“What is my latest?”
“‘The Woman Who Braved All,’” said young Bingo. “I’ve seen it all over the place. The shop windows and bookstalls are full of nothing but it. It looks to me from the picture on the jacket the sort of book any chappie would be proud to have written. Of course, he will want to discuss it with you.”
“Ah!” I said, cheering up. “That dishes the scheme, doesn’t it? I don’t know what the bally thing is about.”
“You will have to read it, naturally.”
“Read it! No, I say....”
“Bertie, we were at school together.”
“Oh, right-o! Right-o!” I said.
“I knew I could rely on you. You have a heart of gold. Jeeves,” said young Bingo, as the faithful servitor rolled in, “Mr. Wooster has a heart of gold.”
“Very good, sir,” said Jeeves.
Bar a weekly wrestle with the Pink ’Un and an occasional dip into the form book I’m not much of a lad for reading, and my sufferings as I tackled “The Woman” (curse her!) “Who Braved All” were pretty fearful. But I managed to get through it, and only just in time, as it happened, for I’d hardly reached the bit where their lips met in one long, slow kiss and everything was still but for the gentle sighing of the breeze in the laburnum, when a messenger boy brought a note from old Bittlesham asking me to trickle round to lunch.