years, and the flavour lingered. The
air was sort of heavy and languorous, if you know what I mean, with the
scent of Young England and boiled beef and carrots.

Aunt Dahlia, who was sitting with a bevy of the local nibs in the second
row, sighted me as I entered and waved to me to join her, but I was too
smart for that. I wedged myself in among the standees at the back,
leaning up against a chap who, from the aroma, might have been a corn
chandler or something on that order. The essence of strategy on these
occasions is to be as near the door as possible.

The hall was gaily decorated with flags and coloured paper, and the eye
was further refreshed by the spectacle of a mixed drove of boys, parents,
and what not, the former running a good deal to shiny faces and Eton
collars, the latter stressing the black-satin note rather when female,
and looking as if their coats were too tight, if male. And presently
there was some applause--sporadic, Jeeves has since told me it was--and I
saw Gussie being steered by a bearded bloke in a gown to a seat in the
middle of the platform.

And I confess that as I beheld him and felt that there but for the grace
of God went Bertram Wooster, a shudder ran through the frame. It all
reminded me so vividly of the time I had addressed that girls' school.

Of course, looking at it dispassionately, you may say that for horror and
peril there is no comparison between an almost human audience like the
one before me and a mob of small girls with pigtails down their backs,
and this, I concede, is true. Nevertheless, the spectacle was enough to
make me feel like a fellow watching a pal going over Niagara Falls in a
barrel, and the thought of what I had escaped caused everything for a
moment to go black and swim before my eyes.

When I was able to see clearly once more, I perceived that Gussie was now
seated. He had his hands on his knees, with his elbows out at right
angles, like a nigger minstrel of the old school about to ask Mr. Bones
why a chicken crosses the road, and he was staring before him with a
smile so fixed and pebble-beached that I should have thought that anybody
could have guessed that there sat one in whom the old familiar juice was
plashing up against the back of the front teeth.

In fact, I saw Aunt Dahlia, who, having assisted at so many hunting
dinners in her time, is second to none as a judge of the symptoms, give a
start and gaze long and earnestly. And she was just saying