The inimitable Jeeves

suggest the scheme for?’
    ‘To tell you the truth, sir, I was not wholly averse from a severance of my relations with Miss Watson. In fact, I greatly desired it. I respect Miss Watson exceedingly, but I have seen for a long time that we were not suited. Now, the other young person with whom I have an understanding -‘
    ‘Great Scott, Jeeves! There isn’t another?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘How long has this been going on?’
    ‘For some weeks, sir. I was greatly attracted by her when I first met her at a subscription dance at Camberwell.’
    ‘My sainted aunt! Not -‘
    Jeeves inclined his head gravely.
    ‘Yes, sir. By an odd coincidence it is the same young person that young Mr Little - I have placed the cigarettes on the small table. Good night, sir.’

    3
    Aunt Agatha Speaks her Mind

    I suppose in the case of a chappie of really fine fibre and all that sort of thing, a certain amount of gloom and anguish would have followed this dishing of young Bingo’s matrimonial plans. I mean, if mine had been a noble nature, I would have been all broken up. But, what with one thing and another, I can’t let it weigh on me very heavily. The fact that less than a week after he had had the bad news I came on young Bingo dancing like an untamed gazelle at Giro’s helped me to bear up.
    A resilient bird, Bingo. He may be down, but he is never out. While these little love-affairs of his are actually on, nobody could be more earnest and blighted; but once the fuse has blown out and the girl has handed him his hat and begged him as a favour never to let her see him again, up he bobs as merry and bright as ever. If I’ve seen it happen once, I’ve seen it happen a dozen times.
    So I didn’t worry about Bingo. Or about anything else, as a matter of fact. What with one thing and another, I can’t remember ever having been chirpier than at about this period in my career. Everything seemed to be going right. On three separate occasions horses on which I’d invested a sizeable amount won by lengths instead of sitting down to rest in the middle of the race, as horses usually do when I’ve got money on them.
    Added to this, the weather continued topping to a degree; my new socks were admitted on all sides to be just the kind that mother makes; and to round it all off, my Aunt Agatha had gone to France and wouldn’t be on hand to snooter me for at least another six weeks. And, if you knew my Aunt Agatha, you’d agree that that alone was happiness enough for anyone.
    It suddenly struck me so forcibly, one morning while I was having my bath, that I hadn’t a worry on earth that I began to sing like a bally nightingale as I sploshed the sponge about. It seemed to me that everything was absolutely for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
    But have you ever noticed a rummy thing about life? I mean the way something always comes along to give it you in the neck at the very moment when you’re feeling most braced about things in general. No sooner had I dried the old limbs and shoved on the suiting and toddled into the sitting-room than the blow fell. There was a letter from Aunt Agatha on the mantelpiece.
    ‘Oh gosh!’ I said when I’d read it.
    ‘Sir?’ said Jeeves. He was fooling about in the background on some job or other.
    ‘It’s from my Aunt Agatha, Jeeves. Mrs Gregson, you know.’
    ‘Yes, sir?’
    ‘Ah, you wouldn’t speak in that light, careless tone if you knew what was in it,’ I said with a hollow, mirthless laugh. ‘The curse has come upon us, Jeeves. She wants me to go and join her at - what’s the name of the dashed place? - at Roville-sur-mer. Oh, hang it all!’
    ‘I had better be packing, sir?’
    ‘I suppose so.’
    To people who don’t know my Aunt Agatha I find it extraordinarily difficult to explain why it is that she has always put the wind up me to such a frightful extent. I mean, I’m not dependent on her financially or anything like that. It’s simply personality, I’ve come to the conclusion. You see, all through my childhood and when I was a kid at school she was always able to turn me inside out with a single glance, and I haven’t come out from under the ‘fluence yet. We run to height a bit in our family, and there’s about five-foot-nine of Aunt Agatha, topped off with a beaky nose, an eagle eye, and a lot of grey hair, and the general effect is pretty formidable. Anyway, it never even occurred to me for a moment to give her the miss-in-baulk on this occasion. If