'Up already?'
'I have been up some time.'
'Then why aren't you out canvassing? And why are you looking like something the cat brought in?'
I winced. I had not intended to disclose the recent past, but with an aunt's perception she had somehow spotted that in some manner I had passed through the furnace and she would go on probing and questioning till I came clean. Any capable aunt can give Scotland Yard inspectors strokes and bisques in the matter of interrogating a suspect, and I knew that all attempts at concealment would be fruitless. Or is it bootless? I would have to check with Jeeves.
'I am looking like something the cat brought in because I am feeling like something the c b in,' I said.
'Aged relative, I have a strange story to relate. Do you know a local blister of the name of Mrs. McCorkadale?'
'Who lives in River Row?'
'That's the one.'
'She's a barrister.'
'She looks it.'
'You've met her? '
'I've met her.'
'She's Ginger's opponent in this election.'
'I know. Is Mr. McCorkadale still alive?'
'Died years ago. He got run over by a municipal tram.'
'I don't blame him. I'd have done the same myself in his place. It's the only course to pursue when you're married to a woman like that.'
'How did you meet her?'
'I called on her to urge her to vote for Ginger,' I said, and in a few broken words I related my strange story. It went well. In fact, it went like a breeze. Myself, I was unable to see anything humorous in it, but there was no doubt about it entertaining the blood relation. She guffawed more liberally than I had ever heard a woman guffaw. If there had been an aisle, she would have rolled in it. I couldn't help feeling how ironical it was that, having failed so often to be well received when telling a funny story, I should have aroused such gales of mirth with one that was so essentially tragic.
While she was still giving her impersonation of a hyena which has just heard a good one from another hyena, Spode came in, choosing the wrong moment as usual. One never wants to see Spode, but least of all when someone is having a hearty laugh at your expense.
'I'm looking for the notes for my speech tomorrow,' he said. 'Hullo, what's the joke?'
Convulsed as she was, it was not easy for the ancestor to articulate, but she managed a couple of words.
'It's Bertie.'
'Oh?' said Spode, looking at me as if he found it difficult to believe that any word or act of mine could excite mirth and not horror and disgust.
'He's just been calling on Mrs. McCorkadale.'
'Oh?'
'And asking her to vote for Ginger Winship.'
'Oh?' said Spode again. I have already indicated that he was a compulsive Oh-sayer. 'Well, it is what I would have expected of him', and with another look in which scorn and animosity were nicely blended and a word to the effect that he might have left those notes in the summerhouse by the lake he removed his distasteful presence.
That he and I were not on Damon and Pythias terms seemed to have impressed itself on the aged relative. She switched off the hyena sound effects.
'Not a bonhomous type, Spode.'
'No.'
'He doesn't like you.'
'No.'
'And I don't think he likes me.'
'No,' I said, and it occurred to me, for the Woosters are essentially fairminded, that it was hardly for me to criticize Spode's Oh's when my No's were equally frequent. Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye, Wooster? I found myself asking myself, it having been one of the many good things I had picked up in my researches when I won that Scripture Knowledge prize.
'Does he like anyone?' said the relative. 'Except, presumably, Madeline Bassett.'
'He seems fond of L. P. Runkle.'
'What makes you think that?'
'I overheard them exchanging confidences.'
'Oh?' said the relative, for these things are catching.
