starting to sing 'Sonny Boy' at Beefy Bingham's Church Lads entertainment down in the East End.
Pauline had grabbed my arm, and was beginning to make some species of communication.
'Bertie,' she was saying ...
But at this point I caught sight of Chuffy's head over a shrub, and I felt that the moment had come to act. It was one of those things that want doing quickly or not at all. I waited no longer. Folding the girl in my arms, I got home on her right eyebrow. It wasn't one of my best, I will admit, but it was a kiss within the meaning of the act, and I fancied that it ought to produce results.
And so, no doubt, it would have done, had the fellow who entered left at this critical point been Chuffy. But it wasn't. What with only being able to catch a fleeting glimpse of a Homburg hat through the foliage, I appeared to have made an unfortunate floater. The bloke who now stood before us was old Pop Stoker, and I confess I found myself a prey to a certain embarrassment.
It was, you must admit, not a little awkward. Here was an anxious father who combined with a strong distaste for Bertram Wooster the notion that his daughter was madly in love with him: and the first thing he saw when he took an after-luncheon saunter was the two of us locked in a close embrace. It was enough to give any parent the jitters, and I was not surprised that his demeanour was that of stout Cortez staring at the Pacific. A fellow with fifty millions in his kick doesn't have to wear the mask. If he wants to give any selected bloke a nasty look, he gives him a nasty look. He was giving me one now. It was a look that had both alarm and anguish in it, and I realized that Pauline's statement regarding his views had been accurate.
Fortunately, the thing did not go beyond looks. Say what you like against civilization, it comes in dashed handy in a crisis like this. It may be a purely artificial code that keeps a father from hoofing his daughter's kisser when they are fellow guests at a house, but at this moment I felt that I could do with all the purely artificial codes that were going.
There was just one instant when his foot twitched and it seemed as if what you might call the primitive J. Washburn Stoker was about to find self-expression. Then civilization prevailed. With one more of those looks he collected Pauline, and the next moment I was alone and at liberty to think the thing over.
And it was as I was doing so with the help of a soothing cigarette that Chuffy bounded into my little sylvan glade. He too appeared to have something on his mind, for he was noticeably pop-eyed.
'Look here, Bertie,' he began without preamble, 'what's all this I hear?'
'What's all what you hear, old man?'
'Why didn't you tell me you had been engaged to Pauline Stoker?'
I raised an eyebrow. It seemed to me that a touch of the iron hand would not be out of place. If you see a fellow's going to be austere with you, there's nothing like jumping in and being austere with him first.
'I fail to understand you, Chuffnell,' I said stiffly. 'Did you expect me to send you a post card?'
'You could have told me this morning.'
'I saw no reason to do so. How did you hear about it, anyhow?'
'Sir Roderick Glossop happened to mention it.'
'Oh, he did, did he? Well, he's an authority on the subject. He was the bird who broke it off.'
'What do you mean?'
'He happened to be in New York at the time, and it was the work of a moment with him to tap old Stoker on the chest and urge him to give me the push. The whole thing didn't last more than forty-eight hours from kick-off to finish.'
Chuffy eyed me narrowly.
'You swear that?'
'Certainly.'
'Only forty-eight hours?'
'Less.'
'And there's nothing between you now?'
His demeanour was not matey, and I began to perceive that in arranging that Stoker and not he should be the witness of the recent embrace the guardian angel of the Woosters had acted dashed shrewdly.
'Nothing.'
'You're sure?'
'Nothing whatever. So charge in, Chuffy, old man,' I said, patting his shoulder in an elder-brotherly manner. 'Follow the dictates of the old heart and fear nothing. The girl is potty about you.'
'Who told you that?'
'She did.'
'Herself?'
'In person.'
'She does really love me?'
'Passionately, I gathered.'
A look of relief came into the old egg's care-worn face. He passed a hand over the forehead and generally relaxed.
'Well, that's all right, then. Sorry, if I appeared a bit rattled for a moment. When a fellow's just got engaged to a girl, it's rather a jar to find that she was engaged to somebody else about two months before.'
I was astounded.
'Are you engaged? Since when?'
'Since shortly after lunch.'
'But how about Wotwotleigh?'
'Who told you about Wotwotleigh?'
'Jeeves. He said the shadow of Wotwotleigh brooded over you like a cloud.'
'Jeeves talks too much. As a matter of fact, Wotwotleigh didn't enter into the matter at all. Immediately before I fixed things up with Pauline, old Stoker told me he had decided to buy the house.'
'Really!'
'Absolutely. I think it was the port that did it. I lushed him up on the last of the '85.'
'You couldn't have done a wiser thing. Your own idea?'
'No. Jeeves's.'
I could not restrain a wistful sigh.
'Jeeves is a wonder.'
'A marvel.'
'What a brain!'
'Size nine-and-a-quarter, I should say.'
'He eats a lot of fish. What a pity he has no ear for music,' I said moodily. Then I stifled regret and tried to think not of my bereavement but of Chuffy's bit of luck. 'Well, this is fine,' I said heartily. 'I hope you will be very, very happy. I can honestly say that I always look on Pauline as one of the nicest girls I was ever engaged to.'
'I wish you would stop harping on that engagement.'
'Quite.'
'I'm trying to forget that you ever were engaged to her.'
'Quite, quite.'
'When I think that you were once in a position to ...'
'But I wasn't. Never lose sight of the fact that the betrothal only lasted two days, during both of which I was in bed with a nasty cold.'
'But when she accepted you, you must have ...'
'No, I didn't. A waiter came into the room with a tray of beef sandwiches and the moment passed.'
'Then you never ...?'
'Absolutely never.'
'She must have had a great time, being engaged to you. One round of excitement. I wonder what on earth made her accept you?'
This had puzzled me too, more than a little. I can only suppose that there is something in me that strikes a chord in the bosoms of these forceful females. I've known it happen before, on the occasion when I got engaged to Honoria Glossop.
