Jeeves was happy, partly because he loves to exercise his giant brain, and partly because he was having a corking time among the bright lights. I saw him one night at the Midnight Revels. He was sitting at a table on the edge of the dancing floor, doing himself remarkably well with a fat cigar and a bottle of the best. I’d never imagined he could look so nearly human. His face wore an expression of austere benevolence, and he was making notes in a small book.
As for the rest of us, I was feeling pretty good, because I was fond of old Rocky and glad to be able to do him a good turn. Rocky was perfectly contented, because he was still able to sit on fences in his pyjamas and watch worms. And, as for the aunt, she seemed tickled to death. She was getting Broadway at pretty long range, but it seemed to be hitting her just right. I read one of her letters to Rocky, and it was full of life.
But then Rocky’s letters, based on Jeeves’s notes, were enough to buck anybody up. It was rummy when you came to think of it. There was I, loving the life, while the mere mention of it gave Rocky a tired feeling; yet here is a letter I wrote to a pal of mine in London:
“DEAR FREDDIE,—Well, here I am in New York. It’s not a bad place.
I’m not having a bad time. Everything’s pretty all right. The
cabarets aren’t bad. Don’t know when I shall be back. How’s
everybody? Cheer-o!—Yours,
“BERTIE.
“PS.—Seen old Ted lately?”
Not that I cared about Ted; but if I hadn’t dragged him in I couldn’t have got the confounded thing on to the second page.
Now here’s old Rocky on exactly the same subject:
“DEAREST AUNT ISABEL,—How can I ever thank you enough for giving
me the opportunity to live in this astounding city! New York seems
more wonderful every day.
“Fifth Avenue is at its best, of course, just now. The dresses are
magnificent!”
Wads of stuff about the dresses. I didn’t know Jeeves was such an authority.
“I was out with some of the crowd at the Midnight Revels the other
night. We took in a show first, after a little dinner at a new
place on Forty-third Street. We were quite a gay party. Georgie
Cohan looked in about midnight and got off a good one about Willie
Collier. Fred Stone could only stay a minute, but Doug. Fairbanks
did all sorts of stunts and made us roar. Diamond Jim Brady was
there, as usual, and Laurette Taylor showed up with a party. The
show at the Revels is quite good. I am enclosing a programme.
“Last night a few of us went round to Frolics on the Roof——”
And so on and so forth, yards of it. I suppose it’s the artistic temperament or something. What I mean is, it’s easier for a chappie who’s used to writing poems and that sort of tosh to put a bit of a punch into a letter than it is for a chappie like me. Anyway, there’s no doubt that Rocky’s correspondence was hot stuff. I called Jeeves in and congratulated him.
“Jeeves, you’re a wonder!”
“Thank you, sir.”
“How you notice everything at these places beats me. I couldn’t tell you a thing about them, except that I’ve had a good time.”
“It’s just a knack, sir.”
“Well, Mr. Todd’s letters ought to brace Miss Rockmetteller all right, what?”
“Undoubtedly, sir,” agreed Jeeves.
And, by Jove, they did! They certainly did, by George! What I mean to say is, I was sitting in the apartment one afternoon, about a month after the thing had started, smoking a cigarette and resting the old bean, when the door opened and the voice of Jeeves burst the silence like a bomb.
It wasn’t that he spoke loud. He has one of those soft, soothing voices that slide through the atmosphere like the note of a far-off sheep. It was what he said made me leap like a young gazelle.
“Miss Rockmetteller!”
And in came a large, solid female.
The situation floored me. I’m not denying it. Hamlet must have felt much as I did when his father’s ghost bobbed up in the fairway. I’d come to look on Rocky’s aunt as such a permanency at her own home that it didn’t seem possible that she could really be here in New York. I stared at her. Then I looked at Jeeves. He was standing there in an attitude of dignified detachment, the chump, when, if ever he should have been rallying round the young master, it was now.