Read Online The Jeeves Omnibus by P. G. Wodehouse - Free Book Online Page B

at least, worth trying. I shall now leave you, to prepare myself for the ordeal before me with silent meditation.’
    ‘Your tea will be here in a moment, sir.’
    ‘No, Jeeves. This is no time for tea. I must concentrate. I must have that story right before he arrives. I dare say I shall be getting a call from him shortly.’
    ‘It would not surprise me if you were to find his lordship awaiting you at your cottage now, sir.’
    He was absolutely correct. No sooner had I crossed the threshold than something exploded out of the armchair and there was Chuffy, gazing bleakly upon me.
    ‘Ah!’ he said, speaking the word between clenched teeth and generally comporting himself in an unpleasant and disturbing manner. ‘Here you are at last!’
    I slipped him a sympathetic smile.
    ‘Here I am, yes. And I have heard all. Jeeves told me. Too bad, too bad. I little thought, old man, when I bestowed a brotherly kiss on Pauline Stoker by way of congratulating her on your engagement, that all this trouble would be bobbing up so soon afterwards.’
    He continued to give me the eye.
    ‘Brotherly?’
    ‘Essentially brotherly.’
    ‘Old Stoker didn’t seem to think so.’
    ‘Well, we know what sort of a mind old Stoker has got, don’t we?’
    ‘Brotherly? H’m!’
    I registered manly regret.
    ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have done it –’
    ‘It was lucky for you I wasn’t there when you did.’
    ‘– But you know how it is when a fellow you’ve been at private school , Eton and Oxford with gets engaged to a girl on whom you look as a sister. One is carried away.’
    It was plain that a struggle was going on in the old boy’s bosom. He glowered a bit and paced the room a bit and, happening to trip over a footstool, he kicked it a bit. Then he became calmer. You could see Reason returning to her throne.
    ‘Well, all right,’ he said. ‘But in future a little less of this fraternal stuff.’
    ‘Quite.’
    ‘Switch it off. Resist the impulse.’
    ‘Certainly.’
    ‘If you want sisters, seek them elsewhere.’
    ‘Just so.’
    ‘I don’t want to feel, when I’m married, that at any moment I may come into the room and find a brother-and-sister act in progress.’
    ‘I quite understand, old man. Then you still intend to marry this Pauline?’
    ‘Intend to marry her? Of course I intend to marry her. I’d look a silly ass not marrying a girl like that, wouldn’t I?’
    ‘But how about the old Chuffnell scruples?’
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘Well, if Stoker is not going to buy the Hall, aren’t you rather by way of being back in the position you were in before, when you would not tell your love, but let the thought of Wotwotleigh like a worm i’ the bud feed on your damask check?’
    He gave a slight shudder.
    ‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘don’t remind me of a time when I must have been absolutely potty. I can’t imagine how I ever felt like that. You can take it as official that my views have changed. I don’t care now if I haven’t a bean and she’s got a packet. If I can dig up seven-and-six for the licence and the couple of quid or whatever it is for the man behind the Prayer Book, this wedding is going through.’
    ‘Fine.’
    ‘What does money matter?’
    ‘Quite.’
    ‘I mean, love’s love.’
    ‘You never spoke a truer word, laddie. If I were you, I’d write her a letter embodying those views. You see, she may think that, now your finances are rocky once more, you will want to edge out.’
    ‘I will. And, by Jove!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Jeeves shall take it to her. Thus removing any chance of old Stoker intercepting it.’
    ‘Could he, do you think?’
    ‘My dear chap! A born letter-intercepter. You can see it in his eye.’
    ‘I mean, could Jeeves take it? I don’t see how.’
    ‘I should have told you that Stoker wanted Jeeves to leave me and enter his service. At the time I thought I had never heard such crust in my life, but now I am all for it. Jeeves shall go to him.’
    I got