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

>“Sir?”

 

“He’s a vegetarian, you know. He must have been digging into a steak or

something. Call up a doctor!”

 

“I hardly think it will be necessary, sir. If you would take his

lordship’s legs, while I–-”

 

“Great Scot, Jeeves! You don’t think—he can’t be–-”

 

“I am inclined to think so, sir.”

 

And, by Jove, he was right! Once on the right track, you couldn’t

mistake it. Motty was under the surface.

 

It was the deuce of a shock.

 

“You never can tell, Jeeves!”

 

“Very seldom, sir.”

 

“Remove the eye of authority and where are you?”

 

“Precisely, sir.”

 

“Where is my wandering boy to-night and all that sort of thing, what?”

 

“It would seem so, sir.”

 

“Well, we had better bring him in, eh?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

So we lugged him in, and Jeeves put him to bed, and I lit a cigarette

and sat down to think the thing over. I had a kind of foreboding. It

seemed to me that I had let myself in for something pretty rocky.

 

Next morning, after I had sucked down a thoughtful cup of tea, I went

into Motty’s room to investigate. I expected to find the fellow a

wreck, but there he was, sitting up in bed, quite chirpy, reading

Gingery stories.

 

“What ho!” I said.

 

“What ho!” said Motty.

 

“What ho! What ho!”

 

“What ho! What ho! What ho!”

 

After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.

 

“How are you feeling this morning?” I asked.

 

“Topping!” replied Motty, blithely and with abandon. “I say, you know,

that fellow of yours—Jeeves, you know—is a corker. I had a most

frightful headache when I woke up, and he brought me a sort of rummy

dark drink, and it put me right again at once. Said it was his own

invention. I must see more of that lad. He seems to me distinctly one

of the ones!”

 

I couldn’t believe that this was the same blighter who had sat and

sucked his stick the day before.

 

“You ate something that disagreed with you last night, didn’t you?” I

said, by way of giving him a chance to slide out of it if he wanted to.

But he wouldn’t have it, at any price.

 

“No!” he replied firmly. “I didn’t do anything of the kind. I drank too

much! Much too much. Lots and lots too much! And, what’s more, I’m

going to do it again! I’m going to do it every night. If ever you see

me sober, old top,” he said, with a kind of holy exaltation, “tap me on

the shoulder and say, ‘Tut! Tut!’ and I’ll apologize and remedy the

defect.”

 

“But I say, you know, what about me?”

 

“What about you?”

 

“Well, I’m so to speak, as it were, kind of responsible for you. What I

mean to say is, if you go doing this sort of thing I’m apt to get in

the soup somewhat.”

 

“I can’t help your troubles,” said Motty firmly. “Listen to me, old

thing: this is the first time in my life that I’ve had a real chance to

yield to the temptations of a great city. What’s the use of a great

city having temptations if fellows don’t yield to them? Makes it so

bally discouraging for a great city. Besides, mother told me to keep my

eyes open and collect impressions.”

 

I sat on the edge of the bed. I felt dizzy.

 

“I know just how you feel, old dear,” said Motty consolingly. “And, if

my principles would permit it, I would simmer down for your sake. But

duty first! This is the first time I’ve been let out alone, and I mean

to make the most of it. We’re only young once. Why interfere with

life’s morning? Young man, rejoice in thy youth! Tra-la! What ho!”

 

Put like that, it did seem reasonable.

 

“All my bally life, dear boy,” Motty went on, “I’ve been cooped up in

the ancestral home at Much Middlefold, in Shropshire, and till you’ve

been cooped up in Much Middlefold you don’t know what cooping is! The

only time we get any excitement is when one of the choir-boys is caught

sucking chocolate during the sermon. When that happens, we talk about

it for days. I’ve got about a month of New York, and I mean to store up

a few happy memories for the long winter evenings. This is my only

chance to collect a past, and I’m going to do it. Now tell me, old

sport, as man to man, how does one get in touch with that very decent

chappie Jeeves? Does one ring a bell or shout a bit? I should like to

discuss the subject of a good stiff b.-and-s. with him!”

 

*

 

I had had a sort of vague idea, don’t you know, that if I stuck close

to Motty and went about the place with him, I might act as a bit of a

damper on the gaiety. What I mean is, I thought that if, when he was

being the life and soul of the party, he were to catch my reproving eye

he might ease up a trifle on the revelry. So the next night I took him

along to supper with me. It was the last time. I’m a quiet, peaceful

sort of chappie who has lived all his life in London, and I can’t stand

the pace these swift sportsmen from the rural districts set. What I

mean to say is this, I’m all for rational enjoyment and so forth, but I

think a chappie makes himself conspicuous when he throws soft-boiled

eggs at the electric fan. And decent mirth and all that sort of thing

are all right, but I do bar dancing on tables and having to dash all

over the place dodging waiters, managers, and chuckers-out, just when

you want to sit still and digest.

 

Directly I managed to tear myself away that night and get home, I made

up my mind that this was jolly well the last time that I went about

with Motty. The only time I met him late at night after that was once

when I passed the door of a fairly low-down sort of restaurant and had

to step aside to dodge him as he sailed through the air en route

for the opposite pavement, with a muscular sort of looking chappie

peering out after him with a kind of gloomy satisfaction.

 

In a way, I couldn’t help sympathizing with the fellow. He had about

four weeks to have the good time that ought to have been spread over

about ten years, and I didn’t wonder at his wanting to be pretty busy.

I should have been just the same in his place. Still, there was no

denying that it was a bit thick. If it hadn’t been for the thought of

Lady Malvern and Aunt Agatha in the background, I should have regarded

Motty’s rapid work with an indulgent smile. But I couldn’t get rid of

the feeling that, sooner or later, I was the lad who was scheduled to

get it behind the ear. And what with brooding on this prospect, and

sitting up in the old flat waiting for the familiar footstep, and

putting it to bed when it got there, and stealing into the sick-chamber

next morning to contemplate the wreckage, I was beginning to lose

weight. Absolutely becoming the good old shadow, I give you my honest

word. Starting at sudden noises and whatnot.

 

And no sympathy from Jeeves. That was what cut me to the quick. The man

was still thoroughly pipped about the hat and tie, and simply wouldn’t

rally round. One morning I wanted comforting so much that I sank the

pride of the Woosters and appealed to the fellow direct.

 

“Jeeves,” I said, “this is getting a bit thick!”

 

“Sir?” Business and cold respectfulness.

 

“You know what I mean. This lad seems to have chucked all the

principles of a well-spent boyhood. He has got it up his nose!”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Well, I shall get blamed, don’t you know. You know what my Aunt Agatha

is!”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Very well, then.”

 

I waited a moment, but he wouldn’t unbend.

 

“Jeeves,” I said, “haven’t you any scheme up your sleeve for coping

with this blighter?”

 

“No, sir.”

 

And he shimmered off to his lair. Obstinate devil! So dashed absurd,

don’t you know. It wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with that

Country Gentleman hat. It was a remarkably priceless effort, and much

admired by the lads. But, just because he preferred the Longacre, he

left me flat.

 

It was shortly after this that young Motty got the idea of bringing

pals back in the small hours to continue the gay revels in the home.

This was where I began to crack under the strain. You see, the part of

town where I was living wasn’t the right place for that sort of thing.

I knew lots of chappies down Washington Square way who started the

evening at about 2 a.m.—artists and writers and whatnot, who

frolicked considerably till checked by the arrival of the morning milk.

That was all right. They like that sort of thing down there. The

neighbours can’t get to sleep unless there’s someone dancing Hawaiian

dances over their heads. But on Fifty-seventh Street the atmosphere

wasn’t right, and when Motty turned up at three in the morning with a

collection of hearty lads, who only stopped singing their college song

when they started singing “The Old Oaken Bucket,” there was a marked

peevishness among the old settlers in the flats. The management was

extremely terse over the telephone at breakfast-time, and took a lot of

soothing.

 

The next night I came home early, after a lonely dinner at a place

which I’d chosen because there didn’t seem any chance of meeting Motty

there. The sitting-room was quite dark, and I was just moving to switch

on the light, when there was a sort of explosion and something collared

hold of my trouser-leg. Living with Motty had reduced me to such an

extent that I was simply unable to cope with this thing. I jumped

backward with a loud yell of anguish, and tumbled out into the hall

just as Jeeves came out of his den to see what the matter was.

 

“Did you call, sir?”

 

“Jeeves! There’s something in there that grabs you by the leg!”

 

“That would be Rollo, sir.”

 

“Eh?”

 

“I would have warned you of his presence, but I did not hear you come

in. His temper is a little uncertain at present, as he has not yet

settled down.”

 

“Who the deuce is Rollo?”

 

“His lordship’s bull-terrier, sir. His lordship won him in a raffle,

and tied him to the leg of the table. If you will allow me, sir, I will

go in and switch on the light.”

 

There really is nobody like Jeeves. He walked straight into the

sitting-room, the biggest feat since Daniel and the lions’ den, without

a quiver. What’s more, his magnetism or whatever they call it was such

that the dashed animal, instead of pinning him by the leg, calmed down

as if he had had a bromide, and rolled over on his back with all his

paws in the air. If Jeeves had been his rich uncle he couldn’t have

been more chummy. Yet directly he caught sight of me again, he got all

worked up and seemed to have only one idea in life—to start chewing me

where he had left off.