
“You’d better stick to it,” I said. “It seems to be for you.”
“Sir?”
“I say that fiver is for you, apparently. Miss Wardour sent it.”
“That was extremely kind of her, sir.”
“What the dickens is she sending you fivers for? She says you saved her life.”
Jeeves smiled gently.
“She overestimates my services, sir.”
“But what were your services, dash it?”
“It was in the matter of Mr. Claude and Mr. Eustace, sir. I was hoping that she would not refer to the matter, as I did not wish you to think that I had been taking a liberty.”
“What do you mean?”
“I chanced to be in the room while Miss Wardour was complaining with some warmth of the manner in which Mr. Claude and Mr. Eustace were thrusting their society upon her. I felt that in the circumstances it might be excusable if I suggested a slight ruse to enable her to dispense with their attentions.”
“Good Lord! You don’t mean to say you were at the bottom of their popping off after all!”
Silly ass it made me feel. I mean, after rubbing it in to him like that about having clicked without his assistance.
“It occurred to me that, were Miss Wardour to inform Mr. Claude and Mr. Eustace independently that she proposed sailing for South Africa to take up a theatrical engagement, the desired effect might be produced. It appears that my anticipations were correct, sir.”
“Jeeves,” I said, “we Woosters may make bloomers, but we are never too proud to admit it. You stand alone!”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
“Oh, but I say!” A ghastly thought had struck me. “When they get on the boat and find she isn’t there, won’t they come buzzing back?”
“I anticipated that possibility, sir. At my suggestion, Miss Wardour informed the young gentlemen that she proposed to travel overland to Madeira and join the vessel there.”
“And where do they touch after Madeira?”
“Nowhere, sir.”
For a moment I just lay back, letting the idea of the thing soak in. There seemed to me to be only one flaw.
“The only pity is,” I said, “that on a large boat like that they will be able to avoid each other. I should have liked to feel that Claude was having a good deal of Eustace’s society and vice versa.”
“I fancy that that will be so, sir. I secured a two-berth stateroom. Mr. Claude