The inimitable Jeeves

movement?’
    ‘Well-er-‘
    ‘Do you yearn for the Revolution?’
    ‘Well, I don’t know that I exactly yearn. I mean to say, as far as I can make out, the whole hub of the scheme seems to be to massacre coves like me; and I don’t mind owning I’m not frightfully keen on the idea.’
    ‘But I’m talking him round,’ said Bingo. ‘I’m wrestling with him. A few more treatments ought to do the trick.’
    Old Rowbotham looked at me a bit doubtfully.
    ‘Comrade Little has great eloquence,’ he admitted.
    ‘I think he talks something wonderful,’ said the girl, and young Bingo shot a glance of such succulent devotion at her that I reeled in my tracks. It seemed to depress Comrade Butt a good deal too. He scowled at the carpet and said something about dancing on volcanoes.
    ‘Tea is served, sir,’ said Jeeves.
    ‘Tea, Pa!’ said Charlotte, starting at the word like the old war-horse who hears the bugle; and we got down to it.
    Funny how one changes as the years roll on. At school, I remember, I would cheerfully have sold my soul for scrambled eggs and sardines at five in the afternoon; but somehow, since reaching man’s estate, I had rather dropped out of the habit; and I’m bound to admit I was appalled to a goodish extent at the way the sons and daughter of the Revolution shoved their heads down and went for the foodstuffs. Even Comrade Butt cast off his gloom for a space and immersed his whole being in scrambled eggs, only coming to the surface at intervals to grab another cup of tea. Presently the hot water gave out, and I turned to Jeeves.
    ‘More hot water.’
    ‘Very good, sir.’
    ‘Hev! What’s this? What’s this?’ Old Rowbotham had lowered his cup and was eyeing us sternly. He tapped Jeeves on the shoulder. ‘No servility, my lad; no servility!’
    ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
    ‘Don’t call me “sir.” Call me Comrade. Do you know what you are, my lad? You’re an absolute relic of an exploded feudal system.’
    ‘Very good, sir.’
    ‘If there’s one thing that makes my blood boil in my veins -‘
    ‘Have another sardine,’ chipped in young Bingo - the first sensible thing he’d done since I had known him. Old Rowbotham took three and dropped the subject, and Jeeves drifted away. I could see by the look of his back what he felt.
    At last, just as I was beginning to feel that it was going on for ever, the thing finished. I woke up to find the party getting ready to leave.
    Sardines and about three quarters of tea had mellowed old Rowbotham. There was quite a genial look in his eye as he shook my hand.
    ‘I must thank you for your hospitality, Comrade Wooster,’ he said.
    ‘Oh, not at all! Only too glad -‘
    ‘Hospitality?’ snorted the man Butt, going off in my ear like a depth-charge. He was scowling in a morose sort of manner at young Bingo and the girl, who were giggling together by the window. ‘I wonder the food didn’t turn to ashes in our mouths! Eggs! Muffins! Sardines! All wrung from the bleeding lips of the starving poor!’
    ‘Oh, I say! What a beastly idea!’
    ‘I will send you some literature on the subject of the Cause,’ said old Rowbotham. ‘And soon, I hope, we shall see you at one of our little meetings.’
    Jeeves came in to clear away, and found me sitting among the ruins. It was all very well for Comrade Butt to knock the food, but he had pretty well finished the ham; and if you had shoved the remainder of the jam into the bleeding lips of the starving poor it would hardly have made them sticky.
    ‘Well, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘how about it?’
    ‘I would prefer to express no opinion, sir.’
    ‘Jeeves, Mr Little is in love with that female.’
    ‘So I gathered, sir. She was slapping him in the passage.’
    I clutched my brow.
    ‘Slapping him?’
    ‘Yes, sir. Roguishly.’
    ‘Great Scott! I didn’t know it had got as far as that. How did Comrade Butt seem to be taking it? Or perhaps he didn’t see?’
    ‘Yes, sir, he observed the entire proceedings. He struck me as extremely jealous.’
    ‘I don’t blame him. Jeeves, what are we to do?’
    ‘I could not say, sir.’
    ‘It’s a bit thick.’
    ‘Very much so, sir.’
    And that was all the consolation I got from Jeeves.

    12
    Bingo has a Bad Goodwood

    I had promised to meet young Bingo next day, to tell him what I thought of his infernal Charlotte, and I was mooching slowly up St James’s Street, trying to think how the dickens I could explain to him, without hurting his