Right Ho, Jeeves

did, that in the excitement of getting Gussie fixed up I had rather forgotten about this other client. It is often that way when you’re trying to run two cases at once.
    However, Gussie now being off my mind, I was prepared to devote my whole attention to the Glossop problem.
    I had been much pleased by the way he had carried out the task assigned him at the dinner-table. No easy one, I can assure you, for the browsing and sluicing had been of the highest quality, and there had been one dish in particular—I allude to the _nonnettes de poulet Agnes Sorel_—which might well have broken down the most iron resolution. But he had passed it up like a professional fasting man, and I was proud of him.
    “Oh, hullo, Tuppy,” I said, “I wanted to see you.”
    He turned, snifter in hand, and it was easy to see that his privations had tried him sorely. He was looking like a wolf on the steppes of Russia which has seen its peasant shin up a high tree.
    “Yes?” he said, rather unpleasantly. “Well, here I am.”
    “Well?”
    “How do you mean–-well?”
    “Make your report.”
    “What report?”
    “Have you nothing to tell me about Angela?”
    “Only that she’s a blister.”
    I was concerned.
    “Hasn’t she come clustering round you yet?”
    “She has not.”
    “Very odd.”
    “Why odd?”
    “She must have noted your lack of appetite.”
    He barked raspingly, as if he were having trouble with the tonsils of the soul.
    “Lack of appetite! I’m as hollow as the Grand Canyon.”
    “Courage, Tuppy! Think of Gandhi.”
    “What about Gandhi?”
    “He hasn’t had a square meal for years.”
    “Nor have I. Or I could swear I hadn’t. Gandhi, my left foot.”
    I saw that it might be best to let the Gandhi _motif_ slide. I went back to where we had started.
    “She’s probably looking for you now.”
    “Who is? Angela?”
    “Yes. She must have noticed your supreme sacrifice.”
    “I don’t suppose she noticed it at all, the little fathead. I’ll bet it didn’t register in any way whatsoever.”
    “Come, Tuppy,” I urged, “this is morbid. Don’t take this gloomy view. She must at least have spotted that you refused those _nonnettes de poulet Agnes Sorel_. It was a sensational renunciation and stuck out like a sore thumb. And the _cepes a la Rossini_–-”
    A hoarse cry broke from his twisted lips:
    “Will you stop it, Bertie! Do you think I am made of marble? Isn’t it bad enough to have sat watching one of Anatole’s supremest dinners flit by, course after course, without having you making a song about it? Don’t remind me of those _nonnettes_. I can’t stand it.”
    I endeavoured to hearten and console.
    “Be brave, Tuppy. Fix your thoughts on that cold steak-and-kidney pie in the larder. As the Good Book says, it cometh in the morning.”
    “Yes, in the morning. And it’s now about half-past nine at night. You would bring that pie up, wouldn’t you? Just when I was trying to keep my mind off it.”
    I saw what he meant. Hours must pass before he could dig into that pie. I dropped the subject, and we sat for a pretty good time in silence. Then he rose and began to pace the room in an overwrought sort of way, like a zoo lion who has heard the dinner-gong go and is hoping the keeper won’t forget him in the general distribution. I averted my gaze tactfully, but I could hear him kicking chairs and things. It was plain that the man’s soul was in travail and his blood pressure high.
    Presently he returned to his seat, and I saw that he was looking at me intently. There was that about his demeanour that led me to think that he had something to communicate.
    Nor was I wrong. He tapped me significantly on the knee and spoke:
    “Bertie.”
    “Hullo?”
    “Shall I tell you something?”
    “Certainly, old bird,” I said cordially. “I was just beginning to feel that the scene could do with a bit more dialogue.”
    “This business of Angela and me.”
    “Yes?”
    “I’ve been putting in a lot of solid thinking about it.”
    “Oh, yes?”
    “I have analysed the situation pitilessly, and one thing stands out as clear as dammit. There has been dirty work afoot.”
    “I don’t get you.”
    “All right. Let me review the facts. Up to the time she went to Cannes Angela loved me. She was all over me. I was the blue-eyed boy in every sense of the term. You’ll admit that?”
    “Indisputably.”
    “And directly she came back we had this bust-up.”
    “Quite.”
    “About