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14 CARRY ON, JEEVES

in the bud, he would be starting to boss me. He had the aspect of a distinctly resolute blighter. Well, I wasn’t going to have any of th at sort of thing, by Jove l I ’d seen so many cases of fellows who had become perfect slaves to their valets. I remember poor old Aubrey Fothergill telling me— with absolute tears in his eyes, poor chap !—one night at the club, th at he had been compelled to give up a favourite pair of brown shoes simply because Meekyn, his man, disapproved of them. You have to keep these fellows in their place, don’t you know. You have to work the good old iron-hand-in-the-velvetglove wheeze. If you give them a what’s-its-name, they take a thingummy.

“Don’t you like this suit, Jeeves?” I said coldly, “Oh, yes, sir.” “Well, what don’t you like about it? ” " It is a very nice suit, sir.” “Well, what’s wrong with it? Out with it, dash it!” “If I might make the suggestion, sir, a simple, brown or blue, with a hint of some quiet twill-----” “What absolute rot!” “Very good, sir.” “Perfectly blithering, my dear man! ” “As you say, sir.”

I felt as if I had stepped on the place where the last stair ought to have been but wasn’t. I felt defiant, if you know what I mean, and there didn’t 'seem anything to defy.

“All right, then,” I said. “Yes, sir.” And then he went away to collect his kit, while I started in again on “Types of Ethical Theory” and took a stab at a chapter headed “ Idiopsychological Ethics.”

Most of the way down in the train that afternoon, I was wondering what could be up at the other end. I simply couldn’t see what could have happened.