rly got me on the top landing. I shinned out through a passage
window and scrambled along a sort of ledge."

"That baffled him, what?"

"Yes. But then I found I had stuck. The roof sloped down in all
directions. I couldn't go back. I had to go on, crawling along this
ledge. And then I found myself looking down the skylight. Who was that
chap?"

"That was Anatole, Aunt Dahlia's chef."

"French?"

"To the core."

"That explains why I couldn't make him understand. What asses these
Frenchmen are. They don't seem able to grasp the simplest thing. You'd
have thought if a chap saw a chap on a skylight, the chap would realize
the chap wanted to be let in. But no, he just stood there."

"Waving a few fists."

"Yes. Silly idiot. Still, here I am."

"Here you are, yes--for the moment."

"Eh?"

"I was thinking that Tuppy is probably lurking somewhere."

He leaped like a lamb in springtime.

"What shall I do?"

I considered this.

"Sneak back to your room and barricade the door. That is the manly
policy."

"Suppose that's where he's lurking?"

"In that case, move elsewhere."

But on arrival at the room, it transpired that Tuppy, if anywhere, was
infesting some other portion of the house. Gussie shot in, and I heard
the key turn. And feeling that there was no more that I could do in that
quarter, I returned to the dining-room for further fruit salad and a
quiet think. And I had barely filled my plate when the door opened and
Aunt Dahlia came in. She sank into a chair, looking a bit shopworn.

"Give me a drink, Bertie."

"What sort?"

"Any sort, so long as it's strong."

Approach Bertram Wooster along these lines, and you catch him at his
best. St. Bernard dogs doing the square thing by Alpine travellers could
not have bustled about more assiduously. I filled the order, and for some
moments nothing was to be heard but the sloshing sound of an aunt
restoring her tissues.

"Shove it down, Aunt Dahlia," I said sympathetically. "These things take
it out of one, don't they? You've had a toughish time, no doubt, soothing
Anatole," I proceeded, helping myself to anchovy paste on toast.
"Everything pretty smooth now, I trust?"

She gazed at me in a long, lingering sort of way, her brow wrinkled as if
in thought.

"Attila," she said at length. "That's the name. Attila, the Hun."

"Eh?"

"I was trying to think who you reminded me of. Somebody who went about
strewing ruin and desolation and breaking up home