one would
leap to the handlebars more readily than I. Young Lochinvar, absolutely.
But this business of being put through it merely to gratify one's
personal attendant's diseased sense of the amusing was a bit too thick,
and I chafed from start to finish.

So, what I mean to say, although the providence which watches over good
men saw to it that I was enabled to complete the homeward journey
unscathed except in the billowy portions, removing from my path all
goats, elephants, and even owls that looked like my Aunt Agatha, it was
a frowning and jaundiced Bertram who finally came to anchor at the
Brinkley Court front door. And when I saw a dark figure emerging from
the porch to meet me, I prepared to let myself go and uncork all that was
fizzing in the mind.

"Jeeves!" I said.

"It is I, Bertie."

The voice which spoke sounded like warm treacle, and even if I had not
recognized it immediately as that of the Bassett, I should have known
that it did not proceed from the man I was yearning to confront. For this
figure before me was wearing a simple tweed dress and had employed my
first name in its remarks. And Jeeves, whatever his moral defects, would
never go about in skirts calling me Bertie.

The last person, of course, whom I would have wished to meet after a long
evening in the saddle, but I vouchsafed a courteous "What ho!"

There was a pause, during which I massaged the calves. Mine, of course, I
mean.

"You got in, then?" I said, in allusion to the change of costume.

"Oh, yes. About a quarter of an hour after you left Jeeves went searching
about and found the back-door key on the kitchen window-sill."

"Ha!"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I thought you said something."

"No, nothing."

And I continued to do so. For at this juncture, as had so often happened
when this girl and I were closeted, the conversation once more went blue
on us. The night breeze whispered, but not the Bassett. A bird twittered,
but not so much as a chirp escaped Bertram. It was perfectly amazing, the
way her mere presence seemed to wipe speech from my lips--and mine, for
that matter, from hers. It began to look as if our married life together
would be rather like twenty years among the Trappist monks.

"Seen Jeeves anywhere?" I asked, eventually coming through.

"Yes, in the dining-room."

"The dining-room?"

"Waiting on everybody. They are having eggs and bacon and champagne....
What did you say?"

I had said nothing--mere