Jeeves Stories - P. G. Wodehouse (best non fiction books to read txt) 📗

dancing men, no shameless, flaunting women at his meetings; so for you they would have no attraction. But for others, less dead in sin, he has his message. He has come to save New York from itself; to force it⁠—in his picturesque phrase⁠—to hit the trail. It was three days ago, Rockmetteller, that I first heard him. It was an accident that took me to his meeting. How often in this life a mere accident may shape our whole future!

“You had been called away by that telephone message from Mr. Belasco; so you could not take me to the Hippodrome, as we had arranged. I asked your manservant, Jeeves, to take me there. The man has very little intelligence. He seems to have misunderstood me. I am thankful that he did. He took me to what I subsequently learned was Madison Square Garden, where Mr. Mundy is holding his meetings. He escorted me to a seat and then left me. And it was not till the meeting had begun that I discovered the mistake which had been made. My seat was in the middle of a row. I could not leave without inconveniencing a great many people, so I remained.”

She gulped.

“Rockmetteller, I have never been so thankful for anything else. Mr. Mundy was wonderful! He was like some prophet of old, scourging the sins of the people. He leaped about in a frenzy of inspiration till I feared he would do himself an injury. Sometimes he expressed himself in a somewhat odd manner, but every word carried conviction. He showed me New York in its true colours. He showed me the vanity and wickedness of sitting in gilded haunts of vice, eating lobster when decent people should be in bed.

“He said that the tango and the foxtrot were devices of the devil to drag people down into the Bottomless Pit. He said that there was more sin in ten minutes with a negro banjo orchestra than in all the ancient revels of Nineveh and Babylon. And when he stood on one leg and pointed right at where I was sitting and shouted, ‘This means you!’ I could have sunk through the floor. I came away a changed woman. Surely you must have noticed the change in me, Rockmetteller? You must have seen that I was no longer the careless, thoughtless person who had urged you to dance in those places of wickedness?”

Rocky was holding on to the table as if it was his only friend.

“Y-yes,” he stammered; “I⁠—I thought something was wrong.”

“Wrong? Something was right! Everything was right! Rockmetteller, it is not too late for you to be saved. You have only sipped of the evil cup. You have not drained it. It will be hard at first, but you will find that you can do it if you fight with a stout heart against the glamour and fascination of this dreadful city. Won’t you, for my sake, try, Rockmetteller? Won’t you go back to the country tomorrow and begin the struggle? Little by little, if you use your will⁠—”

I can’t help thinking it must have been that word “will” that roused dear old Rocky like a trumpet call. It must have brought home to him the realisation that a miracle had come off and saved him from being cut out of Aunt Isabel’s. At any rate, as she said it he perked up, let go of the table, and faced her with gleaming eyes.

“Do you want me to go back 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 mean 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 grabbed the table again. He seemed to draw a lot of encouragement from that table.

“I will!” he said.

“Jeeves,” I said. It was next day, and I was back in the old flat, lying in the old armchair, with my feet upon the good old table. I had just come from seeing dear old Rocky off to his country cottage, and an hour before he had seen his aunt off to whatever hamlet it was that she was the curse of; so we were alone at last. “Jeeves, there’s no place like home⁠—what?”

“Very true, sir.”

“The jolly old rooftree, and all that sort of thing⁠—what?”

“Precisely, sir.”

I lit another cigarette.

“Jeeves.”

“Sir?”

“Do you know, at one point in the business I really thought you were baffled.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“When did you get the idea of taking Miss Rockmetteller to the meeting? It was pure genius!”

“Thank you, sir. It came to me a little suddenly, one morning when I was thinking of my aunt, sir.”

“Your aunt? The hansom cab one?”

“Yes, sir. I recollected that, whenever we observed one of her attacks coming on, we used to send for the clergyman of the parish. We always found that if he talked to her a while of higher things it diverted her mind from hansom cabs. It occurred to me that the same treatment might prove efficacious in the case of Miss Rockmetteller.”

I was stunned by the man’s resource.

“It’s brain,” I said; “pure brain! What do you do to get like that, Jeeves? I believe you must eat a lot of fish, or something. Do you eat a lot of fish, Jeeves?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, well, then, it’s just a gift, I take it; and if you aren’t born 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 shade gives you a slightly bilious air. I should strongly advocate the blue with the red domino pattern instead, sir.”

“All right, Jeeves.” I said humbly. “You know!”

Jeeves Takes Charge

Now, touching this business of old Jeeves⁠—my man, you know⁠—how do we stand? Lots of people think I’m much too dependent on him. My Aunt Agatha, in fact, has even gone so far