a leopard. This menagerie was now stationed on a bracket over the door of my sitting-room.
I liked the thing. It was bright and cheerful. It caught the eye.
And that was why, when Jeeves, wincing a bit, had weighed in with some perfectly gratuitous art-criticism, I ticked him off with no little vim.
Ne sutor ultra whatever-it-is, I would have said to him, if I’d thought of it.
I mean to say, where does a valet get off, censoring vases? Does it fall within his province to knock the young master’s chinaware? Absolutely not, and so I told him.
I was still pretty heartily hipped when I reached the office of The Mayfair Gazette , and it would have been a relief to my feelings to have decanted my troubles on to old Sippy, who, being a very, very dear old pal of mine, would no doubt have understood and sympathized. But when the office-boy had slipped me through into the inner cubbyhole where the old lad performed his editorial duties, he seemed so preoccupied that I hadn’t the heart.
All these editor blokes, I understand, get pretty careworn after they’ve been at the job for awhile. Six months before, Sippy had been a cheery cove, full of happy laughter; but at that time he was what they call a