Tuppy's were still in my as I up to my room. They as I the form-fitting, and had not to when, in the old dressing-gown, I my way along the to the de bain.

It is not too much to say that I was to the tonsils.

I to say, one not praise. The of the means very little to one. But, all the same, when one has taken the trouble to out a juicy to an in-the-soup friend in his hour of travail, it's to him the to one's personal attendant, particularly if that personal is a man who goes about the place not packing mess-jackets.

But after I had been about in the for a bit, to return. I have always that in moments of heart-bowed-downness there is nothing that the like a good go at the soap and water. I don't say I actually sang in the tub, but there were times when it was a of the coin I would do so or not.

The by that speech had lessened.

The of a toy in the soap dish, the property of some visitor, not a little to this new and of mind. What with one thing and another, I hadn't played with toy in my for years, and I the most invigorating. For the of those interested, I may mention that if you the thing under the surface with the and then let it go, it out of the water in a manner calculated to the most careworn. Ten minutes of this and I was to return to the much more the old Bertram.

Jeeves was there, out the dinner disguise. He the master with his suavity.

"Good evening, sir."

I in the same key.

"Good evening, Jeeves."

"I trust you had a drive, sir."

"Very pleasant, thank you, Jeeves. Hand me a sock or two, will you?"

He did so, and I to don,

"Well, Jeeves," I said, for the underlinen, "here we are again at Brinkley Court in the of Worcestershire."

"Yes, sir."

"A to have gone and got themselves into in this joint."

"Yes, sir."

"The Tuppy Glossop and my Angela would appear to be serious."

"Yes, sir. Opinion in the servants' is to take a view of the situation."

"And the that to your mind, no doubt, is that I shall have my work cut out to up?"

"Yes, sir."

"You are wrong, Jeeves. I have the thing well in hand."

"You me, sir."

"I I should. Yes, Jeeves, I on the most of the way here, and with the results. I have just been in with Mr. Glossop, and is out."

"Indeed, sir? Might I inquire——"

"You know my methods, Jeeves. Apply them. Have you," I asked, into the shirt and starting to the cravat, "been on the thing at all?"

"Oh, yes, sir. I have always been much to Miss Angela, and I that it would me great were I to be able to be of service to her."

"A sentiment. But I you blank?"

"No, sir. I was with an idea."

"What was it?"

"It to me that a might be Mr. Glossop and Miss Angela by to that which in time of to to the of——"

I had to let go of the in order to a hand. I was shocked.

"Don't tell me you were to that old he-saved-her-from-drowning gag? I am surprised, Jeeves. Surprised and pained. When I was the with Aunt Dahlia on my arrival, she said in a of way that she I was going to my Cousin Angela into the and push Tuppy in to her out, and I let her see that I the an to my intelligence. And now, if your have the meaning I read into them, you are the same scheme. Really, Jeeves!"

"No, sir. Not that. But the did my mind, as I walked in the and passed the where the fire-bell hangs, that a of fire in the night might result in Mr. Glossop to Miss Angela to safety."

I shivered.

"Rotten, Jeeves."

"Well, sir——"

"No good. Not a like it."

"I fancy, sir——"

"No, Jeeves. No more. Enough has been said. Let us the subj."

I the tie in silence. My were too for speech. I knew, of course, that this man had for the time being his grip, but I had that he had gone to pieces like this. Remembering some of the ones he had in the past, I with from the of his present ineptitude. Or is it ineptness? I this of his to in his and talk like a perfect ass. It was the old, old story, I supposed. A man's brain along for years the speed limit, and something goes with the steering-gear and it and comes a in the ditch.

"A elaborate," I said, trying to put the thing in as a light as possible. "Your old failing. You can see that it's a elaborate?"

"Possibly the plan I might be open to that criticism, sir, but de mieux——"

"I don't you, Jeeves."

"A French expression, sir, 'for want of anything better'."

A moment before, I had been for this of a once nothing but a pity. These the Wooster pride, asperity.

"I perfectly well what de means, Jeeves. I did not two months among our Gallic for nothing. Besides, I that one from school. What my was that you should be the expression, well that there is no de about it at all. Where do you that faute-de-mieux stuff? Didn't I tell you I had out?"

"Yes, sir, but——"

"What do you mean—but?"

"Well, sir——"

"Push on, Jeeves. I am ready, anxious, to your views."

"Well, sir, if I may take the of you of it, your plans in the past have not always been successful."

There was a silence—rather a one—during which I put on my in a marked manner. Not till I had got the at the did I speak.

"It is true, Jeeves," I said formally, "that once or twice in the past I may have missed the bus. This, however, I purely to luck."

"Indeed, sir?"

"On the present occasion I shall not fail, and I'll tell you why I shall not fail. Because my is in nature."

"Indeed, sir?"

"It is simple. Not elaborate. And, furthermore, on the of the individual."

"Indeed, sir?"

"Jeeves," I said, "don't keep saying 'Indeed, sir?' No nothing is from your mind than to such a suggestion, but you have a way of the 'in' and then with a on the 'deed' which makes it to 'Oh, yeah?' Correct this, Jeeves."

"Very good, sir."

"I tell you I have up. Would you to what steps I have taken?"

"Very much, sir."

"Then listen. Tonight at dinner I have Tuppy to off the food."

"Sir?"

"Tut, Jeeves, surely you can the idea, though it is one that would have to yourself. Have you that I sent to Gussie Fink-Nottle, him away from the and ham? This is the same thing. Pushing the food away is a of love. It cannot fail to home the gravy. You must see that?"

"Well, sir——"

I frowned.

"I don't want to always to be your methods of voice production, Jeeves," I said, "but I must you that that 'Well, sir' of yours is in many respects as as your 'Indeed, sir?' Like the latter, it to be with a scepticism. It a of in my vision. The I after you shoot it at me a of times is that you me to be talking through the of my neck, and that only a of what is you from for it the 'Says you!'"

"Oh, no, sir."

"Well, that's what it like. Why don't you think this will work?"

"I Miss Angela will Mr. Glossop's to indigestion, sir."

I hadn't of that, and I must it me for a moment. Then I myself. I saw what was at the of all this. Mortified by the of his own ineptness—or ineptitude—the was trying to and obstruct. I to the out of him without preamble.

"Oh?" I said. "You do, do you? Well, be that as it may, it doesn't the that you've put out the coat. Be so good, Jeeves," I said, with a the gent's ordinary dinner jacket or smoking, as we call it on the Côte d'Azur, which was from the on the of the wardrobe, "as to that black thing in the and out my white mess-jacket with the buttons."

He looked at me in a meaning manner. And when I say a meaning manner, I there was a but at the same time in his and a of across his which wasn't a and yet wasn't not a smile. Also the soft cough.

"I to say, sir, that I to pack the to which you refer."

The of that parcel in the to my eyes, and I a with it. I may have a or two. I'm not sure.

"I know you did, Jeeves," I said, laughing from lazy and a of from the Mechlin at my wrists. "But I didn't. You will it on a chair in the in a brown-paper parcel."

The that his low had been and and that the thing was on the after all, must have been the of jars, but there was no play of on his to it. There very is on Jeeves's f-c. In moments of discomfort, as I had told Tuppy, he a mask, the of a moose.

"You might just and it, will you?"

"Very good, sir."

"Right ho, Jeeves."

And presently I was the drawing-room with me good old j. the blades.

And Dahlia was in the drawing-room. She up at my entrance.

"Hullo, eyesore," she said. "What do you think you're up as?"

I did not the purport.

"The jacket, you mean?" I queried, groping.

"I do. You look like one of the of male guests at Abernethy Towers in Act 2 of a comedy."

"You do not this jacket?"

"I do not."

"You did at Cannes."

"Well, this isn't Cannes."

"But, it——"

"Oh, mind. Let it go. If you want to give my a laugh, what it matter? What anything now?"

There was a death-where-is-thy-sting-fullness about her manner which I distasteful. It isn't often that I score off Jeeves in the fashion just described, and when I do I like to see happy, about me.

"Tails up, Aunt Dahlia," I buoyantly.

"Tails up be dashed," was her response. "I've just been talking to Tom."

"Telling him?"

"No, to him. I haven't had the nerve to tell him yet."

"Is he still about that income-tax money?"

"Upset is right. He says that Civilisation is in the melting-pot and that all men can read the on the wall."

"What wall?"

"Old Testament, ass. Belshazzar's feast."

"Oh, that, yes. I've often how that was worked. With mirrors, I expect."

"I wish I use to it to Tom about this business."

I had a word of to offer here. I had been the thing over in my mind since our last meeting, and I I saw where she had got twisted. Where she her error, it to me, was in she had got to tell Uncle Tom. To my way of thinking, the was one on which it would be to continue to a reserve.

"I don't see why you need mention that you that money at baccarat."

"What do you suggest, then? Letting Milady's Boudoir join Civilisation in the melting-pot. Because that is what it will do unless I a cheque by next week. The have been a for months."

"You don't follow. Listen. It's an thing, I take it, that Uncle Tom the Boudoir bills. If the has been the for two years, he must have got used to out by this time. Well, ask him for the money to pay the printers."

"I did. Just I to Cannes."

"Wouldn't he give it to you?"

"Certainly he gave it to me. He up like an officer and a gentleman. That was the money I at baccarat."

"Oh? I didn't know that."

"There isn't much you do know."

A nephew's love me the slur.

"Tut!" I said.

"What did you say?"

"I said 'Tut!'"

"Say it once again, and I'll you where you stand. I've to without being at."

"Quite."

"Any that's required, I'll to myself. And the same to the tongue, if you were of doing that."

"Far from it."

"Good."

I in thought. I was to the core. My heart, if you remember, had already once for Aunt Dahlia this evening. It now again. I how she was to this paper of hers. Seeing it go the would be for her like a loved child for the third time in some or mere.

And there was no question that, unless prepared for the touch, Uncle Tom would see a hundred Milady's Boudoirs go than take the rap.

Then I saw how the thing be handled. This aunt, I perceived, must into line with my other clients. Tuppy Glossop was off dinner to melt Angela. Gussie Fink-Nottle was off dinner to the Bassett. Aunt Dahlia must off dinner to Uncle Tom. For the of this of mine was that there was no limit to the number of entrants. Come one, come all, the more the merrier, and in every case.

"I've got it," I said. "There is only one to pursue. Eat less meat."

She looked at me in a of way. I wouldn't that her were wet with tears, but I think they were, she her hands in appeal.

"Must you drivel, Bertie? Won't you stop it just this once? Just for tonight, to Aunt Dahlia?"

"I'm not drivelling."

"I say that to a man of your high it doesn't come under the of drivel, but——"

I saw what had happened. I hadn't myself clear.

"It's all right," I said. "Have no misgivings. This is the Tabasco. When I said 'Eat less meat', what I meant was that you must your at dinner tonight. Just there, looking blistered, and away each as it comes with a of resignation. You see what will happen. Uncle Tom will notice your of appetite, and I am prepared to that at the of the he will come to you and say 'Dahlia, darling'—I take it he calls you 'Dahlia'—'Dahlia darling,' he will say, 'I noticed at dinner tonight that you were a off your feed. Is anything the matter, Dahlia, darling?' 'Why, yes, Tom, darling,' you will reply. 'It is of you to ask, darling. The is, darling, I am worried.' 'My darling,' he will say——"

Aunt Dahlia at this point to that these Traverses to be a of blighters, to judge by their dialogue. She also to know when I was going to to the point.

I gave her a look.

"'My darling,' he will say tenderly, 'is there anything I can do?' To which your reply will be that there well is—viz. for his cheque-book and start writing."

I was her closely as I spoke, and was pleased to note respect in her eyes.

"But, Bertie, this is positively bright."

"I told you Jeeves wasn't the only with brain."

"I it would work."

"It's to work. I've it to Tuppy."

"Young Glossop?"

"In order to Angela."

"Splendid!"

"And to Gussie Fink-Nottle, who wants to make a with the Bassett."

"Well, well, well! What a little brain it is."

"Always working, Aunt Dahlia, always working."

"You're not the I took you for, Bertie."

"When did you take me for a chump?"

"Oh, some time last summer. I what gave me the idea. Yes, Bertie, this is bright. I suppose, as a of fact, Jeeves it."

"Jeeves did not it. I these implications. Jeeves had nothing to do with it whatsoever."

"Well, all right, no need to about it. Yes, I think it will work. Tom's to me."

"Who wouldn't be?"

"I'll do it."

And then the of the party in, and we to dinner.

Conditions being as they were at Brinkley Court—I to say, the place being above the Plimsoll mark with and room only as souls—I hadn't the to be particularly effervescent. Nor was it. Silent. Sombre. The whole thing more than a like Christmas dinner on Devil's Island.

I was when it was over.

What with having, on top of her other troubles, to herself from the trough, Aunt Dahlia was a total as as anything in the shape of was concerned. The that he was fifty in the red and Civilisation to take a at any moment had Uncle Tom, who always looked a like a with a sorrow, to take on a melancholy. The Bassett was a crumbler. Angela might have been from the rock. Tuppy had the air of a to make the off to the shed.

And as for Gussie Fink-Nottle, many an would have been by his and started him on sight.

This was the I had had of Gussie since we at my flat, and I must say his me. I had been something a great more sparkling.

At my flat, on the occasion to, he had, if you recall, me a that all he needed to touch him off was a setting. Yet in this now I no that he was about to into mid-season form. He still looked like a cat in an adage, and it did not take me long to that my very act on from this must be to him and give him a talk.

If a wanted the note, it looked as if it was this Fink-Nottle.

In the of mourners, however, I of him, and, to the that Aunt Dahlia me in for a game of backgammon, it was not that I was able to a search. But after we had been playing for a while, the came in and asked her if she would speak to Anatole, so I managed to away. And some ten minutes later, having failed to in the house, I started to out the drag-net through the grounds, and him in the rose garden.

He was a rose at the moment in a of way, but the as I approached.

"Well, Gussie," I said.

I had upon him as I spoke, such being my policy on meeting an old pal; but of genially, he gave me a most look. His me. It was as if he were not to see Bertram. For a moment he this look play upon me, as it were, and then he spoke.

"You and your 'Well, Gussie'!"

He said this teeth, always an thing to do, and I myself more than ever.

"How do you mean—me and my 'Well, Gussie'?"

"I like your nerve, about the place, saying 'Well, Gussie.' That's about all the 'Well, Gussie' I shall from you, Wooster. And it's no good looking like that. You know what I mean. That prize-giving! It was a act to out as you did and it off on to me. I will not my words. It was the act of a and a stinker."

Now, though, as I have shown, I had most of the time on the to upon the case of Angela and Tuppy, I had not neglected to give a or two to what I was going to say when I Gussie. I had that there might be some little temporary when we met, and when a difficult is in the Bertram Wooster to have his ready.

So now I was able to reply with a manly, frankness. The of the had me a of a jolt, it is true, for in the of I had let that prize-giving to the of my mind; but I had and, as I say, was able to reply with a d.f.

"But, my dear chap," I said, "I took it for that you would that that was all part of my schemes."

He said something about my which I did not catch.

"Absolutely. 'Crawling out' is the way to put it. You don't I didn't want to those prizes, do you? Left to myself, there is nothing I would a treat. But I saw that the square, thing to do was to step and let you take it on, so I did so. I that your need was than mine. You don't to say you aren't looking to it?"

He a which I wouldn't have he would have known. It just that you can in the country and still somehow a vocabulary. No one up from the neighbours—the vicar, the local doctor, the man who the milk, and so on.

"But, it," I said, "can't you see what this is going to do for you? It will send your stock up with a jump. There you will be, up on that platform, a romantic, figure, the star of the whole proceedings, the what-d'you-call-it of all eyes. Madeline Bassett will be all over you. She will see you in a totally new light."

"She will, will she?"

"Certainly she will. Augustus Fink-Nottle, the newts' friend, she knows. She is with Augustus Fink-Nottle, the dogs' chiropodist. But Augustus Fink-Nottle, the orator—that'll her sideways, or I know nothing of the female heart. Girls go over a public man. If anyone did anyone else a kindness, it was I when I gave this to you."

He by my eloquence. Couldn't have helped himself, of course. The fire from his horn-rimmed spectacles, and in its place appeared the old fish-like goggle.

'"Myes," he said meditatively. "Have you a speech, Bertie?"

"Dozens of times. It's pie. Nothing to it. Why, I once a girls' school."

"You weren't nervous?"

"Not a bit."

"How did you go?"

"They on my lips. I them in the of my hand."

"They didn't eggs, or anything?"

"Not a thing."

He a breath, and for a space in at a slug.

"Well," he said, at length, "it may be all right. Possibly I am the thing on my mind too much. I may be in it the that is than death. But I'll tell you this much: the of that prize-giving on the thirty-first of this month has been my into a nightmare. I haven't been able to sleep or think or eat ... By the way, that me. You that about the and ham."

"It wasn't a telegram. I wanted you to go light on the food, so that she would you were in love."

He laughed hollowly.

"I see. Well, I've been doing that, all right."

"Yes, I was noticing at dinner. Splendid."

"I don't see what's about it. It's not going to me anywhere. I shall be able to ask her to me. I couldn't nerve to do that if I on biscuits for the of my life."

"But, it, Gussie. In these surroundings. I should have the trees alone——"

"I don't what you would have thought. I can't do it."

"Oh, come!"

"I can't. She so aloof, so remote."

"She doesn't."

"Yes, she does. Especially when you see her sideways. Have you her sideways, Bertie? That cold, pure profile. It just takes all the out of one."

"It doesn't."

"I tell you it does. I catch of it, and the freeze on my lips."

He spoke with a of despair, and so was his of and the that to success that for an instant, I confess, I a stymied. It to go on trying to steam up such a jellyfish. Then I saw the way. With that of mine, I what must be done if this Fink-Nottle was to be to push his nose past the judges' box.

"She must be up," I said.

"Be what?"

"Softened up. Sweetened. Worked on. Preliminary must be put in. Here, Gussie, is the I to adopt: I shall now return to the house and this Bassett out for a stroll. I shall talk to her of that yearn, that there is one actually on the premises. I shall it strong, no effort. You, meanwhile, will on the outskirts, and in about a of an hour you will come along and on from there. By that time, her having been stirred, you ought to be able to do the on your head. It will be like on to a moving bus."

I when I was a kid at having to learn a of about a named Pig-something—a he would have been, no doubt—who a of a girl, and what should one but that the thing came to life. A for the chap, of course, but the point I'm to is that there were a of lines that went, if I correctly:

She starts. She moves. She to The of life along her keel.

And what I'm at is that you couldn't a of what to Gussie as I spoke these words. His cleared, his brightened, he that look, and he at the slug, which was still on the long, long with something bonhomie. A marked improvement.

"I see what you mean. You will of the way, as it were."

"That's right. Spadework."

"It's a idea, Bertie. It will make all the difference."

"Quite. But don't that after that it will be up to you. You will have to up your and give her the old oil, or my will have been in vain."

Something of his Gawd-help-us-ness to return to him. He a bit.

"That's true. What the shall I say?"

I my with an effort. The man had been at with me.

"Dash it, there are hundreds of you can say. Talk about the sunset."

"The sunset?"

"Certainly. Half the married men you meet by talking about the sunset."

"But what can I say about the sunset?"

"Well, Jeeves got off a good one the other day. I met him the dog in the park one evening, and he said, 'Now the on the sight, sir, and all the air a holds.' You might use that."

"What of landscape?"

"Glimmering. G for 'gastritis,' l for 'lizard'——"

"Oh, glimmering? Yes, that's not bad. Glimmering ... stillness.... Yes, I call that good."

"You then say that you have often that the are God's chain."

"But I haven't."

"I say not. But she has. Hand her that one, and I don't see how she can help that you're a soul."

"God's chain?"

"God's chain. And then you go on about how always makes you sad. I know you're going to say it doesn't, but on this occasion it has well got to."

"Why?"

"That's just what she will ask, and you will then have got her going. Because you will reply that it is yours is such a life. It wouldn't be a idea to give her a of a home at your Lincolnshire residence, how you the with a tread."

"I and to the wireless."

"No, you don't. You the with a tread, that you had someone to love you. And then you speak of the day when she came into your life."

"Like a princess."

"Absolutely," I said with approval. I hadn't such a one from such a quarter. "Like a princess. Nice work, Gussie."

"And then?"

"Well, after that it's easy. You say you have something you want to say to her, and then you into it. I don't see how it can fail. If I were you, I should do it in this rose garden. It is well that there is no move than to the object into rose gardens in the gloaming. And you had have a of quick ones first."

"Quick ones?"

"Snifters."

"Drinks, do you mean? But I don't drink."

"What?"

"I've touched a in my life."

This me a dubious, I must confess. On these occasions it is that a is of the essence.

However, if the were as he had stated, I there was nothing to be done about it.

"Well, you'll have to make out as best you can on pop."

"I always drink orange juice."

"Orange juice, then. Tell me, Gussie, to settle a bet, do you like that muck?"

"Very much."

"Then there is no more to be said. Now, let's just have a through, to see that you've got the lay-out straight. Start off with the landscape."

"Stars God's chain."

"Twilight makes you sad."

"Because mine life."

"Describe life."

"Talk about the day I met her."

"Add fairy-princess gag. Say there's something you want to say to her. Heave a of sighs. Grab her hand. And give her the works. Right."

And that he had the and that might now be to through the proper channels, I up the and to the house.

It was not until I had the drawing-room and was to take a square look at the Bassett that I the with which I had on this to a trifle. Beholding her at close range like this, I of what I was in for. The of with this gave me a most feeling. I not but how often, when in her company at Cannes, I had at her, that some in a car would the by along and her amidships. As I have already clear, this girl was not one of my most buddies.

However, a Wooster's word is his bond. Woosters may quail, but they do not out. Only the ear have the in the voice as I asked her if she would to come out for an hour.

"Lovely evening," I said.

"Yes, lovely, isn't it?"

"Lovely. Reminds me of Cannes."

"How the were there!"

"Lovely," I said.

"Lovely," said the Bassett.

"Lovely," I agreed.

That the weather and news for the French Riviera. Another minute, and we were out in the great open spaces, she a about the scenery, and self replying, "Oh, rather, quite," and how best to approach the in hand.