Madame Eulalie’s Rare PlumsThe Strand Magazine, September 1929
ANOTHER day dawned all hot and fresh, and, in pursuance of my unswerving policy at that time, I was singing “Sonny Boy” in my bath, when there was a soft step without and Jeeves’s voice came filtering through the woodwork.
“I beg your pardon, sir.”
I had just got to that bit about the angels being lonely, where you need every ounce of concentration in order to make the spectacular finish, but I signed off courteously.
“Yes, Jeeves? Say on.”
“Mr. Glossop, sir.”
“What about him?”
“He is in the sitting-room, sir.”
“Young Tuppy Glossop?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the sitting-room?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Desiring speech with me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m!”
“Sir?”
“I only said H’m!”
And I’ll tell you why I said H’m! It was because the man’s story had interested me strangely. And I’ll tell you why the man’s story had interested me strangely. Owing to a certain episode that had occurred one night at the Drones Club, there had sprung up recently a coolness, as you might describe it, between this Glossop and myself. The news, therefore, that he was visiting me at my flat, especially at an hour when he must have known that I would be in my bath and consequently in a strong strategic position to heave a wet sponge at him, surprised me considerably.
I hopped out with some briskness and, slipping a couple of towels about the limbs and torso, made for the sitting-room. I found young Tuppy at the piano, playing “Sonny Boy” with one finger.
“What-ho!” I said, not without a certain hauteur.
“Oh, hullo, Bertie!” said Tuppy. “I say, Bertie, I want to see you about something important.”
It seemed to me that the bloke was embarrassed. He had moved to the mantelpiece, and now he broke a vase in rather a constrained way.
“The fact is, Bertie, I’m engaged.”
“Engaged?”
“Engaged,” said young Tuppy, coyly dropping a photograph frame into the fender. “Practically, that is.”
“Practically?”
“Yes. You’ll like her, Bertie. Her name is Cora Bellinger. She’s studying for opera. Wonderful voice she has. Also dark, flashing eyes and a great soul.”
“How do you mean practically?”
“Well, it’s this way. Before ordering the trousseau, there is one little point she wants cleared up. You see, what with her great soul and all that, she has a rather serious outlook on life; and the one thing she absolutely bars is anything in the shape of hearty humour. You know, practical joking and so forth. She said if she thought I was a practical joker she would never speak to me again. And unfortunately she appears to have heard about that little affair at the Drones. . . . I expect you have forgotten all about that, Bertie?”
“I have not!”
“No, no, not forgotten exactly. What I mean is, nobody laughs more heartily at the recollection than you. And what I want you to do, old man, is to seize an early opportunity of taking Cora aside and categorically denying that there is any truth in the story. My happiness, Bertie, is in your hands, if you know what I mean.”
Well, of course, if he put it like that, what could I do? We Woosters have our code.
“Oh, all right,” I said, but far from brightly.
“Splendid fellow!”
“When do I meet this blighted female?”
“Don’t call her ‘this blighted female,’ Bertie, old man. I have planned all that out. I will bring her round here to-day for a spot of lunch.”
“What!”
“At one-thirty. Right. Good. Fine. Thanks. I knew I could rely on you.”
He pushed off and I turned to Jeeves, who had shimmered in with the morning meal.
“Lunch for three to-day, Jeeves,” I said.
“Very good, sir.”
“You know, Jeeves, it’s a bit thick. You remember my telling you about what Mr. Glossop did to me that night at the Drones?”
“Yes, sir.”
“For months I have been cherishing dreams of a hideous vengeance. And now, so far from crushing him into the dust, I’ve got to fill him and fiancée with rich food and generally rally round and be the good angel.”
“Life is like that, sir.”
“True, Jeeves. What have we here?” I asked, inspecting the tray.
“Kippered herrings, sir.”
“And I shouldn’t wonder,” I said, for I was in a thoughtful mood, “if even herrings haven’t troubles of their own.”
“Quite possibly, sir.”
“I mean apart from getting kippered.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And so it goes on, Jeeves, so it goes on.”
I CAN’T say I exactly saw eye to eye with young Tuppy in his admiration for the Bellinger female. Delivered on the mat at one-twenty-five, she proved to be an upstanding light-heavyweight of some thirty summers with a commanding eye and a square chin which I, personally, would have steered clear of. She seemed to me a good deal like what Cleopatra would have been after going in too freely for the starches and cereals. I don’t know why it is, but women who have anything to do with opera, even if they’re only studying for it, always appear to run to surplus poundage.
Tuppy, however, was obviously all for her. His whole demeanour, both before and during lunch, was that of one striving to be worthy of a noble soul. When Jeeves offered him a cocktail, he practically recoiled as from a serpent. It was terrible to see the change which love had effected in the man. The spectacle put me off my food.
At half-past two the Bellinger left to go to a singing-lesson. Tuppy trotted after her to the door, bleating and frisking a goodish bit, and then came back and looked at me in a marked manner.
“Well, Bertie?”
“Well what?”
“I mean, isn’t she?”
“Oh, rather,” I said, humouring the poor fish.
“Wonderful eyes?”
“Oh, rather.”
“Wonderful figure?”
“Oh, quite.”
“Wonderful voice?”
Here I was able to intone the response with a little more heartiness. The Bellinger, at Tuppy’s request, had sung us a few songs before digging in at the trough, and nobody could have denied that her pipes were in great shape. Plaster was still falling from the ceiling.
“Terrific,” I said.
Tuppy sighed, and, having helped himself to about four inches of whisky and one of soda, took a deep, refreshing draught.
“Ah!” he said. “I needed that.”
“Why didn’t you have it at lunch?”
“Well, it’s this way,” said Tuppy. “I have not actually ascertained what Cora’s opinions are on the subject of the taking of slight snorts from time to time, but I thought it more prudent to lay off. The view I took was that laying off would seem to indicate the serious mind. It is touch and go, as you might say, at the moment, and the smallest thing may turn the scale.”
“What beats me is how on earth you expect to make her think you’ve got a mind at all—let alone a serious one.”
“I have my methods.”
“I bet they’re rotten.”
“You do, do you?” said Tuppy warmly. “Well, let me tell you, my lad, that that’s exactly what they’re anything but. I am handling this affair with consummate generalship. Do you remember Beefy Bingham, who was at Oxford with us?”
“I ran into him only the other day. He’s a parson now.”
“Yes. Down in the East-end. Well, he runs a Lads’ Club for the local toughs—you know the sort of thing—cocoa and backgammon in the reading-room and occasional clean, bright entertainments in the Oddfellows’ Hall: and I’ve been helping him. I don’t suppose I’ve passed an evening away from the backgammon board for weeks. Cora is extremely pleased. I’ve got her to promise to sing on Tuesday at Beefy’s next clean, bright entertainment.”
“You have?”
“I absolutely have. And now mark my devilish ingenuity, Bertie. I’m going to sing, too.”
“Why do you suppose that’s going to get you anywhere?”
“Because the way I intend to sing the song I intend to sing will prove to her that there are great deeps in my nature, whose existence she has not suspected. She will see that rough, unlettered audience wiping the tears out of its bally eyes and she will say to herself, ‘What-ho! The old egg really has a soul!’ For it is not one of your mouldy comic songs, Bertie. No low buffoonery of that sort for me. It is all about angels being lonely and what not——”
I uttered a sharp cry.
“You can’t mean you’re going to sing ‘Sonny Boy’?”
“I jolly well do.”
I was shocked. Yes, dash it, I was shocked. You see, I held strong views on “Sonny Boy.” I considered it a song only to be attempted by a few of the elect in the privacy of the bathroom. And the thought of it being murdered in open Oddfellows’ Hall by a bloke who could treat a pal as young Tuppy had treated me that night at the Drones sickened me. Yes, sickened me.
I hadn’t time, however, to express my horror and disgust, for at this juncture Jeeves came in.
“Mrs. Travers has just rung up on the telephone, sir. She desired me to say that she will be calling to see you in a few minutes.”
“Contents noted, Jeeves,” I said. “Now listen, Tuppy——” I began.
I stopped. The fellow wasn’t there.
“Mr. Glossop has left, sir.”
“Left? How can he have left? He was sitting there——”
“That is the front door closing now, sir.”
“But what made him shoot off like that?”
“Possibly Mr. Glossop did not wish to meet Mrs. Travers, sir.”
“Why not?”
“I could not say, sir. But undoubtedly at the mention of Mrs. Travers’s name he rose very swiftly.”
“Strange, Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir.”
I turned to a subject of more moment.
“Jeeves,” I said. “Mr. Glossop proposes to sing ‘Sonny Boy’ at an entertainment down in the East-end next Tuesday.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Before an audience consisting mainly of costermongers, with a sprinkling of whelkstall owners, purveyors of blood-oranges, and minor pugilists.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Make a note to remind me to be there. He will infallibly get the bird, and I want to witness his downfall.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And when Mrs. Travers arrives, I shall be in the sitting-room.”
THOSE who know Bertram Wooster best are aware that in his journey through life he is impeded and generally snootered by about as scaly a collection of aunts as was ever assembled. But there is one exception to the general ghastliness—viz., my Aunt Dahlia. She married old Tom Travers the year Bluebottle won the Cambridgeshire, and is one of the best. It is always a pleasure to me to chat with her, and it was with a courtly geniality that I rose to receive her as she sailed over the threshold at about two-fifty-five.
She seemed somewhat perturbed, and plunged into the agenda without delay. Aunt Dahlia is one of those big, hearty women. She used to go in a lot for hunting, and she generally speaks as if she had just sighted a fox on a hillside half a mile away.
“Bertie,” she cried, in the manner of one encouraging a platoon of hounds to renewed efforts, “I want your help.”
“And you shall have it, Aunt Dahlia,” I replied, suavely. “I can honestly say that there is no one to whom I would more readily do a good turn, no one to whom I am more delighted to be——”
“Less of it,” she begged, “less of it. You know that friend of yours, young Glossop?”
“He’s just been lunching here.”
“He has, has he? Well, I wish you’d poisoned his soup.”
“We didn’t have soup. And, when you describe him as a friend of mine, I wouldn’t quite say the term absolutely squared with the facts. Some time ago, one night when we had been dining together at the Drones——”
At this point Aunt Dahlia—a little brusquely, it seemed to me—said that she would rather wait for the story of my life till she could get it in book form. I could see now that she was definitely not her usual sunny self, so I shelved my personal grievances and asked what was biting her.
“It’s that young hound Glossop,” she said.
“What’s he been doing?”
“Breaking Angela’s heart.”
(Angela. Daughter of above. My cousin. Quite a good egg.)
“What!”
“I say he’s—breaking—Angela’s—HEART!”
“You say he’s breaking Angela’s heart?”
She begged me in rather a feverish way to suspend the vaudeville cross-talk stuff.
“How’s he doing that?” I asked.
“With his neglect. With his low, callous, double-crossing duplicity.”
“Duplicity is the word, Aunt Dahlia,” I said. “In treating of young Tuppy Glossop, it springs naturally to the lips. Let me just tell you what he did to me one night at the Drones. We had finished dinner——”
“Ever since the beginning of the season, up till about three weeks ago, he was all over Angela. The sort of thing which, when I was a girl, we should have described as courting——”
“Or wooing?”
“Wooing or courting, whichever you like.”
“Whichever you like, Aunt Dahlia,” I said, courteously.
“Well, anyway, he haunted the house, lapped up daily lunches, took her out dancing half the night, and so on, till naturally the poor kid, who’s quite off her oats about him, took it for granted that it was only a question of time before he suggested that they should feed for life out of the same crib. And now he’s gone and dropped her like a hot brick, and I hear he’s infatuated with some girl he met at a Chelsea tea-party—a girl named—now, what was it?”
“Cora Bellinger.”
“How do you know?”
“She was lunching here to-day.”
“He brought her?”
“Yes.”
“What’s she like?”
“Pretty massive. In shape, a bit on the lines of the Albert Hall.”
“Did he seem very fond of her?”
“Couldn’t take his eyes off the chassis.”
“The modern young man,” said Aunt Dahlia, “is a pot of poison and wants a nurse to lead him by the hand and some strong attendant to kick him regularly at intervals of a quarter of an hour.”
I tried to point out the silver lining.
“If you ask me, Aunt Dahlia,” I said, “I think Angela is well out of it. This Glossop is a tough baby. One of London’s toughest. I was trying to tell you just now what he did to me one night at the Drones. First having got me in sporting mood with a bottle of the ripest, he betted me that I wouldn’t swing myself across the swimming-bath by the ropes and rings. I knew I could do it on my head, so I took him on, exulting in the fun, so to speak. And when I’d done half the trip and was going as strong as dammit, I found he had looped the last rope back against the rail, leaving me no alternative but to drop into the depths and swim ashore in correct evening costume.”
“He did?”
“He certainly did. It was months ago, and I haven’t got really dry yet. You wouldn’t want your daughter to marry a man capable of a thing like that?”
“On the contrary, you restore my faith in the young hound. I see that there must be lots of good in him after all. And I want this Bellinger business broken up, Bertie.”
“How?”
“I don’t care how. Any way you please.”
“But what can I do?
“Do? Why, put the whole thing before your man Jeeves. Jeeves will find a way. One of the most capable fellers I ever met. Put the thing squarely up to Jeeves and let Nature take its course.”
“There may be something in what you say, Aunt Dahlia,” I said, thoughtfully.
“Of course there is,” said Aunt Dahlia. “A little thing like this will be child’s play to Jeeves. Get him working on it, and I’ll look in to-morrow to hear the result.”
With which she biffed off, and I summoned Jeeves to the presence.
“Jeeves,” I said, “you have heard all?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought you would. My Aunt Dahlia has what you might call a carrying voice. Has it ever occurred to you that, if all other sources of income failed, she could make a good living calling the cattle home across the Sands of Dee?”
“I had not considered the point, sir, but no doubt you are right.”
“Well, how do we go? What is your reaction? I think we should do our best to help and assist.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am fond of my Aunt Dahlia and I am fond of my cousin Angela. Fond of them both, if you get my drift. What the misguided girl finds to attract her in young Tuppy, I cannot say, Jeeves, and you cannot say. But apparently she loves the man—which shows it can be done, a thing I wouldn’t have believed myself—and is pining away like——”
“Patience on a monument, sir.”
“Like Patience, as you very shrewdly remark, on a monument. So we must cluster round. Bend your brain to the problem, Jeeves. It is one that will tax you to the uttermost.”
AUNT DAHLIA blew in on the morrow, and I rang the bell for Jeeves. He appeared looking brainier than one could have believed possible—sheer intellect shining from every feature—and I could see at once that the engine had been turning over.
“Speak, Jeeves,” I said.
“Very good, sir.”
“You have brooded?”
“Yes, sir.”
“With what success?”
“I have a plan, sir, which I fancy may produce satisfactory results.”
“Let’s have it,” said Aunt Dahlia.
“In affairs of this description, madam, the first essential is to study the psychology of the individual.”
“The what?”
“The psychology, madam.”
“He means the psychology,” I said.
“Oh, ah,” said Aunt Dahlia.
“And by psychology, Jeeves,” I went on, to help the thing along, “you imply——?”
“The natures and dispositions of the principals in the matter, sir.”
“You mean, what they’re like?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“Does he talk like this to you when you’re alone, Bertie?” asked Aunt Dahlia.
“Sometimes. Occasionally. And, on the other hand, sometimes not. Proceed, Jeeves.”
“Well, sir, if I may say so, the thing that struck me most forcibly about Miss Bellinger when she was under my observation was that hers was a somewhat imperious nature. I could envisage Miss Bellinger applauding success. I could not so easily see her pitying and sympathizing with failure. Possibly you will recall, sir, her attitude when Mr. Glossop endeavoured to light her cigarette with his automatic lighter? I thought I detected a certain impatience at his inability to produce the necessary flame.”
“True, Jeeves. She ticked him off.”
“Precisely, sir.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Aunt Dahlia. “You think that, if he goes on trying to light her cigarettes with his automatic lighter long enough, she will eventually get fed up and hand him the mitten?”
“I merely mention the episode, madam, as an indication of Miss Bellinger’s somewhat ruthless nature.”
“Ruthless,” I said, “is right. The Bellinger is hard-boiled. Those eyes. That chin. I could read them. A vicious specimen, if ever there was one.”
“Precisely, sir. I think, therefore, that, should Miss Bellinger be a witness of Mr. Glossop appearing to disadvantage in public, she would cease to entertain affection for him. In the event, for instance, of his failing to entertain the audience on Tuesday with his singing——”
I saw daylight.
“By Jove, Jeeves! You mean if he gets the bird, all will be off?”
“I shall be greatly surprised if such is not the case, sir.”
I shook my head.
“We cannot leave this thing to chance, Jeeves. Young Tuppy singing ‘Sonny Boy’ is the likeliest prospect for the bird that I can think of; but no—— You see for yourself that we must do more than simply trust to luck.”
“We need not trust to luck, sir. I would suggest that you approached your friend, Mr. Bingham, and volunteered your services at his forthcoming entertainment. It could readily be arranged that you sang immediately before Mr. Glossop. I fancy, sir, that, if Mr. Glossop were to sing ‘Sonny Boy’ directly after you, too, had sung ‘Sonny Boy,’ the audience would respond satisfactorily. By the time Mr. Glossop began to sing, they would have lost their taste for that particular song and would express their feelings warmly.”
“Jeeves,” said Aunt Dahlia, “you’re a marvel!”
“Thank you, madam.”
“Jeeves,” I said, “you’re an ass!”
“What do you mean, he’s an ass?” said Aunt Dahlia, hotly. “I think it’s the greatest scheme I ever heard.”
“Me sing ‘Sonny Boy’ at Beefy Bingham’s clean, bright entertainment? I can see myself!”
“You sing it daily in your bath, sir. Mr. Wooster,” said Jeeves, turning to Aunt Dahlia, “has a pleasant, light baritone.”
“I bet he has,” said Aunt Dahlia.
I checked the man with one of my looks.
“Between singing ‘Sonny Boy’ in one’s bath, Jeeves, and singing it before a hall-full of assorted blood-orange merchants and their young, there is a substantial difference.”
“Bertie,” said Aunt Dahlia, “you’ll sing and like it!”
“I will not.”
“Bertie!”
“Nothing will induce——”
“Bertie,” said Aunt Dahlia, firmly, “you will sing ‘Sonny Boy’ on Tuesday, the third prox., or may an aunt’s curse——”
“I won’t!”
“Think of Angela!”
“Dash Angela!”
“Bertie!”
“No, I mean, hang it all!”
“You won’t?”
“No, I won’t.”
“That is your last word, is it?”
“It is. Once and for all, Aunt Dahlia, nothing will induce me to let out so much as a single note.”
And so that afternoon I sent a prepaid wire to Beefy Bingham, offering my services in the cause, and by nightfall the thing was fixed up. I was billed to perform next but one after the intermission. Following me came Tuppy. And immediately after him, Miss Cora Bellinger, the well-known operatic soprano.
How these things happen, I couldn’t say. The chivalry of the Woosters, I suppose.
“Jeeves,” I said, that evening, and I said it coldly, “I shall be glad if you will pop round to the nearest music-shop and procure me a copy of ‘Sonny Boy.’ It will now be necessary for me to learn both verse and refrain. Of the trouble and nervous strain which this will involve, I say nothing.”
“Very good, sir.”
“But this I do say——”
“I had better be starting immediately, sir, or the shop will be closed.”
“Ha!” I said.
And I meant it to sting.
ALTHOUGH I had steeled myself to the ordeal before me and had set out full of the calm, quiet courage which makes men do desperate deeds with proud, set faces, I must admit that there was a moment, just after I had entered the Oddfellows’ Hall at Bermondsey East and run an eye over the assembled pleasure-seekers, when it needed all the bulldog pluck of the Woosters to keep me from calling it a day and taking a cab back to civilization. The clean, bright entertainment was in full swing when I arrived, and somebody who looked as if he might be the local undertaker was reciting Gunga Din. And the audience, though not actually chiyiking in the full technical sense of the term, had a grim look which I didn’t like at all. The mere sight of them gave me the sort of feeling Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego must have had when preparing to enter the burning, fiery furnace.
Scanning the multitude, it seemed to me that they were for the nonce suspending judgment. Did you ever tap on the door of one of those New York speak-easy places and see the grille snap back and a Face appear? There is one long, silent moment when its eyes are fixed on yours and all your past life seems to rise up before you. Then you say that you are a friend of Mr. Zinzinheimer and he told you they would treat you right if you mentioned his name, and the strain relaxes. Well, these costermongers and whelkstallers appeared to me to be looking just like that Face. Start something, they seemed to say, and they would know what to do about it. And I couldn’t help feeling that my singing ‘Sonny Boy’ would come, in their opinion, under the head of starting something.
“A nice, full house, sir,” said a voice at my elbow.
It was Jeeves, watching the proceedings with an indulgent eye.
“You here, Jeeves?” I said, coldly.
“Yes, sir. I have been present since the commencement.”
“Oh?” I said. “Any casualties yet?”
“Sir?”
“You know what I mean, Jeeves,” I said, sternly, “and don’t pretend you don’t. Anybody got the bird yet?”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“I shall be the first, you think?”
“No, sir, I see no reason to expect such a misfortune. I anticipate that you will be well received.”
A sudden thought struck me.
“And you think everything will go according to plan?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I don’t,” I said. “I’ve spotted a flaw in your beastly scheme.”
“A flaw, sir?”
“Yes. Do you suppose for a moment that, when Mr. Glossop hears me singing that dashed song, he’ll come calmly on a minute after me and sing it, too? Use your intelligence, Jeeves. He will perceive the chasm in his path and pause in time. He will back out and refuse to go on at all.”
“Mr. Glossop will not hear you sing, sir. At my advice, he has stepped across the road to the Jug and Bottle, an establishment immediately opposite the hall, and he intends to remain there until it is time for him to appear on the platform.”
“Oh!” I said.
“If I might suggest it, sir, there is another house named the Goat and Grapes, only a short distance down the street. I think it might be a judicious move——”
“If I were to put a bit of custom in their way?”
“It would ease the nervous strain of waiting, sir.”
I had not been feeling any too pleased with the man for having let me in for this ghastly binge, but at these words I’m bound to say my austerity softened a trifle. He was undoubtedly right. He had studied the psychology of the individual, if you see what I mean, and it had not led him astray. A quiet ten minutes at the Goat and Grapes was exactly what my system required. To buzz off there and inhale a couple of swift whisky-and-sodas was with Bertram Wooster the work of a moment.
The treatment worked like magic. What they had put into the stuff, besides vitriol, I could not have said; but it completely altered my outlook on life. That curious, gulpy feeling passed. I was no longer conscious of the sagging sensation at the knees. The limbs ceased to quiver gently, the tongue became loosened in its socket, and the backbone stiffened. Pausing merely to order and swallow another of the same, I bade the barmaid a cheery good night, nodded affably to one or two fellows in the bar whose faces I liked, and came prancing back to the hall, ready for anything.
And shortly afterwards I was on the platform with about a million bulging eyes goggling up at me. There was a rummy sort of buzzing in my ears, and then through the buzzing I heard the sound of a piano starting to tinkle; and, commending my soul to God, I took a good, long breath and charged in.
WELL, it was a close thing. The whole incident is a bit blurred, but I seem to recollect a kind of murmur as I hit the refrain. I thought at the time it was an attempt on the part of the many-headed to join in the chorus, and at the moment it rather encouraged me. I passed the thing over the larynx with all the vim at my disposal, hit the high note, and off gracefully into the wings. I didn’t come on again to take a bow. I just receded and oiled round to where Jeeves awaited me among the standees at the back.
“Well, Jeeves,” I said, anchoring myself at his side and brushing the honest sweat from the brow. “They didn’t rush the platform.”
“No, sir.”
“But you can spread it about that that’s the last time I perform outside my bath. My swan-song, Jeeves. Anybody who wants to hear me in future must present himself at the bathroom door and shove his ear against the keyhole. I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that towards the end they were hotting up a trifle. The bird was hovering in the air. I could hear the beating of its wings.”
“I did detect a certain restlessness, sir, in the audience. I fancy they had lost their taste for that particular melody. I should have informed you earlier, sir, that the song had already been sung twice before you arrived.”
“What!”
“Yes, sir. Once by a lady and once by a gentleman. It is a very popular song, sir.”
I gaped at the man. That, with this knowledge, he could calmly have allowed the young master to step straight into the jaws of death, so to speak, paralysed me. It seemed to show that the old feudal spirit had passed away altogether. I was about to give him my views on the matter in no uncertain fashion, when I was stopped by the spectacle of young Tuppy lurching on to the platform.
Young Tuppy had the unmistakable air of a man who has recently been round to the Jug and Bottle. A few cheery cries of welcome, presumably from some of his backgammon-playing pals who felt that blood was thicker than water, had the effect of causing the genial smile on his face to widen till it nearly met at the back. He was plainly feeling about as good as a man can feel and still remain on his feet. He waved a kindly hand to his supporters, and bowed in a regal sort of manner, rather like an Eastern monarch acknowledging the plaudits of the mob.
Then the female at the piano struck up the opening bars of “Sonny Boy,” and Tuppy swelled like a balloon, clasped his hands together, rolled his eyes up at the ceiling in a manner denoting Soul, and began.
I think the populace was too stunned for the moment to take immediate steps. It may seem incredible, but I give you my word that young Tuppy got right through the verse without so much as a murmur. Then they seemed to pull themselves together.
A COSTERMONGER roused is a terrible thing. I had never seen the proletariat really stirred before, and I’m bound to say it rather awed me. I mean, it gave you some idea of what it must have been like during the French Revolution. From every corner of the hall there proceeded simultaneously the sort of noise you hear at one of those East-end boxing places when the referee disqualifies the popular favourite and makes the quick dash for life. And then they passed beyond mere words and began to introduce the vegetable motive.
I don’t know why, but somehow I had got it into my head that the first thing thrown at Tuppy would be a potato. One gets these fancies. It was, however, as a matter of fact, a banana, and I saw in an instant that the choice had been made by wiser heads than mine. These blokes who have grown up from childhood in the knowledge of how to treat a dramatic entertainment that doesn’t please them are aware by a sort of instinct just what to do for the best, and the moment I saw that banana splash on Tuppy’s shirt-front I realized how infinitely more effective and artistic it was than any potato could have been.
Not that the potato school of thought had not also its supporters. As the proceedings warmed up, I noticed several intelligent-looking fellows who threw nothing else.
The effect on young Tuppy was rather remarkable. His eyes bulged and his hair seemed to stand up, and yet his mouth went on opening and shutting, and you could see that in a dazed, automatic way he was still singing “Sonny Boy.” Then, coming out of his trance, he began to pull for the shore with some rapidity. The last seen of him, he was beating a tomato to the exit by a short head.
Presently the tumult and the shouting died. I turned to Jeeves.
“Painful, Jeeves,” I said. “But what would you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The surgeon’s knife, what?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“Well, with this happening beneath her eyes, I think we may definitely consider the Glossop-Bellinger romance off.”
“Yes, sir.”
At this point old Beefy Bingham came out on to the platform.
I SUPPOSED that he was about to rebuke his flock for the recent expression of feeling. But such was not the case. No doubt he was accustomed by now to the wholesome give-and-take of these clean, bright entertainments and had ceased to think it worth while to make any comment when there was a certain liveliness.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said old Beefy. “The next item on the programme was to have been songs by Miss Cora Bellinger, the well-known operatic soprano. I have just received a telephone-message from Miss Bellinger, saying that her car has broken down. She is, however, on her way here in a cab and will arrive shortly. Meanwhile, our friend Mr. Enoch Simpson will recite ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade.’ ”
I clutched at Jeeves.
“Jeeves! You heard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She wasn’t there!”
“No, sir.”
“She saw nothing of Tuppy’s Waterloo.”
“No, sir.”
“The whole bally scheme has blown a fuse.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come, Jeeves,” I said, and those standing by wondered, no doubt, what had caused that clean-cut face to grow so pale and set. “I have been subjected to a nervous strain unparalleled since the days of the early martyrs. I have lost pounds in weight and permanently injured my entire system. I have gone through an ordeal which will make me wake up screaming in the night for months to come. And all for nothing. Let us go.”
“If you have no objection, sir, I would like to witness the remainder of the entertainment.”
“Suit yourself, Jeeves,” I said moodily. “Personally, my heart is dead and I am going to look in at the Goat and Grapes for another of their cyanide specials and then home.”
IT must have been about half-past ten, and I was in the old sitting-room sombrely sucking down a more or less final restorative, when the front-door bell rang, and there on the mat was young Tuppy. He looked like a man who has passed through some great experience and stood face to face with his soul. He had the beginnings of a black eye.
“Oh, hullo, Bertie!” said young Tuppy.
He came in and hovered about the mantelpiece as if he were looking for things to fiddle with and break.
“I’ve just been singing at Beefy Bingham’s entertainment,” he said, after a pause.
“Oh?” I said. “How did you go?”
“Like a breeze,” said young Tuppy. “Held them spellbound.”
“Knocked ’em, eh?”
“Cold,” said young Tuppy. “Not a dry eye.”
And this, mark you, a man who had had a good upbringing and had, no doubt, spent years at his mother’s knee being taught to tell the truth.
“I suppose Miss Bellinger is pleased?”
“Oh, yes. Delighted.”
“So now everything’s all right?”
“Oh, quite.”
Tuppy paused.
“On the other hand, Bertie——”
“Yes?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking things over. Somehow I don’t believe Miss Bellinger is the mate for me after all.”
“What!”
“No, I don’t.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. These things sort of flash on you. I respect Miss Bellinger, Bertie. I admire her. But—er—well, I can’t help feeling now that a sweet, gentle girl—er—like your Cousin Angela, Bertie—would—er—in fact—well, what I came round for was to ask if you would ’phone Angela and find out how she reacts to the idea of coming out with me to-night to the Berkeley for a bit of supper and a spot of dancing.”
“Go ahead. There’s the ’phone.”
“No; I’d rather you asked her, Bertie. What with one thing and another, if you paved the way—— You see, there’s just a chance that she may be—I mean, you know how misunderstandings occur—and—well, what I’m driving at, Bertie, old man, is that I’d rather you surged round and did a bit of paving, if you don’t mind.”
I went to the ’phone and called up Aunt Dahlia’s.
“She says come right round,” I said.
“Tell her,” said Tuppy in a devout sort of voice, “that I will be with her in something under a couple of ticks.”
He had barely biffed, when I heard a click in the keyhole and a soft padding in the passage without.
“Jeeves!” I called.
“Sir,” said Jeeves, manifesting himself.
“Jeeves, a remarkably rummy thing has happened. Mr. Glossop has just been here. He tells me all is off between him and Miss Bellinger.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“No, sir. I confess I had anticipated some such eventuality.”
“Eh? What gave you that idea?”
“It came to me, sir, when I observed Miss Bellinger strike Mr. Glossop in the eye.”
“Strike him!”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the eye?”
“The left eye, sir.”
I clutched the brow.
“What on earth made her do that?”
“I fancy she was a little upset, sir, at the reception accorded to her singing.”
“Great Scott! Don’t tell me she got the bird, too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But why? She’s got a red-hot voice.”
“Yes, sir. But I think the audience resented her choice of a song.”
“Jeeves!” Reason was beginning to do a bit of tottering on its throne. “You aren’t going to stand there and tell me that Miss Bellinger sang ‘Sonny Boy,’ too!”
“Yes, sir. And—mistakenly, in my opinion—brought a large doll on to the platform to sing it to. The audience affected to mistake it for a ventriloquist’s dummy, and there was some little disturbance.”
“But, Jeeves, what a coincidence!”
“Not altogether, sir. I ventured to take the liberty of accosting Miss Bellinger on her arrival at the hall and recalling myself to her recollection. I then said that Mr. Glossop had asked me to request her that, as a particular favour to him—the song being a favourite of his—she would sing ‘Sonny Boy.’ And when she found that you and Mr. Glossop had also sung the song immediately before her, I rather fancy that she supposed that she had been made the victim of a practical pleasantry by Mr. Glossop. Will there be anything further, sir?”
“No, thanks.”
“Good night, sir.”
“Good night, Jeeves,” I said, reverently.
Annotations to the story as collected in Very Good, Jeeves are on this site.