Much Obliged, Jeeves

if this didn’t make me purse the lips a bit, I can assure you that it did. It seemed to point to his having gone and got hitched up with a popsy totally lacking in the proper spirit, and it bore out what I had been told about her being a girl of strong character. No one who wasn’t could have dashed the cup from his lips in this manner. She had apparently made him like it, too, for he had spoken of her not with the sullen bitterness of one crushed beneath the iron heel but with devotion in every syllable. Plainly he had got it up his nose and didn’t object to being bossed.
    How different from me, I reflected, that time when I was engaged to my Uncle Percy’s bossy daughter Florence Craye. It didn’t last long, because she gave me the heave-ho and got betrothed to a fellow called Gorringe who wrote vers libre, but while it lasted I felt like one of those Ethiopian slaves Cleopatra used to push around, and I chafed more than somewhat. Whereas Ginger obviously hadn’t even started to chafe. It isn’t difficult to spot when a fellow’s chafing, and I could detect none of the symptoms. He seemed to think that putting the presidential veto on cocktails showed what an angel of mercy the girl was, always working with his good at heart.
    The Woosters do not like drinking alone, particularly with a critical eye watching them to see if their arteries are hardening, so I declined the proffered snort —reluctantly, for I was athirst— and came straight to the main item on the agenda paper. On my way to Barribault’s I had, as you may suppose, pondered deeply on this business of him standing for Parliament, and I wanted to know the motives behind the move. It looked cockeyed to me.
    ‘Aunt Dahlia tells me you are staying with her in order to be handy to Market Snodsbury while giving the electors there the old oil,’ I said.
    ‘Yes, she very decently invited me. She was at school with my mother.’
    ‘So she told me. I wonder if her face was as red in those days. How do you like it there?’
    ‘It’s a wonderful place.’
    ‘Grade A. Gravel soil, main drainage, spreading grounds and Company’s own water. And, of course, Anatole’s cooking.’
    ‘Ah! ‘ he said, and I think he would have bared his head, only he hadn’t a hat on. ‘Very gifted, that man.’
    ‘A wizard,’ I agreed. ‘His dinners must fortify you for the tasks you have to face. How’s the election coming along? ‘
    ‘All right.’
    ‘Kissed any babies lately ? ‘
    ‘Ah! ‘ he said again, this time with a shudder. I could see that I had touched an exposed nerve. ‘What blighters babies are, Bertie, dribbling, as they do, at the side of the mouth. Still, it has to be done. My agent tells me to leave no stone unturned if I want to win the election.’
    ‘But why do you want to win the election? I’d have thought you wouldn’t have touched Parliament with a ten-foot pole,’ I said, for I knew the society there was very mixed. ‘What made you commit this rash act?’
    ‘My fiancee wanted me to,’ he said, and as his lips framed the word ‘fiancee’ his voice took on a sort of tremolo like that of a male turtle dove cooing to a female turtle dove. ‘She thought I ought to be carving out a career for myself.’
    ‘Do you want a career?’
    ‘Not much, but she insisted.’
    The uneasiness I had felt when he told me the beazel had made him knock off cocktails deepened. His every utterance rendered it more apparent to an experienced man like myself that he had run up against something too hot to handle, and for a moment I thought of advising him to send her a telegram saying it was all off and, this done, to pack a suitcase and catch the next boat to Australia. But feeling that this might give offence I merely asked him what the procedure was when you stood for Parliament — or ran for it, as they would say in America. Not that I particularly wanted to know, but it was something to talk about other than his frightful fiancee.
    A cloud passed over his face, which I ought to have mentioned earlier was well worth looking at, the eyes clear, the cheeks tanned, the chin firm, the hair ginger and the nose shapely. It topped off, moreover, a body which also repaid inspection, being muscular and well knit. His general aspect, as a matter of fact, was rather like that presented by Esmond Haddock, the squire of Deverill Hall, where Jeeves’s Uncle Charlie Silversmith drew his monthly envelope. He had the same poetic look, as if at any