Jeeves in the Offing by P G Wodehouse

Author:P G Wodehouse [P.G. Wodehouse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2008-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

IT’S CONSIDERABLY MORE than a step from Brinkley Court to Herne Bay, the one being in the middle of Worcestershire and the other on the coast of Kent, and even under the best of conditions you don’t expect to do the trip in a flash. On the present occasion, held up by the Arab steed getting taken with a fit of the vapours and having to be towed to a garage for medical treatment, I didn’t fetch up at journey’s end till well past midnight. And when I rolled round to Jeeves’s address on the morrow, I was informed that he had gone out early and they didn’t know when he would be back. Leaving word for him to ring me at the Drones, I returned to the metropolis and was having the pre-dinner keg of nails in the smoking-room when his call came through.

‘Mr Wooster? Good evening, sir. This is Jeeves.’

‘And not a moment too soon,’ I said, speaking with the emotion of a lost lamb which after long separation from the parent sheep finally manages to spot it across the meadow. ‘Where have you been all this time?’

‘I had an appointment to lunch with a friend at Folkestone, sir, and while there was persuaded to extend my visit in order to judge a seaside bathing belles contest.’

‘No, really? You do live, don’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How did it go off?’

‘Quite satisfactorily, sir, thank you.’

‘Who won?’

‘A Miss Marlene Higgins of Brixton, sir, with Miss Lana Brown of Tulse Hill and Miss Marilyn Bunting of Penge honourably mentioned. All most attractive young ladies.’

‘Shapely?’

‘Extremely so.’

‘Well, let me tell you, Jeeves, and you can paste this in your hat, shapeliness isn’t everything in this world. In fact, it sometimes seems to me that the more curved and lissome the members of the opposite sex, the more likely they are to set hell’s foundations quivering. I’m sorely beset, Jeeves. Do you recall telling me once about someone who told somebody he could tell him something which would make him think a bit? Knitted socks and porcupines entered into it, I remember.’

‘I think you may be referring to the ghost of the father of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, sir. Addressing his son, he said “I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy knotted and combined locks to part and each particular hair to stand on end like quills upon the fretful porpentine.”’

‘That’s right. Locks, of course, not socks. Odd that he should have said porpentine when he meant porcupine. Slip of the tongue, no doubt, as so often happens with ghosts. Well, he had nothing on me, Jeeves. It’s a tale of that precise nature that I am about to unfold. Are you listening?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then hold on to your hat and don’t miss a word.’

When I had finished unfolding, he said ‘I can readily appreciate your concern, sir. The situation, as you say, is one

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