There was one of those long silences. Pregnant, I believe, is what they're called. Aunt looked at butler. Butler looked at aunt. I looked at of them. An to the room like a poultice. I to be on a slice of apple in my fruit at the moment, and it as if Carnera had jumped off the top of the Eiffel Tower on to a frame.
Aunt Dahlia herself against the sideboard, and spoke in a low, voice:
"Faces?"
"Yes, madam."
"Through the skylight?"
"Yes, madam."
"You he's on the roof?"
"Yes, madam. It has Monsieur Anatole very much."
I it was that word "upset" that touched Aunt Dahlia off. Experience had her what when Anatole got upset. I had always her as a woman who was active on her pins, but I had her of being of the of speed which she now showed. Pausing to a rich hunting-field off her chest, she was out of the room and making for the stairs I a of—I think—banana. And feeling, as I had when I got that of hers about Angela and Tuppy, that my place was by her side, I put my plate and after her, Seppings at a gallop.
I say that my place was by her side, but it was not so easy to there, for she was setting a pace. At the top of the she must have by a of a dozen lengths, and was still off my challenge when she into the second. At the next landing, however, the going appeared to tell on her, for she off a and of roaring, and by the time we were in the we were and neck. Our entry into Anatole's room was as close a as you have to see.
Result:
1. Aunt Dahlia.
2. Bertram.
3. Seppings.
Won by a head. Half a second and third.
The thing that met the on entering was Anatole. This of the cooking-stove is a little man with a of the or soup-strainer type, and you can take a line through it as to the of his emotions. When all is well, it up at the ends like a sergeant-major's. When the is bruised, it droops.
It was now, a note. And if any of had as to how he was feeling, the way he was on would have it. He was by the in pink pyjamas, his at the skylight. Through the glass, Gussie was down. His were and his mouth was open, him so a to some fish in an that one's was to offer him an ant's egg.
Watching this fist-waving cook and this guest, I must say that my were with the former. I him in all the he wanted to.
Review the facts, I to say. There he had been, in bed, of French cooks do think about when in bed, and he had aware of that at the window. A thing to the most phlegmatic. I know I should to be in and have Gussie up like that. A chap's bedroom—you can't away from it—is his castle, and he has every right to look if come in at him.
While I thus, Aunt Dahlia, in her practical way, was to the point:
"What's all this?"
Anatole did a of Swedish exercise, starting at the of the spine, on through the shoulder-blades and up among the hair.
Then he told her.
In the I have had with this wonder man, I have always his English fluent, but a on the mixed side. If you remember, he was with Mrs. Bingo Little for a time to Brinkley, and no he up a good from Bingo. Before that, he had been a of years with an American family at Nice and had under their chauffeur, one of the Maloneys of Brooklyn. So, what with Bingo and what with Maloney, he is, as I say, but a mixed.
He spoke, in part, as follows:
"Hot dog! You ask me what is it? Listen. Make some attention a little. Me, I have the hay, but I do not sleep so good, and presently I wake and up I look, and there is one who make against me through the window. Is that a affair? Is that convenient? If you think I like it, you well mistake yourself. I am so as a wet hen. And why not? I am somebody, isn't it? This is a bedroom, what-what, not a house for some apes? Then for what do on my window so as a cucumbers, making some faces?"
"Quite," I said. Dashed reasonable, was my verdict.
He another look up at Gussie, and did Exercise 2—the one where you the moustache, give it a and then start flies.
"Wait yet a little. I am not finish. I say I see this type on my window, making a faces. But what then? Does he off when I a cry, and me peaceable? Not on your life. He planted there, not any damns, and me like a cat a duck. He make against me and again he make against me, and the more I that he should to out of here, the more he do not to out of here. He something me, and I what is his desire, but he do not explain. Oh, no, that never. He but his head. What silliness! Is this for me? You think I like it? I am not with such folly. I think the mutt's loony. Je me de ce type infect. C'est de ça l'oiseau.... Allez-vous-en, louffier.... Tell the to go away. He is as some March hatters."
I must say I he was making out a good case, and Aunt Dahlia the same. She a hand on his shoulder.
"I will, Monsieur Anatole, I will," she said, and I couldn't have that voice of to such an coo. More like a calling to its than anything else. "It's all right."
She had said the thing. He did Exercise 3.
"All right? Nom d'un d'un nom! The you say it's all right! Of what use to like that? Wait one half-moment. Not yet so quick, my old sport. It is by no means all right. See yet again a little. It is some very different of fish. I can take a with a rough, it is true, but I do not it when one play against me on my windows. That cannot do. A thing, no. I am a man. I do not wish a on my windows. I on my as any. It is very little all right. If such is to arrive, I do not any longer in this house no more. I off and do not planted."
Sinister words, I had to admit, and I was not that Aunt Dahlia, them, should have a like the of a master of a shot. Anatole had to his again at Gussie, and she now joined him. Seppings, who was in the background, didn't actually his fists, but he gave Gussie a look. It was plain to the that this Fink-Nottle, in on to that skylight, had done a thing. He couldn't have been more in the home of G.G. Simmons.
"Go away, you loon!" Aunt Dahlia, in that voice of hers which had once members of the Quorn to and take from the saddle.
Gussie's reply was to his eyebrows. I read the message he was trying to convey.
"I think he means," I said—reasonable old Bertram, always trying to oil on the w's——"that if he he will the of the house and his neck."
"Well, why not?" said Aunt Dahlia.
I see her point, of course, but it to me that there might be a nearer solution. This to be the only window in the house which Uncle Tom had not with his bars. I he that if a had the nerve to climb up as as this, he what was to him.
"If you opened the skylight, he jump in."
The idea got across.
"Seppings, how this open?"
"With a pole, madam."
"Then a pole. Get two poles. Ten."
And presently Gussie was mixing with the company, Like one of those you read about in the papers, the man of his position.
I must say Aunt Dahlia's and did nothing to toward a composure. Of the which she had when this chump's with me over the fruit salad, no remained, and I was not that speech more or less on the Fink-Nottle lips. It isn't often that Aunt Dahlia, as a bird as a of to their to it, lets her angry rise, but when she does, men climb trees and them up after them.
"Well?" she said.
In answer to this, all that Gussie produce was a of hiccough.
"Well?"
Aunt Dahlia's darker. Hunting, if in over a period of years, is a that fails to a to the patient's complexion, and her best friends not have that at normal times the relative's map a little toward the strawberry. But had I it take on so a as now. She looked like a for self-expression.
"Well?"
Gussie hard. And for a moment it as if something was going to come through. But in the end it out nothing more than a of death-rattle.
"Oh, take him away, Bertie, and put ice on his head," said Aunt Dahlia, the thing up. And she to what looked like the man's size job of Anatole, who was now on a with himself in a of way.
Seeming to that the was one to which he not do in Bingo-cum-Maloney Anglo-American, he had on his native tongue. Words like "marmiton de Domange," "pignouf," "hurluberlu" and "roustisseur" were from him like out of a barn. Lost on me, of course, because, though I a at the Gallic language that Cannes visit, I'm still more or less in the Esker-vous-avez stage. I this, for they good.
I Gussie the stairs. A than Aunt Dahlia, I had already the and which had him to the roof. Where she had only a himself in a or whimsy, I had the fawn.
"Was Tuppy after you?" I asked sympathetically.
What I is called a him.
"He nearly got me on the top landing. I out through a passage window and along a of ledge."
"That him, what?"
"Yes. But then I I had stuck. The in all directions. I couldn't go back. I had to go on, along this ledge. And then I myself looking the skylight. Who was that chap?"
"That was Anatole, Aunt Dahlia's chef."
"French?"
"To the core."
"That why I couldn't make him understand. What these Frenchmen are. They don't able to the thing. You'd have if a saw a on a skylight, the would the wanted to be let in. But no, he just there."
"Waving a fists."
"Yes. Silly idiot. Still, here I am."
"Here you are, yes—for the moment."
"Eh?"
"I was that Tuppy is somewhere."
He like a in springtime.
"What shall I do?"
I this.
"Sneak to your room and the door. That is the policy."
"Suppose that's where he's lurking?"
"In that case, move elsewhere."
But on at the room, it that Tuppy, if anywhere, was some other of the house. Gussie in, and I the key turn. And that there was no more that I do in that quarter, I returned to the dining-room for fruit and a think. And I had my plate when the door opened and Aunt Dahlia came in. She into a chair, looking a shopworn.
"Give me a drink, Bertie."
"What sort?"
"Any sort, so long as it's strong."
Approach Bertram Wooster along these lines, and you catch him at his best. St. Bernard dogs doing the square thing by Alpine travellers not have about more assiduously. I the order, and for some moments nothing was to be but the of an aunt her tissues.
"Shove it down, Aunt Dahlia," I said sympathetically. "These take it out of one, don't they? You've had a time, no doubt, Anatole," I proceeded, helping myself to paste on toast. "Everything now, I trust?"
She at me in a long, of way, her as if in thought.
"Attila," she said at length. "That's the name. Attila, the Hun."
"Eh?"
"I was trying to think who you me of. Somebody who about and and up homes which, until he came along, had been happy and peaceful. Attila is the man. It's amazing." she said, me in once more. "To look at you, one would think you were just an ordinary of idiot—certifiable, perhaps, but harmless. Yet, in reality, you are a than the Black Death. I tell you, Bertie, when I you I to come up against all the and of life with such a that I as if I had walked into a lamp post."
Pained and surprised, I would have spoken, but the I had was paste had out to be something more and adhesive. It to itself the and like a gag. And while I was still to clear the for action, she on:
"Do you what you started when you sent that Spink-Bottle man here? As his and the prize-giving at Market Snodsbury Grammar School into a of two-reel film, I will say nothing, for I it. But when he comes at Anatole through skylights, just after I had with pains and him to his notice, and makes him so that he won't of on after tomorrow——"
The paste gave way. I was able to speak:
"What?"
"Yes, Anatole goes tomorrow, and I old Tom will have for the of his life. And that is not all. I have just Angela, and she tells me she is to this Bottle."
"Temporarily, yes," I had to admit.
"Temporarily be blowed. She's definitely to him and talks with a of of married in October. So there it is. If the Job were to walk into the room at this moment, I hard-luck with him till bedtime. Not that Job was in my class."
"He had boils."
"Well, what are boils?"
"Dashed painful, I understand."
"Nonsense. I'd take all the on the market in for my troubles. Can't you the position? I've the best cook to England. My husband, soul, will die of dyspepsia. And my only daughter, for I had such a future, is to be married to an fancier. And you talk about boils!"
I her on a small point:
"I don't talk about boils. I mentioned that Job had them. Yes, I agree with you, Aunt Dahlia, that are not looking too oojah-cum-spiff at the moment, but be of good cheer. A Wooster is for more than the nonce."
"You to be along with another of your schemes?"
"At any minute."
She resignedly.
"I as much. Well, it needed but this. I don't see how possibly be than they are, but no you will succeed in making them so. Your and will the way. Carry on, Bertie. Yes, on. I am past now. I shall a in into what and of you can this home. Go to it, lad.... What's that you're eating?"
"I it a little difficult to classify. Some of paste on toast. Rather like with extract."
"Gimme," said Aunt Dahlia listlessly.
"Be how you chew," I advised. "It closer than a brother.... Yes, Jeeves?"
The man had on the carpet. Absolutely noiseless, as usual.
"A note for you, sir."
"A note for me, Jeeves?"
"A note for you, sir."
"From whom, Jeeves?"
"From Miss Bassett, sir."
"From whom, Jeeves?"
"From Miss Bassett, sir."
"From Miss Bassett, Jeeves?"
"From Miss Bassett, sir."
At this point, Aunt Dahlia, who had taken one at her whatever-it-was-on-toast and it down, us—a little fretfully, I thought—for heaven's to cut out the cross-talk stuff, as she had to already without having to to us doing our of the Two Macs. Always to oblige, I Jeeves with a nod, and he for a moment and was gone. Many a would have been less slippy.
"But what," I mused, with the envelope, "can this female be to me about?"
"Why not open the thing and see?"
"A very excellent idea," I said, and did so.
"And if you are in my movements," Aunt Dahlia, for the door, "I to go to my room, do some Yogi breathing, and try to forget."
"Quite," I said absently, p. l. And then, as I over, a from my lips, Aunt Dahlia to like a mustang.
"Don't do it!" she exclaimed, in every limb.
"Yes, but it——"
"What a you are, you object," she sighed. "I years ago, when you were in your cradle, being left alone with you one day and you nearly your and started purple. And I, that I was, took it out and saved your life. Let me tell you, Bertie, it will go very hard with you if you a again when only I am by to aid."
"But, it!" I cried. "Do you know what's happened? Madeline Bassett says she's going to me!"
"I it for you," said the relative, and passed from the room looking like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story.
