“Here, I say!” I chipped in at this juncture, chilled to the marrow.

“Bertie!” said Aunt Agatha, dropping the motherly manner for a bit and giving me the cold eye.

“Yes, but I say....”

“It is young men like you, Bertie, who make the person with the future of the race at heart despair. Cursed with too much money, you fritter away in idle selfishness a life which might have been made useful, helpful and profitable. You do nothing but waste your time on frivolous pleasures. You are simply an anti-social animal, a drone. Bertie, it is imperative that you marry.”

“But, dash it all....”

“Yes! You should be breeding children to....”

“No, really, I say, please!” I said, blushing richly. Aunt Agatha belongs to two or three of these women’s clubs, and she keeps forgetting she isn’t in the smoking-room.

“Bertie,” she resumed, and would no doubt have hauled up her slacks at some length, had we not been interrupted. “Ah, here they are!” she said. “Aline, dear!”

And I perceived a girl and a chappie bearing down on me smiling in a pleased sort of manner.

“I want you to meet my nephew, Bertie Wooster,” said Aunt Agatha. “He has just arrived. Such a surprise! I had no notion that he intended coming to Roville.”