eyes to behold. Gussie had been complaining
of thirst. You found him in here, laughing heartily. I think that there
can be little doubt, Jeeves, that the entire contents of that jug are at
this moment reposing on top of the existing cargo in that already
brilliantly lit man's interior. Disturbing, Jeeves."

"Most disturbing, sir."

"Let us face the position, forcing ourselves to be calm. You inserted in
that jug--shall we say a tumblerful of the right stuff?"

"Fully a tumblerful, sir."

"And I added of my plenty about the same amount."

"Yes, sir."

"And in two shakes of a duck's tail Gussie, with all that lapping about
inside him, will be distributing the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar
School before an audience of all that is fairest and most refined in the
county."

"Yes, sir."

"It seems to me, Jeeves, that the ceremony may be one fraught with
considerable interest."

"Yes, sir."

"What, in your opinion, will the harvest be?"

"One finds it difficult to hazard a conjecture, sir."

"You mean imagination boggles?"

"Yes, sir."

I inspected my imagination. He was right. It boggled.

-17-

"And yet, Jeeves," I said, twiddling a thoughtful steering wheel, "there
is always the bright side."

Some twenty minutes had elapsed, and having picked the honest fellow up
outside the front door, I was driving in the two-seater to the
picturesque town of Market Snodsbury. Since we had parted--he to go to
his lair and fetch his hat, I to remain in my room and complete the
formal costume--I had been doing some close thinking.

The results of this I now proceeded to hand on to him.

"However dark the prospect may be, Jeeves, however murkily the storm
clouds may seem to gather, a keen eye can usually discern the blue bird.
It is bad, no doubt, that Gussie should be going, some ten minutes from
now, to distribute prizes in a state of advanced intoxication, but we
must never forget that these things cut both ways."

"You imply, sir----"

"Precisely. I am thinking of him in his capacity of wooer. All this ought
to have put him in rare shape for offering his hand in marriage. I shall
be vastly surprised if it won't turn him into a sort of caveman. Have you
ever seen James Cagney in the movies?"

"Yes, sir."

"Something on those lines."

I heard him cough, and sniped him with a sideways glance. He was wearing
that informative look of his.

"Then you have not heard, sir?"

"Eh?"

"You are not