“Oh, come,” I said, “it’s not so bad as all that. I mean to say, you had the swift intelligence to give a false name. There won’t be anything about you in the papers.”
“I’m not worrying about the papers. What’s bothering me is, How can I go and spend three weeks with the Pringles, starting today, when I’ve got to sit in a prison cell with a ball and chain on my ankle?”
“But you said you didn’t want to go.”
“It isn’t a question of wanting, fathead. I’ve got to go. If I don’t, my aunt will find out where I am. And if she finds out that I am doing thirty days without the option in the lowest dungeon beneath the castle moat—well, where shall I get off?”
I saw his point.
“This is not a thing we can settle for ourselves,” I said, gravely. “We must put our trust in a higher power. Jeeves is the man we must consult.”
And, having collected a few of the necessary data, I shook his hand, patted him on the back, and tooled off home.
“Jeeves,” I said, when I had climbed outside the pick-me-up which he had thoughtfully prepared against my coming, “I’ve got something to tell you. Something important. Something that vitally affects one whom you have always regarded with—one whom you have always looked upon—one whom you have—well, to cut a long story short, as I’m not feeling quite myself— Mr. Sipperley.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Jeeves, Mr. Souperley is in the sip.”
“Sir?”