Jeeves Stories P. G. Wodehouse (websites to read books for free txt) 📖

me that, were Miss Wardour to inform Mr. Claude and Mr. Eustace independently that she proposed sailing for South Africa to take up a theatrical engagement, the desired effect might be produced. It appears that my anticipations were correct, sir. The young gentlemen ate it, if I may use the expression.”

“Jeeves,” I said⁠—we Woosters may make bloomers, but we are never too proud to admit it⁠—“you stand alone!”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

“Oh, but I say!” A ghastly thought had struck me. “When they get on the boat and find she isn’t there, won’t they come buzzing back?”

“I anticipated that possibility, sir. At my suggestion, Miss Wardour informed the young gentlemen that she proposed to travel overland to Madeira and join the vessel there.”

“And where do they touch after Madeira?”

“Nowhere, sir.”

For a moment I just lay back, letting the idea of the thing soak in. There seemed to me to be only one flaw.

“The only pity is,” I said, “that on a large boat like that they will be able to avoid each other. I mean, I should have liked to feel that Claude was having a good deal of Eustace’s society and vice versa.”

“I fancy that that will be so, sir. I secured a two-berth stateroom. Mr. Claude will occupy one berth, Mr. Eustace the other.”

I sighed with pure ecstasy. It seemed a dashed shame that on this joyful occasion I should have to go off to Harrogate with my Uncle George.

“Have you started packing yet, Jeeves?” I asked.

“Packing, sir?”

“For Harrogate. I’ve got to go there today with Sir George.”

“Of course, yes, sir. I forgot to mention it. Sir George rang up on the telephone this morning while you were still asleep, and said that he had changed his plans. He does not intend to go to Harrogate.”

“Oh, I say, how absolutely topping!”

“I thought you might be pleased, sir.”

“What made him change his plans? Did he say?”

“No, sir. But I gather from his man, Stevens, that he is feeling much better and does not now require a rest-cure. I took the liberty of giving Stevens the recipe for that pick-me-up of mine, of which you have always approved so much. Stevens tells me that Sir George informed him this morning that he is feeling a new man.”

Well, there was only one thing to do, and I did it. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt, but there was no alternative.

“Jeeves,” I said, “those spats.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You really dislike them?”

“Intensely, sir.”

“You don’t think time might induce you to change your views?”

“No, sir.”

“All right, then. Very well. Say no more. You may burn them.”

“Thank you very much, sir. I have already done so. Before breakfast this morning. A quiet grey is far more suitable, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Bingo and the Little Woman

It must have been a week or so after the departure of Claude and Eustace that I ran into young Bingo Little in the smoking room of the Senior Liberal Club. He was lying back in an armchair with his mouth open and a sort of goofy expression in his eyes, while a grey-bearded cove in the middle distance watched him with so much dislike that I concluded that Bingo had pinched his favourite seat. That’s the worst of being in a strange club⁠—absolutely without intending it, you find yourself constantly trampling upon the vested interests of the Oldest Inhabitants.

“Hallo, face,” I said.

“Cheerio, ugly,” said young Bingo, and we settled down to have a small one before lunch.

Once a year the committee of the Drones decides that the old club could do with a wash and brush-up, so they shoo us out and dump us down for a few weeks at some other institution. This time we were roosting at the Senior Liberal, and personally I had found the strain pretty fearful. I mean, when you’ve got used to a club where everything’s nice and cheery, and where, if you want to attract a chappie’s attention, you heave a bit of bread at him, it kind of damps you to come to a place where the youngest member is about eighty-seven and it isn’t considered good form to talk to anyone unless you and he were through the Peninsular War together. It was a relief to come across Bingo. We started to talk in hushed voices.

“This club,” I said, “is the limit.”

“It is the eel’s eyebrows,” agreed young Bingo. “I believe that old boy over by the window has been dead three days, but I don’t like to mention it to anyone.”

“Have you lunched here yet?”

“No. Why?”

“They have waitresses instead of waiters.”

“Good Lord! I thought that went out with the armistice.” Bingo mused a moment, straightening his tie absently. “Er⁠—pretty girls?” he said.

“No.”

He seemed disappointed, but pulled round.

“Well, I’ve heard that the cooking’s the best in London.”

“So they say. Shall we be going in?”

“All right. I expect,” said young Bingo, “that at the end of the meal⁠—or possibly at the beginning⁠—the waitress will say, ‘Both together, sir?’ Reply in the affirmative. I haven’t a bean.”

“Hasn’t your uncle forgiven you yet?”

“Not yet, confound him!”

I was sorry to hear the row was still on. I resolved to do the poor old thing well at the festive board, and I scanned the menu with some intentness when the girl rolled up with it.

“How would this do you, Bingo?” I said at length. “A few plovers’ eggs to weigh in with, a cup of soup, a touch of cold salmon, some cold curry, and a splash of gooseberry tart and cream with a bite of cheese to finish?”

I don’t know that I had expected the man actually to scream with delight, though I had picked the items from my knowledge of his pet dishes, but I had expected him to say something. I looked up, and found that his attention was elsewhere. He was gazing at the waitress with the look of a dog that’s just remembered where its bone was buried.

She was a tallish girl with sort of soft, soulful brown eyes. Nice figure and