THE AUNT AND THE SLUGGARD
Now that it’s all over, I may as well admit that there was a time the of Rockmetteller Todd when I that Jeeves was going to let me down. The man had the of being baffled.
Jeeves is my man, you know. Officially he in his for pressing my and all that of thing; but actually he’s more like what the Johnnie called some bird of his who was to him in times of need—a guide, don’t you know; philosopher, if I rightly, and—I fancy—friend. I on him at every turn.
So naturally, when Rocky Todd told me about his aunt, I didn’t hesitate. Jeeves was in on the thing from the start.
The of Rocky Todd early one of spring. I was in bed, the good old with about nine hours of the dreamless, when the door open and somebody me in the and to shake the bedclothes. After a and myself together, I Rocky, and my was that it was some dream.
Rocky, you see, on Long Island somewhere, miles away from New York; and not only that, but he had told me himself more than once that he got up twelve, and than one. Constitutionally the in America, he had on a walk in life which him to go the limit in that direction. He was a poet. At least, he when he did anything; but most of his time, as as I make out, he in a of trance. He told me once that he on a fence, a and what on earth it was up to, for hours at a stretch.
He had his of life out to a point. About once a month he would take three days a poems; the other three hundred and twenty-nine days of the year he rested. I didn’t know there was money in to support a chappie, in the way in which Rocky lived; but it that, if you to to men to lead the life and don’t in any rhymes, American for the stuff. Rocky me one of his once. It began:
Be!
Be!
The past is dead.
To-morrow is not born.
Be to-day!
To-day!
Be with every nerve,
With every muscle,
With every of your red blood!
Be!
It was printed opposite the of a magazine with a of it, and a picture in the middle of a fairly-nude chappie, with muscles, the sun the eye. Rocky said they gave him a hundred for it, and he in till four in the for over a month.
As the he was solid, to the that he had a aunt away in Illinois; and, as he had been named Rockmetteller after her, and was her only nephew, his position was sound. He told me that when he did come into the money he meant to do no work at all, an occasional the man with life opening out him, with all its possibilities, to light a pipe and his upon the mantelpiece.
And this was the man who was me in the in the dawn!
“Read this, Bertie!” I just see that he was a or something in my face. “Wake up and read this!”
I can’t read I’ve had my tea and a cigarette. I for the bell.
Jeeves came in looking as fresh as a violet. It’s a to me how he it.
“Tea, Jeeves.”
“Very good, sir.”
He out of the room—he always you the of being some liquid when he moves; and I that Rocky was with his again.
“What is it?” I said. “What on earth’s the matter?”
“Read it!”
“I can’t. I haven’t had my tea.”
“Well, then.”
“Who’s it from?”
“My aunt.”
At this point I asleep again. I to him saying:
“So what on earth am I to do?”
Jeeves in with the tray, like some over its bed; and I saw daylight.
“Read it again, Rocky, old top,” I said. “I want Jeeves to it. Mr. Todd’s aunt has him a letter, Jeeves, and we want your advice.”
“Very good, sir.”
He in the middle of the room, to the cause, and Rocky started again:
“MY DEAR ROCKMETTELLER.—I have been over for a long while, and I have come to the that I have been very to wait so long doing what I have up my mind to do now.”
“What do you make of that, Jeeves?”
“It a little at present, sir, but no it at a later point in the communication.”
“It as clear as mud!” said Rocky.
“Proceed, old scout,” I said, my and butter.
“You know how all my life I have to visit New York and see for myself the life of which I have read so much. I that now it will be for me to my dream. I am old and out. I to have no left in me.”
“Sad, Jeeves, what?”
“Extremely, sir.”
“Sad nothing!” said Rocky. “It’s laziness. I to see her last Christmas and she was with health. Her doctor told me himself that there was nothing with her whatever. But she will that she’s a invalid, so he has to agree with her. She’s got a idea that the to New York would kill her; so, though it’s been her all her life to come here, she where she is.”
“Rather like the was ‘in the Highlands a-chasing of the deer,’ Jeeves?”
“The cases are in some respects parallel, sir.”
“Carry on, Rocky, dear boy.”
“So I have that, if I cannot all the of the city myself, I can at least them through you. I of this yesterday after reading a in the Sunday paper about a man who had all his life for a thing and it in the end only when he was too old to it. It was very sad, and it touched me.”
“A thing,” Rocky bitterly, “that I’ve not been able to do in ten years.”
“As you know, you will have my money when I am gone; but until now I have been able to see my way to you an allowance. I have now to do so—on one condition. I have to a of lawyers in New York, them to pay you a each month. My one condition is that you live in New York and as I have always to do. I want you to be my representative, to this money for me as I should do myself. I want you to into the gay, life of New York. I want you to be the life and of supper parties.
“Above all, I want you—indeed, I on this—to me at least once a week me a full of all you are doing and all that is going on in the city, so that I may at second-hand what my health my for myself. Remember that I shall full details, and that no detail is too to interest.—Your Aunt,
“ISABEL ROCKMETTELLER.”
“What about it?” said Rocky.
“What about it?” I said.
“Yes. What on earth am I going to do?”
It was only then that I got on to the of the chappie, in view of the that a of the right had on him from a sky. To my mind it was an occasion for the and the whoop; yet here the man was, looking and talking as if Fate had on his plexus. It me.
“Aren’t you bucked?” I said.
“Bucked!”
“If I were in your place I should be braced. I this soft for you.”
He gave a of yelp, at me for a moment, and then to talk of New York in a way that me of Jimmy Mundy, the chappie. Jimmy had just come to New York on a hit-the-trail campaign, and I had in at the Garden a of days before, for an hour or so, to him. He had told New York some about itself, having taken a to the place, but, by Jove, you know, dear old Rocky him look like a agent for the old metrop.!
“Pretty soft!” he cried. “To have to come and live in New York! To have to my little and take a stuffy, smelly, over-heated of an in this Heaven-forsaken, Gehenna. To have to mix night after night with a who think that life is a of St. Vitus’s dance, and that they’re having a good time they’re making noise for six and too much for ten. I New York, Bertie. I wouldn’t come near the place if I hadn’t got to see occasionally. There’s a on it. It’s got tremens. It’s the limit. The very of more than a day in it makes me sick. And you call this thing soft for me!”
I like Lot’s friends must have done when they in for a and their to the Cities of the Plain. I had no idea old Rocky be so eloquent.
“It would kill me to have to live in New York,” he on. “To have to the air with six people! To have to wear and all the time! To——” He started. “Good Lord! I I should have to dress for dinner in the evenings. What a notion!”
I was shocked, shocked.
“My dear chap!” I said reproachfully.
“Do you dress for dinner every night, Bertie?”
“Jeeves,” I said coldly. The man was still like a by the door. “How many of have I?”
“We have three full of dress, sir; two dinner jackets——”
“Three.”
“For practical purposes two only, sir. If you we cannot wear the third. We have also seven white waistcoats.”
“And shirts?”
“Four dozen, sir.”
“And white ties?”
“The two in the of are with our white ties, sir.”
I to Rocky.
“You see?”
The like an electric fan.
“I won’t do it! I can’t do it! I’ll be if I’ll do it! How on earth can I dress up like that? Do you that most days I don’t out of my till five in the afternoon, and then I just put on an old sweater?”
I saw Jeeves wince, chap! This of his feelings.
“Then, what are you going to do about it?” I said.
“That’s what I want to know.”
“You might and to your aunt.”
“I might—if I wanted her to to her lawyer’s in two and cut me out of her will.”
I saw his point.
“What do you suggest, Jeeves?” I said.
Jeeves his respectfully.
“The of the would appear to be, sir, that Mr. Todd is by the under which the money is delivered into his to Miss Rockmetteller long and to his movements, and the only method by which this can be accomplished, if Mr. Todd to his of in the country, is for Mr. Todd to some second party to the which Miss Rockmetteller reported to her, and to these to him in the shape of a report, on which it would be possible for him, with the of his imagination, to the correspondence.”
Having got which off the old diaphragm, Jeeves was silent. Rocky looked at me in a of way. He hasn’t been up on Jeeves as I have, and he isn’t on to his curves.
“Could he put it a little clearer, Bertie?” he said. “I at the start it was going to make sense, but it of flickered. What’s the idea?”
“My dear old man, perfectly simple. I we on Jeeves. All you’ve got to do is to somebody to go the town for you and take a notes, and then you work the notes up into letters. That’s it, isn’t it, Jeeves?”
“Precisely, sir.”
The light of in Rocky’s eyes. He looked at Jeeves in a way, by the man’s intellect.
“But who would do it?” he said. “It would have to be a of man, a man who would notice things.”
“Jeeves!” I said. “Let Jeeves do it.”
“But would he?”
“You would do it, wouldn’t you, Jeeves?”
For the time in our long I Jeeves almost smile. The of his mouth a of an inch, and for a moment his to look like a fish’s.
“I should be to oblige, sir. As a of fact, I have already visited some of New York’s places of on my out, and it would be most to make a of the pursuit.”
“Fine! I know what your aunt wants to about, Rocky. She wants an of stuff. The place you ought to go to first, Jeeves, is Reigelheimer’s. It’s on Forty-second Street. Anybody will you the way.”
Jeeves his head.
“Pardon me, sir. People are no longer going to Reigelheimer’s. The place at the moment is Frolics on the Roof.”
“You see?” I said to Rocky. “Leave it to Jeeves. He knows.”
It isn’t often that you an entire group of your fellow-humans happy in this world; but our little circle was an example of the that it can be done. We were all full of beans. Everything right from the start.
Jeeves was happy, he loves to his brain, and he was having a time among the lights. I saw him one night at the Midnight Revels. He was at a table on the of the dancing floor, doing himself well with a cigar and a bottle of the best. I’d he look so nearly human. His an of benevolence, and he was making notes in a small book.
As for the of us, I was good, I was of old Rocky and to be able to do him a good turn. Rocky was perfectly contented, he was still able to on in his and watch worms. And, as for the aunt, she to death. She was Broadway at long range, but it to be her just right. I read one of her to Rocky, and it was full of life.
But then Rocky’s letters, on Jeeves’s notes, were to up. It was when you came to think of it. There was I, the life, while the mention of it gave Rocky a feeling; yet here is a I to a of mine in London:
“DEAR FREDDIE,—Well, here I am in New York. It’s not a place. I’m not having a time. Everything’s all right. The aren’t bad. Don’t know when I shall be back. How’s everybody? Cheer-o!—Yours,
“BERTIE.
“PS.—Seen old Ted lately?”
Not that I about Ted; but if I hadn’t him in I couldn’t have got the thing on to the second page.
Now here’s old Rocky on the same subject:
“DEAREST AUNT ISABEL,—How can I thank you for me the opportunity to live in this city! New York more every day.
“Fifth Avenue is at its best, of course, just now. The are magnificent!”
Wads of about the dresses. I didn’t know Jeeves was such an authority.
“I was out with some of the at the Midnight Revels the other night. We took in a first, after a little dinner at a new place on Forty-third Street. We were a party. Georgie Cohan looked in about midnight and got off a good one about Willie Collier. Fred Stone only a minute, but Doug. Fairbanks did all of and us roar. Diamond Jim Brady was there, as usual, and Laurette Taylor up with a party. The at the Revels is good. I am a programme.
“Last night a of us to Frolics on the Roof——”
And so on and so forth, yards of it. I it’s the or something. What I is, it’s for a who’s used to and that of to put a of a into a than it is for a like me. Anyway, there’s no that Rocky’s was stuff. I called Jeeves in and him.
“Jeeves, you’re a wonder!”
“Thank you, sir.”
“How you notice at these places me. I couldn’t tell you a thing about them, that I’ve had a good time.”
“It’s just a knack, sir.”
“Well, Mr. Todd’s ought to Miss Rockmetteller all right, what?”
“Undoubtedly, sir,” Jeeves.
And, by Jove, they did! They did, by George! What I to say is, I was in the one afternoon, about a month after the thing had started, a cigarette and the old bean, when the door opened and the voice of Jeeves the like a bomb.
It wasn’t that he spoke loudly. He has one of those soft, voices that through the like the note of a far-off sheep. It was what he said me like a gazelle.
“Miss Rockmetteller!”
And in came a large, solid female.
The me. I’m not it. Hamlet must have much as I did when his father’s up in the fairway. I’d come to look on Rocky’s aunt as such a at her own home that it didn’t possible that she be here in New York. I at her. Then I looked at Jeeves. He was there in an of detachment, the chump, when, if he should have been the master, it was now.
Rocky’s aunt looked less like an than any one I’ve seen, my Aunt Agatha. She had a good of Aunt Agatha about her, as a of fact. She looked as if she might be if put upon; and something to tell me that she would herself as put upon if she out the game which old Rocky had been on her.
“Good afternoon,” I managed to say.
“How do you do?” she said. “Mr. Cohan?”
“Er—no.”
“Mr. Fred Stone?”
“Not absolutely. As a of fact, my name’s Wooster—Bertie Wooster.”
She disappointed. The old name of Wooster appeared to nothing in her life.
“Isn’t Rockmetteller home?” she said. “Where is he?”
She had me with the shot. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I couldn’t tell her that Rocky was in the country, worms.
There was the of in the background. It was the with which Jeeves that he is about to speak without having been spoken to.
“If you remember, sir, Mr. Todd out in the with a party in the afternoon.”
“So he did, Jeeves; so he did,” I said, looking at my watch. “Did he say when he would be back?”
“He gave me to understand, sir, that he would be late in returning.”
He vanished; and the aunt took the chair which I’d to offer her. She looked at me in a way. It was a look. It me as if I were something the dog had in and to later on, when he had time. My own Aunt Agatha, in England, has looked at me in the same way many a time, and it fails to make my curl.
“You very much at home here, man. Are you a great friend of Rockmetteller’s?”
“Oh, yes, rather!”
She as if she had of old Rocky.
“Well, you need to be,” she said, “the way you his as your own!”
I give you my word, this me of the power of speech. I’d been looking on myself in the light of the host, and to be as an me. It wasn’t, mark you, as if she had spoken in a way to that she my presence in the place as an ordinary social call. She looked on me as a a and the plumber’s man come to the in the bathroom. It her—my being there.
At this juncture, with the every of being about to die in agonies, an idea came to me. Tea—the good old stand-by.
“Would you for a cup of tea?” I said.
“Tea?”
She spoke as if she had of the stuff.
“Nothing like a cup after a journey,” I said. “Bucks you up! Puts a of into you. What I is, you, and so on, don’t you know. I’ll go and tell Jeeves.”
I the passage to Jeeves’s lair. The man was reading the paper as if he hadn’t a in the world.
“Jeeves,” I said, “we want some tea.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I say, Jeeves, this is a thick, what?”
I wanted sympathy, don’t you know—sympathy and kindness. The old nerve had had the of a shock.
“She’s got the idea this place to Mr. Todd. What on earth put that into her head?”
Jeeves the with a dignity.
“No of Mr. Todd’s letters, sir,” he said. “It was my suggestion, sir, if you remember, that they should be from this in order that Mr. Todd should appear to a good in the city.”
I remembered. We had it a at the time.
“Well, it’s awkward, you know, Jeeves. She looks on me as an intruder. By Jove! I she thinks I’m someone who about here, Mr. Todd for free and his shirts.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s rotten, you know.”
“Most disturbing, sir.”
“And there’s another thing: What are we to do about Mr. Todd? We’ve got to him up here as soon as we can. When you have the tea you had go out and send him a telegram, telling him to come up by the next train.”
“I have already done so, sir. I took the of the message and it by the attendant.”
“By Jove, you think of everything, Jeeves!”
“Thank you, sir. A little toast with the tea? Just so, sir. Thank you.”
I to the sitting-room. She hadn’t moved an inch. She was still on the of her chair, her like a hammer-thrower. She gave me another of those looks as I came in. There was no about it; for some she had taken a to me. I I wasn’t George M. Cohan. It was a hard on a chap.
“This is a surprise, what?” I said, after about five minutes’ silence, trying to the up again.
“What is a surprise?”
“Your here, don’t you know, and so on.”
She her and me in a more through her glasses.
“Why is it that I should visit my only nephew?” she said.
Put like that, of course, it did reasonable.
“Oh, rather,” I said. “Of course! Certainly. What I is——”
Jeeves himself into the room with the tea. I was to see him. There’s nothing like having a of for one when one isn’t of one’s lines. With the to about with I happier.
“Tea, tea, tea—what? What?” I said.
It wasn’t what I had meant to say. My idea had been to be a good more formal, and so on. Still, it the situation. I her out a cup. She it and put the cup with a shudder.
“Do you to say, man,” she said frostily, “that you me to drink this stuff?”
“Rather! Bucks you up, you know.”
“What do you by the ‘Bucks you up’?”
“Well, makes you full of beans, you know. Makes you fizz.”
“I don’t a word you say. You’re English, aren’t you?”
I it. She didn’t say a word. And somehow she did it in a way that it than if she had spoken for hours. Somehow it was home to me that she didn’t like Englishmen, and that if she had had to meet an Englishman, I was the one she’d have last.
Conversation again after that.
Then I again. I was more every moment that you can’t make a with a of people, if one of them lets it go a word at a time.
“Are you at your hotel?” I said.
“At which hotel?”
“The hotel you’re at.”
“I am not at an hotel.”
“Stopping with friends—what?”
“I am naturally stopping with my nephew.”
I didn’t it for the moment; then it me.
“What! Here?” I gurgled.
“Certainly! Where else should I go?”
The full of the rolled over me like a wave. I couldn’t see what on earth I was to do. I couldn’t that this wasn’t Rocky’s without the old away hopelessly, she would then ask me where he did live, and then he would be right in the soup. I was trying to the old bean to from the and produce some results when she spoke again.
“Will you tell my nephew’s man-servant to prepare my room? I wish to down.”
“Your nephew’s man-servant?”
“The man you call Jeeves. If Rockmetteller has gone for an ride, there is no need for you to wait for him. He will naturally wish to be alone with me when he returns.”
I myself out of the room. The thing was too much for me. I into Jeeves’s den.
“Jeeves!” I whispered.
“Sir?”
“Mix me a b.-and-s., Jeeves. I weak.”
“Very good, sir.”
“This is every minute, Jeeves.”
“Sir?”
“She thinks you’re Mr. Todd’s man. She thinks the whole place is his, and in it. I don’t see what you’re to do, on and keep it up. We can’t say anything or she’ll on to the whole thing, and I don’t want to let Mr. Todd down. By the way, Jeeves, she wants you to prepare her bed.”
He looked wounded.
“It is my place, sir——”
“I know—I know. But do it as a personal to me. If you come to that, it’s my place to be out of the like this and have to go to an hotel, what?”
“Is it your to go to an hotel, sir? What will you do for clothes?”
“Good Lord! I hadn’t of that. Can you put a in a when she isn’t looking, and them to me at the St. Aurea?”
“I will to do so, sir.”
“Well, I don’t think there’s anything more, is there? Tell Mr. Todd where I am when he here.”
“Very good, sir.”
I looked the place. The moment of had come. I sad. The whole thing me of one of those where they drive out of the old into the snow.
“Good-bye, Jeeves,” I said.
“Good-bye, sir.”
And I out.
You know, I think I agree with those poet-and-philosopher Johnnies who that a ought to be pleased if he has a of trouble. All that about being by suffering, you know. Suffering give a a of and more outlook. It helps you to other people’s if you’ve been through the same thing yourself.
As I in my at the hotel, trying to tie my white tie myself, it me for the time that there must be whole of in the world who had to along without a man to look after them. I’d always of Jeeves as a of natural phenomenon; but, by Jove! of course, when you come to think of it, there must be a of who have to press their own themselves and haven’t got to them tea in the morning, and so on. It was a thought, don’t you know. I to say, since then I’ve been able to the the have to stick.
I got somehow. Jeeves hadn’t a thing in his packing. Everything was there, to the final stud. I’m not sure this didn’t make me worse. It of the pathos. It was like what somebody or other about the touch of a hand.
I had a of dinner and to a of some kind; but nothing to make any difference. I hadn’t the to go on to supper anywhere. I just a whisky-and-soda in the hotel smoking-room and up to bed. I don’t know when I’ve so rotten. Somehow I myself moving about the room softly, as if there had been a death in the family. If I had to talk to I should have talked in a whisper; in fact, when the telephone-bell I answered in such a sad, voice that the at the other end of the wire said “Halloa!” five times, he hadn’t got me.
It was Rocky. The old was agitated.
“Bertie! Is that you, Bertie! Oh, gosh? I’m having a time!”
“Where are you speaking from?”
“The Midnight Revels. We’ve been here an hour, and I think we’re a for the night. I’ve told Aunt Isabel I’ve gone out to call up a friend to join us. She’s to a chair, with this-is-the-life all over her, taking it in through the pores. She loves it, and I’m nearly crazy.”
“Tell me all, old top,” I said.
“A little more of this,” he said, “and I shall off to the river and end it all. Do you to say you go through this of thing every night, Bertie, and it? It’s infernal! I was just a of sleep the bill of just now when about a girls down, with toy balloons. There are two here, each trying to see if it can’t play louder than the other. I’m a and physical wreck. When your I was just for a pipe, with a of peace over me. I had to and two miles to catch the train. It nearly gave me heart-failure; and on top of that I almost got brain to tell Aunt Isabel. And then I had to myself into these of yours.”
I gave a of agony. It hadn’t me till then that Rocky was on my to see him through.
“You’ll them!”
“I so,” said Rocky, in the most way. His to have had the on his character. “I should like to at them somehow; they’ve me a time. They’re about three too small, and something’s to give at any moment. I wish to it would, and give me a to breathe. I haven’t since half-past seven. Thank Heaven, Jeeves managed to out and me a that fitted, or I should be a by now! It was touch and go till the broke. Bertie, this is pure Hades! Aunt Isabel on me to dance. How on earth can I when I don’t know a to with? And how the I, if I every girl in the place? It’s taking big to move in these trousers. I had to tell her I’ve my ankle. She me when Cohan and Stone are going to turn up; and it’s a question of time she that Stone is two tables away. Something’s got to be done, Bertie! You’ve got to think up some way of me out of this mess. It was you who got me into it.”
“Me! What do you mean?”
“Well, Jeeves, then. It’s all the same. It was you who it to Jeeves. It was those I from his notes that did the mischief. I them too good! My aunt’s just been telling me about it. She says she had herself to her life where she was, and then my to arrive, the of New York; and they her to such an that she herself together and the trip. She to think she’s had some of cure. I tell you I can’t it, Bertie! It’s got to end!”
“Can’t Jeeves think of anything?”
“No. He just saying: ‘Most disturbing, sir!’ A of help that is!”
“Well, old lad,” I said, “after all, it’s for me than it is for you. You’ve got a home and Jeeves. And you’re saving a of money.”
“Saving money? What do you mean—saving money?”
“Why, the your aunt was you. I she’s paying all the now, isn’t she?”
“Certainly she is; but she’s stopped the allowance. She the lawyers to-night. She says that, now she’s in New York, there is no for it to go on, as we shall always be together, and it’s for her to look after that end of it. I tell you, Bertie, I’ve the cloud with a microscope, and if it’s got a it’s some little dissembler!”
“But, Rocky, old top, it’s too awful! You’ve no of what I’m going through in this hotel, without Jeeves. I must to the flat.”
“Don’t come near the flat.”
“But it’s my own flat.”
“I can’t help that. Aunt Isabel doesn’t like you. She asked me what you did for a living. And when I told her you didn’t do anything she said she as much, and that you were a of a and aristocracy. So if you think you have a hit, it. Now I must be going back, or she’ll be out here after me. Good-bye.”
Next Jeeves came round. It was all so home-like when he into the room that I nearly down.
“Good morning, sir,” he said. “I have a more of your personal belongings.”
He to the suit-case he was carrying.
“Did you have any trouble them away?”
“It was not easy, sir. I had to watch my chance. Miss Rockmetteller is a lady.”
“You know, Jeeves, say what you like—this is a thick, isn’t it?”
“The is one that has come under my notice, sir. I have the heather-mixture suit, as the are congenial. To-morrow, if not prevented, I will to add the with the green twill.”
“It can’t go on—this of thing—Jeeves.”
“We must for the best, sir.”
“Can’t you think of anything to do?”
“I have been the thought, sir, but so without success. I am three shirts—the dove-coloured, the light blue, and the mauve—in the long drawer, sir.”
“You don’t to say you can’t think of anything, Jeeves?”
“For the moment, sir, no. You will a dozen and the in the upper on the left.” He the suit-case and put it on a chair. “A lady, Miss Rockmetteller, sir.”
“You it, Jeeves.”
He out of the window.
“In many ways, sir, Miss Rockmetteller me of an aunt of mine who in the south-east of London. Their are much alike. My aunt has the same taste for the of the great city. It is a with her to in cabs, sir. Whenever the family take their off her she from the house and the day about in cabs. On occasions she has into the children’s savings bank to secure the means to her to this desire.”
“I love to have these little with you about your female relatives, Jeeves,” I said coldly, for I that the man had let me down, and I was up with him. “But I don’t see what all this has got to do with my trouble.”
“I your pardon, sir. I am a small of on the mantelpiece, sir, for you to select according to your preference. I should the with the red pattern, sir.”
Then he toward the door and out.
I’ve often that chappies, after some great or loss, have a habit, after they’ve been on the for a while what them, of themselves up and themselves together, and of taking a at a new life. Time, the great healer, and Nature, itself, and so on and so forth. There’s a in it. I know, in my own case, after a day or two of what you might call prostration, I to recover. The of Jeeves any of more or less a mockery, but at least I that I was able to have a at life again. What I is, I was up to the of going the once more, so as to try to forget, if only for the moment.
New York’s a small place when it comes to the part of it that up just as the is going to bed, and it wasn’t long my to old Rocky’s. I saw him once at Peale’s, and again at Frolics on the roof. There wasn’t with him either time the aunt, and, though he was trying to look as if he had the life, it wasn’t difficult for me, the circumstances, to see that the the was suffering. My for the fellow. At least, what there was of it that wasn’t for myself for him. He had the air of one who was about to under the strain.
It to me that the aunt was looking also. I took it that she was to wonder when the were going to round, and what had of all those wild, careless Rocky used to mix with in his letters. I didn’t her. I had only read a of his letters, but they gave the that old Rocky was by way of being the of New York night life, and that, if by any he failed to up at a cabaret, the management said: “What’s the use?” and put up the shutters.
The next two nights I didn’t come across them, but the night after that I was by myself at the Maison Pierre when somebody me on the shoulder-blade, and I Rocky me, with a of mixed of and on his face. How the had to wear my so many times without was a to me. He later that early in the he had the up the and that that had helped a bit.
For a moment I had the idea that he had managed to away from his aunt for the evening; but, looking past him, I saw that she was in again. She was at a table over by the wall, looking at me as if I were something the management ought to be to about.
“Bertie, old scout,” said Rocky, in a quiet, of voice, “we’ve always been pals, haven’t we? I mean, you know I’d do you a good turn if you asked me?”
“My dear old lad,” I said. The man had moved me.
“Then, for Heaven’s sake, come over and at our table for the of the evening.”
Well, you know, there are limits to the of friendship.
“My dear chap,” I said, “you know I’d do anything in reason; but——”
“You must come, Bertie. You’ve got to. Something’s got to be done to her mind. She’s about something. She’s been like that for the last two days. I think she’s to suspect. She can’t why we to meet anyone I know at these joints. A nights ago I to into two newspaper men I used to know well. That me going for a while. I them to Aunt Isabel as David Belasco and Jim Corbett, and it well. But the has off now, and she’s to wonder again. Something’s got to be done, or she will out everything, and if she I’d take a for my of a from her later on. So, for the love of Mike, come across to our table and help along.”
I along. One has to a in distress. Aunt Isabel was upright, as usual. It did as if she had a of the with which she had started out to Broadway. She looked as if she had been a good about things.
“You’ve met Bertie Wooster, Aunt Isabel?” said Rocky.
“I have.”
There was something in her that to say:
“Out of a city of six people, why did you on me?”
“Take a seat, Bertie. What’ll you have?” said Rocky.
And so the party began. It was one of those jolly, happy, bread-crumbling parties where you twice you speak, and then decide not to say it after all. After we had had an hour of this wild dissipation, Aunt Isabel said she wanted to go home. In the light of what Rocky had been telling me, this me as sinister. I had that at the of her visit she had had to be home with ropes.
It must have Rocky the same way, for he gave me a look.
“You’ll come along, won’t you, Bertie, and have a drink at the flat?”
I had a that this wasn’t in the contract, but there wasn’t anything to be done. It to the alone with the woman, so I along.
Right from the start, from the moment we into the taxi, the to that something was about to loose. A in the where the aunt sat, and, though Rocky, himself on the little seat in front, did his best to supply dialogue, we weren’t a party.
I had a of Jeeves as we into the flat, in his lair, and I I have called to him to round. Something told me that I was about to need him.
The was on the table in the sitting-room. Rocky took up the decanter.
“Say when, Bertie.”
“Stop!” the aunt, and he it.
I Rocky’s as he to up the ruins. It was the of one who sees it coming.
“Leave it there, Rockmetteller!” said Aunt Isabel; and Rocky left it there.
“The time has come to speak,” she said. “I cannot by and see a man going to perdition!”
Poor old Rocky gave a of gurgle, a of like the had out of the on to my carpet.
“Eh?” he said, blinking.
The aunt proceeded.
“The fault,” she said, “was mine. I had not then the light. But now my are open. I see the mistake I have made. I at the of the I did you, Rockmetteller, by you into with this city.”
I saw Rocky for the table. His touched it, and a look of came into the chappie’s face. I his feelings.
“But when I you that letter, Rockmetteller, you to go to the city and live its life, I had not had the of Mr. Mundy speak on the of New York.”
“Jimmy Mundy!” I cried.
You know how it is sometimes when all mixed up and you a clue. When she mentioned Jimmy Mundy I to more or less what had happened. I’d it before. I remember, in England, the man I had Jeeves off to a meeting on his out and came and me in of a of I was a of supper to as a leper.
The aunt gave me a up and down.
“Yes; Jimmy Mundy!” she said. “I am at a man of your having of him. There is no music, there are no drunken, dancing men, no shameless, at his meetings; so for you they would have no attraction. But for others, less in sin, he has his message. He has come to save New York from itself; to it—in his phrase—to the trail. It was three days ago, Rockmetteller, that I him. It was an accident that took me to his meeting. How often in this life a accident may shape our whole future!
“You had been called away by that telephone message from Mr. Belasco; so you not take me to the Hippodrome, as we had arranged. I asked your man-servant, Jeeves, to take me there. The man has very little intelligence. He to have me. I am that he did. He took me to what I learned was Madison Square Garden, where Mr. Mundy is his meetings. He me to a seat and then left me. And it was not till the meeting had that I the mistake which had been made. My seat was in the middle of a row. I not without a great many people, so I remained.”
She gulped.
“Rockmetteller, I have been so for anything else. Mr. Mundy was wonderful! He was like some of old, the of the people. He about in a of till I he would do himself an injury. Sometimes he himself in a odd manner, but every word conviction. He me New York in its true colours. He me the and of in of vice, when people should be in bed.
“He said that the and the fox-trot were of the to people into the Bottomless Pit. He said that there was more in ten minutes with a than in all the of Nineveh and Babylon. And when he on one leg and pointed right at where I was and shouted, ‘This means you!’ I have through the floor. I came away a woman. Surely you must have noticed the in me, Rockmetteller? You must have that I was no longer the careless, person who had you to in those places of wickedness?”
Rocky was on to the table as if it was his only friend.
“Y-yes,” he stammered; “I—I something was wrong.”
“Wrong? Something was right! Everything was right! Rockmetteller, it is not too late for you to be saved. You have only of the cup. You have not it. It will be hard at first, but you will that you can do it if you with a against the and of this city. Won’t you, for my sake, try, Rockmetteller? Won’t you go to the country to-morrow and the struggle? Little by little, if you use your will——”
I can’t help it must have been that word “will” that dear old Rocky like a call. It must have home to him the that a had come off and saved him from being cut out of Aunt Isabel’s. At any rate, as she said it he up, let go of the table, and her with eyes.
“Do you want me to go to the country, Aunt Isabel?”
“Yes.”
“Not to live in the country?”
“Yes, Rockmetteller.”
“Stay in the country all the time, do you mean? Never come to New York?”
“Yes, Rockmetteller; I just that. It is the only way. Only there can you be safe from temptation. Will you do it, Rockmetteller? Will you—for my sake?”
Rocky the table again. He to a of from that table.
“I will!” he said.
“Jeeves,” I said. It was next day, and I was in the old flat, in the old arm-chair, with my upon the good old table. I had just come from dear old Rocky off to his country cottage, and an hour he had his aunt off to it was that she was the of; so we were alone at last. “Jeeves, there’s no place like home—what?”
“Very true, sir.”
“The old roof-tree, and all that of thing—what?”
“Precisely, sir.”
I another cigarette.
“Jeeves.”
“Sir?”
“Do you know, at one point in the I you were baffled.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“When did you the idea of taking Miss Rockmetteller to the meeting? It was pure genius!”
“Thank you, sir. It came to me a little suddenly, one when I was of my aunt, sir.”
“Your aunt? The one?”
“Yes, sir. I that, we one of her on, we used to send for the of the parish. We always that if he talked to her a while of higher it her mind from cabs. It to me that the same might prove in the case of Miss Rockmetteller.”
I was by the man’s resource.
“It’s brain,” I said; “pure brain! What do you do to like that, Jeeves? I you must eat a of fish, or something. Do you eat a of fish, Jeeves?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh, well, then, it’s just a gift, I take it; and if you aren’t that way there’s no use worrying.”
“Precisely, sir,” said Jeeves. “If I might make the suggestion, sir, I should not continue to wear your present tie. The green you a air. I should the with the red pattern instead, sir.”
“All right, Jeeves.” I said humbly. “You know!”
