For myself, I found our stay at Brighton highly enjoyable, and should have been willing to extend it but Mr. Wooster, still restless, wearied of the place by the end of two days, and on the third afternoon he instructed me to pack up and bring the car round to the hotel. We started back along the London road at about five of a fine summer’s day, and had travelled perhaps two miles when I perceived in the road before us a young lady, gesticulating with no little animation. I applied the brake and brought the vehicle to a standstill.
“What,” inquired Mr. Wooster, waking from a reverie, “is the big thought at the back of this, Jeeves?”
“I observed a young lady endeavouring to attract our attention with signals a little way down the road, sir,” I explained. “She is now making her way towards us.”
Mr. Wooster peered.
“I see her. I expect she wants a lift, Jeeves.”
“That was the interpretation which I placed upon her actions, sir.”
“A jolly-looking kid,” said Mr. Wooster. “I wonder what she’s doing, biffing about the high road.”
“She has the air to me, sir, of one who has been absenting herself without leave from her school, sir.”
“Hallo-allo-allo!” said Mr. Wooster, as the child reached us. “Do you want a lift?”
“Oh, I say, can you?” said the child, with marked pleasure.
“Where do you want to go?”
“There’s a turning to the left about a mile farther on. If you’ll put me down there, I’ll walk the rest of the way. I say, thanks awfully. I’ve got a nail in my shoe.”
She climbed in at the back. A red-haired young person with a snub nose and an extremely large grin. Her age, I should imagine, would be about twelve. She let down one of the spare seats, and knelt on it to facilitate conversation.
“I’m going to get into a frightful row,” she began. “Miss Tomlinson will be perfectly furious.”
“No, really?” said Mr. Wooster.
“It’s a half-holiday, you know, and I sneaked away to Brighton, because I wanted to go on the pier and put pennies in the slot-machines. I thought I could get back in time so that nobody would notice I’d gone, but I got this nail in my shoe, and now there’ll be a fearful row. Oh, well,” she said, with a philosophy which, I confess, I admired, “it can’t be helped. What’s your car? A Sunbeam, isn’t it? We’ve got a Wolseley at home.”
Mr. Wooster was visibly perturbed. As I have indicated, he was at this time in a highly malleable frame of mind, tenderhearted to a degree where the young of the female sex were concerned. Her sad case touched him deeply.
“Oh, I say, this is rather rotten,” he observed. “Isn’t there anything to be done? I say, Jeeves, don’t you think something could be done?”
“It was not my place to make the suggestion, sir,” I replied, “but, as you yourself have brought the matter up, I fancy the trouble is susceptible of adjustment. I think it would be a legitimate subterfuge were you to inform the young lady’s schoolmistress that you are an old friend of the young lady’s father. In this case you could inform Miss Tomlinson that you had been passing the school and had seen the young lady at the gate and taken her for a drive. Miss Tomlinson’s chagrin would no doubt in these circumstances be sensibly diminished if not altogether dispersed.”
“Well, you are a sportsman!” observed the young person, with great enthusiasm. And she proceeded to kiss me—in connection with which I have only to say that I was sorry she had just been devouring some sticky species of sweetmeat.
“Jeeves, you’ve hit it!” said Mr. Wooster. “A sound, even fruity, scheme. I say, I suppose I’d better know your name and all that, if I’m a friend of your father’s.”
“My name’s Peggy Mainwaring, thanks awfully,” said the young person. “And my father’s Professor Mainwaring. He’s written a lot of books. You’ll be expected to know that.”
“Author of the well-known series of philosophical treatises, sir,” I said. “They have a great vogue, though, if the young lady will pardon my saying so, many of the Professor’s opinions strike me personally as somewhat empirical. Shall I drive on to the school, sir?”
“Yes, carry on. I say, Jeeves, it’s a rummy thing. Do you know, I’ve never been inside a girls’ school in my life.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Ought to be a dashed interesting experience, Jeeves, what?”
“I fancy that you may find it so, sir,” I said.
We drove on a matter of half a mile down a lane, and, directed by the young person, I turned in at the gates of a house of imposing dimensions, bringing the car to a halt at the front door. Mr. Wooster and the child went in, and presently a parlourmaid came out.
“You’re to take the car round to the stables, please,” she said.
“Ah! Then everything is satisfactory, eh? Where has Mr. Wooster gone?”
“Miss Peggy has taken him off to meet her friends. And cook says she hopes you’ll step round to the kitchen later and have a cup of tea.”
“Inform her that I shall be delighted. Before I take the car to the stables, would it be possible for me to have a word with Miss Tomlinson?”
A moment later I was following her into the drawing-room.
Handsome but strong-minded—that was how I summed up Miss Tomlinson at first glance. In some ways she recalled to my mind Mr. Wooster’s Aunt Agatha. She had the same penetrating gaze and that indefinable air of being reluctant to stand any nonsense.
“I fear I am possibly taking a liberty, madam,” I began, “but I am hoping that you will allow me to say a word
