I was amazed.
‘Eighty-seven, Jeeves! At how much a head?’
‘I was obliged to agree to a reduction for quantity, sir. The terms finally arrived at were one hundred and fifty dollars for the party.’
I thought a bit.
‘Payable in advance?’
‘No, sir. I endeavoured to obtain payment in advance, but was not successful.’
‘Well, anyway, when we get it I’ll make it up to five hundred. Bicky’ll never know. Do you suppose Mr Bickersteth would suspect anything, Jeeves, if I made it up to five hundred?’
‘I fancy not, sir. Mr Bickersteth is an agreeable gentleman, but not bright.’
‘All right, then. After breakfast run down to the bank and get me some money.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You know, you’re a bit of a marvel, Jeeves.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Right ho!’
‘Very good, sir.’
When I took dear old Bicky aside in the course of the morning and told him what had happened he nearly broke down. He tottered into the sitting-room and buttonholed old Chiswick, who was reading the comic section of the morning paper with a kind of grim resolution.
‘Uncle,’ he said, ‘are you doing anything special to-morrow afternoon? I mean to say, I’ve asked a few of my pals in to meet you, don’t you know.’
The old boy cocked a speculative eye at him.
‘There will be no reporters among them?’
‘Reporters? Rather not. Why?’
‘I refuse to be badgered by reporters. There were a number of adhesive young men who endeavoured to elicit from me my views on America while the boat was approaching the dock. I will not be subjected to this persecution again.’
‘That’ll be absolutely all right, uncle. There won’t be a newspaper man in the place.’
‘In that case I shall be glad to make the acquaintance of your friends.’
‘You’ll shake hands with them, and so forth?’
‘I shall naturally order my behaviour according to the accepted rules of civilised intercourse.’
Bicky thanked him heartily and came off to lunch with me at the club, where he babbled freely of hens, incubators, and other rotten things.
After mature consideration we had decided to unleash the Birdsburg contingent on the old boy ten at a time. Jeeves brought his theatre pal round to see us, and we arranged the whole thing with him. A very decent chappie, but rather inclined to collar the conversation and turn it in the direction of his home-town’s new water-supply system. We settled that, as an hour was about all he would be likely to stand, each gang should consider itself entitled to seven minutes of the duke’s society by Jeeves’s stop-watch, and that when their time was up Jeeves should slide into the room and cough meaningly. Then we parted with what I believe are called mutual expressions of good-will, the Birdsburg chappie extending a cordial invitation to us all to pop out some day and take a look at the new water-supply system, for which we thanked him.
Next day the deputation rolled in. The first shift consisted of the cove we had met and nine others almost exactly like him in every respect. They all looked deuced keen and businesslike, as if from youth up they had been working in the office and catching the boss’s eye and what not. They shook hands with the old boy with a good deal of apparent satisfaction – all except one chappie, who seemed to be brooding about something – and then they stood off and became chatty.
‘What message have you for Birdsburg, duke?’ asked our pal.
The old boy seemed a bit rattled.
‘I have never been to Birdsburg.’
The chappie seemed pained.
‘You should pay it a visit,’ he said. ‘The most rapidly-growing city in the country. Boost for Birdsburg!’
‘Boost for Birdsburg!’ said the other chappies reverently.
The chappie who had been brooding suddenly gave tongue.
‘Say!’
He was a stout sort of well-fed cove with one of those determined chins and a cold eye.
The assemblage looked at him.
‘As a matter of business,’ said the chappie – ‘mind you, I’m not questioning anybody’s good faith, but, as a matter of strict business – I think this gentleman here ought to put himself on record before witnesses as stating that he really is a duke.’
‘What do you mean, sir?’ cried the old boy, getting purple.
‘No offence, simply business. I’m not saying anything, mind you, but there’s one thing that seems kind of funny to me. This gentleman here says his name’s Mr Bickersteth, as I understand it. Well, if you’re the Duke of Chiswick, why isn’t he Lord Percy Something? I’ve read English novels, and I know all about it.’
‘This is monstrous!’
‘Now don’t get hot under the collar. I’m only asking. I’ve a right to know. You’re going to take our money, so it’s only fair that we should see that we get our money’s worth.’
The water-supply cove chipped in:
‘You’re quite right, Simms. I overlooked that when making the agreement. You see, gentlemen, as business men we’ve a right to reasonable guarantees of good faith. We are paying Mr Bickersteth here a hundred and fifty dollars for this reception, and we naturally want to know—’
Old Chiswick gave Bicky a searching look; then he turned to the water-supply chappie. He was frightfully calm.
‘I can assure you that I know nothing of this,’ he said quite politely. ‘I should be grateful if you would explain.’
‘Well, we arranged with Mr Bickersteth that eighty-seven citizens of Birdsburg should have the privilege of meeting and shaking hands with you for a financial consideration mutually arranged, and what my friend Simms here means – and I’m with him – is that we have only Mr Bickersteth’s word for it – and he is a stranger to us – that you are the Duke of Chiswick at all.’
Old Chiswick gulped.
‘Allow me to assure you, sir,’ he said in a rummy kind of voice, ‘that I am the Duke of Chiswick.’
‘Then that’s all right,’ said the chappie heartily. ‘That was all we wanted to know. Let the thing go on.’
‘I am sorry to say,’ said old Chiswick, ‘that it cannot go on. I am feeling a little tired. I fear I must ask to be excused.’
‘But there are seventy-seven of the boys waiting round the corner at this moment, duke, to be introduced to you.’
‘I fear I must disappoint them.’
‘But in that case the deal would have to be off.’
‘That is a matter for you and my nephew to discuss.’
The chappie seemed troubled.
‘You really won’t meet the rest of them?’
‘No!’
‘Well, then, I guess we’ll be going.’
They went out, and there was a pretty solid silence. Then old Chiswick turned to Bicky:
‘Well?’
Bicky didn’t seem to have anything to say.
‘Was it true what that man said?’
‘Yes, uncle.’
‘What do you mean by playing this trick?’
Bicky seemed pretty well knocked out, so I put in a word:
‘I think you’d better explain the whole thing, Bicky, old top.’
Bicky’s adam’s-apple jumped about a bit; then he started.
‘You see, you had cut off my allowance, uncle, and I wanted a bit of money to start a chicken farm. I mean to say it’s an absolute cert if you once get a bit of capital. You buy a hen, and it lays an egg every day of the week, and you sell the eggs, say, seven for twenty-five cents. Keep of hen costs nothing. Profit practically—’
‘What is all this nonsense about hens? You led me to suppose you were a substantial business man.’
‘Old Bicky rather exaggerated, sir,’ I said, helping the chappie out. ‘The fact is, the poor old lad is absolutely dependent on that remittance of yours, and when you cut it off, don’t you know, he was pretty solidly in the soup, and had to think of
some way of closing in on a bit of the ready pretty quick. That’s why we thought of this hand-shaking scheme.’
Old Chiswick foamed at the mouth.
‘So you have lied to me! You have deliberately deceived me as to your financial status!’
‘Poor old Bicky didn’t want to go to that ranch,’ I explained. ‘He doesn’t like cows and horses, but he rather thinks he would be hot stuff among the hens. All he wants is a bit of capital. Don’t you think it would be rather a wheeze if you were to—’
‘After what has happened? After this – this deceit and foolery? Not a penny!’
‘But—’
‘Not a penny!’
There was a respectful cough in the background.
‘If I might make a suggestion, sir?’
Jeeves was standing on the horizon, looking devilish brainy.
‘Go ahead, Jeeves!’ I said.
‘I would merely suggest, sir, that if Mr Bickersteth is in need of a little ready money, and is at a loss to obtain it elsewhere, he might secure the sum he requires by describing the occurrences of this afternoon for the Sunday issue of one of the more spirited and enterprising newspapers.’
‘By Jove!’ I said.
‘By George!’ said Bicky.
‘Great heavens!’ said old Chiswick.
‘Very good, sir,’ said Jeeves.
Bicky turned to old Chiswick with a gleaming eye.
‘Jeeves is right! I’ll do it! The Chronicle would jump at it. They eat that sort of stuff.’
Old Chiswick gave a kind of moaning howl.
‘I absolutely forbid you, Francis, to do this thing!’
‘That’s all very well,’ said Bicky, wonderfully braced, ‘but if I can’t get the money any other way—’
‘Wait! Er – wait, my boy! You are so impetuous! We might arrange something.’
‘I won’t go to that bally ranch.’
‘No, no! No, no, my boy! I would not suggest it. I would not for a moment suggest it. I – I think—’ He seemed to have a bit of a struggle with himself. ‘I – I think that, on the whole, it would be best if you returned with me to England. I – I might – in fact, I think I see my way to doing – to – I might be able to utilise your services in some secretarial position.’
‘I shouldn’t mind that.’
‘I should not be able to offer you a salary, but, as you know, in English political life the unpaid secretary is a recognised figure—’
‘The only figure I’ll recognise,’ said Bicky firmly, ‘is five hundred quid a year, paid quarterly.’
‘My dear boy!’
‘Absolutely!’
‘But your recompense, my dear Francis, would consist in the unrivalled opportunities you would have, as my secretary, to gain experience, to accustom yourself to the intricacies of political life, to – in fact, you would be in an exceedingly advantageous position.’
‘Five hundred a year!’ said Bicky, rolling it round his tongue. ‘Why, that would be nothing to what I could make if I started a chicken farm. It stands to reason. Suppose you have a dozen hens. Each of the hens has a dozen chickens. After a bit the chickens grow up and have a dozen chickens each themselves, and then they all start laying eggs! There’s a fortune in it. You can get anything you like for eggs in America. Fellows keep them on ice for years and years, and don’t sell them till they fetch about a dollar a whirl. You don’t think I’m going to chuck a future like this for anything under five hundred o’ goblins a year – what?’
A look of anguish passed over old Chiswick’s face, then he seemed to be resigned to it. ‘Very well, my boy,’ he said.
‘What ho!’ said Bicky. ‘All right, then’
‘Jeeves,’ I said. Bicky had taken the old boy off to dinner to celebrate, and we were alone. ‘Jeeves, this has been one of your best efforts.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘It beats me how you do it.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘The only trouble is you haven’t got much out of it yourself.’
‘I fancy Mr Bickersteth intends – I judge from his remarks – to signify his appreciation of anything I have been fortunate enough to do to assist him, at some later date when he is in a more favourable position to do so.’
‘It isn’t enough, Jeeves!’
‘Sir?’
It was a wrench, but I felt it was the only possible thing to be done.
‘Bring my shaving things.’
A gleam of hope shone in the man’s eye, mixed with doubt.
‘You mean, sir?’
‘And shave off my moustache.’
There was a moment’s silence. I could see the fellow was deeply moved.
‘Thank you very much indeed, sir,’ he said, in a low voice.
5 THE AUNT AND THE SLUGGARD
NOW THAT IT’S all over, I may as well admit that there was a time during the affair of Rockmetteller Todd when I thought that Jeeves was going to let me down. Silly of me, of course, knowing him as I do, but that is what I thought. It seemed to me that the man had the appearance of being baffled.
The Rocky Todd business broke loose early one morning in spring. I was in bed, restoring the physique with my usual nine hours of the dreamless, when the door flew open and somebody prodded me in the lower ribs and began to shake the bedclothes in an unpleasant manner. And after blinking a bit and generally pulling myself together, I located Rocky, and my first impression was that it must be some horrid dream.
Rocky, you see, lived down on Long Island somewhere, miles away from New York; and not only that, but he had told me himself more than once that he never got up before twelve, and seldom earlier than one. Constitutionally the laziest young devil in America, he had hit on a walk in life which enabled him to go the limit in that direction. He was a poet. At least, he wrote poems when he did anything; but most of his time, as far as I could make out, he spent in a sort of trance. He told me once that he could sit on a fence, watching a worm and wondering what on earth it was up to, for hours at a stretch.
He had his scheme of life worked out to a fine point. About once a month he would take three days writing a few poems; the other three hundred and twenty-nine days of the year he rested. I didn’t know there was enough money in poetry to support a chappie, even in the way in which Rocky lived; but it seems that, if you stick to exhortations to young men to lead the strenuous life and don’t shove in any rhymes, American editors fight for the stuff. Rocky showed me one of his things once. It began:
Be!
Be!
The past is dead,
To-morrow is not born.
Be to-day!
To-day!
Be with every nerve,
With every fibre,
With every drop of your red blood!
Be!
Be!
There were three more verses, and the thing was printed opposite the frontispiece of a magazine with a sort of scroll round it, and a picture in the middle of a fairly nude chappie with bulging muscles giving the rising sun the glad eye. Rocky said they gave him a hundred dollars for it, and he stayed in bed till four in the afternoon for over a month.
As regarded the future he was pretty solid, owing to the fact that he had a moneyed aunt tucked away somewhere in Illinois. It’s a curious thing how many of my pals seem to have aunts and uncles who are their main source of supply. There is Bicky, for one with his uncle the Duke of Chiswick; Corky, who, until things went wrong, looked to Alexander Worple, the bird specialist, for sustenance. And I shall be telling you a story shortly of a dear old friend of mine, Oliver Sipperley, who had an aunt in Yorkshire. These things cannot be mere coincidence. They must be meant. What I’m driving at is that Providence seems to look after the chumps of this world; and, personally, I’m all for it. I suppose the fact is that, having been snootered from infancy upwards by my own aunts, I like to see that it is possible for these relatives to have a better and a softer side.
However, this is more or less of a side-track. Com
ing back to Rocky, what I was saying was that he had this aunt in Illinois; and, as he had been named Rockmetteller after her (which in itself, you might say, entitled him to substantial compensation) and was her only nephew, his position looked pretty sound. He told me that when he did come into the money he meant to do no work at all, except perhaps an occasional poem recommending the young man with life opening out before him with all its splendid possibilities to light a pipe and shove his feet up on the mantelpiece
And this was the man who was prodding me in the ribs in the grey dawn!
‘Read this, Bertie!’ babbled old Rocky.
I could just see that he was waving a letter or something equally foul in my face. ‘Wake up and read this!’
I can’t read before I’ve had my morning tea and a cigarette. I groped for the bell.
Jeeves came in, looking as fresh as a dewy violet. It’s a mystery to me how he does it.
‘Tea, Jeeves.’
‘Very good, sir.’
I found that Rocky was surging round with his beastly letter again.
‘What is it?’ I said. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’
‘Read it!’
‘I can’t. I haven’t had my tea.’
‘Well, listen then.’
‘Who’s it from?’
‘My aunt.’
At this point I fell asleep again. I woke to hear him saying:
‘So what on earth am I to do?’
Jeeves flowed in with the tray, like some silent stream meandering over its mossy bed; and I saw daylight.
‘Read it again, Rocky, old top,’ I said. ‘I want Jeeves to hear it. Mr Todd’s aunt has written him a rather rummy letter, Jeeves, and we want your advice.’
‘Very good, sir.’
He stood in the middle of the room, registering devotion to the cause, and Rocky started again:
‘My dear Rockmetteller,
‘I have been thinking things over for a long while, and I have come to the conclusion that I have been very thoughtless to wait so long before doing what I have made up my mind to do now.’