Thank You, Jeeves

"... and leap into your bed ..." She uttered an exclamation. " I know what this reminds me of. I've ^ "been trying to think ever since you came in. 4 The story of the Three Bears. You must have been told it as a kid. ' There's somebody in my ''bed....' Wasn't that what the Big Bear said ? '* I frowned doubtfully. " As I recollect it, it was something about porridge. ' Who's been eating my porridge ? ' " " I'm sure there was a bed in it." " Bed ? Bed ? I can't remember any bed. On the subject of the porridge, however, I am absolutely. . . . But we are wandering from the point once more. What I was saying was that a reputable bachelor like myself, who has never had his licence so much as endorsed, can scarcely be blamed for looking askance at girls in heliotrope pyjamas in his bed. . . ." " You said they suited me." " They do suit you." " You said I looked fine in them." " You do look fine in them, but once more you are refusing to meet the issue squarely. The point is . .

." " How many points is that ? I seem to have counted about a dozen." "

There is only one point, and I am endeavouring to make it clear. In a nutshell, What will people say when they find you here ? " " But they won't find me here."

"You think so? Ha! What about Brinkley ? " " Who's he ? " " My man."

" Your late man ? " I clicked the tongue. " My new man. At nine to-morrow morning he will bring me tea." " Well, you'll like that." " He will bring it to this room. He will approach the bed. He will place it on the table." " What on earth for ? " " To facilitate my getting at the cup and sipping." " Oh, you mean he will put the tea on the table. You said he would put the bed on the table." " I never said anything of the sort." " You did. Distinctly.' I tried to reason with the girl. " My dear child," I said, " I must really ask you to use your intelligence.

Brinkley is not a juggler. He is a well-trained gentleman's gentleman, and would consider it a liberty to put beds on tables. And why should he put beds on tables ? The idea would never occur to him. He . . " She interrupted my reasoning. " But wait a minute. You keep babbling about Brinkley, but there isn't a Brinkley."

" There is a Brinkley. One Brinkley. And one Brinkley coming into this room at nine O'clock to-morrow morning and finding you in that bed will be enough to start a scandal which will stagger humanity." " I mean, he can't be in the house." " Of course he's in the house." " Well, he must be deaf, then. I made enough noise getting in to wake six gentlemen's gentlemen. Apart from smashing a window at the back . . ." " Did you smash a window at the back ? " " I had to, or I couldn't have got in. It was the window of some sort of bedroom on the ground floor." "Why, dash it, that's Brinkley's bed room." " Well, he wasn't in it." " Why on earth not ? I gave him the evening Off, not the night." " I can see what has happened. He's away on a toot somewhere, and won't be back for days.

Father had a man who did that once. He went out f^r his evening from our house on East Sixty-Seventh Street, New York, on April the fourth in a bowler hat, grey gloves and a check suit, and the next we heard of him was a telegram from Portland, Oregon, on April the tenth, saying he had overslept himself and would be back shortly. That's what your Brinkley must have done."

I must say I drew a good deal of comfort from the idea. " Let us hope so," I said. "If he is really trying to drown his sorrows, it ought to take him weeks." " So, you see, you've been making a fuss about nothing.

I always say . . ." But what it was she always said, I was not privileged to learn. For at that moment she broke off with a sharp squeak. Somebody was knocking on the front door.

CHAPTER VIII POLICE PERSECUTION

WE looked at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a first-floor back in Chuffnell Regis. That frightful sound, coming unexpectedly like that in the middle of the peaceful summer night, had been enough to strike the chit-chat from anybody's lips. And what rendered it so particularly unpleasant to us, personally, was the fact that we had both jumped simultaneously to the same ghastly conclusion. " It's father I "

Pauline gargled, and with a swift flip of her finger she doused the candle. " What did you do that for ? " I said, a good deal pipped. The sudden darkness seemed to make things worse. " So that he shouldn't see a light in the window, of course. If he thinks you're asleep he may go away." " What a hope I " I retorted, as the knocking, which had eased off for a moment, started again with more follow-through than ever. "

Well, I suppose you had better go down," said the girl in a subdued sort of voice. " Or "