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

about it. She said she

had told you.”

 

“You don’t mean–-”

 

“The picture. You refused to take it on, so she asked me.”

 

“Reggie, old man,” he said. “I’ll never believe what they say about

repentance again. It’s a fool’s trick and upsets everything. If I

hadn’t repented, and thought it was rather rough on Elizabeth not to

do a little thing like that for her, and come down here to do it after

all, you wouldn’t have stopped that sleep-producer with your chin. I’m

sorry.”

 

“Me, too,” I said, giving my head another shake to make certain it was

still on.

 

“Are you feeling better now?”

 

“Better than I was. But that’s not saying much.”

 

“Would you like some more soda-water? No? Well, how about getting this

job finished and going to bed? And let’s be quick about it too. You made

a noise like a ton of bricks when you went down just now, and it’s on

the cards some of the servants may have heard. Toss you who carves.”

 

“Heads.”

 

“Tails it is,” he said, uncovering the coin. “Up you get. I’ll hold the

light. Don’t spike yourself on that sword of yours.”

 

It was as easy a job as Elizabeth had said. Just four quick cuts, and

the thing came out of its frame like an oyster. I rolled it up. Old

Bill had put the lantern on the floor and was at the sideboard,

collecting whisky, soda, and glasses.

 

“We’ve got a long evening before us,” he said. “You can’t burn a picture

of that size in one chunk. You’d set the chimney on fire. Let’s do the

thing comfortably. Clarence can’t grudge us the stuff. We’ve done him

a bit of good this trip. To-morrow’ll be the maddest, merriest day of

Clarence’s glad New Year. On we go.”

 

We went up to my room, and sat smoking and yarning away and sipping our

drinks, and every now and then cutting a slice off the picture and

shoving it in the fire till it was all gone. And what with the cosiness

of it and the cheerful blaze, and the comfortable feeling of doing good

by stealth, I don’t know when I’ve had a jollier time since the days

when we used to brew in my study at school.

 

We had just put the last slice on when Bill sat up suddenly, and

gripped my arm.

 

“I heard something,” he said.

 

I listened, and, by Jove, I heard something, too. My room was just over

the dining-room, and the sound came up to us quite distinctly. Stealthy

footsteps, by George! And then a chair falling over.

 

“There’s somebody in the dining-room,” I whispered.

 

There’s a certain type of chap who takes a pleasure in positively

chivvying trouble. Old Bill’s like that. If I had been alone, it would

have taken me about three seconds to persuade myself that I hadn’t

really heard anything after all. I’m a peaceful sort of cove, and

believe in living and letting live, and so forth. To old Bill, however,

a visit from burglars was pure jam. He was out of his chair in one

jump.

 

“Come on,” he said. “Bring the poker.”

 

I brought the tongs as well. I felt like it. Old Bill collared the

knife. We crept downstairs.

 

“We’ll fling the door open and make a rush,” said Bill.

 

“Supposing they shoot, old scout?”

 

“Burglars never shoot,” said Bill.

 

Which was comforting provided the burglars knew it.

 

Old Bill took a grip of the handle, turned it quickly, and in he went.

And then we pulled up sharp, staring.

 

The room was in darkness except for a feeble splash of light at the

near end. Standing on a chair in front of Clarence’s “Jocund Spring,”

holding a candle in one hand and reaching up with a knife in the other,

was old Mr. Yeardsley, in bedroom slippers and a grey dressing-gown. He

had made a final cut just as we rushed in. Turning at the sound, he

stopped, and he and the chair and the candle and the picture came down

in a heap together. The candle went out.

 

“What on earth?” said Bill.

 

I felt the same. I picked up the candle and lit it, and then a most

fearful thing happened. The old man picked himself up, and suddenly

collapsed into a chair and began to cry like a child. Of course, I

could see it was only the Artistic Temperament, but still, believe me,

it was devilish unpleasant. I looked at old Bill. Old Bill looked at

me. We shut the door quick, and after that we didn’t know what to do. I

saw Bill look at the sideboard, and I knew what he was looking for. But

we had taken the siphon upstairs, and his ideas of first-aid stopped

short at squirting soda-water. We just waited, and presently old

Yeardsley switched off, sat up, and began talking with a rush.

 

“Clarence, my boy, I was tempted. It was that burglary at Dryden Park.

It tempted me. It made it all so simple. I knew you would put it down

to the same gang, Clarence, my boy. I–-”

 

It seemed to dawn upon him at this point that Clarence was not among

those present.

 

“Clarence?” he said hesitatingly.

 

“He’s in bed,” I said.

 

“In bed! Then he doesn’t know? Even now—Young men, I throw myself

on your mercy. Don’t be hard on me. Listen.” He grabbed at Bill, who

sidestepped. “I can explain everything—everything.”

 

He gave a gulp.

 

“You are not artists, you two young men, but I will try to make you

understand, make you realise what this picture means to me. I was two

years painting it. It is my child. I watched it grow. I loved it. It

was part of my life. Nothing would have induced me to sell it. And then

Clarence married, and in a mad moment I gave my treasure to him. You

cannot understand, you two young men, what agonies I suffered. The

thing was done. It was irrevocable. I saw how Clarence valued the

picture. I knew that I could never bring myself to ask him for it back.

And yet I was lost without it. What could I do? Till this evening I

could see no hope. Then came this story of the theft of the Romney from

a house quite close to this, and I saw my way. Clarence would never

suspect. He would put the robbery down to the same band of criminals

who stole the Romney. Once the idea had come, I could not drive it out.

I fought against it, but to no avail. At last I yielded, and crept down

here to carry out my plan. You found me.” He grabbed again, at me this

time, and got me by the arm. He had a grip like a lobster. “Young man,”

he said, “you would not betray me? You would not tell Clarence?”

 

I was feeling most frightfully sorry for the poor old chap by this

time, don’t you know, but I thought it would be kindest to give it him

straight instead of breaking it by degrees.

 

“I won’t say a word to Clarence, Mr. Yeardsley,” I said. “I quite

understand your feelings. The Artistic Temperament, and all that sort

of thing. I mean—what? I know. But I’m afraid—Well, look!”

 

I went to the door and switched on the electric light, and there,

staring him in the face, were the two empty frames. He stood goggling

at them in silence. Then he gave a sort of wheezy grunt.

 

“The gang! The burglars! They have been here, and they have

taken Clarence’s picture!” He paused. “It might have been mine! My

Venus!” he whispered It was getting most fearfully painful, you know,

but he had to know the truth.

 

“I’m awfully sorry, you know,” I said. “But it was.”

 

He started, poor old chap.

 

“Eh? What do you mean?”

 

“They did take your Venus.”

 

“But I have it here.”

 

I shook my head.

 

“That’s Clarence’s ‘Jocund Spring,’” I said.

 

He jumped at it and straightened it out.

 

“What! What are you talking about? Do you think I don’t know my own

picture—my child—my Venus. See! My own signature in the corner. Can

you read, boy? Look: ‘Matthew Yeardsley.’ This is my picture!”

 

And—well, by Jove, it was, don’t you know!

 

*

 

Well, we got him off to bed, him and his infernal Venus, and we settled

down to take a steady look at the position of affairs. Bill said it was

my fault for getting hold of the wrong picture, and I said it was Bill’s

fault for fetching me such a crack on the jaw that I couldn’t be expected

to see what I was getting hold of, and then there was a pretty massive

silence for a bit.

 

“Reggie,” said Bill at last, “how exactly do you feel about facing

Clarence and Elizabeth at breakfast?”

 

“Old scout,” I said. “I was thinking much the same myself.”

 

“Reggie,” said Bill, “I happen to know there’s a milk-train leaving

Midford at three-fifteen. It isn’t what you’d call a flier. It gets to

London at about half-past nine. Well—er—in the circumstances, how

about it?”

THE AUNT AND THE SLUGGARD

Now that it’s all over, I may as well admit that there was a time

during the rather funny affair of Rockmetteller Todd when I thought

that Jeeves was going to let me down. The man had the appearance of

being baffled.

 

Jeeves is my man, you know. Officially he pulls in his weekly wages

for pressing my clothes and all that sort of thing; but actually he’s

more like what the poet Johnnie called some bird of his acquaintance who

was apt to rally round him in times of need—a guide, don’t you know;

philosopher, if I remember rightly, and—I rather fancy—friend. I rely

on him at every turn.

 

So naturally, when Rocky Todd told me about his aunt, I didn’t

hesitate. Jeeves was in on the thing from the start.

 

The affair of Rocky Todd broke loose early one morning of spring. I was

in bed, restoring the good old tissues with about nine hours of the

dreamless, when the door flew open and somebody prodded me in the lower

ribs and began to shake the bedclothes. After blinking a bit and

generally pulling myself together, I located Rocky, and my first

impression was that it was some horrid dream.

 

Rocky, you see, lived down on Long Island somewhere, miles away from

New York; and not only that, but he had told me himself more than once

that he never got up before twelve, and seldom earlier than one.

Constitutionally the laziest young devil in America, he had hit on a

walk in life which enabled him to go the limit in that direction. He

was a poet. At least, he wrote poems when he did anything; but most of

his time, as far as I could make out, he spent in a sort of trance. He

told me once that he could sit on a fence, watching a worm and

wondering what on earth it was up to, for hours at a stretch.

 

He had his scheme of life worked out to a fine point. About once a

month he would take three days writing a few poems; the other three

hundred and twenty-nine days of the year he rested. I didn’t know there

was enough money in poetry to support a chappie, even in the way