Mr. Wooster is a friend ofBruce's, Alexander."
The old boy grasped my hand warmly, and that was all that kept me from hitting the floor in a heap. The place was rocking. Absolutely.
"So you know my nephew, Mr. Wooster," I heard him say. "I wish you would try to knock a little sense into him and make him quit this playing at painting. But I have an idea that he is steadying down. I noticed it first that night he came to dinner with us, my dear, to be introduced to you. He seemed altogether quieter and more serious. Something seemed to have sobered him. Perhaps you will give us the pleasure of your company at dinner to-night, Mr. Wooster? Or have you dined?"
I said I had. What I needed then was air, not dinner. I felt that I wanted to get into the open and think this thing out. When I reached my apartment I heard Jeeves moving about in his lair. I called him.
"Jeeves," I said, "now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. A stiff b.-and-s. first of all, and then I've a bit of news for you."
He came back with a tray and a long glass. "Better have one yourself, Jeeves. You'll need it." "Later on, perhaps, thank you, sir."
"All right. Please yourself. But you're going to get a shock. You remember my friend, Mr. Corcoran?" "Yes, sir."
"And the girl who was to slide gracefully into his uncle's esteem by writing the book on birds?" "Perfectly, sir."
"Well, she's slid. She's married the uncle."
He took it without blinking. You can't rattle Jeeves. "That was always a development to be feared, sir."
"You don't mean to tell me that you were expecting it?" "It crossed my mind as a possibility."
"Did it, by Jove! Well, I think, you might have warned us!"
7
"I hardly liked to take the liberty, sir."
Of course, as I saw after I had had a bite to eat and was in a calmer frame of mind, what had happened wasn't my fault, if you come down to it. I couldn't be expected to foresee that the scheme, in itself a cracker-jack, would skid into the ditch as it had done; but all the same I'm bound to admit that I didn't relish the idea of meeting Corky again until time, the great healer, had been able to get in
a bit of soothing work. I cut Washington Square out absolutely for the next few months. I gave it the complete miss-in-baulk. And then, just when I was beginning to think I might safely pop down in that direction and gather up the dropped threads, so to speak, time, instead of working the healing wheeze, went and pulled the most awful bone and put the lid on it. Opening the paper one morning, I read that Mrs. Alexander Worple had presented her husband with a son and heir.
I was so darned sorry for poor old Corky that I hadn't the heart to touch my breakfast. I told Jeeves to drink it himself. I was bowled over. Absolutely. It was the limit.
I hardly knew what to do. I wanted, of course, to rush down to Washington Square and grip the poor blighter silently by the hand;
and then, thinking it over, I hadn't the nerve. Absent treatment seemed the touch. I gave it him in waves.
But after a month or so I began to hesitate again. It struck me that it was playing it a bit low-down on the poor chap, avoiding him like this just when he probably wanted his pals to surge round him most. I pictured him sitting in his lonely studio with no company but his bitter thoughts, and the pathos of it got me to such an extent that I bounded straight into a taxi and told the driver to go all out for the studio.
I rushed in, and there was Corky, hunched up at the easel, painting away, while on the model throne sat a severe-looking female of middle age, holding a baby.
A fellow has to be ready for that sort of thing. "Oh, ah!" I said, and started to back out. Corky looked over his shoulder.
"Halloa, Bertie. Don't go. We're just finishing for the day. That will be all this afternoon," he said to the nurse, who got up with the baby and decanted it into a perambulator which was standing in the fairway.
"At the same hour to-morrow, Mr. Corcoran?" "Yes, please."
"Good afternoon." "Good afternoon."
Corky stood there, looking at the door, and then he turned to me and began to get it off his chest. Fortunately, he seemed to take it for granted that I knew all about what had happened, so it wasn't as awkward as it might have been.
"It's my uncle's idea," he said. "Muriel doesn't know about it yet. The portrait's to be a surprise for her on her birthday. The nurse takes the kid out ostensibly to get a breather, and they beat it down here. If you want an instance of the irony of fate, Bertie, get acquainted with this. Here's the first commission I have ever had to paint a portrait, and the sitter is that human poached egg that has butted in and bounced me out of my inheritance. Can you beat it! I call it rubbing the thing in to expect me to spend my afternoons gazing into the ugly face of a little brat who to all intents and purposes has hit me behind the ear with a blackjack and swiped all I possess. I can't refuse to paint the portrait because if I did my uncle would stop my allowance; yet every time I look up and catch
that kid's vacant eye, I suffer agonies. I tell you, Bertie, sometimes when he gives me a patronizing glance and then turns away and is sick, as if it revolted him to look at me, I come within an ace of occupying the entire front page of the evening papers as the latest murder sensation. There are moments when I can almost see the headlines: 'Promising Young Artist Beans Baby With Axe.'"
I patted his shoulder silently. My sympathy for the poor old scout was too deep for words.
I kept away from the studio for some time after that, because it didn't seem right to me to intrude on the poor chappie's sorrow. Besides, I'm bound to say that nurse intimidated me. She reminded me so infernally of Aunt Agatha. She was the same gimlet-eyed
8
type.
But one afternoon Corky called me on the 'phone. "Bertie."
"Halloa?"
"Are you doing anything this afternoon?" "Nothing special."
"You couldn't come down here, could you?" "What's the trouble? Anything up?"
"I've finished the portrait." "Good boy! Stout work!"
"Yes." His voice sounded rather doubtful. "The fact is, Bertie, it doesn't look quite right to me. There's something about it--My uncle's coming in half an hour to inspect it, and--I don't know why it is, but I kind of feel I'd like your moral support!"
I began to see that I was letting myself in for something. The sympathetic co-operation of Jeeves seemed to me to be indicated. "You think he'll cut up rough?"
"He may."
I threw my mind back to the red-faced chappie I had met at the restaurant, and tried to picture him cutting up rough. It was only too easy. I spoke to Corky firmly on the telephone.
"I'll come," I said. "Good!"
"But only if I may bring Jeeves!"
"Why Jeeves? What's Jeeves got to do with it? Who wants Jeeves? Jeeves is the fool who suggested the scheme that has led----" "Listen, Corky, old top! If you think I am going to face that uncle of yours without Jeeves's support, you're mistaken. I'd sooner go
