My Man Jeeves. P. G. Wodehouse

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СКАЧАТЬ not the young lady write a small volume, to be entitled—let us say—The Children's Book of American Birds, and dedicate it to Mr. Worple! A limited edition could be published at your expense, sir, and a great deal of the book would, of course, be given over to eulogistic remarks concerning Mr. Worple's own larger treatise on the same subject. I should recommend the dispatching of a presentation copy to Mr. Worple, immediately on publication, accompanied by a letter in which the young lady asks to be allowed to make the acquaintance of one to whom she owes so much. This would, I fancy, produce the desired result, but as I say, the expense involved would be considerable."

      I felt like the proprietor of a performing dog on the vaudeville stage when the tyke has just pulled off his trick without a hitch. I had betted on Jeeves all along, and I had known that he wouldn't let me down. It beats me sometimes why a man with his genius is satisfied to hang around pressing my clothes and what-not. If I had half Jeeves's brain, I should have a stab at being Prime Minister or something.

      "Jeeves," I said, "that is absolutely ripping! One of your very best efforts."

      "Thank you, sir."

      The girl made an objection.

      "But I'm sure I couldn't write a book about anything. I can't even write good letters."

      "Muriel's talents," said Corky, with a little cough "lie more in the direction of the drama, Bertie. I didn't mention it before, but one of our reasons for being a trifle nervous as to how Uncle Alexander will receive the news is that Muriel is in the chorus of that show Choose your Exit at the Manhattan. It's absurdly unreasonable, but we both feel that that fact might increase Uncle Alexander's natural tendency to kick like a steer."

      I saw what he meant. Goodness knows there was fuss enough in our family when I tried to marry into musical comedy a few years ago. And the recollection of my Aunt Agatha's attitude in the matter of Gussie and the vaudeville girl was still fresh in my mind. I don't know why it is—one of these psychology sharps could explain it, I suppose—but uncles and aunts, as a class, are always dead against the drama, legitimate or otherwise. They don't seem able to stick it at any price.

      But Jeeves had a solution, of course.

      "I fancy it would be a simple matter, sir, to find some impecunious author who would be glad to do the actual composition of the volume for a small fee. It is only necessary that the young lady's name should appear on the title page."

      "That's true," said Corky. "Sam Patterson would do it for a hundred dollars. He writes a novelette, three short stories, and ten thousand words of a serial for one of the all-fiction magazines under different names every month. A little thing like this would be nothing to him. I'll get after him right away."

      "Fine!"

      "Will that be all, sir?" said Jeeves. "Very good, sir. Thank you, sir."

      I always used to think that publishers had to be devilish intelligent fellows, loaded down with the grey matter; but I've got their number now. All a publisher has to do is to write cheques at intervals, while a lot of deserving and industrious chappies rally round and do the real work. I know, because I've been one myself. I simply sat tight in the old apartment with a fountain-pen, and in due season a topping, shiny book came along.

      I happened to be down at Corky's place when the first copies of The Children's Book of American Birds bobbed up. Muriel Singer was there, and we were talking of things in general when there was a bang at the door and the parcel was delivered.

      It was certainly some book. It had a red cover with a fowl of some species on it, and underneath the girl's name in gold letters. I opened a copy at random.

      "Often of a spring morning," it said at the top of page twenty-one, "as you wander through the fields, you will hear the sweet-toned, carelessly flowing warble of the purple finch linnet. When you are older you must read all about him in Mr. Alexander Worple's wonderful book—American Birds."

      You see. A boost for the uncle right away. And only a few pages later there he was in the limelight again in connection with the yellow-billed cuckoo. It was great stuff. The more I read, the more I admired the chap who had written it and Jeeves's genius in putting us on to the wheeze. I didn't see how the uncle could fail to drop. You can't call a chap the world's greatest authority on the yellow-billed cuckoo without rousing a certain disposition towards chumminess in him.

      "It's a cert!" I said.

      "An absolute cinch!" said Corky.

      And a day or two later he meandered up the Avenue to my apartment to tell me that all was well. The uncle had written Muriel a letter so dripping with the milk of human kindness that if he hadn't known Mr. Worple's handwriting Corky would have refused to believe him the author of it. Any time it suited Miss Singer to call, said the uncle, he would be delighted to make her acquaintance.

      Shortly after this I had to go out of town. Divers sound sportsmen had invited me to pay visits to their country places, and it wasn't for several months that I settled down in the city again. I had been wondering a lot, of course, about Corky, whether it all turned out right, and so forth, and my first evening in New York, happening to pop into a quiet sort of little restaurant which I go to when I don't feel inclined for the bright lights, I found Muriel Singer there, sitting by herself at a table near the door. Corky, I took it, was out telephoning. I went up and passed the time of day.

      "Well, well, well, what?" I said.

      "Why, Mr. Wooster! How do you do?"

      "Corky around?"

      "I beg your pardon?"

      "You're waiting for Corky, aren't you?"

      "Oh, I didn't understand. No, I'm not waiting for him."

      It seemed to me that there was a sort of something in her voice, a kind of thingummy, you know.

      "I say, you haven't had a row with Corky, have you?"

      "A row?"

      "A spat, don't you know—little misunderstanding—faults on both sides—er—and all that sort of thing."

      "Why, whatever makes you think that?"

      "Oh, well, as it were, what? What I mean is—I thought you usually dined with him before you went to the theatre."

      "I've left the stage now."

      Suddenly the whole thing dawned on me. I had forgotten what a long time I had been away.

      "Why, of course, I see now! You're married!"

      "Yes."

      "How perfectly topping! I wish you all kinds of happiness."

      "Thank you, so much. Oh Alexander," she said, looking past me, "this is a friend of mine—Mr. Wooster."

      I spun round. A chappie with a lot of stiff grey hair and a red sort of healthy face was standing there. Rather a formidable Johnnie, he looked, though quite peaceful at the moment.

      "I want you to meet my husband, Mr. Wooster. Mr. Wooster is a friend of Bruce's, Alexander."

      The old boy grasped my hand warmly, and that was all that kept me from hitting the floor in a heap. The СКАЧАТЬ