“Yes? Yes, madam. Very good, madam. Here is Mr. Wooster.” He handed me the instrument. “ Mrs. Spenser Gregson, sir.”
You know, every now and then I can’t help feeling that Jeeves is losing his grip. In his prime it would have been with him the work of a moment to have told my Aunt Agatha that I was not at home. I gave him one of those reproachful glances, and took the machine.
“Hullo?” I said. “Yes? Yes? Yes? Bertie speaking. Hullo? Hullo? Hullo?”
“Don’t keep on saying ‘Hullo?’ ” yipped the old relative in her customary curt manner. “You’re not a parrot. Sometimes I wish you were, because then you might have a little sense.”
Quite the wrong sort of tone to adopt towards a fellow in the early morning, of course, but what can one do?
“Bertie, Lady Wickham tells me she has invited you to Skeldings for Christmas. Are you going?”
“Rather!”
“Well, mind you behave yourself. Lady Wickham is an old friend of mine.”
I was in no mood for this sort of thing over the telephone. Face to face, I’m not saying, but at the end of a wire, no.
“I shall naturally endeavour, Aunt Agatha,” I replied stiffly, “to conduct myself in a manner befitting an English gentleman paying a visit—”
“What did you say? Speak up. I can’t hear.”
“I said right-ho.”
“Oh? Well, mind you do. And there’s another reason why I particularly wish you to be as little of an imbecile as you can manage while at