Right Ho, Jeeves

“Nothing could have kept me away,” I replied, touched. “I felt you needed me.” “Yes.” “Quite.” “Or, rather,” she said, “not you, of course, but Jeeves. The minute all this happened, I thought of him. The situation obviously cries out for Jeeves. If ever in the whole history of human affairs there was a moment when that lofty brain was required about the home, this is it.” I think, if I had been standing up, I would have staggered. In fact, I’m pretty sure I would. But it isn’t so dashed easy to stagger when you’re sitting in an arm-chair. Only my face, therefore, showed how deeply I had been stung by these words. Until she spoke them, I had been all sweetness and light--the sympathetic nephew prepared to strain every nerve to do his bit. I now froze, and the face became hard and set. “Jeeves!” I said, between clenched teeth. “Oom beroofen,” said Aunt Dahlia. I saw that she had got the wrong angle. “I was not sneezing. I was saying ‘Jeeves!’” “And well you may. What a man! I’m going to put the whole thing up to him. There’s nobody like Jeeves.” My frigidity became more marked. “I venture to take issue with you, Aunt Dahlia.” “You take what?” “Issue.” “You do, do you?” “I emphatically do. Jeeves is hopeless.” “What?” “Quite hopeless. He has lost his grip completely. Only a couple of days ago I was compelled to take him off a case because his handling of it was so footling. And, anyway, I resent this assumption, if assumption is the word I want, that Jeeves is the only fellow with brain. I object to the way everybody puts things up to him without consulting me and letting me have a stab at them first.”