The Greatest Works of P. G. Wodehouse. P. G. Wodehouse
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tomorrow.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And when we get back I’ll be in the pink and ready to tackle this pattering feet wheeze.”
“Exactly, sir.”
Well, it was a respite and I welcomed it. But I began to see that a crisis had arisen which would require adroit handling. Rarely had I observed the guv’nor more set on a thing. Indeed, I could recall no such exhibition of determination on his part since the time when he had insisted, against my obvious disapproval, on wearing purple socks. However, I had coped successfully with that outbreak and I was by no means unsanguine that I should eventually be able to bring the present affair to a happy issue. Employers are like horses. They want managing. Some of us have the knack of managing them, some haven’t. I, I am happy to say, have no cause for complaint.
For myself, I found our stay at Brighton highly enjoyable and should have been willing to extend it; but the guv’nor, still restless, had had enough by the end of a couple of days, and on the third afternoon he instructed me to pack up and bring the car round to the hotel. We started back along the London road at about five of a fine summer’s day, and had traveled perhaps two miles when this incident of the waving young lady occurred, to which I have alluded above. I trod on the brake and brought the vehicle to a standstill.
“What,” inquired the guv’nor, waking from a reverie, “is the big thought at the back of this, Jeeves?”
“I observed a young lady endeavoring to attract our attention with signals a little way down the road, sir,” I explained. “She is now making her way toward us.”
The guv’nor peered.
“I see her. I expect she wants a lift, Jeeves.”
“That was the interpretation which I placed upon her actions, sir.”
“A jolly looking kid,” said the guv’nor. “I wonder what she’s doing, biffing about the high road.”
“She has the air to me, sir, of one who has been playing hookey from school, sir.”
“Hullo-ullo-ullo!” said the guv’nor as the child reached us. “Do you want a lift?”
“Oh, I say, can you?” said the child with marked pleasure.
“Where do you want to go?”
“There’s a turning to the left about a mile farther on. If you’ll put me down there, I’ll walk the rest of the way. I say, thanks awfully. I’ve got a nail in my shoe.”
She climbed in at the back. A red-haired young person with a snub nose and an extremely large grin. Her age, I should imagine, would be about twelve. She let down one of the spare seats and knelt on it to facilitate conversation.
“I’m going to get into a frightful row,” she began. “Miss Tomlinson will be perfectly furious.”
“No, really?” said the guv’nor.
“Per-fectly furious, my dear! It’s a half holiday, you know, and I sneaked away to Brighton because I wanted to go on the pier and put pennies in the slot machines. I thought I could get back in time so that nobody would notice I’d gone, but I got this nail in my shoe and now there’ll be a fearful row. Oh, well!” she said with a philosophy which, I confess, I admired, “it can’t be helped.”
The guv’nor was visibly perturbed. As I have indicated, he was at this time in a highly malleable frame of mind, tender hearted to a degree where the young of the female sex were concerned. Her sad case touched him deeply.
“Oh, I say, this is rather rotten!” he observed. “Isn’t there anything to be done? I say, Jeeves, don’t you think something could be done?”
“It was not my place to make the suggestion, sir,” I replied, “but, as you yourself have brought the matter up, I fancy the trouble is susceptible of adjustment. I think it would be a legitimate subterfuge were you to inform the young lady’s schoolmistress that you are an old friend of the young lady’s father. In this case you could inform Miss Tomlinson that you had been passing the school and had seen the young lady at the gate and taken her for a drive. Miss Tomlinson’s chagrin would no doubt in these circumstances be sensibly diminished if not altogether dispersed.”
“Well, you are a sportsman!” observed the young person with great enthusiasm. And she proceeded to kiss me—in connection with which I have only to say that I was sorry she had just been devouring some sticky species of sweetmeat.
“Jeeves, you’ve hit it!” said the guv’nor. “A sound, even fruity scheme. I say, I suppose I’d better know your name and all that if I’m a friend of your father’s.”
“My name’s Peggy Mainwaring, thanks awfully,” said the young person. “And my father’s Professor Mainwaring. He’s written a lot of books. You’ll be expected to know that.”
“Author of the well known series of philosophical treatises, sir,” I said. “They have a great vogue, though, if the young lady will pardon my saying so, many of the Professor’s opinions strike me personally as somewhat empirical. Shall I drive on to the school, sir?”
“Yes, carry on. I say, Jeeves, it’s a rummy thing. Do you know, I’ve never been inside a girls’ school in my life.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Ought to be a dashed interesting experience, Jeeves, what?”
“I fancy that you may find it so, sir,” I said.
We drove on a matter of half a mile down a lane and, directed by the young person, I turned in at the gates of a house of imposing dimensions, bringing the car to a halt at the front door. The guv’nor and the child went in, and presently a parlormaid came out.
“You’re to take the car round to the stables, please,” she said.
“Ah! Then everything is satisfactory, eh? Where has the guv’nor got to?”
“Miss Peggy has taken him off to meet her friends. And cook says she hopes you’ll step round to the kitchen later and have a cup of tea.”
“Inform her that I shall be delighted. Before I take the car to the stables would it be possible for me to have a word with Miss Tomlinson?”
A moment later I was following her into the drawing room.
Handsome but strong minded—that was how I summed up Miss Tomlinson at first glance. In some ways she recalled to my mind the guv’nor’s Aunt Agatha. She had the same penetrating gaze and that indefinable air of being reluctant to stand any nonsense.
“I fear I am possibly taking a liberty, madam,” I began, “but I am hoping that you will allow me to say a word with respect to my employer. I fancy I am correct in supposing that Mr. Wooster did not tell you a great deal about himself?”
“He told me nothing about himself except that he was a friend of Professor Mainwaring.”
“He did not inform you, then, that he was the Mr. Wooster?”
“The Mr. Wooster?”
“Bertram Wooster, madam.”
I will say for the guv’nor that, mentally negligible though he no doubt is, he has a name that suggests almost infinite possibilities. He sounds like Someone—especially if you’ve just been told he’s an intimate friend of Professor Mainwaring. You might not be able to say offhand whether he was Bertram Wooster the novelist or Bertram Wooster the founder of a new school of thought; but you would have an uneasy feeling that you were exposing your ignorance if you did not give the impression of familiarity with the name. Miss Tomlinson, as I had rather foreseen, nodded brightly.
“Oh, Bertram Wooster!” she said.
“He is an extremely retiring gentleman, madam, and would be the last to suggest it himself, but, knowing him as I do, I am sure that he would take it as a graceful compliment if you were