'You have not forgotten that man of wrath, Jeeves? A hard case, eh?'
'Possibly Sir Watkyn is less formidable in private life, sir.'
'I doubt it. Slice him where you like, a hellhound is always a hellhound. But enough of this Bassett. Any letters today?'
'No, sir.'
'Telephone communications?'
'One, sir. From Mrs Travers.'
'Aunt Dahlia? She's back in town, then?'
'Yes, sir. She expressed a desire that you would ring her up at your earliest convenience.'
'I will do even better,' I said cordially. 'I will call in person.'
And half an hour later I was toddling up the steps of her residence and being admitted by old Seppings, her butler. Little knowing, as I crossed that threshold, that in about two shakes of a duck's tail I was to become involved in an imbroglio that would test the Wooster soul as it had seldom been tested before. I allude to the sinister affair of Gussie Fink-Nottle, Madeline Bassett, old Pop Bassett, Stiffy Byng, the Rev. H. P. ('Stinker') Pinker, the eighteenth-century cow-creamer and the small, brown, leather-covered notebook.
No premonition of an impending doom, however, cast a cloud on my serenity as I buzzed in. I was looking forward with bright anticipation to the coming reunion with this Dahlia – she, as I may have mentioned before, being my good and deserving aunt, not to be confused with Aunt Agatha, who eats broken bottles and wears barbed wire next to the skin. Apart from the mere intellectual pleasure of chewing the fat with her, there was the glittering prospect that I might be able to cadge an invitation to lunch. And owing to the outstanding virtuosity of Anatole, her French cook, the browsing at her trough is always of a nature to lure the gourmet.
The door of the morning room was open as I went through the hall, and I caught a glimpse of Uncle Tom messing about with his collection of old silver. For a moment I toyed with the idea of pausing to pip-pip and enquire after his indigestion, a malady to which he is extremely subject, but wiser counsels prevailed. This uncle is a bird who, sighting a nephew, is apt to buttonhole him and become a bit informative on the subject of sconces and foliation, not to mention scrolls, ribbon wreaths in high relief and gadroon borders, and it seemed to me that silence was best. I whizzed by, accordingly, with sealed lips, and headed for the library, where I had been informed that Aunt Dahlia was at the moment roosting.
I found the old flesh-and-blood up to her Marcel-wave in proof sheets. As all the world knows, she is the courteous and popular proprietress of a weekly sheet for the delicately nurtured entitled Milady's Boudoir. I once contributed an article to it on 'What The Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing'.
My entry caused her to come to the surface, and she greeted me with one of those cheery view-halloos which, in the days when she went in for hunting, used to make her so noticeable a figure of the Quorn, the Pytchley and other organizations for doing the British fox a bit of no good.
'Hullo, ugly,' she said. 'What brings you here?'
'I understood, aged relative, that you wished to confer with me.'
'I didn't want you to come barging in, interrupting my work. A few words on the telephone would have met the case. But I suppose some instinct told you that this was my busy day.'
'If you were wondering if I could come to lunch, have no anxiety. I shall be delighted, as always. What will Anatole be giving us?'
'He won't be giving you anything, my gay young tapeworm. I am entertaining Pomona Grindle, the novelist, to the midday meal.'
'I should be charmed to meet her.'
'Well, you're not going to. It is to be a strictly tête-à-tête affair. I'm trying to get a serial out of her for the Boudoir. No, all I wanted was to tell you to go to an antique shop in the Brompton Road – it's just past the Oratory – you can't miss it – and sneer at a cow-creamer.'
I did not get her drift. The impression I received was that of an aunt talking through the back of her neck.
'Do what to a what?'
'They've got an eighteenth-century cow-creamer there that Tom's going to buy this afternoon.'
The scales fell from my eyes.
'Oh, it's a silver whatnot, is it?'
'Yes. A sort of cream jug. Go there and ask them to show it to you, and when they do, register scorn.'
'The idea being what?'
'To sap their confidence, of course, chump. To sow doubts and misgivings in their mind and make them clip the price a bit. The cheaper he gets the thing, the better he will be pleased. And I want him to be in cheery mood, because if I succeed in signing the Grindle up for this serial, I shall be compelled to get into his ribs for a biggish sum of money. It's sinful what these best-selling women novelists want for their stuff. So pop off there without delay and shake your head at the thing.'
I am always anxious to oblige the right sort of aunt, but I was compelled to put in what Jeeves would have called a nolle prosequi. Those morning mixtures of his are practically magical in their effect, but even after partaking of them one does not oscillate the bean.
'I can't shake my head. Not today.'
She gazed at me with a censorious waggle of the right eyebrow.
'Oh, so that's how it is? Well, if your loathsome excesses have left you incapable of headshaking, you can at least curl your lip.'
'Oh, rather.'
'Then carry on. And draw your breath in sharply. Also try clicking the tongue. Oh, yes, and tell them you think it's Modern Dutch.'
'Why?'
'I don't know. Apparently it's something a cow-creamer ought not to be.'
She paused, and allowed her eye to roam thoughtfully over my perhaps somewhat corpse-like face.
'So you were out on the tiles last night, were you, my little chickadee? It's an extraordinary thing – every time I see you, you appear to be recovering from some debauch. Don't you ever stop drinking? How about when you are asleep?'
I rebutted the slur.
'You wrong me, relative. Except at times of special revelry, I am exceedingly moderate in my potations. A brace of cocktails, a glass of wine at dinner and possibly a liqueur with the coffee – that is Bertram Wooster. But last night I gave a small bachelor binge for Gussie Fink-Nottle.'
'You did, did you?' She laughed – a bit louder than I could have wished in my frail state of health, but then she is always a woman who tends to bring plaster falling from the ceiling when amused. 'Spink-Bottle, eh? Bless his heart! How was the old newt-fancier?'
'Pretty roguish.'
'Did he make a speech at this orgy of yours?'
'Yes. I was astounded. I was all prepared for a blushing refusal. But no. We drank his health, and he rose to his feet as cool as some cucumbers, as Anatole would say, and held us spellbound.'
'Tight as an owl, I suppose?'
'On the contrary. Offensively sober.'
'Well, that's a nice change.'
We fell into a thoughtful silence. We were musing on the summer afternoon down at her place in Worcestershire when Gussie, circumstances having so ordered themselves as to render him full to the back teeth with the right stuff, had addressed the young scholars of Market Snodsbury Grammar School on the occasion of their annual prize giving.
A thing I never know, when I'm starting out to tell a story about a chap I've told a story about before, is how much explanation to bung in at the outset. It's a problem you've got to look at from every angle. I mean to say, in the present case, if I take it for granted that my public knows all about Gussie Fink-Nottle and just breeze ahead, those publicans who weren't hanging on my lips the first time are apt to be fogged. Whereas if before kicking off I give about eight volumes of the man's life and history, other bimbos who were so hanging will stifle yawns and murmur 'Old stuff. Get on with it.'
I suppose the only thing to do is to put the salient facts as briefly as possible in the possession of the first gang, waving an apologetic hand at the second gang the while, to indicate that they had better let their attention wander for a minute or two and that I will be with them shortly.
This Gussie, then, was a fish-faced pal of mine who, on reaching man's estate, had buried himself in the country and devoted himself entirely to the study of newts, keeping the little chaps in a glass tank and observing their habits with a sedulous eye. A confirmed recluse you would have called him, if you had happened to know the word, and you would have been right. By all the rulings of the form book, a less promising prospect for the whispering of tender words into shell-like ears and the subsequent purchase of platinum ring and licence for wedding it would have seemed impossible to discover in a month of Sundays.
But Love will find a way. Meeting Madeline Bassett one day and falling for her like a ton of bricks, he had emerged from his retirement and started to woo, and after numerous vicissitudes had clicked and was slated at no distant date to don the spongebag trousers and gardenia for buttonhole and walk up the aisle with the ghastly girl.
I call her a ghastly girl because she was a ghastly girl. The Woosters are chivalrous, but they can speak their minds. A droopy, soupy, sentimental exhibit, with melting eyes and a cooing voice and the most extraordinary views on such things as stars and rabbits. I remember her telling me once that rabbits were gnomes in attendance on the Fairy Queen and that the stars were God's daisy chain. Perfect rot, of course. They're nothing of the sort.
Aunt Dahlia emitted a low, rumbling chuckle, for that speech of Gussie's down at Market Snodsbury has always been one of her happiest memories.
'Good old Spink-Bottle! Where is he now?'
'Staying at the Bassett's father's place – Totleigh Towers, Totleigh-in-the-Wold, Glos. He went back there this morning. They're having the wedding at the local church.'
'Are you going to it?'
'Definitely no.'
'No, I suppose it would be too painful for you. You being in love with the girl.'
I stared.
'In love? With a female who thinks that every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born?'
'Well, you were certainly engaged to her once.'
'For about five minutes, yes, and through no fault of my own. My dear old relative,' I said, nettled, 'you are perfectly well aware of the inside facts of that frightful affair.'
I winced. It was an incident in my career on which I did not care to dwell. Briefly, what had occurred was this. His nerve sapped by long association with newts, Gussie had shrunk from pleading his cause with Madeline Bassett, and had asked me to plead it for him. And when I did so, the fat-headed girl thought I was pleading mine. With the result that when, after that exhibition of his at the prize giving, she handed Gussie the temporary mitten, she had attached herself to me, and I had had no option but to take the rap. I mean to say, if a girl has got it into her nut that a fellow loves her, and comes and tells him that she is returning hex fiancé to store and is now prepared to sign up with him, what can a chap do?
Mercifully, things had been straightened out at the eleventh hour by a reconciliation between the two pills, but the thought of my peril was one at which I still shuddered. I wasn't going to feel really easy in my mind till the parson had said: 'Wilt thou, Augustus?' and Gussie had whispered a shy 'Yes.'
'Well, if it is of any interest to you,' said Aunt Dahlia, 'I am not proposing to attend that wedding myself. I disapprove of Sir Watkyn Bassett, and don't think he ought to be encouraged. There's one of the boys, if you want one!'
'You know the old crumb, then?' I said, rather surprised, though of course it bore out what I often say – viz. that it's a small world.
'Yes, I know him. He's a friend of Tom's. They both collect old silver and snarl at one another like wolves about it all the time. We had him staying at Brinkley last month. And would you care to hear how he repaid me for all the loving care I lavished on him while he was my guest? Sneaked round behind my back and tried to steal Anatole!'
'No!'
'That's what he did. Fortunately, Anatole proved staunch – after I had doubled his wages.'
'Double them again,' I said earnestly. 'Keep on doubling them. Pour out money like water rather than lose that superb master of the roasts and hashes.'
I was visibly affected. The thought of Anatole, that peerless disher-up, coming within an ace of ceasing to operate at Brinkley Court, where I could always enjoy his output by inviting myself for a visit, and going off to serve under old Bassett, the last person in the world likely to set out a knife and fork for Bertram, had stirred me profoundly.
'Yes,' said Aunt Dahlia, her eye smouldering as she brooded on the frightful thing, 'that's the sort of hornswoggling highbinder Sir Watkyn Bassett is. You had better warn Spink-Bottle to watch out on the wedding day. The slightest relaxation of vigilance, and the old thug will probably get away with his tiepin in the vestry. And now,' she said, reaching out for what had the appearance of being a thoughtful essay on the care of the baby in sickness and in health, 'push off. I've got about six tons of proofs to correct. Oh, and give this to Jeeves, when you see him. It's the "Husbands' Corner" article. It's full of deep stuff about braid on the side of men's dress trousers, and I'd like him to vet it. For all I know, it may be Red propaganda. And I can rely on you not to bungle that job? Tell me in your own words what it is you're supposed to do.'
'Go to antique shop –'
'– in the Brompton Road –'
'– in, as you say, the Brompton Road. Ask to see cow-creamer–'
'– and sneer. Right. Buzz along. The door is behind you.'
It was with a light heart that I went out into the street and hailed a passing barouche. Many men, no doubt, might have been a bit sick at having their morning cut into in this fashion, but I was conscious only of pleasure at the thought that I had it in my power to perform this little act of kindness. Scratch Bertram Wooster, I often say, and you find a Boy Scout.
The antique shop in the Brompton Road proved, as foreshadowed, to be an antique shop in the Brompton Road and, like all antique shops except the swanky ones in the Bond Street neighbourhood, dingy outside and dark and smelly within. I don't know why it is, but the proprietors of these establishments always seem to be cooking some sort of stew in the back room.
'I say,' I began, entering; then paused as I perceived that the bloke in charge was attending to two other customers.
'Oh, sorry,' I was about to add, to convey the idea that I had horned in inadvertently, when the words froze on my lips.
Quite a slab of misty fruitfulness had drifted into the emporium, obscuring the view, but in spite of the poor light I was able to note that the smaller and elder of these two customers was no stranger to me.
It was old Pop Bassett in person. Himself. Not a picture.
Also available in Arrow
The Code of the Woosters
P.G. Wodehouse
A Jeeves and Wooster novel
When Bertie Wooster goes to Totleigh Towers to pour oil on
the troubled waters of a lovers breach between Madeline Bassett
and Gussie Fink-Nottle, he isn't expecting to see Aunt Dahlia
there – nor to be instructed by her to steal some silver. But
purloining the antique cow creamer from under the baleful nose
of Sir Watkyn Bassett is the least of Bertie's tasks. He has to
restore true love to both Madeline and Gussie and to the Revd
Stinker Pinker and Stiffy Byng – and confound the insane
ambitions of would-be Dictator Roderick Spode and his Black
Shorts. It's a situation that only Jeeves can unravel ...
Also available in Arrow
The Heart of a Goof
P.G. Wodehouse
A Golf collection
From his favourite chair on the terrace above the ninth hole,
The Oldest Member tells a series of hilarious golfing stories.
From Evangeline, Bradbury Fisher's fifth wife and a notorious
'golfing giggler', to poor Rollo Podmarsh whose game was so
unquestionably inept that 'he began to lose his appetit
e and
would moan feebly at the sight of a poached egg', the game of
golf, its players and their friends and enemies are here shown in
all their comic glory.
Also available in Arrow
Full Moon
P.G. Wodehouse
A Blandings novel
When the moon is full at Blandings, strange things happen:
among them the painting of a portrait of The Empress, twice in
succession winner in the Fat Pigs Class at the Shropshire
Agricultural Show. What better choice of artist, in Lord
Emsworth's opinion, than Landseer. The renowned painter of
The Stag at Bay may have been dead for decades, but that doesn't
prevent Galahad Threepwood from introducing him to the castle
– or rather introducing Bill Lister, Gally's godson, so desperately
in love with Prudence that he's determined to enter Blandings in
yet another imposture. Add a gaggle of fearsome aunts, uncles
and millionaires, mix in Freddie Threepwood, Beach the Butler
and the gardener McAllister, and the moon is full indeed.
The P G Wodehouse Society (UK)
The P G Wodehouse Society (UK) was formed in 1997 to
promote the enjoyment of the writings of the twentieth
century's greatest humorist. The Society publishes a quarterly
magazine, Wooster Sauce, which includes articles, features,
reviews, and current Society news. Occasional special papers
are also published. Society events include regular meetings in
central London, cricket matches and a formal biennial dinner,
along with other activities. The Society actively supports the