Pelham Wodehouse - Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

You'll hate it. It'll bore you stiff, I don't know so much. They give you a cake of soap and a hymnbook, don't they?

What's the good of a cake of soap and a hymnbook?

I'll be able to whack up some sort of indoor game with them. And don't forget that I've not got to marry Madeline Bassett. Let's hear what you have to say to that.

And the Debit account didn't utter. I had baffled it.

Yes, I felt, as I hunted around in case there might be a crumb of bread which I had overlooked, that amply compensated me for the vicissitudes I was undergoing. And I had been musing along these lines for a while, getting more and more reconciled to my lot, when a silvery voice spoke, making me jump like a startled grasshopper. I couldn't think where it was coming from at first, and speculated for a moment on the possibility of it being my guardian angel, though I had always thought of him, I don't know why, as being of the male sex. Then I saw something not unlike a human face at the grille, and a closer inspection told me that it was Stiffy.

I Hullo-there-ed cordially, and expressed some surprise at finding her on the premises.

'I wouldn't have thought Oates would have let you in. It isn't Visitors Day, is it?'

She explained that the zealous officer had gone up to the house to see her Uncle Watkyn and that she had sneaked in when he had legged it.

'Oh, Bertie,' she said, 'I wish I could slip you in a file.'

'What would I do with a file?'

'Saw through the bars, of course, ass.'

'There aren't any bars.'

'Oh, aren't there? That's a difficulty. We'll have to let it go, then. Have you had breakfast?'

'Just finished.'

'Was it all right?'

'Fairly toothsome.'

'I'm glad to hear that, because I'm weighed down with remorse.'

'You are? Why?'

'Use the loaf. If I hadn't pinched that statuette thing, none of this would have happened.'

'Oh, I wouldn't worry.'

'But I do worry. Shall I tell Uncle Watkyn that you're innocent, because I was the guilty party? You ought to have your name cleared.'

I put the bee on this suggestion with the greatest promptitude.

'Certainly not. Don't dream of it.'

'But don't you want your name cleared?'

'Not at the expense of you taking the rap.'

'Uncle Watkyn wouldn't send me to chokey.'

'I dare say not, but Stinker would learn all and would be shocked to the core.'

'Coo! I didn't think of that.'

'Think of it now. He wouldn't be able to help asking himself if it was a prudent move for a vicar to link his lot with yours. Doubts, that's what he'd have, and qualms. It isn't as if you were going to be a gangster's moll. The gangster would be all for you swiping everything in sight and would encourage you with word and gesture, but it's different with Stinker. When he marries you, he'll want you to take charge of the parish funds. Apprise him of the facts, and he won't have an easy moment.'

'I see what you mean. Yes, you have a point there.'

'Picture his jumpiness if he found you near the Sunday offertory bag. No, secrecy and silence is the only course.'

She sighed a bit, as if her conscience was troubling her, but she saw the force of my reasoning.

'I suppose you're right, but I do hate the idea of you doing time.'

'There are compensations.'

'Such as?'

'I am saved from the scaffold.'

'The—? Oh, I see what you mean. You get out of marrying Madeline.'

'Exactly, and, as I remember telling you once, I am implying nothing derogatory to Madeline when I say that the thought of being united to her in bonds of holy wedlock was one that gave your old friend shivers down the spine. The fact is in no way to her discredit. I should feel just the same about marrying many of the world's noblest women. There are certain females whom one respects, admires, reveres, but only from a distance, and it is to this group that Madeline belongs.'

And I was about to develop this theme, with possibly a reference to those folk songs, when a gruff voice interrupted our tête-à-tête , if you can call a thing a tête-à-tête when the two of you are on opposite sides of an iron grille. It was Constable Oates, returned from his excursion. Stiffy's presence displeased him, and he spoke austerely.

'What's all this?' he demanded.

'What's all what?' riposted Stiffy with spirit, and I remember thinking that she rather had him there.

'It's against regulations to talk to the prisoner, Miss.'

'Oates,' said Stiffy, 'you're an ass.'

This was profoundly true, but it seemed to annoy the officer. He resented the charge, and said so, and Stiffy said she didn't want any back chat from him.

'You road company rozzers make me sick. I was only trying to cheer him up.'

It seemed to me that the officer gave a bitter snort, and a moment later he revealed why he had done so.

'It's me that wants cheering up,' he said morosely, 'I've just seen Sir Watkyn and he says he isn't pressing the charge.'

'What!' I cried.

'What!' yipped Stiffy.

'That's what,' said the constable, and you could see that while there was sunshine above, there was none in his heart. I could sympathise with him, of course. Naturally nothing makes a member of the Force sicker than to have a criminal get away from him. He was in rather the same position as some crocodile on the Zambesi or some puma in Brazil would have been, if it had earmarked Plank for its lunch and seen him shin up a high tree.

'Shackling the police, that's what I call it,' he said, and I think he spat on the floor. I couldn't see him, of course, but I was aware of a spit-like sound.

Stiffy whooped, well pleased, and I whooped myself, if I remember correctly. For all the bold front I had been putting up, I had never in my heart really liked the idea of rotting for twenty-eight days in a dungeon cell. Prison is all right for a night, but you don't want to go overdoing the thing.

'Then what are we waiting for?' said Stiffy. 'Get a move on, officer. Fling wide those gates.'

Oates flung them, not attempting to conceal his chagrin and disappointment, and I passed with Stiffy into the great world outside the prison walls.

'Goodbye, Oates,' I said as we left, for one always likes to do the courteous thing. 'It's been nice meeting you. How are Mrs. Oates and the little ones?'

His only reply was a sound like a hippopotamus taking its foot out of the mud on a riverbank, and I saw Stiffy frown, as though his manner offended her.

'You know,' she said, as we reached the open spaces, 'we really ought to do something about Oates, something that would teach him that we're not put into this world for pleasure alone. I can't suggest what offhand, but if we put our heads together, we could think of something. You ought to stay on, Bertie, and help me bring his ginger hairs in sorrow to the grave.'

I raised an eyebrow.

'As the guest of your Uncle Watkyn?'

'You could muck in with Harold. There's a spare room at that cottage place of his.'

'Sorry, no.'

'You won't stay on?'

'I will not. I intend to put as many miles as possible in as short a time as possible between Totleigh-in-the-Wold and myself. And it's no good your using that expression "lily-livered poltroon", because I am adamant.'

She made what I believe is called a moue. It's done by pushing the lips out and drawing them in again.

'I thought it wouldn't be any use asking you. No spirit, that's your trouble, no enterprise. I'll have to get Harold to do it.'

And as I stood shuddering at the picture her words conjured up, she pushed off, exhibiting dudgeon. And I was still speculating as to what tureen of soup she was planning to land the sainted Pinker in and hoping that he would have enough sense to stay out of it, when Jeeves drove up in the car, a welcome sight.