vailed. Friendly gossip between employer and
employed, and everything as sweet as a nut. But at this juncture, I
regret to say, there was an unpleasant switch. The atmosphere suddenly
changed, the storm clouds began to gather, and before we knew where we
were, the jarring note had come bounding on the scene. I have known this
to happen before in the Wooster home.

The first intimation I had that things were about to hot up was a pained
and disapproving cough from the neighbourhood of the carpet. For, during
the above exchanges, I should explain, while I, having dried the frame,
had been dressing in a leisurely manner, donning here a sock, there a
shoe, and gradually climbing into the vest, the shirt, the tie, and the
knee-length, Jeeves had been down on the lower level, unpacking my
effects.

He now rose, holding a white object. And at the sight of it, I realized
that another of our domestic crises had arrived, another of those
unfortunate clashes of will between two strong men, and that Bertram,
unless he remembered his fighting ancestors and stood up for his rights,
was about to be put upon.

I don't know if you were at Cannes this summer. If you were, you will
recall that anybody with any pretensions to being the life and soul of
the party was accustomed to attend binges at the Casino in the ordinary
evening-wear trouserings topped to the north by a white mess-jacket with
brass buttons. And ever since I had stepped aboard the Blue Train at
Cannes station, I had been wondering on and off how mine would go with
Jeeves.

In the matter of evening costume, you see, Jeeves is hidebound and
reactionary. I had had trouble with him before about soft-bosomed shirts.
And while these mess-jackets had, as I say, been all the rage--_tout ce
qu'il y a de chic_--on the Cote d'Azur, I had never concealed it from
myself, even when treading the measure at the Palm Beach Casino in the
one I had hastened to buy, that there might be something of an upheaval
about it on my return.

I prepared to be firm.

"Yes, Jeeves?" I said. And though my voice was suave, a close observer in
a position to watch my eyes would have noticed a steely glint. Nobody has
a greater respect for Jeeves's intellect than I have, but this
disposition of his to dictate to the hand that fed him had got, I felt,
to be checked. This mess-jacket was very near to my heart, and I jolly
well intended to fight for it with all the vim of grand old Sieur de
Wooster at