“Well, this isn’t Cannes.”
“But, dash it——”
“Oh, never mind. Let it go. If you want to give my butler a laugh, what does it matter? What does anything matter now?”
There was a death-where-is-thy-sting-fullness about her manner which I found distasteful. It isn’t often that I score off Jeeves in the devastating fashion just described, and when I do I like to see happy, smiling faces about me.
“Tails up, Aunt Dahlia,” I urged buoyantly.
“Tails up be dashed,” was her sombre response. “I’ve just been talking to Tom.”
“Telling him?”
“No, listening to him. I haven’t had the nerve to tell him yet.”
“Is he still upset about that income-tax money?”
“Upset is right. He says that Civilisation is in the melting-pot and that all thinking men can read the writing on the wall.”