Expecting Jeeves Read Online Free PDF Page A

Ditteredge Hall to-morrow.”
    â€œOh, right-o!” I said.
    A man may be down, but he is never out. It wasn’t two minutes after I had parted from Aunt Agatha before the old fighting spirit of the Woosters reasserted itself. Ghastly as the peril was which loomed before me, I was conscious of a rummy sort of exhilaration. It was a tight corner, but the tighter the corner, I felt, the more juicily should I score off Jeeves when I got myself out of it without a bit of help from him. Ordinarily, of course, I should have consulted him and trusted to him to solve the difficulty; but after what I had heard him saying in the kitchen, I was dashed if I was going to demean myself. When I got home I addressed the man with light abandon.
    â€œJeeves,” I said, “I’m in a bit of a difficulty.”
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that, sir.”
    â€œ Yes, quite a bad hole. In fact, you might say on the brink of a precipice, and faced by an awful doom.”
    â€œIf I could be of any assistance, sir——”
    â€œOh, no. No, no. Thanks very much, but no, no. I won’t trouble you. I’ve no doubt I shall be able to get out of it all right by myself.”
    â€œVery good, sir.”
    So that was that. I’m bound to say I’d have welcomed a bit more curiosity from the fellow, but that is Jeeves all over. Cloaks his emotions, if you know what I mean. Wears the mask and what not.
    Honoria was away when I got to Ditteredge on the following afternoon. Her mother told me that she was staying with some people named Braythwayt in the neighbourhood, and would be back next day, bringing the daughter of the house with her for a visit. She said I would find Oswald out in the grounds, and such is a mother’s love that she spoke as if that were a bit of a boost for the grounds and an inducement to go there.
    Rather decent, the grounds at Ditteredge. A couple of terraces, a bit of lawn with a cedar on it, a bit of shrubbery, and finally a small but goodish lake with a stone bridge running across it. Directly I’d worked my way round the shrubbery I spotted young Bingo leaning against the bridge smoking a cigarette. Sitting on the stonework, fishing, was a species of kid whom I took to be Oswald the Plague-Spot.
    Bingo was both surprised and delighted to see me, and introduced me to the kid. If the latter was surprised and delighted too, he concealed it like a diplomat. He just looked at me, raised his eyebrows slightly, and went on fishing. He was one of those supercilious striplings who give you the impression that you went to the wrong school and that your clothes don’t fit.
    â€œThis is Oswald,” said Bingo.
    â€œWhat,” I replied, cordially, “could be sweeter? How are you?”
    â€œOh, all right,” said the kid.
    â€œNice place, this.”
    â€œOh, all right,” said the kid.
    â€œ Having a good time fishing?”
    â€œOh, all right,” said the kid.
    Young Bingo led me off to commune apart.
    â€œDoesn’t jolly old Oswald’s incessant flow of prattle make your head ache sometimes?” I asked.
    Bingo sighed.
    â€œIt’s a hard job.”
    â€œWhat’s a hard job?”
    â€œLoving him.”
    â€œDo you love him?” I asked, surprised. I shouldn’t have thought it could be done.
    â€œI try to,” said young Bingo, “for Her sake. She’s coming back to-morrow, Bertie.”
    â€œSo I heard.”
    â€œShe is coming, my love, my own——”
    â€œAbsolutely,” I said. “But touching on young Oswald once more. Do you have to be with him all day? How do you manage to stick it?”
    â€œOh, he doesn’t give much trouble. When we aren’t working he sits on that bridge all the time, trying to catch tiddlers.”
    â€œWhy don’t you shove him in?”
    â€œShove him in?”
    â€œIt seems to me distinctly the thing to do,” I said, regarding the