My Man Jeeves - Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (best ereader for pc .TXT) 📗
- Author: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
- Performer: 1933652217
Book online «My Man Jeeves - Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (best ereader for pc .TXT) 📗». Author Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
“He’s a vegetarian, you know. He must have been digging into a steak or
something. Call up a doctor!”
“I hardly think it will be necessary, sir. If you would take his
lordship’s legs, while I–-”
“Great Scot, Jeeves! You don’t think—he can’t be–-”
“I am inclined to think so, sir.”
And, by Jove, he was right! Once on the right track, you couldn’t
mistake it. Motty was under the surface.
It was the deuce of a shock.
“You never can tell, Jeeves!”
“Very seldom, sir.”
“Remove the eye of authority and where are you?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“Where is my wandering boy to-night and all that sort of thing, what?”
“It would seem so, sir.”
“Well, we had better bring him in, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
So we lugged him in, and Jeeves put him to bed, and I lit a cigarette
and sat down to think the thing over. I had a kind of foreboding. It
seemed to me that I had let myself in for something pretty rocky.
Next morning, after I had sucked down a thoughtful cup of tea, I went
into Motty’s room to investigate. I expected to find the fellow a
wreck, but there he was, sitting up in bed, quite chirpy, reading
Gingery stories.
“What ho!” I said.
“What ho!” said Motty.
“What ho! What ho!”
“What ho! What ho! What ho!”
After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.
“How are you feeling this morning?” I asked.
“Topping!” replied Motty, blithely and with abandon. “I say, you know,
that fellow of yours—Jeeves, you know—is a corker. I had a most
frightful headache when I woke up, and he brought me a sort of rummy
dark drink, and it put me right again at once. Said it was his own
invention. I must see more of that lad. He seems to me distinctly one
of the ones!”
I couldn’t believe that this was the same blighter who had sat and
sucked his stick the day before.
“You ate something that disagreed with you last night, didn’t you?” I
said, by way of giving him a chance to slide out of it if he wanted to.
But he wouldn’t have it, at any price.
“No!” he replied firmly. “I didn’t do anything of the kind. I drank too
much! Much too much. Lots and lots too much! And, what’s more, I’m
going to do it again! I’m going to do it every night. If ever you see
me sober, old top,” he said, with a kind of holy exaltation, “tap me on
the shoulder and say, ‘Tut! Tut!’ and I’ll apologize and remedy the
defect.”
“But I say, you know, what about me?”
“What about you?”
“Well, I’m so to speak, as it were, kind of responsible for you. What I
mean to say is, if you go doing this sort of thing I’m apt to get in
the soup somewhat.”
“I can’t help your troubles,” said Motty firmly. “Listen to me, old
thing: this is the first time in my life that I’ve had a real chance to
yield to the temptations of a great city. What’s the use of a great
city having temptations if fellows don’t yield to them? Makes it so
bally discouraging for a great city. Besides, mother told me to keep my
eyes open and collect impressions.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. I felt dizzy.
“I know just how you feel, old dear,” said Motty consolingly. “And, if
my principles would permit it, I would simmer down for your sake. But
duty first! This is the first time I’ve been let out alone, and I mean
to make the most of it. We’re only young once. Why interfere with
life’s morning? Young man, rejoice in thy youth! Tra-la! What ho!”
Put like that, it did seem reasonable.
“All my bally life, dear boy,” Motty went on, “I’ve been cooped up in
the ancestral home at Much Middlefold, in Shropshire, and till you’ve
been cooped up in Much Middlefold you don’t know what cooping is! The
only time we get any excitement is when one of the choir-boys is caught
sucking chocolate during the sermon. When that happens, we talk about
it for days. I’ve got about a month of New York, and I mean to store up
a few happy memories for the long winter evenings. This is my only
chance to collect a past, and I’m going to do it. Now tell me, old
sport, as man to man, how does one get in touch with that very decent
chappie Jeeves? Does one ring a bell or shout a bit? I should like to
discuss the subject of a good stiff b.-and-s. with him!”
*
I had had a sort of vague idea, don’t you know, that if I stuck close
to Motty and went about the place with him, I might act as a bit of a
damper on the gaiety. What I mean is, I thought that if, when he was
being the life and soul of the party, he were to catch my reproving eye
he might ease up a trifle on the revelry. So the next night I took him
along to supper with me. It was the last time. I’m a quiet, peaceful
sort of chappie who has lived all his life in London, and I can’t stand
the pace these swift sportsmen from the rural districts set. What I
mean to say is this, I’m all for rational enjoyment and so forth, but I
think a chappie makes himself conspicuous when he throws soft-boiled
eggs at the electric fan. And decent mirth and all that sort of thing
are all right, but I do bar dancing on tables and having to dash all
over the place dodging waiters, managers, and chuckers-out, just when
you want to sit still and digest.
Directly I managed to tear myself away that night and get home, I made
up my mind that this was jolly well the last time that I went about
with Motty. The only time I met him late at night after that was once
when I passed the door of a fairly low-down sort of restaurant and had
to step aside to dodge him as he sailed through the air en route
for the opposite pavement, with a muscular sort of looking chappie
peering out after him with a kind of gloomy satisfaction.
In a way, I couldn’t help sympathizing with the fellow. He had about
four weeks to have the good time that ought to have been spread over
about ten years, and I didn’t wonder at his wanting to be pretty busy.
I should have been just the same in his place. Still, there was no
denying that it was a bit thick. If it hadn’t been for the thought of
Lady Malvern and Aunt Agatha in the background, I should have regarded
Motty’s rapid work with an indulgent smile. But I couldn’t get rid of
the feeling that, sooner or later, I was the lad who was scheduled to
get it behind the ear. And what with brooding on this prospect, and
sitting up in the old flat waiting for the familiar footstep, and
putting it to bed when it got there, and stealing into the sick-chamber
next morning to contemplate the wreckage, I was beginning to lose
weight. Absolutely becoming the good old shadow, I give you my honest
word. Starting at sudden noises and whatnot.
And no sympathy from Jeeves. That was what cut me to the quick. The man
was still thoroughly pipped about the hat and tie, and simply wouldn’t
rally round. One morning I wanted comforting so much that I sank the
pride of the Woosters and appealed to the fellow direct.
“Jeeves,” I said, “this is getting a bit thick!”
“Sir?” Business and cold respectfulness.
“You know what I mean. This lad seems to have chucked all the
principles of a well-spent boyhood. He has got it up his nose!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I shall get blamed, don’t you know. You know what my Aunt Agatha
is!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well, then.”
I waited a moment, but he wouldn’t unbend.
“Jeeves,” I said, “haven’t you any scheme up your sleeve for coping
with this blighter?”
“No, sir.”
And he shimmered off to his lair. Obstinate devil! So dashed absurd,
don’t you know. It wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with that
Country Gentleman hat. It was a remarkably priceless effort, and much
admired by the lads. But, just because he preferred the Longacre, he
left me flat.
It was shortly after this that young Motty got the idea of bringing
pals back in the small hours to continue the gay revels in the home.
This was where I began to crack under the strain. You see, the part of
town where I was living wasn’t the right place for that sort of thing.
I knew lots of chappies down Washington Square way who started the
evening at about 2 a.m.—artists and writers and whatnot, who
frolicked considerably till checked by the arrival of the morning milk.
That was all right. They like that sort of thing down there. The
neighbours can’t get to sleep unless there’s someone dancing Hawaiian
dances over their heads. But on Fifty-seventh Street the atmosphere
wasn’t right, and when Motty turned up at three in the morning with a
collection of hearty lads, who only stopped singing their college song
when they started singing “The Old Oaken Bucket,” there was a marked
peevishness among the old settlers in the flats. The management was
extremely terse over the telephone at breakfast-time, and took a lot of
soothing.
The next night I came home early, after a lonely dinner at a place
which I’d chosen because there didn’t seem any chance of meeting Motty
there. The sitting-room was quite dark, and I was just moving to switch
on the light, when there was a sort of explosion and something collared
hold of my trouser-leg. Living with Motty had reduced me to such an
extent that I was simply unable to cope with this thing. I jumped
backward with a loud yell of anguish, and tumbled out into the hall
just as Jeeves came out of his den to see what the matter was.
“Did you call, sir?”
“Jeeves! There’s something in there that grabs you by the leg!”
“That would be Rollo, sir.”
“Eh?”
“I would have warned you of his presence, but I did not hear you come
in. His temper is a little uncertain at present, as he has not yet
settled down.”
“Who the deuce is Rollo?”
“His lordship’s bull-terrier, sir. His lordship won him in a raffle,
and tied him to the leg of the table. If you will allow me, sir, I will
go in and switch on the light.”
There really is nobody like Jeeves. He walked straight into the
sitting-room, the biggest feat since Daniel and the lions’ den, without
a quiver. What’s more, his magnetism or whatever they call it was such
that the dashed animal, instead of pinning him by the leg, calmed down
as if he had had a bromide, and rolled over on his back with all his
paws in the air. If Jeeves had been his rich uncle he couldn’t have
been more chummy. Yet directly he caught sight of me again, he got all
worked up and seemed to have only one idea in life—to start chewing me
where he had left off.
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