“Halloa, Aunt Agatha!” I said.
“Bertie,” she said, “you look a sight. You look perfectly dissipated.”
I was feeling like a badly wrapped brown-paper parcel. I’m never at my best in the early morning. I said so.
“Early morning! I had breakfast three hours ago, and have been walking in the park ever since, trying to compose my thoughts.”
If I ever breakfasted at half past eight I should walk on the Embankment, trying to end it all in a watery grave.
“I am extremely worried, Bertie. That is why I have come to you.”
And then I saw she was going to start something, and I bleated weakly to Jeeves to bring me tea. But she had begun before I could get it.
“What are your immediate plans, Bertie?”
“Well, I rather thought of tottering out for a bite of lunch later on, and then possibly staggering round to the club, and after that, if I felt strong enough, I might trickle off to Walton Heath for a round of golf.”
“I am not interested in your totterings and tricklings. I mean, have you any important engagements in the next week or so?”
I scented danger.
“Rather,” I said. “Heaps! Millions! Booked solid!”
“What are they?”
“I—er—well, I don’t quite know.”
“I thought as much. You have no engagements. Very well, then, I want you to start immediately for America.”