Free The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 4: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.4 by P.G. Wodehouse Page A

your time shouting across ploughed fields in a high wind, and this becomes a habit. If Aunt Dahlia has a fault, it is that she is inclined to talk to you when face to face in a small drawing-room as if she were addressing some crony a quarter of a mile away whom she had observed riding over hounds. For the rest, she is a large, jovial soul, built rather on the lines of Mae West, and is beloved by all including the undersigned. Our relations had always been chummy to the last drop.
    ‘Hullo, hullo, hullo!’ she boomed. The old hunting stuff coming to the surface, you notice. ‘Is that you, Bertie, darling?’
    I said it was none other.
    ‘Then what’s the idea, you half-witted Gadarene swine, of all this playing hard-to-get? You and your matter-weighing! I never heard such nonsense in my life. You’ve got to come here, and immediately, if you don’t want an aunt’s curse delivered on your doorstep by return of post. If I have to cope unaided with that ruddy Percy any longer, I shall crack beneath the strain.’
    She paused to take in breath, and I put a question.
    ‘Is Percy the whiskered bloke?’
    ‘That’s the one. He’s casting a thick pall of gloom over the place. It’s like living in a fog. Tom says if something isn’t done soon, he will take steps.’
    ‘But what’s the matter with the chap?’
    ‘He’s madly in love with Florence Craye.’
    ‘Oh, I see. And it depresses him to think that she’s engaged to Stilton Cheesewright?’
    ‘Exactly. He’s as sick as mud about it. He moons broodingly to and fro, looking like Hamlet. I want you to come and divert him. Take him for walks, dance before him, tell him funny stories. Anything to bring a smile to that whiskered, tortoiseshell-rimmed face.’
    I saw her point, of course. No hostess wants a Hamlet on the premises. But what I couldn’t understand was how a chap like that came to be polluting the pure air of Brinkley. I knew the old relative to be quite choosey in the matter of guests. Cabinet Ministers have sometimes failed to crash the gate. I put this to her, and she said the explanation was perfectly simple.
    ‘I told you I was in the middle of a spot of business with Trotter. I’ve got the whole family here – Percy’s stepfather, L.G. Trotter, Percy’s mother, Mrs. Trotter, and Percy in person. I only wanted Trotter, but Mrs. T. and Percy rang themselves in.’
    ‘I see. What they call a package deal.’ I broke off, aghast. Memory had returned to its throne, and I knew now why that stuff about short side-whiskers had seemed to have a familiar ring. ‘Trotter?’ I cried.
    She whooped censoriously.
    ‘Don’t yell like that. You nearly broke my ear-drum.’
    ‘But did you say Trotter?’
    ‘Of course I said Trotter.’
    ‘This Percy’s name isn’t Gorringe?’
    ‘That’s what it unquestionably is. He admits it.’
    ‘Then I’m frightfully sorry, old thing, but I can’t possibly come. It was only the other day that the above Gorringe was trying to nick me for a thousand quid to put into this play he’s made of Florence’s book, and I turned him down like a bedspread. You can readily see, then, how fraught with embarrassment a meeting in the flesh would be. I shouldn’t know which way to look.’
    ‘If that’s all that’s worrying you, forget it. Florence tells me he has raised that thousand elsewhere.’
    ‘Well, I’m dashed. Where did he get it?’
    ‘She doesn’t know. He’s secretive about it. He just said it was all right, he had got the stuff and they could go ahead. So you needn’t be shy about meeting him. What if he does think you the world’s premier louse? Don’t we all?’
    ‘Something in that.’
    ‘Then you’ll come?’
    I chewed the lower lip dubiously. I was thinking of Stilton.
    ‘Well, speak up, dumb-bell,’ said the relative with asperity. ‘What’s all the silence about?’
    ‘I was musing.’
    ‘Then stop musing and give me the good word. If it will help to influence your decision, I