“Do you know Bertie Wooster?”
And then I saw that my name was scrawled right across the titlepage, and my heart did three back somersaults.
“Oh—er—well—that is to say—well, slightly.”
“He must be a perfect horror. I’m surprised that you can make a friend of him. Apart from anything else, the man is practically an imbecile. He was engaged to my cousin Honoria at one time, and it was broken off because he was next door to insane. You should hear my Uncle Roderick talk about him.”
I wasn’t keen.
“Do you see much of him?”
“A goodish bit.”
“I saw in the paper the other day that he was fined for making a disgraceful disturbance in the street.”
“Yes, I saw that.”
She gazed at me in a fond, motherly way.
“He can’t be a good influence for you,” she said. “I do wish you would drop him. Will you?”
“Well—” I began. And at this point old Cuthbert the cat, having presumably found it a bit slow by himself in the bushes, wandered in with a matey expression on his face and jumped on my lap.
I welcomed him with a good deal of cordiality. Though but a cat, he did make a sort of third at this party; and he afforded a good excuse for changing the conversation.