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not be allowed to go further.’
    ‘Wild horses shall not drag it from me. Not that I suppose they’ll try.’
    ‘Well, then, sir, his lordship informs me that he is in the process of concluding the final details of a business agreement of great delicacy and importance.’
    ‘And he wanted you to vet the thing for snags?’
    ‘Not precisely that, sir. But he desired my advice.’
    ‘They all come to you, Jeeves, don’t they – from the lowest to the highest?’
    ‘It is kind of you to say so, sir.’
    ‘Did he mention what the b. a. of great d. and i. was?’
    ‘No, sir. But, of course, one has read the papers.’
    ‘I haven’t.’
    ‘You do not study the financial pages, sir?’
    ‘Never give them a glance.’
    ‘They have been devoting considerable space of late to rumours of a merger or combination which is said to be impending between his lordship’s Pink Funnel Line and an equally prominent shipping firm of the United States of America, sir. It is undoubtedly to this that his lordship was guardedly alluding.’
    The information did not make me leap about to any extent.
    ‘Going to team up, are they, these nautical tycoons?’
    ‘So it is supposed, sir.’
    ‘Well, God bless them.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘I mean, why shouldn’t they?’
    ‘Exactly, sir.’
    ‘Well, what’s his difficulty?’
    ‘A somewhat tense situation has arisen, sir. The negotiations would appear to have arrived at a point where it is essential that his lordship shall meet and confer with the gentleman conducting the pourparlers on behalf of the American organization. On the other hand, it is vital that he shall not be seen in the latter’s society, for such a meeting would instantly be accepted in the City as conclusive proof that the fusion of interests was about to take place, with immediate reactions on the respective shares of the two concerns.’
    I began to see daylight. There have been mornings, after some rout or revel at the Drones, when this sort of thing would merely have caused the head to throb, but to-day, as I have said, I was feeling exceptionally bright.
    ‘They would go up, you mean?’
    A sharp rise would be inevitable, sir.’
    And Uncle Percy views such a prospect with concern?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘His idea being to collect a parcel cheap before the many-headed can horn in and spoil the market?’
    ‘Precisely, sir. Rem acu tetigisti. ’
    ‘Rem—? ’
    Acu tetigisti , sir. A Latin expression. Literally, it means “You have touched the matter with a needle,” but a more idiomatic rendering would be—’
    ‘Put my finger on the nub?’
    ‘Exactly, sir.’
    ‘Yes, I get it now. You have clarified the situation. Getting right down to it, these two old buzzards have got to foregather in secret and require a hideout.’
    ‘Precisely, sir. And, of course, the movements of both gentlemen are being closely watched by representatives of the financial press.’
    ‘I suppose this mystic sort of stuff goes on all the time in the world of commerce?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘One understands and sympathizes.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Though one dislikes the idea of Uncle Percy getting any richer. Already, he has the stuff in gobs. However, bearing in mind the fact that he is an uncle by marriage, I suppose one ought to espouse his cause. Had you anything to suggest?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘I bet you had.’
    ‘It occurred to me that such a meeting might well take place unobserved, if the two parties were to arrange to come together beneath the roof of some remote country cottage.’
    I mused.
    You mean a cottage in the country somewhere?’
    You have interpreted me exactly, sir.’
    ‘I don’t think much of that, Jeeves. You must be losing your grip.’
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘Well, to name but one obj ection, how can you go to the owner of a country cottage, whom you don’t know from Adam, and ask him to let you and your pals plot in the parlour?’
    ‘It would be necessary, of course, that the proprietor of the