Well, of course the first thing the man of sensibility does on these occasions is to thank his brave preserver. I turned to do this, and blow me tight if the b.p. wasn't Jeeves. Came as a complete surprise. I couldn't think what he was doing there, and for an instant the idea occurred to me that this might be his astral body.
'Jeeves!' I ejaculated. I'm pretty sure that's the word. Anyway, I'll risk it.
'Good afternoon, sir. I trust you are not too discommoded. That was a somewhat narrow squeak.'
'It was indeed. I don't say my whole life passed before me, but a considerable chunk of it did. But for you –'
'Not at all, sir.'
'Yes, you and you only saved me from appearing in tomorrow's obituary column.'
'A pleasure, sir.'
'It's amazing how you always turn up at the crucial moment, like the United States Marines. I remember how you did when A. B. Filmer and I were having our altercation with that swan, and there were other occasions too numerous to mention. Well, you will certainly get a rave notice in my prayers next time I make them. But how do you happen to be in these parts? Where are we, by the way?'
'This is Curzon Street, sir.'
'Of course. I'd have known that if I hadn't been musing.'
'You were musing, sir?'
'Deeply. I'll tell you about it later. This is where your club is, isn't it?'
'Yes, sir, just round the corner. In your absence and having completed the packing, I decided to lunch there.'
'Thank heaven you did. If you hadn't, I'd have been … what's that gag of yours? Something about wheels.'
'Less than the dust beneath thy chariot wheels, sir.'
'Or, rather, the cabby's chariot wheels. Why are you looking at me with such a searching eye, Jeeves?'
'I was thinking that your misadventure had left you somewhat dishevelled, sir. If I might suggest it, I think we should repair to the Junior Ganymede now.'
'I see what you mean. You would give me a wash and brush-up?'
'Just so, sir.'
'And perhaps a whisky-and-soda?'
'Certainly, sir.'
'I need one sorely. Ginger's practically on the waggon, so there were no cocktails before lunch. And do you know why he's practically on the waggon? Because the girl he's engaged to has made him take that foolish step. And do you know who the girl he's engaged to is? My cousin Florence Craye.'
'Indeed, sir?'
Well, I hadn't expected him to roll his eyes and leap about, because he never does no matter how sensational the news item, but I could see by the way one of his eyebrows twitched and rose perhaps an eighth of an inch that I had interested him. And there was what is called a wealth of meaning in that 'Indeed, sir?' He was conveying his opinion that this was a bit of luck for Bertram, because a girl you have once been engaged to is always a lurking menace till she gets engaged to someone else and so cannot decide at any moment to play a return date. I got the message and thoroughly agreed with him, though naturally I didn't say so.
Jeeves, you see, is always getting me out of entanglements with the opposite sex, and he knows all about the various females who from time to time have come within an ace of hauling me to the altar rails, but of course we don't discuss them. To do so, we feel, would come under the head of bandying a woman's name, and the Woosters do not bandy women's names. Nor do the Jeeveses. I can't speak for his Uncle Charlie Silversmith, but I should imagine that he, too, has his code of ethics in this respect. These things generally run in families.
So I merely filled him in about her making Ginger stand for Parliament and the canvassing we were going to undertake, urging him to do his utmost to make the electors think along the right lines, and he said 'Yes, sir' and 'Very good, sir' and 'I quite understand, sir', and we proceeded to the Junior Ganymede.
An extremely cosy club it proved to be. I didn't wonder that he liked to spend so much of his leisure there. It lacked the sprightliness of the Drones. I shouldn't think there was much bread and sugar thrown about at lunch time, and you would hardly expect that there would be when you reflected that the membership consisted of elderly butlers and gentlemen's gentlemen of fairly ripe years, but as regards comfort it couldn't be faulted. The purler I had taken had left me rather tender in the fleshy parts, and it was a relief after I had been washed and brushed up and was on the spruce side once more to sink into a well-stuffed chair in the smoking-room.
Sipping my whisky-and-s., I brought the conversation round again to Ginger and his election, which was naturally the front page stuff of the day.
'Do you think he has a chance, Jeeves?'
He weighed the question for a moment, as if dubious as to where he would place his money.
'It is difficult to say, sir. Market Snodsbury, like so many English country towns, might be described as straitlaced. It sets a high value on respectability.'
'Well, Ginger's respectable enough.'
'True, sir, but, as you are aware, he has had a Past.'
'Not much of one.'
'Sufficient, however, to prejudice the voters, should they learn of it.'
'Which they can't possibly do. I suppose he's in the club book –'
'Eleven pages, sir.'
' – But you assure me that the contents of the club book will never be revealed.'
'Never, sir. Mr Winship has nothing to fear from that quarter.'
His words made me breathe more freely.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'your words make me breathe more freely. As you know, I am always a bit uneasy about the club book. Kept under lock and key, is it?'
'Not actually under lock and key, sir, but it is safely bestowed in the secretary's office.'
'Then there's nothing to worry about.'
'I would not say that, sir. Mr Winship must have had companions in his escapades, and they might inadvertently make some reference to them which would get into gossip columns in the Press and thence into the Market Snodsbury journals. I believe there are two of these, one rigidly opposed to the Conservative interest which Mr Winship is representing. It is always a possibility, and the results would be disastrous. I have no means at the moment of knowing the identity of Mr Winship's opponent, but he is sure to be a model of respectability whose past can bear the strictest investigation.'
'You're pretty gloomy, Jeeves. Why aren't you gathering rosebuds? The poet Herrick would shake his head.'
'I am sorry, sir. I did not know that you were taking Mr Winship's fortunes so much to heart, or I would have been more guarded in my speech. Is victory in the election of such importance to him?'
'It's vital. Florence will hand him his hat if he doesn't win.'
'Surely not, sir?'
'That's what he says, and I think he's right. His observations on the subject were most convincing. He says she's a perfectionist and has no use for a loser. It is well established that she handed Percy Gorringe the pink slip because the play he made of her novel only ran three nights.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Well-documented fact.'
'Then let us hope that what I fear will not happen, sir.'
We were sitting there hoping that what he feared would not happen, when a shadow fell on my whisky-and-s. and I saw that we had been joined by another member of the Junior Ganymede, a smallish, plumpish, Gawd-help-us-ish member wearing clothes more suitable for the country than the town and a tie that suggested that he belonged to the Brigade of Guards, though I doubted if this was the case. As to his manner, I couldn't get a better word for it at the moment than 'familiar', but I looked it up later in Jeeves's Dictionary of Synonyms and found that it had been unduly intimate, too free, forward, lacking in proper reserve, deficient in due respect, impudent, bold and intrusive. Well, when I tell you that the first thing he did was to prod Jeeves in the lower ribs with an uncouth forefinger, you will get the idea.