‘ ‘What has been happening?’
‘No time to tell you now. I’m in a hurry.’
It was at this point that I noticed something in his appearance which I had overlooked. A trifle, but I’m rather observant.
‘You’ve got egg in your hair,’ I said.
‘Of course I’ve got egg in my hair,’ he said, his manner betraying impatience. ‘What did you expect me to have in my hair, Chanel Number Five?’
‘Did somebody throw an egg at you?’
‘Everybody threw eggs at everybody. Correction. Some of them threw turnips and potatoes.’
‘You mean the meeting broke up in disorder, as the expression is?’
‘I don’t suppose any meeting in the history of English politics has ever broken up in more disorder. Eggs flew hither and thither. The air was dark with vegetables of every description. Sidcup got a black eye. Somebody plugged him with a potato.’
I found myself in two minds. On the one hand I felt a pang of regret for having missed what had all the earmarks of having been a political meeting of the most rewarding kind: on the other, it was like rare and refreshing fruit to hear that Spode had got hit in the eye with a potato. I was conscious of an awed respect for the marksman who had accomplished this feat. A potato, being so nobbly in shape, can be aimed accurately only by a master hand.
‘Tell me more,’ I said, well pleased.
‘Tell you more be blowed. I’ve got to get up to London. We want to be there bright and early tomorrow in order to inspect registrars and choose the best one.’
This didn’t sound like Florence, who, if she ever gets through an engagement without breaking it, is sure to insist on a wedding with bishops, bridesmaids, full choral effects, and a reception afterwards. A sudden thought struck me, and I think I may have gasped. Somebody made a noise like a dying soda-water syphon and it was presumably me.
‘When you say “we”, do you mean you and M. Glendennon?’
‘Who else?’
‘But how?’
‘Never mind how.’
‘But I do mind how. You were Problem (d) on my list, and I want to know how you have been solved. I gather that Florence has remitted your sentence -‘
‘She has, in words of unmistakeable clarity. Get out of that car.’
‘But why?’
‘Because if you aren’t out of it in two seconds, I’m going to pull you out.’
‘I mean why did she r your s?’
‘Ask Jeeves,’ he said, and attaching himself to the collar of my coat he removed me from the automobile like a stevedore hoisting a sack of grain. He took my place at the wheel, and disappeared down the drive to keep his tryst with the little woman, who presumably awaited him at some pre-arranged spot with the bags and baggage.
He left me in a condition which can best be described as befogged, bewildered, mystified, confused and perplexed. All I had got out of him was (a) that the debate had not been conducted in an atmosphere of the utmost cordiality, (b) that at its conclusion Florence had forbidden the banns and (c) that if I wanted further information Jeeves would supply it. A little more than the charmers got out of the deaf adder, but not much. I felt like a barrister, as it might be Ma McCorkadale, who has been baffled by an unsatisfactory witness.
However, he had spoken of Jeeves as a fount of information, so my first move on reaching the drawing- room and finding no one there was to put forefinger to bell button and push.
Seppings answered the summons. He and I have been buddies from boyhood – mine, of course, not his – and as a rule when we meet conversation flows like water, mainly on the subject of the weather and the state of his lumbago, but this was no time for idle chatter.
‘Seppings,’ I said, ‘I want Jeeves. Where is he?’
‘In the servants hall, sir, comforting the parlourmaid.’
I took him to allude to the employee whose gong-work I had admired on my first evening, and, pressing though my business was, it seemed only humane to offer a word of sympathy for whatever her misfortunes might be.