The inimitable Jeeves

casual remarks of mine that I did not consider the stage altogether a suitable sphere for Mr Bassington-Bassington.’
    ‘I say, Jeeves, you know, you’re a bit of a marvel.’
    ‘I endeavour to give satisfaction, sir.’
    ‘And I’m frightfully obliged, if you know what I mean. Aunt Agatha would have had sixteen or seventeen fits if you hadn’t headed him off.’
    ‘I fancy there might have been some little friction and unpleasantness, sir. I am laying out the blue suit with the thin red stripe, sir. I fancy the effect will be pleasing.’

    It’s a rummy thing, but I had finished breakfast and gone out and got as far as the lift before I remembered what it was that I had meant to do to reward Jeeves for his really sporting behaviour in this matter of the chump Cyril. It cut me to the heart to do it, but I had decided to give him his way and let those purple socks pass out of my life. After all, there are times when a cove must make sacrifices. I was just going to nip back and break the glad news to him, when the lift came up, so I thought I would leave it till I got home.
    The coloured chappie in charge of the lift looked at me, as I hopped in, with a good deal of quiet devotion and what not.
    ‘I wish to thank yo’, suh,’ he said, ‘for yo’ kindness.’
    ‘Eh? What?’
    ‘Misto’ Jeeves done give them purple socks, as you told him. Thank yo’ very much, suh!’
    I looked down. The blighter was a blaze of mauve from the ankle-bone southward. I don’t know when I’ve seen anything so dressy.
    ‘Oh, ah! Not at all! Right-o! Glad you like them!’ I said.
    Well, I mean to say, what? Absolutely!

    11
    Comrade Bingo

    The thing really started in the park - at the Marble Arch end -where weird birds of every description collect on Sunday afternoons and stand on soap-boxes and make speeches. It isn’t often you’ll find me there, but it so happened that on the Sabbath after my return to the good old metrop. I had a call to pay in Manchester Square, and, taking a stroll round in that direction so as not to arrive too early, I found myself right in the middle of it.
    Now that the Empire isn’t the place it was, I always think the park on a Sunday is the centre of London, if you know what I mean. I mean to say, that’s the spot that makes the returned exile really sure he’s back again. After what you might call my enforced sojourn in New York I’m bound to say that I stood there fairly lapping it all up. It did me good to listen to the lads giving tongue and realize that all had ended happily and Bertram was home again.
    On the edge of the mob farthest away from me a gang of top-hatted chappies were starting an open-air missionary service; nearer at hand an atheist was letting himself go with a good deal of vim, though handicapped a bit by having no roof to his mouth; while in front of me there stood a little group of serious thinkers with a banner labelled ‘Heralds of the Red Dawn’; and as I came up, one of the heralds, a bearded egg in a slouch hat and a tweed suit, was slipping it into the Idle Rich with such breadth and vigour that I paused for a moment to get an earful. While I was standing there somebody spoke to me.
    ‘Mr Wooster, surely?’
    Stout chappie. Couldn’t place him for a second. Then I got him. Bingo Little’s uncle, the one I had lunch with at the time when young Bingo was in love with that waitress at the Piccadilly bun-shop. No wonder I hadn’t recognized him at first. When I had seen him last he had been a rather sloppy old gentleman - coming down to lunch, I remember, in carpet slippers and a velvet smoking-jacket; whereas now dapper simply wasn’t the word. He absolutely gleamed in the sunlight in a silk hat, morning coat, lavender spats and sponge-bag trousers, as now worn. Dressy to a degree.
    ‘Oh, hallo!’ I said. ‘Going strong?’
    ‘I am in excellent health, I thank you. And you?’
    ‘In the pink. Just been over to America.’
    ‘Ah! Collecting local colour for one of your delightful romances?’
    ‘Eh?’ I had to think a bit before I got on to what he meant. ‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘Just felt I needed a change. Seen anything of Bingo lately?’ I asked quickly, being desirous of heading the old thing off what you might call the literary side of my life.
    ‘Bingo?’
    ‘Your nephew.’
    ‘Oh, Richard? No, not very recently. Since my marriage a little coolness seems to have sprung up.’
    ‘Sorry to hear that. So you’ve married since I saw