Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

'She instructed me to apprise Mr. Fink-Nottle that if he were agreeable to visiting the kitchen at some late hour when the household had retired for the night, she would be happy to supply him with cold steak and kidney pie.'

It was as if the sun had come smiling through the clouds or the long shot on which I had placed my wager had nosed its way past the opposition in the last ten yards and won by a short head. For the peril that had threatened to split the Bassett-Fink-Nottle axis had been averted. I knew Gussie from soup to nuts. Cut him off from the proteins and the amino-acids, and you soured his normally amiable nature, turning him into a sullen hater of his species who asked nothing better than to bite his n. and dearest and bite them good. But give him this steak and kidney pie outlet, thus allowing him to fulfil what they call his legitimate aspirations, and chagrin would vanish and he would become his old lovable self once more. The dark scowl would be replaced by the tender simper, the acid crack by the honeyed word, and all would be hotsy-totsy once more with his love life. My bosom swelled with gratitude to the cook whose quick thinking had solved the problem and brought home the bacon.

'Who is she, Jeeves?'

'Sir?'

'This life-saving cook. I shall want to give her a special mention in my evening prayers.'

'She is a woman of the name of Stoker, sir.'

'Stoker? Did you say Stoker?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Odd!'

'Sir?'

'Nothing. Just a rather strange coincidence. Have you told Gussie?'

'Yes, sir. I found him most co-operative. He plans to present himself in the kitchen shortly after midnight. Cold steak and kidney pie is, of course, merely a palliative—'

'On the contrary. It's Gussie's favourite dish. I've known him to order it even on curry day at the Drones. He loves the stuff.'

'Indeed, sir? That is very gratifying.'

'Gratifying is the word. What a lesson this teaches us, Jeeves, never to despair, never to throw in the towel and turn our face to the wall, for there is always hope.'

'Yes, sir. Would you be requiring anything further?'

'Not a thing, thanks. My cup runneth over.'

'Then I will be saying good night, sir.'

'Good night, Jeeves.'

After he had gone, I put in about half an hour on my Erie Stanley Gardner, but I found rather a difficulty in following the thread and keeping my attention on the clues. My thoughts kept straying to this epoch-making cook. Strange, I felt, that her name should be Stoker. Some relation, perhaps.

I could picture the woman so exactly. Stout, red-faced, spectacled, a little irritable, perhaps, if interrupted when baking a cake or thinking out a sauce, but soft as butter at heart. No doubt something in Gussie's wan aspect had touched her. 'That boy needs feeding up, poor little fellow', or possibly she was fond of goldfish and had been drawn to him because he reminded her of them. Or she may have been a Girl Guide. At any rate, whatever the driving motive behind her day's good deed, she had deserved well of Bertram, and I told myself that a thumping tip should reward her on my departure. Purses of gold should be scattered, and with a lavish hand.

I was musing thus and feeling more benevolent every minute, when who should blow in but Gussie in person, and I had been right in picturing his aspect as wan. He wore the unmistakable look of a man who has been downing spinach for weeks.

I took it that he had come to ask me what I was doing at Totleigh Towers, a point on which he might naturally be supposed to be curious, but that didn't seem to interest him. He plunged without delay into as forceful a denunciation of the vegetable world as I've ever heard, oddly enough being more bitter about Brussels sprouts and broccoli than about spinach, which I would have expected him to feature. It was some considerable time before I could get a word in, but when I did my voice dripped with sympathy.

'Yes, Jeeves was telling me about that,' I said, 'and my heart bled for you.'

'And so it jolly well ought to have done—in buckets—if you've a spark of humanity in you,' he retorted warmly. 'Words cannot describe the agonies I've suffered, particularly when staying at Brinkley Court.'

I nodded. I knew just what an ordeal it must have been. With Aunt Dahlia's peerless chef wielding the skillet, the last place where you want to be on a vegetarian diet is Brinkley. Many a time when enjoying the old relative's hospitality I've regretted that I had only one stomach to give to the evening's bill of fare.

'Night after night I had to refuse Anatole's unbeatable eatables, and when I tell you that two nights in succession he gave us those Mignonettes de Poulet Petit Due of his and on another occasion his Timbales de Ris de Veau Toulousiane, you will appreciate what I went through.'

It being my constant policy to strew a little happiness as I go by, I hastened to point out the silver lining in the c's.