Jeeves Stories, P. G. Wodehouse [best ereader for epub .TXT] 📗

his old school has started calling at the office and unloading on him junk entirely unsuited to the lighter Society. All clear?”

“I follow you perfectly, sir.”

“And this drip Mr. Sipperley is compelled to publish, much against his own wishes, purely because he lacks the nerve to tell the man to go to blazes. The whole trouble being, Jeeves, that he has got one of those things that fellows do get⁠—it’s on the tip of my tongue.”

“An inferiority complex, sir?”

“Exactly. An inferiority complex. I have one myself with regard to my Aunt Agatha. You know me, Jeeves. You know that if it were a question of volunteers to man the lifeboat, I would spring to the task. If anyone said, ‘Don’t go down the coal-mine, daddy,’ it would have not the slightest effect on my resolution⁠—”

“Undoubtedly, sir.”

“And yet⁠—and this is where I want you to follow me very closely, Jeeves⁠—when I hear that my Aunt Agatha is out with her hatchet and moving in my direction, I run like a rabbit. Why? Because she gives me an inferiority complex. And so it is with Mr. Sipperley. He would, if called upon, mount the deadly breach, and do it without a tremor; but he cannot bring himself to propose to Miss Moon, and he cannot kick his old head master in the stomach and tell him to take his beastly essays on ‘The Old School Cloisters’ elsewhere, because he has an inferiority complex. So what about it, Jeeves?”

“I fear I have no plan which I could advance with any confidence on the spur of the moment, sir.”

“You want time to think, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Take it, Jeeves, take it. You may feel brainier after a night’s sleep. What is it Shakespeare calls sleep, Jeeves?”

“Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, sir.”

“Exactly. Well, there you are, then.”

You know, there’s nothing like sleeping on a thing. Scarcely had I woken up next morning when I discovered that, while I slept, I had got the whole binge neatly into order and worked out a plan Foch might have been proud of. I rang the bell for Jeeves to bring me my tea.

I rang again. But it must have been five minutes before the man showed up with the steaming.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, when I reproached him. “I did not hear the bell. I was in the sitting-room, sir.”

“Ah?” I said, sucking down a spot of the mixture. “Doing this and that, no doubt?”

“Dusting your new vase, sir.”

My heart warmed to the fellow. If there’s one person I like, it’s the chap who is not too proud to admit it when he’s in the wrong. No actual statement to that effect had passed his lips, of course, but we Woosters can read between the lines. I could see that he was learning to love the vase.

“How does it look?”

“Yes, sir.”

A bit cryptic, but I let it go.

“Jeeves,” I said.

“Sir?”

“That matter we were in conference about yestereen.”

“The matter of Mr. Sipperley, sir?”

“Precisely. Don’t worry yourself any further. Stop the brain working. I shall not require your services. I have found the solution. It came on me like a flash.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Just like a flash. In a matter of this kind, Jeeves, the first thing to do is to study⁠—what’s the word I want?”

“I could not say, sir.”

“Quite a common word⁠—though long.”

“Psychology, sir?”

“The exact noun. It is a noun?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Spoken like a man! Well, Jeeves, direct your attention to the psychology of old Sippy. Mr. Sipperley, if you follow me, is in the position of a man from whose eyes the scales have not fallen. The task that faced me, Jeeves, was to discover some scheme which would cause those scales to fall. You get me?”

“Not entirely, sir.”

“Well, what I’m driving at is this. At present this head master bloke, this Waterbury, is trampling all over Mr. Sipperley because he is hedged about with dignity, if you understand what I mean. Years have passed; Mr. Sipperley now shaves daily and is in an important editorial position; but he can never forget that this bird once gave him six of the juiciest. Result: an inferiority complex. The only way to remove that complex, Jeeves, is to arrange that Mr. Sipperley shall see this Waterbury in a thoroughly undignified position. This done, the scales will fall from his eyes. You must see that for yourself, Jeeves. Take your own case. No doubt there are a number of your friends and relations who look up to you and respect you greatly. But suppose one night they were to see you, in an advanced state of intoxication, dancing the Charleston in your underwear in the middle of Piccadilly Circus?”

“The contingency is remote, sir.”

“Ah, but suppose they did. The scales would fall from their eyes, what?”

“Very possibly, sir.”

“Take another case. Do you remember a year or so ago the occasion when my Aunt Agatha accused the maid at that French hotel of pinching her pearls, only to discover that they were still in her drawer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Whereupon she looked the most priceless ass. You’ll admit that.”

“Certainly I have seen Mrs. Spenser appear to greater advantage than at that moment, sir.”

“Exactly. Now follow me like a leopard. Observing my Aunt Agatha in her downfall; watching her turn bright mauve and listening to her being told off in liquid French by a whiskered hotel proprietor without coming back with so much as a single lift of the eyebrows, I felt as if the scales had fallen from my eyes. For the first time in my life, Jeeves, the awe with which this woman had inspired me from childhood’s days left me. It came back later, I’ll admit; but at the moment I saw my Aunt Agatha for what she was⁠—not, as I had long imagined, a sort of man-eating fish at the very mention of whose name strong men quivered like aspens, but a poor goop who had just dropped a very serious brick. At that moment, Jeeves, I could have told her precisely where she got off; and only a too chivalrous regard for the sex