The inimitable Jeeves

Bertie, is he at all weak in the head?’
    ‘Weak in the head?’
    ‘I don’t mean simply because he’s a friend of yours. But he’s so strange in his manner.’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘Well, he keeps looking at me so oddly.’
    ‘Oddly? How? Give me an imitation.’
    ‘I can’t in front of all these people.’
    ‘Yes, you can. I’ll hold my napkin up.’
    ‘All right, then. Quick. There!’
    Considering that she had only about a second and a half to do it in, I must say it was a jolly fine exhibition. She opened her mouth and eyes pretty wide and let her jaw drop sideways, and managed to look so like a dyspeptic calf that I recognized the symptoms immediately.
    ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ I said. ‘No need to be alarmed. He’s simply in love with you.’
    ‘In love with me. Don’t be absurd.’
    ‘My dear old thing, you don’t know young Bingo. He can fall in love with anybody.’
    ‘Thank you!’
    ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it that way, you know. I don’t wonder at his taking to you. Why, I was in love with you myself once.’
    ‘Once? Ah! And all that remains now are the cold ashes? This isn’t one of your tactful evenings, Bertie.’
    ‘Well, my dear sweet thing, dash it all, considering that you gave me the bird and nearly laughed yourself into a permanent state of hiccoughs when I asked you -‘
    ‘Oh, I’m not reproaching you. No doubt there were faults on both sides. He’s very good-looking, isn’t he?’
    ‘Good-looking? Bingo? Bingo good-looking? No, I say, come now, really!’
    ‘I mean, compared with some people,’ said Cynthia.
    Some time after this, Lady Wickhammersley gave the signal for the females of the species to leg it, and they duly stampeded. I didn’t get a chance of talking to young Bingo when they’d gone, and later, in the drawing-room, he didn’t show up. I found him eventually in his room, lying on the bed with his feet on the rail, smoking a toofah. There was a notebook on the counterpane beside him.
    ‘Hallo, old scream,’ I said.
    ‘Hallo, Bertie,’ he replied, in what seemed to me rather a moody, distrait sort of manner.
    ‘Rummy finding you down here. I take it your uncle cut off your allowance after that Goodwood binge and you had to take this tutoring job to keep the wolf from the door?’
    ‘Correct,’ said young Bingo tersely.
    ‘Well, you might have let your pals know where you were.’
    He frowned darkly.
    ‘I didn’t want them to know where I was. I wanted to creep away and hide myself. I’ve been through a bad time, Bertie, these last weeks. The sun ceased to shine -‘
    ‘That’s curious. We’ve had gorgeous weather in London.’
    ‘The birds ceased to sing -‘
    ‘What birds?’
    ‘What the devil does it matter what birds?’ said young Bingo, with some asperity. ‘Any birds. The birds round about here. You don’t expect me to specify them by their pet names, do you? I tell you, Bertie, it hit me hard at first, very hard.’
    ‘What hit you?’ I simply couldn’t follow the blighter.
    ‘Charlotte’s calculated callousness.’
    ‘Oh, ah!’ I’ve seen poor old Bingo through so many unsuccessful love-affairs that I’d almost forgotten there was a girl mixed up with that Goodwood business. Of course! Charlotte Corday Rowbotham. And she had given him the raspberry, I remembered, and gone off with Comrade Butt.
    ‘I went through torments. Recently, however, I’ve - er - bucked up a bit. Tell me, Bertie, what are you doing down here? I didn’t know you knew these people.’
    ‘Me? Why, I’ve known them since I was a kid.’
    Young Bingo put his feet down with a thud.
    ‘Do you mean to say you’ve known Lady Cynthia all that time?’
    ‘Rather! She can’t have been seven when I met her first.’
    ‘Good Lord!’ said young Bingo. He looked at me for the first time as though I amounted to something, and swallowed a mouthful of smoke the wrong way. ‘I love that girl, Bertie,’ he went on, when he’d finished coughing.
    ‘Yes. Nice girl, of course.’
    He eyed me with pretty deep loathing.
    ‘Don’t speak of her in that horrible casual way. She’s an angel. An angel! Was she talking about me at all at dinner, Bertie?’
    ‘Oh, yes.’
    ‘What did she say?’
    ‘I remember one thing. She said she thought you good-looking.’
    Young Bingo closed his eyes in a sort of ecstasy. Then he picked up the notebook.
    ‘Pop off now, old man, there’s a good chap,’ he said in a hushed, far-away voice. ‘I’ve