My Man Jeeves

her eyebrows and drank me in a bit more through her glasses.
    "Why is it surprising that I should visit my only nephew?" she said.
    Put like that, of course, it did seem reasonable.
    "Oh, rather," I said. "Of course! Certainly. What I mean is——"
    Jeeves projected himself into the room with the tea. I was jolly glad to see him. There's nothing like having a bit of business arranged for one when one isn't certain of one's lines. With the teapot to fool about with I felt happier.
    "Tea, tea, tea—what? What?" I said.
    It wasn't what I had meant to say. My idea had been to be a good deal more formal, and so on. Still, it covered the situation. I poured her out a cup. She sipped it and put the cup down with a shudder.
    "Do you mean to say, young man," she said frostily, "that you expect me to drink this stuff?"
    "Rather! Bucks you up, you know."
    "What do you mean by the expression 'Bucks you up'?"
    "Well, makes you full of beans, you know. Makes you fizz."
    "I don't understand a word you say. You're English, aren't you?"
    I admitted it. She didn't say a word. And somehow she did it in a way that made it worse than if she had spoken for hours. Somehow it was brought home to me that she didn't like Englishmen, and that if she had had to meet an Englishman, I was the one she'd have chosen last.
    Conversation languished again after that.
    Then I tried again. I was becoming more convinced every moment that you can't make a real lively
salon
with a couple of people, especially if one of them lets it go a word at a time.
    "Are you comfortable at your hotel?" I said.
    "At which hotel?"
    "The hotel you're staying at."
    "I am not staying at an hotel."
    "Stopping with friends—what?"
    "I am naturally stopping with my nephew."
    I didn't get it for the moment; then it hit me.
    "What! Here?" I gurgled.
    "Certainly! Where else should I go?"
    The full horror of the situation rolled over me like a wave. I couldn't see what on earth I was to do. I couldn't explain that this wasn't Rocky's flat without giving the poor old chap away hopelessly, because she would then ask me where he did live, and then he would be right in the soup. I was trying to induce the old bean to recover from the shock and produce some results when she spoke again.
    "Will you kindly tell my nephew's man–servant to prepare my room? I wish to lie down."
    "Your nephew's man–servant?"
    "The man you call Jeeves. If Rockmetteller has gone for an automobile ride, there is no need for you to wait for him. He will naturally wish to be alone with me when he returns."
    I found myself tottering out of the room. The thing was too much for me. I crept into Jeeves's den.
    "Jeeves!" I whispered.
    "Sir?"
    "Mix me a b.-and–s., Jeeves. I feel weak."
    "Very good, sir."
    "This is getting thicker every minute, Jeeves."
    "Sir?"
    "She thinks you're Mr. Todd's man. She thinks the whole place is his, and everything in it. I don't see what you're to do, except stay on and keep it up. We can't say anything or she'll get on to the whole thing, and I don't want to let Mr. Todd down. By the way, Jeeves, she wants you to prepare her bed."
    He looked wounded.
    "It is hardly my place, sir——"
    "I know—I know. But do it as a personal favour to me. If you come to that, it's hardly my place to be flung out of the flat like this and have to go to an hotel, what?"
    "Is it your intention to go to an hotel, sir? What will you do for clothes?"
    "Good Lord! I hadn't thought of that. Can you put a few things in a bag when she isn't looking, and sneak them down to me at the St. Aurea?"
    "I will endeavour to do so, sir."
    "Well, I don't think there's anything more, is there? Tell Mr. Todd where I am when he gets here."
    "Very good, sir."
    I looked round the place. The moment of parting had come. I felt sad. The whole thing reminded me of one of those melodramas where they drive chappies out of the old homestead into the snow.
    "Good–bye, Jeeves," I said.
    "Good–bye, sir."
    And I staggered out.
    * * * * *
    You know, I rather think I agree with those poet–and–philosopher Johnnies who insist that a fellow ought to be devilish pleased if he has a bit of trouble. All that stuff about being refined by suffering, you know. Suffering does give a chap a sort of broader and more sympathetic outlook. It helps you to understand other people's misfortunes if you've been through the same thing yourself.
    As I stood in my lonely bedroom at the hotel, trying to tie my white tie myself, it struck me for