Page:Carry On, Jeeves.pdf/38

THE ARTISTIC CAREER OF CORKY 37

using the utmost tact and persuasiveness, he was inducing his uncle to cough up very grudgingly a small quarterly allowance.

He wouldn’t have got this if his uncle hadn’t had a hobby. Mr. Worple was peculiar in this respect. As a rule, from what I ’ve observed, the American captain of industry doesn’t do anything out of business hours. When he has put the cat out and locked up the office for the night, he just relapses into a state of coma from which he emerges only to start being a captain of industry again. But Mr. Worple in his spare time was what is known as an ornithologist. He had written a book called’’ American Birds,” and was writing another, to be called” More American Birds.” When he had finished that, the presumption was that he would begin a third and keep on till the supply of American birds gave out. Corky used to go to him about once every three months and let him talk about American birds. Apparently, you could do what you liked with old Worple if you gave him his headfirst on his pet subject, so these little chats used to make Corky’s allowance all right for the time being. But it was pretty rotten for the poor chap. There was the frightful suspense, you see, and, apart from that, birds, except when broiled and in the society of a cold bottle, bored him stiff.

To complete the character-study of Mr. Worple, he was a man of extremely uncertain temper, and Ills general tendency was to think that Corky was a poor chump and that whatever step he took in any direction on his own account was just another proof of his innate idiocy. I should imagine Jeeves feels very

much the same about me.

So, when Corky trickled into my apartment one afternoon, shooing a girl in front of him, and said " Bertie, I want you to meet my fiancie, Miss Singer,”

the aspect of the m atter which hit me first was pre­ cisely the one which he had come to consult me about.