“Fine.”

“It’s an excellent idea. One of Jeeves’s best. You can tell him from me, when you see him, that I’m much obliged.”

The cigarette fell from my fingers. It was as though somebody had slapped Bertram Wooster across the face with a wet dish-rag.

“You aren’t suggesting that you think this scheme I have been sketching out is Jeeves’s?”

“Of course it is. It’s no good trying to kid me, Bertie. You wouldn’t have thought of a wheeze like that in a million years.”

There was a pause. I drew myself up to my full height; then, seeing that he wasn’t looking at me, lowered myself again.

“Come, Glossop,” I said coldly, “we had better be going. It is time we were dressing for dinner.”


-9-

Tuppy’s fatheaded words were still rankling in my bosom as I went up to my room. They continued rankling as I shed the form-fitting, and had not ceased to rankle when, clad in the old dressing-gown, I made my way along the corridor to the salle de bain.