Much Obliged, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse Page B

me he has been tipped off that he’s going to get a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours.’
    ‘How can they knight a chap like that?’
    ‘Just the sort of chap they do knight. Prominent business man. Big deals. Services to Britain’s export trade.’
    ‘But a stinker.’
    ‘Unquestionably a stinker.’
    ‘Then what’s he doing here? You usually don’t go out of your way to entertain stinkers. Spode, yes. I can understand you letting him infest the premises, much as I disapprove of it. He’s making speeches on Ginger’s behalf, and according to you doing it rather well. But why Runkle?’
    She said ‘Ah! ‘, and when I asked her reason for saying ‘Ah ! ‘, she replied that she was thinking of her subtle cunning, and when I asked what she meant by subtle cunning, she said ‘Ah! ‘ again. It looked as if we might go on like this indefinitely, but a moment later, having toddled to the door and opened it and to the french window and peered out, she explained.
    ‘Runkle came here hoping to sell Tom an old silver what-not for his collection, and as Tom had vanished and he had come a long way I had to put him up for the night, and at dinner I suddenly had an inspiration. I thought if I got him to stay on and plied him day and night with Anatole’s cooking, he might get into mellowed mood.’
    She had ceased to speak in riddles. This time I followed her.
    ‘So that you would be able to talk him into slipping Tuppy some of his ill-gotten gains?’
    ‘Exactly. I’m biding my time. When the moment comes, I shall act like lightning. I told him Tom would be back in a day or two, not that he will, because he won’t come within fifty miles of the place till I blow the All Clear, so Runkle consented to stay on.’
    ‘And how’s it working out?’
    ‘The prospects look good. He mellows more with every meal. Anatole gave us his Mignonette de poulet Petit Duc last night, and he tucked into it like a tapeworm that’s been on a diet for weeks. There was no mistaking the gleam in his eyes as he downed the last mouthful. A few more dinners ought to do the trick.’
    She left me shortly after this to go and dress for dinner, I, strong in the knowledge that I could get into the soup and fish in ten minutes, lingered on, plunged in thought. Extraordinary how I kept doing that as of even date. It just shows what life is like now. I don’t suppose in the old days I would have been plunged in thought more than about once a month.

CHAPTER Seven

    I need scarcely say that Tuppy’s hard case, as outlined by the old blood relation, had got right in amongst me. You might suppose that a fellow capable of betting you you couldn’t swing yourself across the Drones swimming bath by the rings and looping the last ring back deserved no consideration, but as I say the agony of that episode had long since abated and it pained me deeply to contemplate the spot he was in. For though I had affected to consider that the ancestor’s scheme for melting L. P. Runkle was the goods, I didn’t really believe it would work. You don’t get anywhere filling with rich foods a bloke who wears a Panama hat like his: the only way of inducing the L. P. Runkle type of man to part with cash is to kidnap him, take him to the cellar beneath the lonely mill and stick lighted matches between his toes. And even then he would probably give you a dud cheque.
    The revelation of Tuppy’s hard-upness had come as quite a surprise. You know how it is with fellows you’re seeing all the time; if you think about their finances at all, you sort of assume they must be all right. It had never occurred to me that Tuppy might be seriously short of doubloons, but I saw now why there had been all this delay in assembling the bishop and assistant clergy and getting the show on the road. I presumed Uncle Tom would brass up if given the green light, he having the stuff in heaping sackfuls, but Tuppy has his pride and would quite properly jib at the idea of being supported