Biffy gurgled something about always having meant to.
“Nor the Tower of London?”
No, nor the Tower of London.
“And there exists at this very moment, not twenty minutes by cab from Hyde Park Corner, the most supremely absorbing and educational collection of objects, both animate and inanimate, gathered from the four corners of the Empire, that has ever been assembled in England’s history. I allude to the British Empire Exhibition now situated at Wembley.”
“A fellow told me one about Wembley yesterday,” I said, to help on the cheery flow of conversation. “Stop me if you’ve heard it before. Chap goes up to deaf chap outside the exhibition and says, ‘Is this Wembley?’ ‘Hey?’ says deaf chap. ‘Is this Wembley?’ says chap. ‘Hey?’ says deaf chap. ‘Is this Wembley?’ says chap. ‘No, Thursday,’ says deaf chap. Ha, ha, I mean, what?”
The merry laughter froze on my lips. Sir Roderick sort of just waggled an eyebrow in my direction and I saw that it was back to the basket for Bertram. I never met a man who had such a knack of making a fellow feel like a waste-product.
“Have you yet paid a visit to Wembley, Charles?” he asked. “No? Precisely as I suspected. Well, that is the mission on which I am here this afternoon. Honoria wishes me to take you to Wembley. She says it will broaden your mind, in which view I am at one with her. We will start immediately after luncheon.”
Biffy cast an imploring look at me.
“You’ll come too, Bertie?”
There was such agony in his eyes that I only hesitated for a second. A pal is a pal. Besides, I felt that, if only the bulb fulfilled the high expectations I had formed of it, the merry expedition would be cancelled in no uncertain manner.
“Oh, rather,” I said.
“We must not trespass on Mr. Wooster’s good nature,” said Sir Roderick, looking pretty puff-faced.
“Oh, that’s all right,” I said. “I’ve been meaning to go to the good old exhibish for a long time. I’ll slip home and change my clothes and pick you up here in my car.”
There was a silence. Biffy seemed too relieved at the thought of not having to spend the afternoon alone with Sir Roderick to be capable of speech, and Sir Roderick was registering silent disapproval. And then he caught sight of the bouquet by Biffy’s plate.
“Ah, flowers,” he said. “Sweet peas, if I am not in error. A charming plant, pleasing alike to the eye and the nose.”
I caught Biffy’s eye across the table. It was bulging, and a strange light shone in it.
“Are you fond of flowers, Sir Roderick?” he croaked.
“Extremely.”
“Smell these.”
Sir Roderick dipped his head and sniffed. Biffy’s fingers closed slowly over the bulb. I shut my eyes and clutched the table.
“Very pleasant,” I heard Sir Roderick say. “Very pleasant indeed.”
I opened my eyes, and there was Biffy leaning back in his chair with a ghastly look, and the bouquet on the cloth beside him. I realized what had happened. In that supreme crisis of his life, with his whole happiness depending on a mere pressure of the fingers, Biffy, the poor spineless fish, had lost his nerve. My closely-reasoned scheme had gone phut.
Jeeves was fooling about with the geraniums in the sitting-room window-box when I got home.
“They make a very nice display, sir,” he said, cocking a paternal eye at the things.
“Don’t talk to me about flowers,” I said. “Jeeves, I know now how a general feels when he plans out some great scientific movement and his troops let him down at the eleventh hour.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Yes,” I said, and told him what had happened.
He listened thoughtfully.
“A somewhat vacillating and changeable young gentleman, Mr. Biffen,” was his comment when I had finished. “Would you be requiring me for the remainder of the afternoon, sir?”
“No. I’m going to Wembley. I just came back to change and get the car. Produce some fairly durable garments which can stand getting squashed by the many-headed, Jeeves, and then phone to the garage.”
“Very good, sir. The grey cheviot will, I fancy, be suitable. Would it be too much if I asked you to give me a seat in the car, sir? I had thought of going to Wembley myself this afternoon.”
“Eh? Oh, all right.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
I got dressed, and we drove round to Biffy’s flat. Biffy and Sir Roderick got in at the back and Jeeves climbed into the front seat next to me. Biffy looked so ill-attuned to an afternoon’s pleasure that my heart bled for the blighter and I made one last attempt to appeal to Jeeves’s better feelings.
“I must say, Jeeves,” I said, “I’m dashed disappointed in you.”
“I am sorry to hear that, sir.”
“Well, I am. Dashed disappointed. I do think you might rally round. Did you see Mr. Biffen’s face?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then.”
“If you will pardon my saying so, sir, Mr. Biffen has surely only himself to thank if he has entered upon matrimonial obligations which do not please him.”
“You’re talking absolute rot, Jeeves. You know as well as I do that Honoria Glossop is an Act of God. You might just as well blame a fellow for getting run over by a truck.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Absolutely yes. Besides, the poor ass wasn’t in a condition to resist. He told me all about it. He had lost the only girl he had ever loved, and you know what a man’s like when that happens to him.”
“How was that, sir?”
“Apparently he fell in love with some girl on the boat going over to New York, and they parted at the Customs sheds, arranging to meet next day at her hotel. Well, you know what Biffy’s like. He forgets his own name half the time. He never made a note of the address, and it passed clean out of his mind.
