The Greatest Works of P. G. Wodehouse. P. G. Wodehouse
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the fact is, I’m more or less in the capacity of a jolly old ambassador at the moment. Representing young Bingo, you know.”
His geniality sagged a trifle, I thought, but he didn’t heave me out, so I pushed on.
“The way I always look at it,” I said, “is that it’s dashed difficult for anything to prevail against what you might call a pure and all-consuming love. I mean, can it be done? I doubt it.”
My eyes didn’t exactly flash as I faced the stern old man, but I sort of waggled my eyebrows. He puffed a bit, and looked doubtful.
“We discussed this matter at our last meeting, Mr. Wooster. And on that occasion——”
“Yes. But there have been developments, as it were, since then. The fact of the matter is,” I said, coming to the point, “this morning young Bingo went and jumped off the dock.”
“Good heavens!” He jerked himself to his feet with his mouth open. “Why? Where? Which dock?”
I saw that he wasn’t quite on.
“I was speaking metaphorically,” I explained, “if that’s the word I want. I mean he got married.”
“Married!”
“Absolutely hitched up. I hope you aren’t ratty about it, what? Young blood, you know. Two loving hearts, and all that.”
He panted in a rather overwrought way.
“I am greatly disturbed by your news. I—I consider that I have been—er—defied. Yes, defied.”
“But who are you to pit yourself against the decrees of Fate?” I said, taking a look at the prompt-book out of the corner of my eye.
“Eh?”
“You see, this love of theirs was fated. Since time began, you know.”
I’m bound to admit that if he’d said “Humph!” at this juncture, he would have had me stymied. Luckily, it didn’t occur to him. There was a silence, during which he appeared to brood a bit. Then his eye fell on the book, and he gave a sort of start.
“Why, bless my soul, Mr. Wooster, you have been quoting!”
“More or less.”
“I thought your words sounded familiar.” His whole appearance changed, and he gave a sort of gurgling chuckle. “Dear me, dear me, you know my weak spot!” He picked up the book, and buried himself in it for quite a while. I began to think he had forgotten I was there. After a bit, however, he put it down again, and wiped his eyes. “Ah, well!” he said.
I shuffled my feet and hoped for the best.
“Ah, well!” he said again. “I must not be like Lord Windermere, must I, Mr. Wooster? Tell me, did you draw that haughty old man from a living model?”
“Oh, no. Just thought of him and bunged him down, you know.”
“Genius!” murmured old Bittlesham. “Genius! Well, Mr. Wooster, you have won me over. Who, as you say, am I to pit myself against the decrees of Fate? I will write to Richard to-night and inform him of my consent to his marriage.”
“You can slip him the glad news in person,” I said. “He’s waiting downstairs, with wife complete. I’ll pop down and send them up. Cheerio, and thanks very much. Bingo will be most awfully bucked.”
I shot out and went downstairs. Bingo and Mrs. were sitting on a couple of chairs like patients in a dentist’s waiting-room.
“Well?” said Bingo, eagerly.
“All over except the hand-clasping,” I replied, slapping the old crumpet on the back. “Charge up and get matey. Toodle-oo, old things. You know where to find me, if wanted. A thousand congratulations, and all that sort of rot.”
And I pipped, not wishing to be fawned upon.
YOU never can tell in this world. If ever I felt that something attempted, something done, had earned a night’s repose, it was when I got back to the flat and shoved my feet up on the mantelpiece and started to absorb the cup of tea which Jeeves had brought in. Used as I am to seeing Life’s sitters blow up in the home-stretch and finish nowhere, I couldn’t see any cause for alarm in this affair of young Bingo’s. All he had to do when I left him in Pounceby Gardens was to walk upstairs with the little missus and collect the blessing. I was so convinced of this that when, about half an hour later, he came galloping into my sitting-room, all I thought was that he wanted to thank me in broken accents and tell me what a good chap I had been. I merely beamed benevolently on the old creature as he entered, and was just going to offer him a cigarette when I observed that he seemed to have something on his mind. In fact, he looked as if something solid had hit him in the solar plexus.
“My dear old soul,” I said, “what’s up?”
Bingo plunged about the room.
“I will be calm!” he said, knocking over an occasional table. “Calm, dammit!” He upset a chair.
“Surely nothing has gone wrong?”
Bingo uttered one of those hollow, mirthless yelps.
“Only every bally thing that could go wrong. What do you think happened after you left us? You know that beastly book you insisted on sending my uncle?”
It wasn’t the way I should have put it myself, but I saw the poor old bean was upset for some reason or other, so I didn’t correct him.
“ ‘The Woman Who Braved All’?” I said. “It came in dashed useful. It was by quoting bits out of it that I managed to talk him round.”
“Well, it didn’t come in useful when we got into the room. It was lying on the table, and, after we had started to chat a bit, and everything was going along nicely, the little woman spotted it. ‘Oh, have you read this, Lord Bittlesham?’ she said. ‘Three times already,’ said my uncle. ‘I’m so glad,’ said the little woman. ‘Why, are you also an admirer of Rosie M. Banks?’ asked the old boy, beaming. ‘I am Rosie M. Banks!’ said the little woman.”
“Oh, my aunt! Not really?”
“Yes.”
“But how could she be? I mean, dash it, she was slinging the foodstuffs at the Senior Liberal Club.”
Bingo gave the settee a moody kick.
“She took the job to collect material for a book she’s writing called ‘Mervyn Keene, Clubman.’ ”
“She might have told you.”
“It made such a hit with her when she found that I loved her for herself alone, despite her humble station, that she kept it under her hat. She meant to spring it on me later on, she said.”
“Well, what happened then?”
“There was the dickens of a painful scene. The old boy nearly got apoplexy. Called her an impostor. They both started talking at once at the top of their voices, and the thing ended with the little woman buzzing off to her publishers to collect proofs as a preliminary to getting a written apology from the old boy. What’s going to happen now, I don’t know. Apart from the fact that my uncle will be as mad as a wet hen when he finds out that he has been fooled, there’s going to be a lot of trouble when the little woman discovers that we worked the Rosie M. Banks wheeze with a view to trying to get me married to somebody else. You see, one of the things that first attracted her to me was the fact that I had never been in love before.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Yes.”
“Great Scott!”
“Well, I hadn’t been—not really in love. There’s all the difference in the world between—— Well, never mind that. What am I going to do? That’s the point.”
“I don’t know.”
“Thanks,”