“Right. Thanks ever so much.”
She popped off, and I went upstairs to hand in my copy, as we boys of the Press call it. I found Aunt Dahlia immersed to the gills in papers of all descriptions.
I am not much of a lad for my relatives as a general thing, but I’ve always been very pally with Aunt Dahlia. She married my Uncle Thomas—between ourselves a bit of a squirt—the year Bluebottle won the Cambridgeshire; and they hadn’t got halfway down the aisle before I was saying to myself, “That woman is much too good for the old bird.” Aunt Dahlia is a large, genial soul, the sort you see in dozens on the hunting-field. As a matter of fact, until she married Uncle Thomas, she put in most of her time on horseback; but he won’t live in the country, so nowadays she expends her energy on this paper of hers.
She came to the surface as I entered, and flung a cheery book at my head.
“Hullo, Bertle! I say, have you really finished that article?”
“To the last comma.”
“Good boy! My gosh, I’ll bet it’s rotten.”
“On the contrary, it is extremely hot stuff, and most of it approved by Jeeves, what’s more. The bit about soft silk shirts got in amongst him a trifle; but you can take it from me, Aunt Dahlia, that they are the latest yodel and will be much seen at first nights and other occasions where Society assembles.”
“Your man Jeeves,” said Aunt Dahlia, flinging the article into a basket and skewering a few loose pieces of paper on a sort of meat-hook, “is a washout, and you can tell him I said so.”
“Oh, come,” I said. “He may not be sound on shirtings—”