I mused with a considerable amount of tensity over Cyril that night, when I had got home and Jeeves had brought me the final whisky. I couldn’t help feeling that this first visit of his to America was going to be one of those times that try men’s souls and what not. I hauled out Aunt Agatha’s letter of introduction and re-read it, and there was no getting away from the fact that she undoubtedly appeared to be somewhat wrapped up in this blighter and to consider it my mission in life to shield him from harm while on the premises. I was deuced thankful that he had taken such a liking for George Caffyn, old George being a steady sort of cove. After I had got him out of his dungeon-cell, he and George had gone off together, as chummy as brothers, to watch the afternoon rehearsal of Ask Dad. There was some talk, I gathered, of their dining together. I felt pretty easy in my mind while George had his eye on him.
I had got about as far as this in my meditations, when Jeeves came in with a telegram. At least, it wasn’t a telegram: it was a cable – from Aunt Agatha, and this is what it said:
Has Cyril Bassington-Bassington called yet? On no account introduce him into theatrical circles. Vitally important. Letter follows.
I read it a couple of times.
‘This is rummy, Jeeves!’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Very rummy and dashed disturbing!’
‘Will there be anything further tonight, sir?’
Of course, if he was going to be as bally unsympathetic as that there was nothing to be done. My idea had been to show him the cable and ask his advice. But if he was letting those purple socks rankle to that extent, the good old noblesse oblige of the Woosters couldn’t lower itself to the extent of pleading with the man. Absolutely not. So I gave it a miss.
‘Nothing more, thanks.’
‘Good night, sir.’
‘Good night.’
He floated away, and I sat down to think the thing over. I had been directing the best efforts of the old bean to the problem for a matter of half an hour, when there was a ring at the bell. I went to the door, and there was Cyril, looking pretty festive.
‘I’ll come in for a bit if I may,’ he said. ‘Got something rather priceless to tell you.’
He curveted past me into the sitting-room, and when I got there after shutting the front door I found him reading Aunt Agatha’s cable and giggling in a rummy sort of manner. ‘Oughtn’t to have looked at this, I suppose. Caught sight of my name and read it without thinking. I say, Wooster, old friend of my youth, this is rather funny. Do you mind if I have a drink? Thanks awfully and all that sort of rot. Yes, it’s rather funny, considering what I came to tell you. Jolly old Caffyn has given me a small part in that musical comedy of his, Ask Dad. Only a bit, you know, but quite tolerably ripe. I’m feeling frightfully braced, don’t you know!’
He drank his drink, and went on. He didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t jumping about the room, yapping with joy.
‘You know, I’ve always wanted to go on the stage, you know,’ he said. ‘But my jolly old guv’nor wouldn’t stick it at any price. Put the old Waukeesi down with a bang, and turned bright purple whenever the subject was mentioned. That’s the real reason why I came over here, if you want to know. I knew there wasn’t a chance of my being able to work this stage wheeze in London without somebody getting on to it and tipping off the guv’nor, so I rather brainily sprang the scheme of popping over to Washington to broaden my mind. There’s nobody to interfere on this side, you see, so I can go right ahead!’
I tried to reason with the poor chump.
‘But your guv’nor will have to know some time.’
‘That’ll be all right. I shall be the jolly old star by then, and he won’t have a leg to stand on.’
‘It seems to me he’ll have one leg to stand on while he kicks me with the other.’
‘Why, where do you come in? What have you got to do with it?’
‘I introduced you to George Caffyn.’
‘So you did, old top, so you did. I’d quite forgotten. I ought to have thanked you before. Well, so long. There’s an early rehearsal of Ask Dad tomorrow morning, and I must be toddling. Rummy the thing should be called Ask Dad, when that’s just what I’m not going to do. See what I mean, what, what? Well, pip-pip!’
‘Toodle-oo!’ I said sadly, and the blighter scudded off. I dived for the phone and called up George Caffyn.
‘I say, George, what’s all this about Cyril Bassington-Bassington?’
‘What about him?’
‘He tells me you’ve given him a part in your show.’
‘Oh, yes. Just a few lines.’
‘But I’ve just had fifty-seven cables from home telling me on no account to let him go on the stage.’
‘I’m sorry. But Cyril is just the type I need for that part. He’s simply got to be himself.’
‘It’s pretty tough on me, George, old man. My Aunt Agatha sent this blighter over with a letter of introduction to me, and she will hold me responsible.’
‘She’ll cut you out of her will?’
‘It isn’t a question of money. But – of course, you’ve never met my Aunt Agatha, so it’s rather hard to explain. But she’s a sort of human vampire-bat, and she’ll make things most fearfully unpleasant for me when I go back to England. She’s the kind of woman who comes and rags you before breakfast, don’t you know.’
‘Well, don’t go back to England, then. Stick here and become President.’
‘But, George, old top –!’
‘Good night!’
‘But, I say, George, old man!’
‘You didn’t get my last remark. It was “Good night!” You Idle Rich may not need any sleep, but I’ve got to be bright and fresh in the morning. God bless you!’
I felt as if I hadn’t a friend in the world. I was so jolly well worked up that I went and banged on Jeeves’s door. It wasn’t a thing I’d have cared to do as a rule, but it seemed to me that now was the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party, so to speak, and that it was up to Jeeves to rally round the young master, even if it broke up his beauty-sleep.
Jeeves emerged in a brown dressing gown.
‘Sir?’
‘Deuced sorry to wake you up, Jeeves, and what not, but all sorts of dashed disturbing things have been happening.’
‘I was not asleep. It is my practice, on retiring, to read a few pages of some instructive book.’
‘That’s good! What I mean to say is, if you’ve just finished exercising the old bean, it’s probably in mid-season form for tackling problems. Jeeves, Mr Bassington-Bassington is going on the stage!’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Ah! The thing doesn’t hit you! You don’t get it properly! Here’s the point. All his family are most fearfully dead against his going on the stage. There’s going to be no end of trouble if he isn’t headed off. And, what’s worse, my Aunt Agatha will blame me, you see.’
‘I see, sir.’
‘Well, can’t you think of some way of stopping him?’
‘Not, I confess, at the moment, sir.’
‘Well, have a stab at it.’
‘I will give the matter my best consideration, sir. Will there be anything further tonight?’
‘I hope not! I’ve had all I can stand already.’
‘Very good, sir.’
He popped off.
10
* * *
Startling Dressiness of a Lift Attendant
THE PART WHICH old George had written for the chump Cyril took up about two pages of typescript; but it might have been Hamlet, the way that poor, misguided pinhead worked himself to the bone over it. I suppose, if I heard him read his lines once, I did it a dozen times in the first couple of days. He seemed to think that my only feeling about the whole affair was one of enthusiastic admiration, and that he could rely on my support and sympathy. What with trying to imagine how Aunt Agatha was going to take this thing, and being woken up out of the dreamless in the small hours every other night to give my opinio
n of some new bit of business which Cyril had invented, I became more or less the good old shadow. And all the time Jeeves remained still pretty cold and distant about the purple socks. It’s this sort of thing that ages a chappie, don’t you know, and makes his youthful joie-de-vivre go a bit groggy at the knees.
In the middle of it Aunt Agatha’s letter arrived. It took her about six pages to do justice to Cyril’s father’s feelings in regard to his going on the stage and about six more to give me a kind of sketch of what she would say, think, and do if I didn’t keep him clear of injurious influences while he was in America. The letter came by the afternoon mail, and left me with a pretty firm conviction that it wasn’t a thing I ought to keep to myself. I didn’t even wait to ring the bell: I whizzed for the kitchen, bleating for Jeeves, and butted into the middle of a regular tea-party of sorts. Seated at the table were a depressed-looking cove who might have been a valet or something, and a boy in a Norfolk suit. The valet-chappie was drinking a whisky and soda, and the boy was being tolerably rough with some jam and cake.
‘Oh, I say, Jeeves!’ I said. ‘Sorry to interrupt the feast of reason and flow of soul and so forth, but –’
At this juncture the small boy’s eye hit me like a bullet and stopped me in my tracks. It was one of those cold, clammy, accusing sort of eyes – the kind that makes you reach up to see if your tie is straight: and he looked at me as if I were some sort of unnecessary product which Cuthbert the Cat had brought in after a ramble among the local ash-cans. He was a stoutish infant with a lot of freckles and a good deal of jam on his face.
‘Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!’ I said. ‘What?’ There didn’t seem much else to say.
The stripling stared at me in a nasty sort of way through the jam. He may have loved me at first sight, but the impression he gave me was that he didn’t think a lot of me and wasn’t betting much that I would improve a great deal on acquaintance. I had a kind of feeling that I was about as popular with him as a cold Welsh rarebit.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘My name? Oh, Wooster, don’t you know, and what not.’
‘My pop’s richer than you are!’
That seemed to be all about me. The child having said his say, started in on the jam again. I turned to Jeeves:
‘I say, Jeeves, can you spare a moment? I want to show you something.’
‘Very good, sir.’ We toddled into the sitting-room.
‘Who is your little friend, Sidney the Sunbeam, Jeeves?’
‘The young gentleman, sir?’
‘It’s a loose way of describing him, but I know what you mean.’
‘I trust I was not taking a liberty in entertaining him, sir?’
‘Not a bit. If that’s your idea of a large afternoon, go ahead.’
‘I happened to meet the young gentleman taking a walk with his father’s valet, sir, whom I used to know somewhat intimately in London, and I ventured to invite them both to join me here.’
‘Well, never mind about him, Jeeves. Read this letter.’
He gave it the up-and-down.
‘Very disturbing, sir!’ was all he could find to say.
‘What are we going to do about it?’
‘Time may provide a solution, sir.’
‘On the other hand, it mayn’t, what?’
‘Extremely true, sir.’
We’d got as far as this, when there was a ring at the door. Jeeves shimmered off, and Cyril blew in, full of good cheer and blitheringness.
‘I say, Wooster, old thing,’ he said, ‘I want your advice. You know this jolly old part of mine. How ought I to dress it? What I mean is, the first act scene is laid in an hotel of sorts, at about three in the afternoon. What ought I to wear, do you think?’
I wasn’t feeling fit for a discussion of gent’s suitings.
‘You’d better consult Jeeves,’ I said.
‘A hot and by no means unripe idea! Where is he?’
‘Gone back to the kitchen, I suppose.’
‘I’ll smite the good old bell, shall I? Yes. No?’
‘Right-o!’
Jeeves poured silently in.
‘Oh, I say, Jeeves,’ began Cyril, ‘I just wanted to have a syllable or two with you. It’s this way – Hallo, who’s this?’
I then perceived that the stout stripling had trickled into the room after Jeeves. He was standing near the door looking at Cyril as if his worst fears had been realized. There was a bit of a silence. The child remained there, drinking Cyril in for about half a minute; then he gave his verdict:
‘Fish-face!’
‘Eh? What?’ said Cyril.
The child, who had evidently been taught at his mother’s knee to speak the truth, made his meaning a trifle clearer.
‘You’ve a face like a fish!’
He spoke as if Cyril was more to be pitied than censured, which I am bound to say I thought rather decent and broadminded of him. I don’t mind admitting that, whenever I looked at Cyril’s face, I always had a feeling that he couldn’t have got that way without its being mostly his own fault. I found myself warming to this child. Absolutely, don’t you know. I liked his conversation.
It seemed to take Cyril a moment or two really to grasp the thing, and then you could hear the blood of the Bassington-Bassingtons begin to sizzle.
‘Well, I’m dashed!’ he said. ‘I’m dashed if I’m not!’
‘I wouldn’t have a face like that,’ proceeded the child, with a good deal of earnestness, ‘not if you gave me a million dollars.’ He thought for a moment, then corrected himself. ‘Two million dollars!’ he added.
Just what occurred then I couldn’t exactly say, but the next few minutes were a bit exciting. I take it that Cyril must have made a dive for the infant. Anyway, the air seemed pretty well congested with arms and legs and things. Something bumped into the Wooster waistcoat just around the third button, and I collapsed on to the settee and rather lost interest in things for the moment. When I had unscrambled myself, I found that Jeeves and the child had retired and Cyril was standing in the middle of the room snorting a bit.
‘Who’s that frightful little brute, Wooster?’
‘I don’t know. I never saw him before today.’
‘I gave him a couple of tolerably juicy buffets before he legged it. I say, Wooster, that kid said a dashed odd thing. He yelled out something about Jeeves promising him a dollar if he called me – er – what he said.’
It sounded pretty unlikely to me.
‘What would Jeeves do that for?’
‘It struck me as rummy, too.’
‘Where would be the sense of it?’
‘That’s what I can’t see.’
‘I mean to say, it’s nothing to Jeeves what sort of face you have!’
‘No!’ said Cyril. He spoke a little coldly, I fancied. I don’t know why. ‘Well, I’ll be popping. Toodle-oo!’
‘Pip-pip!’
It must have been about a week after this rummy little episode that George Caffyn called me up and asked me if I would care to go and see a run-through of his show. Ask Dad, it seemed, was to open out of town in Schenectady on the following Monday, and this was to be a sort of preliminary dress-rehearsal. A preliminary dress-rehearsal, old George explained, was the same as a regular dress-rehearsal inasmuch as it was apt to look like nothing on earth and last into the small hours, but more exciting because they wouldn’t be timing the piece and consequently all the blighters who on these occasions let their angry passions rise would have plenty of scope for interruptions, with the result that a pleasant time would be had by all.
The thing was billed to start at eight o’clock, so I rolled up at ten-fifteen, so as not to have too long to wait before they began. The dress-parade was still going on. George was on the stage, talking to a cove in shirt-sleeves and an absolutely round chappie with big spectacles and a practically hairless dome. I had seen George with the latter merchant once or twice at the club, and I knew that he was Blumenfield, the manager. I waved to Ge
orge, and slid into a seat at the back of the house, so as to be out of the way when the fighting started. Presently George hopped down off the stage and came and joined me, and fairly soon after that the curtain went down. The chappie at the piano whacked out a well-meant bar or two, and the curtain went up again.
I can’t quite recall what the plot of Ask Dad was about, but I do know that it seemed able to jog along all right without much help from Cyril. I was rather puzzled at first. What I mean is, through brooding on Cyril and hearing him in his part and listening to his views on what ought and what ought not to be done, I suppose I had got a sort of impression rooted in the old bean that he was pretty well the backbone of the show, and that the rest of the company didn’t do much except go on and fill in when he happened to be off the stage. I sat there for nearly half an hour, waiting for him to make his entrance, until I suddenly discovered he had been on from the start. He was, in fact, the rummy-looking plug-ugly who was now leaning against a potted palm a couple of feet from the O.P. side, trying to appear intelligent while the heroine sang a song about Love being like something which for the moment has slipped my memory. After the second refrain he began to dance in company with a dozen other equally weird birds. A painful spectacle for one who could see a vision of Aunt Agatha reaching for the hatchet and old Bassington-Bassington senior putting on his strongest pair of hob-nailed boots. Absolutely!
The dance had just finished, and Cyril and his pals had shuffled off into the wings when a voice spoke from the darkness on my right.
‘Pop!’
Old Blumenfield clapped his hands, and the hero, who had just been about to get the next line off his diaphragm, cheesed it. I peered into the shadows. Who should it be but Jeeves’s little playmate with the freckles! He was now strolling down the aisle with his hands in his pockets as if the place belonged to him. An air of respectful attention seemed to pervade the building.