P G Wodehouse - Much Obliged, Jeeves

Nor was I mistaken. After lunching at a pub in order to postpone the meeting as long as possible, I returned to the old homestead and made my report, and was unfortunate enough to make it while she was engaged in reading a Rex Stout, -- in the hard cover, not a paper-back. When she threw this at me with the accurate aim which years of practice have given her, its sharp edge took me on the tip of the nose, making me blink not a little.

'I might have known you would mess the whole thing up,' she boomed.

'Not my fault, aged relative,' I said. 'I did my best. Than which,' I added, 'no man can do more.'

I thought I had her there, but I was wrong. It was the sort of line which can generally be counted on to soothe the savage breast, but this time it laid an egg. She snorted. Her snorts are not the sniffing snorts snorted by Ma McCorkadale, they resemble more an explosion in the larger type of ammunition dump and send strong men rocking back on their heels as if struck by lightning.

'How do you mean you did your best? You don't seem to me to have done anything. Did you threaten to have him arrested?'

'No, I didn't do that.'

'Did you grasp him by the throat and shake him like a rat?' I admitted that that had not occurred to me.

'In other words, you did absolutely nothing,' she said, and thinking it over I had to own that she was perfectly right. It's funny how one doesn't notice these things at the time. It was only now that I realized that I had let Bingley do all the talking, self offering practic- ally nil in the way of a come-back. I could hardly have made less of a contribution to our conversation if I had been the deaf adder I mentioned earlier.

She heaved herself up from the chaise longue on which she was reclining. Her manner was peevish. In time, of course, she would get over her chagrin and start loving her Bertram again as of yore, but there was no getting away from it that an aunt's affection was, as of even date, at its lowest ebb. She said gloomily:

'I'll have to do it myself.'

'Are you going to see Bingley?'

'I am going to see Bingley, and I am going to talk to Bingley, and I am going, if necessary, to take Bingley by the throat and shake him-'

'Like a rat?'

'Yes, like a rat,' she said with the quiet confidence of a woman who had been shaking rats by the throat since she was a slip of a girl. 'Five Ormond Crescent, here I come!'

It shows to what an extent happenings in and about Market Snodsbury had affected my mental processes that she had been gone at least ten minutes before the thought of Bastable floated into my mind, and I wished I had been able to give her a word of warning. That zealous employee of Rupert Bingley had been instructed to see to it that no callers were admitted to the presence, and I saw no reason to suppose that he would fail in his duty when the old ancestor showed up. He would not use physical violence -- indeed, with a woman of her physique he would be unwise to attempt it -- but it would be the work of an instant with him not to ask her to step this way, thus ensuring her departure with what Ma McCorkadale would call a flea in her ear. I could see her returning in, say, about a quarter of an hour a baffled and defeated woman.

I was right. It was some twenty minutes later, as I sat reading the Rex Stout which she had used as a guided missile, that heavy breathing became audible without and shortly afterwards she became visible within, walking with the measured tread of a saint going round St. Paul's. A far less discerning eye than mine could have spotted that she had been having Bastable trouble.

It would have been kinder, perhaps, not to have spoken, but it was one of those occasions when you feel you have to say something.

'Any luck?' I enquired.

She sank on to the chaise longue, simmering gently. She punched a cushion, and I could see she was wishing it could have been Bastable. He was essentially the sort of man who asks, nay clamours, to be treated in this manner.

'No,' she said. 'I couldn't get in.'

'Why was that?' I asked, wearing the mask.

'A beefy butler sort of bird slammed the door in my face.'

'Too bad.'

'And I was just too late to get my fobt in.'

'Always necessary to work quick on these occasions. The most precise timing is called for. Odd that he should have admitted me. I suppose my air of quiet distinction was what turned the scale. What did you do? '

'I came away. What else could I have done?'

'No, I can see how difficult it must have been.'

'The maddening part of it is that I was all set to try to get that money out of L. P. Runkle this afternoon. I felt that today was the day. But if my luck's out, as it seems to be, perhaps I had better postpone it.'

'Not strike while the iron is hot?'

'It may not be hot enough.'