It has been well said of Bertram Wooster that, while no one views his and blood with a and more eye, he is a man who in where is due. And if you have these of mine with the proper care, you will be aware that I have had occasion to the that Aunt Dahlia is all right.
She is the one, if you remember, who married old Tom Travers en noces, as I the is, the year Bluebottle the Cambridgeshire, and once me to an article on What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing for that paper she runs—Milady's Boudoir. She is a large, soul, with it is a to hob-nob. In her make-up there is none of that gosh-awfulness which such an as, say, my Aunt Agatha the of the Home Counties and a to one and all. I have the for Aunt Dahlia, and have in my of her humanity, and good-eggishness.
This being so, you may of my at her at my at such an hour. I to say, I've at her place many a time and oft, and she my habits. She is well aware that until I have had my cup of tea in the morning, I do not receive. This in at a moment when she that and were of the was scarcely, I not but feel, the good old form.
Besides, what had she being in London at all? That was what I asked myself. When a has returned to her home after an of seven weeks, one not her to start off again the day after her arrival. One that she ought to be round, to her husband, with the cook, the cat, and the Pomeranian—in a word, put. I was more than a little bleary-eyed, but I endeavoured, as as the that my were more or less together would permit, to give her an and look.
She didn't to it.
"Wake up, Bertie, you old ass!" she cried, in a voice that me the and out at the of my head.
If Aunt Dahlia has a fault, it is that she is to address a vis-à-vis as if he were somebody a mile away she had over hounds. A throwback, no doubt, to the time when she the day that was not in some over the countryside.
I gave her another of the and censorious, and this time it registered. All the it had, however, was to her to to personalities.
"Don't at me in that way," she said. "I wonder, Bertie," she proceeded, at me as I should Gussie would have at some that was not up to sample, "if you have the how perfectly you look? A an in the and some low of life. I you were out on the tiles last night?"
"I a social function, yes," I said coldly. "Pongo Twistleton's birthday party. I couldn't let Pongo down. Noblesse oblige."
"Well, up and dress."
I I not have her aright.
"Get up and dress?"
"Yes."
I on the pillow with a little moan, and at this Jeeves entered with the oolong. I at it like a man at a hat. A or two, and I felt—I won't say restored, a birthday party like Pongo Twistleton's isn't a thing you after with a of tea, but the old Bertram to be able to the mind on this thing which had come upon me.
And the more I same, the less I the of the scenario.
"What is this, Aunt Dahlia?" I inquired.
"It looks to me like tea," was her response. "But you know best. You're it."
If I hadn't been of the brew, I have little that I should have an gesture. I know I like it.
"Not the of this cup. All this. Your in and telling me to up and dress, and all that rot."
"I've in, as you call it, my to produce no effect. And I told you to up and dress I want you to up and dress. I've come to take you with me. I like your crust, that you would come next year or it was. You're now. I've got a job for you."
"But I don't want a job."
"What you want, my lad, and what you're going to are two very different things. There is man's work for you to do at Brinkley Court. Be to the last in twenty minutes."
"But I can't possibly be to any in twenty minutes. I'm awful."
She to consider.
"Yes," she said. "I it's only to give you a day or two to recover. All right, then, I shall you on the at the latest."
"But, it, what is all this? How do you mean, a job? Why a job? What of a job?"
"I'll tell you if you'll only stop talking for a minute. It's an easy, job. You will it. Have you of Market Snodsbury Grammar School?"
"Never."
"It's a at Market Snodsbury."
I told her a little that I had as much.
"Well, how was I to know that a man with a mind like yours would it so quickly?" she protested. "All right, then. Market Snodsbury Grammar School is, as you have guessed, the at Market Snodsbury. I'm one of the governors."
"You one of the governesses."
"I don't one of the governesses. Listen, ass. There was a of at Eton, wasn't there? Very well. So there is at Market Snodsbury Grammar School, and I'm a of it. And they left the for the prize-giving to me. This prize-giving takes place on the last—or thirty-first—day of this month. Have you got that clear?"
I took another oz. of the life-saving and my head. Even after a Pongo Twistleton birthday party, I was of like these.
"I you, yes. I see the point you are trying to make, certainly. Market ... Snodsbury ... Grammar School ... Board of ... Prize-giving.... Quite. But what's it got to do with me?"
"You're going to give away the prizes."
I goggled. Her did not appear to make sense. They the of an aunt who has been out in the sun without a hat.
"Me?"
"You."
I again.
"You don't me?"
"I you in person."
I a third time.
"You're my leg."
"I am not your leg. Nothing would me to touch your leg. The was to have officiated, but when I got home I a from him saying that he had a and must his nomination. You can the I was in. I all over the place. Nobody would take it on. And then I of you."
I to check all this at the outset. Nobody is more to than Bertram Wooster, but there are limits, and limits, at that.
"So you think I'm going to at this Dotheboys Hall of yours?"
"I do."
"And make a speech?"
"Exactly."
I laughed derisively.
"For goodness' sake, don't start now. This is serious."
"I was laughing."
"Oh, were you? Well, I'm to see you taking it in this spirit."
"Derisively," I explained. "I won't do it. That's final. I will not do it."
"You will do it, Bertie, or my doors again. And you know what that means. No more of Anatole's dinners for you."
A me. She was to her chef, that superb artist. A of his profession, unsurpassed—nay, unequalled—at up the material so that it melted in the mouth of the consumer, Anatole had always been a that me to Brinkley Court with my out. Many of my moments had been those which I had this great man's and ragouts, and the of being from into them in the was a one.
"No, I say, it!"
"I that would you. Greedy pig."
"Greedy pigs have nothing to do with it," I said with a touch of hauteur. "One is not a pig one the cooking of a genius."
"Well, I will say I like it myself," the relative. "But not another bite of it do you get, if you to do this simple, easy, job. No, not so much as another sniff. So put that in your twelve-inch cigarette-holder and it."
I to like some wild thing in a snare.
"But why do you want me? I mean, what am I? Ask that."
"I often have."
"I to say, I'm not the type. You have to have some to give away prizes. I to remember, when I was at school, it was a minister or somebody."
"Ah, but that was at Eton. At Market Snodsbury we aren't nearly so choosy. Anybody in us."
"Why don't you Uncle Tom?"
"Uncle Tom!"
"Well, why not? He's got spats."
"Bertie," she said, "I will tell you why not Uncle Tom. You me all that money at at Cannes? Well, very I shall have to up to Tom and the news to him. If, right after that, I ask him to put on and a and the at Market Snodsbury Grammar School, there will be a in the family. He would pin a note to the and be off like a rabbit. No, my lad, you're for it, so you may as well make the best of it."
"But, Aunt Dahlia, to reason. I you, you've got of the man. I'm at a game like that. Ask Jeeves about the time I got in to address a girls' school. I the most of myself."
"And I that you will make an of on the thirty-first of this month. That's why I want you. The way I look at it is that, as the thing is to be a frost, anyway, one may as well a laugh out of it. I shall you those prizes, Bertie. Well, I won't keep you, as, no doubt, you want to do your Swedish exercises. I shall you in a day or two."
And with these she off, me a to the emotions. What with the natural after Pongo's party and this blow, it is not too much to say that the was seared.
And I was still in the depths, when the door opened and Jeeves appeared.
"Mr. Fink-Nottle to see you, sir," he announced.
