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"Do you mean to say that anyone would be mug enough to part with solid cash just to shake hands with my uncle?" "I have an aunt, sir, who paid five shillings to a young fellow for bringing a moving-picture actor to tea at her house one Sunday. It gave her social standing among the neighbours." Bicky wavered. "If you think it could be done " "I feel convinced of it, sir."
They went out, and there was a pretty solid silence. Then old Chiswick turned to Bicky: "Well?" Bicky didn't seem to have anything to say. "Was it true what that man said?" "Yes, uncle." "What do you mean by playing this trick?" Bicky seemed pretty well knocked out, so I put in a word. "I think you'd better explain the whole thing, Bicky, old top."
I am taking the liberty of regarding his grace in the light of an at present if I may say so useless property, which is capable of being developed." Bicky looked at me in a helpless kind of way. I'm bound to say I didn't get it myself. "Couldn't you make it a bit easier, Jeeves!" "In a nutshell, sir, what I mean is this: His grace is, in a sense, a prominent personage.
The dominant characteristic in it had hitherto been disdainful bearing of small annoyances; now it showed a grim endurance of a great suffering. "Bicky, dear," Pam asked suddenly, coming up unheard, "what is it?" She started. "What is what?" "Your trouble. Oh, don't tell me if you don't want to, but I can see you are suffering, and I used to tell the Duchess, long ago, and it always did me good."
And one had to admit that it took a lot of squaring, for dear old Bicky, though a stout fellow and absolutely unrivalled as an imitator of bull-terriers and cats, was in many ways one of the most pronounced fatheads that ever pulled on a suit of gent's underwear.
Coming out of the lift I met Bicky bustling in from the street. "Halloa, Bertie! I missed him. Has he turned up?" "He's upstairs now, having some tea." "What does he think of it all?" "He's absolutely rattled." "Ripping! I'll be toddling up, then. Toodle-oo, Bertie, old man. See you later." "Pip-pip, Bicky, dear boy."
"I say, Bicky, what happens to ambassadors who fail in their missions?" he asked, winking delightedly. Yellow Dog Papillon lay asleep on the Chesterfield in Joyselle's room.
It seemed brutal to be wading into the bill of fare with poor old Bicky headed for the breadline. When I got back old Chiswick had gone to bed, but Bicky was there, hunched up in an arm-chair, brooding pretty tensely, with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and a more or less glassy stare in his eyes.
Bickersteth is in a bit of a hole, Jeeves," I said, "and wants you to rally round." "Very good, sir." Bicky looked a bit doubtful. "Well, of course, you know, Bertie, this thing is by way of being a bit private and all that." "I shouldn't worry about that, old top. I bet Jeeves knows all about it already. Don't you, Jeeves?" "Yes, sir." "Eh!" said Bicky, rattled.
I began to see that, unless I made the thing a bit more plausible, the scheme might turn out a frost. I could guess what the old boy was thinking. He was trying to square all this prosperity with what he knew of poor old Bicky.
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