P g wodehouse jeeves 0.., p.1
P G Wodehouse - [Jeeves 07], page 1
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The Manor Wodehouse Col ection
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The Little Warrior
The Swoop
William Tell Told Again
Mike: A Public School Story
Jill the Reckless
The Politeness of Princes & Other School Stories
The Man Upstairs & Other Stories
The Coming of Bill
A Man of Means: A Series of Six Stories
The Gem Collector
The Adventures of Sally
The Clicking of Cuthbert
A Damsel in Distress
Jeeves in the Springtime & Other Stories
The Pothunters
My Man Jeeves
The Girl on the Boat
Mike & Psmith
The White Feather
The Man With Two Left Feet & Other Stories
Piccadilly Jim
Psmith in the City
Right Ho, Jeeves
Uneasy Money
A Prefect’s Uncle
Psmith Journalist
The Prince and Betty
Something New
The Gold Bat & Other Stories
Head of Kay’s
The Intrusion of Jimmy
The Little Nugget
Love Among the Chickens
Tales of St. Austin’s
Indiscretions of Archie
Jeeves, Emsworth and Others
Right Ho, Jeeves
P. G. Wodehouse
The Manor Wodehouse Collection
Tark Classic Fiction
an imprint of
MANOR
Rockville, Maryland
2008
Right Ho, Jeeves by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, in its current format, copyright © Arc Manor 2008. Th
is book, in whole or in part, may not be copied or reproduced in its current format by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise without the permission of the publisher.
Th
e original text has been reformatted for clarity and to fi t this edition.
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ting, translation or other errors which may have occurred during the production of this book.
ISBN: 978-1-60450-075-2
Published by TARK Classic Fiction
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Manor Wodehouse Collection
Contents
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
“Jeeves,” I said, “may I speak frankly?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“What I have to say may wound you.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Well, then—”
No – wait. Hold the line a minute. I’ve gone off the rails.
I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag
I always come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed dif-
fi cult problem of where to begin it. It’s a thing you don’t want to go
wrong over, because one false step and you’re sunk. I mean, if you
fool about too long at the start, trying to establish atmosphere, as
they call it, and all that sort of rot, you fail to grip and the customers
walk out on you.
Get off the mark, on the other hand, like a scalded cat, and your
public is at a loss. It simply raises its eyebrows, and can’t make out
what you’re talking about.
And in opening my report of the complex case of Gussie Fink-
Nottle, Madeline Bassett, my Cousin Angela, my Aunt Dahlia, my
Uncle Th
omas, young Tuppy Glossop and the cook, Anatole, with
the above spot of dialogue, I see that I have made the second of these
two fl oaters.
I shall have to hark back a bit. And taking it for all in all and
weighing this against that, I suppose the aff air may be said to have
had its inception, if inception is the word I want, with that visit of
mine to Cannes. If I hadn’t gone to Cannes, I shouldn’t have met the
Bassett or bought that white mess jacket, and Angela wouldn’t have
met her shark, and Aunt Dahlia wouldn’t have played baccarat.
Yes, most decidedly, Cannes was the point d’appui.
7
P. G. WODEHOUSE
Right ho, then. Let me marshal my facts.
I went to Cannes – leaving Jeeves behind, he having intimated
that he did not wish to miss Ascot – round about the beginning of
June. With me travelled my Aunt Dahlia and her daughter Angela.
Tuppy Glossop, Angela’s betrothed, was to have been of the party,
but at the last moment couldn’t get away. Uncle Tom, Aunt Dahl-
ia’s husband, remained at home, because he can’t stick the South of
France at any price.
So there you have the layout – Aunt Dahlia, Cousin Angela and
self off to Cannes round about the beginning of June.
All pretty clear so far, what?
We stayed at Cannes about two months, and except for the fact
that Aunt Dahlia lost her shirt at baccarat and Angela nearly got in-
haled by a shark while aquaplaning, a pleasant time was had by all.
On July the twenty-fi fth, looking bronzed and fi t, I accompanied
aunt and child back to London. At seven p.m. on July the twenty-
sixth we alighted at Victoria. And at seven-twenty or thereabouts we
parted with mutual expressions of esteem – they to shove off in Aunt
Dahlia’s car to Brinkley Court, her place in Worcestershire, where
they were expecting to entertain Tuppy in a day or two; I to go to the
fl at, drop my luggage, clean up a bit, and put on the soup and fi sh
preparatory to pushing round to the Drones for a bite of dinner.
And it was while I was at the fl at, towelling the torso after a
much-needed rinse, that Jeeves, as we chatted of this and that –
picking up the threads, as it were – suddenly brought the name of
Gussie Fink-Nottle into the conversation.
As I recall it, the dialogue ran something as follows:
self:
Well, Jeeves, here we are, what?
jeeves: Yes, sir.
self:
I mean to say, home again.
jeeves: Precisely, sir.
self:
Seems ages since I went away.
jeeves: Yes, sir.
self:
Have a good time at Ascot?
jeeves: Most agreeable, sir.
self:
Win anything?
jeeves: Quite a satisfactory sum, thank you, sir.
8
RIGHT HO, JEEVES
self:
Good. Well, Jeeves, what news on the Rialto? Any
body been phoning or calling or anything during
my abs.?
jeeves: Mr. Fink-Nottle, sir, has been a frequent caller.
I stared. Indeed, it would not be too much to say that I gaped.
“Mr. Fink-Nottle?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t mean Mr. Fink-Nottle?”
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“Yes, sir.”
“But Mr. Fink-Nottle’s not in London?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’m blowed.”
And I’ll tell you why I was blowed. I found it scarcely possible to
give credence to his statement. Th
is Fink-Nottle, you see, was one of
those freaks you come across from time to time during life’s journey
who can’t stand London. He lived year in and year out, covered with
moss, in a remote village down in Lincolnshire, never coming up
even for the Eton and Harrow match. And when I asked him once if
he didn’t fi nd the time hang a bit heavy on his hands, he said, no, be-
cause he had a pond in his garden and studied the habits of newts.
I couldn’t imagine what could have brought the chap up to the
great city. I would have been prepared to bet that as long as the sup-
ply of newts didn’t give out, nothing could have shifted him from
that village of his.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You got the name correctly? Fink-Nottle?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, it’s the most extraordinary thing. It must be fi ve years
since he was in London. He makes no secret of the fact that the
place gives him the pip. Until now, he has always stayed glued to the
country, completely surrounded by newts.”
“Sir?”
“Newts, Jeeves. Mr. Fink-Nottle has a strong newt complex.
You must have heard of newts. Th
ose little sort of lizard things that
charge about in ponds.”
“Oh, yes, sir. Th
e aquatic members of the family Salamandridae
which constitute the genus Molge.”
9
P. G. WODEHOUSE
“Th
at’s right. Well, Gussie has always been a slave to them. He
used to keep them at school.”
“I believe young gentlemen frequently do, sir.”
“He kept them in his study in a kind of glass-tank arrange-
ment, and pretty niff y the whole thing was, I recall. I suppose one
ought to have been able to see what the end would be even then, but
you know what boys are. Careless, heedless, busy about our own af-
fairs, we scarcely gave this kink in Gussie’s character a thought. We
may have exchanged an occasional remark about it taking all sorts
to make a world, but nothing more. You can guess the sequel. Th
e
trouble spread,”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Absolutely, Jeeves. Th
e craving grew upon him. Th
e newts got
him. Arrived at man’s estate, he retired to the depths of the country
and gave his life up to these dumb chums. I suppose he used to tell
himself that he could take them or leave them alone, and then found
– too late – that he couldn’t.”
“It is often the way, sir.”
“Too true, Jeeves. At any rate, for the last fi ve years he has been
living at this place of his down in Lincolnshire, as confi rmed a spe-
cies-shunning hermit as ever put fresh water in the tank every sec-
ond day and refused to see a soul. Th
at’s why I was so amazed when
you told me he had suddenly risen to the surface like this. I still can’t
believe it. I am inclined to think that there must be some mistake,
and that this bird who has been calling here is some diff erent variety
of Fink-Nottle. Th
e chap I know wears horn-rimmed spectacles and
has a face like a fi sh. How does that check up with your data?”
“Th
e gentleman who came to the fl at wore horn-rimmed spec-
tacles, sir.”
“And looked like something on a slab?”
“Possibly there was a certain suggestion of the piscine, sir.”
“Th
en it must be Gussie, I suppose. But what on earth can have
brought him up to London?”
“I am in a position to explain that, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle confi ded
to me his motive in visiting the metropolis. He came because the
young lady is here.”
“Young lady?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t mean he’s in love?”
10
RIGHT HO, JEEVES
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’m dashed. I’m really dashed. I positively am dashed,
Jeeves.”
And I was too. I mean to say, a joke’s a joke, but there are
limits.
Th
en I found my mind turning to another aspect of this rummy
aff air. Conceding the fact that Gussie Fink-Nottle, against all the
ruling of the form book, might have fallen in love, why should he
have been haunting my fl at like this? No doubt the occasion was one
of those when a fellow needs a friend, but I couldn’t see what had
made him pick on me.
It wasn’t as if he and I were in any way bosom. We had seen a lot
of each other at one time, of course, but in the last two years I hadn’t
had so much as a post card from him.
I put all this to Jeeves:
“Odd, his coming to me. Still, if he did, he did. No argument
about that. It must have been a nasty jar for the poor perisher when
he found I wasn’t here.”
“No, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle did not call to see you, sir.”
“Pull yourself together, Jeeves. You’ve just told me that this is
what he has been doing, and assiduously, at that.”
“It was I with whom he was desirous of establishing communi-
cation, sir.”
“You? But I didn’t know you had ever met him.”
“I had not had that pleasure until he called here, sir. But it ap-
pears that Mr. Sipperley, a fellow student of whom Mr. Fink-Nottle
had been at the university, recommended him to place his aff airs in
my hands.”
Th
e mystery had conked. I saw all. As I dare say you know,
Jeeves’s reputation as a counsellor has long been established among
the cognoscenti, and the fi rst move of any of my little circle on dis-
covering themselves in any form of soup is always to roll round and
put the thing up to him. And when he’s got A out of a bad spot, A
puts B on to him. And then, when he has fi xed up B, B sends C
along. And so on, if you get my drift, and so forth.
Th
at’s how these big consulting practices like Jeeves’s grow. Old
Sippy, I knew, had been deeply impressed by the man’s eff orts on his
behalf at the time when he was trying to get engaged to Elizabeth
11
P. G. WODEHOUSE
Moon, so it was not to be wondered at that he should have advised
Gussie to apply. Pure routine, you might say.
“Oh, you’re acting for him, are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now I follow. Now I understand. And what is Gussie’s
trouble?”
“Oddly enough, sir, precisely the same as that of Mr. Sipperley
when I was enabled to be of assistance to him. No doubt you recall
Mr. Sipperley’s predicament, sir. Deeply attached to Miss Moon, he
suff ered from a rooted diffi
dence which made it impossible for him
to speak.”
I nodded.
“I remember. Yes, I recall the Sipperley case. He couldn’t bring
himself to the scratch. A marked coldness of the feet, was there not?
I recollect you saying he was letting – what was it? – letting some-
thing do something. Cats entered into it, if I am not mistaken.”
“Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’, sir.”
“Th
at’s right. But how about the cats?”
“Like the poor cat i’ the adage, sir.”
“Exactly. It beats me how you think up these things. And Gussie,
you say, is in the same posish?”
“Yes, sir. Each time he endeavours to formulate a proposal of
marriage, his courage fails him.”
“And yet, if he wants this female to be his wife, he’s got to say so,
what? I mean, only civil to mention it.”
“Precisely, sir.”
I mused.
“Well, I suppose this was inevitable, Jeeves. I wouldn’t have
thought that this Fink-Nottle would ever have fallen a victim to the
divine p, but, if he has, no wonder he fi nds the going sticky.”
