“Perfectly correct, sir.”
“And yet now she has absolutely insisted on my scratching all previous engagements and buzzing down to Woollam Chersey. She must have some sinister reason of which we know nothing. Can you blame me, Jeeves, if the heart is heavy?”
“No, sir. Excuse me, sir, I fancy I heard the front-door bell.”
He shimmered out, and I took another listless stab at the e. and bacon.
“A telegram, sir,” said Jeeves, re-entering the presence.
“Open it, Jeeves, and read contents. Who is it from?”
“It is unsigned, sir.”
“You mean there’s no name at the end of it?”
“That is precisely what I was endeavouring to convey, sir.”
“Let’s have a look.”
I scanned the thing. It was a rummy communication. Rummy. No other word.
As follows:—
Remember when you come here absolutely vital meet perfect strangers.
We Woosters are not very strong in the head, particularly at breakfast-time; and I was conscious of a dull ache between the eyebrows.
“What does it mean, Jeeves?”
“I could not say, sir.”
“It says ‘come here.’ Where’s here?”
“You will notice that the message was handed in at Woollam Chersey, sir.”
“You’re absolutely right. At Woollam, as you very cleverly spotted, Chersey. This tells us something, Jeeves.”
“What, sir?”
“I don’t know. It couldn’t be from my Aunt Agatha, do you think?”
“Hardly, sir.”
“No; you’re right again. Then all we can say is that some person unknown, resident at Woollam Chersey, considers it absolutely vital for me to meet perfect strangers. But why should I meet perfect strangers, Jeeves?”
“I could not say, sir.”
“And yet, looking at it from another angle, why shouldn’t I?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“Then what it comes to is that the thing is a mystery which time alone can solve. We must wait and see, Jeeves.”
“The very expression I was about to employ, sir.”
I hit Woollam Chersey at about four o’clock, and found Aunt Agatha in her lair, writing letters. And, from what I know of her, probably offensive letters, with nasty postscripts. She regarded me with not a fearful lot of joy.
“Oh, there you are, Bertie.”
“Yes, here I am.”
“There’s a smut on your nose.”
I plied the handkerchief.
“I am glad you have arrived so early. I want to have a word with you before you meet Mr. Filmer.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Filmer, the Cabinet Minister. He is staying in the house. Surely even you must have heard of Mr. Filmer?”
“Oh, rather,” I said, though as a matter of fact the bird was completely unknown to me. What with one thing and another, I’m not frightfully well up in the personnel of the political world.
“I particularly wish you to make a good impression on Mr. Filmer.”
“Right-ho.”
“Don’t speak in that casual way, as if you supposed that it was perfectly natural that you would make a good impression upon him. Mr. Filmer is a serious-minded man of high character and purpose, and you are just the type of vapid and frivolous wastrel against which he is most likely to be prejudiced.”
Hard words, of course, from one’s own flesh and blood, but well in keeping with past form.
“You will endeavour, therefore, while you are here not to display yourself in the role of a vapid and frivolous wastrel. In the first place, you will give up smoking during your visit.”
“Oh, I say!”
“Mr. Filmer is president of the Anti-Tobacco League. Nor will you drink alcoholic stimulants.”
“Oh, dash it!”
“And you will kindly exclude from your conversation all that is suggestive of the bar, the billiard-room, and the stage-door. Mr. Filmer will judge you largely by your conversation.”
I rose to a point of order.
“Yes, but why have I got to make an impression on this—on Mr. Filmer?”
“Because,” said the old relative, giving me the eye, “I particularly wish it.”
Not, perhaps, a notably snappy comeback as comebacks go; but it was enough to show me that that was more or less that; and I beetled out with an aching heart.
I headed for the garden, and I’m dashed if the first person I saw wasn’t young Bingo Little.
Bingo Little and I have been pals practically from birth. Born in the same village within a couple of days of one another, we went through kindergarten, Eton, and Oxford together; and, grown to riper years, we have enjoyed in the old metrop. full many a first-class binge in each other’s society. If there was one fellow in the world, I felt, who could alleviate the horrors of this blighted visit of mine, that bloke was young Bingo Little.
But how he came to be there was more than I could understand. Some time before, you see, he had married the celebrated authoress, Rosie M. Banks; and the last I had seen of him he had been on the point of accompanying her to America on a lecture-tour. I distinctly remembered him cursing rather freely because the trip would mean his missing Ascot.
Still, rummy as it might seem, here he was. And, aching for the sight of a friendly face, I gave tongue like a bloodhound.
“Bingo!”
He spun round; and, by Jove, his face wasn’t friendly after all. It was what they call contorted. He waved his arms at me like a semaphore.
“ ’Sh!” he hissed. “Would you ruin me?”
“Eh?”
“Didn’t you get my telegram?”
“Was that your telegram?”
“Of course it was my telegram.”
“Then why didn’t you sign it?”
“I did sign it.”
“No, you didn’t. I couldn’t make out what it was all about.”
“Well, you got my letter.”
“What letter?”
“My letter.”
“I didn’t get any letter.”
“Then I must have forgotten to post it. It was to tell you that I was down here tutoring your Cousin Thomas, and that it was essential that, when we met, you should treat me as a perfect stranger.”
“But why?”
“Because, if your aunt supposed that I was a pal of yours, she would naturally sack me on the spot.”
“Why?”
Bingo raised his eyebrows.
“Why? Be reasonable, Bertie. If you were your aunt, and you knew the sort of chap you were, would you let a fellow you knew to be your best pal tutor your son?”
This made the old lemon swim a bit, but I got his meaning after awhile,
