He meant no harm, I suppose, but
I'm bound to say that this tactless speech nettled me not a little.
People are always nettling me like that. Giving me to understand, I mean
to say, that in their opinion Bertram Wooster is a mere cipher and that
the only member 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. Jeev