Carry On Jeeves Page #8

Carry On, Jeeves is a collection of ten short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 9 October 1925 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and in the United States on 7 October 1927 by George H. Doran, New York.

• Short story

								

was nothing I wouldn't do for her. She was rather like one of those
innocent-tasting American drinks which creep imperceptibly into your
system so that, before you know what you're doing, you're starting out
to reform the world by force if necessary and pausing on your way to
tell the large man in the corner that, if he looks at you like that,
you will knock his head off. What I mean is, she made me feel alert and
dashing, like a knight-errant or something of that kind. I felt that I
was with her in this thing to the limit.

'I don't see why your uncle shouldn't be most awfully bucked,' I said
to Corky. 'He will think Miss Singer the ideal wife for you.'

Corky declined to cheer up.

'You don't know him. Even if he did like Muriel, he wouldn't admit
it. That's the sort of pig-headed ass he is. It would be a matter of
principle with him to kick. All he would consider would be that I had
gone and taken an important step without asking his advice, and he
would raise Cain automatically. He's always done it.'

I strained the old bean to meet this emergency.

'You want to work it so that he makes Miss Singer's acquaintance
without knowing that you know her. Then you come along--'

'But how can I work it that way?'

I saw his point. That was the catch.

'There's only one thing to do,' I said.

'What's that?'

'Leave it to Jeeves.'

And I rang the bell.

'Sir?' said Jeeves, kind of manifesting himself. One of the rummy
things about Jeeves is that, unless you watch like a hawk, you very
seldom see him come into a room. He's like one of those weird birds in
India who dissolve themselves into thin air and nip through space in a
sort of disembodied way and assemble the parts again just where they
want them. I've got a cousin who's what they call a Theosophist, and
he says he's often nearly worked the thing himself, but couldn't quite
bring it off, probably owing to having fed in his boyhood on the flesh
of animals slain in anger and pie.

The moment I saw the man standing there, registering respectful
attention, a weight seemed to roll off my mind. I felt like a lost
child who spots his father in the offing.

'Jeeves,' I said, 'we want your advice.'

'Very good, sir.'

I boiled down Corky's painful case into a few well-chosen words.

'So you see what it amounts to, Jeeves. We want you to suggest some way
by which Mr Worple can make Miss Singer's acquaintance without getting
on to the fact that Mr Corcoran already knows her. Understand?'

'Perfectly, sir.'

'Well, try to think of something.'

'I have thought of something already, sir.'

'You have!'

'The scheme I would suggest cannot fail of success, but it has what may
seem to you a drawback, sir, in that it requires a certain financial
outlay.'

'He means,' I translated to Corky, 'that he has got a pippin of an
idea, but it's going to cost a bit.'

Naturally the poor chap's face dropped, for this seemed to dish the
whole thing. But I was still under the influence of the girl's melting
gaze, and I saw that this was where I started in as the knight-errant.

'You can count on me for all that sort of thing, Corky,' I said. 'Only
too glad. Carry on, Jeeves.'

'I would suggest, sir, that Mr Corcoran take advantage of Mr Worple's
attachment to ornithology.'

'How on earth did you know that he was fond of birds?'

'It is the way these New York apartments are constructed, sir. Quite
unlike our London houses. The partitions between the rooms are of the
flimsiest nature. With no wish to overhear, I have sometimes heard Mr
Corcoran expressing himself with a generous strength on the subject I
have mentioned.'

'Oh! Well?'

'Why should not the young lady write a small volume, to be
entitled--let us say--The Children's Book of American Birds and
dedicate it to Mr Worple? A limited edition could be published at
your expense, sir, and a great deal of the book would, of course, be
given over to eulogistic remarks concerning Mr Worple's own larger
treatise on the same subject. I should recommend the dispatching of a
presentation copy to Mr Worple, immediately on publication, accompanied
by a letter in which the young lady asks to be allowed to make the
acquaintance of one to whom she owes so much. This would, I fancy,
produce the desired result, but as I say, the expense involved would be
considerable.'

I felt like the proprietor of a performing dog on the vaudeville stage
when the tyke has just pulled off his trick without a hitch. I had
betted on Jeeves all along, and I had known that he wouldn't let me
down. It beats me sometimes why a man with his genius is satisfied to
hang around pressing my clothes and what-not. If I had half Jeeves's
brain I should have a stab at being Prime Minister or something.

'Jeeves,' I said, 'that is absolutely ripping! One of your very best
efforts.'

'Thank you, sir.'

The girl made an objection.

'But I'm sure I couldn't write a book about anything. I can't even
write good letters.'

'Muriel's talents,' said Corky, with a little cough, 'lie more in the
direction of the drama, Bertie. I didn't mention it before, but one of
our reasons for being a trifle nervous as to how Uncle Alexander will
receive the news is that Muriel is in the chorus of that show Choose
your Exit at the Manhattan. It's absurdly unreasonable, but we both
feel that that fact might increase Uncle Alexander's natural tendency
to kick like a steer.'

I saw what he meant. I don't know why it is--one of these psychology
sharps could explain it, I suppose--but uncles and aunts, as a class,
are always dead against the drama, legitimate or otherwise. They don't
seem able to stick it at any price.

But Jeeves had a solution, of course.

'I fancy it would be a simple matter, sir, to find some impecunious
author who would be glad to do the actual composition of the volume for
a small fee. It is only necessary that the young lady's name should
appear on the title page.'

'That's true,' said Corky. 'Sam Patterson would do it for a hundred
dollars. He writes a novelette, three short stories, and ten thousand
words of a serial for one of the all-fiction magazines under different
names every month. A little thing like this would be nothing to him.
I'll get after him right away.'

'Fine!'

'Will that be all, sir?' said Jeeves. 'Very good, sir. Thank you, sir.'

       *       *       *       *       *

I always used to think that publishers had to be devilish intelligent
fellows, loaded down with the grey matter; but I've got their number
now. All a publisher has to do is to write cheques at intervals, while
a lot of deserving and industrious chappies rally round and do the real
work. I know, because I've been one myself. I simply sat tight in the
old flat with a fountain-pen, and in due season a topping, shiny book
came along.

I happened to be down at Corky's place when the first copies of The
Children's Book of American Birds bobbed up. Muriel Singer was there,
and we were talking of things in general when there was a bang at the
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