Right Ho, Jeeves | Page 2

a
pond in his garden and studied the habits of newts.
I couldn't imagine what could have brought the chap up to the great city.
I would have been prepared to bet that as long as the supply of newts
didn't give out, nothing could have shifted him from that village of his.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir."
"You got the name correctly? Fink-Nottle?"

"Yes, sir."
"Well, it's the most extraordinary thing. It must be five years since he
was in London. He makes no secret of the fact that the place gives him
the pip. Until now, he has always stayed glued to the country,
completely surrounded by newts."
"Sir?"
"Newts, Jeeves. Mr. Fink-Nottle has a strong newt complex. You must
have heard of newts. Those little sort of lizard things that charge about
in ponds."
"Oh, yes, sir. The aquatic members of the family Salamandridae which
constitute the genus Molge."
"That's right. Well, Gussie has always been a slave to them. He used to
keep them at school."
"I believe young gentlemen frequently do, sir."
"He kept them in his study in a kind of glass-tank arrangement, and
pretty niffy the whole thing was, I recall. I suppose one ought to have
been able to see what the end would be even then, but you know what
boys are. Careless, heedless, busy about our own affairs, we scarcely
gave this kink in Gussie's character a thought. We may have exchanged
an occasional remark about it taking all sorts to make a world, but
nothing more. You can guess the sequel. The trouble spread,"
"Indeed, sir?"
"Absolutely, Jeeves. The craving grew upon him. The newts got him.
Arrived at man's estate, he retired to the depths of the country and gave
his life up to these dumb chums. I suppose he used to tell himself that
he could take them or leave them alone, and then found--too late--that
he couldn't."
"It is often the way, sir."

"Too true, Jeeves. At any rate, for the last five years he has been living
at this place of his down in Lincolnshire, as confirmed a
species-shunning hermit as ever put fresh water in the tank every
second day and refused to see a soul. That's why I was so amazed when
you told me he had suddenly risen to the surface like this. I still can't
believe it. I am inclined to think that there must be some mistake, and
that this bird who has been calling here is some different variety of
Fink-Nottle. The chap I know wears horn-rimmed spectacles and has a
face like a fish. How does that check up with your data?"
"The gentleman who came to the flat wore horn-rimmed spectacles,
sir."
"And looked like something on a slab?"
"Possibly there was a certain suggestion of the piscine, sir."
"Then it must be Gussie, I suppose. But what on earth can have brought
him up to London?"
"I am in a position to explain that, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle confided to me
his motive in visiting the metropolis. He came because the young lady
is here."
"Young lady?"
"Yes, sir."
"You don't mean he's in love?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, I'm dashed. I'm really dashed. I positively am dashed, Jeeves."
And I was too. I mean to say, a joke's a joke, but there are limits.
Then I found my mind turning to another aspect of this rummy affair.
Conceding the fact that Gussie Fink-Nottle, against all the ruling of the
form book, might have fallen in love, why should he have been

haunting my flat like this? No doubt the occasion was one of those
when a fellow needs a friend, but I couldn't see what had made him
pick on me.
It wasn't as if he and I were in any way bosom. We had seen a lot of
each other at one time, of course, but in the last two years I hadn't had
so much as a post card from him.
I put all this to Jeeves:
"Odd, his coming to me. Still, if he did, he did. No argument about that.
It must have been a nasty jar for the poor perisher when he found I
wasn't here."
"No, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle did not call to see you, sir."
"Pull yourself together, Jeeves. You've just told me that this is what he
has been doing, and assiduously, at that."
"It was I with whom he was desirous of establishing communication,
sir."
"You? But I didn't know you had ever met him."
"I had not had that pleasure until he called here, sir. But it appears that
Mr. Sipperley, a fellow student of whom Mr. Fink-Nottle had been at
the university, recommended him to place his affairs in my hands."
The mystery had conked. I saw all. As