propre
at the moment. We had reached the bedroom door now, and what I was asking myself was, What would the harvest be when Chuffy opened it and noted contents?
‘Chuffy,’ I said, and I spoke earnestly, ‘don’t go into that room!’
But it’s no good speaking earnestly if your head’s hanging down and your tongue has got tangled up with your back teeth. All that actually emerged was a sort of gargle, and Chuffy completely misunderstood it.
‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘Never mind. Soon be in beddy-bye now.’
I considered his manner offensive, and would have said so, but at this moment speech was, so to speak, wiped from my lips, as it were, by amazement. With a quick heave, my bearers had suddenly dumped me on the bed, and all that the frame had encountered was a blanket and pillow. Of anything in the nature of a girl in heliotrope pyjamas there was absolutely no trace.
I lay there, wondering. Chuffy had found the candle and lighted it, and I was now in a position to look about me.
Pauline Stoker had absolutely disappeared. Leaving not a wrack behind, as I remember Jeeves saying once.
Dashed odd.
Chuffy was dismissing his assistant.
‘Thanks, Sergeant. I can manage now.’
‘You’re sure, m’lord?’
‘Yes, it’s quite all right. He always drops off to sleep on these occasions.’
‘Then I think I’ll be going, m’lord. It’s a bit late for me.’
‘Yes, pop off. Good night.’
‘Good night, m’lord.’
The sergeant clumped down the stairs, making enough row for two sergeants, and Chuffy, with something of the air of a mother brooding over a sleeping child, took off my boots.
‘That’s my little man,’ he said. ‘Now you lie quite quiet, Bertie, and take things easy.’
It is a thing I have often wondered, whether I would or would not have commented upon what I considered the insufferably patronizing note in his voice as he called me his little man. I wanted to, but I saw that it would be fruitless unless I could think of something more than a little biting: and it was while I was searching in my mind for the telling phrase that the door of the hanging cupboard outside the room opened and Pauline Stoker came strolling in as if she hadn’t a care in the world. In fact, she seemed distinctly entertained.
‘What a night, what a night!’ she said amusedly. ‘A close call that, Bertie. Who were those men I heard going out?’
And then she suddenly sighted Chuffy, gave a kind of gasping squeak, and the love light came into her eyes as if somebody had pressed a switch.
‘Marmaduke!’ she cried, and stood there, staring.
But, by Jove, it was the poor old schoolmate who was doing the real staring, in the truest and fullest sense of the word. I’ve seen starers in my time, many of them, but never one who came within a mile of putting up the performance which Chuffy did then. The eyebrows had shot up, the jaw had fallen, and the eyes were protruding from one to two inches from the parent sockets. He also appeared to be trying to say something, but in this he flopped badly. Nothing came through except a rather unpleasant whistling sound, not quite so loud as the row your radio makes when you twiddle the twiddler a bit too hard but in other respects closely resembling it.
Pauline, meanwhile, had begun to advance with the air of a woman getting together with her demon lover, and a sort of pity for the girl shot through the Wooster bosom. I mean to say, any observant outsider like myself could see so clearly that she had got quite the wrong angle on the situation. I could read Chuffy like a book, and I knew that she was totally mistaken in what she supposed to be his emotions at this juncture. That odd noise he was making I could diagnose, not as the love call which she appeared to think it, but as the stern and censorious gruffle of a man who, finding his loved one on alien premises in heliotrope pyjamas, is stricken to the core, cut to the quick, and as sore as a gumboil.
But she,
at the moment. We had reached the bedroom door now, and what I was asking myself was, What would the harvest be when Chuffy opened it and noted contents?
‘Chuffy,’ I said, and I spoke earnestly, ‘don’t go into that room!’
But it’s no good speaking earnestly if your head’s hanging down and your tongue has got tangled up with your back teeth. All that actually emerged was a sort of gargle, and Chuffy completely misunderstood it.
‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘Never mind. Soon be in beddy-bye now.’
I considered his manner offensive, and would have said so, but at this moment speech was, so to speak, wiped from my lips, as it were, by amazement. With a quick heave, my bearers had suddenly dumped me on the bed, and all that the frame had encountered was a blanket and pillow. Of anything in the nature of a girl in heliotrope pyjamas there was absolutely no trace.
I lay there, wondering. Chuffy had found the candle and lighted it, and I was now in a position to look about me.
Pauline Stoker had absolutely disappeared. Leaving not a wrack behind, as I remember Jeeves saying once.
Dashed odd.
Chuffy was dismissing his assistant.
‘Thanks, Sergeant. I can manage now.’
‘You’re sure, m’lord?’
‘Yes, it’s quite all right. He always drops off to sleep on these occasions.’
‘Then I think I’ll be going, m’lord. It’s a bit late for me.’
‘Yes, pop off. Good night.’
‘Good night, m’lord.’
The sergeant clumped down the stairs, making enough row for two sergeants, and Chuffy, with something of the air of a mother brooding over a sleeping child, took off my boots.
‘That’s my little man,’ he said. ‘Now you lie quite quiet, Bertie, and take things easy.’
It is a thing I have often wondered, whether I would or would not have commented upon what I considered the insufferably patronizing note in his voice as he called me his little man. I wanted to, but I saw that it would be fruitless unless I could think of something more than a little biting: and it was while I was searching in my mind for the telling phrase that the door of the hanging cupboard outside the room opened and Pauline Stoker came strolling in as if she hadn’t a care in the world. In fact, she seemed distinctly entertained.
‘What a night, what a night!’ she said amusedly. ‘A close call that, Bertie. Who were those men I heard going out?’
And then she suddenly sighted Chuffy, gave a kind of gasping squeak, and the love light came into her eyes as if somebody had pressed a switch.
‘Marmaduke!’ she cried, and stood there, staring.
But, by Jove, it was the poor old schoolmate who was doing the real staring, in the truest and fullest sense of the word. I’ve seen starers in my time, many of them, but never one who came within a mile of putting up the performance which Chuffy did then. The eyebrows had shot up, the jaw had fallen, and the eyes were protruding from one to two inches from the parent sockets. He also appeared to be trying to say something, but in this he flopped badly. Nothing came through except a rather unpleasant whistling sound, not quite so loud as the row your radio makes when you twiddle the twiddler a bit too hard but in other respects closely resembling it.
Pauline, meanwhile, had begun to advance with the air of a woman getting together with her demon lover, and a sort of pity for the girl shot through the Wooster bosom. I mean to say, any observant outsider like myself could see so clearly that she had got quite the wrong angle on the situation. I could read Chuffy like a book, and I knew that she was totally mistaken in what she supposed to be his emotions at this juncture. That odd noise he was making I could diagnose, not as the love call which she appeared to think it, but as the stern and censorious gruffle of a man who, finding his loved one on alien premises in heliotrope pyjamas, is stricken to the core, cut to the quick, and as sore as a gumboil.
But she,
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