“Bertie,” he said, as we strolled along towards Piccadilly Circus, “the heart bowed down by weight of woe to weakest hope will cling.” Sippy is by way of being an author, though mainly dependent for the necessaries of life on subsidies from an old aunt who lives in the country, and his conversation often takes a literary turn. “But the trouble is that I have no hope to cling to, weak or otherwise. I am up against it, Bertie.”
“In what way, laddie?”
“I’ve got to go tomorrow and spend three weeks with some absolutely dud—I will go further, some positively scaly friends of my Aunt Vera. She has fixed the thing up, and may a nephew’s curse blister every bulb in her garden.”
“Who are these hounds of hell?” I asked sympathetically.
“Some people named Pringle. I haven’t seen them since I was ten, but I remember them at that time striking me as England’s premier warts.”
“Tough luck. No wonder you’ve lost your morale.”
“The world,” said Sippy, “is very grey. How can I shake off this awful depression?”
It was then that I got one of those bright ideas one does get round about eleven-thirty on Boat-Race night.
“What you want, old man,” I said, “is a policeman’s helmet.”
“Do I, Bertie?”
“If I were you, I’d just step straight across the street and get that one over there.”
“But there’s a policeman inside it. You can see him distinctly.”
“What does that matter?” I said. I simply couldn’t follow his reasoning.
Sippy stood for a moment in thought.
“I believe you’re absolutely right,” he said at last. “Funny I never thought of it before. You really recommend me to get that helmet?”
“I do indeed.”
“Then I will,” said Sippy, brightening up in the most remarkable manner.
So there you have the posish, and you can see why, as I left the dock, a free man, remorse gnawed at my vitals. In his twenty-fifth year, with life opening out before him and all that sort of thing, Oliver Randolph Sipperley had become a jailbird, and it was all my fault. It was I who had dragged that fine spirit down into the mire, so to speak, and the question now arose, What could I do to atone?
Obviously, the first move must be to get in touch with Sippy and see if he had any last messages, and whatnot. I pushed about a bit, making inquiries, and presently found myself in a little dark room with whitewashed walls and a wooden bench. Sippy was sitting on the bench with his head in his hands.
“How are you, old lad?” I asked in a hushed, bedside voice.
“I’m a ruined man,” said Sippy, looking like a poached egg.
“Oh, come,” I said, “it’s not so bad as all that. I mean to say, you had the swift intelligence to give a false name. There won’t be anything about you in the papers.”
“I’m not worrying about the papers. What’s bothering me is, How can I go and spend three weeks with the Pringles, starting today, when I’ve got to sit in a prison cell with a ball and chain on my ankle?”
“But you said you didn’t want to go.”
“It isn’t a question of wanting, fathead. I’ve got to go. If I don’t, my aunt will find out where I am. And if she finds out that I am doing thirty days without the option in the lowest dungeon beneath the castle moat—well, where shall I get off?”
I saw his point.
“This is not a thing we can settle for ourselves,” I said, gravely. “We must put our trust in a higher power. Jeeves is the man we must consult.”
And, having collected a few of the necessary data, I shook his hand, patted him on the back, and tooled off home.
“Jeeves,” I said, when I had climbed outside the pick-me-up which he had thoughtfully prepared against my coming, “I’ve got something to tell you. Something important. Something that vitally affects one whom you have always regarded with—one whom you have always looked upon—one whom you have—well, to cut a long story short, as I’m not feeling quite myself—Mr. Sipperley.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Jeeves, Mr. Souperley is in the sip.”
“Sir?”
“I mean, Mr. Sipperley is in the soup.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“And all owing to me. It was I who, in a moment of mistaken kindness, wishing only to cheer him up and give him something to occupy his mind, recommended him to pinch that policeman’s helmet.”
“Is that so, sir?”
“Do you mind not intoning the responses, Jeeves?” I said. “This is a most complicated story for a man with a headache to have to tell, and if you interrupt you’ll make me lose the thread. As a favour to me, therefore, don’t do it. Just nod every now and then to show you’re following.”
I closed my eyes and marshalled the facts.
“To start with, then, Jeeves, you may or may not know that Mr. Sipperley is practically dependent on his Aunt Vera.”
“Would that be Miss Sipperley of the Paddock, Beckley-on-the-Moor, in Yorkshire, sir?”
“Yes. Don’t tell me you know her?”
“Not personally, sir. But I have a cousin residing in the village who has some slight acquaintance with Miss Sipperley. He has described her to me as an imperious and quick-tempered old lady … But I beg your pardon, sir, I should have nodded.”
“Quite right, you should have nodded. Yes, Jeeves, you should have nodded. But it’s too late now.”
I nodded myself. I hadn’t had my eight hours the night before, and what you might call a lethargy was showing a tendency to steal over
