This apparently struck Gussie as a reasonable explanation. His face cleared.
“That’s right, too,” he said…. “Well, here it is, cocky. You off?” he said, as the kid prepared to withdraw.
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Wait, R.V. Smethurst. Not so fast. Before you go, there is a question I wish to ask you.”
But the beard bloke’s aim now seemed to be to rush the ceremonies a bit. He hustled R.V. Smethurst off stage rather like a chucker-out in a pub regretfully ejecting an old and respected customer, and starting paging G.G. Simmons. A moment later the latter was up and coming, and conceive my emotion when it was announced that the subject on which he had clicked was Scripture knowledge. One of us, I mean to say.
G.G. Simmons was an unpleasant, perky-looking stripling, mostly front teeth and spectacles, but I gave him a big hand. We Scripture-knowledge sharks stick together.
Gussie, I was sorry to see, didn’t like him. There was in his manner, as he regarded G.G. Simmons, none of the chumminess which had marked it during his interview with P.K. Purvis or, in a somewhat lesser degree, with R.V. Smethurst. He was cold and distant.
“Well, G.G. Simmons.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“What do you mean—sir, yes, sir? Dashed silly thing to say. So you’ve won the Scripture-knowledge prize, have you?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Yes,” said Gussie, “you look just the sort of little tick who would. And yet,” he said, pausing and eyeing the child keenly, “how are we to know that this has all been open and above board? Let me test you, G.G. Simmons. What was What’s-His-Name—the chap who begat Thingummy? Can you answer me that, Simmons?”
“Sir, no, sir.”
Gussie turned to the bearded bloke.
“Fishy,” he said. “Very fishy. This boy appears to be totally lacking in Scripture knowledge.”
The bearded bloke passed a hand across his forehead.
“I can assure you, Mr. Fink-Nottle, that every care was taken to ensure a correct marking and that Simmons outdistanced his competitors by a wide margin.”
“Well, if you say so,” said Gussie doubtfully. “All right, G.G. Simmons, take your prize.”
“Sir, thank you, sir.”
“But let me tell you that there’s nothing to stick on side about in winning a prize for Scripture knowledge. Bertie Wooster–-”
I don’t know when I’ve had a nastier shock. I had been going on the assumption that, now that they had stopped him making his speech, Gussie’s fangs had been drawn, as you might say. To duck my head down and resume my edging toward the door was with me the work of a moment.
“Bertie Wooster won the Scripture-knowledge prize at a kids’ school we were at together, and you know what he’s like. But, of course, Bertie frankly cheated. He succeeded in scrounging that Scripture-knowledge trophy over the heads of better men by means of some of the rawest and most brazen swindling methods ever witnessed even at a school where such things were common. If that man’s pockets, as he entered the examination-room, were not stuffed to bursting-point with lists of the kings of Judah–-”
I heard no more. A moment later I was out in God’s air, fumbling with a fevered foot at the self-starter of the old car.
The engine raced. The clutch slid into position. I tooted and drove off.
My ganglions were still vibrating as I ran the car into the stables of Brinkley Court, and it was a much shaken Bertram who tottered up to his room to change into something loose. Having donned flannels, I lay down on the bed for a bit, and I suppose I must have dozed off, for the next thing I remember is finding Jeeves at my side.
I sat up. “My tea, Jeeves?”
“No, sir. It is nearly dinner-time.”
The mists cleared away.
“I must have been asleep.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nature taking its toll of the exhausted frame.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And enough to make it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And now it’s nearly dinner-time, you say? All right. I am in no mood for dinner, but I suppose you had better lay out the clothes.”
“It will not be necessary, sir. The company will not be dressing tonight. A cold collation has been set out in the dining-room.”