‘Jeeves,’ I said, leading him from the room. ‘I must marshal my thoughts.’
‘Certainly, sir, if you wish.’
‘And I can’t possibly do it here with crises turning handsprings on every side. Can you think of a good excuse for me to pop up to London for the night? A few hours alone in the peaceful surroundings of the flat are what I need. I must concentrate, concentrate.’
‘But do you require an excuse, sir?’
‘It’s better to have one. Aunt Dahlia is on a sticky wicket and would be hurt if I deserted her now unless I had some good reason. I can’t let her down.’
‘The sentiment does you credit, sir.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves. Can you think of anything?’
‘You have been summoned for jury duty, sir.’
‘Don’t they let you have a longish notice for that?’
‘Yes, sir, but when the post arrived containing the letter from the authorities, I forgot to give it to you, and only delivered it a moment ago. Fortunately it was not too late. Would you be intending to leave immediately?’
‘If not sooner. I’ll borrow Ginger’s car.’
‘You will miss the debate, sir.’
‘The what?’
‘The debate between Mr. Winship and his opponent. It takes place tomorrow night.’
‘What time?’
‘It is scheduled for a quarter to seven.’
‘Taking how long?’
‘Perhaps an hour.’
‘Then expect me back at about seven-thirty. The great thing in life, Jeeves, if we wish to be happy and prosperous, is to miss as many political debates as possible. You wouldn’t care to come with me, would you?’
‘No, thank you, sir. I am particularly anxious to hear Mr. Winship’s speech.’
‘He’ll probably only say “Er”,’ I riposted rather cleverly.
CHAPTER Sixteen
It was with a heart definitely bowed down mood and the circles beneath my eyes darker than ever that I drove back next day in what is known as the quiet evenfall. I remember Jeeves saying something to me once about the heavy and the weary weight of this unintelligible world… not his own, I gathered, but from the works of somebody called Wordsworth, if I caught the name correctly… and it seemed to me rather a good way of describing the depressing feeling you get when the soup is about to close over you and no life-belt in sight. I was conscious of this heavy and weary weight some years ago, that time when my cousins Eustace and Claude without notifying me inserted twenty-three cats in my bedroom, and I had it again, in spades, at the present juncture.
Consider the facts. I had gone up to London to wrestle in solitude with the following problems:
(a) How am I to get out of marrying Madeline Bassett?
(b) How am I to restore the porringer to L. P. Runkle before the constabulary come piling on the back of my neck?
(c) How is the ancestor to extract that money from Runkle?
(d) How is Ginger to marry Magnolia Glendennon while betrothed to Florence?
and I was returning with all four still in status quo.
For a night and day I had been giving them the cream of the Wooster brain, and for all I had accomplished I might have been the aged relative trying to solve the Observer crossword puzzle. Arriving at journey’s end, I steered the car into the drive. About half way along it there was a tricky right- hand turn, and I had slowed down to negotiate this, when a dim figure appeared before me, a voice said ‘Hoy!’, and I saw that it was Ginger.
He seemed annoyed about something. His ‘Hoy I ‘ had had a note of reproach in it, as far as it is possible to get the note of reproach into a ‘Hoyl ‘, and as he drew near and shoved his torso through the window I received the distinct impression that he was displeased.
His opening words confirmed this.
‘Bertie, you abysmal louse, what’s kept you all this time? When I lent you my car, I didn’t expect you’d come back at two o’clock in the morning.’
‘It’s only half past seven.’ He seemed amazed. ‘Is that all? I thought it was later. So much has been happening.