Much Obliged, Jeeves

did she r your s?’
    ‘Ask Jeeves,’ he said, and attaching himself to the collar of my coat he removed me from the automobile like a stevedore hoisting a sack of grain. He took my place at the wheel, and disappeared down the drive to keep his tryst with the little woman, who presumably awaited him at some pre-arranged spot with the bags and baggage.
    He left me in a condition which can best be described as befogged, bewildered, mystified, confused and perplexed. All I had got out of him was (a) that the debate had not been conducted in an atmosphere of the utmost cordiality, (b) that at its conclusion Florence had forbidden the banns and (c) that if I wanted further information Jeeves would supply it. A little more than the charmers got out of the deaf adder, but not much. I felt like a barrister, as it might be Ma McCorkadale, who has been baffled by an unsatisfactory witness.
    However, he had spoken of Jeeves as a fount of information, so my first move on reaching the drawing-room and finding no one there was to put forefinger to bell button and push.
    Seppings answered the summons. He and I have been buddies from boyhood - mine, of course, not his - and as a rule when we meet conversation flows like water, mainly on the subject of the weather and the state of his lumbago, but this was no time for idle chatter.
    ‘Seppings,’ I said, ‘I want Jeeves. Where is he?’
    ‘In the servants hall, sir, comforting the parlourmaid.’
    I took him to allude to the employee whose gong-work I had admired on my first evening, and, pressing though my business was, it seemed only humane to offer a word of sympathy for whatever her misfortunes might be.
    ‘Had bad news, has she?’
    ‘No, sir, she was struck by a turnip.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘In the lower ribs, sir.’
    ‘I mean where did this happen?’
    ‘At the Town Hall, sir, in the later stages of the debate.’
    I drew in the breath sharply. More and more I was beginning to realize that the meeting I had missed had been marked by passions which recalled the worst excesses of the French revolution.
    ‘I myself, sir, narrowly escaped being hit by a tomato. It whizzed past my ear.’
    ‘You shock me profoundly, Seppings. I don’t wonder you’re pale and trembling.’
    And indeed he was, like a badly set blancmange.
    ‘What caused all this turmoil? ‘
    ‘Mr. Winship’s speech, sir.’
    This surprised me. I could readily believe that any speech of Ginger’s would be well below the mark set by Demosthenes, if that really was the fellow’s name, but surely not so supremely lousy as to start his audience throwing eggs and vegetables; and I was about to institute further enquiries, when Seppings sidled to the door, saying that he would inform Mr. Jeeves of my desire to confer with him. And in due season the hour produced the man, as the expression is.
    ‘You wished to see me, sir?’ he said.
    ‘You can put it even stronger, Jelves. I yearned to see you.’
    ‘Indeed, sir ? ‘
    ‘Just now I met Ginger in the drive.’
    ‘Yes, sir, he informed me that he was going there to await your return.’
    ‘He tells me he is no longer betrothed to Miss Craye, being now affianced to Miss Glendennon. And when I asked him how this switch had come about, he said that you would explain.’
    ‘I shall be glad to do so, sir. You wish a complete report?’
    ‘That’s right. Omit no detail, however slight.’
    He was silent for a space. Marshalling his thoughts, no doubt. Then he got down to it.
    ‘The importance attached by the electorate to the debate,’ he began, ‘was very evident. An audience of considerable size had assembled in the Town Hall. The Mayor and Corporation were there, together with the flower of Market Snodsbury’s aristocracy and a rougher element in cloth caps and turtleneck sweaters who should never have been admitted.’
    I had to rebuke him at this point.
    ‘Bit snobbish, that, Jeeves, what? You are a little too inclined to judge people by their clothes. Turtleneck sweaters are royal raiment when they’re worn for virtue’s sake, and a cloth cap may hide an honest heart. Probably frightfully good chaps, if one had got to know them.’
    ‘I would prefer not to know them, sir. It was they who subsequently threw eggs, potatoes, tomatoes and turnips.’
    I had to concede that he had a point there.
    ‘True,’ I said. ‘I was forgetting that. All right, Jeeves. Carry on.’
    ‘The proceedings opened with a rendering of the national anthem by