Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit Read Online Free PDF Page A

twenty-five cents a throw. It is
only rarely that the oar is out of his hand.
    Well,
you can’t do that sort of thing without developing the thews and sinews, and
all this galley-slave stuff has left him extraordinarily robust. His chest is
broad and barrel-like and the muscles of his brawny arms strong as iron bands.
I remember Jeeves once speaking of someone of his acquaintance whose strength
was as the strength of ten, and the description would have fitted Stilton
nicely. He looks like an all—in wrestler.
    Being a
pretty broad—minded chap and realizing that it takes all sorts to make a world,
I had always till now regarded this beefiness of his with kindly toleration.
The way I look at it is, if blighters want to be beefy, let them be beefy. Good
luck to them, say I. What I did not like at the moment of going to press was
the fact that in addition to bulging in all directions with muscle he was
glaring at me in a highly sinister manner, his air that of one of those Fiends
with Hatchet who are always going about the place Slaying Six. He was plainly
much stirred about something, and it would not be going too far to say that, as
I caught his eye, I wilted where I sat.
    Thinking
that it must be the circumstance of his having found me restoring the tissues
with a spot of the right stuff that was causing his chagrin, I was about to say
that the elixir in my hand was purely medicinal and had been recommended by a
prominent Harley Street physician when he spoke.
    ‘If
only I could make up my mind!’
    ‘About
what, Stilton?’
    ‘About
whether to break your foul neck or not.’
    I did a
bit more wilting. It seemed to me that I was alone in a deserted smoking-room
with a homicidal loony. It is a type of loony I particularly bar, and the
homicidal loony I like least is one with a forty-four chest and biceps in
proportion. His fingers, I noticed, were twitching, always a bad sign. ‘Oh, for
the wings of a dove’ about summed up my feelings as I tried not to look at
them.
    ‘Break
my foul neck?’ I said, hoping for further information. ‘Why?’
    ‘You
don’t know?’
    ‘I
haven’t the foggiest.’
    ‘Ho!’
    He
paused at this point to dislodge a fly which had sauntered in through the open
window and become mixed up with his vocal cords. Having achieved his object, he
resumed.
    ‘Wooster!’
    ‘Still
here, old man.’
    ‘Wooster,’
said Stilton, and if he wasn’t grinding his teeth, I don’t know a ground tooth
when I see one, ‘what was the thought behind that moustache of yours? Why did
you grow it?’
    ‘Well,
rather difficult to say, of course. One gets these whims.’ I scratched the chin
a moment.
    ‘I
suppose I felt it might brighten things up,’ I hazarded.
    ‘Or had
you an ulterior motive? Was it part of a subtle plot for stealing Florence from
me?’
    ‘My
dear Stilton!’
    ‘It all
looks very fishy to me. Do you know what happened just now, when we left my
uncle’s?’
    ‘I’m
sorry, no. I’m a stranger in these parts myself.’
    He
ground a few more teeth.
    ‘I will
tell you. I saw Florence home in a cab, and all the way there she was raving
about that moustache of yours. It made me sick to listen to her.’
    I
weighed the idea of saying something to the effect that girls would be girls
and must be expected to have their simple enthusiasms, but decided better not.
    ‘When
we got off at her door and I turned after paying the driver, I found she was
looking at me intently, examining me from every angle, her eyes fixed on my
face.’
    ‘You
enjoyed that, of course?’
    ‘Shut
up. Don’t interrupt me.’
    ‘Right
ho. I only meant it must have been pretty gratifying.’
    He
brooded for a space. Whatever had happened at that lovers’ get-together, one
could see that the memory of it was stirring him like a dose of salts.
    ‘A
moment later,’ he said, and paused, wrestling with his feelings. ‘A moment
later,’ he went on, finding speech again, ‘she announced that she wished me