Jeeves nodded.

“Now mark this closely: The other day she wrote to old Sippy, telling him to come down and sing at her village concert. It was equivalent to a royal command, if you see what I mean, so Sippy couldn’t refuse in so many words. But he had sung at her village concert once before and had got the bird in no uncertain manner, so he wasn’t playing any return dates. You follow so far, Jeeves?”

Jeeves nodded.

“So what did he do, Jeeves? He did what seemed to him at the moment a rather brainy thing. He told her that, while he would have been delighted to sing at her village concert, by a most unfortunate chance an editor had commissioned him to write a series of articles on the Colleges of Cambridge, and he was obliged to pop down there at once and would be away for quite three weeks. All clear up to now?”

Jeeves inclined the coconut.