.

"All right."

"You'll do it?"

"I will."

"Fine."

"Of course, it will be agony."

I pointed out the silver lining.

"Only for the moment. You could slip down tonight, after everyone is in
bed, and raid the larder."

He brightened.

"That's right. I could, couldn't I?"

"I expect there would be something cold there."

"There is something cold there," said Tuppy, with growing cheerfulness. "A
steak-and-kidney pie. We had it for lunch today. One of Anatole's ripest.
The thing I admire about that man," said Tuppy reverently, "the thing
that I admire so enormously about Anatole is that, though a Frenchman, he
does not, like so many of these _chefs_, confine himself exclusively to
French dishes, but is always willing and ready to weigh in with some good
old simple English fare such as this steak-and-kidney pie to which I have
alluded. A masterly pie, Bertie, and it wasn't more than half finished.
It will do me nicely."

"And at dinner you will push, as arranged?"

"Absolutely as arranged."

"Fine."

"It's an excellent idea. One of Jeeves's best. You can tell him from me,
when you see him, that I'm much obliged."

The cigarette fell from my fingers. It was as though somebody had slapped
Bertram Wooster across the face with a wet dish-rag.

"You aren't suggesting that you think this scheme I have been sketching
out is Jeeves's?"

"Of course it is. It's no good trying to kid me, Bertie. You wouldn't
have thought of a wheeze like that in a million years."

There was a pause. I drew myself up to my full height; then, seeing that
he wasn't looking at me, lowered myself again.

"Come, Glossop," I said coldly, "we had better be going. It is time we
were dressing for dinner."

-9-

Tuppy's fatheaded words were still rankling in my bosom as I went up to
my room. They continued rankling as I shed the form-fitting, and had not
ceased to rankle when, clad in the old dressing-gown, I made my way along
the corridor to the _salle de bain_.

It is not too much to say that I was piqued to the tonsils.

I mean to say, one does not court praise. The adulation of the multitude
means very little to one. But, all the same, when one has taken the
trouble to whack out a highly juicy scheme to benefit an in-the-soup
friend in his hour of travail, it's pretty foul to find him giving the
credit to one's personal attendant, particularly if that personal
attendant is a man who goes about the place not packing me