hing was on the strength after all, must have been the
nastiest of jars, but there was no play of expression on his finely
chiselled to indicate it. There very seldom is on Jeeves's f-c. In
moments of discomfort, as I had told Tuppy, he wears a mask, preserving
throughout the quiet stolidity of a stuffed moose.

"You might just slide down and fetch it, will you?"

"Very good, sir."

"Right ho, Jeeves."

And presently I was sauntering towards the drawing-room with me good old
j. nestling snugly abaft the shoulder blades.

And Dahlia was in the drawing-room. She glanced up at my entrance.

"Hullo, eyesore," she said. "What do you think you're made up as?"

I did not get the purport.

"The jacket, you mean?" I queried, groping.

"I do. You look like one of the chorus of male guests at Abernethy Towers
in Act 2 of a touring musical comedy."

"You do not admire this jacket?"

"I do not."

"You did at Cannes."

"Well, this isn't Cannes."

"But, dash it----"

"Oh, never mind. Let it go. If you want to give my butler a laugh, what
does it matter? What does anything matter now?"

There was a death-where-is-thy-sting-fullness about her manner which I
found distasteful. It isn't often that I score off Jeeves in the
devastating fashion just described, and when I do I like to see happy,
smiling faces about me.

"Tails up, Aunt Dahlia," I urged buoyantly.

"Tails up be dashed," was her sombre response. "I've just been talking to
Tom."

"Telling him?"

"No, listening to him. I haven't had the nerve to tell him yet."

"Is he still upset about that income-tax money?"

"Upset is right. He says that Civilisation is in the melting-pot and that
all thinking men can read the writing on the wall."

"What wall?"

"Old Testament, ass. Belshazzar's feast."

"Oh, that, yes. I've often wondered how that gag was worked. With
mirrors, I expect."

"I wish I could use mirrors to break it to Tom about this baccarat
business."

I had a word of comfort to offer here. I had been turning the thing over
in my mind since our last meeting, and I thought I saw where she had got
twisted. Where she made her error, it seemed to me, was in feeling she
had got to tell Uncle Tom. To my way of thinking, the matter was one on
which it would be better to continue to exercise a quiet reserve.

"I don't see why you need mention that you lost that money at baccarat."

"What do you suggest, then? Letting _Milady's Boudoir_ join Civili