Free The inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

send round the wagon - does tend to make a chappie take what you might call a warped view of humanity.
    ‘You mean he thinks I may be a loony, and he doesn’t want a loony son-in-law?’ I said.
    Aunt Agatha seemed rather peeved than otherwise at my deadly intelligence.
    ‘Of course, he does not think anything so ridiculous. I told you he was simply exceedingly cautious. He wants to satisfy himself that you are perfectly normal.’ Here she paused, for Spenser had come in with the coffee. When he had gone, she went on: ‘He appears to have got hold of some extraordinary story about your having pushed his son Oswald into the lake at Ditteredge Hall. Incredible, of course. Even you would hardly do a thing like that.’
    ‘Well, I did sort of lean against him, you know, and he shot off the bridge.’
    ‘Oswald definitely accuses you of having pushed him into the water. That has disturbed Sir Roderick, and unfortunately it has caused him to make inquiries, and he has heard about your poor Uncle Henry.’
    She eyed me with a good deal of solemnity, and I took a grave sip of coffee. We were peeping into the family cupboard and having a look at the good old skeleton. My late Uncle Henry, you see, was by way of being the blot on the Wooster escutcheon. An extremely decent chappie personally, and one who had always endeared himself to me by tipping me with considerable lavishness when I was at school; but there’s no doubt he did at times do rather rummy things, notably keeping eleven pet rabbits in his bedroom; and I suppose a purist might have considered him more or less off his onion. In fact, to be perfectly frank, he wound up his career, happy to the last and completely surrounded by rabbits, in some sort of a home.
    ‘Is is very absurd, of course,’ continued Aunt Agatha. ‘If any of the family had inherited poor Henry’s eccentricity - and it was nothing more - it would have been Claude and Eustace, and there could not be two brighter boys.’
    Claude and Eustace were twins, and had been kids at school with me in my last summer term. Casting my mind back, it seemed to me that ‘bright’ just about described them. The whole of that term, as I remembered, had been spent in getting them out of a series of frightful rows.
    ‘Look how well they are doing at Oxford. Your Aunt Emily had a letter from Claude only the other day saying that they hoped to be elected shortly to a very important college club, called The Seekers.’
    ‘Seekers?’ I couldn’t recall any club of the name in my time at Oxford. ‘What do they seek?’
    ‘Claude did not say. Truth or knowledge, I should imagine. It is evidently a very desirable club to belong to, for Claude added that Lord Rainsby, the Earl of Datchet’s son, was one of his fellow candidates. However, we are wandering from the point, which is that Sir Roderick wants to have a quiet talk with you quite alone. Now I rely on you, Bertie, to be - I won’t say intelligent, but at least sensible. Don’t giggle nervously; try to keep that horrible glassy expression out of your eyes; don’t yawn or fidget; and remember that Sir Roderick is the president of the West London branch of the anti-gambling league, so please do not talk about horse-racing. He will lunch with you at your flat tomorrow at one-thirty. Please remember that he drinks no wine, strongly disapproves of smoking, and can only eat the simplest food, owing to an impaired digestion. Do not offer him coffee, for he considers it the root of half the nerve-trouble in the world.’
    ‘I should think a dog-biscuit and a glass of water would about meet the case, what?’
    ‘Bertie!’
    ‘Oh, all right. Merely persiflage.’
    ‘Now it is precisely that sort of idiotic remark that would be calculated to arouse Sir Roderick’s worst suspicions. Do please try to refrain from any misguided flippancy when you are with him. He is a very serious-minded man… Are you going? Well, please remember all I have said. I rely on you,