Bertie Wooster Sees It Through

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Chapter 1 As I sat in the bath tub, soaping a meditative foot and singing, if I remember correctly, "Pale Hands I Loved Beside The Shalimar," it would be deceiving my public to say that I was feeling boomps-a-daisy. The evening that lay before me promised to be one of those sticky evenings, no good to man or beast. My Aunt Dahlia, writing from her country residence, Brinkley Court down in Worcestershire, had asked me as a personal favor to take some acquaintances of hers out to dinner, a couple of the name of Trotter.They were, she said, creeps of the first water and would bore the pants off me, but it was imperative that they be given the old oil, because she was in the middle of a very tricky business deal with the male half of the sketch and at such times every little helps. "Don't fail me, my beautiful bountiful Bertie," her letter had concluded, on a note of poignant appeal.Well, this Dahlia is my good and deserving aunt, not to be confused with Aunt Agatha, the one who kills rats with her teeth and devours her young, so when she says Don't fail me, I don't fail her. But, as I say, I was in no sense looking forward to the binge. The view I took of it was that the curse had come upon me.It had done so, moreover, at a moment when I was already lowered spiritually by the fact that for the last couple of weeks or so Jeeves had been away on his summer holiday. Round about the beginning of July each year he downs tools, the slacker, and goes off to Bognor Regis for the shrimping, leaving me in much the same position as those poets one used to have to read at school who were always beefing about losing gazelles. For without this righthand man at his side Bertram Wooster becomes a mere shadow of his former self and in no condition to cope with any ruddy Trotters.Brooding darkly on these Trotters, whoever they might be, I was starting to scour the left elbow and had switched to "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life," when my reverie was interrupted by the sound of a soft footstep in the bedroom, and I sat up, alert and, as you might say, agog, the soap frozen in my grasp. If feet were stepping softly in my sleeping quarters, it could only mean, I felt, unless of course a burglar had happened to drop in, that the prop of the establishment had returned from his vacation, no doubt looking bronzed and fit.A quiet cough told me that I had reasoned astutely, and I gave tongue."Is that you, Jeeves?""Yes, sir.""Home again, what?""Yes, sir.""Welcome to 3A Berkeley Mansions, London W.1," I said, feeling like a shepherd when a strayed sheep comes trickling back to the fold. "Did you have a good time?""Most agreeable, thank you, sir.""You must tell me all about it.""Certainly, sir, at your convenience.""I'll bet you hold me spellbound. What are you doing in there?""A letter has just arrived for you, sir. I was placing it on the dressing table. Will you be dining in, sir?""No, out, blast it. A blind date with some slabs of gorgonzola sponsored by Aunt Dahlia. So if you want to go to the club, carry on."As I have mentioned elsewhere in these memoirs of mine, Jeeves belongs to a rather posh club for butlers and valets called the Junior Ganymede, situated somewhere in Curzon Street, and I knew that after his absence from the metropolis he would be all eagerness to buzz round there and hobnob with the boys, picking up the threads and all that sort of thing. When I've been away for a week or two, my first move is always to make a beeline for the Drones."I'll bet you get a rousing welcome from the members, with a hey-nonny-nonny and a hot-cha-cha," I said. "Did I hear you say something about there being a letter for me?""Yes, sir. It was delivered a moment ago by special messenger.""Important, do you think?""One can only conjecture, sir.""Better open it and read contents.""Very good, sir."There was a stage wait of about a minute and a half, during which, my