My Man Jeeves by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (reading cloud ebooks TXT) 📖

hands, but not enough to amount to

anything when it was a question of reforming dear old Bobbie by argument.

If you see a man asking for trouble, and insisting on getting it, the

only thing to do is to stand by and wait till it comes to him. After

that you may get a chance. But till then there’s nothing to be done.

But I thought a lot about him.

 

Bobbie didn’t get into the soup all at once. Weeks went by, and months,

and still nothing happened. Now and then he’d come into the club with a

kind of cloud on his shining morning face, and I’d know that there had

been doings in the home; but it wasn’t till well on in the spring that

he got the thunderbolt just where he had been asking for it—in the

thorax.

 

I was smoking a quiet cigarette one morning in the window looking out

over Piccadilly, and watching the buses and motors going up one way and

down the other—most interesting it is; I often do it—when in rushed

Bobbie, with his eyes bulging and his face the colour of an oyster,

waving a piece of paper in his hand.

 

“Reggie,” he said. “Reggie, old top, she’s gone!”

 

“Gone!” I said. “Who?”

 

“Mary, of course! Gone! Left me! Gone!”

 

“Where?” I said.

 

Silly question? Perhaps you’re right. Anyhow, dear old Bobbie nearly

foamed at the mouth.

 

“Where? How should I know where? Here, read this.”

 

He pushed the paper into my hand. It was a letter.

 

“Go on,” said Bobbie. “Read it.”

 

So I did. It certainly was quite a letter. There was not much of it,

but it was all to the point. This is what it said:

 

“MY DEAR BOBBIE,—I am going away. When you care enough about me

to remember to wish me many happy returns on my birthday, I will

come back. My address will be Box 341, London Morning News.”

 

I read it twice, then I said, “Well, why don’t you?”

 

“Why don’t I what?”

 

“Why don’t you wish her many happy returns? It doesn’t seem much to

ask.”

 

“But she says on her birthday.”

 

“Well, when is her birthday?”

 

“Can’t you understand?” said Bobbie. “I’ve forgotten.”

 

“Forgotten!” I said.

 

“Yes,” said Bobbie. “Forgotten.”

 

“How do you mean, forgotten?” I said. “Forgotten whether it’s the

twentieth or the twenty-first, or what? How near do you get to it?”

 

“I know it came somewhere between the first of January and the

thirty-first of December. That’s how near I get to it.”

 

“Think.”

 

“Think? What’s the use of saying ‘Think’? Think I haven’t thought? I’ve

been knocking sparks out of my brain ever since I opened that letter.”

 

“And you can’t remember?”

 

“No.”

 

I rang the bell and ordered restoratives.

 

“Well, Bobbie,” I said, “it’s a pretty hard case to spring on an

untrained amateur like me. Suppose someone had come to Sherlock Holmes

and said, ‘Mr. Holmes, here’s a case for you. When is my wife’s

birthday?’ Wouldn’t that have given Sherlock a jolt? However, I know

enough about the game to understand that a fellow can’t shoot off his

deductive theories unless you start him with a clue, so rouse yourself

out of that pop-eyed trance and come across with two or three. For

instance, can’t you remember the last time she had a birthday? What

sort of weather was it? That might fix the month.”

 

Bobbie shook his head.

 

“It was just ordinary weather, as near as I can recollect.”

 

“Warm?”

 

“Warmish.”

 

“Or cold?”

 

“Well, fairly cold, perhaps. I can’t remember.”

 

I ordered two more of the same. They seemed indicated in the Young

Detective’s Manual. “You’re a great help, Bobbie,” I said. “An

invaluable assistant. One of those indispensable adjuncts without

which no home is complete.”

 

Bobbie seemed to be thinking.

 

“I’ve got it,” he said suddenly. “Look here. I gave her a present on

her last birthday. All we have to do is to go to the shop, hunt up the

date when it was bought, and the thing’s done.”

 

“Absolutely. What did you give her?”

 

He sagged.

 

“I can’t remember,” he said.

 

Getting ideas is like golf. Some days you’re right off, others it’s

as easy as falling off a log. I don’t suppose dear old Bobbie had ever

had two ideas in the same morning before in his life; but now he did

it without an effort. He just loosed another dry Martini into the

undergrowth, and before you could turn round it had flushed quite a

brain-wave.

 

Do you know those little books called When were you Born?

There’s one for each month. They tell you your character, your talents,

your strong points, and your weak points at fourpence halfpenny a go.

Bobbie’s idea was to buy the whole twelve, and go through them till we

found out which month hit off Mary’s character. That would give us the

month, and narrow it down a whole lot.

 

A pretty hot idea for a non-thinker like dear old Bobbie. We sallied

out at once. He took half and I took half, and we settled down to work.

As I say, it sounded good. But when we came to go into the thing, we

saw that there was a flaw. There was plenty of information all right,

but there wasn’t a single month that didn’t have something that exactly

hit off Mary. For instance, in the December book it said, “December

people are apt to keep their own secrets. They are extensive travellers.”

Well, Mary had certainly kept her secret, and she had travelled quite

extensively enough for Bobbie’s needs. Then, October people were “born

with original ideas” and “loved moving.” You couldn’t have summed

up Mary’s little jaunt more neatly. February people had “wonderful

memories”—Mary’s speciality.

 

We took a bit of a rest, then had another go at the thing.

 

Bobbie was all for May, because the book said that women born in that

month were “inclined to be capricious, which is always a barrier to a

happy married life”; but I plumped for February, because February women

“are unusually determined to have their own way, are very earnest, and

expect a full return in their companion or mates.” Which he owned was

about as like Mary as anything could be.

 

In the end he tore the books up, stamped on them, burnt them, and went

home.

 

It was wonderful what a change the next few days made in dear old

Bobbie. Have you ever seen that picture, “The Soul’s Awakening”? It

represents a flapper of sorts gazing in a startled sort of way into the

middle distance with a look in her eyes that seems to say, “Surely that

is George’s step I hear on the mat! Can this be love?” Well, Bobbie had

a soul’s awakening too. I don’t suppose he had ever troubled to think

in his life before—not really think. But now he was wearing his

brain to the bone. It was painful in a way, of course, to see a fellow

human being so thoroughly in the soup, but I felt strongly that it was

all for the best. I could see as plainly as possible that all these

brainstorms were improving Bobbie out of knowledge. When it was all

over he might possibly become a rotter again of a sort, but it would

only be a pale reflection of the rotter he had been. It bore out the

idea I had always had that what he needed was a real good jolt.

 

I saw a great deal of him these days. I was his best friend, and he

came to me for sympathy. I gave it him, too, with both hands, but I

never failed to hand him the Moral Lesson when I had him weak.

 

One day he came to me as I was sitting in the club, and I could see

that he had had an idea. He looked happier than he had done in weeks.

 

“Reggie,” he said, “I’m on the trail. This time I’m convinced that I

shall pull it off. I’ve remembered something of vital importance.”

 

“Yes?” I said.

 

“I remember distinctly,” he said, “that on Mary’s last birthday we went

together to the Coliseum. How does that hit you?”

 

“It’s a fine bit of memorizing,” I said; “but how does it help?”

 

“Why, they change the programme every week there.”

 

“Ah!” I said. “Now you are talking.”

 

“And the week we went one of the turns was Professor Some One’s

Terpsichorean Cats. I recollect them distinctly. Now, are we narrowing

it down, or aren’t we? Reggie, I’m going round to the Coliseum this

minute, and I’m going to dig the date of those Terpsichorean Cats out

of them, if I have to use a crowbar.”

 

So that got him within six days; for the management treated us like

brothers; brought out the archives, and ran agile fingers over the

pages till they treed the cats in the middle of May.

 

“I told you it was May,” said Bobbie. “Maybe you’ll listen to me

another time.”

 

“If you’ve any sense,” I said, “there won’t be another time.”

 

And Bobbie said that there wouldn’t.

 

Once you get your money on the run, it parts as if it enjoyed doing it.

I had just got off to sleep that night when my telephone-bell rang. It

was Bobbie, of course. He didn’t apologize.

 

“Reggie,” he said, “I’ve got it now for certain. It’s just come to me.

We saw those Terpsichorean Cats at a matinee, old man.”

 

“Yes?” I said.

 

“Well, don’t you see that that brings it down to two days? It must have

been either Wednesday the seventh or Saturday the tenth.”

 

“Yes,” I said, “if they didn’t have daily matinees at the Coliseum.”

 

I heard him give a sort of howl.

 

“Bobbie,” I said. My feet were freezing, but I was fond of him.

 

“Well?”

 

“I’ve remembered something too. It’s this. The day you went to the

Coliseum I lunched with you both at the Ritz. You had forgotten to

bring any money with you, so you wrote a cheque.”

 

“But I’m always writing cheques.”

 

“You are. But this was for a tenner, and made out to the hotel. Hunt up

your cheque-book and see how many cheques for ten pounds payable to the

Ritz Hotel you wrote out between May the fifth and May the tenth.”

 

He gave a kind of gulp.

 

“Reggie,” he said, “you’re a genius. I’ve always said so. I believe

you’ve got it. Hold the line.”

 

Presently he came back again.

 

“Halloa!” he said.

 

“I’m here,” I said.

 

“It was the eighth. Reggie, old man, I–-”

 

“Topping,” I said. “Good night.”

 

It was working along into the small hours now, but I thought I might as

well make a night of it and finish the thing up, so I rang up an hotel

near the Strand.

 

“Put me through to Mrs. Cardew,” I said.

 

“It’s late,” said the man at the other end.

 

“And getting later every minute,” I said. “Buck along, laddie.”

 

I waited patiently. I had missed my beauty-sleep, and my feet had

frozen hard, but I was past regrets.

 

“What is the matter?” said Mary’s voice.

 

“My feet are cold,” I said. “But I didn’t call you up to tell you that

particularly. I’ve just been chatting with Bobbie, Mrs. Cardew.”

 

“Oh! is that Mr. Pepper?”

 

“Yes. He’s remembered it,