Carry On, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse

Author:P G Wodehouse
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409035015
Publisher: Random House

7 WITHOUT THE OPTION

THE EVIDENCE WAS all in. The machinery of the law had worked without a hitch. And the beak, having adjusted a pair of pince-nez which looked as though they were going to do a nose dive any moment, coughed like a pained sheep and slipped us the bad news. ‘The prisoner, Wooster,’ he said – and who can paint the shame and agony of Bertram at hearing himself so described? – ‘will pay a fine of five pounds.’

‘Oh, rather!’ I said. ‘Absolutely! Like a shot!’

I was dashed glad to get the thing settled at such a reasonable figure. I gazed across what they call the sea of faces till I picked up Jeeves, sitting at the back. Stout fellow, he had come to see the young master through his hour of trial.

‘I say, Jeeves,’ I sang out, ‘have you got a fiver? I’m a bit short.’

‘Silence!’ bellowed some officious blighter.

‘It’s all right,’ I said; ‘just arranging the financial details. Got the stuff, Jeeves?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good egg!’

‘Are you a friend of the prisoner?’ asked the beak.

‘I am in Mr Wooster’s employment, Your Worship, in the capacity of gentleman’s personal gentleman.’

‘Then pay the fine to the clerk.’

‘Very good, Your Worship.’

The beak gave a coldish nod in my direction, as much as to say that they might now strike the fetters from my wrists; and having hitched up the pince-nez once more, proceeded to hand poor old Sippy one of the nastiest looks ever seen in Bosher Street Police Court.

‘The case of the prisoner Leon Trotzky – which,’ he said, giving Sippy the eye again, ‘I am strongly inclined to think an assumed and fictitious name – is more serious. He has been convicted of a wanton and violent assault upon the police. The evidence of the officer has proved that the prisoner struck him in the abdomen, causing severe internal pain, and in other ways interfered with him in the execution of his duties. I am aware that on the night following the annual aquatic contest between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge a certain licence is traditionally granted by the authorities, but aggravated acts of ruffianly hooliganism like that of the prisoner Trotzky cannot be overlooked or palliated. He will serve a sentence of thirty days in the Second Division without the option of a fine.’

‘No, I say – here – hi – dash it all!’ protested poor old Sippy.

‘Silence!’ bellowed the officious blighter.

‘Next case,’ said the beak. And that was that.

The whole affair was most unfortunate. Memory is a trifle blurred; but as far as I can piece together the facts, what happened was more or less this:

Abstemious cove though I am as a general thing, there is one night in the year when, putting all other engagements aside, I am rather apt to let myself go a bit and renew my lost youth, as it were. The night to which I allude is the one following the annual aquatic contest between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; or, putting it another way, Boat-Race Night.

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