Jeeves, you see, is always getting me out of entanglements with the opposite sex, and he knows all about the various females who from time to time have come within an ace of hauling me to the altar rails, but of course we don’t discuss them. To do so, we feel, would come under the head of bandying a woman’s name, and the Woosters do not bandy women’s names. Nor do the Jeeveses. I can’t speak for his Uncle Charlie Silversmith, but I should imagine that he, too, has his code of ethics in this respect. These things generally run in families.
So I merely filled him in about her making Ginger stand for Parliament and the canvassing we were going to undertake, urging him to do his utmost to make the electors think along the right lines, and he said ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘Very good, sir’ and ‘I quite understand, sir’, and we proceeded to the Junior Ganymede.
An extremely cosy club it proved to be. I didn’t wonder that he liked to spend so much of his leisure there. It lacked the sprightliness of the Drones. I shouldn’t think there was much bread and sugar thrown about at lunch time, and you would hardly expect that there would be when you reflected that the membership consisted of elderly butlers and gentlemen’s gentlemen of fairly ripe years, but as regards comfort it couldn’t be faulted. The purler I had taken had left me rather tender in the fleshy parts, and it was a relief after I had been washed and brushed up and was on the spruce side, once more to sink into a well-stuffed chair in the smoking-room.
Sipping my whisky and s, I brought the conversation round again to Ginger and his election, which was naturally the front page stuff of the day.
‘Do you think he has a chance, Jeeves? ‘
He weighed the question for a moment, as if dubious as to where he would place his money.
‘It is difficult to say, sir. Market Snodsbury, like so many English country towns, might be described as strait-laced. It sets a high value on respectability.
‘Well, Ginger’s respectable enough.’
‘True, sir, but, as you are aware, he has had a Past.’
‘Not much of one.’
‘Sufficient, however, to prejudice the voters, should they learn of it.’
‘Which they can’t possibly do. I suppose he’s in the club book-‘
‘Eleven pages, Sir.’
‘-But you assure me that the contents of the club book will never be revealed.’
‘Never, sir. Mr. Winship has nothing to fear from that quarter.’ His words made me breathe more freely.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘your words make me breathe more freely. As you know, I am always a bit uneasy about the club book. Kept under lock and key, is it? ‘
‘Not actually under lock and key, sir, but it is safely bestowed in the secretary’s office.’
‘Then there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘I would not say that, sir. Mr. Winship must have had companions in his escapades, and they might inadvertently make some reference to them which would get into gossip columns in the Press and thence into the Market Snodsbury journals. I believe there are two of these, one rigidly opposed to the Conservative interest which Mr. Winship is representing. It is always a possibility, and the results would be disastrous. I have no means at the moment of knowing the identity of Mr. Winship’s opponent, but he is sure to be a model of respectability whose past can bear the strictest investigation.’
‘You’re pretty gloomy, Jeeves. Why aren’t you gathering rosebuds? The poet Herrick would shake his head.’
‘I am sorry, sir. I did not know that you were taking Mr. Winship’s fortunes so much to heart, or I would have been more guarded in my speech. Is victory in the election of such importance to him? ‘
‘It’s vital. Florence will hand him his hat if he doesn’t win.’
‘Surely not, sir?’
‘That’s what he says, and I think he’s right. His observations on the subject were most convincing. He says she’s a perfectionist and has no use for a loser. It is well established that she handed Percy Gorringe the pink slip because the play he made of her novel only ran three nights.’