Joy in the Morning by P. G. Wodehouse Page B

though it may not be needed, if all you say about being in a position to plead with him is true. Plead well, Bertie. Pitch it strong. Let the golden phrases come rolling out like honey. For, as I say, I don’t think you’ve got an easy job on your hands. Eloquence beyond the ordinary will be required. And, by the way. Not a word to Nobby about that lunch. The facts will have to be broken to her gently and by degrees, if at all.’
    My mood, as I set a course for Wee Nooke, was, as you may well suppose, a good deal less effervescent than it had been. The idea of pleading with Uncle Percy had lost practically all its fascination.
    There rose before me a vision of this relative by marriage, as he would probably appear directly I mentioned Boko’s name – the eyes glaring, the moustache bristling and the tout ensemble presenting a strong resemblance to a short-tempered tiger of the jungle which has just seen its peasant shin up a tree. And while it would be going too far, perhaps, to say that Bertram Wooster shuddered, a certain coolness of the feet unquestionably existed.
    I was trying to hold the thought that, once that merger had gone through, joy would most likely reign so supreme that the old bounder would look even on Boko with the eye of kindliness, when there came the ting of a bicycle bell, and a voice called my name, Woostering with such vehemence that I immediately braked the car and glanced round. The sight I saw smote me like a blow.
    Heaving alongside was Stilton Cheesewright, and on his face, as he alighted from his bicycle and confronted me, there was about as unpleasant a look as ever caught me in the eyeball. It was a look pregnant with amazement and hostility. A Gor-blimey-what’s-this-blighter-doing-here look. The sort of look, in fine, which the heroine of a pantomime gives the Demon King when he comes popping up out of a trap at her elbow. And I could follow what was passing in his mind as clearly as if it had been broadcast on a nation-wide hook-up.
    All along, I had been far from comfortable when speculating as to what this Othello’s reactions would be on discovering me in the neighbourhood. The way in which he had received the information that I was an old acquaintance of Florence’s had shown that his thoughts had been given a morbid turn, causing him to view Bertram with suspicion, and I had been afraid that he was going to place an unfortunate construction on my sudden arrival in her vicinity. It was almost inevitable, I mean, that the thing should smack, in his view, far too strongly of Young Lochinvar coming out of the West. And, of course, my lips being sealed, I couldn’t explain.
    A delicate and embarrassing situation.
    And yet, amazing though you will find the statement, what was causing me to goggle at him with saucer eyes was not this look that told me that my fears had been well founded, but the fact that the face attached to it was topped by a policeman’s helmet. The burly frame, moreover, was clad in a policeman’s uniform, and on the feet one noted the regulation official boots or beetle crushers which go to complete the panoply of the awful majesty of the Law.
    In a word, Stilton Cheesewright had suddenly turned into a country copper, and I could make nothing of it.

CHAPTER 8
    I   stared at the man.
    ‘Stap my vitals, Stilton,’ I cried, in uncontrollable astonishment. ‘Why the fancy dress?’
    He, too, had a question to ask.
    ‘What the hell are you doing here, you bloodstained Wooster?’
    I held up a hand. This was no time for side issues.
    ‘Why are you got up like a policeman?’
    ‘I am a policeman.’
    ‘A policeman?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘When you say “policeman”,’ I queried, groping, ‘do you mean “policeman”?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You’re a policeman?’
    ‘Yes, blast you. Are you deaf? I’m a policeman.’
    I grasped it now. He was a policeman. And, my mind flashing back to yesterday’s encounter in the jewellery bin, I realized what had made his