It was the morning of the day on which I was slated to pop down to my Aunt Agatha’s place at Woollam Chersey in the county of Herts for a visit of three solid weeks; and, as I seated myself at the breakfast table, I don’t mind confessing that the heart was singularly heavy. We Woosters are men of iron, but beneath my intrepid exterior at that moment there lurked a nameless dread.
“Jeeves,” I said, “I am not the old merry self this morning.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“No, Jeeves. Far from it. Far from the old merry self.”
“I am sorry to hear that, sir.”
He uncovered the fragrant eggs and b., and I pronged a moody forkful.
“Why—this is what I keep asking myself, Jeeves—why has my Aunt Agatha invited me to her country seat?”
“I could not say, sir.”
“Not because she is fond of me.”
“No, sir.”
“It is a well-established fact that I give her a pain in the neck. How it happens I cannot say, but every time our paths cross, so to speak, it seems to be a mere matter of time before I perpetrate some ghastly floater and have her hopping after me with her hatchet. The result being that she regards me as a worm and an outcast and would gladly drop something on me from a high window. Am I right or wrong, Jeeves?”