aware that a marriage has been arranged and will shortly
take place between Mr. Fink-Nottle and Miss Bassett?"

"What?"

"Yes, sir."

"When did this happen?"

"Shortly after Mr. Fink-Nottle had left your room, sir."

"Ah! In the post-orange-juice era?"

"Yes, sir."

"But are you sure of your facts? How do you know?"

"My informant was Mr. Fink-Nottle himself, sir. He appeared anxious to
confide in me. His story was somewhat incoherent, but I had no difficulty
in apprehending its substance. Prefacing his remarks with the statement
that this was a beautiful world, he laughed heartily and said that he had
become formally engaged."

"No details?"

"No, sir."

"But one can picture the scene."

"Yes, sir."

"I mean, imagination doesn't boggle."

"No, sir."

And it didn't. I could see exactly what must have happened. Insert a
liberal dose of mixed spirits in a normally abstemious man, and he
becomes a force. He does not stand around, twiddling his fingers and
stammering. He acts. I had no doubt that Gussie must have reached for the
Bassett and clasped her to him like a stevedore handling a sack of coals.
And one could readily envisage the effect of that sort of thing on a girl
of romantic mind.

"Well, well, well, Jeeves."

"Yes, sir."

"This is splendid news."

"Yes, sir."

"You see now how right I was."

"Yes, sir."

"It must have been rather an eye-opener for you, watching me handle this
case."

"Yes, sir."

"The simple, direct method never fails."

"No, sir."

"Whereas the elaborate does."

"Yes, sir."

"Right ho, Jeeves."

We had arrived at the main entrance of Market Snodsbury Grammar School. I
parked the car, and went in, well content. True, the Tuppy-Angela problem
still remained unsolved and Aunt Dahlia's five hundred quid seemed as far
off as ever, but it was gratifying to feel that good old Gussie's
troubles were over, at any rate.

The Grammar School at Market Snodsbury had, I understood, been built
somewhere in the year 1416, and, as with so many of these ancient
foundations, there still seemed to brood over its Great Hall, where the
afternoon's festivities were to take place, not a little of the fug of
the centuries. It was the hottest day of the summer, and though somebody
had opened a tentative window or two, the atmosphere remained distinctive
and individual.

In this hall the youth of Market Snodsbury had been eating its daily
lunch for a matter of five hundred