Stiff Upper Lip Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

tottered. In my darkest hour I had never anticipated anything as bad as this. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, because he’s small and shrimplike and never puts on weight, but Gussie loves food. Watching him tucking into his rations at the Drones, a tapeworm would raise its hat respectfully, knowing that it was in the presence of a master. Cut him off, therefore, from the roasts and boileds and particularly from cold steak and kidney pie, a dish of which he is inordinately fond, and you turned him into something fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils, as the fellow said - the sort of chap who would break an engagement as soon as look at you. At the moment of my entry I had been about to light a cigarette, and now the lighter fell from my nerveless hand.
    ‘She’s made him become a vegetarian’
    ‘So Mr. Fink-Nottle informed me, sir.’
    ‘No chops?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘No steaks?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘Just spinach and similar garbage?’
    ‘So I gather, sir.’
    ‘But why?’
    ‘I understand that Miss Bassett has recently been reading the life of the poet Shelley, sir, and has become converted to his view that the consumption of flesh foods is unspiritual. The poet Shelley held strong opinions on this subject.’
    I picked up the lighter in a sort of trance. I was aware that Madeline B. was as potty as they come in the matter of stars and rabbits and what happened when fairies blew their wee noses, but I had never dreamed that her goofiness would carry her to such lengths as this. But as the picture rose before my eyes of Gussie at the dinner table picking with clouded brow at what had unquestionably looked like spinach, I knew that his story must be true. No wonder Gussie in agony of spirit had said that Madeline made him sick. Just so might a python at a Zoo have spoken of its keeper, had the latter suddenly started feeding it cheese straws in lieu of the daily rabbit. ‘But this is frightful, Jeeves!’
    ‘Certainly somewhat disturbing, sir.’
    ‘If Gussie is seething with revolt, anything may happen.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Is there nothing we can do?’
    ‘It might be possible for you to reason with Miss Bassett, sir. You would have a talking point. Medical research has established that the ideal diet is one in which animal and vegetable foods are balanced. A strict vegetarian diet is not recommended by the majority of doctors, as it lacks sufficient protein and in particular does not contain the protein which is built up of the amino-acids required by the body. Competent observers have traced some cases of mental disorder to this shortage.’
    ‘You’d tell her that?’
    ‘It might prove helpful, sir.’
    ‘I doubt it,’ I said, blowing a despondent smoke ring. ‘I don’t think it would sway her.’
    ‘Nor on consideration do I, sir. The poet Shelley regarded the matter from the humanitarian standpoint rather than that of bodily health.
    He held that we should show reverence for other life forms, and it is his views that Miss Bassett has absorbed.’
    A hollow groan escaped me.
    ‘Curse the poet Shelley! I hope he trips over a loose shoelace and breaks his ruddy neck.’
    ‘Too late, sir. He is no longer with us.’
    ‘Blast all vegetables!’
    ‘Yes, sir. Your concern is understandable. I may mention that the cook expressed herself in a somewhat similar vein when I informed her of Mr. Fink-Nottle’s predicament. Her heart melted in sympathy with his distress.’
    I was in no mood to hear about cooks’ hearts, soluble or otherwise, and I was about to say so, when he proceeded.
    ‘She instructed me to apprise Mr. Fink-Nottle that if he were agreeable to visiting the kitchen at some late hour when the household had retired for the night, she would be happy to supply him with cold steak and kidney pie.’
    It was as if the sun had come smiling through the clouds or the long shot on which I had placed my wager had nosed its way past the opposition in the last ten yards and won by a