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

you know. Betrothed. All washed up and signed on the dotted line. Wedding, June the first, at eleven a.m. sharp, at St. Peter’s, Eaton Square. Presents should be delivered before the end of May.”

“But, Sippy! Come to roost for a second. How did this happen? I thought⁠—”

“Well, it’s a long story. Much too long to tell you now. Ask Jeeves. He came along with me, and is waiting outside. But when I found her bending over me, weeping, I knew that a word from me was all that was needed. I took her little hand in mine and⁠—”

“What do you mean, bending over you? Where?”

“In your sitting-room.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why was she bending over you?”

“Because I was on the floor, ass. Naturally a girl would bend over a fellow who was on the floor. Goodbye, Bertie. I must rush.”

He was out of the room before I knew he had started. I followed at a high rate of speed, but he was down the stairs before I reached the passage. I legged it after him, but when I got into the street it was empty.

No, not absolutely empty. Jeeves was standing on the pavement, gazing dreamily at a brussels sprout which lay in the fairway.

“Mr. Sipperley has this moment gone, sir,” he said, as I came charging out.

I halted and mopped the brow.

“Jeeves,” I said, “what has been happening?”

“As far as Mr. Sipperley’s romance is concerned, sir, all, I am happy to report, is well. He and Miss Moon have arrived at a satisfactory settlement.”

“I know. They’re engaged. But how did it happen?”

“I took the liberty of telephoning to Mr. Sipperley in your name, asking him to come immediately to the flat, sir.”

“Oh, that’s how he came to be at the flat? Well?”

“I then took the liberty of telephoning to Miss Moon and informing her that Mr. Sipperley had met with a nasty accident. As I anticipated, the young lady was strongly moved and announced her intention of coming to see Mr. Sipperley immediately. When she arrived, it required only a few moments to arrange the matter. It seems that Miss Moon has long loved Mr. Sipperley, sir, and⁠—”

“I should have thought that, when she turned up and found he hadn’t had a nasty accident, she would have been thoroughly pipped at being fooled.”

“Mr. Sipperley had had a nasty accident, sir.”

“He had?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Rummy coincidence. I mean, after what you were saying this morning.”

“Not altogether, sir. Before telephoning to Miss Moon, I took the further liberty of striking Mr. Sipperley a sharp blow on the head with one of your golf-clubs, which was fortunately lying in a corner of the room. The putter, I believe, sir. If you recollect, you were practising with it this morning before you left.”

I gaped at the blighter. I had always known Jeeves for a man of infinite sagacity, sound beyond belief on any question of ties or spats; but never before had I suspected him capable of strong-arm work like this. It seemed to open up an entirely new aspect of the fellow. I can’t put it better than by saying that, as I gazed at him, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes.

“Good heavens, Jeeves!”

“I did it with the utmost regret, sir. It appeared to me the only course.”

“But look here, Jeeves. I don’t get this. Wasn’t Mr. Sipperley pretty shirty when he came to and found that you had been soaking him with putters?”

“He was not aware that I had done so, sir. I took the precaution of waiting until his back was momentarily turned.”

“But how did you explain the bump on his head?”

“I informed him that your new vase had fallen on him, sir.”

“Why on earth would he believe that? The vase would have been smashed.”

“The vase was smashed, sir.”

“What!”

“In order to achieve verisimilitude, I was reluctantly compelled to break it, sir. And in my excitement, sir, I am sorry to say I broke it beyond repair.”

I drew myself up.

“Jeeves!” I said.

“Pardon me, sir, but would it not be wiser to wear a hat? There is a keen wind.”

I blinked.

“Aren’t I wearing a hat?”

“No, sir.”

I put up a hand and felt the lemon. He was perfectly right.

“Nor am I! I must have left it in Sippy’s office. Wait here, Jeeves, while I fetch it.”

“Very good, sir.”

“I have much to say to you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I galloped up the stairs and dashed in at the door. And something squashy fell on my neck, and the next minute the whole world was a solid mass of flour. In the agitation of the moment I had gone in at the wrong door; and what it all boils down to is that, if any more of my pals get inferiority complexes, they can jolly well get rid of them for themselves. Bertram is through.

Jeeves and the Impending Doom

It was the morning of the day on which I was slated to pop down to my Aunt Agatha’s place at Woollam Chersey in the county of Herts for a visit of three solid weeks; and, as I seated myself at the breakfast table, I don’t mind confessing that the heart was singularly heavy. We Woosters are men of iron, but beneath my intrepid exterior at that moment there lurked a nameless dread.

“Jeeves,” I said, “I am not the old merry self this morning.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“No, Jeeves. Far from it. Far from the old merry self.”

“I am sorry to hear that, sir.”

He uncovered the fragrant eggs and b., and I pronged a moody forkful.

“Why⁠—this is what I keep asking myself, Jeeves⁠—why has my Aunt Agatha invited me to her country seat?”

“I could not say, sir.”

“Not because she is fond of me.”

“No, sir.”

“It is a well-established fact that I give her a pain in the neck. How it happens I cannot say, but every time our paths cross, so to speak, it seems to be a mere matter of time before I perpetrate some ghastly floater and have her hopping after me with her hatchet. The result being that she regards me as a worm and an outcast and