“Sorry, Bertie. Can’t stop chatting with you all night. There is a rather impressive beano in progress in the dining-room, and they are waiting for supplies.”
Endorsement was given to this statement by a sudden shout from the apartment named. I recognized—as who would not—Aunt Dahlia’s voice:
“Glossop!”
“Hullo?”
“Hurry up with that stuff.”
“Coming, coming.”
“Well, come, then. Yoicks! Hard for-rard!”
“Tallyho, not to mention tantivy. Your aunt,” said Tuppy, “is a bit above herself. I don’t know all the facts of the case, but it appears that Anatole gave notice and has now consented to stay on, and also your uncle has given her a cheque for that paper of hers. I didn’t get the details, but she is much braced. See you later. I must rush.”
To say that Bertram was now definitely nonplussed would be but to state the simple truth. I could make nothing of this. I had left Brinkley Court a stricken home, with hearts bleeding wherever you looked, and I had returned to find it a sort of earthly paradise. It baffled me.
I bathed bewilderedly. The toy duck was still in the soap-dish, but I was too preoccupied to give it a thought. Still at a loss, I returned to my room, and there was Jeeves. And it is proof of my fogged condish that my first words to him were words not of reproach and stern recrimination but of inquiry: