‘I think the juvenile element enjoyed the festivities, sir.’
‘How about you?’
‘Sir?’
‘You were all right? They didn’t put your head in a sack and prod you with sticks?’
‘No, sir. My share in the afternoon’s events was confined to assisting in the tea tent.’
‘You speak lightly, Jeeves, but I’ve known some dark work to take place in school treat tea tents.’
‘It is odd that you should say that, sir, for it was while partaking of tea that a lad threw a hard-boiled egg at Sir Watkyn.’
‘And hit him?’
‘On the left cheek-bone, sir. It was most unfortunate.’
I could not subscribe to this.
‘I don’t know why you say “unfortunate”. Best thing that could have happened, in my opinion. The very first time I set eyes on Pop Bassett, in the picturesque environment of Bosher Street police court, I remember saying to myself that there sat a man to whom it would do all the good in the world to have hard-boiled eggs thrown at him. One of my crowd on that occasion, a lady accused of being drunk and disorderly and resisting the police, did on receipt of her sentence, throw her boot at him, but with a poor aim, succeeding only in beaning the magistrate’s clerk. What’s the boy’s name?’
‘I could not say, sir. His actions were cloaked in anonymity.’
‘A pity. I would have liked to reward him by sending camels bearing apes, ivory and peacocks to his address. Did you see anything of Gussie in the course of the afternoon?’
‘Yes, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle, at Miss Bassett’s insistence, played a large part in the proceedings and was, I am sorry to say, somewhat roughly handled by the younger revellers. Among other vicissitudes that he underwent, a child entangled its all-day sucker in his hair.’
‘That must have annoyed him. He’s fussy about his hair.’
‘Yes, sir, he was visibly incensed. He detached the sweetmeat and threw it from him with a good deal of force, and by ill luck it struck Miss Byng’s dog on the nose. Affronted by what he presumably mistook for an unprovoked assault, the animal bit Mr. Fink-Nottle in the leg.’
‘Poor old Gussie!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Still, into each life some rain must fall.’
‘Precisely, sir. I will go and bring your whisky-and-soda.’
He had scarcely gone, when Gussie blew in, limping a little but otherwise showing no signs of what Jeeves had called the vicissitudes he had undergone. He seemed, indeed, above rather than below his usual form, and I remember the phrase ‘the bulldog breed’ passed through my mind. If Gussie was a sample of young England’s stamina and fortitude, it seemed to me that the country’s future was secure. It is not every nation that can produce sons capable of grinning, as he was doing, so shortly after being bitten by Aberdeen terriers.
‘Oh, there you are, Bertie,’ he said. ‘Jeeves told me you were back. I looked in to borrow some cigarettes.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, filling his case. ‘I’m taking Emerald Stoker for a walk.’
‘You’re what?
‘Or a row on the river. Whichever she prefers.’
‘But, Gussie -‘
‘Oh, before I forget. Pinker is looking for you. He says he wants to see you about something important.’
‘Never mind about Stinker. You can’t take Emerald Stoker for walks.’
‘Can’t I? Watch me.’
‘But -‘
‘Sorry, no time to talk now. I don’t want to keep her waiting. So long, I must be off.’
He left me plunged in thought, and not agreeable thought either. I think I have made it clear to the meanest i. that my whole future depended on Augustus Fink-Nottle sticking to the straight and narrow path and not blotting his copybook, and I could not but feel that by taking Emerald Stoker for walks he was skidding off the straight and narrow path and blotting his c. in no uncertain manner. That, at least, was, I was pretty sure, how an idealistic beazel like Madeline Bassett, already rendered hot under the collar by his subversive views on sunsets and Blessed Damozels, would regard it. It is not too much to say that when Jeeves returned with the whisky-and-s., he found me all of a twitter and shaking on my stem.