The cheers that greeted this were the loudest yet. Anything about splitting trousers went straight to the simple hearts of the young scholars of Market Snodsbury Grammar School. Two in the row in front of me turned purple, and a small lad with freckles seated beside them asked me for my autograph.
“Let me tell you a story about Bertie Wooster.”
A Wooster can stand a good deal, but he cannot stand having his name bandied in a public place. Picking my feet up softly, I was in the very process of executing a quiet sneak for the door, when I perceived that the bearded bloke had at last decided to apply the closure.
Why he hadn’t done so before is beyond me. Spellbound, I take it. And, of course, when a chap is going like a breeze with the public, as Gussie had been, it’s not so dashed easy to chip in. However, the prospect of hearing another of Gussie’s anecdotes seemed to have done the trick. Rising rather as I had risen from my bench at the beginning of that painful scene with Tuppy in the twilight, he made a leap for the table, snatched up a book and came bearing down on the speaker.
He touched Gussie on the arm, and Gussie, turning sharply and seeing a large bloke with a beard apparently about to bean him with a book, sprang back in an attitude of self-defence.
“Perhaps, as time is getting on, Mr. Fink-Nottle, we had better—”
“Oh, ah,” said Gussie, getting the trend. He relaxed. “The prizes, eh? Of course, yes. Right-ho. Yes, might as well be shoving along with it. What’s this one?”
“Spelling and dictation—P. K. Purvis,” announced the bearded bloke.
“Spelling and dictation—P. K. Purvis,” echoed Gussie, as if he were calling coals. “Forward, P. K. Purvis.”
Now that the whistle had been blown on his speech, it seemed to me that there was no longer any need for the strategic retreat which I had been planning. I had no wish to tear myself away unless I had to. I mean, I had told Jeeves that this binge would be fraught with interest, and it was fraught with interest. There was a fascination about Gussie’s methods which gripped and made one reluctant to pass the thing up provided personal innuendoes were steered clear of. I decided, accordingly, to remain, and presently there was a musical squeaking and P. K. Purvis climbed the platform.
The spelling-and-dictation champ was about three foot six in his squeaking shoes, with a pink face and sandy hair. Gussie patted his hair. He seemed to have taken an immediate fancy to the lad.
“You P. K. Purvis?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“It’s a beautiful world, P. K. Purvis.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Ah, you’ve noticed it, have you? Good. You married, by any chance?”
“Sir, no, sir.”
“Get married, P. K. Purvis,” said Gussie earnestly. “It’s the only life … Well, here’s your book. Looks rather bilge to me from a glance at the title page, but, such as it is, here you are.”
P. K. Purvis squeaked off amidst sporadic applause, but one could not fail to note that the sporadic was followed by a rather strained silence. It was evident that Gussie was striking something of a new note in Market Snodsbury scholastic circles. Looks were exchanged between parent and parent. The bearded bloke had the air of one who has drained the bitter cup. As for Aunt Dahlia, her demeanour now told only too clearly that her last doubts had been resolved and her verdict was in. I saw her whisper to the Bassett, who sat on her right, and the Bassett nodded sadly and looked like a fairy about to shed a tear and add another star to the Milky Way.
Gussie, after the departure of P. K. Purvis, had fallen into a sort of daydream and was standing with his mouth open and his hands in his pockets. Becoming abruptly aware that a fat kid in knickerbockers was at his elbow, he started violently.
“Hullo!” he said, visibly shaken. “Who are you?”
“This,” said the bearded bloke, “is R. V. Smethurst.”
“What’s he doing here?” asked Gussie suspiciously.
“You are presenting him with the drawing prize, Mr. Fink-Nottle.”
This apparently struck Gussie as a reasonable explanation. His face cleared.
“That’s right, too,” he said. … “Well, here it is, cocky. You off?” he said, as the kid prepared to withdraw.
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Wait, R. V. Smethurst. Not so fast. Before you go, there is a question I wish to ask you.”
But the beard bloke’s aim now seemed to be to rush the ceremonies a bit. He hustled R. V. Smethurst off stage rather like a chucker-out in a pub regretfully ejecting an old and respected customer, and starting paging G. G. Simmons. A moment later the latter was up and coming, and conceive my emotion when it was announced that the subject on which he had clicked was Scripture knowledge. One of us, I mean to say.
G. G. Simmons was an unpleasant, perky-looking stripling, mostly front teeth and spectacles, but I gave him a big hand. We Scripture-knowledge sharks stick together.
Gussie, I was sorry to see, didn’t like him. There was in his manner, as he regarded G. G. Simmons, none of the chumminess which had marked it during his interview with P. K. Purvis or, in a somewhat lesser degree, with R. V. Smethurst. He was cold and distant.
“Well, G. G. Simmons.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“What do you mean—sir, yes, sir? Dashed silly thing to say. So you’ve won the Scripture-knowledge prize, have you?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Yes,” said Gussie, “you look just the sort of little tick who would. And yet,” he said, pausing and eyeing the child keenly, “how are we to know that this has all been open and above board? Let me test you, G. G. Simmons. What was What’s-His-Name—the chap who begat Thingummy? Can you answer me that, Simmons?”
“Sir, no, sir.”
Gussie turned to the bearded bloke.
“Fishy,” he said. “Very
