I jolly well could.
“She doesn’t say that?” I gasped.
“She certainly does. And when I tell you that I selected that particular quotation because it’s about the only one I can stand hearing spoken, you will realize what I’m up against.”
I picked at the coverlet. I had been a pal of Bingo’s for many years, and we Woosters stand by our pals.
“Jeeves,” I said, “you have heard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The position is serious.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We must cluster round.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does anything suggest itself to you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What! You don’t really mean that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bingo,” I said, “the sun is still shining. Something suggests itself to Jeeves.”
“Jeeves,” said young Bingo in a quivering voice, “if you see me through this fearful crisis, ask of me what you will even unto half my kingdom.”
“The matter,” said Jeeves, “fits in very nicely, sir, with another mission which was entrusted to me this morning.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mrs. Travers rang me up on the telephone shortly before I brought you your tea, sir, and was most urgent that I should endeavour to persuade Mr. Little’s cook to leave Mr. Little’s service and join her staff. It appears that Mr. Travers was fascinated by the man’s ability, sir, and talked far into the night of his astonishing gifts.”
Young Bingo uttered a frightful cry of agony.
“What! Is that—that buzzard trying to pinch our cook?”
“Yes, sir.”
“After eating our bread and salt, dammit?”
“I fear, sir,” sighed Jeeves, “that when it comes to a matter of cooks ladies have but a rudimentary sense of morality.”
“Half a second, Bingo,” I said, as the fellow seemed about to plunge into something of an oration. “How does this fit in with the other thing, Jeeves?”
“Well, sir, it has been my experience that no lady can ever forgive another lady for taking a really good cook away from her. I am convinced that, if I am able to accomplish the mission which Mrs. Travers entrusted to me, an instant breach of cordial relations must inevitably ensue. Mrs. Little will, I feel certain, be so aggrieved with Mrs. Travers that she will decline to contribute to her paper. We shall therefore not only bring happiness to Mr. Travers, but also suppress the article. Thus killing two birds with one stone, if I may use the expression, sir.”
“Certainly you may use the expression, Jeeves,” I said, cordially. “And I may add that in my opinion this is one of your best and ripest.”
“Yes, but I say, you know,” bleated young Bingo. “I mean to say—old Anatole, I mean—what I’m driving at is that he’s a cook in a million.”
“You poor chump, if he wasn’t there would be no point in the scheme.”
“Yes, but what I mean—I shall miss him, you know. Miss him fearfully.”
“Good heavens!” I cried. “Don’t tell me that you are thinking of your tummy in a crisis like this?”
Bingo sighed heavily.
“Oh, all right,” he said. “I suppose it’s a case of the surgeon’s knife. All right, Jeeves, you may carry on. Yes, carry on, Jeeves. Yes, yes, Jeeves, carry on. I’ll look in tomorrow morning and hear what you have to report.”
And with bowed head young Bingo biffed off.
He was bright and early next morning. In fact, he turned up at such an indecent hour that Jeeves very properly refused to allow him to break in on my slumbers.
By the time I was awake and receiving, he and Jeeves had had a heart-to-heart chat in the kitchen; and when Bingo eventually crept into my room I could see by the look on his face that something had gone wrong.
“It’s all off,” he said, slumping down on the bed.
“Off?”
“Yes; that cook-pinching business. Jeeves tells me he saw Anatole last night, and Anatole refused to leave.”
“But surely Aunt Dahlia had the sense to offer him more than he was getting with you?”
“The sky was the limit, as far as she was concerned. Nevertheless, he refused to skid. It seems he’s in love with our parlourmaid.”
“But you haven’t got a parlourmaid.”
“We have got a parlourmaid.”
“I’ve never seen her. A sort of bloke who looked like a provincial undertaker waited at table the night before last.”
“That was the local greengrocer, who comes to help out when desired. The parlourmaid is away on her holiday—or was till last night. She returned about ten minutes before Jeeves made his call, and Anatole, I take it, was in such a state of elation and devotion and whatnot on seeing her again that the contents of the Mint wouldn’t have bribed him to part from her.”
“But look here, Bingo,” I said, “this is all rot. I see the solution right off. I’m surprised that a bloke of Jeeves’s mentality overlooked it. Aunt Dahlia must engage the parlourmaid as well as Anatole. Then they won’t be parted.”
“I thought of that, too. Naturally.”
“I bet you didn’t.”
“I certainly did.”
“Well, what’s wrong with the scheme?”
“It can’t be worked. If your aunt engaged our parlourmaid she would have to sack her own, wouldn’t she?”
“Well?”
“Well, if she sacks her parlourmaid, it will mean that the chauffeur will quit. He’s in love with her.”
“With my aunt?”
“No, with the parlourmaid. And apparently he’s the only chauffeur your uncle has ever found who drives carefully enough for him.”
I gave it up. I had never imagined before that life below stairs was so frightfully mixed up with what these coves call the sex complex. The personnel of domestic staffs seemed to pair off like characters in a musical comedy.
“Oh!” I said. “Well, that being so, we do seem to be more or less stymied. That article will have to appear after all, what?”
“No, it won’t.”
“Has Jeeves thought of another scheme?”
“No, but I have.” Bingo bent forward and patted my knee affectionately. “Look here, Bertie,” he said, “you and I were at school together. You’ll admit that?”
“Yes, but—”
“And you’re a fellow who never lets a pal down. That’s well known, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but listen, Bingo—”
“You’ll cluster round. Of course you will. As if,” said Bingo with a scornful
