The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 4: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.4 Read Free Page B

endure. Ever since he had glanced at his ticket, seen that it bore the name Wooster, and learned that I was a red-hot favourite for the tourney, his attitude towards me had been that of an official at Borstal told off to keep an eye on a more than ordinarily up-and-coming juvenile delinquent. He had a way of looming up beside me at the club, sniffing quickly at my glass and giving me an accusing look, coupled with a sharp whistling intake of the breath, and here he was now doing the same thing in my very home. It was worse than being back in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit and ringlets and having a keen-eyed nurse always at one’s elbow, watching one’s every move like a bally hawk.
    I was about to say how deeply I resented being tailed up in this manner, when he resumed.
    ‘I have come here tonight to talk seriously to you, Wooster,’ he said, frowning in a most unpleasant manner. ‘I am shocked at the casual, frivolous way in which you are treating this Darts tournament. You seem not to be taking the most elementary precautions to ensure victory on the big day. It’s the old, old story. Over-confidence. All these fatheads keep telling you you’re sure to win, and you suck it down like one of your beastly cocktails. Well, let me tell you you’re living in a fool’s paradise. I happened to look in at the Drones this afternoon, and Freddie Widgeon was at the Darts board, stunning all beholders with a performance that took the breath away. His accuracy was sensational.’
    I waved a hand and tossed the head. In fact, I suppose you might say I bridled. He had wounded my amour propre.
    ‘Tchah!’ I said, registering scorn.
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘I said “Tchah!” With ref. to F. Widgeon. I know his form backwards. Flashy, but no staying power. The man will be less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels.’
    ‘That’s what you think. As I said before, over-confidence. You can take it from me that Freddie is a very dangerous competitor. I happen to know that he has been in strict training for weeks. He’s knocked off smoking and has a cold bath every morning. Did you have a cold bath this morning?’
    ‘Certainly not. What do you suppose the hot tap’s for?’
    ‘Do you do Swedish exercises before breakfast?’
    ‘I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. Leave these excesses to the Swedes, I say.’
    ‘No,’ said Stilton bitterly. ‘All you do is riot and revel and carouse. I am told that you were at that party of Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright’s last night. You probably reeled home at three in the morning, rousing the neighbourhood with drunken shouts.’
    I raised a haughty eyebrow. This police persecution was intolerable.
    ‘You would scarcely expect me, constable,’ I said coldly, ‘to absent myself from the farewell supper of a boyhood friend who is leaving for Hollywood in a day or two and may be away from civilization for years. Catsmeat would have been pained to his foundations if I had oiled out. And it wasn’t three in the morning, it was two-thirty.’
    ‘Did you drink anything?’
    ‘The merest sip.’
    ‘And smoke?’
    ‘The merest cigar.’
    ‘I don’t believe you. I’ll bet, if the truth was known,’ said Stilton morosely, intensifying the darkness of his frown, ‘you lowered yourself to the level of the beasts of the field. I’ll bet you whooped it up like a sailor in a Marseilles bistro. And from the fact that there is a white tie round your neck and a white waistcoat attached to your foul stomach at this moment I gather that you are planning to be off shortly to some other nameless orgy.’
    I laughed one of my quiet laughs. The word amused me.
    ‘Orgy, eh? I’m giving dinner to some friends of my Aunt Dahlia’s, and she strictly warned me to lay off the old Falernian because my guests are teetotallers. When the landlord fills the flowing bowl, it will be with lemonade, barley water, or possibly lime juice. So much for your nameless orgies.’
    This, as I had expected, had a mollifying effect