een expecting that bell to hush things up to
any great extent. Nor did it. The last time I had heard it, I had been in
my room on the other side of the house, and even so it had hoiked me out
of bed as if something had exploded under me. Standing close to it like
this, I got the full force and meaning of the thing, and I've never heard
anything like it in my puff.

I rather enjoy a bit of noise, as a general rule. I remember Cats-meat
Potter-Pirbright bringing a police rattle into the Drones one night and
loosing it off behind my chair, and I just lay back and closed my eyes
with a pleasant smile, like someone in a box at the opera. And the same
applies to the time when my Aunt Agatha's son, young Thos., put a match
to the parcel of Guy Fawkes Day fireworks to see what would happen.

But the Brinkley Court fire bell was too much for me. I gave about half a
dozen tugs, and then, feeling that enough was enough, sauntered round to
the front lawn to ascertain what solid results had been achieved.

Brinkley Court had given of its best. A glance told me that we were
playing to capacity. The eye, roving to and fro, noted here Uncle Tom in
a purple dressing gown, there Aunt Dahlia in the old blue and yellow. It
also fell upon Anatole, Tuppy, Gussie, Angela, the Bassett and Jeeves, in
the order named. There they all were, present and correct.

But--and this was what caused me immediate concern--I could detect no
sign whatever that there had been any rescue work going on.

What I had been hoping, of course, was to see Tuppy bending solicitously
over Angela in one corner, while Gussie fanned the Bassett with a towel
in the other. Instead of which, the Bassett was one of the group which
included Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Tom and seemed to be busy trying to make
Anatole see the bright side, while Angela and Gussie were, respectively,
leaning against the sundial with a peeved look and sitting on the grass
rubbing a barked shin. Tuppy was walking up and down the path, all by
himself.

A disturbing picture, you will admit. It was with a rather imperious
gesture that I summoned Jeeves to my side.

"Well, Jeeves?"

"Sir?"

I eyed him sternly. "Sir?" forsooth!

"It's no good saying 'Sir?' Jeeves. Look round you. See for yourself.
Your scheme has proved a bust."

"Certainly it would appear that matters have not arranged themselves
quite as we anticipated, sir."

"We?"

"As I had anticipated, sir."

"That's more like it. Didn'