Read Online Much Obliged, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse - Free Book Online Page B

at Totleigh when he had removed a fly from the eye of Stephanie Byng, now the Reverend Mrs. Stinker Pinker, and we were in agreement that success could be achieved only by placing a hand under the patient’s chin in order to steady the head. Omit this preliminary and your efforts are bootless. My first move, accordingly, was to do so. and it was characteristic of Spode that he should have chosen this moment to join us, just when we twain were in what you might call close juxtaposition.
    I confess that there have been times when I have felt more at my ease. Spode, in addition to being constructed on the lines of a rather oversized gorilla, has a disposition like that of a short-tempered tiger of the jungle and a nasty mind which leads him to fall a ready prey to what I have heard Jeeves call the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on, — viz. jealousy. Such a man, finding you steadying the head of the girl he loves, is always extremely likely to start trying to ascertain the colour of your insides, and to avert this I greeted him with what nonchalance I could muster.
    ‘Oh, hullo, Spode old chap, I mean Lord Sidcup old chap. Here we all are, what. Jeeves told me you were here, and Aunt Dahlia says you’ve been knocking the voting public base over apex with your oratory in the Conservative interest. Must be wonderful to be able to do that. It’s a gift, of course. Some have it, some haven’t. I couldn’t address a political meeting to please a dying grandmother. I should stand there opening and shutting my mouth like a goldfish. You, on the other hand, just clear your throat and the golden words come pouring out like syrup. I admire you enormously.’
    Conciliatory, I think you’ll agree. I could hardly have given him the old salve with a more liberal hand, and one might have expected him to simper, shuffle his feet and mumble ‘Awfully nice of you to say so’ or something along those lines. Instead of which, all he did was come back at me with a guttural sound like an opera basso 67 choking on a, fishbone, and I had to sustain the burden of the conversation by myself.
    ‘I’ve just been taking a gnat out of Madeline’s eye.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Dangerous devils, these gnats. Require skilled handling.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Everything’s back to normal now, I think.’
    ‘Yes, thank you ever so much, Bertie.’
    It was Madeline who said this, not Spode. He continued to gaze at me bleakly. She went on harping on the thing.
    ‘Bertie’s so clever.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘I don’t know what I would have done without him.’
    ‘Oh?’ ‘He showed wonderful presence of mind.’ ‘Oh?’
    ‘I feel so sorry, though, for the poor little gnat.’
    ‘It asked for it,’ I pointed out. ‘It was unquestionably the aggressor.’
    ‘Yes, I suppose that’s true, but…’ The clock on the mantelpiece caught her now de-gnatted eye, and she uttered an agitated squeak. ‘Oh, my goodness, is that the time? I must rush.’
    She buzzed off, and I was on the point of doing the same, when Spode detained me with a curt ‘One moment’. There are all sorts of ways of saying ‘One moment’. This was one of the nastier ones, spoken with an unpleasant rasping note in the voice.
    ‘I want a word with you, Wooster.’
    I am never anxious to chat with Spode, but if I had been sure that he merely wanted to go on saying ‘Oh?’, I would have been willing to listen. Something, however, seemed to tell me that he was about to give evidence of a wider vocabulary, and I edged towards the door.
    ‘Some other time, don’t you think?’
    ‘Not some ruddy other time. Now.’
    ‘I shall be late for dinner.’
    ‘You can’t be too late for me. And if you get your teeth knocked down your throat, as you will if you don’t listen attentively to what I have to say, you won’t be able to eat any dinner.’
    This seemed plausible. I decided to lend him an ear, as the expression is. ‘Say on,’ I said, and he said on, lowering his