The one point that seemed to me to want a spot of clearing up was this: viz., would old Mr Anstruther consider an outrage perpetrated on the person of Bertram Wooster a crime sufficiently black to cause him to rule Thos. out of the race? Or would he just give a senile chuckle and mumble something about boys being boys? Because, if the latter, the thing was off. I decided to have a word with the old boy and make sure.
He was still in the smoking-room, looking very frail over the morning Times. I got to the point at once.
‘Oh, Mr Anstruther,’ I said. ‘What-ho!’
‘I don’t like the way the American market is shaping,’ he said. ‘I don’t like this strong Bear movement.’
‘No?’ I said. ‘Well, be that as it may, about this Good Conduct prize of yours?’
‘Ah, you have heard of that, eh?’
‘I don’t quite understand how you are doing the judging.’
‘No? It is very simple. I have a system of daily marks. At the beginning of each day I accord the two lads twenty marks apiece. These are subject to withdrawal either in small or large quantities according to the magnitude of the offence. To take a simple example, shouting outside my bedroom in the early morning would involve a loss of three marks, – whistling two. The penalty for a more serious lapse would be correspondingly greater. Before retiring to rest at night I record the day’s marks in my little book. Simple, but, I think, ingenious, Mr Wooster?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘So far the result has been extremely gratifying. Neither of the little fellows has lost a single mark, and my nervous system is acquiring a tone which, when I learned that two lads of immature years would be staying in the house during my visit, I confess I had not dared to anticipate.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘Great work. And how do you react to what I might call general moral turpitude?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Well, I mean when the thing doesn’t affect you personally. Suppose one of them did something to me, for instance? Set a booby-trap or something? Or, shall we say, put a toad or so in my bed?’
He seemed shocked at the very idea.
‘I would certainly in such circumstances deprive the culprit of a full ten marks.’
‘Only ten?’
‘Fifteen, then.’
‘Twenty is a nice, round number.’
‘Well, possibly even twenty. I have a peculiar horror of practical joking.’
‘Me, too.’
‘You will not fail to advise me, Mr Wooster, should such an outrage occur?’
‘You shall have the news before anyone,’ I assured him.
And so out into the garden, ranging to and fro in quest of young Thos. I knew where I was now. Bertram’s feet were on solid ground.
I hadn’t been hunting long before I found him in the summer-house, reading an improving book.
‘Hullo,’ he said, smiling a saintlike smile.
This scourge of humanity was a chunky kid whom a too indulgent public had allowed to infest the country for a matter of fourteen years. His nose was snub, his eyes green, his general aspect that of one studying to be a gangster. I had never liked his looks much, and with a saintlike smile added to them they became ghastly to a degree.
I ran over in my mind a few assorted taunts.
‘Well, young Thos.,’ I said. ‘So there you are. You’re getting as fat as a pig.’
It seemed as good an opening as any other. Experience had taught me that if there was a subject on which he was unlikely to accept persiflage in a spirit of amused geniality it was this matter of his bulging tum. On the last occasion when I made a remark of this nature, he had replied to me, child though he was, in terms which I would have been proud to have had in my own vocabulary. But now, though a sort of wistful gleam did flit for a moment into his eyes, he merely smiled in a more saintlike manner than ever.
‘Yes, I think I have been putting on a little weight,’ he said gently. ‘I must try and exercise a lot while I’m here. Won’t you sit down, Bertie?’ he asked, rising. ‘You must be tired after your journey. I’ll get you a cushion. Have you cigarettes? And matches? I could bring you some from the smoking-room. Would you like me to fetch you something to drink?’
It is not too much to say that I felt baffled. In spite of what Aunt Dahlia had told me, I don’t think that until this moment I had really believed there could have been anything in the nature of a genuinely sensational change in this young plugugly’s attitude towards his fellows. But now, hearing him talk as if he were a combination of Boy Scout and delivery wagon, I felt definitely baffled. However, I stuck at it in the old bull-dog way.
‘Are you still at that rotten kids’ school of yours?’ I asked.
He might have been proof against jibes at his embonpoint, but it seemed to me incredible that he could have sold himself for gold so completely as to lie down under taunts directed at his school. I was wrong. The money-lust evidently held him in its grip. He merely shook his head.
‘I left this term. I’m going to Pevenhurst next term.’
‘They wear mortar-boards there, don’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘With pink tassels?’
‘Yes.’
‘What a priceless ass you’ll look!’ I said, but without much hope. And I laughed heartily.
‘I expect I shall,’ he said, and laughed still more heartily.
‘Mortar-boards!’
‘Ha, ha!’
‘Pink tassels!’
‘Ha, ha!’
I gave the thing up.
‘Well, teuf-teuf,’ I said moodily, and withdrew.
A couple of days later I realized that the virus had gone even deeper than I had thought. The kid was irredeemably sordid.
It was old Mr Anstruther who sprang the bad news.
‘Oh, Mr Wooster,’ he said, meeting me on the stairs as I came down after a refreshing breakfast. ‘You were good enough to express an interest in this little prize for Good Conduct which I am offering.’
‘Oh, ah?’
‘I explained to you my system of marking, I believe. Well, this morning I was impelled to vary it somewhat. The circumstances seemed to me to demand it. I happened to encounter our hostess’s nephew, the boy Thomas, returning to the house, his aspect somewhat weary, it appeared to me, and travel-stained. I inquired of him where he had been at that early hour – it was not yet breakfast-time – and he replied that he had heard you mention overnight a regret that you had omitted to order the Sporting Times to be sent to you before leaving London, and he had actually walked all the way to the railway-station, a distance of more than three miles, to procure it for you.’
The old boy swam before my eyes. He looked like two old Mr Anstruthers, both flickering at the edges.
‘What!’
‘I can understand your emotion, Mr Wooster. I can appreciate it. It is indeed rarely that one encounters such unselfish kindliness in a lad of his age. So genuinely touched was I by the goodness of heart which the episode showed that I have deviated from my original system and awarded the little fellow a bonus of fifteen marks.’
‘Fifteen!’
‘On second thoughts, I shall make it twenty. That, as you yourself suggested, is a nice, round number.’
He doddered away, and I bounded off to find Aunt Dahlia.
‘Aunt Dahlia,’ I said, ‘matters have taken a sinister turn.’
‘You bet your Sunday spats they have,’ agreed Aunt Dahlia emphatically. ‘Do you know what happened just now? That crook Snettisham, who ought to be warned off the turf and hounded out of his clubs, offered Bonzo ten shillings if he would burst a paper bag behind Mr Anstruther’s chair at breakfast. Thank heaven the love of a good woman triumphed again. My sweet Bonzo merely looked at him and walked away in a marked manner. But it just shows you what we are up against.’
‘We are up against worse than that, Aunt Dahlia,’ I said. And I told her what had happened.
She was stunned. Aghast, you might call it.
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‘Thomas did that?’
‘Thos. in person.’
‘Walked six miles to get you a paper?’
‘Six miles and a bit.’
‘The young hound! Good heavens, Bertie, do you realize that he may go on doing these Acts of Kindness daily – perhaps twice a day? Is there no way of stopping him?’
‘None that I can think of. No, Aunt Dahlia, I must confess it. I am baffled. There is only one thing to do. We must send for Jeeves.’
‘And about time,’ said the relative churlishly. ‘He ought to have been here from the start. Wire him this morning.’
There is good stuff in Jeeves. His heart is in the right place. The acid test does not find him wanting. Many men in his position, summoned back by telegram in the middle of their annual vacation, might have cut up rough a bit. But not Jeeves. On the following afternoon in he blew, looking bronzed and fit, and I gave him the scenario without delay.
‘So there you have it, Jeeves,’ I said, having sketched out the facts. ‘The problem is one that will exercise your intelligence to the utmost. Rest now, and to-night, after a light repast, withdraw to some solitary place and get down to it. Is there any particularly stimulating food or beverage you would like for dinner? Anything that you feel would give the old brain just that extra fillip? If so, name it.’
‘Thank you very much, sir, but I have already hit upon a plan which should, I fancy, prove effective.’
I gazed at the man with some awe.
‘Already?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Not already?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Something to do with the psychology of the individual?’
‘Precisely, sir.’
I shook my head, a bit discouraged. Doubts had begun to creep in.
‘Well, spring it, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘But I have not much hope. Having only just arrived, you cannot possibly be aware of the frightful change that has taken place in young Thos. You are probably building on your knowledge of him, when last seen. Useless, Jeeves. Stirred by the prospect of getting his hooks on five of the best, this blighted boy has become so dashed virtuous that his armour seems to contain no chink. I mocked at his waistline and sneered at his school and he merely smiled in a pale, dying-duck sort of way. Well, that’ll show you. However, let us hear what you have to suggest.’
‘It occurred to me, sir, that the most judicious plan in the circumstances would be for you to request Mrs Travers to invite Master Sebastian Moon here for a short visit.’
I shook the onion again. The scheme sounded to me like apple sauce, and Grade A apple sauce, at that.
‘What earthly good would that do?’ I asked, not without a touch of asperity. ‘Why Sebastian Moon?’
‘He has golden curls, sir.’
‘What of it?’
‘The strongest natures are sometimes not proof against long golden curls.’
Well, it was a thought, of course. But I can’t say I was leaping about to any great extent. It might be that the sight of Sebastian Moon would break down Thos.’s iron self-control to the extent of causing him to inflict mayhem on the person, but I wasn’t any too hopeful.
‘It may be so, Jeeves.’
‘I do not think I am too sanguine, sir. You must remember that Master Moon, apart from his curls, has a personality which is not uniformly pleasing. He is apt to express himself with a breezy candour which I fancy Master Thomas might feel inclined to resent in one some years his junior.’
I had had a feeling all along that there was a flaw somewhere, and now it seemed to me that I had spotted it.
‘But, Jeeves. Granted that little Sebastian is the pot of poison you indicate, why won’t he act just as forcibly on young Bonzo as on Thos.? Pretty silly we should look if our nominee started putting it across him. Never forget that already Bonzo is twenty marks down and falling back in the betting.’
‘I do not anticipate any such contingency, sir. Master Travers is in love, and love is a very powerful restraining influence at the age of thirteen.’
‘H’m.’ I mused. ‘Well, we can but try, Jeeves.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ll get Aunt Dahlia to write to Sippy to-night.’
I’m bound to say that the spectacle of little Sebastian when he arrived two days later did much to remove pessimism from my outlook. If ever there was a kid whose whole appearance seemed to call aloud to any right-minded boy to lure him into a quiet spot and inflict violence upon him, that kid was undeniably Sebastian Moon. He reminded me strongly of Little Lord Fauntleroy. I marked young Thos.’s demeanour closely at the moment of their meeting and, unless I was much mistaken, there came into his eyes the sort of look which would come into those of an Indian chief – Chinchagook, let us say, or Sitting Bull – just before he started reaching for his scalping-knife. He had the air of one who is about ready to begin.
True, his manner as he shook hands was guarded. Only a keen observer could have detected that he was stirred to his depths. But I had seen, and I summoned Jeeves forthwith.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘if I appeared to think poorly of that scheme of yours, I now withdraw my remarks. I believe you have found the way. I was noticing Thos. at the moment of impact. His eyes had a strange gleam.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘He shifted uneasily on his feet and his ears wiggled. He had, in short, the appearance of a boy who was holding himself in with an effort almost too great for his frail body.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Yes, Jeeves. I received a distinct impression of something being on the point of exploding. To-morrow I shall ask Aunt Dahlia to take the two warts for a country ramble, to lose them in some sequestered spot, and to leave the rest to Nature.’
‘It is a good idea, sir.’
‘It is more than a good idea, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘It is a pip.’
You know, the older I get the more firmly do I become convinced that there is no such thing as a pip in existence. Again and again have I seen the apparently sure thing go phut, and now it is rarely indeed that I can be lured from my aloof scepticism. Fellows come sidling up to me at the Drones and elsewhere, urging me to invest on some horse that can’t lose even if it gets struck by lightning at the starting-post, but Bertram Wooster shakes his head. He has seen too much of life to be certain of anything.
If anyone had told me that my Cousin Thos., left alone for an extended period of time with a kid of the superlative foulness of Sebastian Moon, would not only refrain from cutting off his curls with a pocket-knife and chasing him across country into a muddy pond but would actually return home carrying the gruesome kid on his back because he had got a blister on his foot, I would have laughed scornfully. I knew Thos. I knew his work. I had seen him in action. And I was convinced that not even the prospect of collecting five pounds would be enough to give him pause.
And yet what happened? In the quiet evenfall, when the little birds were singing their sweetest and all Nature seemed to whisper of hope and happiness, the blow fell. I was chatting with old Mr Anstruther on the terrace when suddenly round a bend in the drive the two kids hove in view. Sebastian, seated on Thos.’s back, his hat off and his golden curls floating on the breeze, was singing as much as he could remember of a comic song, and Thos., bowed down by the burden but carrying on gamely, was trudging along, smiling that bally saintlike smile of his. He parked the kid on the front steps and came across to us.
‘Sebastian got a nail in his shoe,’ he said in a low, virtuous voice. ‘It hurt him to walk, so I gave him a piggy-back.’
I heard old Mr Anstruther draw in his breath sharply.
‘All the way home?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘In this hot sunshine?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But was he not very heavy?’
‘He was a little, sir,’ said Thos., uncorking the saintlike once more. ‘But it would have hurt him awfully to walk.’
I pushed off. I had had enough. If
ever a septuagenarian looked on the point of handing out another bonus, that septuagenarian was old Mr Anstruther. He had the unmistakable bonus glitter in his eye. I withdrew, and found Jeeves in my bedroom messing about with ties and things.
He pursed the lips a bit on hearing the news.
‘Serious, sir.’
‘Very serious, Jeeves.’
‘I had feared this, sir.’
‘Had you? I hadn’t. I was convinced Thos. would have massacred young Sebastian. I banked on it. It just shows what the greed for money will do. This is a commercial age, Jeeves. When I was a boy, I would cheerfully have forfeited five quid in order to deal faithfully with a kid like Sebastian. I would have considered it money well spent.’
‘You are mistaken, sir, in your estimate of the motives actuating Master Thomas. It was not a mere desire to win five pounds that caused him to curb his natural impulses.’
‘Eh?’
‘I have ascertained the true reason for his change of heart, sir.’
I felt fogged.
‘Religion, Jeeves?’
‘No, sir. Love.’
‘Love?’
‘Yes, sir. The young gentleman confided in me during a brief conversation in the hall shortly after luncheon. We had been speaking for a while on neutral subjects, when he suddenly turned a deeper shade of pink and after some slight hesitation inquired of me if I did not think Miss Greta Garbo the most beautiful woman at present in existence.’
I clutched the brow.
‘Jeeves! Don’t tell me Thos. is in love with Greta Garbo?’
‘Yes, sir. Unfortunately such is the case. He gave me to understand that it had been coming on for some time, and her last picture settled the issue. His voice shook with an emotion which it was impossible to misread. I gathered from his observations, sir, that he proposes to spend the remainder of his life trying to make himself worthy of her.’
It was a knock-out. This was the end.
‘This is the end, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘Bonzo must be a good forty marks behind by now. Only some sensational and spectacular outrage upon the public weal on the part of young Thos. could have enabled him to wipe out the lead. And of that there is now, apparently, no chance.’