the time.”
“Exactly. What right has an inebriated jailbird to aspire to a goddess?”
My heart bled for the poor old chap.
“Aren’t you exaggerating things a trifle, old lad?” I said. “Everybody who has had a gentle upbringing gets a bit sozzled on Boat-Race night, and the better element nearly always have trouble with the gendarmes.”
He shook his head.
“It’s no good, Bertie. You mean well, but words are useless. No, I can but worship from afar. When I am in her presence a strange dumbness comes over me. My tongue seems to get entangled with my tonsils. I could no more muster up the nerve to propose to her than—Come in!” he shouted.
For, just as he was beginning to go nicely and display a bit of eloquence, a knock had sounded on the door. In fact, not so much a knock as a bang—or even a slosh. And there now entered a large, important-looking bird with penetrating eyes, a Roman nose, and high cheekbones.
Authoritative. That’s the word I want.
I didn’t like his collar, and Jeeves would have had a thing or two to say about the sit of his trousers; but, nevertheless, he was authoritative. There was something compelling about the man. He looked like a traffic-policeman.
“Ah, Sipperley!” he said.
Old Sippy displayed a good deal