The inimitable Jeeves

have to know some time.’
    That’ll be all right. I shall be the jolly old star by then, and he won’t have a leg to stand on.’
    ‘It seems to me he’ll have one leg to stand on while he kicks me with the other.’
    ‘Why, where do you come in? What have you got to do with it?’
    ‘I introduced you to George Caffyn.’
    ‘So you did, old top, so you did. I’d quite forgotten. I ought to have thanked you before. Well, so long. There’s an early rehearsal of Ask Dad tomorrow morning, and I must be toddling. Rummy the thing should be called Ask Dad, when that’s just what I’m not going to do. See what I mean, what, what? Well, pip-pip!’
    ‘Toodle-oo!’ I said sadly, and the blighter scudded off. I dived for the phone and called up George Caffyn.
    ‘I say, George, what’s all this about Cyril Bassington-Bassington?’
    ‘What about him?’
    ‘He tells me you’ve given him a part in your show.’
    ‘Oh, yes. Just a few lines.’
    ‘But I’ve just had fifty-seven cables from home telling me on no account to let him go on the stage.’
    ‘I’m sorry. But Cyril is just the type I need for that part. He’s simply got to be himself.’
    ‘It’s pretty tough on me, George, old man. My Aunt Agatha sent this blighter over with a letter of introduction to me, and she will hold me responsible.’
    ‘She’ll cut you out of her will?’
    ‘It isn’t a question of money. But - of course, you’ve never met my Aunt Agatha, so it’s rather hard to explain. But she’s a sort of human vampire-bat, and she’ll make things most fearfully unpleasant for me when I go back to England. She’s the kind of woman who comes and rags you before breakfast, don’t you know.’
    ‘Well, don’t go back to England, then. Stick here and become President.’
    ‘But, George, old top - !’
    ‘Good night!’
    ‘But, I say, George, old man!’
    ‘You didn’t get my last remark. It was “Good night!” You Idle Rich may not need any sleep, but I’ve got to be bright and fresh in the morning. God bless you!’
    I felt as if I hadn’t a friend in the world. I was so jolly well worked up that I went and banged on Jeeves’s door. It wasn’t a thing I’d have cared to do as a rule, but it seemed to me that now was the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party, so to speak, and that it was up to Jeeves to rally round the young master, even if it broke up his beauty-sleep.
    Jeeves emerged in a brown dressing gown.
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘Deuced sorry to wake you up, Jeeves, and what not, but all sorts of dashed disturbing things have been happening.’
    ‘I was not asleep. It is my practice, on retiring, to read a few pages of some instructive book.’
    ‘That’s good! What I mean to say is, if you’ve just finished exercising the old bean, it’s probably in mid-season form for tackling problems. Jeeves, Mr Bassington-Bassington is going on the stage!’
    ‘Indeed, sir?’
    ‘Ah! The thing doesn’t hit you! You don’t get it properly! Here’s the point. All his family are most fearfully dead against his going on the stage. There’s going to be no end of trouble if he isn’t headed off. And, what’s worse, my Aunt Agatha will blame me, you see.’
    ‘I see, sir.’
    ‘Well, can’t you think of some way of stopping him?’
    ‘Not, I confess, at the moment, sir.’
    ‘Well, have a stab at it.’
    ‘I will give the matter my best consideration, sir. Will there be anything further tonight?’
    ‘I hope not! I’ve had all I can stand already.’
    ‘Very good, sir.’
    He popped off.

    10
    Startling Dressiness of a Lift Attendant

    The part which old George had written for the chump Cyril took up about two pages of typescript; but it might have been Hamlet, the way that poor, misguided pinhead worked himself to the bone over it. I suppose, if I heard him read his lines once, I did it a dozen times in the first couple of days. He seemed to think that my only feeling about the whole affair was one of enthusiastic admiration, and that he could rely on my support and sympathy. What with trying to imagine how Aunt Agatha was going to take this thing, and being woken up out of the dreamless in the small hours every other night to give my opinion of some new bit of business which Cyril had invented, I became more or less the good old shadow. And all the time Jeeves remained still pretty cold and distant about the purple socks. It’s this sort of thing that ages a chappie, don’t you know, and makes