why I was so amazed when you told
me he had suddenly risen to the surface like this. I still can't believe
it. I am inclined to think that there must be some mistake, and that
this bird who has been calling here is some different variety of
Fink-Nottle. The chap I know wears horn-rimmed spectacles and has a face
like a fish. How does that check up with your data?"

"The gentleman who came to the flat wore horn-rimmed spectacles, sir."

"And looked like something on a slab?"

"Possibly there was a certain suggestion of the piscine, sir."

"Then it must be Gussie, I suppose. But what on earth can have brought
him up to London?"

"I am in a position to explain that, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle confided to me
his motive in visiting the metropolis. He came because the young lady is
here."

"Young lady?"

"Yes, sir."

"You don't mean he's in love?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I'm dashed. I'm really dashed. I positively am dashed, Jeeves."

And I was too. I mean to say, a joke's a joke, but there are limits.

Then I found my mind turning to another aspect of this rummy affair.
Conceding the fact that Gussie Fink-Nottle, against all the ruling of the
form book, might have fallen in love, why should he have been haunting my
flat like this? No doubt the occasion was one of those when a fellow
needs a friend, but I couldn't see what had made him pick on me.

It wasn't as if he and I were in any way bosom. We had seen a lot of each
other at one time, of course, but in the last two years I hadn't had so
much as a post card from him.

I put all this to Jeeves:

"Odd, his coming to me. Still, if he did, he did. No argument about that.
It must have been a nasty jar for the poor perisher when he found I
wasn't here."

"No, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle did not call to see you, sir."

"Pull yourself together, Jeeves. You've just told me that this is what he
has been doing, and assiduously, at that."

"It was I with whom he was desirous of establishing communication, sir."

"You? But I didn't know you had ever met him."

"I had not had that pleasure until he called here, sir. But it appears
that Mr. Sipperley, a fellow student of whom Mr. Fink-Nottle had been at
the university, recommended him to place his affairs in my hands."

The mystery had conked. I saw all. As I dare say you know, Jeeves's
reputation as a counsellor has long been established among the
cognoscenti, and the first move of any of my little circle on discovering
them