Much Obliged, Jeeves

real ring of cordiality in it.
    ‘Oh, hullo, Spode, hullo. There you are, what? Splendid.’
    ‘Can I have a word with you, Wooster?’
    ‘Of course, of course. Have several.’
    He did not speak for a minute or so, filling in the time by subjecting me to a close scrutiny. Then he gave a sigh and shook his head.. ‘I can’t understand it,’ he said. ‘What can’t you understand, Spode old man or rather Lord Sidcup old man?’ I asked in a kind voice, for I was only too willing to help this new and improved Spode solve any little problem that was puzzling him.
    ‘How Madeline can contemplate marrying a man like you. She has broken our engagement and says that’s what she’s going to do. She was quite definite about it. “All is over”, she said. “Here is your ring”, she said. “I shall marry Bertie Wooster and make him happy”, she said. You can’t want it plainer than that.’
    I stiffened from head to f. Even with conditions what they were in this disturbed post-war world I hadn’t been expecting to be turned into a pillar of salt again for some considerable time, but this had done it. I don’t know how many of my public have ever been slapped between the eyes with a wet fish, but those who have will appreciate my emotions as the seventh Earl of Sidcup delivered this devastating bulletin. Everything started to go all wobbly, and through what is known as a murky mist I seemed to be watching a quivering-at-the-edges seventh Earl performing the sort of gyrations travelled friends have told me the Ouled Nail dancers do in Cairo.
    I was stunned. It seemed to me incredible that Madeline Bassett should have blown the whistle on their engagement. Then I remembered that at the time when she had plighted her troth Spode was dangling a countess’s coronet before her eyes, and the thing became more understandable. I mean, take away the coronet and what had you got? Just Spode. Not good enough, a girl would naturally feel. He, meanwhile, was going on to explain why he found it so bizarre that Madeline should be contemplating marrying me, and almost immediately I saw that I had been mistaken in supposing that he was not hostile. He spoke from between clenched teeth, and that always tells the story.
    ‘As far as I can see, Wooster, you are without attraction of any kind. Intelligence? No. Looks? No. Efficiency? No. You can’t even steal an umbrella without getting caught. All that can be said for you is that you don’t wear a moustache. They tell me you did grow one once, but mercifully shaved it off. That is to your credit, but it is a small thing to weigh in the balance against all your other defects. When one considers how numerous these are, one can only suppose that it is your shady record of stealing anything you can lay your hands on that appeals to Madeline’s romantic soul. She is marrying you in the hope of reforming you, and let me tell you, Wooster, that if you disappoint that hope, you will be sorry. She may have rejected me, but I shall always love her as I have done since she was so high, and I shall do my utmost to see that her gentle heart is not broken by any sneaking son of a what-not who looks like a chorus boy in a touring revue playing the small towns and cannot see anything of value without pocketing it. You will probably think you are safe from me when you are doing your stretch in Wormwood Scrubs for larceny, but I shall be waiting for you when you come out and I shall tear you limb from limb. And,’ he added, for his was a one-track mind, ‘dance on the fragments in hob-nailed boots.’
    He paused, produced his cigarette case, asked me if I had a match, thanked me when I gave him one, and withdrew.
    He left behind him a Bertram Wooster whom the dullest eye could have spotted as not being at the peak of his form. The prospect of being linked for life to a girl who would come down to breakfast and put her hands over my eyes and say ‘Guess who’ had given my morale a sickening wallop, reducing me to the level of one of those wee sleekit timorous cowering beasties Jeeves tells me the poet Burns used to write about. It is always my policy in times of crisis to try to look on the bright side, but I make one proviso, - viz. that there has to be a bright side to look on, and in the present case there wasn’t even the sniff of one.
    As I sat there draining the bitter cup, there were noises off stage and my meditations were interrupted by the return of the old ancestor. Well, when I