Right Ho, Jeeves | Page 7

of the household with brains and resources is Jeeves.
It jars on me.
And tonight it jarred on me more than usual, because I was feeling
pretty dashed fed with Jeeves. Over that matter of the mess jacket, I
mean. True, I had forced him to climb down, quelling him, as described,
with the quiet strength of my personality, but I was still a trifle shirty at
his having brought the thing up at all. It seemed to me that what Jeeves
wanted was the iron hand.

"And what is he doing about it?" I inquired stiffly.
"He's been giving the position of affairs a lot of thought."
"He has, has he?"
"It's on his advice that I'm going to this dance."
"Why?"
"She is going to be there. In fact, it was she who sent me the ticket of
invitation. And Jeeves considered----"
"And why not as a Pierrot?" I said, taking up the point which had struck
me before. "Why this break with a grand old tradition?"
"He particularly wanted me to go as Mephistopheles."
I started.
"He did, did he? He specifically recommended that definite costume?"
"Yes."
"Ha!"
"Eh?"
"Nothing. Just 'Ha!'"
And I'll tell you why I said "Ha!" Here was Jeeves making heavy
weather about me wearing a perfectly ordinary white mess jacket, a
garment not only tout ce qu'il y a de chic, but absolutely de rigueur,
and in the same breath, as you might say, inciting Gussie Fink-Nottle to
be a blot on the London scene in scarlet tights. Ironical, what? One
looks askance at this sort of in-and-out running.
"What has he got against Pierrots?"

"I don't think he objects to Pierrots as Pierrots. But in my case he
thought a Pierrot wouldn't be adequate."
"I don't follow that."
"He said that the costume of Pierrot, while pleasing to the eye, lacked
the authority of the Mephistopheles costume."
"I still don't get it."
"Well, it's a matter of psychology, he said."
There was a time when a remark like that would have had me
snookered. But long association with Jeeves has developed the Wooster
vocabulary considerably. Jeeves has always been a whale for the
psychology of the individual, and I now follow him like a bloodhound
when he snaps it out of the bag.
"Oh, psychology?"
"Yes. Jeeves is a great believer in the moral effect of clothes. He thinks
I might be emboldened in a striking costume like this. He said a Pirate
Chief would be just as good. In fact, a Pirate Chief was his first
suggestion, but I objected to the boots."
I saw his point. There is enough sadness in life without having fellows
like Gussie Fink-Nottle going about in sea boots.
"And are you emboldened?"
"Well, to be absolutely accurate, Bertie, old man, no."
A gust of compassion shook me. After all, though we had lost touch a
bit of recent years, this man and I had once thrown inked darts at each
other.
"Gussie," I said, "take an old friend's advice, and don't go within a mile
of this binge."

"But it's my last chance of seeing her. She's off tomorrow to stay with
some people in the country. Besides, you don't know."
"Don't know what?"
"That this idea of Jeeves's won't work. I feel a most frightful chump
now, yes, but who can say whether that will not pass off when I get into
a mob of other people in fancy dress. I had the same experience as a
child, one year during the Christmas festivities. They dressed me up as
a rabbit, and the shame was indescribable. Yet when I got to the party
and found myself surrounded by scores of other children, many in
costumes even ghastlier than my own, I perked up amazingly, joined
freely in the revels, and was able to eat so hearty a supper that I was
sick twice in the cab coming home. What I mean is, you can't tell in
cold blood."
I weighed this. It was specious, of course.
"And you can't get away from it that, fundamentally, Jeeves's idea is
sound. In a striking costume like Mephistopheles, I might quite easily
pull off something pretty impressive. Colour does make a difference.
Look at newts. During the courting season the male newt is brilliantly
coloured. It helps him a lot."
"But you aren't a male newt."
"I wish I were. Do you know how a male newt proposes, Bertie? He
just stands in front of the female newt vibrating his tail and bending his
body in a semi-circle. I could do that on my head. No, you wouldn't
find me grousing if I were a male newt."
"But if you were a male newt, Madeline Bassett wouldn't look at you.
Not with the eye of love, I mean."
"She