Thank You, Jeeves

" But that was very sweet of you." " We Woosters are sweet, exceedingly sweet, * when a pal's happiness is in the balance." " I can see now why I accepted you that night in New York," she said meditatively. " There's a sort of woolly-headed duckiness about you. If I wasn't so crazy about Mar-maduke, I could easily marry you, Bertie." S " No, no," I said, with some alarm. " Don't ]'' dream of it. I mean to say ..." I. " Oh, it's all right. I'm not going to. I'm going to marry Marmaduke; that's why I'm here." " And now," I said, "

we've come right back i to it. Once more we have worked round to the | very point concerning which I most desire , enlightenment. What on earth is the idea behind all this ? You say you swam ashore from the yacht ? Why ? You came and dumped yourself in my little home. Why ? " " Because I wanted somewhere to lie low till I could get clothes, of course. I can't go to the Hall in a swimming suit." I began to follow the train of thought. " Oh, you swam ashore to get to Chuffy ? " " Of course. Father was keeping me a prisoner on board the yacht, and this evening your man Jeeves . . ." I winced. ".My late man." " All right. Your late man. Your late ma

Jeeves arrived with an early letter from Mar-maduke. Oh, boy I " " How do you mean, oh, boy ? " " Was that a letter ? I cried six pints when I read it." " Hot stuff ? " " It was beautiful. It throbbed with poetry." " It did ? " " Yes." " This letter ? " "Yes." " Chuffy's letter ? " " Yes. You seem surprised." I was a bit. One of the very best, old Chuffy, of course, but I wouldn't have said he could write letters like that. But then one has got to take into consideration the fact that when I've been with him he has generally been eating steak-and-kidney pudding or cursing horses for not running fast enough. On such occasions, the poetic side of a man is not uppermost. " So this letter stirred you up, did it ? " " You bet it stirred me up. I felt I couldn't wait another day without seeing him. What was that poem about a woman wailing for her demon lover ? " " Ah, there you have me. Jeeves would know." " Well, that's what I felt like. And, talking of Jeeves, what a man! Sympathy ? He drips with it." " Oh, you confided in Jeeves ? " " Yes. And told him what I was going to do." " And he didn't try to stop you ? " " Stop me ? He was all for it." " He was, was he ? " " You should have seen him. Such a kind smile. He said you would be delighted to help me." " He did, eh ? " " He spoke most highly of you." " Really ? " " Oh, yes, he thinks a lot of you. I remember his very words. ' Mr. Wooster, miss,' he said, ' is, perhaps, mentally somewhat negligible, but he has a heart of gold.' He said that as he was lowering me from the side of the boat by a jpope, having first made sure that the coast was dear. I couldn't dive, you see, because of the Splash." I was chewing the lip in some chagrin. " What the devil did he mean, ' mentally negligible' ? " " Oh, you know. Loopy." " Tchah! " " Eh ? " " I said' Tchah!'" *' Why ? " " Why ? " I was a good deal moved. "

Well, wouldn't you say ' Tchah I ' if your late man was going about the place telling people you were mentally negligible. ..." " But with a heart of gold." " Never mind the heart of gold. The point is that my man, my late man, a fellow I have always looked on more as some sort of an uncle than a personal attendant, is shooting to and fro bellowing out at the top of his voice that I am mentally negligible and filling my bedroom with girls. ..." " Bertie I Are you annoyed ? " " Annoyed I " " You sound annoyed. And I can't see why. I should have thought you would have been only too glad of the chance of helping me get to the man I love. Having this heart of gold I hear so much about." " The point is not whether I have a heart of gold.

Heaps of people have hearts of gold and yet would be upset at finding girls in their bedrooms in the small hours. What you don't seem to realize, what you and this Jeeves of yours have omitted to take into your calculations,is that I have a reputation to keep up, an unspotted name to maintain in its pristine purity. This cannot be done by entertaining girls who come in, in the middle of the night, without so much as a by-your-leave and coolly pinch your heliotrope pyjamas ..." "You didn't expect me to sleep in a wet swimming suit ? "