Much Obliged, Jeeves

was that?’ He did not reply immediately, plainly too ruffled
    for speech. He had to take a sip of his liqueur brandy before he was master of himself. His manner, when he did speak, was that of one who would have preferred to let the whole thing drop.
    ‘The person you mentioned at the breakfast table, sir. Bingley,’ he said, pronouncing the name as if it soiled his lips.
    I was astounded. You could have knocked me down with a toothpick.
    ‘Bingley? I’d never have recognized him. He’s changed completely. He was quite thin when I knew him, and very gloomy, you might say sinister. Always seemed to be brooding silently on the coming revolution, when he would be at liberty to chase me down Park Lane with a dripping knife.’
    The brandy seemed to have restored Jeeves. He spoke now with his customary calm.
    ‘I believe his political views were very far to the left at the time when he was in your employment. They changed when he became a man of property.’
    ‘A man of property, is he?’
    ‘An uncle of his in the grocery business died and left him a house and a comfortable sum of money.’
    ‘I suppose it often happens that the views of fellows like Bingley change when they come into money.’
    ‘Very frequently. They regard the coming revolution from a different standpoint.’
    ‘I see what you mean. They don’t want to be chased down Park Lane with dripping knives themselves. Is he still a gentleman’s gentleman?’
    ‘He has retired. He lives a life of leisure in Market Snodsbury.’
    ‘Market Snodsbury? That’s funny.’
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘Odd, I mean, that he should live in Market Snodsbury.’
    ‘Many people do, sir.’
    ‘But when that’s just where we’re going. Sort of a coincidence. His uncle’s house is there, I suppose.’
    ‘One presumes so.’
    ‘We may be seeing something of him.’ ‘I hope not sir. I disapprove of Bingley. He is dishonest. Not a man to be trusted.’
    ‘What makes you think so?’
    ‘It is merely a feeling.’
    Well, it was no skin off my nose. A busy man like myself hasn’t time to go about trusting Bingley. All I demanded of Bingley was that if our paths should cross he would remain sober and keep away from carving knives. Live and let live is the Wooster motto. I finished my whisky and soda and rose.
    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘there’s one thing. Holding the strong Conservative views he does, it ought to be a snip to get him to vote for Ginger. And now we’d better be getting along. Ginger is driving us down in his car, and I don’t know when he’ll be coming to fetch us. Thanks for your princely hospitality, Jeeves. You have brought new life to the exhausted frame.’ ‘Not at all, sir.’

CHAPTER Five

    Ginger turned up in due course, and on going out to the car I saw that he had managed to get hold of Magnolia all right, for there was a girl sitting in the back and when he introduced us his ‘Mr. Wooster, Miss Glendennon’ told the story.
    Nice girl she seemed to me and quite nice-looking. I wouldn’t say hers was the face that launched a thousand ships, to quote one of Jeeves’s gags, and this was probably all to the good, for Florence, I imagine, would have had a word to say if Ginger had returned from his travels with something in tow calculated to bring a whistle to the lips of all beholders. A man in his position has to exercise considerable care in his choice of secretaries, ruling out anything that might have done well in the latest Miss America contest. But you could certainly describe her appearance as pleasant. She gave me the impression of being one of those quiet, sympathetic girls whom you could tell your troubles to in the certain confidence of having your hand held and your head patted. The sort of girl you, could go to and say ‘I say, I’ve just committed a murder and it’s worrying me rather’, and she would reply ‘There, there, try not to think about it, it’s the sort of thing that might happen to anybody’. The little mother, in short, with the added attraction of being tops at shorthand and typing. I could have wished Ginger’s affairs in no better hands.
    Jeeves brought out the suitcases and stowed them away, and Ginger asked me to do the driving, as he had a lot of business to go into with his new secretary, giving her the low-down on her duties, I suppose. We set out, accordingly, with me and Jeeves in front, and about the journey down there is nothing of interest to report. I was in merry mood throughout, as