“I am sorry, sir.”
“Not half so sorry as he was. She found him closeted with a steak-and-kidney pie, and appears to have been a bit caustic about fat men who lived for food alone.”
“Most disturbing, sir.”
“Very. In fact, many people would say that things had gone so far between these two nothing now could bridge the chasm. A girl who could make cracks about human pythons who ate nine or ten meals a day and ought to be careful not to hurry upstairs because of the danger of apoplectic fits is a girl, many people would say, in whose heart love is dead. Wouldn’t people say that, Jeeves?”
“Undeniably, sir.”
“They would be wrong.”
“You think so, sir?”
“I am convinced of it. I know these females. You can’t go by what they say.”
“You feel that Miss Angela’s strictures should not be taken too much au pied de la lettre, sir?”
“Eh?”
“In English, we should say ‘literally.’ ”
“Literally. That’s exactly what I mean. You know what girls are. A tiff occurs, and they shoot their heads off. But underneath it all the old love still remains. Am I correct?”
“Quite correct, sir. The poet Scott—”
“Right ho, Jeeves.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And in order to bring that old love whizzing to the surface once more, all that is required is the proper treatment.”
“By ‘proper treatment,’ sir, you mean—”
“Clever handling, Jeeves. A spot of the good old snaky work. I see what must be done to jerk my Cousin Angela back to normalcy. I’ll tell you, shall I?”
“If you would be so kind, sir.”
I lit a cigarette, and eyed him keenly through the smoke. He waited respectfully for me to unleash the words of wisdom. I must say for Jeeves that—till, as he is so apt to do, he starts shoving his oar in and cavilling and obstructing—he makes a very good audience. I don’t know if he is actually agog, but he looks agog, and that’s the great thing.
“Suppose you were strolling through the illimitable jungle, Jeeves, and happened to meet a tiger cub.”
“The contingency is a remote one, sir.”
“Never mind. Let us suppose it.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Let us now suppose that you sloshed that tiger cub, and let us suppose further that word reached its mother that it was being put upon. What would you expect the attitude of that mother to be? In what frame of mind do you consider that that tigress would approach you?”
“I should anticipate a certain show of annoyance, sir.”
“And rightly. Due to what is known as the maternal instinct, what?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good, Jeeves. We will now suppose that there has recently been some little coolness between this tiger cub and this tigress. For some days, let us say, they have not been on speaking terms. Do you think that that would make any difference to the vim with which the latter would leap to the former’s aid?”
“No, sir.”
“Exactly. Here, then, in brief, is my plan, Jeeves. I am going to draw my Cousin Angela aside to a secluded spot and roast Tuppy properly.”
“Roast, sir?”
“Knock. Slam. Tick-off. Abuse. Denounce. I shall be very terse about Tuppy, giving it as my opinion that in all essentials he is more like a wart hog than an ex-member of a fine old English public school. What will ensue? Hearing him attacked, my Cousin Angela’s womanly heart will be as sick as mud. The maternal tigress in her will awake. No matter what differences they may have had, she will remember only that he is the man she loves, and will leap to his defence. And from that to falling into his arms and burying the dead past will be but a step. How do you react to that?”
“The idea is an ingenious one, sir.”
“We Woosters are ingenious, Jeeves, exceedingly ingenious.”
“Yes, sir.”
“As a matter of fact, I am not speaking without a knowledge of the form book. I have tested this theory.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Yes, in person. And it works. I was standing on the Eden rock at Antibes last month, idly watching the bathers disport themselves in the water, and a girl I knew slightly pointed at a male diver and asked me if I didn’t think his legs were about the silliest-looking pair of props ever issued to human being. I replied that I did, indeed, and for the space of perhaps two minutes was extraordinarily witty and satirical about this bird’s underpinning. At the end of that period, I suddenly felt as if I had been caught up in the tail of a cyclone.
“Beginning with a critique of my own limbs, which she said, justly enough, were nothing to write home about, this girl went on to dissect my manners, morals, intellect, general physique, and method of eating asparagus with such acerbity that by the time she had finished the best you could say of Bertram was that, so far as was known, he had never actually committed murder or set fire to an orphan asylum. Subsequent investigation proved that she was engaged to the fellow with the legs and had had a slight disagreement with him the evening before on the subject of whether she should or should not have made an original call of two spades, having seven, but without the ace. That night I saw them dining together with every indication of relish, their differences made up and the lovelight once more in their eyes. That shows you, Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I expect precisely similar results from my Cousin Angela when I start roasting Tuppy. By lunchtime, I should imagine, the engagement will be on again and the diamond-and-platinum ring glittering as of yore on her third finger. Or is it the fourth?”
“Scarcely by luncheon time, sir. Miss Angela’s maid informs me that Miss Angela drove off in her car early this morning with the intention of spending the day with friends in the vicinity.”
“Well, within half an hour of whatever time she comes back, then. These are mere straws, Jeeves. Do not let us chop them.”
“No, sir.”
“The point is that, as far
