Right Ho, Jeeves

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--merely snorted. There was something about the thought of these people carelessly revelling at a time when, for all they knew, I was probably being dragged about the countryside by goats or chewed by elephants, that struck home at me like a poisoned dart. It was the sort of thing you read about as having happened just before the French Revolution--the haughty nobles in their castles callously digging in and quaffing while the unfortunate blighters outside were suffering frightful privations.