Ring For Jeeves by P G Wodehouse

Author:P G Wodehouse [Wodehouse, P G]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

But brandy, when administered in one of those small after-dinner glasses, can never do anything really constructive for a man whose affairs have so shaped themselves as to give him the momentary illusion of having been hit in the small of the back by the Twentieth Century Limited. A tun or a hogshead of the stuff might have enabled Bill to face the coming interview with a jaunty smile. The mere sip which was all that had been vouchsafed to him left him as pallid and boneless as if it had been sarsaparilla. Gazing through a mist at Captain Biggar, he closely resembled the sort of man for whom the police spread drag-nets, preparatory to questioning them in connection with the recent smash-and-grab robbery at Marks and Schoenstein’s Bon Ton Jewellery Store on Eighth Avenue. His face had shaded away to about the colour of the underside of a dead fish, and Jeeves, eyeing him with respectful commiseration, wished that it were possible to bring the roses back to his cheeks by telling him one or two good things which had come into his mind from the Collected Works of Marcus Aurelius.

Captain Biggar, even when seen through a mist, presented a spectacle which might well have intimidated the stoutest. His eyes seemed to Bill to be shooting out long, curling flames, and why they called a man with a face as red as that a White Hunter was more than he was able to understand. Strong emotion, as always, had intensified the vermilion of the Captain’s complexion, giving him something of the appearance of a survivor from an explosion in a tomato cannery.

Nor was his voice, when he spoke, of a timbre calculated to lull any apprehensions which his aspect might have inspired. It was the voice of a man who needed only a little sympathy and encouragement to make him whip out a revolver and start blazing away with it.

‘So!’ he said.

There are no good answers to the word ‘So!’ particularly when uttered in the kind of voice just described, and Bill did not attempt to find one.

‘So you are Honest Patch Perkins!’

Jeeves intervened, doing his best as usual.

‘Well, yes and no, sir.’

‘What do you mean, yes and no? Isn’t this the louse’s patch?’ demanded the Captain, brandishing Exhibit A. ‘Isn’t that the hellhound’s ginger moustache?’ he said, giving Exhibit B a twiddle. ‘And do you think I didn’t recognise that coat and tie?’

‘What I was endeavouring to convey by the expression “Yes and no”, sir, was that his lordship has retired from business.’

‘You bet he has. Pity he didn’t do it sooner.’

‘Yes, sir. Oh, Iago, the pity of it, Iago.’

‘Eh?’

‘I was quoting the Swan of Avon, sir.’

‘Well, stop quoting the bally Swan of Avon.’

‘Certainly, sir, if you wish it.’

Bill had recovered his faculties to a certain extent. To say that even now he was feeling boomps-a-daisy would be an exaggeration, but he was capable of speech.

‘Captain Biggar,’ he said, ‘I owe you an explanation.’

‘You owe me three thousand and five pounds two and six,’ said the Captain, coldly corrective.

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