The inimitable Jeeves

Casino.’
    I looked at the man in a kindlier spirit than I had been able to up to date. This evidence that he had sporting blood in his veins made him seem more human, I’m bound to say. If only I’d known earlier that he went in for that sort of thing, I felt that we might have had a better time together.
    ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Did you click?’
    He sighed heavily.
    ‘If you mean was I successful, I must answer in the negative. I rashly persisted in the view that the colour red, having appeared no fewer than seven times in succession, must inevitably at no distant date give place to black. I was in error. I lost my little all, Mr Wooster.’
    ‘Tough luck,’ I said.
    ‘I left the Casino,’ proceeded the chappie, ‘and returned to the hotel. There I encountered one of my parishioners, a Colonel Mus-grave, who chanced to be holiday-making over here. I - er - induced him to cash me a cheque for one hundred pounds on my little account in my London bank.’
    ‘Well, that was all to the good, what?’ I said, hoping to induce the poor fish to look on the bright side. ‘I mean, bit of luck finding someone to slip it into first crack out of the box.’
    ‘On the contrary, Mr Wooster, it did but make matters worse. I burn with shame as I make the confession, but I immediately went back to the Casino and lost the entire sum - this time under the mistaken supposition that the colour black was, as I believe the expression is, due for a run.’
    ‘I say!’ I said. ‘You are having a night out!’
    ‘And,’ concluded the chappie, ‘the most lamentable feature of the whole affair is that I have no funds in the bank to meet the cheque when presented.’
    I’m free to confess that, though I realized by this time that all this was leading up to a touch and that my ear was shortly going to be bitten in no uncertain manner, my heart warmed to the poor prune. Indeed, I gazed at him with no little interest and admiration. Never before had I encountered a curate so genuinely all to the mustard. Little as he might look like one of the lads of the village, he certainly appeared to be real tabasco, and I wished he had shown me this side of his character before.
    ‘Colonel Musgrave,’ he went on, gulping somewhat, ‘is not a man who would be likely to overlook the matter. He is a hard man. He will expose me to my vic-ah. My vic-ah is a hard man. In short, Mr Wooster, if Colonel Musgrave presents that cheque I shall be ruined. And he leaves for England tonight.’
    The girl, who had been standing by biting her handkerchief and gurgling at intervals while the brother got the above off his chest, now started in once more.
    ‘Mr Wooster,’ she cried, ‘won’t you, won’t you help us? Oh, do say you will! We must have the money to get back the cheque from Colonel Musgrave before nine o’clock - he leaves on the nine-twenty. I was at my wits’ end what to do when I remembered how kind you had always been. Mr Wooster, will you lend Sidney the money and take these as security?’ And before I knew what she was doing she had dived into her bag, produced a case, and opened it. ‘My pearls,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what they are worth - they were a present from my poor father -‘
    ‘Now, alas, no more -‘ chipped in the brother.
    ‘But I know they must be worth ever so much more than the amount we want.’
    Dashed embarrassing. Made me feel like a pawnbroker. More than a touch of popping the watch about the whole business.
    ‘No, I say, really,’ I protested. ‘There’s no need of any security, you know, or any rot of that kind. Only too glad to let you have the money. I’ve got it on me, as a matter of fact. Rather luckily drew some this morning.’
    And I fished it out and pushed it across. The brother shook his head.
    ‘Mr Wooster,’ he said, ‘we appreciate your generosity, your beautiful, heartening confidence in us, but we cannot permit this.’
    ‘What Sidney means,’ said the girl, ‘is that you really don’t know anything about us when you come to think of it. You mustn’t risk lending all this money without any security at all to two people who, after all, are almost strangers. If I hadn’t thought that you would be quite business-like about this I would never have dared to come to you.’
    ‘The idea of - er - pledging the pearls at the local Mont de Piete was, you will readily understand, repugnant to us,’ said the brother.
    ‘If you will just give me a receipt, as a matter of form