Much Obliged, Jeeves

treasons, stratagems and spoils, and that was Bingley all over. The man was wholly without finer feelings, and when you come up against someone without finer feelings, you’ve had it.
    The aged relative was not blind to the drama of the situation. She uttered an awed ‘Lord love a duck!’, and the McCorkadale said she might well say ‘Lord love a duck’, though it was not an expression she would have used herself.
    ‘What did you do? ‘ the ancestor asked, all agog, and the McCorkadale gave that sniffing snort of hers. It was partly like an escape of steam and partly like two or three cats unexpectedly encountering two or three dogs, with just a suggestion of a cobra waking up cross in the morning. I wondered how it had affected the late Mr. McCorkadale. Probably made him feel that there are worse things than being run over by a municipal tram.
    ‘I sent him away with a flea in his ear. I pride myself on being a fair fighter, and his proposition revolted me. If you want to have him arrested, though I am afraid I cannot see how it can be done, he lives at 5 Ormond Crescent. He appears to have asked my maid to look in and see his etchings on her afternoon off, and he gave her his address. But, as I say, there would seem not to be sufficient evidence for an arrest. Our conversation was without witnesses, and he would simply have to deny possession of the book. A pity. I would have enjoyed seeing a man like that hanged, drawn and quartered.’
    She snorted again, and the ancestor, who always knows what the book of etiquette would advise, came across with the soothing syrup. She said Ma McCorkadale deserved a medal.
    ‘Not at all.’
    ‘It was splendid of you to turn the man down.’
    ‘As I said, I am a fair fighter.’
    ‘Apart from your revulsion at his proposition, it must have been very annoying for you to be interrupted when you were working on your speech.’
    ‘Especially as a few moments before this person appeared I had been interrupted by an extraordinary young man who gave me the impression of being halfwitted.’

    ‘That would have been my nephew, Bertram Wooster.’
    ‘Oh, I beg your pardon.’
    ‘Quite all right.’
    ‘I may have formed a wrong estimate of his mentality. Our interview was very brief. I just thought it odd that he should be trying to persuade me to vote for my opponent.’
    ‘It’s the sort of thing that would seem a bright idea to Bertie. He’s like that. Whimsical. Moving in a mysterious way his wonders to perform. But he ought not to have butted in when you were busy with your speech. Is it coming out well?’
    ‘I am satisfied with it.’
    ‘Good for you. I suppose you’re looking forward to the debate?’
    ‘Very keenly. I am greatly in favour of it. It simplifies things so much if the two opponents face one another on the same platform and give the voters a chance to compare their views. Provided, of course that both observe the decencies of debate. But I really must be getting back to my work.’
    ‘Just a moment.’ No doubt it was the word ‘observe’ that had rung a bell with the ancestor. ‘Do you do the Observer crossword puzzle by any chance?’
    ‘I solve it at breakfast on Sunday mornings.’
    ‘Not the whole lot?’
    ‘Oh yes.’
    ‘Every clue?’
    ‘I have never failed yet. I find it ridiculously simple.’
    ‘Then what’s all that song and dance about the measured tread of saints round St. Paul’s?’
    ‘Oh, I guessed that immediately. The answer, of course, is pedometer. You measure tread with a pedometer. Dome, meaning St. Paul’s, comes in the middle and Peter, for St. Peter, round it. Very simple.’
    ‘Oh, very. Well, thank you. You have taken a great weight off my mind,’ said Aunt Dahlia, and they parted in complete amity, a thing I wouldn’t have thought possible when Ma McCorkadale was one of the parters.
    For perhaps a quarter of a minute after I had rejoined the human herd, as represented by my late father’s sister Dahlia, I wasn’t able to get a word in, the old ancestor being fully occupied with saying what she thought of the compiler of the Observer crossword puzzle, with particular reference to domes and pedometers. And when she had said her say on that subject she embarked on a rueful tribute to the McCorkadale, giving it as her opinion that against a woman with a brain like that Ginger hadn’t the meagre chance of a toupee in a high wind. Though, she added in more hopeful vein, now that the menace of the