The Jeeves Omnibus (58 page)

‘Hallo, Bertie,’ said Bingo.

‘My God, man!’ I gargled. ‘The cravat! The gent’s neckwear! Why? For what reason?’

‘Oh, the tie?’ He blushed. ‘I – er – I was given it.’

He seemed embarrassed, so I dropped the subject. We toddled along a bit, and sat down on a couple of chairs by the Serpentine.

‘Jeeves tells me you want to talk to me about something,’ I said.

‘Eh?’ said Bingo, with a start. ‘Oh yes, yes. Yes.’

I waited for him to unleash the topic of the day, but he didn’t seem to want to get along. Conversation languished. He stared straight ahead of him in a glassy sort of manner.

‘I say, Bertie,’ he said, after a pause of about an hour and a quarter.

‘Hallo!’

‘Do you like the name Mabel?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t think there’s a kind of music in the word, like the wind rustling gently through the tree-tops?’

‘No.’

He seemed disappointed for a moment; then cheered up.

‘Of course, you wouldn’t. You always were a fatheaded worm without any soul, weren’t you?’

‘Just as you say. Who is she? Tell me all.’

For I realized now that poor old Bingo was going through it once again. Ever since I have known him – and we were at school together – he has been perpetually falling in love with someone, generally in the spring, which seems to act on him like magic. At school he had the finest collection of actresses’ photographs of anyone of his time; and at Oxford his romantic nature was a byword.

‘You’d better come along and meet her at lunch,’ he said, looking at his watch.

‘A ripe suggestion,’ I said. ‘Where are you meeting her? At the Ritz?’

‘Near the Ritz.’

He was geographically accurate. About fifty yards east of the Ritz there is one of those blighted tea-and-bun shops you see dotted about all over London, and into this, if you’ll believe me, young Bingo dived like a homing rabbit; and before I had time to say a word we were wedged in at a table, on the brink of a silent pool of coffee left there by an early luncher.

I’m bound to say I couldn’t quite follow the development of the scenario. Bingo, while not absolutely rolling in the stuff, has always had a fair amount of the ready. Apart from what he got from his uncle, I knew that he had finished up the jumping season well on the right side of the ledger. Why, then, was he lunching the girl at this God-forsaken eatery? It couldn’t be because he was hard up.

Just then the waitress arrived. Rather a pretty girl.

‘Aren’t we going to wait –?’ I started to say to Bingo, thinking it somewhat thick that, in addition to asking a girl to lunch with him in a place like this, he should fling himself on the foodstuffs before she turned up, when I caught sight of his face, and stopped.

The man was goggling. His entire map was suffused with a rich blush. He looked like the Soul’s Awakening done in pink.

‘Hullo, Mabel!’ he said, with a sort of gulp.

‘Hallo!’ said the girl.

‘Mabel,’ said Bingo, ‘this is Bertie Wooster, a pal of mine.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said. ‘Nice morning.’

‘Fine,’ I said.

‘You see I’m wearing the tie,’ said Bingo.

‘It suits you beautiful,’ said the girl.

Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie like that suited me, I should have risen and struck them on the mazzard, regardless of their age and sex; but poor old Bingo simply got all flustered with gratification, and smirked in the most gruesome manner.

‘Well, what’s it going to be today?’ asked the girl, introducing the business touch into the conversation.

Bingo studied the menu devoutly.

‘I’ll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruit cake, and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie?’

I gazed at the man, revolted. That he could have been a pal of mine all these years and think me capable of insulting the old tum with this sort of stuff cut me to the quick.

‘Or how about a bit of hot steak-pudding, with a sparkling limado to wash it down?’ said Bingo.

You know, the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate. This chappie before me, who spoke in that absolutely careless way of macaroons and limado, was the man I had seen in happier days telling the head-waiter at Claridge’s exactly how he wanted the chef to prepare the
sole frite augourmet aux champignons
, and saying he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn’t just right. Ghastly! Ghastly!

A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn’t been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose them, and Mabel hopped it.

‘Well?’ said Bingo rapturously.

I took it that he wanted my opinion of the female poisoner who had just left us.

‘Very nice,’ I said.

He seemed dissatisfied.

‘You don’t think she’s the most wonderful girl you ever saw?’ he said wistfully.

‘Oh, absolutely!’ I said, to appease the blighter. ‘Where did you meet her?’

‘At a subscription dance at Camberwell.’

‘What on earth were you doing at a subscription dance at Camberwell?’

‘Your man Jeeves asked me if I would buy a couple of tickets. It was in aid of some charity or other.’

‘Jeeves? I didn’t know he went in for that sort of thing.’

‘Well, I suppose he has to relax a bit every now and then. Anyway, he was there, swinging a dashed efficient shoe. I hadn’t meant to go at first, but I turned up for a lark. Oh, Bertie, think what I might have missed!’

‘What might you have missed?’ I asked, the old lemon being slightly clouded.

‘Mabel, you chump. If I hadn’t gone I shouldn’t have met Mabel.’

‘Oh, ah!’

At this point Bingo fell into a species of trance, and only came out of it to wrap himself round the pie and the macaroon.

‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘I want your advice.’

‘Carry on.’

‘At least, not your advice, because that wouldn’t be much good to anybody. I mean, you’re a pretty consummate old ass, aren’t you? Not that I want to hurt your feelings, of course.’

‘No, no, I see that.’

‘What I wish you would do is to put the whole thing to that fellow Jeeves of yours, and see what he suggests. You’ve often told me that he has helped other pals of yours out of messes. From what you tell me, he’s by way of being the brains of the family.’

‘He’s never let me down yet.’

‘Then put my case to him.’

‘What case?’

‘My problem.’

‘What problem?’

‘Why, you poor fish, my uncle, of course. What do you think my uncle’s going to say to all this? If I sprang it on him cold, he’d tie himself in knots on the hearthrug.’

‘One of these emotional johnnies, eh?’

‘Somehow or other his mind has got to be prepared to receive the news. But how?’

‘Ah!’

‘That’s a lot of help, that “ah”! You see, I’m pretty well dependent on the old boy. If he cut off my allowance, I should be very much in the soup. So you put the whole binge to Jeeves and see if he can’t scare up a happy ending somehow. Tell him my future is in his hands, and that, if the wedding bells ring out, he can rely on me, even unto half my kingdom. Well, call it ten quid. Jeeves would exert himself with ten quid on the horizon, what?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ I said.

I wasn’t in the least surprised at Bingo wanting to lug Jeeves into his private affairs like this. It was the first thing I would have thought of doing myself if I had been in any hole of any description. As I have frequently had occasion to observe, he is a bird of the ripest intellect, full of bright ideas. If anybody could fix things for poor old Bingo, he could.

I stated the case to him that night after dinner.

‘Jeeves.’

‘Sir?’

‘Are you busy just now?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I mean, not doing anything in particular?’

‘No, sir. It is my practice at this hour to read some improving book; but, if you desire my services, this can easily be postponed, or indeed, abandoned altogether.’

‘Well, I want your advice. It’s about Mr Little.’

‘Young Mr Little, sir, or the elder Mr Little, his uncle, who lives in Pounceby Gardens?’

Jeeves seemed to know everything. Most amazing thing. I’d been pally with Bingo practically all my life, and yet I didn’t remember having heard that his uncle lived anywhere in particular.

‘How did you know he lived in Pounceby Gardens?’ I said.

‘I am on terms of some intimacy with the elder Mr Little’s cook, sir. In fact, there is an understanding.’

I’m bound to say that this gave me a bit of a start. Somehow I’d never thought of Jeeves going in for that sort of thing.

‘Do you mean you’re engaged?’

‘It may be said to amount to that, sir.’

‘Well, well!’

‘She is a remarkably excellent cook, sir,’ said Jeeves, as though he felt called on to give some explanation. ‘What was it you wished to ask me about Mr Little?’

I sprang the details on him.

‘And that’s how the matter stands, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘I think we ought to rally round a trifle and help poor old Bingo put the thing through. Tell me about old Mr Little. What sort of a chap is he?’

‘A somewhat curious character, sir. Since retiring from business he has become a great recluse, and now devotes himself almost entirely to the pleasures of the table.’

‘Greedy hog, you mean?’

‘I would not, perhaps, take the liberty of describing him in precisely those terms, sir. He is what is usually called a gourmet. Very particular about what he eats, and for that reason sets a high value on Miss Watson’s services.

‘The cook?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, it looks to me as though our best plan would be to shoot young Bingo in on him after dinner one night. Melting mood, I mean to say, and all that.’

‘The difficulty is, sir, that at the moment Mr Little is on a diet, owing to an attack of gout.’

‘Things begin to look wobbly.’

‘No, sir, I fancy that the elder Mr Little’s misfortune may be turned to the younger Mr Little’s advantage. I was speaking only the other day to Mr Little’s valet, and he was telling me that it has become his principle duty to read to Mr Little in the evenings. If I
were
in your place, sir, I should send young Mr Little to read to his uncle.’

‘Nephew’s devotion, you mean? Old man touched by kindly action, what?’

‘Partly that, sir. But I would rely more on young Mr Little’s choice of literature.’

‘That’s no good. Jolly old Bingo has a kind face, but when it comes to literature he stops at the
Sporting Times
.’

‘That difficulty may be overcome. I would be happy to select books for Mr Little to read. Perhaps I might explain my idea a little further.’

‘I can’t say I quite grasp it yet.’

‘The method which I advocate is what, I believe, the advertisers call Direct Suggestion, sir, consisting as it does of driving an idea home by constant repetition. You may have had experience of the system?’

‘You mean they keep on telling you that some soap or other is the best, and after a bit you come under the influence and charge round the corner and buy a cake?’

‘Exactly, sir. The same method was the basis of all the most valuable propaganda during the recent war. I see no reason why it should not be adopted to bring about the desired result with regard to the subject’s views on class distinctions. If young Mr Little were to read day after day to his uncle a series of narratives in which marriage with young persons of an inferior social status was held up as both feasible and admirable, I fancy it would prepare the elder Mr Little’s mind for the reception of the information that his nephew wishes to marry a waitress in a tea-shop.’

‘
Are
there any books of that sort nowadays? The only ones I ever see mentioned in the papers are about married couples who find life grey, and can’t stick each other at any price.’

‘Yes, sir, there are a great many, neglected by the reviewers but widely read. You have never encountered
All for Love
, by Rosie M. Banks?’

‘No.’

‘Nor,
A Red, Red Summer
, by the same author?’

‘No.’

‘I have an aunt, sir, who owns an almost complete set of Rosie M. Banks’. I could easily borrow as many volumes as young Mr Little might require. They make very light, attractive reading.’

‘Well, it’s worth trying.’

‘I should certainly recommend the scheme, sir.’

‘All right, then. Toddle round to your aunt’s tomorrow and grab a couple of the fruitiest. We can but have a dash at it.’

‘Precisely, sir.’

BINGO REPORTED THREE
days later that Rosie M. Banks was the goods and beyond a question the stuff to give the troops. Old Little had jibbed somewhat at first at the proposed change of literary diet, he not being much of a lad for fiction and having stuck hitherto exclusively to the heavier monthly reviews; but Bingo had got chapter one of
All for Love
past his guard before he knew what was happening and after that there was nothing to it. Since then they had finished
A Red, Red Summer Rose, Madcap Myrtle
and
Only a Factory Girl
, and were half-way through
The Courtship of Lord Strathmorlick
.

Bingo told me all this in a husky voice over an egg beaten up in sherry. The only blot on the thing from his point of view was that it wasn’t doing a bit of good to the old vocal cords, which were beginning to show signs of cracking under the strain. He had been looking his symptoms up in a medical dictionary, and he thought he had got ‘clergyman’s throat’. But against this you had to set the fact that he was making an undoubted hit in the right quarter, and also that after the evening’s reading he always stayed on to dinner; and, from what he told me, the dinners turned out by old Little’s cook had to be tasted to be believed. There were tears in the old blighter’s eyes as he got on the subject of the clear soup. I suppose to a fellow who for weeks had been tackling macaroons and limado it must have been like Heaven.