What happens when a banking professional like Suvarna Sanyal, who has spent a life time poring over bulky ledgers and checking debit and credit figures, turns his attention to one of the popular stories dished out by P G Wodehouse? Well, he simply whips up a series of illustrations which figure some of the better known characters from the canon in some selected scenes from the story!
Residents of Plumsville would recall that this is the only story in the canon which is narrated by Jeeves. Savour below the results of his labour of love which, incidentally, have already undergone a scrutiny under the precise microscope of an expert in all Plummy matters.
I want to explain to you why I am speaking to you directly, instead of letting Mr Wooster present one of his tales. I have been asked quite frequently to explain any formula I might have for success in my profession, and have concluded it could be summarised as ‘Resource and Tact’. I hope the example of this story will show you what I mean.
“Oh, dash it, Jeeves!” he said, sort of overwrought. “I wish at least you’d put it on another table for a change.”
“Sir?” I said.
I should mention that Mr Wooster then told me he was considering adopting a kid, but also wondering whether to give up his London flat, take a house, and have his sister and her three little girls to live with him. But I avoided the blunder of outwardly expressing my disapproval of the idea at this juncture.
Well, it was a respite, and I welcomed it. But I began to see that a crisis had arisen which would require adroit handling.
Mr Wooster wearied of Brighton after two days, and decided to return home, and we started back about 5 on a fine summer’s day. We had only gone about two miles when I noticed a red-haired young person of about 12, with a snub nose and an extremely large grin, seeking a lift. She seemed to me to have the air of one who had been absenting herself from school without leave.
“I’m going to get into a frightful row,” she began. “Miss Tomlinson will be perfectly furious. I thought I could get back in time so that nobody would notice I’d gone, but I got this nail in my shoe.”
“Oh, I say, this is rather rotten,” he observed. “Isn’t there anything to be done? I say, Jeeves, don’t you think something could be done?”
“I think it would be a legitimate subterfuge were you to inform the young lady’s school-mistress that you are an old friend of the young lady’s father; that you had been passing the school and had seen the young lady at the gate and taken her for a drive. Miss Tomlinson’s chagrin would no doubt in these circumstances be sensibly diminished if not altogether dispersed.”
The young one was delighted at this generous offer, and as I turned in at the gates of a house of imposing dimensions, and brought the car to a halt at the front door, she volunteered her name.
I decided it might be simpler if I explained the situation to Miss Tomlinson, who proved to have a handsome but strong-minded appearance, and she recalled to my mind Mr Wooster’s Aunt Agatha. ‘She had the same penetrating gaze and that indefinable air of being reluctant to stand any nonsense.’
I went on to explain to her that Mr Wooster is an extremely retiring gentleman.
“He is an extremely retiring gentleman, madam, and would be the last to suggest it himself, but, knowing him as I do, I am sure that he would take it as a graceful compliment if you were to ask him to address the young ladies. He is an excellent extempore speaker.”
“A very good idea!” said Miss Tomlinson, decidedly.
I drove round to the stables, and although the car was in excellent condition, I seemed to feel that something would go wrong with it, something which I would not be able to put right for a couple of hours. One gets these presentiments.
It was about half an hour later that Mr Wooster came into the stable-yard, and complained that he had lost his cigarette case. He then went on to extol the virtues of his recent companions.
“Extremely so, sir,” I said.
“But a bit exhausting en masse. And they giggle so much. Makes a fellow feel a bit of an ass. And they stare at you.”
“When I was employed as a page-boy at a school for young ladies, sir, they had a regular game which they used to play when a male visitor arrived. They would stare fixedly at him and giggle, and there was a small prize for the one who made him blush first.”
“I’d no idea small girls were such demons.”
“More deadly than the male, sir.”
Mr Wooster returned to the company of the girls, while I took tea with the maids in the kitchen, after which I returned to the stable-yard, and Peggy Mainwaring appeared. She asked me to return Mr Wooster’s cigarette case to him, which she said he must have dropped somewhere.
She then told me he was going to give a lecture to the school.
She had barely scampered off to rejoin her friends when a deeply perturbed Mr Wooster came round the corner.
And within minutes, Miss Tomlinson appeared, and spoke to Mr Wooster.
The large schoolroom was situated on the ground floor, with commodious French windows, which, as the weather was clement, remained open throughout the proceedings. By stationing myself behind a pillar on the porch or veranda which adjoined the room, I was enabled to see and hear all. It was an experience which I should be sorry to have missed. Mr Wooster indubitably excelled himself.
Mr. Wooster is a young gentleman with practically every desirable quality except one. I do not mean brains, for in an employer brains are not desirable. The quality to which I allude is hard to define, but perhaps I might call it the gift of dealing with the Unusual Situation.
Miss Tomlinson made a short but graceful speech of introduction, stressing the fact that he was Mr Bertram and no other breed of Wooster. But before he was able to open his mouth, the young ladies burst into a species of chant, of which I am glad to say I remember the words, if not the tune.
The performance, which was notably devoid of cooperative effort, seemed to smite Mr Wooster like a blow. And then he tottered forward.
“Girls!” said Miss Tomlinson. She spoke in a low, soft voice, but the effect was immediate. Perfect stillness instantly descended upon all present. I am bound to say that, brief as my acquaintance with Miss Tomlinson had been, I could recall few women I had admired more. She had grip.
I fancy that Miss Tomlinson had gauged Mr Wooster’s oratorical capabilities pretty correctly by this time, and had come to the conclusion that nothing much in the way of a stirring address was to be expected from him.
“Perhaps,” she said, “as it is getting late, and he has not very much time to spare, Mr. Wooster will just give you some little word of advice which may be helpful to you in after-life, and then we will sing the school song and disperse to our evening lessons.”
She looked at Mr Wooster, who passed a finger round the inside of his collar. It was painful to see his brain endeavouring to work.
“We will now sing the school song,” said Miss Tomlinson, rising like an iceberg.
I hurried round to the car, and in a very few moments Mr Wooster came tottering up. I had climbed into my seat and was about to start the engine, when voices, including those of Miss Tomlinson, made themselves heard. At the first sound of them Mr Wooster sprang with almost incredible nimbleness to the floor covering himself with a rug. The last I saw of him was a pleading eye.
When Miss Tomlinson asked about the whereabouts of Bertie Wooster, I expressed helplessness, but she went on, obviously stirred with emotion.
“Mademoiselle has just found several girls smoking cigarettes in the shrubbery. They stated Mr Wooster had given them the horrid things. I think the man is out of his senses.”
One night about a week later, I took the whisky and siphon into Mr Wooster’s study.
“Jeeves, this is dashed jolly. A sort of safe, restful feeling. Soothing. That’s the word,” he said.
“Indeed, sir. By the way, sir, have you succeeded in finding a suitable house yet?
“House? What do you mean, house?”
“I understood, sir, that it was your intention to give up the flat and take a house of sufficient size to enable you to have your sister, Mrs. Scholfield, and her three young ladies to live with you.”
Mr Wooster shuddered strongly.
So, how does one manage bosses and ensure they never go round the bend when they get too enthusiastic about an idea of theirs? Jeeves would heartily recommend ‘tact’ and ‘resource’!
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