“What are you playing at?” demanded the policeman.
“Just looking round. They may have moved the thing.”
“Ho!”
And then there was another bit of a lull. And suddenly I found myself by the window, and, by Jove, it was six inches open at the bottom. And the world beyond looked so bright and sunny and—Well, I don’t claim that I am a particularly swift thinker, but once more something seemed to whisper “Outside for Bertram!” I slid my fingers nonchalantly under the sash, gave a hefty heave, and up she came. And the next moment I was in a laurel bush, feeling like the cross which marks the spot where the accident occurred.
A large red face appeared in the window. I got up and skipped lightly to the gate.
“Hi!” shouted the policeman.
“Ho!” I replied, and went forth, moving well.
“This,” I said to myself, as I hailed a passing cab and sank back on the cushions, “is the last time I try to do anything for young Bingo!”
These sentiments I expressed in no guarded language to Jeeves when I was back in the old flat with my feet on the mantelpiece, pushing down a soothing whisky-and.
“Never again, Jeeves!” I said. “Never again!”
“Well, sir—”
“No, never again!”
“Well, sir—”
“What do you mean, ‘Well, sir’? What are you driving at?”
“Well, sir, Mr. Little is an extremely persistent young gentleman, and yours, if I may say so, sir, is a yielding and obliging nature—”
“You don’t think that young Bingo would have the immortal rind to try to get me into some other foul enterprise?
“I should say that it was more than probable, sir.”
I removed the dogs swiftly from the mantelpiece, and jumped up, all of a twitter.
“Jeeves, what would you advise?”
“Well, sir, I think a little change of scene would be judicious.”
“Do a bolt?”
“Precisely, sir. If I might suggest it, sir, why not change your mind and join Mr. George Travers at Harrogate?”
“Oh, I say, Jeeves!”
“You would be out of what I might describe as the danger zone there, sir.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Jeeves,” I said, thoughtfully. “Yes, possibly you’re right. How far is Harrogate from London?”
“Two hundred and six miles, sir.”
“Yes, I think you’re right. Is there a train this afternoon?”
“Yes, sir. You could catch it quite easily.”
“All right, then. Bung a few necessaries in a bag.”
“I have already done so, sir.”
“Ho!” I said.
It’s a rummy thing, but when you come down to it Jeeves is always right. He had tried to cheer me up at the station by saying that I would not find Harrogate unpleasant, and, by Jove, he was perfectly correct. What I had overlooked, when examining the project, was the fact that I should be in the middle of a bevy of blokes who were taking the cure and I shouldn’t be taking it myself. You’ve no notion what a dashed cosy, satisfying feeling that gives a fellow.
I mean to say, there was old Uncle George, for instance. The medicine-man, having given him the once-over, had ordered him to abstain from all alcoholic liquids, and in addition to tool down the hill to the Royal Pump-Room each morning at eight-thirty and imbibe twelve ounces of warm crescent saline and magnesia. It doesn’t sound much, put that way, but I gather from contemporary accounts that it’s practically equivalent to getting outside a couple of little old last year’s eggs beaten up in seawater. And the thought of Uncle George, who had oppressed me sorely in my childhood, sucking down that stuff and having to hop out of bed at eight-fifteen to do so was extremely grateful and comforting of a morning.
At four in the afternoon he would toddle down the hill again and repeat the process, and at night we would dine together and I would loll back in my chair, sipping my wine, and listen to him telling me what the stuff had tasted like. In many ways the ideal existence.
I generally managed to fit it in with my engagements to go down and watch him tackle his afternoon dose, for we Woosters are as fond of a laugh as anyone. And it was while I was enjoying the performance in the middle of the second week that I heard my name spoken. And there was Aunt Dahlia.
“Hullo!” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“I came down yesterday with Tom.”
“Is Tom taking the cure?” asked Uncle George, looking up hopefully from the hell-brew.
“Yes.”
“Are you taking the cure?”
“Yes.”
“Ah!” said Uncle George, looking happier than I had seen him for days. He swallowed the last drops, and then, the programme calling for a brisk walk before his massage, left us.
“I shouldn’t have thought you would have been able to get away from the paper,” I said. “I say,” I went on, struck by a pleasing idea. “It hasn’t bust up, has it?”
“Bust up? I should say not. A pal of mine is looking after it for me while I’m here. It’s right on its feet now. Tom has given me a couple of thousand and says there’s more if I want it, and I’ve been able to buy the serial rights of Lady Bablockhythe’s Frank Recollections of a Long Life. The hottest stuff, Bertie. Certain to double the circulation and send half the best-known people in London into hysterics for a year.”
“Oh!” I said. “Then you’re pretty well fixed, what? I mean, what with the Frank Recollections and that article of Mrs. Little’s.”
Aunt Dahlia was drinking something that smelled like a leak in the gas-pipe, and I thought for a moment that it was that that made her twist up a face. But I was wrong.
“Don’t mention that woman to me, Bertie!” she said. “One of the worst.”
“But I thought you were
