AsyousayJeeves

AS YOU SAY, JEEVES
The aroma of bacon and sausages was floating over the breakfast table when
Jeeves shimmered in.
-"Mrs. Travers wishes to speak to you on the telephone, Sir."
I rose to attend to it and presently came over the wire the thunder of the voice
which had chivvied so many foxes of the Home Counties.
-"Hello, young excrescence"
-A hearty pip-pip to you .old and respected relative. How's everything? Is
Anatole at the top of his form? , "
Anatole was her gifted chef, God's gift to the gastric juices, but he was a
temperamental Gaul, and his fits had caused no few crises in the Travers home.
"Always thinking of your stomach, aren't you, my gay young tape-worm?"
I ignored the slur.
"And how is Uncle Tom?
-Weil, from what I hear. He's in Paris, for the sale of the Maufringneuse old
silver collection
-And my charming cousin Angela?
-She's just left for Sussex, where she is going to be a bridesmaid at the
Butterwick wedding. I'm joining her to-morrow. But there's no stint of company:

Florence is here, to have her portrait painted by Cedric Talent, and also your old
pal Perey Baconham...
-Porky? We were at school together.
-I know. He has us in fits with shady secrets of your boyhood. What a hellhound
you were then, Bertie, not that you've changed much...
-What's he doing at Brinkley?
I spoke austerely, as I didn't countenance the lengths to which Porky seemed to
be going.
"-Weil, he's engaged to Pearl Pemberton, who was visiting Angela, and he came
along for the ride. You know
Pearl Pemberton, of course."
I knew this Pearl. An attractive red-haired little pipsqueak, as full of beans and
buck as if she on honeydew had fed or drunk the milk of Paradise, as Jeeves
sometimes puts it. As for Porky, in spite of having practically written the words
and music of Auld Lang Syng, he was a soundish sort of egg when I knew him a
few aeons ago, and it would be a pleasure to sing "The Voice that Breathed O'er
Eden" at their wedding.
-A charming, delightful girl," I said.
-Then you'll enjoy sharing her company. I want you to cone down immediately.
-What..." I sputtered," with Florence on the premises!
I had been engaged to Florence on a number of occasions, and only saved in the
nick of time by quick service from my guardian angel. There was no telling what
might be the fatal outcome of the famous Wooster fascination in a place as
congested with rose-gardens and rhododendron bushes as Brinkley Court.
"-That's why I want you here. So jump to it.
-But...I whined, you're off your onion...
-And don't give me any of your lip, or else!... You understand my meaning, Watson."
I did. She loved blackmail and could always resort to it: the threat of
being barred from her table and not getting a mouthful of Anatole's wonders was
enough to have me cringe, and lick her hand, and roll on my . back with my legs in
the air.
"-Bung a couple of toothbrushes in a suitcase, Jeeves, I said dully, we're off to
Brinkley.
-Very well, Sir.'
You notice it, no friendly conversation, no merry kidding back and forth.
Jeeves's voice had an Alaskan quality which showed dudgeon.
-And why? Because I had recently taken to smoking a pipe.
Evidently when a bloke gets on in years and becomes a seasoned man of the
world, it shows in his appearance. I didn't want to deceive my public by looking
vapid. Soulfulness was of the essence; and s. was just what the miniature chimney
provided. Compared to the image I struck while puffing on this implement
of the intellectuals, the Ancient Mariner would have looked an irresponsible
popinjay.
And Dammit, if I was going to let Jeeves dictate my tastes, what had the Woosters
become, who came to England with William the Conqueror and had been rather well

thought of at Agincourt? In those days, they certainly knew how to handle employees. It
was "How now varlet" and "Marry come up, thou malapert knave"
I ignored the dudgeon and ambled out.
A few hours later, we were at Brinkley Court. Having left the Arab steed at the hands of
Jeeves who was going to tuck it into bed in the garage, I ankled along, to be informed by
the butler that my hostess was waiting for me in her Boudoir.
"-Hi, fathead. So you finally made it, you old blot on the landscape.
-Good evening, I said, courteously, but coldly.
-No use looking at me like a lovelorn puppy. I'll ex- plain the perfectly simple thing I want
you to do. I told you Florence was sitting for Talent. And I think this will lead to more than
just a confounded icon," she added meaningfully.
I was fogged, but tried to nod intelligently.
-"Don't gape at me, you abysmal nit-wit. I'll try to put it into simple one-syllable words
for you: the fellow is in love with her."
Fellow of course, is two syllables, but I let it pass. I could well believe this piece of
news: Florence unquestionably had what it took, platinum hair and all the fixings.
The aunt was booming on, it reminded me of the cannon at Waterloo.
"But the worm has cold feet...
-Letting "I dare not" wait upon "1 would" like the cat in the adage.
Eh?
-Just one of Jeeves's gags. It's her profile: she has a wonderful profile, but...
-Will you stop yacking away, gas-bag. I want you to spur him into action. He knows
that you were once, or twice, or thrice, engaged to her, and if you haunt her like a family
spectre and stick closer than porous plaster, he'll fall prey to the green-eyed monster, which...
–What! I yipped
-A simple matter, to please Auntie.
But dash it…
-That's settled then. And now, pop off, you goof. I've got some letters to write."
A Wooster can recognize when his presence is superfluous and doesn't overstay his
welcome. I popped off, an elegant but Fate-stricken figure wandering into the sunset...
It being a cool English summer evening, I decided to go for a stroll among the messuages
and parklands of Brinkley Court and turned my steps towards the lake. The lake at
Brinkley Court is hardly worthy of its appellation, being merely a sort of overgrown
pond, but it's pleasant of an evening with the twittering birds and whatnots.
And who-or rather whom, should I meet, but my old friend Porky. I didn't approve of his
tearing the veil from our Past for the benefit of the inmates of Brinkley Court and telling them
stories of our schooldays which should have been labeled "TOP SECRET" and sealed in
red wax—fragrant memories like flowers pressed between the leaves of an album, would
have said Madeline Bassett, that Queen of the Gawd-help-us -and I intended to be pretty
terse about it.
Porky hadn't changed much. He had always more or less resembled a thug, who made you
think of sawn-off guns and pineapple bombs, and he more than ever looked like one of the
F.B.I.'s List of the Top Ten.
. When two old friends get together after a long separation, the proceedings always begin
with a picking up of the threads. The first old friend asks the second old friend for news

of Jimmy So-and-So, while the second old friend asks the first old friend what has been
heard of Billy Such-and-Such. Inquiries are also instituted regarding Tom This, Dick That,
and Harry The Other. While these routine preliminaries were being disposed of, my
observant eye couldn't but notice that there seemed to be something rotten in the
State of Porkydom, he didn't look at all like a fellow about to be united in wedded
bliss with the woman he loved the jaundiced eye, the listless face... In fact, it stood out as
plainly as a Palm Beach suit at the Eton and Harrow match that the outlook was sombre.
Jeeves 9 to whom, as is the current practice among us authors, I read this passage of my
saga tells me that Roget-whoever he is-also suggests melancholy, gloomy, dark, sinister,
lugubrious, dismal. However this isn't germane to the issue and "sombre" fitted Porky
like paper on the wall.
"I hear you and Pearl are planning a merger? I said. "When is the leap among the orange
blossoms? -Tchah!" he said, and was gone with the wind.
"-Jeeves, I said, as I was getting dressed for dinner, a certain rumminess seems to have
manifested itself.
All's not well on the Porky-Pearl front, and the projected axis seems to have gone phut.
-So I understand, Sir.
-You know all about it, then.
-Mr. Baconham was here a moment ago, Sir. He appeared desirous to confer with me
about the situation."
I know, of course, that Jeeves's reputation as a counselor has been long established
among the cognoscenti, and that his consulting practice was wide. But I was still
surprised that a chap like Porky-whom I hadn't seen for quite a long time-should have
heard of it. But no doubt, these things get about: chap A tells chap B who tells whap C
who tells chap D, and so forth, if you get my drift.
-"Well, tell me, Jeeves, I'm allagog."
I could see ice forming on the man's upper slopes. This matter of the pipe still rankled;
he was becoming discreet all over.
"You know me, Jeeves, not a babbler; nor am I a sieve. Besides the two parties are
friends of mine, and I may be able to help.
Very well, Sir. There appears to have been a severance of the relation between Miss
Pemberton and Mr. Baconham.
I know that, dash it. But why the rift within the lute?
Mr. Baconham gave me to understand that he used some strong words as regards Miss
Pemberton's hat, Sir. His actual expression was that it looked like a young Vacherin -
Surely, the young prune didn't hand him the raspberry for that!" I marveled, although
well aware that like so many red-haired girls, she had a low boiling point, and could
explode like a stick of TNT, strewing ruin and desolation in all directions.
-"No, Sir, but she told Mr. Baconham that Mr. Talent, who was an artist and not an apelike
Jebusite and Amakelite... what?
Jebusite and Amakelite, Sir: Ancient Tribes which fought against King David."
My research at the time I won that Scripture Prize at school had required me to delve
pretty deeply in the Testaments, bath old and juvenile, but I had no recollection of such
weirdly-named chappies. However, there would be time enough to take a Refresher
Course when I had sorted out this imbroglio. I called the meeting to order.

"We're wondering from the subject, Jeeves. You were saying?
-As I was apprising you, sir, Miss Pemberton told Mr. Baconham that Mr. Talent, who
was an artist and not an ape-like Jebusite and Amakelite with as much brains as a peahen,
thought very highly of this hat. Mr. Baconham admits to having lost his morale and
gave his fiancée to understand that the hat under advisement gave her a certain
resemblance to a moth-eaten old sheep.
Moth-eaten old sheep, are you sure? Not a baa-lamb? -No, Sir.
I tut-tutted.
-Not so good, that. You cannot go around calling girls moth-eaten old sheep.
-No, Sir.
-No wonder she blew her top.
-Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Sir.
-Quite. Still all may not be lost. Love is presumably still doing his bit at the old stand,
what!
, Mr. Baconham, despite what has occurred, still retains a fondness of Miss Pemberton,
Sir.
She is presumably as potty about him as ever. see...Then it's as easy as pie. A few
honeyed words from me will smooth out this laughable little understanding. Leave the
problem to me, Jeeves. They're pals of mine and I know them from A to Z.
-Yes, Sir. The trousers a quarter of an inch higher, Sir."
1 gave the t. a bit of a hitch, musing on the tragedy of life: two young hearts now
asunder, a young love nipped in the bud, a sweet girl shedding bitter tears, and a
fiendish-looking but kind-hearted mug kicking himself for being such a chump.
There was a thud in the background, followed by a pungent expletive born and bred in
the hunting-field. "-I beg your pardon, Madam, I should have stepped out of the way. Or
tooted your horn," said Aunt Dahlia.
Navigating at a rate of about sixty knots an hour, she had collided with Jeeves, who, his
thoughts being probably occupied elsewhere, had not had the presence of mind to
disembody himself as he is wont to do and to rematerialize at some unseen spot.
"-Ah, here you are, half-wit," she said, spying me.
-"With my hair in a braid. You look in the pink.
I am. Cedric proposed to Florence in the rose-garden. "And clicked, of course.
Like Billy-ho. So none of this family-spectring and porous-plastering now. Remember
Honoria."
I shuddered. I had once in the hope of promoting the interests of a very cold-footed
suitor, gone into this green-eyed monster sequence, only to discover that I was up,
against a blond Othello who had been accepted the night before and immediately
proceeded to refuse the nomination, leaving me stranded in the clutches of a girl who
looked like a middle-weight catch-as-catch-can wrestler. It had taken all of Jeeves's
ingenuity to get out of that one.
I am not sure I shouldn't send you back where you come from," the relative-by-marriage
was saying meditatively. "Still, now you're in...
Thanks," I said a bit acidly, as the invitation seemed to me a mite lacking in enthusiasm.

Still, aunts will be aunts, and my Aunt Dahlia, for all her carelessness in plunging
nephews in the mulligatawny, was about a billion times better than my broken-glassand--ten-penny-nails-chewing
Aunt Agatha.
The following day dawned bright and clear. The skies were blue, the birds were
twittering, all Nature was smiling. But Nature's example was not followed by Pearl. She
greeted me with the listless air young girls have when their life is blank. She looked like
something which might have occurred to Ibsen in one of his less frivolous moments. As
for Porky, I had seen him at breakfast, directing at a blameless kippered herring a look
of such intense bitterness that the fish seemed to sizzle beneath it. It was high time I took
the situation in hand and I went to have à word with Pearl. Having been a crony of
Angela since they were so high, she was always in and out of Brinkley Court, and of
course I'd seen a lot of her at that time; I remembered shooting her with a pop-gun and
no little amount of hue and cry from the Family did this defiant gesture raise. And no
doubt the fact that I had seen her spanked with the back of a hair-brush by Angela's
governess now entitled me to speak to her like a Dutch uncle.
-"I want a word with you young bacillus,'' I said in my most Dutch-uncle-y voice.
-Oh, Bertie! Why don't you go and sleep in the hammock on the lawn? Leave me in
peace, 1'm going to tidy the library."
Well, this was a sure sign. As clearly as if it
had been written on her forehead, these words showed that she was unhappy. No happy
young girl goes and closets herself in a dusty library where two or three hundred early
Victorian sermons, bound in green maroquin and unopened since 1900 stare at you
from the shelves. And it's a well-known fact that it's only girls whose future holds no
hope who devote themselves to such a task.
Listen to me first, microbe; what's all this rot about you and Porky having parted brass
rags?
Would you kindly refrain from interfering with my private affairs? Go and boil your
head, Bertie!
I'll go and boil my head when I've had my say. You know you're head over heels in love
with Porky.
I am not.
You are. It sticks out like a sore thumb. And besides Porky loves you like a ton of
bricks.
Ch, he does, does he?" she laughed like a hyena.
-The love-light is permanently shining in his eyes, and your callousness is making him a
candidate for Harakiri, or Kamekazi, or something like that.
-Good! He is a beast, a brute, a swine, a hound and a louse," she added, rather
nonsequentially, it seemed to me.
"-This is pure banana-oil, silly half-portion. I was at school with Porky and I can tellyou
that many were the times when he shared his fast bar of milk-chocolate with me.
-He's a tick, a snake and a worm.
Of course, after this disgraceful exhibition of pig headedness on Pearl's part e the V-
shaped depression was still hovering over the luncheon-table, and Porky was looking
like the wreck of Hesperus. Hoping to escape the gloom that these two were casting
around like a London fog, I went down to the Lake to meditate. I was lying flat on my

ack in a punt, thinking of this and that when, from somewhere in the vicinity, came the
sound of a voice, jerking me back into the world. It was Florence's voice, cold and
metallic. And presently, another voice answered, c. and m., as well. I recognized it as
Cedric Talent's voice. I had been introduced to him the night before: he was a pop-eyed
and chinless young man, with a stern gaze and a long thin neck, just like an ostrich. In
fact, it seemed that Nature had toyed with the idea of producing an ostrich and changed
its mind at the last minute, turning out something with the same general outline, but
better-balanced and with no feathers. However, he was quite a hot number, with all the
Dukes's and Earls's daughters trooping after him to have the loaf portraited for posterity.
I remembered being told .that he had chosen to paint Florence by the lake, hoping no
doubt that the flowers and greenery would help to achieve that wood nymph effect.
Florence was certainly the most beautiful girl I knew , and would have been the dream
jewel of any oriental potentate wishing to replenish his harem, but she was rather apt to
be very opalescent - no, another word beginning with "op”…opinionative I think it is.
She more or less treated one and sundry as if they were.
-And he often bought me jam sandwiches from the school shop," I said doggedly. My
brain was whirring like a motor-cycle and I was warming up nicely to my subject; I
went on with my sales-talk:
-"He was the Pride of the School, always rescuing people from burning buildings and
saving blue-eyed children from runaway horses....
-Will you stop driveling, Bertie. I wouldn't marry Porky if he were the last man in the
world. My dearest wish is to dip him in boiling oil and watch him wriggle."
And off she went, tossing her curls at me. I went back to my room, feeling rather
ruffled. Jeeves was there and I put him abreast:
"-Pretty strong words, this asinine cheesemite used, didn't she, Jeeves
-Yes, Sir. But it's my experience that young ladies, when irate, utter strictures which are
not to be taken literally, Sir.
-So you're confident that you can salve Porky's problem?
-Yes, Sir.
What are you going to do?
-I could not say, Sir.
Well, you'd better eat plenty of fish, to feed that master-brain of yours. I'm afraid I can't
help you any more on this case.
-Very well, Sir.
Menials in "Old Man River": "Hey you, lift that trunk", "Shift that Bale!" were
customary form of address with her. The Talent bird however, didn't seem to fit into the
dogsbody class. He was answering pretty heatedly and very soon the argument had
developed into a quarrel which I couldn't but overhear, absolutely frozen into a position
of appalled fascination.
Apparently Florence didn't like the portrait, and Talent, sensitive and high-strung as
these artists are, was digging his foot in, and putting his ears back and generally carrying
on like a Top Quality deaf adder, refusing to alter it. The geezer sounded as if she was
chafing as only a girl of spirits who is used to getting her own way can chafe when
baffled and thwarted. And very soon, she was telling him that this business of standing
together by the alter rails and coyly saying "1 will" was off. There had been a general

sagging of the market. Talent Preferred, taking the most sanguine estimate, could
scarcely be quoted at more than about thirty or thirty-five.
It's never pleasant to have to be listening in on a lover's tiff, and although the Woosters
can take the rough with the smooth, the ordeal had taken its toil; as soon as both parties
had strutted off, she as haughtily as the Queen of Sheba, he, as proudly as King
. Solomon,
I slinked out of the punt and sat on the grass in order to restore the shattered system with
a soulful pipe.
Mona Lisa's little sister was standing on the easel by the edge of the lake, with all the
brushes and paraphernalia near. I got up to have a look at it. I am no connoisseur in this
matter, but it seemed to me that the bounder Talent could swing a jolly fine brush:
Florence had the face which launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of
Ilium, and her former sweet heart had done it justice. In fact, he had done it complete
justice, and this is proof that no credence whatsoever is to be attached to these old
sayings learnt at mother's knee. Love hadn't been blind and the Florence in the portrait
looked as imperative as the Florence in real life: she reminded me of one of these
Walkyries about to grab the young warrior and haul him willy-nilly up to Valhalla. I
went closer, still peering at her dial, and tripped over the easel, polka-ed a bit with the
blasted contraption, tried to hold on to the picture, and came to the purler of a lifetime,
while the portrait
fell into the lake.
-"Oh, Bertie!"
I emitted a sharp gurgler and shied like a startled mustang. Florence had cone behind me
and was cooing. I'd not been used to hearing her coo to me and the phenomenon
unmanned me.
-You have always been a preux chevalier, haven't you, Bertie? You couldn't stand this
loathsome portrait. What a romantic you are!"
Having missed Act One and arrived just in time to see the portrait dive like a dolphin
into its watery grave, she was putting the wrong construction on the event.
-"But..." I whined, absent-mindedly picking up the pipe which my Nijinsky
performance had somehow detached from my mouth. The popsy was going on:
-'You know, Bertie, this pipe suits you. It alters your whole appearance: you look so
much more spiritual..."
Well, you might have thought that I would have lapped up a rave notice like this, as my
fan-mail could always do with a little boosting up. But, in fact, I was conscious of a
clammy feeling in the small of my back, and my instincts were to climb up a tree and
pull it up after me. Not feasible, of course, as the beazel was standing between me and
the nearest tree. I knew the tone, she had used it once before when I had taken to
growing a moustache, and with shattering effects. The s.e. were not long to follow:
-You deserve to be made happy, and I am the appropriate one for such an undertaking.
I ' 11 marry you, Bertie: your quixotic conduct has opened my eyes. I see your soul can
be moulded. I am sure, that given the opportunity, I can foster the latent potentialities of
your budding mind. I'll devote myself to the task and awaken all your dormant
possibilities which need only an energetic and purposeful endeavor to come to the
surface."

What can a fellow answer, except "Thanks!" Idid, and tottered away.
"Jeeves' I bleated in a dying duck's voice when the invaluable man appeared at my side
carrying a restorative whisky and soda. Jeeves may have his defects, but he is full to the
gills with feudal spirit. Whatever his differences with me, if the young master is in the
soup, he immediately lets bygones be bygones and rallies of the ghastly business. His
eyebrows rose one eighth of an inch, which was proof of utmost concern.
-"Most disturbing", Sir.
-What do you mean, disturbing! It's appalling!
-Yes, Sir.
-I don't want to marry the blasted girl..." I wailed.
-Exactly, Sir. One appreciates the difficulty. Particularly as an unfortunate development
seems to have arisen, Sir."
I leaped about three feet, my heart broke from its moorings and crashed with a dull thud
against my front teeth.
" What, what, ° I bubbled. There was an unpleasant sensation in the pit of my stomach as
if some unfriendly hand had stirred my vital organs with an egg whisk.
-"Mr Talent appears to be affianced with Miss Pemberton.
I groaned hollowly.
I have the information from the head-gardener who was spraying the roses against
green-fly, Sir. Apparently Mr Talent came upon Miss Pemberton crying in the rose
garden. Upon the information that her heart was broken, he proposed to her, saying that
he too was affected with a broken heart and that they could cry on each other's shoulder.
The young lady accepted him, Sir. This piece of news caused considerable surprise in
the Servant's Hall, as Mr. Talent was generally thought to be betrothed to Lady Florence
Craye, but the mystery is now satisfactorily explained.
-Satisfactorily!
-I beg your pardon, Sir. I should have said tragically.
-Another whisky and soda, Jeeves, I said weakly. The man disappeared on his errand of
mercy.
That night the evening meal would have made a dinner on the n Bounty u on one of
Captain Blight's worst days, seem like a rollicking feast. Pearl had a broken heart, Porky
had a broken heart, and so had Cedric. Florence apparently unmoved by all these brows
sicklied o'er with the pale cast of care, was saying clever things about a Frenchman
named Lalique son, who had cone to London with an exclusive collection of Modern
Art brooches whose chiaroscuro-if Modern Art brooches have such a thing, which on
reflection seems unlikely, I must check with Jeeves-she apparently thought very highly
of. I writhed at the thought that unless Jeeves brought home the bacon, this kind of
conversation was going to be a permanent fixture of my future life. The Cantaloupe
produced by Anatole The Master Skillet-Wielder, turned to ash in my mouth so did his
Consommé aux Pommes d'Amour, Sylphides à la Crème d'Ecrevisse, Selle d'Agneau à
la Grecque,and Bénédictins Blancs. It was still light after dinner, and not feeling up to
joining the Tchekovian gang, I once more wandered out to sit under a tree not far from
the lake. I was rather considering tying a stone around my neck and ending it all by
jumping into the lake, but the water looked rather green and uninviting, and I knew that
Aunt Dahlia would not be amused at bumping into my swollen body while having her

morning swim. So I just remained there in the shadows, tearing my hair and gnashing
my teeth.
I suddenly heard a splashing noise in the direction of the lake, and lifting up the bean
which had up till then been buried in my hands, beheld Porky who appeared to be
shrimping or something. He hadn't seen me because it was getting on towards dusk and
the tree I was sitting under cast quite a shadow. Apparently he had seen some
Unidentified Floating Object, and being naturally curious had started wading into the
mere, presumably in order to find out what it was. It was, of course, Florence's portrait
which I hadn't thought of fishing out. I was going to call him when another Unidentified
Object, this time Running (at a snappy rate of miles per hour, too) came centre right. I
then identified it as being the Talent gargoyle who, spying Porky in the shallows and his
masterpiece in the lake, jumped towards him, laid a hand on his shoulder, which made
him turn round, and delivered a crisp punch on the beezer.
-"Porky! my love, my precious lambkin," a female voice wailed. The precious lambkin
was spilled on the grass, looking about as attractive as a half-drowned sheepdog.
Pearl turned to Talent like a tigress:
-"What do you mean, you ugly jug-headed sap, hitting my darling Porky?
-He threw my painting into the lake.
-Good show! I expect it was a rotten daub anyway. If I'd been here I would have held
his hat and egged him on. My duck, my sweetie-pie. She sang, kneeling by Porky and
becoming quite the little mother.
-"My lovely angel pet! Can you forgive me for being such a swine?
-It was all my fault.
-No, mine.
-No, mine.
-My love, my dream rabbit.
-Darling!
I had had enough of these nauseating exchanges. Talent had melted in the darkness and
I did the same.
-"Jeeves" I said "I have a tale which will make you clap your little hands in glee and skip
like a lamb in springtime.
-Indeed, Sir?
-I unfolded the story.
-So you see, I concluded, all is gas and gaiters again.
-I rather anticipated such a contingency, Sir.
-What do you mean?
-Yes, Sir. I presumed the best plan to bring about a reconciliation between these two
young people going adrift was to take into account the psychology of the individual. I
took the liberty of suggesting to Mr. Talent that Mr. Baconham, incensed by Miss
Pemberton's betrothal, planned to revenge himself by destroying the portrait, Sir. When
I espied him going towards the lake, I informed Miss Pemberton that her fiancé wished
to confer with her by the water. I must admit that Mr Baconham trying to retrieve the
picture was an unforeseen conjecture, Sir, but I fancy it didn't go against the smooth
development of the events.
-Jeeves, you stand alone! and re this little matter of my betrothal to Florence?

-I am sorry, Sir, I've used every endeavor to hit upon a solution of the problem
confronting you, but I regret to say that my efforts haven't been crowned
-You mean you're stymied.
-I am afraid so, Sir.
-Don't give up. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.
-Precisely, Sir.
I was in no hurry to see Florence's face peeping at me over the coffee-pot so the next
morning I breakfasted in my room. Jeeves had already informed me that the United
States Marines were not in sight and the stickiness of the situation made the coffee taste
rather like hemlock-not that I have ever tasted any. This Porky and Pearl business had
bucked me up like a week at bracing Bognor-Regis, but now Jeeves's report made life as
dreary and sad as a wet Sunday in a Northern manufacturing town.
There was a soft cough that might have proceeded from a sheep with asthma. Jeeves
had materialized and was respectfully trying to attract my attention.
-What is it, Jeeves? I believe that I can see speech fermenting behind that inscrutable
mask of yours, I said, hope surging within me.
-Yes, Sir. It's with reference to Lady Florence Craye's birthday present.
Hope blew a fuse and lay dead by the wayside. I quivered like an Ouled Nail stomach
dancer. You think I ought to weigh in with a present, do you?
-Yes, Sir.
Jeeves is a stickler on matters of etiquette and upon reflection I could see that he was
right. We Woosters can bite the bullet and keep the stiff upper lip. I laughed mirthlessly,
the sort of laugh a lost soul in an Inferno might have uttered, if tickled by some
observation on the part of another soul.
-"What do you suggest?
-I was informed the young lady seemed to have been quite impressed by the Lalique
son, brooches, Sir.
-Oh, all right. Take the two-seater and get the damn thing.
-Very well, sir."
The man was right, as usual. These Lalique son brooches, being exclusive in design,
were no trinket, but a handsome present, such as a fiancée might expect from one to
whom she had plighted her troth. And Florence, I knew, having spent time among the
Bloomsbury and Chelsea Bohemians, would find the brooch right up her street.
This cooked the goose. Until now, I had more or less expected Jeeves to come up at the
eleventh hour with a hot one. But his allusion to the birthday present made clear that he
was washing his hands of the whole business. His grip was failing and he had failed to
come up with a solution. This piece of baloney about Florence's present was tantamount
to admitting himself licked to a custard. I went into the hair-tearing and teeth-grinding
routine.
-"Good evening, Sir.
-Hello, Jeeves. Back from the old metrop, then…
-I purchased the brooch, Sir.
-Ah, yes, the brooch. Quite.
-If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly, Sir.

As you say, Jeeves."
I went to look for Florence whom I found presiding over the tea-table; except her, there
was nobody at the trough, yet.
-"Here you are, with comp and good wishes," I said.
-Oh, thank you, Bertie!'
She opened the parcel and rose like a salmon in the spawning season, looking at me as if
I were something more than usually revolting one finds under a flat stone.
-"Bertie! Is this a joke? How dare you insult me with that?"
The tone had changed from fair to stormy. The eyes which poets in Bloomsbury had
compared to twin lagoons slumbering beneath a southern sky looked like something out
of an acetylene blow-pipe. And she was dangling it by the fingertips as if hardly daring
to touch the most terrible piece of jewelry I had ever seen. It was an enormous brooch,
in the shape of a spider with false ruby eyes and a revolting inebriated expression, like a
licentious clubman operating on all twelve cylinders. It alsowas obviously a very cheap
and gaudy trinket, something a decent housemaid wouldn't have been caught dead in a
ditch with. What had happened to the Lalique son brooch, and who had substituted this
ghastly changeling was a mystery.
-"Many happy returns, Florence," interrupted an uncold and unmetallic voice. Florence
took Cedric's parcel, opened it, and took out a Lalique son brooch. She was goggling.
-Oh Cedric! How lovely, just what I wanted. How did you guess?
-H'm Florence...about this portrait...I'm sorry; I'll do it again.
Oh Cedric!
-Will you marry me, Florence? ,
-Yes, Cedric, I will.
I sneaked off, floating on a pink cloud over an ocean of bliss, while harps and sackbuts
did their stuff and a thousand voices gave three rousing cheers.
-Jeeves, have you ever seen me dance on the top of my toes and strew roses from my
hat?
-Sir?
-I'm saved! Florence is engaged to Cedric.
-Indeed, Sir?
Something in the man's tone made me suspicious. Any fellow at the Drones will tell you
that Bertie Wooster is pretty quick at the uptake and can quickly sense fishy business.
-Was it you, Jeeves? Were you behind the whole show?
-Sir?
-Did you snitch the brooch and replace it by that foul spider?
-I fear I have been remiss, Sir. I inadvertently gave you a parcel intended for one of the
kennel-maids.
-Thereby avoiding an epidemic of nervous fits among Aunt Dahlia's hounds.
-It's rather an eye-catching ornament, Sir.
Eye-catching! It's as big as a saucer and looks positively tight! But tell me, how did
Talent get hold of the Lalique son brooch?
-Knowing I was going to London, he did me the honor of asking me to get a present for
Lady Florence Craye, Sir. I think he hoped that such a move would help to reopen the
negotiations.

-Jeeves, you're wonderful.
-I endeavor to give satisfaction, Sir.
-Still, just to be on the safe side, I think you'd better pack. We'll return to G.H.Q. tomorrow.
Not that I want to, but I don't feel quite safe here," I nearly added, "with
Florence dug into the woodwork," but that would have been bandying a woman's name
and I stopped just in time.
"-I fancy it will not be necessary to leave, Sir. Lady Florence Craye's personal maid
overheard her mistress telling Mr Talent she thought Steeple Bumpleigh would be a
better setting for her portrait." Steeple Bumpleigh was Florence's father's and stepmother's
lair. Of course, she wanted to produce her betrothed for inspection. I didn't like
Cedric, but I couldn't help feeling a pang of pity for the poor chump. Florence's father,
my uncle Percy, was an old Conquistador whose twenty-minutes-in-the-saucepan-ness
was a byword, and to stand under the fire of Aunt Agatha's pince-nez was an ordeal
which had made stronger men wilt. They could generally be seen the next morning at
breakfast with their hair turned completely white. Still, Love conquers all, they say. And
it suited me to the grounds Nothing could have pleased me more than a few weeks of
quiet enjoyment of the peerless wizard's cuisine, which was such a feature of Brinkley
Court.
"-There's nobody like you, Jeeves. Everything seemed lost, and there was a fanfare of
angel trumpets and you descended from Heaven, the sun shining on your wings. You
waved your magic wand and solved all my problems, as usual.
-I am glad to have given satisfaction, Sir."
I pondered a while. I hadn't smoked my pipe since the moment when Florence had told
me of its spiritualism giving qualities. If the penalty for spiritualism was to be lassoed by
girls of her kind, give me materialism any day.
"-Jeeves, I said, this pipe… Give it to the head-gardener.
-I am exceedingly obliged, Sir; the instrument was not becoming.
-As you say, Jeeves."
E. G.Woudhouse