hands, Aunt Agatha having shooed us off together immediately after the midday meal. The result was, as I looked down on the lighted promenade and saw all the people popping happily about on their way to dinner and the Casino and whatnot, a kind of wistful feeling came over me. I couldn’t help thinking how dashed happy I could have contrived to be in this place if only Aunt Agatha and the other blisters had been elsewhere.
I heaved a sigh, and at that moment there was a knock at the door.
“Someone at the door, Jeeves,” I said.
“Yes, sir.”
He opened the door, and in popped Aline Hemmingway and her brother. The last person I had expected. I really had thought that I could be alone for a minute in my own room.
“Oh, hallo!” I said.
“Oh, Mr. Wooster!” said the girl in a gasping sort of way. “I don’t know how to begin.”
Then I noticed that she appeared considerably rattled, and as for the brother, he looked like a sheep with a secret sorrow.
This made me sit up a bit and take notice. I had supposed that this was just a social call, but apparently something had happened to give them a jolt. Though I couldn’t see why they should come to me about it.
“Is anything up?” I said.
“Poor Sidney—it was my fault—I ought never to have let him go there alone,” said the girl.
Dashed agitated.
At this point the brother, who after shedding a floppy overcoat