Agatha. She had the same penetrating gaze and that indefinable air of being reluctant to stand any nonsense.
“I fear I am possibly taking a liberty, madam,” I began, “but I am hoping that you will allow me to say a word with respect to my employer. I fancy I am correct in supposing that Mr. Wooster did not tell you a great deal about himself?”
“He told me nothing about himself, except that he was a friend of Professor Mainwaring.”
“He did not inform you, then, that he was the Mr. Wooster?”
“ The Mr. Wooster?”
“Bertram Wooster, madam.”
I will say for Mr. Wooster that, mentally negligible though he no doubt is, he has a name that suggests almost infinite possibilities.
He sounds, if I may elucidate my meaning, like Someone—especially if you’ve just been told he’s an intimate friend of Professor Mainwaring. You might not, no doubt, be able to say offhand whether he was Bertram Wooster the novelist, or Bertram Wooster the founder of a new school of thought, but you would have an uneasy feeling that you were exposing your ignorance if you did not give the impression of familiarity with the name.
Miss Tomlinson, as I had rather foreseen, nodded brightly.
“Oh, Bertram Wooster!” she said.
“He is an extremely retiring gentleman, madam, and would be the last to suggest it himself, but, knowing him as I do, I am sure that he would take it as a graceful compliment if you were to ask him to address the