Bertie Changes His Mind

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      It has happened so frequently in the past few years that young fellows starting in my profession have come to me for a word of advice, that I’ve found it convenient now to condense my system into a brief formula. Resource and Tact—that is my motto. Tact, of course, has always been with me a sine qua non; while as for resource, I think I may say that I have usually contrived to show a certain modicum of what I might call finesse in handling those little contretemps which inevitably arise from time to time in the daily life of a gentleman’s personal gentleman. I am reminded, just by way of an instance, of the episode of the School for Young Ladies down Brighton way. Now there was a case. The very moment I observed the small child waving to us in the road, I said to myself . . . But perhaps it will be more satisfactory to relate the affair from the beginning. And I think it may be said to have commenced one evening at the moment when I brought the guv’nor his whisky and syphon and he burst out at me with such remarkable petulance.

      Kind of moody the guv’nor had been for some days. Not at all his usual bright self. I had put it down to reaction from a slight attack of influenza which he’d been having; and of course I took no notice, just performing my duties as usual, until this evening which I’m talking about, when I brought him his whisky and syphon as was customary and he burst out at me.

      “Oh, dash it, Jeeves!” he said, sort of overwrought. “I wish at least you’d put it on another table for a change.”

      “Sir?” I said.

      “Every night, hang it all!” proceeded the guv’nor, “you come in at exactly the same old time with the same old tray and put it on the same dashed old table. I’m fed up, I tell you. It’s the bally monotony of it that makes it all seem so frightfully bally.”

      I confess that his words filled me with a certain apprehension. I had heard gentlemen in whose employment I’ve been talk in very much the same way before, and it had almost invariably meant that they were contemplating matrimony. It disturbed me, therefore, I’m free to admit, when Mr. Wooster spoke in this fashion. I had no desire to sever a connection so pleasant in every respect as his and mine had been, and my experience is that when a wife comes in at the front door the valet of bachelor days goes out at the back.

      “It’s not your fault, of course,” went on the guv’nor, calming down a trifle. “I’m not blaming you. But by Jove, I mean, you must acknowledge, I mean to say . . . I’ve been thinking pretty deeply these last few days, Jeeves, and I’ve come to the conclusion mine is an empty life. I’m lonely, Jeeves.”

      “You have a great many friends, sir,” I pointed out.

      “What’s the good of friends?”

      “Emerson says a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature, sir.”

      “Well, you can tell Emerson from me next time you see him that he’s an ass.”

      “Very good, sir.”

      “What I want—Jeeves, have you seen that play called I-forget-its-dashed-name?”

      “No, sir.”

      “It’s on at the what-d’you-call-it. I went last night. The hero’s a chap who’s buzzing along, you know, quite merry and bright, and suddenly a kid turns up and says she’s his daughter. Left over from act one, you know—absolutely the first he’d heard of it. Well of course there’s a bit of a fuss and they say to him ‘What ho?’ and he says ‘Well, what about it?’ and they say ‘Well, what about it?’ and he says ‘Oh, all right, then, if that’s the way you feel!’ and he takes the kid and goes off with her, out into the world together, you know. Well, what I’m driving at, Jeeves, is that I envied that chappie. Most awfully jolly little girl, you know, clinging to him trustingly and what not. Something to look after, if you know what I mean. Jeeves, I wish I had a daughter. I wonder what the procedure is?”

      “Marriage is, I believe, considered the preliminary step, sir.”

      “No, I mean about adopting a kid. You can adopt kids, you know, Jeeves. I’ve seen it in the papers, often. ‘So-and-so, adopted daughter of Tiddleypush.’ It can be done all right. But what I want to know is how you start about it.”

      “The process, I should imagine, would be highly complicated and laborious, sir. It would cut into your spare time.”

      This seemed to check him for a while. Then he brightened up.

      “Well, I’ll tell you what I could do, then. My sister will be back from India next week with her three little girls. I’ll give up this flat and take a house and have them all to live with me. By Jove, Jeeves, I think that’s rather a scheme, what? Prattle of childish voices, eh? Little feet pattering hither and thither, yes?”

      I concealed my perturbation. The scheme the guv’nor was toying with meant the finish of our cozy bachelor establishment if it came off; and no doubt some men in my place would at this juncture have voiced their disapproval and probably got the sack for it, the guv’nor being in what you might call an edgey mood. I avoided this tracasserie.

      “If you will pardon my saying so, sir,” I suggested tactfully, “I think you are not quite yourself after your influenza. If I might express the opinion, what you require is a few days by the sea. Brighton is very handy, sir.”

      “Are you suggesting that I’m talking through my hat?”

      “By no means, sir. I merely advocate a short stay at Brighton as