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

something in what Jeeves had said about her character? I began to realise that my ideal wife was something quite different, something a lot more clinging and drooping and prattling, and whatnot.

I had got as far as this in thinking the thing out when that Types of Ethical Theory caught my eye. I opened it, and I give you my honest word this was what hit me:

Of the two antithetic terms in the Greek philosophy one only was real and self-subsisting; and that one was Ideal Thought as opposed to that which it has to penetrate and mould. The other, corresponding to our Nature, was in itself phenomenal, unreal, without any permanent footing, having no predicates that held true for two moments together, in short, redeemed from negation only by including indwelling realities appearing through.

Well⁠—I mean to say⁠—what? And Nietzsche, from all accounts, a lot worse than that!

“Jeeves,” I said, when he came in with my morning tea, “I’ve been thinking it over. You’re engaged again.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I sucked down a cheerful mouthful. A great respect for this bloke’s judgment began to soak through me.

“Oh, Jeeves,” I said; “about that check suit.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Is it really a frost?”

“A trifle too bizarre, sir, in my opinion.”

“But lots of fellows have asked me who my tailor is.”

“Doubtless in order to avoid him, sir.”

“He’s supposed to be one of the best men in London.”

“I am saying nothing against his moral character, sir.”

I hesitated a bit. I had a feeling that I was passing into this chappie’s clutches, and that if I gave in now I should become just like poor old Aubrey Fothergill, unable to call my soul my own. On the other hand, this was obviously a cove of rare intelligence, and it would be a comfort in a lot of ways to have him doing the thinking for me. I made up my mind.

“All right, Jeeves,” I said. “You know! Give the bally thing away to somebody!”

He looked down at me like a father gazing tenderly at the wayward child.

“Thank you, sir. I gave it to the under-gardener last night. A little more tea, sir?”

Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest

I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare⁠—or, if not, it’s some equally brainy lad⁠—who says that it’s always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping. There’s no doubt the man’s right. It’s absolutely that way with me. Take, for instance, the fairly rummy matter of Lady Malvern and her son Wilmot. A moment before they turned up, I was just thinking how thoroughly all right everything was.

It was one of those topping mornings, and I had just climbed out from under the cold shower, feeling like a two-year-old. As a matter of fact, I was especially bucked just then because the day before I had asserted myself with Jeeves⁠—absolutely asserted myself, don’t you know. You see, the way things had been going on I was rapidly becoming a dashed serf. The man had jolly well oppressed me. I didn’t so much mind when he made me give up one of my new suits, because, Jeeves’s judgment about suits is sound. But I as near as a toucher rebelled when he wouldn’t let me wear a pair of cloth-topped boots which I loved like a couple of brothers. And when he tried to tread on me like a worm in the matter of a hat, I jolly well put my foot down and showed him who was who. It’s a long story, and I haven’t time to tell you now, but the point is that he wanted me to wear the Longacre⁠—as worn by John Drew⁠—when I had set my heart on the Country Gentleman⁠—as worn by another famous actor chappie⁠—and the end of the matter was that, after a rather painful scene, I bought the Country Gentleman. So that’s how things stood on this particular morning, and I was feeling kind of manly and independent.

Well, I was in the bathroom, wondering what there was going to be for breakfast while I massaged the good old spine with a rough towel and sang slightly, when there was a tap at the door. I stopped singing and opened the door an inch.

“What ho without there!”

“Lady Malvern wishes to see you, sir,” said Jeeves.

“Eh?”

“Lady Malvern, sir. She is waiting in the sitting room.”

“Pull yourself together, Jeeves, my man,” I said, rather severely, for I bar practical jokes before breakfast. “You know perfectly well there’s no one waiting for me in the sitting room. How could there be when it’s barely ten o’clock yet?”

“I gathered from her ladyship, sir, that she had landed from an ocean liner at an early hour this morning.”

This made the thing a bit more plausible. I remembered that when I had arrived in America about a year before, the proceedings had begun at some ghastly hour like six, and that I had been shot out on to a foreign shore considerably before eight.

“Who the deuce is Lady Malvern, Jeeves?”

“Her ladyship did not confide in me, sir.”

“Is she alone?”

“Her ladyship is accompanied by a Lord Pershore, sir. I fancy that his lordship would be her ladyship’s son.”

“Oh, well, put out rich raiment of sorts, and I’ll be dressing.”

“Our heather-mixture lounge is in readiness, sir.”

“Then lead me to it.”

While I was dressing I kept trying to think who on earth Lady Malvern could be. It wasn’t till I had climbed through the top of my shirt and was reaching out for the studs that I remembered.

“I’ve placed her, Jeeves. She’s a pal of my Aunt Agatha.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Yes. I met her at lunch one Sunday before I left London. A very vicious specimen. Writes books. She wrote a book on social conditions in India when she came back from the Durbar.”

“Yes, sir? Pardon me, sir, but not that tie!”

“Eh?”

“Not that tie with