absolutely. He's in such an awful jam. It was bad enough for me being a black-faced wanderer, but I hadn't the position to keep up that he has. I mean to say, the world, observing me in this condition, might quite easily just have shrugged its shoulders and murmured 'Young Blood!' or words to that effect, what?'
'Yes, sir.'
'But not with a bloke of his standing.'
'Very true, sir.'
'Well, well, well! Dear, dear, dear! I suppose, if you come right down to it, this is the vengeance of Heaven.'
'Quite possibly, sir.'
It isn't often that I point the moral, but I couldn't help doing it now.
'It just shows how we ought always to be kind, even to the humblest, Jeeves. For years this Glossop has trampled on my face with spiked shoes, and see where it has landed him. What would have happened if we had been on chummy terms at this juncture? He would have been on velvet. Observing him shooting past just now, I should have stopped him. I should have called out to him 'Hi, Sir Roderick, half a second. Don't go roaming about the place in make-up. Stick around here for a while and pretty soon Jeeves will be arriving with the necessary butter, and all will be well.' Shouldn't I have said that, Jeeves?'
'Something of that general trend, no doubt, sir.'
'And he would have been saved from this fearful situation, this sore strait, in which he now finds himself. I dare say that man won't be able to get butter till well on in the morning. Not even then, if he hasn't money on the person. And all because he wouldn't treat me decently in the past. Makes you think a bit, that, Jeeves, what?'
'Yes, sir.'
'But it's no use talking about it, of course. What's done is done.'
'Very true, sir. The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on, nor all your piety and wit can lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.'
'Quite. And now, Jeeves, the butter. I must be getting about my business.'
He sighed in a respectful sort of way.
'I am extremely sorry to be obliged to inform you, sir, that, owing to Master Seabury having used it all for his slide, there is no butter in the house.'
16 TROUBLE AT THE DOWER HOUSE
I stood there with my hand out, frozen to the spot. The faculties seemed numbed. I remember once, when I was in New York, one of those sad-eyed Italian kids who whizz about Washington Square on roller skates suddenly projected himself with extraordinary violence at my waistcoat as I strolled to and fro, taking the air. He reached journey's end right on the third button from the top, and I had much the same sensation now as I had had then. A sort of stricken feeling. Stunned. Breathless. As if somebody had walloped the old soul unexpectedly with a sandbag.
'What!'
'Yes, sir.'
'No butter?'
'No butter, sir.'
'But, Jeeves, this is frightful.'
'Most disturbing, sir.'
If Jeeves has a fault, it is that his demeanour on these occasions too frequently tends to be rather more calm and unemotional than one could wish. One lodges no protest, as a rule, because he generally has the situation well in hand and loses no time in coming before the Board with one of his ripe solutions. But I have often felt that I could do with a little more leaping about with rolling eyeballs on his part, and I felt it now. At a moment like the present, the adjective 'disturbing' seemed to me to miss the facts by about ten parasangs.
'But what shall I do?'
'I fear that it will be necessary to postpone the cleansing of your face till a later date, sir. I shall be in a position to supply you with butter to-morrow.'
'But to-night?'
'To-night, I am afraid, sir, you must be content to remain
'Eh?'
'A Latin expression, sir.'
'You mean nothing can be done till to-morrow?'
'I fear not, sir. It is vexing.'
'You would go so far as to describe it as that?'
'Yes, sir. Most vexing.'
I breathed a bit tensely.
'Oh, well, just as you say, Jeeves.'
I pondered.
'And what do I do in the meantime?'
'As you have had a somewhat trying evening, I think it would be best, sir, if you were to get a good sleep.'
'On the lawn?'
'If I might make the suggestion, sir, I think you would be more comfortable in the Dower House. It is only a short distance across the park, and it is unoccupied.'
'It can't be. They wouldn't leave it empty.'
'One of the gardeners is acting as caretaker while her ladyship and Master Seabury are visiting the Hall, but at this hour he is always down at the 'Chuffnell Arms' in the village. It would be quite simple for you to effect an entrance and establish yourself in one of the upper rooms without his cognizance. And tomorrow morning I could join you there with the necessary materials.'
I confess it wasn't my idea of a frightfully large evening.
'You've nothing brighter to suggest?'
'No, sir.'
'You wouldn't consider letting me have your bed for the night?'
'No, sir.'
'Then I might as well be moving.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Good night, Jeeves,' I said moodily.
'Good night, sir.'
It didn't take me long to get to the Dower House, and the trip seemed shorter than it actually was, because my mind was occupied in transit with a sort of series of silent Hymns of Hate directed at the various blokes who had combined to land me in what Jeeves would have called this vexing situation – featuring little Seabury.
The more I thought of this stripling, the more the iron entered into my soul. And one result of my meditations regarding him was to engender – I think it's engender – an emotion towards Sir Roderick Glossop which came pretty near to being a spirit of kindliness.
You know how it is. You go along for years looking on a fellow as a blister and a menace to the public weal, and then one day you suddenly hear of some decent thing he's done and it makes you feel there must be good in the chap, after all. It was so in the matter of this Glossop. I had suffered much at his hands since first our paths had crossed. In the human Zoo which Fate has caused to centre about Bertram Wooster, he had always ranked high up among the more vicious specimens – many good judges, indeed, considering that he even competed for the blue ribbon with that great scourge of modern times, my Aunt Agatha. But now, reviewing his recent conduct, I must admit that I found myself definitely softening towards him.
Nobody, I reasoned, who could slosh young Seabury like that could be altogether bad. There must be fine metal somewhere among the dross. And I actually went so far as to say to myself with something of a rush of emotion that, if ever things so shaped themselves that I could go freely about my affairs again, I would look the
