too closely on the lines of my Aunt Agatha for comfort, but she had seemed matey enough on my arrival. Her daughter Roberta had welcomed me with a warmth which, I’m bound to say, had set the old heartstrings fluttering a bit. And Sir Roderick, in the brief moment we had had together, appeared to have let the Yuletide spirit soak into him to the most amazing extent. When he saw me, his mouth sort of flickered at one corner, which I took to be his idea of smiling, and he said “Ha, young man!” Not particularly chummily, but he said it; and my view was that it practically amounted to the lion lying down with the lamb.
So, all in all, life at this juncture seemed pretty well all to the mustard, and I decided to tell Jeeves exactly how matters stood.
“Jeeves,” I said, as he appeared with the steaming.
“Sir?”
“Touching on this business of our being here, I would like to say a few words of explanation. I consider that you have a right to the facts.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“I’m afraid scratching that Monte Carlo trip has been a bit of a jar for you, Jeeves.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Oh, yes, it has. The heart was set on wintering in the world’s good old Plague Spot. I saw your eye light up when I said we were due for a visit there. You snorted a bit and your fingers twitched. I know, I know. And now that there has been a change of programme, the iron has entered into your soul.”
“Not at all, sir.”