“I mean to say, the difference between things as they look and things as they are.”
“The trousers perhaps a half-inch higher, sir. A very slight adjustment of the braces will effect the necessary alteration. You were saying, sir?”
“I mean, here at Woollam Chersey we have apparently a happy, carefree country-house party. But beneath the glittering surface, Jeeves, dark currents are running. One gazes at the Right Hon. wrapping himself round the salmon mayonnaise at lunch, and he seems a man without a care in the world. Yet all the while a dreadful fate is hanging over him, creeping nearer and nearer. What exact steps do you think the kid Thomas intends to take?”
“In the course of an informal conversation which I had with the young gentleman this afternoon, sir, he informed me that he had been reading a romance entitled Treasure Island , and had been much struck by the character and actions of a certain Captain Flint. I gathered that he was weighing the advisability of modelling his own conduct on that of the Captain.”
“But, good heavens, Jeeves! If I remember Treasure Island , Flint was the bird who went about hitting people with a cutlass. You don’t think young Thomas would bean Mr. Filmer with a cutlass?”
“Possibly he does not possess a cutlass, sir.”
“Well, with anything.”
“We can but wait and see, sir. The tie, if I might suggest it, sir, a shade more tightly knotted. One aims at the perfect butterfly effect. If you will permit me—”
“What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this? Do you realize that Mr. Little’s domestic happiness is hanging in the scale?”