Jeeves in the Offing

that you consider my conduct eccentric.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, but do you realize what you are letting yourself in for? You won’t enjoy meeting Ma Cream. She has an eye like … what are those things that have eyes? Basilisks, that’s the name I was groping for. She has an eye like a basilisk. Have you considered the possibility of having that eye go through you like a dose of salts?’
‘Yes, I can envisage the peril. But the fact is, Mr Wooster, I regard what has happened as a challenge. My blood is up.’
‘Mine froze.’
‘And you may possibly not believe me, but I find the prospect of searching Mr Cream’s room quite enjoyable.’
‘Enjoyable?’
‘Yes. In a curious way it restores my youth. It brings back to me my preparatory school days, when I would often steal down at night to the headmaster’s study to eat his biscuits.’
I started. I looked at him with a kindling eye. Deep had called to deep, and the cockles of the heart were warmed.
‘Biscuits?’
‘He kept them in a tin on his desk.’
‘You really used to do that at your prep school?’
‘Many years ago.’
‘So did I,’ I said, coming within an ace of saying, ‘My brother!’
He raised his bushy eyebrows, and you could see that his heart’s cockles were warmed, too.
‘Indeed? Fancy that! I had supposed the idea original with myself, but no doubt all over England today the rising generation is doing the same thing. So you too have lived in Arcady? What kind of biscuits were yours? Mine were mixed.’
‘The ones with pink and white sugar on?’
‘In many instances, though some were plain.’
‘Mine were ginger nuts.’
‘Those are very good, too, of course, but I prefer the mixed.’
‘So do I. But you had to take what you could get in those days. Were you ever copped?’
‘I am glad to say never.’
‘I was once. I can feel the place in frosty weather still.’
‘Too bad. But these things will happen. Embarking on the present venture, I have the sustaining thought that if the worst occurs and I am apprehended, I can scarcely be given six of the best bending over a chair, as we used to call it. Yes, you may leave this little matter entirely to me, Mr Wooster.’
‘I wish you’d call me Bertie.’
‘Certainly, certainly.’
‘And might I call you Roderick?’
‘I shall be delighted.’
‘Or Roddy? Roderick’s rather a mouthful.’
‘Whichever you prefer.’
‘And you are really going to hunt the slipper?’
‘I am resolved to do so. I have the greatest respect and affection for your uncle and appreciate how deeply wounded he would be, were this prized object to be permanently missing from his collection. I would never forgive myself if in the endeavour to recover his property, I were to leave any -‘
‘Stone unturned?’
‘I was about to say avenue unexplored. I shall strain every -‘
‘Sinew?’
‘I was thinking of the word nerve.’
‘Just as juste. You’ll have to bide your time, of course.’
‘Quite.’
‘And await your opportunity.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Opportunity knocks but once.’
‘So I understand.’
‘I’ll give you one tip. The thing isn’t on top of the cupboard or armoire.’
‘Ah, that is helpful.’
‘Unless of course he’s put it there since. Well, anyway, best of luck, Roddy.’
‘Thank you, Bertie.’
If I had been taking Old Doctor Gordon’s Bile Magnesia regularly, I couldn’t have felt more of an inward glow as I left him and headed for the lawn to get the Ma Cream book and return it to its place on the shelves of Aunt Dahlia’s boudoir. I was lost in admiration of Roddy’s manly spirit. He was well stricken in years, fifty if a day, and it thrilled me to think that there was so much life in the old dog still. It just showed … well, I don’t know what, but something. I found myself musing on the boy Glossop, wondering what he had been like in his biscuit-snitching days. But except that I knew he wouldn’t have been bald then, I couldn’t picture him. It’s often this way when one contemplates one’s seniors. I remember how amazed I was to learn that my Uncle Percy, a tough old egg with apparently not a spark of humanity in him, had once held the metropolitan record for being chucked out of Covent Garden Balls.
I got the book, and ascertaining after reaching Aunt Dahlia’s lair that there remained some twenty minutes before it would be necessary to start getting ready for the evening meal I took a seat and resumed my reading. I had had to leave off at a