The inimitable Jeeves

Bertie? They have not met with some horrible accident?’
    It made my mouth water to think of it, but I said no, I didn’t think they had met with any horrible accident. I thought Eustace was a horrible accident, and Claude about the same, but I didn’t say so. And presently she biffed off, still worried.
    When the twins came in, I put it squarely to the blighters. Jolly as it was to give Uncle George shocks, they must not wander at large about the metrop.
    ‘But, my dear old soul,’ said Claude. ‘Be reasonable. We can’t have our movements hampered.’
    ‘Out of the question,’ said Eustace.
    ‘The whole essence of the thing, if you understand me,’ said Claude, ‘is that we should be at liberty to flit hither and thither.’
    ‘Exactly,’ said Eustace. ‘Now hither, now thither.’
    ‘But, damn it -‘
    ‘Bertie!’ said Eustace reprovingly. ‘Not before the boy!’
    ‘Of course, in a way I see his point,’ said Claude. ‘I suppose the solution of the problem would be to buy a couple of disguises.’
    ‘My dear old chap!’ said Eustace, looking at him with admiration. ‘The brightest idea on record. Not your own, surely?’
    ‘Well, as a matter of fact, it was Bertie who put it into my head.’
    ‘Me!’
    ‘You were telling me the other day about old Bingo Little and the beard he bought when he didn’t want his uncle to recognize him.’
    ‘If you think I’m going to have you two excrescences popping in and out of my flat in beards -‘
    ‘Something in that,’ agreed Eustace. ‘We’ll make it whiskers, then.’
    ‘And false noses,’ said Claude.
    ‘And, as you say, false noses. Right-o, then, Bertie, old chap, that’s a load off your mind. We don’t want to be any trouble to you while we’re paying you this little visit.’
    And, when I went buzzing round to Jeeves for consolation, all he would say was something about Young Blood. No sympathy.
    ‘Very good, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘I shall go for a walk in the park. Kindly put me out the Old Etonion spats.’
    ‘Very good, sir.’

    It must have been a couple of days after that that Marion Wardour rolled in at about the hour of tea. She looked warily round the room before sitting down.
    ‘Your cousins not at home, Bertie?’ she said.
    ‘No, thank goodness!’
    ‘Then I’ll tell you where they are. They’re in my sitting-room, glaring at each other from opposite corners, waiting for me to come in. Bertie, this has got to stop.’
    ‘You’re seeing a good deal of them, are you?’
    Jeeves came in with the tea, but the poor girl was so worked up that she didn’t wait for him to pop off before going on with her complaint. She had an absolutely hunted air, poor thing.
    ‘I can’t move a step without tripping over one or both of them,’ she said. ‘Generally both. They’ve taken to calling together, and they just settle down grimly and try to sit each other out. It’s wearing me to a shadow.’
    ‘I know,’ I said sympathetically. ‘I know.’
    ‘Well, what’s to be done?’
    ‘It beats me. Couldn’t you tell your maid to say you are not at home?’
    She shuddered slightly.
    ‘I tried that once. They camped on the stairs, and I couldn’t get out all the afternoon. And I had a lot of particularly important engagements. I wish you would persuade them to go to South Africa, where they seem to be wanted.’
    ‘You must have made the dickens of an impression on them.’
    ‘I should say I have. They’ve started giving me presents now. At least Claude has. He insisted on my accepting this cigarette-case last night. Came round to the theatre and wouldn’t go away till I took it. It’s not a.bad one, I must say.’
    It wasn’t. It was a distinctly fruity concern in gold with a diamond stuck in the middle. And the rummy thing was that I had a notion I’d seen something very like it before somewhere. How the deuce Claude had been able to dig up the cash to buy a thing like that was more than I could imagine.
    Next day was a Wednesday, and as the object of their devotion had a matinee, the twins were, so to speak, off duty. Claude had gone with his whiskers on to Hurst Park, and Eustace and I were in the flat, talking. At least, he was talking and I was wishing he would go.
    ‘The love of a good woman, Bertie,’ he was saying, ‘must be a wonderful thing. Sometimes … Good Lord! What’s that?’
    The front door had opened, and from out in the hall there came the sound of Aunt Agatha’s voice asking if I was