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 door and the parcel was delivered.
It was certainly some book. It had a red cover with a fowl of some species on it, and underneath the girl’s name in gold letters. I opened a copy at random.
“Often of a spring morning,” it said at the top of page twenty-one, “as you wander through the fields, you will hear the sweet-toned, carelessly flowing warble of the purple finch linnet. When you are older you must read all about him in Mr. Alexander Worple’s wonderful book—American Birds.”
You see. A boost for the uncle right away. And only a few pages later there he was in the limelight again in connection with the yellow-billed cuckoo. It was great stuff. The more I read, the more I admired the chap who had written it and Jeeves’s genius in putting us on to the wheeze. I didn’t see how the uncle could fail to drop. You can’t call a chap the world’s greatest authority on the yellow-billed cuckoo without rousing a certain disposition towards chumminess in him.
“It’s a cert!” I said.
“An absolute cinch!” said Corky.
And a day or two later he meandered up the Avenue to my apartment to tell me that all was well. The uncle had written Muriel a letter so dripping with the milk of human kindness that if he hadn’t known Mr. Worple’s handwriting Corky would have refused to believe him the author of it. Any time it suited Miss Singer to call, said the uncle, he would be delighted to make her acquaintance.
Shortly after this I had to go out of town. Divers sound sportsmen had invited me to pay visits to their country places, and it wasn’t for several months that I settled down in the city again. I had been wondering a lot, of course, about Corky, whether it all turned out right, and so forth, and my first evening in New York, happening to pop into a quiet sort of little restaurant which I go to when I don’t feel inclined for the bright lights, I found Muriel Singer there, sitting by herself at a table near the door. Corky, I took it, was out telephoning. I went up and passed the time of day.
“Well, well, well, what?” I said.
“Why, Mr. Wooster! How do you do?”
“Corky around?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re waiting for Corky, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I didn’t understand. No, I’m not waiting for him.”
It seemed to roe that there was a sort of something in her voice, a kind of thingummy, you know.
“I say, you haven’t had a row with Corky, have you?”
“A row?”
“A spat, don’t you know—little misunderstanding—faults on both sides—er—and all that sort of thing.”
“Why, whatever makes you think that?”
“Oh, well, as it were, what? What I mean is—I thought you usually dined with him before you went to the theatre.”
“I’ve left the stage now.”
Suddenly the whole thing dawned on me. I had forgotten what a long time I had been away.
“Why, of course, I see now! You’re married!”
“Yes.”
“How perfectly topping! I wish you all kinds of happiness.”
“Thank you, so much. Oh Alexander,” she said, looking past me, “this is a friend of mine—Mr. Wooster.”
I spun round. A chappie with a lot of stiff grey hair and a red sort of healthy face was standing there. Rather a formidable Johnnie, he looked, though quite peaceful at the moment.
“I want you to meet my husband, Mr. Wooster. Mr. Wooster is a friend of Bruce’s, Alexander.”
The old boy grasped my hand warmly, and that was all that kept me from hitting the floor in a heap. The place was rocking. Absolutely.
“So you know my nephew, Mr. Wooster,” I heard him say. “I wish you would try to knock a little sense into him and make him quit this playing at painting. But I have an idea that he is steadying down. I noticed it first that night he came to dinner with us, my dear, to be introduced to you. He seemed altogether quieter and more serious. Something seemed to have sobered him. Perhaps you will give us the pleasure of your company at dinner to-night, Mr. Wooster? Or have you dined?”