hat well-beloved and
vigorous member of our board of governors, the Rev. William Plomer, and
we are all, I am sure, very sorry that illness at the last moment should
have prevented him from being here today. But, if I may borrow a familiar
metaphor from the--if I may employ a homely metaphor familiar to you
all--what we lose on the swings we gain on the roundabouts."

He paused, and beamed rather freely, to show that this was comedy. I
could have told the man it was no use. Not a ripple. The corn chandler
leaned against me and muttered "Whoddidesay?" but that was all.

It's always a nasty jar to wait for the laugh and find that the gag
hasn't got across. The bearded bloke was visibly discomposed. At that,
however, I think he would have got by, had he not, at this juncture,
unfortunately stirred Gussie up again.

"In other words, though deprived of Mr. Plomer, we have with us this
afternoon Mr. Fink-Nottle. I am sure that Mr. Fink-Nottle's name is one
that needs no introduction to you. It is, I venture to assert, a name
that is familiar to us all."

"Not to you," said Gussie.

And the next moment I saw what Jeeves had meant when he had described him
as laughing heartily. "Heartily" was absolutely the _mot juste_. It
sounded like a gas explosion.

"You didn't seem to know it so dashed well, what, what?" said Gussie.
And, reminded apparently by the word "what" of the word "Wattle," he
repeated the latter some sixteen times with a rising inflection.

"Wattle, Wattle, Wattle," he concluded. "Right-ho. Push on."

But the bearded bloke had shot his bolt. He stood there, licked at last;
and, watching him closely, I could see that he was now at the crossroads.
I could spot what he was thinking as clearly as if he had confided it to
my personal ear. He wanted to sit down and call it a day, I mean, but the
thought that gave him pause was that, if he did, he must then either
uncork Gussie or take the Fink-Nottle speech as read and get straight on
to the actual prize-giving.

It was a dashed tricky thing, of course, to have to decide on the spur of
the moment. I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds
who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven't the
foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the
other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel,
no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up
in smoke and himself